100 million hands analyzed, none of them by me.

http://cigital.com/resources/gaming/poker/100M-Hand-AnalysisReport.pdf

100 million poker hands from 2008, December on pokerstars.

Summary result:

*Most hands (74%) are decided without the winner showing the precise cards he/she is playing. Thus the nature of the hands is irrelevant.
*In the remaining hands, >50% are won by a player who does not have the best possible hand among those dealt preflop.

Sumamry judgement impending:

*It is difficult to imagine that pure chance is the governing factor in the majority of hold em hand outcomes.


It is likely that a larger-scale study could define and quantify different types of skills in poker:

*table selection (playing in situations where the above numbers are skewed)
*Ability to manipulate frequency of showdowns.
*Ability to manipulate the expected value at showdown.

Getting more value with an OK hand and a great line.

Too many situations in poker play out exactly as they should. It cuts down on risk, sure. But is can also reduce profits. Here's a good example of a quick move to generate more value from a decent but not killer hand against a decent opponent.

I only played about 1k hands of live play to day- some of the swingiest of my life. In part this was because today marked the first sweat session shippopotamus and I did together. Talking, thinking and playing poker with him is fantastically fun. Tomorrow morning, I will post the sickest beat I've ever seen, as well as some stuff about my play. To boot, I think my game was a little off. I want to go over some decisions in my tournament play a little more carefully.

I watched a couple vids today by Pokey and Code7654321. The basic no limit stuff is a good place for me to start right now-- I have been away from it too long. I also read and posted a ton of hands. Including one I am terribly embarassed by (I overplay AJ- a hand called "parking lot" because of its weakness against narrow raising ranges- against a fishes three bet. yuk). I also listened to a short treatise by "The Bryce" on good poker. Surely "the" belongs in front of no other first name as much as his.

The best part of my "fantasy poker"- I thought the advice I was receiving from other players was bad and Matt Matros -a "famous" pro- said I played it right. Shippopotamus said that when he read it, he imagined Matros' book jacket photo winking and saying "You played it perfectly!"

Ship it.

Fantasy Poker Hand of the Week.

Where do you attack the turbo betting maniac with your AA?

Pokey is hard to beat in fantasy poker, but I have to give this hand to Hunter.

My line was to triple his bet and call the shove.

Pokey says call.

Hunter says shove the river every time. I agree now.