Where do your profits come from?

fx20736 · Mar 9, 2011

Here is a little excercise for any of you with PT3/HEM and a large sample (50k+ hands).

Take your total Amt won for the limit in question.
Then take your total Amt won for just AA&KK together over that sample.
Divide that amount by total winnings and express here as as a percentage. (Note if the total for AA&KK exceeds net winnings then the number would be greater than 100%).
Then take the total winnings for AA KK QQ JJ TT AK combined and express that as a percentage of total winnings.

I am at work but will post my results this afternoon.

Once you do this you will know where the bulk of your profits come from. Is is from big pocket pairs & AK or is it elsewhere?

Hopefully then everyone can discuss results.

No Brainer · Mar 9, 2011

I am fairly sure most people are going to be losers even when you take out just AA...

Over 100,000 hands I have won 3.2 times as much with AA+KK than I have in total. I have won 5.2 times as much with TT+, AK than I have in total.

I am not sure where you are going with this as most of the losses from the other hands will be from the blinds. If we take the blinds out of the question I have won around 50% of my total with TT+, AK...

fx20736 · Mar 9, 2011

No Brainer said:
I am fairly sure most people are going to be losers even when you take out just AA...

Over 100,000 hands I have won 3.2 times as much with AA+KK than I have in total. I have won 5.2 times as much with TT+, AK than I have in total.

I am not sure where you are going with this as most of the losses from the other hands will be from the blinds. If we take the blinds out of the question I have won around 50% of my total with TT+, AK...

Thanks so much and I cannot wait to get home and check my stats.

If this is, in fact the case for many players, it may in fact be the most staggering indictment against playing anything but nitty poker.

Think about it. If you make lots of money with big hands but lose with all the rest then why are you playing those cards?????????????????????????????

To me it is starting to crystalize in my mind that the goal of playing big hands like TT+ & AK is to make money.

The goal FOR EVERY OTHER SINGLE HAND YOU PLAY REALLY ONLY HAS TWO OBJECTIVES:

Steal the blinds
disguise your range. After all if you only played 4% of your hands then everyone could just safely fold every time you opened or raised.

Other than that you are just playing these hands to cut into your losses.

So maybe the optimal strategy for an experienced player is to figure out the range of hands that they show a consistent profit from then add a portion of hands that are just below that range which you are essentially playing as semi-bluffs. I.e. if you make money from 8% of total hands then play those 8% for profit and then play somewhere between 4 & 8% of the next best hands as semi-bluffs to steal the blinds and occasionally make a nice pot.

Comments?

bgomez89 · Mar 9, 2011

The problem with playing nitty poker is that when you get to the point where people know you're a nit, they can adjust by just not giving you action and playing hands with good implied odds against you as well as other things

fx20736 · Mar 9, 2011

bgomez89 said:
The problem with playing nitty poker is that when you get to the point where people know you're a nit, they can adjust by just not giving you action and playing hands with good implied odds against you as well as other things

This may be true when they have position on you but if the have a hand they like and you 3bet them how many times will they want to peek at the flop?

Furthermore, say players mostly fold when you open raise from UTG. Do you think they are going to fold QQ/JJ/ TT/ AK/ AQ? Unless they are really observant they will call a lot of raises thinking "Hey's he's tight but these are goooooood cards" So you are less likely to have a bunch of callers with 76s or 33. In fact you may get players to play the dominated hands that they should fold and fold the big implied hands like 76s that they might call with. Furthermore if you only ever collected the blinds from Early Position you would be way ahead. Of course most players don't know how to fold so well,so.....

Furthermore, if someone calls your UTG raise and they have a very small call PFR (say under 4%) you are likely being set mined so against these opponents you can check on dry flops so they can't stack you if they flop a set.

LuckyChippy · Mar 9, 2011

Lol Fx.

You've found the secret, only play the biggest hands well played. However if you don't want your graph to look like this:

You need to learn to steal properly, and defend your blind properly (minimise losses). None of that even takes into account when people start to adjust against you and then your graph will look like this:

To avoid that yes, you need to disguise your range by playing more hands but we do this with hands that should show some form of profit anyway if you're playing them correctly.

I strongly believe that this game comes down to how you play the button and the blinds. That's pretty much it. You need to steal enough to minimise all your folding in the blinds. You need to play well enough in the blinds to make as many hands as possible at least neutral EV. Then you need to use position to get as much value from hands as possible, whether you make them fold or call.

That's poker. It's not playing TT+ because those hands for you are +EV. Eventually they won't be very +EV at all and they won't be enough to make up for all those folds (see graph 1 and 2).

fx20736 · Mar 9, 2011

LuckyChippy said:
Lol Fx.

I strongly believe that this game comes down to how you play the button and the blinds. That's pretty much it. You need to steal enough to minimise all your folding in the blinds. You need to play well enough in the blinds to make as many hands as possible at least neutral EV. Then you need to use position to get as much value from hands as possible, whether you make them fold or call.

Excellent! SO like I tend to think about how I will expand my game: Nit for 4 seats, TAG for 2 and LAG for 3.

LuckyChippy · Mar 9, 2011

fx20736 said:
Excellent! SO like I tend to think about how I will expand my game: Nit for 4 seats, TAG for 2 and LAG for 3.

That will work at the micros, pretty much.

Once you move up you need to disguise your UTG and MP ranges because people just won't play against you incorrectly otherwise.

Here's a concept. If you only ever play AA UTG and your opponent knows that, then AA will become a very marginal winner and maybe even a loser.

