How Good Is It Possible To Be?

So, a thought that runs through my head every once in a while: how good of a winrate could you sustain? And not with some sort of able-to-see-your-hole-cards ability like on Absolute Poker, but against a table full of opponents that are bad. Maybe not any-two-cards-bad, but at least as bad as what you see in a live casino.

I know what you're expecting - some mathematical treatment of how you would fare against a table full of players who played top 60% hands. If I had the time and a clear idea of how to do this, I would. However, I do not. But I do have a close alternative - the results of my playing Hold'em on my Palm Pilot, something I tend to do while bored in meetings (yes, Lou, that's what I'm doing. Surprise.)

The AI players in this game are bad. Live game bad, and maybe a bit worse. So, how badly have I hit the game up for?

In 10,401 hands, I am up 2890.9 BB for a winrate of 27.8 BB/100. When I first started writing this article a few weeks ago, I was actually above 30 BB/100, so I am evidently on some sort of downswing. :-)

I (unfortunately) do not have stats that will allow me to calculate VPIP, W$SD, etc. but the adjustments I make for this game that actually carry over to live play are:

1) Open WAY up in late position. I would imagine I'm playing 35-40% of my hands in the cutoff and on the button. This is partially a no brainer, and partially because of the fact that the c/r was not programmed into the AI at all - if the computer checks to you and you bet, the worst you will be faced with is a call. Lesson - against bad, non-tricky opponents you can play a lot of hands with position.

2) Make a ton of river valuebets. When checked to on the river, it is amazing the number of hands you can valuebet if you do not fear a c/r. Again, the lesson is against non-tricky opponents, you can valuebet a lot thinner on the river than you might otherwise think you can.

Now, let me dream that I could run at 30 BB/100 double-tabling $3/$6 at PlayersOnly, thus making somewhere in the neighborhood of $180/hr......

The Strangest Hand I've Ever Seen

Was at the table (not involved) for this hand, which has to be one of the weirdest hands I've seen.

$2/$4, Cake Poker skin, Full Ring, 9 players.

UTG calls, UTG+1 folds, UTG+2 calls, MP1 calls, HJ raises , CO calls, Button calls, SB folds, BB calls, UTG 3-bets, UTG+2 calls, MP1 folds, HJ calls, CO calls, Button caps, all 5 players remaining call.

Yes, if you are counting that is:

• 6 ways capped preflop (with some dead money from MP1 and SB to boot!)
• An UTG limp-re-raiser
• A button coldcall-capper

Flop: K22, two-tone

BB checks, UTG checks, UTG+2 checks, HJ checks, CO bets, Button folds, BB folds, UTG calls, UTG+2 folds, HJ folds.

Yes, if you are still counting, that is:

• CO betting into the coldcall-capper
• The coldcall-capper folding to a single bet into a 25-ish bet pot on a K-high flop.
• That single CO bet getting four folds in a 25-ish bet pot, with only the UTG LRR-er calling

The turn and river were a blank T and a J which completed the flush. UTG check/called the turn and check/folded the river.

Yes, in addition to everything else in the hand:

• CO won a 15 BB pot without a showdown, with a single bet on the river.

WTF? Collusion? Or just overall stupidity?

To further cloud the possible issue around collusion (I will use the labels LRR-er and CC-capper to label the players below):

• The very next hand, LRR-er and CC-capper put 4 bets in preflop (trapping one player in the middle) and LRR-er folded the T72 two-tone flop for a single bet.
• Another hand transipered about 1 revolution later where a 17 BB pot was won without a showdown, with a single bet on the river (LRR-er was one of the folders on the river, CC-capper not involved)

Quadman and Hevad Khan

What do these two have in common? Nothing, really, other than Quadman doing things like:

UTG raises, Quadman is UTG+1 with 77 and folds. Board develops KJ7-7-3.
The very next hand Quadman is UTG with QQ and raises. This time the board develops QT9-Q-J.

and then chatting with me about Hevad Khan (a 2007 WSOP Main Event Final Table finisher) and his legendary multi-tabling abilities:

Newspaper article about him

Specifically, when you play that many tables, surely you've got to have a premium hand most of the time, right? Well, me being the guy I am, decided to apply some math to the situation, trying to clarify "how premium" and "how often." I used 40 tables since that was the number quoted in the article above.

The stats on your best hand (of the 40 that you have) at any given time:

11% of the time, you will have an AA
30% of the time, you will have an AA, KK or QQ (abbreviated QQ+ ala PokerStove for all future lines)
50% of the time, you will have a hand in the range TT+,AKs
90% of the time, you will have a hand in the range 88+,ATs+,KTs+,QJs,AJo+

OK, so that's roughly what you'd expect - with 40 hands there is a lot of opportunity for decent hands. But what about hands at other tables? What are your chances of having another big hand at the same time? I'm glad you asked:

1.5% of the time, you will have AA on two tables at the same time
10% of the time, you will have QQ+ on two tables at the same time
50% of the time, you will have 99+,AQs+,AKo on two tables at the same time
90% of the time, you will have 88+,ATs+,KTs+,QTs+,AJo+,KQo on two tables at the same time

1.7% of time, you will have QQ+ on three tables at the same time
30% of time, you will have 99+,AJs+,KQs,AKo on three tables at the same time
50% of the time, you will have 88+,ATs+,KJs+,AQo+ on three tables at the same time
90% of the time, you will have 77+,A8s+,K9s+,QTs+,JTs,ATo+,KJo+ (top 13.1% of hands) on three tables at the same time

That is a lot of playable hands at a decent number of tables at the same time, especially when you consider probably 10 of the tables are very short handed or heads up at any given time, where your starting hands have to relax quite a bit.