Ending with a big bang

A while ago, I came up with a criterion for determining whether a session ended with a bang - it's when the final positive hand delta of the night comes from one of the high chaparral hands. Looking at the bar chart of my stack size over the course of last night's session, I was inspired to come up with a criterion for determining whether a session ended with a big bang - it's when the final positive hand delta of the night is also the largest positive hand delta. That was the case last night. I got curious, so I ran some numbers on sessions, winning sessions, ending with a bang winning sessions, and ending with a big bang winning sessions. The results are gratifying, and also show some nice symmetry. In each case when moving from a less restrictive set to its nearest more restrictive set, the more restrictive set is over half the size of the less restrictive:

683  cash game no limit hold'em sessions
463  winning cash game no limit hold'em sessions
298  ending with a bang winning cash game no limit hold'em sessions
197  ending with a big bang winning cash game no limit hold'em sessions

Taking the ratio of the most restrictive to the least restrictive, nearly 29% of all the cash game no limit hold'em sessions I play are winning ones ending with a big bang.

During current Hold'em session you were dealt 52 hands and saw flop:
 - 6 out of 7 times while in big blind (85%)
 - 6 out of 8 times while in small blind (75%)
 - 20 out of 37 times in other positions (54%)
 - a total of 32 out of 52 (61%)
 Pots won at showdown - 5 of 8 (62%)
 Pots won without showdown - 6

delta: $55,324
cash game no limit hold'em balance: $6,957,114
balance: $9,862,213

Seventh best straight

Last night, on the final hand of the session, I had my seventh best straight ever. Here are the top 10:

    $115,642 2014-07-04 hand  31
    $102,548 2014-05-10 hand 122
     $81,300 2012-12-22 hand  23
     $78,550 2012-03-21 hand  91
     $73,985 2014-06-25 hand  39
     $72,500 2012-05-09 hand   7
     $65,575 2014-10-08 hand  54
     $63,451 2013-05-08 hand   2
     $60,581 2014-05-19 hand  54
     $57,250 2014-06-17 hand   1

The thing about straights, as I've said before, is that there are too many hands that can beat them. I felt like I had the stone cold nuts on the turn, but actually I was only a 77.27% favorite. That was due to the fact that my opponent had flopped a set. Of the 44 possible river cards, 9 of them gave him a full house and one of them gave him a four of a kind. I knew for sure I had the stone cold nuts on the river, since no flushes, full houses, or four of a kinds were possible at that point. Accordingly, I went all in, and was lucky enough to get a call.

During current Hold'em session you were dealt 54 hands and saw flop:
 - 5 out of 6 times while in big blind (83%)
 - 5 out of 8 times while in small blind (62%)
 - 19 out of 40 times in other positions (47%)
 - a total of 29 out of 54 (53%)
 Pots won at showdown - 3 of 12 (25%)
 Pots won without showdown - 3

delta: $47,228
cash game no limit hold'em balance: $6,901,790
balance: $9,806,889

Double jeopardy

Last night, my session ended abruptly. I'd hit the felt once, but my luck seemed to have turned. On the final hand I played, I stood to make a killing. If I'd won that final pot, I would have made a profit on the night of over $100,000. However, it wasn't meant to be, and in a particularly cruel way. I was up against two other players, and was an 85.71% favorite after the turn. There were two pots, a main pot of $146,648 and a side pot of $54,302. One of my opponents had no chance at the main pot, and only a very slim chance at the side pot. The river card was a killer. It helped both my opponents, giving one of them a straight to win the main pot and the other one a set of aces to win the side pot. As you might have guessed, the river card was an ace. For the record, I'd flopped a set of deuces.

