How many hands should I play?

[Chipless Wonder]

I did a little experiment in a tournament I played in this weekend. For the first two hours, I counted how many hands each player at my table played their hands (by seeing at least the flop). Here are the results:

Seat 1 - 17 hands
Seat 2 - 9 hands
Seat 3 (Ben) - 6 hands
Seat 4 - 12 hands
Seat 5 - 11 hands
Seat 6 - 16 hands
Seat 7 (Scott) - 7 hands
Seat 8 (Dana) - 7 hands
Seat 9 - 11 hands
Seat 10 - 12 hands

Now for a couple observations...

1. At the end of the first two hours, the three biggest stacks at this table were in seats 3, 7 and 8. Notice that these three players played the fewest starting hands. This is not a coincidence. When you play few hands, you are forced to be selective about the your cards, your position and/or which opponents you play against. And the more of these 'advantages' that you use, the more of a winner you will become.

2. At the end of the first two hours, the shortest stack at this table was in seat 1. Notice that this player also played the most hands. This is also not a coincidence. When you play a lot of hands, some of them will be poor starting hands, some will have you playing with poor position and some will be against opponents that you may better off not to challenge.

The lesson to be learned here is that if you are more selective with your starting hands in terms of the cards you hold, the position you have and the opponents you play against, you will do better in tournament play, plain and simple.

[DevilFish73]

Great post Scott... Very telling...

[DerekDGTP]

Excellent information. Not playing a hand pretty much equals not making any call?

[Super_GTP]

I always play tight at first. I typically only play hands that I know are good and don’t chase too much at first. If I think I have a dominating hand I make it a point to show it too, so that people know I’m not bluffing. (not sure if that helps or not). It’s later on in the game that I have problems when I have to play okay cards, I don’t have the skill yet to pull off a mediocre hand. But that’s good info, makes me feel a little better about the way I play.

[Chipless Wonder]

Here's an interesting thread about starting hands and variance:

Starting Hand Profitability

[MJ21]

Great Info! There goes my strategy!

[Chipless Wonder]

And here's a good article about starting hands:

A New Guide to the Starting Hands in Texas Hold'em Poker

[Chipless Wonder]

Here is a link to some online SNG tests I tried last night:

Online SNG Experiments

[LatePosition]

Nice post Scott, I like that you did your own live research on this instead of just regurgitating a blog post or excerpt from a book.

I'm a big believer in the "tight is right" philosophy in the early stages of a tournament. You can't win a tourney in the first 3 levels, you can only lose it.

Take a typical home game with 40 players, each starting with 5000 chips. With 200,000 chips in play, a final table average stack will be 20,000 with the chip leader holding around 50,000-60,000 and the short stack at around 12,000.

Let's say you play hyperaggressively early on and the table lets you mug them. You jack your stack up to 9,000 while risking crippling yourself before the blinds are worth stealing. What have you accomplished? You still need to navigate through about 28 more players, not make any foolish mistakes, and not get sucked out on. But the worst part is that you have established a loose image just when the blinds and antes become viable. Now you need to play tight when you should be aggressive. You will get no respect, and your A-Ks will go down in flames to players with Q-8o because your prior play has told them that they are probably ahead. That's the best case scenario.

Don't get me wrong, I make my poker living as a bully, and I have been first out in more games than I care to admit, but knowing when to attack is paramount to any conflict. Don't waste your artillery on infantry.

And never try to steal my blinds. I will eat your children. With fava beans and a nice Chianti.

Blessed be.