Any Advice on the Worst Run in a while? tonights stats added...

Macspower · 23-10-2007 4:31am #1

mods feel free to move to where ever it should be....

Currently on one of the sickest downswings I've had in a long longtime... I was getting ready for a move to 2/4 this week but then I hit a run like I havn't seen before

Here are some graphs and PT stats from last 2 days...

Anyone see anything blatently wrong?? Or any advice apreciated... I notice my PFR a little lower than normal but this may be accountable to a table I was at today for a long time where everyone there was a lot of limping going on to try and stack the 93% fish who left with everyones money!!

heres the previous day before the downswing.....

Options?

My own thoughts....

A huge ammount of the hands I lost were big pair hands against 50% vpip players...... should I change my style with these kind of players...?? they 8/10's making str8s and so on.....

drop down a level.....

stop playing for a day or so.. (tried this) I'm not tilting btw..

Any other stats I should post?? HH's etc etc??

Any help appreciated..

Mac

valor · 23-10-2007 4:53am

get some coaching

22/10 is not an optimal style, stop limping and calling raises

how many tables do you play, thats an insane amount of hands

Van Dice · 23-10-2007 4:53am

Just from that I think there are some pretty big holes. I'm not sure if they're 'leaks' as such, but definitely you could improve your winrate.

Your preflop raise % is much too low given your VPIP, 23/12 or so is not even close to optimal. Your flop aggression factor is much too low, that should be up around 4 imo. If you feel you suffer a lot of bad beats, I think we just spotted the cause. I can't see turn and river aggression factors but I'm sure they follow the pattern.
I also think you defend your blinds too much. Folding more of these will mean you don't play losing hands OOP. Your went to showdown % is also too high.

I'd say your main leak is calling too much OOP, which means you're being too passive preflop and defending your blinds too much. I'd also imagine it results in you check-calling down too much, meaning you go to showdown too much and also that your aggression factor is diluted.

Finally I think your att. to steal is much too low

There are multiple caveats here, obv it's over a small sample so the figures may not be true to your long term numbers. Also you are clearly running badly and given your results before this, you are a winning player so know what you're doing. And this is just my own opinion on what the 'ideal' range of numbers for each stat is, I'm sure others would have a different opinion.

cardshark202 · 23-10-2007 5:00am

16k hands in 2 days??? Insane. Raise more pf, play less hands per day and concentrate more on them. Whats been said previous is worth taking note of.
16k hands in 2 day!!!??? Madness

zuutroy · 23-10-2007 8:28am

I agree with everything Van Dice said.

RoadSweeper · 23-10-2007 9:59am

take a break?

thechamp87 · 23-10-2007 11:21am

I don't play online much. But you seem to be getting through a RIDICULOUS amount of hands. There's no way you can be playing good poker if you are playing this many hands simultaneously. Surely it becomes a bit robotic and if you begin to lose a few buy-ins it will effect the other tables as well.

I say you take tonight off, maybe even play live for a change and to get away from the computer. Then go back to it fresh, tomorrow or Thursday, and play just 2 tables to start. As your confidence grows again build them up. But as I said I think you are playing too many tables/hands.

RedJoker · 23-10-2007 11:34am

Yeah you're running bad, if you look at your Won$WSF it's significantly lower then when you were running well. This is usually an o.k. indicator if you're running well or not. Of course it’s possible you weren’t playing your best either which will happen to most players who are on a downswing.

I completely agree with everything Van Dice said btw.

Macspower wrote:

Any other stats I should post??

How to use Pokertracker

This thread will help you see what you should be looking at, either go through it yourself or post the screenshots here. If you go to the position tab and post a screenshot of that it should give us a good idea of your style of play.

Some more links that should help your game:

An attempt to Steal Blinds of 20% is fairly low, this should be at 30% minimum imo and you could go above 40% without too much trouble.

Blind Stealing

Taking stealing the blinds to next level

Playing Junk From Late Position

Isolate against the fish very frequently

Your defend blind against steal percentages are too high.

There hasn't been many theory posts made on this subject but there's some good discussion, go down to part 'e' in the Anthology. There's also a couple of threads in part 'f' which would be relevant to this.

Your flop AF is very low as well, this could be a result of not cbetting as much because of your relatively (as a percentage of VPIP) low PFR. Or maybe you don't cbet much anyway.

