Confidence at an all time low so playing badly and clueless.

[MC]

I agree that checking someone's Hendon Mob is not as good a guide to their play as simply observing them for a couple of hours at the table. However, it can be very useful to determine whether a player has any experience of big final tables or heads up ability etc.

I feel like you've missed the point here. Here we are talking about the extreme random nature of variance, and you're essentially suggesting someone with 5 second places and 0 1st places in MTTs must be lacking in heads up prowess!

[smashedagain]

I agree that checking someone's Hendon Mob is not as good a guide to their play as simply observing them for a couple of hours at the table. However, it can be very useful to determine whether a player has any experience of big final tables or heads up ability etc.

I feel like you've missed the point here. Here we are talking about the extreme random nature of variance, and you're essentially suggesting someone with 5 second places and 0 1st places in MTTs must be lacking in heads up prowess!

i only ever got 3 handed with you once. No sign of variance there, just your ability

[titaniumbean]

Jase out of interest, what £ figure would you require in exchange for not playing poker again?

[smashedagain]

Jase out of interest, what £ figure would you require in exchange for not playing poker again?

i would be stupid to turn down £250k but think I would end up breaking my promise

[DMorgan]

When things are going well you think you can do no wrong and are full of advice. Now that things are going bad I am turning to Tittybean for advice.

5*

[DMorgan]

Love this thread.

I have a theory that everyone who considers themselves a serious poker player/fan/hobbyist/pro etc probably ran like god in the first 6-12 months of them taking up the game. Nobody likes to lose, and most new players who ran badly when they first started playing probably stopped before they were able to experience some positive variance, which would have been enough for them to take an interest in their game.

Definitely agree with this too

[smashedagain]

When things are going well you think you can do no wrong and are full of advice. Now that things are going bad I am turning to Tittybean for advice.

5*

i did not mean it in a derogatory way. Andrew is a great guy with a great sense of humour that I appreciate far more than poker ability

[nirvana]

Rob, if you look at any five year period of time there will be a group of players who have been consistent winners throughout that period. Some of these will be excellent players, but others will not be so good. How can a mediocre/bad player have consistently good results for five years? It seems really unlikely right? Well yes it IS unlikely that any one particular weak player will have a consistently successful set of results over the next five years. But if you get a group of 1000 such players and let them play regular tournaments for the next five years, at the end of that period a reasonable number of them will have posted consistently good results. It is something called 'survivor bias' - you only notice the ones that have succeeded and assume that their success means they are definitely good rather than just lucky. Its like that old expression about a million monkeys with a million typewriters.

I think this kind of sums up that, where live poker is concerned, it is pointless being anything other than results oriented. It doesn't matter whether player a is 'better' than player b or whether player a is excellent and player b is weak. All that matters is the result. As you point out, you can't level out any variance live so different measures need to apply.. ie how much profit you made. Probably contend as well that the absolute amounts matter a great deal more than the ROI over a lifetime small sample. Agree as well that 5 years success cannot be any serious predictor of future success

Also would agree that a live pro MTTer prob doesn't exist with any kind of deece lifestyle, aside from the TV pros

[Junior Senior]

Even kinboshi won a deepstack.

Abridged version.

When? Is this true? Floor!

[Honeybadger]

I accept that the sample size matters but I just can't believe that we not play enough live hands to know if we are good or bad. If you want to put all your chips in pre flop with QQ against someone who can only have AA/KK or want to run a bluff by a calling station you only have yourself to blame. You can't put it down to being a cooler or it being sick because they should fold.

