Win Rates

A few years ago, I paid a poker coach to review my PT3 stats and point out the leaks in my game. Recently, I saw a post on 2p2 by this same coach that I found interesting. Per him, most good full-ring "reg" players have positional win rates that look like this:

SB: -20bb/100
BB: -40bb/100
EP: 8bb/100
MP: 12bb/100
CO: 20bb/100
BTN: 26bb/100

Which yields a win rate per orbit of

SB: -0.2
BB: -0.4
EP: 0.08
EP: 0.08
MP1: 0.12
MP2: 0.12
MP3: 0.12
CO: 0.2
BTN: 0.26

Or: 0.38big blinds per orbit, or 4.18 bb/100 hands, or 2.09 ptbb/100.

The moral of this story: If you're not making 2ptbb/100 in your full-ring game on a regular basis, you probably have a leak worth finding.


In other news, I'm taking this enforced break from poker to improve my game by studying, reading books, and watching videos. I'm convinced that online poker will be back in a big way in the future, and as Dusty "leatherass" Schmidt recently blogged:

"I also think it is going to be wise to still focus on improving your game as much as possible. In any chaotic environment like this, cooler heads will always prevail. Those who are acting like the sky is falling and aren’t looking for opportunity in this mess are going to be the ones who get hurt the most. Former White House Chief of Staff Rahm Emanuel said, “Never let a crises go to waste,” and I agree. If you are freaking out and canceling your training site memberships and assuming that because you can’t log in today, that you never will, I can PROMISE you that that is a mistake. Things will get resolved. I still believe poker is headed toward legalization. What we do know is that when it is legalized, it will be more lucrative than it ever has before. And who do you think will get the lion’s share of that pie? The guy who panicked and stopped working on his game? Or do you think it will be the guy who decided that if others aren’t going to work on their games, he will, and when it comes back, he will be better than ever."

I'm on leatherass' bandwagon on this topic. Or as the Guru has been saying a lot recently, "we need to turn these lemons into lemonade." Open the books. Fire up the training videos. Take notes. Actively learn and improve. Look through your PT3 stats and find your leaks. Maybe even put a modest amount of money into a small poker site like CarbonPoker an try a bankroll-building exercise. Play live poker. Keep your skills up. Don't stagnate. As Churchill said, "When you're going through Hell, keep going." 

I'm personally going to be doing all of these things over the next few months, and I encourage the serious players out there to do the same.When (not if) online poker become legal, I'm going to be one of those guys that is crushing the game. I hope you are too....
All-in for now....
-Bug