During current Hold'em session you were dealt 114 hands and saw flop:
 - 17 out of 18 times while in big blind (94%)
 - 14 out of 18 times while in small blind (77%)
 - 37 out of 78 times in other positions (47%)
 - a total of 68 out of 114 (59%)
 Pots won at showdown - 6 of 17 (35%)
 Pots won without showdown - 12

delta: $-98,690
cash game no limit hold'em balance: $6,854,562
balance: $9,759,661

Working my way back to blue

As I've mentioned before, I'm old enough to remember some really classic songs. One of them is "Working My Way Back to You", by the Four Seasons. Here's how it starts:

I'm workin' my way back to you babe
With a burnin' love inside
Yeah I'm workin' my way back to you babe
And the happiness that died

Right now, I'm working my way back to blue, with a burnin' love for poker inside :-)

During current Hold'em session you were dealt 64 hands and saw flop:
 - 4 out of 8 times while in big blind (50%)
 - 4 out of 9 times while in small blind (44%)
 - 24 out of 47 times in other positions (51%)
 - a total of 32 out of 64 (50%)
 Pots won at showdown - 5 of 5 (100%)
 Pots won without showdown - 3

delta: $41,973
cash game no limit hold'em balance: $6,953,252
balance: $9,858,351

Heads up nightcap

On Thursday night, I got to play 37 hands of heads up poker at the end of the session. My opponent decided to quit when he couldn't make a dent in my stack. I was up a small amount during that stretch - $3,664. Though I really enjoy playing heads up poker, that's not where I make my money in cash games. I decided to aggregate my cash game deltas by table size to see where my profit comes from. The results surprised me a bit:

2      $-36,947  (    844)
3      $-29,860  (  1,696)
4     $-351,590  (  2,983)
5      $335,172  (  4,854)
6      $330,541  (  6,502)
7    $1,325,475  (  9,831)
8    $2,117,035  ( 13,699)
9    $2,486,170  ( 10,668)

The numbers in parentheses are the number of hands played at that table size. It's very clear that the more players at the table there are, the more profit I make. I really expected my sweet spot to be at the 7 player data point, but the clear winner is a full ring of 9 players. Go figure! :-)

During current Hold'em session you were dealt 97 hands and saw flop:
 - 31 out of 33 times while in big blind (93%)
 - 29 out of 36 times while in small blind (80%)
 - 12 out of 28 times in other positions (42%)
 - a total of 72 out of 97 (74%)
 Pots won at showdown - 18 of 29 (62%)
 Pots won without showdown - 22

delta: $13,909
cash game no limit hold'em balance: $6,911,279
balance: $9,816,378

The canonical winning cash game session

Last night, I had the canonical winning cash game session. In such a session, the number of zero crossings is 1. The session starts out with a steady stream of losses, then at a certain point rebounds sharply; one's stack races back to the black and never looks back :-) Out of curiosity, I cross-tabulated my winning sessions by zero crossing number; here are the results:

  1   164
  3    98
  5    48
  0    40
  2    35
  7    25
  4    24
  6     8
  9     8
  8     4
 13     2
 10     2
 11     1
 12     0

During current Hold'em session you were dealt 29 hands and saw flop:
 - 2 out of 4 times while in big blind (50%)
 - 2 out of 4 times while in small blind (50%)
 - 11 out of 21 times in other positions (52%)
 - a total of 15 out of 29 (51%)
 Pots won at showdown - 3 of 4 (75%)
 Pots won without showdown - 1

delta: $23,756
cash game no limit hold'em balance: $6,897,370
balance: $9,802,469

Amplitude width

When I looked at the bar chart of my stack size over the course of last night's session, one feature jumped out - the hands where I ended with my minimum and maximum stack sizes were quite close to each other. That inspired me to come up with yaps (yet another poker statistic). I'm calling this one amplitude width. It's the absolute value of the difference between the hand index of the minimum stack size and the hand index of the maximum stack size, plus 1. My amplitude width last night was 6. I did some research, and that ranks it the 24th narrowest in my all time list, for sessions of 40 hands or more. For some perspective, I've played 526 sessions of cash game no limit hold'em of 40 hands or more; my widest amplitude width is 227.

During current Hold'em session you were dealt 48 hands and saw flop:
 - 6 out of 6 times while in big blind (100%)
 - 2 out of 7 times while in small blind (28%)
 - 21 out of 35 times in other positions (60%)
 - a total of 29 out of 48 (60%)
 Pots won at showdown - 4 of 7 (57%)
 Pots won without showdown - 5

delta: $21,164
cash game no limit hold'em balance: $6,873,614
balance: $9,778,713