Just curious when you guys are reviewing your hand histories do you bother looking at "what if" hands? In other words do you look at starting hands that you decided to fold per-flop but after the flop would've been monster hands? Or is this just a waste of time and depressing? I've heard that once you decide to muck a hand forget about it completely, another school of thought is to try and learn something from all your hands.

C'mon are you serious? What is the point of analyzing folding 72o UTG, even if the flop once in a while comes 7 7 2??

That might be of use for the marginal hands (not the absolute-crap hands, gaash).

Like mid-size suited connectors - are they more playable than I thought, am I tossing them more than I should - that sort of thing.

Can't say I've done it, but I'm just starting to dig into really analyzing this stuff.

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... can't sleep, blinds will eat me ...

That was a little more along my thoughts, not necessarily a 7,2o but more along the lines you just posted. I'm fairly new to the analyizing myself.

Yes it is a waste of time to look at "what if" hands. If you fold 72 and the flop is 772, you have to ask yourself what the odd are of this happening? Over the course of a year, 72 has a negative expectation so you fold it.

The whole idea of poker is the fold/check/bet/raise based on positive expectation (At least in limit holdem. In NL holdem you have to play the opponent more making NL a lot tougher).

It's also useless to check the "rabbit" card which is another "what if" scenario. If there are 44 cards left, then the top one has a 1 in 44 chance of being any particular card. If you were looking for an ace and there were three left, then there is a 3 in 44 chance that the top card is an ace. What's the point of looking at it if the hand is over? Do that 44 times and 3 times it will be an ace, so what?

I don't think it is useful to analyze "what if" folded cards. All hole cards have an expected value based on what they are, where the button is, what action has occured before you and the type of opponents and table you are playing at. The flop is irrelevent to your decision to fold your hole cards. Since a flop is random and you haven't seen it yet, it has no relevence in your decision.

If you want to analyze, then check a see how well you had a read on another guys cards. Also, analyze your play to see if you made the correct poker decisions. Forget about bad luck river cards. Did you make the right play?