Your went to showdown is kinda high too but your W$SD is fine so maybe it's o.k.

If you are going to change things, do it slowly and get used to playing a new style gradually. Your opponents are going to be reacting differently to you and you may find yourself in new situations.

phantom_lord · 23-10-2007 11:39am

RedJoker wrote: »

Yeah you're running bad, if you look at your Won$WSF it's significantly lower then when you were running well. This is usually an o.k. indicator if you're running well or not.

I always thought Won$WSF was more of an indicator of how good you're playing, how many pots you're picking up with aggression and stuff. While W$SD was a good indicator of how you're running?

zuutroy · 23-10-2007 11:57am

W$SD IMO is a measure of your post flop play, and ability to know when you're beat. I think you're a bit wild with your 40% stealing there RedJoker. I dont think there are a whole lot of people above 30, but maybe I'm wrong. If you're up at 40, you're playing real trash, and people are gonna play back at you a lot more...I think 25-30 is optimal.

meathman 007 · 23-10-2007 12:03pm

fwiw, i agree with others that you are just on a bad run.

Anyway heres a few things i would try/change:

1. ive noticed that you like to do this quite often:
eg, you are in the cut off, one of the donks in first or second position limps in, you then limp along with the villain holding something like a small-medium pocket pair or high suited connectors.
Personally i dont like this play, because if there is a half decent player in the postions to act after you, they are going to squeeze quite often - i have seen you call this raise after your original limp quite often.

Imo the better play, in the 1/2 nl 6 seater game you play in, is to raise to 9 in those situations and get yourself heads up, in position against a player who is usually a donk - more often than not you will win the pot with a c-bet and win a big pot if you hit your set etc

2. i also think you are playing far to many tables - i know you play 6 seaters and i have also seen you play a lot of on the turbo tables on ipoker. Ive heard you saying you play as many as 7+ tables at a time.

I dont think you can play optimal 6 seater poker with that many tables open. I would cut down to 4 tables or 5 tables max.
I think this may explain your low pfr%, because with so many tables open, it would become impossible to raise with certain hands on each individual table. If you cut down the tables you are playing, and open your range a bit in the co and btn, then your pfr% would without doubt increase.

3. i think its fair to say that you run bad with aces!
I think at times, you should increase the amount you 3bet preflop - i.e get as many chips in the pot as possible pre-flop. If your against a villain who has a habit of calling 3-bets. Increase the raise to say 30-40+ - the result of this will be:
A. that you will win a lot more when the villain does not hit a set etc on the flop
B. it will cost the villain a much bigger % of his stack to draw when you put out your pot sized c-bet on the flop

4. Your not stealing the blinds enough - however i do think these stats will improve if you cut down on the number of tables you are playing

Just my take on things anyway, goodluck:)

Macspower · 23-10-2007 1:15pm

I'll get back to this later on as I've other work on today instead of poker....

I may have mislead you a little... the first stats atre over 3 days and the second one is over 2 days...... normal amount of hands for me TBH...

My normal stats are 24/16 so maybe there is a problem already.... in the above the PFR is much lower but I know there was a table I was limping for a few hours on chasing a fish but it wouldn't count over the above sample.....

I'm normally a winning player at this level and while not crushing the level Imanage to make a living out of it... but the run has been bad...but bad run normally results in bad play... so I really appreciate any advice given and will go through it all later when I have a chance...

RedJoker · 23-10-2007 1:36pm

phantom_lord wrote: »

I always thought Won$WSF was more of an indicator of how good you're playing, how many pots you're picking up with aggression and stuff. While W$SD was a good indicator of how you're running?

It's both, if you usually have a high Won$WSF then it's an indication that you either play well post flop or that you don't see enough flops or both. When it's below your 'normal' percentage it's an indication that you're running bad/playing worse then usual, which are usually related anyway.

W$SD does the same thing, if it's high you're picking good times to go to showdown or you're not going to showdown enough or both. If it's less then your 'normal' percentage then it can be an indicator that you're running bad.

However, it's not as reliable an indicator. Looking at Macs stats his W$SD got higher when he was 'running bad'.

zuutroy wrote:

I think you're a bit wild with your 40% stealing there RedJoker. I dont think there are a whole lot of people above 30, but maybe I'm wrong. If you're up at 40, you're playing real trash, and people are gonna play back at you a lot more...I think 25-30 is optimal.

