How many hands to see true winrate

What a difference a few thousand hands make. So firstly apologies for not playing the amount expected. Ive been travelling a little and am involved in a new start up company. but thats boring so....

Im just short of my first 10k hands at 25nl. As you may remember I jumped back in, started losing, read Verneers crushing the micros, reread my own how to beat 50nl and this produced a turnaroud.

Just after the 4k mark is where i stopped and looked at my game. You can see at the moment I am winning at 2.77 bb/100. Whilst not good that cant really be a true reflection of what has happened. Take a look at the numbers from my last 4k hands....

Again, 16.25 bb/100 is not accurate. I know any regular readers (if they still poke around here) will know this but for the aspiring low level online player this is a good example of a fact that you need 10's of thousands of hands to see a true win rate. There have been a ton of posts about this on 2p2 forums over the years and its true that you will need a huge sample size to get close to seeing your true win rate..

This also points out a small fact that its all about correct decisions, not about where your graph goes in the next 2k, 5k, 10k hands..   over time correct decisions = profit.

Poker online is a LONG TERM GAME. dont forget it. Its a grind. Make it fun and have some goals..

Will post again at 10k hands.

Ryverrat

There are plenty of fish left in this ocean

Coming back to poker a concern was that the fish numbers had dwindled and that the remaining players were all nitty regs. Well I don't think that is true is it. Just take a look at my screenshot. I am using Veneers HUD setup as shown on the left. Just looking at the basics vpip/fr/af numbers though and you'll see what I mean.

4000 hands

Well im on my way hopefully back up the ladder. I had an interesting first 4000 hands.

I havent played much poker this year, i delved back into Omaha and got crushed earlier in the year but no real play with NL holdem and it shows.

My first 2000 hands were bad. I had been watching a lot of poker on late night TV and being out of the game this had a big influence on me as i started playing online again. Around this 2000 hand mark, even though it was a small sample size I felt like I needed some guidance. I remember a couple of years back Verneers crushing the micros series on cardrunners and I knew he also put something on 2p2 forums so I looked it up.

Moving up through uNL in 2010

I read this over a couple of days and put in another 2000 hands. Even though, again this is a small sample size, and as you can see from the graph my EV line is not really trending upwards I still feel like I have already changed my game to a winning style. Verneer is a legend and he writes so well. If any reader is struggling with 25nl the link above is your bible.

Im looking forward to the next 6k hands to do a full review. I am in between jobs at the moment so I can get a ton of time playing.

Ill be putting some interesting hands up here in the next few days.

Keep watching and let me know if you are reading.. it makes me write better :)

Come on in, the water is still warm...

I am feeling the lure of poker again. I have had a lot of time out from playing due to work and family commitments but with a recent change of job I am finding myself with quite a bit of downtime at home. I keep hearing the knock of poker at my door and think I should step back in the water to see if it still warm.

I am expecting that things are a lot harder. I expect there to be a lot less fish around but I like the sound of a challenge. Also, I havent read up on the legal battle recently in the US in regards to poker but I was always under the impression that one day in the near future the big guns such as Harrahs would work out a way to legalise and tax poker in the US. Even if this doesn't happen poker is still ripe in Europe.

So.. Im gonna multitable 25nl with a $500 bankroll. I have downloaded the Holdem Manager 2 trial (seems a lot more intuitive than HEM which I loved) and will be 4-8 tabling. I have reread my posts on how to beat 50nl and will be playing basic, positional, tight aggressive poker. Avoiding marginal situations where possible and hunting down fish by moving tables and not staying static.

My main goal to start is to find out if i can still play winning poker. I will book 10k hands a complete a full review. In the meantime I will start putting some interesting hands and situations on here alongside 2p2 forums.

Im not sure anyone will read this for a while but hopefully momentum will build and I can lead some interesting discussion and learn from or advise the people that come by. Writing a blog before was fun, helped keep me focused and made me some good contacts. Fingers crossed it will all go that way again.

Ryverrat