What percentage of pots should you win if you are playing the game right?

According to Annie Duke,you should be playing 33 per cent of your hands, or a bit less. The logic is that nobody gets more than that in value starting cards. Of course there are exceptions, but try it"
,you’ll like it".

These stats are relatively meaningless because it depends on what type of game you are playing (ring, MTT, SnG, 6-max, full ring, heads up), but my stats are 73% of hands folded, 14% of pots won, 46% won at showdown.

By sheer luck, you should win 11% at full ring and 17% at 6-max, so I am right in the middle, which makes sense because I have played every game type on Replay.

Knowing what % of total hands to play depends on skill level (novices should player a lower %), stack depth (certain hands rely more on implied odds or are subject to more reverse implied odds), and the number of players at the table.

As far as pots won at showdown/without showdown, that statistic is also situation dependent, but it can help show whether or not you are going for too much value and getting your opponents to fold (or bluffing a lot) versus not going for enough value and showing down too much without making your opponents pay the price.

As an aside, I think it’s really interesting that my winning % matches pure luck (or even worse when you consider how much I played heads-up, where I should be winning 50% of hands), but I am still a winning player. I think that it goes to show how much of poker win-rate is not about winning more pots, but rather about winning more chips when you do win and losing fewer when you lose.

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With all due respect Joe, I don’t know it you’re looking at this right.

Yes, at a full 9 seat table, you will have the best hand 11% of the time, but ONLY if you play any 2 cards from any position, and take it to showdown every time no matter what.

How many times do you fold that 48o when you would have made a straight by the river, or folded 72 when a pair of 7s would have been the winner? is there a direct correlation between the statistical likelihood of 2 random cards making the best hand by showdown and your actual winning percentage?

I don’t know. They might be related in some way, but it’s not that simple a question.

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Here’s a different way to look at it…

You fold 73%, so you don’t fold 27%. That 14% win rate isn’t 14 hands per hundred, it’s 14 hands won per 27 pots entered, or an actual win rate of about 52%.

How many pots entered were limps around to you in the BB? They don’t count as hands folded, but should they count as pots entered? How many times do you bet preflop and fold the field? These don’t count towards flops seen, but they are pots entered… or are they?

The stats given are of marginal value, at best.

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I agree completely that the stats provided are not very helpful in terms of understanding play, and yes, when I said sheer luck I meant that would be the percentage over a giant sample if every player played every random hand down to showdown. I do think % of hands folded could be useful if someone only played the exact same game type every time. And % of pots won at showdown can be helpful when used correctly to understand your own play over time, not to make any general statements.

Actually, your point about win rate actually brings up another issue with the statistics. It says I have seen 66,000 flops, but subtracting hands folded from total hands only equals 47,000. So then I thought hands folded includes hands where you are in the blinds but do not voluntarily put additional chips into the pot, except that I have only seen 26,000 flops out of the big blind, so it doesn’t add up. What I am sure of is that I do not win 50+% of hands when I see the flop. I guess it is possible that I win that many when I voluntarily put chips into the pot, but even that number seems high. I am guilty of limping with plenty of medium strength hands. Although, I guess that playing a lot of heads up at the end of tournaments could inflate that number upward, so yeah… the stats are super confusing.

As for % of pots won, I do not think the statistic has any utility, but I do think the potential meaning of that number is an interesting statistical question. In my opinion it is not simply trivial because players don’t play every hand, but I believe that the percentage of hands won should gravitate towards those “sheer luck” values over a large enough sample size based on the assumption that most players play a similar style.

