McMansion

Last night, I won my biggest pot of the night on hand 34. Three of us went to showdown, and all of us had full houses. Mine was the best of the bunch; in other words, the McMansion :-) I'd been dealt pocket kings, and the board was 9c 9d Th 9h Js. I was the last to act. One of my opponents bet $7,600 on the river, the other called, and I called with my last $7,288 to go all in. My opponents each had nines full of tens, and split the tiny side pot of $624. I raked in the main pot of $34,064. It was a tough decision for me to call; either of my opponents could have had the case nine. Their betting patterns didn't really support that, however. I guess you could say it was a semi hero call.

During current Hold'em session you were dealt 132 hands and saw flop:
 - 19 out of 23 times while in big blind (82%)
 - 18 out of 23 times while in small blind (78%)
 - 49 out of 86 times in other positions (56%)
 - a total of 86 out of 132 (65%)
 Pots won at showdown - 11 of 20 (55%)
 Pots won without showdown - 15

delta: $7,211
cash game no limit hold'em balance: $4,887,711
balance: $7,244,664

A week by the lake

I'm always a little bummed when a winning streak ends. I never talk about them when they're in progress, since I don't want to jinx myself. I have no qualms about talking about them once they're over, though. Last night, my latest winning streak ended. It was nine sessions long, which means it definitely qualified as a week by the lake. I was hoping for a month by the lake, but no such luck.

I invariably look for the silver lining when a winning streak ends. Sometimes it's a stretch, but other times it's easy to find. The silver lining in last night's session was that I played a long time and didn't hit the felt. In fact, I had the highest pots won percentage I've ever had for a session at least 160 hands long. I won 48 pots in 168 hands, for a pots won percentage of 28.57.

During current Hold'em session you were dealt 168 hands and saw flop:
 - 27 out of 35 times while in big blind (77%)
 - 25 out of 36 times while in small blind (69%)
 - 64 out of 97 times in other positions (65%)
 - a total of 116 out of 168 (69%)
 Pots won at showdown - 14 of 29 (48%)
 Pots won without showdown - 34

delta: $-11,669
cash game no limit hold'em balance: $4,880,500
balance: $7,237,453

Another magic 50%

Faithful readers of this blog know that periodically I put myself on various kinds of poker diets. The most basic of these is to limit the number of hands I play in a single session. Though I claim there are healthful benefits to this diet, I'm almost never able to stick to it. Another sort of poker diet, which I have better success adhering to, is the one where I limit the percentage of times I see the flop. My goal on this diet is to see the flop no more than 50% of the time. I've found that this pays off dividends in the long run. That's one example of a magic 50% in poker. I think I've found another one. This is when you win as many pots without a showdown as you do with a showdown. In the case of the first magic 50%, you're trying to keep your seeing-the-flop percentage down to 50. In the case of the second one, you're trying to keep your pots-won-without-showdown-per-total-pots-won percentage up to 50. Last night, I won twice as many pots without a showdown as I won pots at showdown. Overall in my career to this point, I'm tantalizingly close to the magic 50% number - I've won 2,845 pots at showdown, and 2,812 pots without showdown, for a percentage of 49.7.

During current Hold'em session you were dealt 39 hands and saw flop:
 - 5 out of 6 times while in big blind (83%)
 - 3 out of 5 times while in small blind (60%)
 - 16 out of 28 times in other positions (57%)
 - a total of 24 out of 39 (61%)
 Pots won at showdown - 2 of 7 (28%)
 Pots won without showdown - 4

delta: $7,403
cash game no limit hold'em balance: $4,892,169
balance: $7,249,122

Corrected accuracy

When I modified the utility which runs my winning session indicator to consider only sessions where I didn't hit the felt, the accuracy improved, as I'd thought it would. Of 91 sessions which the indicator flagged, only 7 were false positives, for an accuracy of 92.3%.

Last night's session was up and down; I ended it when I got the chance to take a small profit, after being underwater for 15 or so hands.

