Monday, April 14, 2014

All in radar

On Saturday night, on the final hand of the session, I got it in good but came up short. I was dealt Ac Qd, and the flop came Qc 3h 2s. An opponent went all in, I called, and another opponent called behind me. I was a 75.30% favorite to win, but the opponent who'd called behind me, who'd been dealt Tc Qs, spiked a ten on the river. He raked in a huge pot worth $206,541.

Since I had two sessions in a row where I'd gone all in at the end, I decided to do some research related to my all ins. The results were both surprising and illuminating. Although I don't have the full hand histories for my no limit hold'em career, since I didn't turn on the feature which auto saves the hand histories until after I'd been playing no limit hold'em for some months, I do have a large percentage of them. The really interesting fact which emerged is that in no limit hold'em, I've only made a profit on the hands where I went all in. On the hands where I didn't go all in, I'm operating at a deficit. Here are the numbers:

$29,839,753  gross amount won on hands where I didn't go all in
$30,616,197  gross amount lost on hands where I didn't go all in
$  -776,444  net amount lost on hands where I didn't all in

$10,922,997  gross amount won on hands where I went all in
$ 5,184,969  gross amount lost on hands where I went all in
$ 5,738,028  net amount won on hands where I went all in

At first blush, one might think the answer is to spend less money on hands I'm not willing to go all in on, and/or go all in more often. Of course, there are at least two things glaringly wrong with that idea:

1. it confuses correlation and causation
2. poker doesn't work that way

What can be deduced from these numbers is that I have good all in radar; when I decide to go all in, I'm right significantly more often than not.

During current Hold'em session you were dealt 59 hands and saw flop:
 - 5 out of 6 times while in big blind (83%)
 - 7 out of 8 times while in small blind (87%)
 - 27 out of 45 times in other positions (60%)
 - a total of 39 out of 59 (66%)
 Pots won at showdown - 4 of 9 (44%)
 Pots won without showdown - 6

delta: $-50,000
cash game no limit hold'em balance: $5,767,922
balance: $8,825,625

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