Blind Stealing is one of the most profitable things you can do. The great thing is that you can increase your steal percentage significantly without decreasing your winrate from steal attempts too much. If you doubled your att.to steal blinds from 20 to 40, your winrate would have to halve for you to be indifferent between the two, it's not going to drop that much unless you're making some huge postflop mistakes. And this is before we get to all the benefits you'll get from your new image.

Most fish will adjust by calling you down more, if they adjust at all. They'll be playing the hand OOP and would need a significantly better hand to compensate for your positional advantage. Good players will start 3 betting you lighter but even that can be exploitable.

phantom_lord · 23-10-2007 7:22pm

Ok thanks RedJoker.

Macspower · 24-10-2007 3:00am

Hi guys,

Many thanks for your replies above... since you have taken the time to reply I'll take the time to reply individually in a while..

meanwhile back at the ranch...

I know it's only a small sample but here is this evenings session after dropping a level.... unfortunately my last 2 hands I got coolered for 2 buy in's and would have been better....

First one was KK vs AA AIPF when I knew the NIT had AA
second was horrible... I had just broken the table and had 300bb's after taking a multi way pot and killing 3 players so was heads up and click sitout but not in time to get dealt 55. other guy min raises and I call to see a A95 flop...... we get it in over the streets and he has AA!!! so could have been a bit better but would be more interested in the stats...??

Any advice appreciated..

Macspower · 24-10-2007 3:03am

valor wrote: »

get some coaching

22/10 is not an optimal style, stop limping and calling raises

how many tables do you play, thats an insane amount of hands

as below.. the hands were actually over a few days.. nowmal is 2k per day for me on 6-8 tables.

agreed on the calling..... i never open limp...ever...but would limp in behind a limping fish sometimes.. guess I should raise here?

offer of coaching for nil fee accepted.... very good of you

Macspower · 24-10-2007 3:05am

Van Dice wrote: »

Just from that I think there are some pretty big holes. I'm not sure if they're 'leaks' as such, but definitely you could improve your winrate.

Your preflop raise % is much too low given your VPIP, 23/12 or so is not even close to optimal. Your flop aggression factor is much too low, that should be up around 4 imo. If you feel you suffer a lot of bad beats, I think we just spotted the cause. I can't see turn and river aggression factors but I'm sure they follow the pattern.
I also think you defend your blinds too much. Folding more of these will mean you don't play losing hands OOP. Your went to showdown % is also too high.

I'd say your main leak is calling too much OOP, which means you're being too passive preflop and defending your blinds too much. I'd also imagine it results in you check-calling down too much, meaning you go to showdown too much and also that your aggression factor is diluted.

Finally I think your att. to steal is much too low

There are multiple caveats here, obv it's over a small sample so the figures may not be true to your long term numbers. Also you are clearly running badly and given your results before this, you are a winning player so know what you're doing. And this is just my own opinion on what the 'ideal' range of numbers for each stat is, I'm sure others would have a different opinion.

Many thanks Van Dice... points taken on board.... you advice as always is spot on...

Macspower · 24-10-2007 3:06am

cardshark202 wrote: »

16k hands in 2 days??? Insane. Raise more pf, play less hands per day and concentrate more on them. Whats been said previous is worth taking note of.
16k hands in 2 day!!!??? Madness

thanks for reply CS.... I think I've covered this somewhere above. hands were over a few days... 1.5k to 2k hands is normal for me... prob still a bit much

Macspower · 24-10-2007 3:07am

zuutroy wrote: »

I agree with everything Van Dice said.

Makes 2 of us

Macspower · 24-10-2007 3:07am

RoadSweeper wrote: »

take a break?

only a 1 day break but it helped clear the head

Macspower · 24-10-2007 3:10am

Thanks Adam,

I suffered from the robotic thing last month when I got in 72 k hands :eek: I was cliking and not thinking.. Must make sure I don't slip inot that again..

Took the day off today and did some other work... helped alright...

play live??? with you sharks???? yeah lol..... get it in against Mac with ATC and the way he's running were guaranteed to river him

thechamp87 wrote: »

I don't play online much. But you seem to be getting through a RIDICULOUS amount of hands. There's no way you can be playing good poker if you are playing this many hands simultaneously. Surely it becomes a bit robotic and if you begin to lose a few buy-ins it will effect the other tables as well.