Jason, I suspect you still have not fully got it! I'm going to try and make three of the key points really explicitly and really clearly:

1. It is possible to play enough hands of live tournament poker to know whether you are good or bad. However, the way you 'know' you are a good or bad player is not simply through looking at your results over the last few months/years. Short-term results give a small part of the story, a very incomplete and often incorrect description of your ability. You need to look at your play in order to determine how good or bad you are. Analyse your hands, discuss strategy with good players, think about your game deeply both at the table and away from it. You need to see which opponents are making mistakes, what those mistakes are, and how big they are in order to work out how much of an edge (if any) you can have over them. When you have a sense of your own skill level and a sense of your opponents' skill levels, you can have an idea of whether you are a 'winning player' or not. Regardless of your results in the last x number of tournaments you have played. But you need to have an objective view of these things, which is always very difficult - especially if you are results orientated, and especially if - like most players - you are inclined to over-estimate your own skill level and under-estimate the skills of your opponents. It is entirely possible to know whether you are a 'winning player' in the DTD deepstack after playing only two or three of them. You will have had plenty of chances to objectively analyse how your own play matches up to the different opponents you have faced. It does not matter at all whether you cash in any of these three tournaments, or whether you bust out of the money each time. Results are irrelevant - objectively analysing your own play is the only thing that matters.

2. Even if you are a 'winning player' there is no guarantee at all that you will actually make money over the course of merely a few years of live poker. In fact, there is a scarily large likelihood that even someone with a 100% ROI who plays every £1k event in the UK over 2-3 years will end up being a net loser over that period.

3. When judging the ability of other players the same principles apply. Look at HOW THEY PLAY, rather than whether they have been on a good run for the last year. Imagine two new players are moved to your tournament table and you do not recognise either of them. Someone you trust comes and whispers in your ear that Player A has had a tremendous and consistent set of tournament results at DTD over the last year or so. You know nothing about Player B. Based on the information you now have it is now mathematically more likely that Player A is a better player than Player B, and if one of them is going to turn out to be an excellent player it is more likely to be Player A (this is called Bayes Theorem I think, although the maths guys can correct me if I am wrong). But this is very far from certain. The fact that A has had some good results makes it more likely he is a good player than a complete unknown, but that is all. So what you do now is to look at how these two players actually play, and analyse their abilities yourself. If you see Player A open limp 52o and then call a raise for 15% of his stack you can deduce that he is likely not as good a player as you might have suspected from his recent results (BTW one of the guys who is lauded as a great tournament player at DTD did precisely this vs Lil'Dave a while back and hit two pairs vs Dave's AA). Now sometimes your own lack of knowledge/skill might lead you to underestimate or over-estimate a player's ability, just as it might lead you to do the same about your own ability. This goes with the territory - and in general the better player you are the better judge you will be too. But this is the way you decide who is a good player, not just looking up their Hendon Mob or being impressed with how they've final tabled the last few deepstacks.

TBH Jason, in many of your past posts you have given examples of old school players who have been getting the lot for years. I am not going to name any names, but I can tell you that some of the guys who you worship are NOT good players at all. I can also tell you with 100% certainty that these guys have not been 'getting the lot' - they are actually net losers at poker, both in a theoretical sense AND in practice. Honestly, some of the guys you think have been getting the lot for ages lose money almost every year at poker, have always done so, and will continue to do so.

[titaniumbean]

When things are going well you think you can do no wrong and are full of advice. Now that things are going bad I am turning to Tittybean for advice.

5*

i did not mean it in a derogatory way. Andrew is a great guy with a great sense of humour that I appreciate far more than poker ability

fking sick rubs

[smashedagain]

I accept that the sample size matters but I just can't believe that we not play enough live hands to know if we are good or bad. If you want to put all your chips in pre flop with QQ against someone who can only have AA/KK or want to run a bluff by a calling station you only have yourself to blame. You can't put it down to being a cooler or it being sick because they should fold.