While some players play loose and some play tight, if we assume that players have a general sense of what a good hand is, the probability of a random player having a certain number of “good” hands is equal to the same probability for another random player. There are likely to be individual differences in whether or not a certain player say, will call the river with a pair of 8s and an Ace kicker, while another player might fold, but these differences are likely to balance out in other ways across the entire population (not necessarily in any individual case). If we accept the accuracy of that distribution across all players, an individual player might be able to make a useful inference based on their own percentage given that the percentage is drawn from only games played with that number of players at the table. Of course, since in both tournaments and ring, there are varying numbers of players at the table due to circumstances, that number is still pretty meaningless, as is this whole comment lol…

I want to thank you all for the great response to my question. If it helps, my statistics are as follows; I have played 36,985 hands, folded 79%, won 11%, and 64% at showdown. Your comments are welcome. Jackp

Maybe not, but that 52% should also include times you raise preflop and everyone folds because these should count as a pot won and not a hand folded. I don’t limp that often in tournaments, so for me, this is a fairly significant part of my total hands won.

I agree that the stats provided are a little confusing, don’t seem to add up, and could stand a bit of help. Maybe someone will start a thread on suggested improvements.

I think the staff are well aware and working on improvments (at least they have said so on this forum). There used to be a few more stats that were even more confusing or inaccurate.

I guess I hadn’t been thinking about hands where I raise and take it or hands where I’m big blind and it folds around to me. That could explain the discrepancy. What would that calculation be for you, if you don’t mind sharing? Winning that many of the hands I’m involved in sounds good, but there are so many factors involved in figuring out what that number means.

I’m showing 79% folded and 12% wins, so 12 of 21 or about 57%.

I’m also showing 56% at showdown, which seems about right because I try to get max value for my winners. Of the 44% I win without showdown, I would guess about 1/4 are won without seeing a flop.

Keep in mind that medium buyin MTTs are more or less all I play here.

Those numbers depend on what type of game you primarily play. From the first 2 numbers, I would guess you play mostly with 9 players. The hands won at showdown seems high. The number depends on circumstances, so I could be wrong. My percentage was around 50% over my first 100,000 hands, but I decided there was more value to be had in betting big and using more bluffs, so now mine is 46%. I think your 64% shows that you may be losing some value by not betting enough when you have a good hand. Bet sizing is an art, and most players on replay bet too much when they have a good hand, but there is a middle ground. Of course, this is all my opinion.

I primarily play Ring Games, Beijing Rush is my favorite.

Enough to win more than you lose.

51% or more.

A post was merged into an existing topic: The fairness debate

100%

That is one serious win rate! I will definitely take note of that if I see ya. Good info tho. I definitely think I’m improving my game. About 1 month n 6400 hands.

In tournaments the blinds go up as you go along.

The whole thing is a setup, because eventually every single player in a MTT is going to sooner or later have all his chips in the middle, and lose them all. Except for one player, whom we call the victor.

In the early rounds of a tournament when the blinds are low, you can play a number of hands that have draw or flush potential, as you can most often expect to see 5 common cards, but when you get to the later stages of tournaments you need to concentrate on hands that have high card value or are pocket pairs, so that you can win pots preflop, or at the flop.

This is because with a raise and a call, the pot size is already so large that there is no space to price opponents out of calling a draw. If you make a big bet on the flop and it is called, you may be forced to check the turn to avoid becoming pot committed. But to look at it from the other side, drawing hands are of limited value, because with that big pot, you will mostly be unable to pay flop bets to see a card on the turn without becoming pot committed.

There can be no set percentage of hands that you play, because it will depend on what cards are dealt to you. If your hole cards are QQ, AKo, AKs, and AA on 4 successive hands, you will probably play all of them.

Of course, if you are not getting any good starting hands, you will need to add some bluffs to take down blinds without seeing a flop so as to remain alive in the tournament.

All I can say here is that the more often you bluff preflop, the greater your chance of eventually running into AA or KK and will become pot committed preflop or on the flop.

Just a couple of days ago I was playing in a tournament as BB in the early rounds, when the blinds were too low to be worth stealing. A player in early position tried to commit a pointless act of petty larceny by shoving all-in with almost a full starting stack. As I had AA, I naturally called and when villain turned over AQo, a double up was almost assured, and by the river it was delivered. Moral: sometimes you need to steal blinds to stay alive, but there is no point risking all your chips to steal small blinds, because the only hands that will call you at the beginning of a tournament are those that are beating you.

