Avoiding Delusions Of Grandeur

[msastry 0]

I've been playing for about a year or so online and B&M. Low limit stuff mix of games, some tourneys, some SNGs some cash.So far I've been a profitable player.Recently I've been putting more effort into finding the games and formats that suit my style and offer me the best return.My question is this. If I move to a new limit level or type of game how many hands or tourneys or SNGs would I need to play to feel confident that my results reflect my real ability to beat or get killed by the game. As opposed to just riding a streak or suffering an unfortunate run of cards.I don't want to delude myself if I'm crushing a game in the short run if it's actually due to luck or give up on games that I'm dying on if they're a result of bad beatsFor example if play I 2 SNGs at a new limit, new game or site and end up in the black overall that's surely not enough to tell. Do I need to play 100? 10? 50?Any rules of thumb that can be applied.

[Zach6668 513]

For SNGs, 100 is a good start... around 1000 or so, you're true winrate should be a lot closer to your actual winrate... however, the more the better.For cash games, at 10000 hands, you start to get an idea, but 100,000 is a better gauge. Basically, the more the better.- Zach

[Jordan 1]

For SNGs, 100 is a good start... around 1000 or so, you're true winrate should be a lot closer to your actual winrate... however, the more the better.For cash games, at 10000 hands, you start to get an idea, but 100,000 is a better gauge. Basically, the more the better.- Zach

FYP

[MasterLJ 0]

When I wrote my own hold'em simulator and shuffler I noticed that you didn't see strong convergence to true odds until about 1000 trials. By this I mean that I'd run the shuffler/deal one card 52000 times (theoretically you should see each card 1000 times) until I could even distinguish convergence. That being said, 10,000 showed some strong convergence. If this math is extrapolated to NL (169 unique hands) we have 16,900 hands as a very very rough start, all the way to 169,000 hands to know if you are a winner.

[Actuary 3]

You'll know if you are "beating" the game or not before the Mathematically Statistcal Proof is all there.or, at least, you should.and if you aren't sure after 100 SnG's whether or not you are beating the Game, you probably are a marginal long term winner AT BEST. (assuming no further change in play skill)

[No_Neck 0]

buy poker tracker, play 10k hands, post what you did.

[psujohn 0]

Mathematically it has to do with a lot more than the number of hands you play. Namely it has to do with your observed win rate and your standard deviation. If you have 10K hands, 2.5 BB/100, SD of 15BB you're much more likely to be a winning player than someone with 10K hands, 0.5 BB/100, SD of 40BB. That only tells you something about the likelihood of being a winning vs losing player. To converge on your theoretical correct win rate you'd need to play millions of hands. That's a purely theoretical thing though since hopefully you'll be learning and improving over all those hands and your theoretical win rate will be changing before you can actually measure it.Rules of thumb:- 10K hands for cash games- 100 SNGs maybe but I'd say more like 250 for low buyin SNGs where play is a lot more random and hence your SD will be higher.

[jonnyz 0]

Not sure for SNG but for ring games 10k hands is nowhere near enough. You might be able to see if your preflop play is good by 10k but you will need atleast 100k before you can be confident of an hourly rate.I have had 10k stretches where I have won 500+ BB and I have had 10k stretches where I have lost 180 BB with almost identical VP$IP and PFR% numbers.