Jason, I suspect you still have not fully got it! I'm going to try and make three of the key points really explicitly and really clearly:

1. It is possible to play enough hands of live tournament poker to know whether you are good or bad. However, the way you 'know' you are a good or bad player is not simply through looking at your results over the last few months/years. Short-term results give a small part of the story, a very incomplete and often incorrect description of your ability. You need to look at your play in order to determine how good or bad you are. Analyse your hands, discuss strategy with good players, think about your game deeply both at the table and away from it. You need to see which opponents are making mistakes, what those mistakes are, and how big they are in order to work out how much of an edge (if any) you can have over them. When you have a sense of your own skill level and a sense of your opponents' skill levels, you can have an idea of whether you are a 'winning player' or not. Regardless of your results in the last x number of tournaments you have played. But you need to have an objective view of these things, which is always very difficult - especially if you are results orientated, and especially if - like most players - you are inclined to over-estimate your own skill level and under-estimate the skills of your opponents. It is entirely possible to know whether you are a 'winning player' in the DTD deepstack after playing only two or three of them. You will have had plenty of chances to objectively analyse how your own play matches up to the different opponents you have faced. It does not matter at all whether you cash in any of these three tournaments, or whether you bust out of the money each time. Results are irrelevant - objectively analysing your own play is the only thing that matters.

2. Even if you are a 'winning player' there is no guarantee at all that you will actually make money over the course of merely a few years of live poker. In fact, there is a scarily large likelihood that even someone with a 100% ROI who plays every £1k event in the UK over 2-3 years will end up being a net loser over that period.

3. When judging the ability of other players the same principles apply. Look at HOW THEY PLAY, rather than whether they have been on a good run for the last year. Imagine two new players are moved to your tournament table and you do not recognise either of them. Someone you trust comes and whispers in your ear that Player A has had a tremendous and consistent set of tournament results at DTD over the last year or so. You know nothing about Player B. Based on the information you now have it is now mathematically more likely that Player A is a better player than Player B, and if one of them is going to turn out to be an excellent player it is more likely to be Player A (this is called Bayes Theorem I think, although the maths guys can correct me if I am wrong). But this is very far from certain. The fact that A has had some good results makes it more likely he is a good player than a complete unknown, but that is all. So what you do now is to look at how these two players actually play, and analyse their abilities yourself. If you see Player A open limp 52o and then call a raise for 15% of his stack you can deduce that he is likely not as good a player as you might have suspected from his recent results (BTW one of the guys who is lauded as a great tournament player at DTD did precisely this vs Lil'Dave a while back and hit two pairs vs Dave's AA). Now sometimes your own lack of knowledge/skill might lead you to underestimate or over-estimate a player's ability, just as it might lead you to do the same about your own ability. This goes with the territory - and in general the better player you are the better judge you will be too. But this is the way you decide who is a good player, not just looking up their Hendon Mob or being impressed with how they've final tabled the last few deepstacks.

TBH Jason, in many of your past posts you have given examples of old school players who have been getting the lot for years. I am not going to name any names, but I can tell you that some of the guys who you worship are NOT good players at all. I can also tell you with 100% certainty that these guys have not been 'getting the lot' - they are actually net losers at poker, both in a theoretical sense AND in practice. Honestly, some of the guys you think have been getting the lot for ages lose money almost every year at poker, have always done so, and will continue to do so.

another great post and I really am grateful that you are devoting so much of your valuable time to this thread especially with the new addition to your family. I am setting myself up as the patsy here because I know there are a lot of guys out there too afraid to ask the questions or  willing to put themselves up there to be shot at. The thread is a real eye opener and some of the stuff does need re reading a few times before it sinks in. 

And of all my hero's in the game that I admire I bet that less than 5 at a push are true professionals in the true sense of the word and have an income from outside the game of poker. I also do understand how little relevance the Hendonmob has on profitability but it started as a bit of a joke a few years ago and just snowballed. How I never became the 5th member after all the promoting of the site I do, I will never know. I only found out the other day they have a forum over there too.

[skolsuper]

I accept that the sample size matters but I just can't believe that we not play enough live hands to know if we are good or bad. If you want to put all your chips in pre flop with QQ against someone who can only have AA/KK or want to run a bluff by a calling station you only have yourself to blame. You can't put it down to being a cooler or it being sick because they should fold.