I say you take tonight off, maybe even play live for a change and to get away from the computer. Then go back to it fresh, tomorrow or Thursday, and play just 2 tables to start. As your confidence grows again build them up. But as I said I think you are playing too many tables/hands.

Macspower · 24-10-2007 3:15am

RedJoker wrote: »

Yeah you're running bad, if you look at your Won$WSF it's significantly lower then when you were running well. This is usually an o.k. indicator if you're running well or not. Of course it’s possible you weren’t playing your best either which will happen to most players who are on a downswing.

I completely agree with everything Van Dice said btw.

How to use Pokertracker

This thread will help you see what you should be looking at, either go through it yourself or post the screenshots here. If you go to the position tab and post a screenshot of that it should give us a good idea of your style of play.

Some more links that should help your game:

An attempt to Steal Blinds of 20% is fairly low, this should be at 30% minimum imo and you could go above 40% without too much trouble.

Blind Stealing

Taking stealing the blinds to next level

Playing Junk From Late Position

Isolate against the fish very frequently

Your defend blind against steal percentages are too high.

There hasn't been many theory posts made on this subject but there's some good discussion, go down to part 'e' in the Anthology. There's also a couple of threads in part 'f' which would be relevant to this.

Your flop AF is very low as well, this could be a result of not cbetting as much because of your relatively (as a percentage of VPIP) low PFR. Or maybe you don't cbet much anyway.

Your went to showdown is kinda high too but your W$SD is fine so maybe it's o.k.

If you are going to change things, do it slowly and get used to playing a new style gradually. Your opponents are going to be reacting differently to you and you may find yourself in new situations.

thanks RJ.
top class advice as always... I've taken on board the stealing thing..... my mother always told me not to steal and it must be implanted somewhere in my brain

yeah you are right of course and is something I would noramlly do but might have changed due to current run... back in action tonight stealing like mad

The c-beting thing is interesting.... I've been getting a lot of AK type hands and flops co-ordinated/suited or QJ kinda flops with 2 callers and I'm reluctant to bet into these flops without hitting... opinion on this? I would always c-bet a safeish flop.... or of course if i hit...

Opinions?

Jesus Wept · 24-10-2007 3:15am

Take a break,

That is all.

Macspower · 24-10-2007 3:23am

meathman 007 wrote: »

fwiw, i agree with others that you are just on a bad run.

Anyway heres a few things i would try/change:

1. ive noticed that you like to do this quite often:
eg, you are in the cut off, one of the donks in first or second position limps in, you then limp along with the villain holding something like a small-medium pocket pair or high suited connectors.
Personally i dont like this play, because if there is a half decent player in the postions to act after you, they are going to squeeze quite often - i have seen you call this raise after your original limp quite often.

Imo the better play, in the 1/2 nl 6 seater game you play in, is to raise to 9 in those situations and get yourself heads up, in position against a player who is usually a donk - more often than not you will win the pot with a c-bet and win a big pot if you hit your set etc

2. i also think you are playing far to many tables - i know you play 6 seaters and i have also seen you play a lot of on the turbo tables on ipoker. Ive heard you saying you play as many as 7+ tables at a time.

I dont think you can play optimal 6 seater poker with that many tables open. I would cut down to 4 tables or 5 tables max.
I think this may explain your low pfr%, because with so many tables open, it would become impossible to raise with certain hands on each individual table. If you cut down the tables you are playing, and open your range a bit in the co and btn, then your pfr% would without doubt increase.

3. i think its fair to say that you run bad with aces!
I think at times, you should increase the amount you 3bet preflop - i.e get as many chips in the pot as possible pre-flop. If your against a villain who has a habit of calling 3-bets. Increase the raise to say 30-40+ - the result of this will be:
A. that you will win a lot more when the villain does not hit a set etc on the flop
B. it will cost the villain a much bigger % of his stack to draw when you put out your pot sized c-bet on the flop

4. Your not stealing the blinds enough - however i do think these stats will improve if you cut down on the number of tables you are playing

Just my take on things anyway, goodluck:)

1) yeah I am inclined to do this... I don't mind limping after a limper particularly a fish with SC's or small pair...but your right I should isolate where I can..... I do get squeesed a bit from the lp's

2) until lucky impoves I'll be playing 4 tables max for the min.. yeah I usually play 6-8 but can sometimes play as much as 16... but at this number I'm an uber nit playing 12/6 which is not good for my game..... I tried it last month for rakeback and got twice as much in rb as i made from playing but I was like a robot.... no desire to do it again.... taken on board..

