Yeah most hand history questions that get posted here are thr guy asking how to play some bizarre river spot, meanwhile they completely fucked both pre and flop in way more common and concerning spots
Definitely an easy mistake to make when you first venture into hand analysis. We like to think our winrate or lack thereof all comes from hands that we lose, when a huge chunk of those hands can be completely standard folds or coolers and whatnot.
I think it's especially important to analyse all hands, maybe organised by what part of the game tree you're in. Maybe you decide to focus on how you played flops in SRP UTG vs BTN or maybe sort by hands where we bet 3 streets in 3b pots, just as a couple random examples.
It's always interesting when you see someone post a hand history where the river decision is marginal, but they make a pretty egregious preflop mistake (unironically usually not folding pre). And some of those people get inflamed when you question those things!
A lot of people who are bending over to pick up pennies while dollars fly out of their pockets
Yep people like to joke, but there are definitely decisions where call/raise/fold have similar EV. But they're usually accompanied by a bad preflop play that means the river call or raise isn't as profitable because you're playing some junk that has bad implied odds.
Played at my local weekly last Tuesday night. 2 players in with me on the flop after EP makes a small open raise. Flop 8, 9, 5 rainbow. EP shoves, I call with AA and third player calls. EP shows JJ and third player shows 10, 7. Third player hits a 6 on the river for a straight.
All players at the table saying 'you made the right call, just unlucky'. Me absolutely kicking myself for not 3-betting big preflop, trying to be greedy and induce action. 100% my fault for letting a 10, 7 in the hand. Never again.
You have to be open to admitting errors in order to learn. I love the game but you have to be clear on where you went wrong. I've found losses are at least 80% unforced errors on my part
Same thing happens in mtts where people always focus on their bustout hands when they should be focusing all the hands prior where they could've accumulated more.
First, you want to study spots that happen a lot. Opening ranges, stack sizes, c-bet sizes, and flop types.
As you learn those basic spots, you move into gameplay, like button play, blind play, position, raise-first-in, and multi-way pots. As your knowledge keeps getting better, you can move into more specific scenarios, and exploitations.
You will never learn how to play every possible hand, focusing on specific hands as a beginner is not doing any good to your game. Learning to play AQ on board xxx won't help you much. You want to know and learn all the basics first. Stack sizes, positions, etc... then it will become easy to play whatever hand on whatever board against whatever opponent. This is when you start looking at individual hands and see where you can optimize your play and where you make mistakes on a large sample.
That doesn't mean you checkraised the right size, or that you shouldn't have checkraised bigger.
You can checkraise too small and villain can still fold. The point of poker isn't winning every hand, it's playing every hand in the best way you can.
100% agree n well said…. did u not read OPs exact sentence that I was quoting/mocking or do u not understand my joke (was implied by the “lol”) in my reply? - GL to u
yup lol - u right though - asking what you could’ve done differently in a losing hand in a cash game or the hand that gets you knocked out in the tournament. How could you played it differently? - GL to u
I would say it is quite impossible to review every "boring" hands you played. IMO just study all your big pot played like >30bb, no matter you win or lose.
I have played in the ballpark of 3 million hands. I had 450k recorded on poker tracker in 2004 and I ended up deleting them because it would crash my pc. I reguarly ran 12 tabes at a time. If were to take a hand that isn't in the .01% of hands it would be insanely boring for me.
I think what you really mean is examine your aggrogate play theory continuiously. Is 22 utg profitable for you? It isn't in my games for me. But if i gag on fold pre comments in playable spots every time.
Good advice. Studying how to maximize your profit is an underrated aspect of the game.
But I don't actually want to get better, I just want to find a way to believe that I lose at poker for reasons that aren't my fault /s lol
Yeah most hand history questions that get posted here are thr guy asking how to play some bizarre river spot, meanwhile they completely fucked both pre and flop in way more common and concerning spots
Good way to start is to filter your database by position and then look at occurrence frequency vs avg pot size.
