How many hands until you should analyse?

[J_moly88]

Playing cash games, after how many hands would you say it is safe to take a look at your stats and try to identify leaks and so forth?

In addition, after adapting your game to try and improve, how long should you wait before looking into the results?

I know this is probably quite a subjective area with no set in stone answer, but just wanted to get people's views on when a sample size is substantial enough.

 

[Marginal]

You can do it after a session and relook everything. Its never too early to look at what you are doing to try and improve.

 

[PokerDepth]

Agree with above however in terms of numbers, full ring will require less than shorthanded due to variance. In terms of hands a good sample would be at least 25,000.

 

[TakMits]

IMO you should play over 100.000 hands to make a "safe" assumption if you are a winning player or no.

 

[LuckyChippy]

You can make general stat analysis after around 20k hands but you should mark out hands each session that you were unsure about and review them after. It's better to look directly at what you struggled with and think of thought processes than stats, but stats can help when you have a few more hands.

Try reviewing after every session or day and then look at general stats every 10 or 20k hands for bigger leaks.

 

[Nathan Williams]

The advice above is pretty much spot on. 100k before caring about your winrate I agree with for sure. And have a look at some general stats after 20k or so. However it is going to vary from stat to stat. You have to ask yourself how often you are in a situation.

For example, you are going to need an enormous sample before you can properly analyze how you are doing in 4bet pots or river check/raise spots because these situations happen very rarely.

For something like stealing the blinds or PFR + cbet you could have a much better idea of where you stand earlier on.