3) not so sure.... but I'll try it

4) yeah agreed... will start stealing a lot more.... prob go to hell for it .... but who wants to go to heaven anyway....no poker/drink/drugs/cold/the kind of women we would like to meet don't go there..

thanks for advice

Macspower · 24-10-2007 3:24am

The-Rigger wrote: »

Take a break,

That is all.

what no "all in"??? I'm dissappointed

cooker3 · 24-10-2007 6:15am

Your not aggressive enough on all streets and your completing from the sb way too much would be the main things I see from all the stats you posted.

NickyOD · 24-10-2007 8:21am

I'm going to keep my advice to a minimum.

Play a maximum of 3 tables at a time for the next 5,000 hands and concentrate on pushing your Won $ at SD stat closer to 60%.

Best of luck.

RedJoker · 24-10-2007 10:34am

Just a quick look at the new stats, obv these are over a tiny sample so won't mean much. You can compare these to your stats over longer samples to see if there's any possible leaks.

25/16 is still kinda passive, aim for 25/20 or else tighten up your VPIP.

Your VPIP from the SB is fairly high. Your Fold SB to steal is better but your Fold BB to steal is way too low. Unless the donks are min raising it's probably not worth playing too much from here. This would indicate that you're still playing too loose OOP.

An att. to steal blinds of 31% is much healthier.

I'm amazed how high your WtSD is considering your Won$SD. A normal range for WtSD would be about 20-27. I think you've got a good grasp of when to go with your hand.

Your AFs are on the low side. Aim for 3/2/2 for flop/turn/river AFs, you could have your flop AF higher then this fairly easily as well.

Macspower wrote:

my mother always told me not to steal and it must be implanted somewhere in my brain

Invite your mother to play a game and steal her blinds relentlessly, she won't suspect a thing

.

Macspower wrote:

The c-beting thing is interesting.... I've been getting a lot of AK type hands and flops co-ordinated/suited or QJ kinda flops with 2 callers and I'm reluctant to bet into these flops without hitting... opinion on this? I would always c-bet a safeish flop.... or of course if i hit...

This is fine, betting into highly co-ordinated flops that are likely to have hit your opponents range is often just burning money. The same can be said about betting into multiple players, unless they're competent and would give you a lot of respect for this.

RoundTower · 24-10-2007 12:01pm

NickyOD wrote: »

I'm going to keep my advice to a minimum.

Play a maximum of 3 tables at a time for the next 5,000 hands and concentrate on pushing your Won $ at SD stat closer to 60%.

Best of luck.

really? my won @ sd is exactly 50, is this way too low? In PLO anyone with 60% won @sd is playing too nitty postflop, mine is 52.

Van Dice · 24-10-2007 12:17pm

Yeah I agree with RoundTower. I'm not sure what effect aiming for 60% W$SD would have on your game, other than making you fold too much and playing like a total nit. I definitely agree with playing less tables though.

What would improve your game would be trying to push your W$WSF % higher, but 46 in the last screenshot is pretty good anyway. Aiming for higher might be borderline spewy! I think that's one of the most important stats though

Macspower · 24-10-2007 1:10pm

thanks again guys... now that I'm in the confession box I'll post stats again at the end of the week and we'll have another look over a little better sample

NickyOD · 24-10-2007 1:17pm

RoundTower wrote: »

really? my won @ sd is exactly 50, is this way too low? In PLO anyone with 60% won @sd is playing too nitty postflop, mine is 52.

Mine used to be at around 52% and I found I was paying off too much on the river or firing too many river bluffs. Once I got a handle on that the number went up. It's 58% over my last 20K hands. How can 60% mean you fold too much if you're still calling river bets with the worst hand?

