Revealing showdowns

It's only human to interpret an opponent's bet as representing the strength of hand which would have caused you to bet a like amount, had it been yours. However, this tendency must be corrected for when an opponent reveals, through a showdown, just how meager a hand he's willing to bet big. The only hand I remember distinctly from last night's session was one where I'd been dealt pocket queens, but was forced off them by heavy betting from two opponents. They went to showdown against each other; one of them turned up an ace and a four, and won the pot with two pair, eights and fours. Since I would never have bet his hand that way, it was hard for me to imagine just how much risk this player was willing to bear. This is another case where I would have been happier playing against better players! Nonetheless, I made a nice profit.

During current Hold'em session you were dealt 31 hands and saw flop:
 - 2 out of 4 times while in big blind (50%)
 - 2 out of 3 times while in small blind (66%)
 - 15 out of 24 times in other positions (62%)
 - a total of 19 out of 31 (61%)
 Pots won at showdown - 3 of 6 (50%)
 Pots won without showdown - 2

delta: $11,946
balance: $4,483,944

Late surge

On Saturday night, the table I joined was very aggressive. On over a quarter of the hands, someone went all in. I had to be patient. My stack got almost all the way down to $10K before I had a late surge. When I'd won five of the last ten hands, I called it a night since I knew I'd seen the best of my luck.

My biggest pot was worth $22,700, when I'd been dealt pocket rockets and they held up. That hand was the start of the surge.

During current Hold'em session you were dealt 62 hands and saw flop:
 - 7 out of 10 times while in big blind (70%)
 - 4 out of 9 times while in small blind (44%)
 - 35 out of 43 times in other positions (81%)
 - a total of 46 out of 62 (74%)
 Pots won at showdown - 8 of 10 (80%)
 Pots won without showdown - 4

delta: $10,400
balance: $4,471,998

Contradeltas

The title of this post borrows from an investing concept I'm passingly familiar with. Fidelity Investments has a well-known mutual fund named Contrafund whose goal is to make contrarian investments; that is, investments which run in the opposite direction the market is current moving. I decided it would be interesting to apply a similar concept to poker session deltas. Up to now, I've only concerned myself with the overall delta of each session; a win was a win, and a loss was a loss. However, now I'm realizing that some wins are essentially losses, and some losses are essentially wins. One way to distinguish between a winning win and a losing win, or between a losing loss and a winning loss, is to use contradeltas. You heard this term here first, folks, and I'm not charging a red cent for it :-) A contradelta is the sum of the deltas going in the opposite direction of your session delta. In a winning session, the contradelta is the sum of all your losing deltas; in a losing session, the contradelta is the sum of all your winning deltas.

Last night, I had a winning session, but it was essentially a losing win. My contradelta was a whopping $-96,783. I only have the data necessary for calculating contradeltas for 162 of the 689 sessions I've recorded, so I don't know where this contradelta stacks up all time. In the 162 I have the data for, 124 were winning sessions; of these 124, last night's contradelta clocks in at number 14. That is to say, there are only 13 sessions in which I've lost more chips in my losing deltas while still managing to have a winning session.

Contradeltas can make you feel better about a loss, but I don't think they can actually make you feel worse about a win; a win is a win, after all!

During current Hold'em session you were dealt 100 hands and saw flop:
 - 6 out of 14 times while in big blind (42%)
 - 7 out of 14 times while in small blind (50%)
 - 39 out of 72 times in other positions (54%)
 - a total of 52 out of 100 (52%)
 Pots won at showdown - 5 of 17 (29%)
 Pots won without showdown - 4

delta: $9,901
balance: $4,461,598

A simple prescription

Here's my latest advice on how to succeed at poker, a simple prescription with just two rules to remember:

1. never go all in
2. when you break rule 1, make sure that you win

Last night, I followed this to perfection. I never went all in, except for the two times that I did :-) As you may have guessed, I won both times.

During current Hold'em session you were dealt 124 hands and saw flop:
 - 11 out of 17 times while in big blind (64%)
 - 14 out of 20 times while in small blind (70%)
 - 55 out of 87 times in other positions (63%)
 - a total of 80 out of 124 (64%)
 Pots won at showdown - 14 of 22 (63%)
 Pots won without showdown - 8

delta: $22,306
balance: $4,451,697

Once in a chartreuse moon

Counting last night's, I've recorded 687 sessions. As I've said before, you just can't expect to see too many more best sessions ever when you've recorded that many. Last night I came so close! My best session was on April 27th, 2011, when I had a gain of $126,326. Last night I had my second best, with a gain of $123,950. Huge sessions like that are so infrequent I was inspired to come up with a expression for how rare they are; thus, the title of this post.

During current Hold'em session you were dealt 58 hands and saw flop:
 - 4 out of 8 times while in big blind (50%)
 - 5 out of 6 times while in small blind (83%)
 - 26 out of 44 times in other positions (59%)
 - a total of 35 out of 58 (60%)
 Pots won at showdown - 10 of 13 (76%)
 Pots won without showdown - 2

delta: $123,950
balance: $4,429,391

A grand canyon

The bar chart of my stack size over the course of last night's session features a grand canyon in the middle. I came perilously close to hitting the felt. I was forced to go all in twice while living in the canyon, and was lucky enough to win both times. After that, my stack quickly returned to within shouting distance of its starting amount of $40,000. On hand 103, I finally got back into the black. I achieved the dubious distinction of having my smallest positive session delta ever in no limit hold'em - a minuscule two big blinds worth!

During current Hold'em session you were dealt 130 hands and saw flop:
 - 17 out of 22 times while in big blind (77%)
 - 21 out of 25 times while in small blind (84%)
 - 59 out of 83 times in other positions (71%)
 - a total of 97 out of 130 (74%)
 Pots won at showdown - 16 of 29 (55%)
 Pots won without showdown - 8

delta: $400
balance: $4,305,441

All your chips are belong to me

If you have a nodding acquaintance with internet memes (as I do), you might recognize the title of this post as an instance of the snowclone "All your ______ are belong to me". It's grammatically incorrect of course, but nonetheless rhetorically powerful. It's a statement I could have made (but didn't, of course) to one of my opponents at the end of last night's session; in back to back hands, I relieved him of all $59,699 of his chips. On the first hand, my two pair of aces and fours beat his two pair of tens and eights to win a pot worth $71,052. On the second, my king high flush beat his pair of eights to win a pot worth $49,546. I needed that boost to get back into the black, since I'd hit the felt on hand 56 and was card dead for long stretches of the session.

During current Hold'em session you were dealt 120 hands and saw flop:
 - 20 out of 22 times while in big blind (90%)
 - 15 out of 23 times while in small blind (65%)
 - 45 out of 75 times in other positions (60%)
 - a total of 80 out of 120 (66%)
 Pots won at showdown - 9 of 21 (42%)
 Pots won without showdown - 5

delta: $20,425
balance: $4,305,041