The first experiment I did (Tight is right)was based on 1,000 hands - which I think is really too small a sample. In no-limit hold'em, you can win or lose so much in a single hand that it can really skew your results and a very large sample is needed to average things out. So this time instead of 1,000 hands total, I'm going to play 1,000 hands from each position. As you can imagine this is going to take awhile, so please be patient. So far I have played 125 hands from each position, and the results are so strange (for example my results on the button are terrible, while my best results have come from the second-to-act position and the small blind) that I can't draw any conclusions at all, except maybe position doesn't really matter that much. Let's see what it looks like after the full 1,000.
In attempt to get results that might be similar to a "real money" game, I am playing "high-stakes" play money. That is 2,000/1,000 blinds with a maximum $200,000 that can be brought to the table. My thinking is that anyone who has built up their fantasy bankrolls high enough to play at these levels should be fairly good.
Why the "Elder" experiment? Bill Elder is a pro who is very vocal about the power of position, so I named it after him.
Excellent! Looking forward to hearing about your results. I love para-scientific experiments like this (have done a couple recently with brewing, with satisfying results).
ReplyDeleteAre you going to keep a similar stricture on what hands you're allowed to play as the "tight is right" experiment and/or are you going to be altering your play in any appreciable way to account for position? I'm just wondering what factors might skew the results.
I am not going to restrict myself to any particular hands but will play my best according to my grasp of each situation. This is how I usually play, so doing so in the experiment will give me results that will be closer to the real-life experience.
ReplyDeleteIn addition to just tracking the "money" won or lost in each position, I am also seeing how often I choose to play from various positions. While I have said that I do not appreciate the power of position, I am already seeing that I do play far more hands more late position than from early position.