BB/100
My last post was prompted in part by SirFWALGMan's post yesterday that he's a got a BB/100 hands rate of 4.89 over 2700+ hands at Party $2/$4. That prompted me to look up my own stat, which is 3.5 over 3500+ hands. Two thoughts then occurred to me. 1) I've been playing Party $2/$4 since July, so that's only 875 hands per month, 218 hands per week. I should play more, which was kinda the subject of my last post. 2) Not that I should be results-oriented or anything but is 3.5 a respectable win rate?

I went over to the forums at 2+2 to find out.

First thing I took from the posts there: 3500 hands is not nearly enough to be statistically meaningful. Damn those 2+2ers are stodgy about their statistics! You need like 100,000 hands for your sample size to be statistically significant, and by then you already know the answer to your question, or are beyond caring. That's one reason why I'm not much of a 2+2er. I much prefer the qualitative approach of the poker Blogosphere :-)

One thread I found was helpful. The thread is titled "2-4, 3-6, and 5-10" and was started on Oct. 22 (I don't know how to link to individual posts on 2+2). 2+2er Festus22 wrote:

For 2/4 in BB's/100,

1 - You're competent.

2 - You're good.

3 - You're excellent.

3.5+ - You're the man.

Subtract 0.25 to 0.50 from the above for each level up.

That's just a WAG.

I'm guessing "WAG" means wild-ass guess, but I'm not sure.

Then 2+2er Alobar said

1- You've read a book, and play tightly

2- you are decent

3- you are good

3.5+ why are you still playing 2/4?

Alobar is fueling my temptation to dabble in $3/$6! But honestly, I suspect my BB/100 rate may go down rather than up as my sample size becomes more statistically significant.

Finally, 2+2er bdk3clash says, "I think it's unproductive to fret about winrate and results when how you play is pretty much all you have control over." And of course he is right -- just sit down at every session and aim to make the correct decisions on every hand, and take confidence in your ability to do that rather than how much you won or lost. But it's nice to have some rough gauge of what the stats in Pokertracker indicate.
posted by James at 4:08 PM