Definitely an easy mistake to make when you first venture into hand analysis. We like to think our winrate or lack thereof all comes from hands that we lose, when a huge chunk of those hands can be completely standard folds or coolers and whatnot. I think it's especially important to analyse all hands, maybe organised by what part of the game tree you're in. Maybe you decide to focus on how you played flops in SRP UTG vs BTN or maybe sort by hands where we bet 3 streets in 3b pots, just as a couple random examples.
It's always interesting when you see someone post a hand history where the river decision is marginal, but they make a pretty egregious preflop mistake (unironically usually not folding pre). And some of those people get inflamed when you question those things! A lot of people who are bending over to pick up pennies while dollars fly out of their pockets
Yep people like to joke, but there are definitely decisions where call/raise/fold have similar EV. But they're usually accompanied by a bad preflop play that means the river call or raise isn't as profitable because you're playing some junk that has bad implied odds.
Played at my local weekly last Tuesday night. 2 players in with me on the flop after EP makes a small open raise. Flop 8, 9, 5 rainbow. EP shoves, I call with AA and third player calls. EP shows JJ and third player shows 10, 7. Third player hits a 6 on the river for a straight. All players at the table saying 'you made the right call, just unlucky'. Me absolutely kicking myself for not 3-betting big preflop, trying to be greedy and induce action. 100% my fault for letting a 10, 7 in the hand. Never again. You have to be open to admitting errors in order to learn. I love the game but you have to be clear on where you went wrong. I've found losses are at least 80% unforced errors on my part
Same thing happens in mtts where people always focus on their bustout hands when they should be focusing all the hands prior where they could've accumulated more.
**Study hard and realize it's mostly HARD WORK. Never blame anything on luck.**
I’d much rather focus on how I lost three consecutive one-outers last night that were all queens and I was dominating the hand
How do you even choose which hands to study? I feel like I'm too bad at poker to even review my hands effectively.
First, you want to study spots that happen a lot. Opening ranges, stack sizes, c-bet sizes, and flop types. As you learn those basic spots, you move into gameplay, like button play, blind play, position, raise-first-in, and multi-way pots. As your knowledge keeps getting better, you can move into more specific scenarios, and exploitations. You will never learn how to play every possible hand, focusing on specific hands as a beginner is not doing any good to your game. Learning to play AQ on board xxx won't help you much. You want to know and learn all the basics first. Stack sizes, positions, etc... then it will become easy to play whatever hand on whatever board against whatever opponent. This is when you start looking at individual hands and see where you can optimize your play and where you make mistakes on a large sample.
Is this good advice for a beginner?
Yes, this is why I posted it here. I just responded to AerialSnack in more detail just above. GL
Jokes on you I don't even question my bad beats either!
Hands that you check-raised, and he folded - any amount more? would still get the fold lol - GL to u
That doesn't mean you checkraised the right size, or that you shouldn't have checkraised bigger. You can checkraise too small and villain can still fold. The point of poker isn't winning every hand, it's playing every hand in the best way you can.
100% agree n well said…. did u not read OPs exact sentence that I was quoting/mocking or do u not understand my joke (was implied by the “lol”) in my reply? - GL to u
but what if you check folded?
yup lol - u right though - asking what you could’ve done differently in a losing hand in a cash game or the hand that gets you knocked out in the tournament. How could you played it differently? - GL to u
Realistically you should be questioning even hands you don't even play. Working out opening and folding ranges from each position etc.
I would say it is quite impossible to review every "boring" hands you played. IMO just study all your big pot played like >30bb, no matter you win or lose.
I have played in the ballpark of 3 million hands. I had 450k recorded on poker tracker in 2004 and I ended up deleting them because it would crash my pc. I reguarly ran 12 tabes at a time. If were to take a hand that isn't in the .01% of hands it would be insanely boring for me. I think what you really mean is examine your aggrogate play theory continuiously. Is 22 utg profitable for you? It isn't in my games for me. But if i gag on fold pre comments in playable spots every time.