My VPIP is 25/15 over about 80K hands mostly (1-2 but about 15K of them are 2-4) which is NOT passive. I don't understand why people think you should be aiming for 25/20. If you are playing on very loose limp-happy tables then you should probably be raising/re-raising less in position, not more.

ianmc38 · 24-10-2007 2:22pm

60% Won at showdown is exceedingly high and i would estimate that less than 1% of people have W%SD that high over any reasonably sized dataset . A normal figure for a TAG is somewhere between 50 and 55%.

Van Dice · 24-10-2007 2:24pm

Do you think you'd win more $$ if it dropped from 58% to 54% say?

zuutroy · 24-10-2007 2:30pm

I think its very subjective. If you only go to showdowns with the nuts but dont manage to build the pot along the way then you'll have low WSD and high Won$SD but you wont win a lot of money. If you see 30% of showdowns but only have Won$SD at 45% but you manage to get all their money in the pot when you win, and get to see very cheap showdowns with your marginal hands then you're going to win a lot more money than the 22/60.

RoundTower · 24-10-2007 2:57pm

NickyOD wrote: »

Mine used to be at around 52% and I found I was paying off too much on the river or firing too many river bluffs. Once I got a handle on that the number went up. It's 58% over my last 20K hands. How can 60% mean you fold too much if you're still calling river bets with the worst hand?

well, in close situations you should be calling river bets with the worst hand about 2-3 times more often than you do it with the best hand. Otherwise you aren't calling the river enough.

fuzzbox · 24-10-2007 3:06pm

Rather than focusing on the stats especially with things like "aim to get your W$SD% to XXX%" ... consider trying to improve your river decision making.

The numbers will then take care of themselves.
The numbers tell you, post fact, how well you are doing, and what adjustments you could make to improve, but dont aim to hit a number, aim to make better decisions, based on the extra information you have available to you now that you have the numbers.

Captain Tom · 24-10-2007 3:24pm

it seems like almost all of the hands you post for analysis are "i have AA/KK on an xxx board and he raises what do i do?". i think posting close decisions in a wider variety of common spots would be very beneficial for you.

ianmc38 · 24-10-2007 3:46pm

also, as much as you get beats, thats part of the variance which everyone encounters. much of whats happening must be accredited to bad play. start doing session reviews every time you finish. go to the game notes tab in pokertracker and click get all. look at all the big hands you've won/lost in a session and go through the hand from start to finsih and see if you actually played it optimally.

best of luck though. hope things pick up for you.

NickyOD · 24-10-2007 3:58pm

RoundTower wrote: »

well, in close situations you should be calling river bets with the worst hand about 2-3 times more often than you do it with the best hand. Otherwise you aren't calling the river enough.

I think there are very few players who don't call the river enough. My biggest leak and I think the biggest leak for most players who struggle with variance at these stakes is playing badly against bad players. This usually means paying them off too much or bluffing them when they won't fold.

Grafter · 24-10-2007 10:22pm

re running bad, http://www.pocketfives.com/EC4C1918-D1C2-4373-95F9-19FC7F541C23.aspx is a good read, written by a kid who seems to have an old head on young shoulders

zuutroy · 24-10-2007 10:51pm

^^ Very good piece....

Hectorjelly · 25-10-2007 12:52am

60% won at showdown is way too high. mine is usually around 52%

RedJoker · 25-10-2007 1:04am

NickyOD wrote: »

Mine used to be at around 52% and I found I was paying off too much on the river or firing too many river bluffs. Once I got a handle on that the number went up. It's 58% over my last 20K hands. How can 60% mean you fold too much if you're still calling river bets with the worst hand?

60% W$SD is very high imo. Somewhere between 48 and 52 is normal, anything outside 45-55 is usually too tight or too loose.

It can be correct to call river bets with the worst hands if the odds you're getting and the range you put your opponent on justify making the call, obv you'll lose sometimes but that doesn't necessarily make folding correct. I suppose the more accurate your ranges are the higher your W$SD will be.

NickyOD wrote: »

My VPIP is 25/15 over about 80K hands mostly (1-2 but about 15K of them are 2-4) which is NOT passive. I don't understand why people think you should be aiming for 25/20. If you are playing on very loose limp-happy tables then you should probably be raising/re-raising less in position, not more.

I wouldn't describe 25/15 as passive but I wouldn't call it optimal either.