During current Hold'em session you were dealt 134 hands and saw flop:
 - 19 out of 24 times while in big blind (79%)
 - 15 out of 24 times while in small blind (62%)
 - 55 out of 86 times in other positions (63%)
 - a total of 89 out of 134 (66%)
 Pots won at showdown - 12 of 23 (52%)
 Pots won without showdown - 21

delta: $3,870
cash game no limit hold'em balance: $4,884,766
balance: $7,241,719

How my new indicator did

Today I wrote a utility to run my new indicator on my existing poker session data. I decided that the only goal of the indicator should be to identify winning sessions, not to classify each session as either winning or losing. In other words, I consider it a worse failure of the indicator if it gives a false positive than if it fails to identify a winning session. Here are the preliminary numbers:

  471    number of no limit Hold'em sessions for which I have the full hand histories
  329    number of these sessions which were winning ones
  117    number of sessions which the indicator flagged as winning
   24    number of false positives flagged
79.49%   accuracy rate of the indicator

As I stated in yesterday's post, the indicator should only be run on sessions in which I did not hit the felt. I need to modify the utility to exclude those sessions where I did hit the felt. My guess is that once I do, the corrected accuracy rate of the indicator will be higher than 79.49%.

During current Hold'em session you were dealt 45 hands and saw flop:
 - 4 out of 5 times while in big blind (80%)
 - 6 out of 6 times while in small blind (100%)
 - 20 out of 34 times in other positions (58%)
 - a total of 30 out of 45 (66%)
 Pots won at showdown - 4 of 5 (80%)
 Pots won without showdown - 2

delta: $16,819
cash game no limit hold'em balance: $4,880,896
balance: $7,237,849

Winning session indicator

Looking back over last night's session, I came up with what I hope will turn out to be a pretty good indicator of a winning session. I'll need to run it on my historical data to verify if it's any good. For now, I'll just describe it. I'm only considering sessions where I didn't hit the felt. Here goes:

1. add 1 to the number of hands, then divide that number by 2, rounding down; call the result m
2. divide the number of won pots by 2, rounding down, then add 1; call the result n
3. determine the zero-based number of the hand where you won pot number n; call the result p
4. calculate p / m
5. if p / m >= some magic number, you had a winning session

I know the magic number has to be > 1. I'll pick a number out of a hat for a first stab at the magic number: 1.33. Running this on the data from last night's session:

1. (1 + 60) / 2 = 61 / 2 = 30.5; m = 30
2. 10 / 2 + 1 = 5 + 1 = 6; n = 6
3. p = 42
4. p / m = 1.4
5. p / m >= 1.33, so the indicator says this was a winning session

During current Hold'em session you were dealt 60 hands and saw flop:
 - 6 out of 8 times while in big blind (75%)
 - 6 out of 8 times while in small blind (75%)
 - 21 out of 44 times in other positions (47%)
 - a total of 33 out of 60 (55%)
 Pots won at showdown - 5 of 6 (83%)
 Pots won without showdown - 5

delta: $12,299
cash game no limit hold'em balance: $4,864,077
balance: $7,221,030

One Hand to rule them all

In poker, as in life, what goes around comes around. Trip sixes, the holding with which I lost half my starting stack on the very first hand of Friday night's session, was the very holding with which I more than doubled my stack on the penultimate hand of last night's session. In the bar chart of my stack size over the course of the session, it stood head and shoulders above the rest. It was definitely the One Hand which ruled them all.

During current Hold'em session you were dealt 49 hands and saw flop:
 - 8 out of 10 times while in big blind (80%)
 - 7 out of 9 times while in small blind (77%)
 - 23 out of 30 times in other positions (76%)
 - a total of 38 out of 49 (77%)
 Pots won at showdown - 3 of 8 (37%)
 Pots won without showdown - 6

delta: $16,542
cash game no limit hold'em balance: $4,851,778
balance: $7,208,731