So I would say that you should bluff as infrequently as possible as 1) your bluffs will seem more credible to opponents. After all, even if you have 73o, a 2 on the flop could suggest to an opponent that you have made a set of 2s if your flop bet is too big to call.

If you play the same tournament regularly, then you will develop a feel for where you should be at a particular stage of the tournament.

For example I play the 7:30 pm tournament most evenings, where you start with 5000 chips, and I reckon that you need to have between 10,000 to 13,000 chips at the one hour stage, because following the 5 minute break, the blinds will increase and it will be hard for you to play post flop poker with less chips, as the biggest stacks will have an overwhelming advantage, and if you cannot threaten severe damage to someone else’s stack, then you become increasingly impotent.

So if I am not getting cards, and getting behind stack size schedule, I am more inclined to bluff to try to get my stack back on schedule. There are a number of ways to do execute this, but one example would be that if you are in the Big Blind and the SB who is a calling station persistently limps in with garbage hands when it is folded to him, then you put in a big raise or reraise if he bets the flop, and if he calls, you evaluate the flop and put in another big bet.

If an ace comes on the flop, this will often scare him off, especially as you have position over him. A risky strategy, you might think, but as good a way as any of picking up enough blinds for the next few rounds with no cards at all while you wait for a real hand. If you have folded to his flop bets before, he is probably going to think that you have woken up with something good this time.

Anyway, you look for opportunities to get heads-up in a raised pot.

However, remembering that I said that you probably need at least 10,000 to 13,000 chips at the end of the first hour, note that with 5000 chips to start, you only have to double up two times to reach 20,000 chips, which should get you onto the final table. So it is no good frittering away chips by limping trash and hoping to flop a boat, because when you do get to double up, you would wish you had more chip, and if you do flop that boat, there is no guarantee that you will get paid off, and your small boat may also get run down by a bigger boat.

So always raise when you enter pots, except in the BB, and play hands that have a potential to make top straight, top flush, and top pair at the flop, but do not get overexcited if you hit top pair on the flop in a raised pot with a mediocre hand that you are really playing for its potential to draw to the nuts.

For example QTs is useful hand, but stronger in straight and flush potential than in high card potential, and even if the flop comes Q high, you may be behind AQ, KQ, or QJ, which many players will call with in raised pots, and with some players on RP will be in the pot with Q9 and Q8 and could make two pairs on a later street. On the other hand that 9 or 8 might complete your straight and you stack them.

Also remember that when QT flops an open ended straight, that other player with KJ may have two pairs, and is not folding them, or that when you flop two pairs, then KJ may have the open ender.

So that is all a bit long and rambling, but bottom line is that in the early stages tournaments you should play as few pots as necessary, against as few opponents as possible, but win all of them. Later in tournaments you will have to loosen up and if you are a small stack or a rapidly shrinking stack, then the only way you can go is up, because in the end everyone is stacked except for the victor.

It depends on the game that you play.

If you’re winning more than 1/n of the hands you’re playing, where n is the number of players at the table, then you’re winning more than your fair share.

Your % of hands folded should likewise be changing depending on the size of the tables you are playing.

The other important factor is the size of the pots you win. If you are playing and winning fewer hands, then you need to win bigger pots when you do win.

Heads up, you should play the majority of the hands you are dealt, and hopefully you will win about 50% of them over the long run, but if you bet and fold well, you’ll be profitable.

At a full ring table with 9-10 players, you should play a tighter range, how tight depending upon your position at the time, and hope to win about once per orbit, and if you can steal blinds from late position, and win a huge pot once in a while, then you’re probably doing pretty well.

I’m showing very similar percentages, but folding % is way lower. I show 62% folds and 21% wins, so about 55%. 54% at showdown and 46% without showdown. Started playing more ring games, but usually play lower end MTTs at 50k or less. Does this mean you get more value?

i don’t think it’s possible to answer that from the little data they provide. I think those numbers include all hands since I came here. They are also a mix of MTTs and SnGs.

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