Now if you play 22-AA, chances are, AA will become a massive winner, enough to cover 22-99 and then some. Do you agree with this?

c9h13no3 · Mar 9, 2011

Yeah, for this to be meaningful, you have to subtract out the cost of paying blinds. So take your profit from AK/QQ+ and subtract out 0.25bb per hand played if you're playing 6-max.

WVHillbilly · Mar 9, 2011

Silly thread is silly.

fx20736 · Mar 9, 2011

WVHillbilly said:
Silly thread is silly.

Do you despise nits because you think they leave profits on the table or because you don't like them like some people don't like Brussell Sprouts?

fx20736 · Mar 9, 2011

c9h13no3 said:
Yeah, for this to be meaningful, you have to subtract out the cost of paying blinds. So take your profit from AK/QQ+ and subtract out 0.25bb per hand played if you're playing 6-max.

you're winnings already account for the blinds.

WVHillbilly · Mar 9, 2011

fx20736 said:
you're winnings already account for the blinds.

No because now all hands (other than KK+) that were once profitable to play from the blinds now get folded so you lose.

fx20736 · Mar 9, 2011

ok,

numbers:

65,370 hands at 5nl pokerstars

Amt won: $ 77.05

Amt won from AA& KK: $ 202.09

percentage of winnings from AA & KK: 381%

Amt won from AA KK QQ JJ TT AK: $ 367.52

percentage of winnings: 477%

fx20736 · Mar 9, 2011

WVHillbilly said:
No because now all hands (other than KK+) that were once profitable to play from the blinds now get folded so you lose.

no, I wouldn't fold a hand that was profitable. In fact I am pretty aggro from the blinds. I still owe you my 3bet stats by position so will post on fx.

I think the point of this is not to fold everything but TT+/ AK rather I think it is to understand that you should not go broke with speculative hands. Let the Big guns make the bucks and play enough other hands to stay ahead of the blinds and disguise your range. But what is a money loser is playing weak hands that win small pots and lose big ones, like dominated Broadways.

LuckyChippy · Mar 9, 2011

fx20736 said:
no, I wouldn't fold a hand that was profitable. In fact I am pretty aggro from the blinds. I still owe you my 3bet stats by position so will post on fx.

I think the point of this is not to fold everything but TT+/ AK rather I think it is to understand that you should not go broke with speculative hands. Let the Big guns make the bucks and play enough other hands to stay ahead of the blinds and disguise your range. But what is a money loser is playing weak hands that win small pots and lose big ones, like dominated Broadways.

Then don't play big pots with them, but you should still play them.

WVHillbilly · Mar 9, 2011

fx20736 said:
no, I wouldn't fold a hand that was profitable. In fact I am pretty aggro from the blinds. I still owe you my 3bet stats by position so will post on fx.

I think the point of this is not to fold everything but TT+/ AK rather I think it is to understand that you should not go broke with speculative hands. Let the Big guns make the bucks and play enough other hands to stay ahead of the blinds and disguise your range. But what is a money loser is playing weak hands that win small pots and lose big ones, like dominated Broadways.

But if I make money with KQ I should still play it right? Just checking.

LuckyChippy · Mar 9, 2011

Fx you don't seem to understand alot about position.

If you look at KQ from the blinds, it should be profitable (IMO) but if you look at it OTB it will be a lot more profitable. The same an even be said of AA.

WVHillbilly · Mar 9, 2011

LuckyChippy said:
Fx you don't seem to understand alot about position.

If you look at KQ from the blinds, it should be profitable (IMO) but if you look at it OTB it will be a lot more profitable. The same an even be said of AA.

You don't even have to make money with hands you play from the blinds, just lose less than you would if you always folded them.

LuckyChippy · Mar 9, 2011

WVHillbilly said:
You don't even have to make money with hands you play from the blinds, just lose less than you would if you always folded them.

Yeah I know, you want to make as many hands as you can neutral EV. The point I was making that overall a hand might be a slight loser, but in different positions it could be a winner. Also you could just be playing bad in the blinds with certain hands. There's so many different variations of situations that a hand can be played.

bullishwwd · Mar 9, 2011

LuckyChippy said:
Lol Fx.

You've found the secret, only play the biggest hands well played. However if you don't want your graph to look like this:

You need to learn to steal properly, and defend your blind properly (minimise losses). None of that even takes into account when people start to adjust against you and then your graph will look like this:

To avoid that yes, you need to disguise your range by playing more hands but we do this with hands that should show some form of profit anyway if you're playing them correctly.

I strongly believe that this game comes down to how you play the button and the blinds. That's pretty much it. You need to steal enough to minimise all your folding in the blinds. You need to play well enough in the blinds to make as many hands as possible at least neutral EV. Then you need to use position to get as much value from hands as possible, whether you make them fold or call.

That's poker. It's not playing TT+ because those hands for you are +EV. Eventually they won't be very +EV at all and they won't be enough to make up for all those folds (see graph 1 and 2).

Lots of wise advise in these comments...hope I can remember most of it. Wally

c9h13no3 · Mar 9, 2011

fx20736 said:
you're winnings already account for the blinds.

So you always have QQ+ AK in the blinds?

fx20736 · Mar 9, 2011

WVHillbilly said:
You don't even have to make money with hands you play from the blinds, just lose less than you would if you always folded them.

here are my stats (nit mode) for profitable hands for the Small Blind, The Big Blind and then 3betting & RFI stats by position. I'm hardly folding alot from the blinds.

xdeucesx · Mar 9, 2011

what about donkey players like me that dont have 1010 or JJ in their top 5 hands

i need nit training

baudib1 · Mar 9, 2011

probably a small sample issue

Where do your profits come from?

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