Jason, I suspect you still have not fully got it! I'm going to try and make three of the key points really explicitly and really clearly:

1. It is possible to play enough hands of live tournament poker to know whether you are good or bad. However, the way you 'know' you are a good or bad player is not simply through looking at your results over the last few months/years. Short-term results give a small part of the story, a very incomplete and often incorrect description of your ability. You need to look at your play in order to determine how good or bad you are. Analyse your hands, discuss strategy with good players, think about your game deeply both at the table and away from it. You need to see which opponents are making mistakes, what those mistakes are, and how big they are in order to work out how much of an edge (if any) you can have over them. When you have a sense of your own skill level and a sense of your opponents' skill levels, you can have an idea of whether you are a 'winning player' or not. Regardless of your results in the last x number of tournaments you have played. But you need to have an objective view of these things, which is always very difficult - especially if you are results orientated, and especially if - like most players - you are inclined to over-estimate your own skill level and under-estimate the skills of your opponents. It is entirely possible to know whether you are a 'winning player' in the DTD deepstack after playing only two or three of them. You will have had plenty of chances to objectively analyse how your own play matches up to the different opponents you have faced. It does not matter at all whether you cash in any of these three tournaments, or whether you bust out of the money each time. Results are irrelevant - objectively analysing your own play is the only thing that matters.

2. Even if you are a 'winning player' there is no guarantee at all that you will actually make money over the course of merely a few years of live poker. In fact, there is a scarily large likelihood that even someone with a 100% ROI who plays every £1k event in the UK over 2-3 years will end up being a net loser over that period.

3. When judging the ability of other players the same principles apply. Look at HOW THEY PLAY, rather than whether they have been on a good run for the last year. Imagine two new players are moved to your tournament table and you do not recognise either of them. Someone you trust comes and whispers in your ear that Player A has had a tremendous and consistent set of tournament results at DTD over the last year or so. You know nothing about Player B. Based on the information you now have it is now mathematically more likely that Player A is a better player than Player B, and if one of them is going to turn out to be an excellent player it is more likely to be Player A (this is called Bayes Theorem I think, although the maths guys can correct me if I am wrong). But this is very far from certain. The fact that A has had some good results makes it more likely he is a good player than a complete unknown, but that is all. So what you do now is to look at how these two players actually play, and analyse their abilities yourself. If you see Player A open limp 52o and then call a raise for 15% of his stack you can deduce that he is likely not as good a player as you might have suspected from his recent results (BTW one of the guys who is lauded as a great tournament player at DTD did precisely this vs Lil'Dave a while back and hit two pairs vs Dave's AA). Now sometimes your own lack of knowledge/skill might lead you to underestimate or over-estimate a player's ability, just as it might lead you to do the same about your own ability. This goes with the territory - and in general the better player you are the better judge you will be too. But this is the way you decide who is a good player, not just looking up their Hendon Mob or being impressed with how they've final tabled the last few deepstacks.

TBH Jason, in many of your past posts you have given examples of old school players who have been getting the lot for years. I am not going to name any names, but I can tell you that some of the guys who you worship are NOT good players at all. I can also tell you with 100% certainty that these guys have not been 'getting the lot' - they are actually net losers at poker, both in a theoretical sense AND in practice. Honestly, some of the guys you think have been getting the lot for ages lose money almost every year at poker, have always done so, and will continue to do so.

[atdc21]

HONEYBADGER i know i said this early but after reading your last post must say it again, you REALLY do know how to get a point across. Without appearing to p1ss up your back and telling you its raining ,   iREALLY think, not just Jason but MOST people who read this forun should be glad you are posting on here , well done brilliant stuff.

[gouty]

I agree that checking someone's Hendon Mob is not as good a guide to their play as simply observing them for a couple of hours at the table. However, it can be very useful to determine whether a player has any experience of big final tables or heads up ability etc.

I feel like you've missed the point here. Here we are talking about the extreme random nature of variance, and you're essentially suggesting someone with 5 second places and 0 1st places in MTTs must be lacking in heads up prowess!

hehe

I would think if they have 5 2nd places then they have loads of experience tbh.