I linked this already but it's a good post so I'll link it again:

Isolate against the fish very frequently

phantom_lord · 25-10-2007 1:27am

NickyOD wrote: »

Mine used to be at around 52% and I found I was paying off too much on the river or firing too many river bluffs. Once I got a handle on that the number went up. It's 58% over my last 20K hands. How can 60% mean you fold too much if you're still calling river bets with the worst hand?

My VPIP is 25/15 over about 80K hands mostly (1-2 but about 15K of them are 2-4) which is NOT passive. I don't understand why people think you should be aiming for 25/20. If you are playing on very loose limp-happy tables then you should probably be raising/re-raising less in position, not more.

I'm playing around 23/20 atm and it feels like i'm playing my best poker ever and i totally disagree with your last sentence, I raise in spots were i used to limp behind others, and it's like free money! They fold lots and i pick it up pf, or they c/f the flop.

NickyOD · 25-10-2007 12:57pm

RedJoker wrote: »

60% W$SD is very high imo. Somewhere between 48 and 52 is normal, anything outside 45-55 is usually too tight or too loose.

It can be correct to call river bets with the worst hands if the odds you're getting and the range you put your opponent on justify making the call, obv you'll lose sometimes but that doesn't necessarily make folding correct. I suppose the more accurate your ranges are the higher your W$SD will be.

I wouldn't describe 25/15 as passive but I wouldn't call it optimal either.

I linked this already but it's a good post so I'll link it again:

Isolate against the fish very frequently

Perhaps it's more to do with my table selection but it's a long time since I played on tables that easy. There are very few tables at 1-2 currently where you can just raise in position after limpers with 9T+ and automatically show a profit for reasons that were mentioned by posters in the thread you linked.

"'1) Isolate against the fish VERY FREQUENTLY

I see this mistake made very often. A donkey, lets say VPIP over 50 limps.'

Phrases like 'fish' and 'donkey' aren't very helpful.
If you are using 'fish' to mean 'a loose player who is also weak/rather passive' then your advice is fine.

But if you just mean 'someone who sees more than 50% of flops' it depends on how aggresive he is post-flop. If he is hyper aggressive and will bet the pot at you hit or miss, there is no reason to ramp it up pre-flop without a real premium hand - you just settle down into bear hunt mode, see cheap flops and take the money off him when you hit. Similarly is he is a sponge (calls CB's on flop and turn and then bets out big on river) or even just a straight calling station you don't want to be firing CB's at him if you miss as you've no fold equity.. "

This is a problem I came across a lot in middle stakes Limit holdem. They say any hand you play in limit is worth raising with. So lets say there is a limper and I raise in the CO with QTs. Problem is the blinds are probably coming with me and will sometimes 3 or 4 bet it and the guy who limped, limped with a better hand so I've inflated the pot gotten at least 2 callers and probably have the 3rd best hand.

This scenario repeats itself a lot in the 1-2 and 2-4 no limit cames I'm playing currently. I always play the tables with the highest average pot where there are usually 2 and sometimes 3 or 4 players playing with a VPIP of 40+ and at least one playing 70+.

So when you say you should raise frequently in position to punish limpers I think you should be limiting the range to nothing worse than AT/KJ unless you're playing against very very passive opponents.

RedJoker · 25-10-2007 1:48pm

NickyOD wrote: »

Perhaps it's more to do with my table selection but it's a long time since I played on tables that easy. There are very few tables at 1-2 currently where you can just raise in position after limpers with 9T+ and automatically show a profit for reasons that were mentioned by posters in the thread you linked.

"'1) Isolate against the fish VERY FREQUENTLY

I see this mistake made very often. A donkey, lets say VPIP over 50 limps.'

Phrases like 'fish' and 'donkey' aren't very helpful.
If you are using 'fish' to mean 'a loose player who is also weak/rather passive' then your advice is fine.

But if you just mean 'someone who sees more than 50% of flops' it depends on how aggresive he is post-flop. If he is hyper aggressive and will bet the pot at you hit or miss, there is no reason to ramp it up pre-flop without a real premium hand - you just settle down into bear hunt mode, see cheap flops and take the money off him when you hit. Similarly is he is a sponge (calls CB's on flop and turn and then bets out big on river) or even just a straight calling station you don't want to be firing CB's at him if you miss as you've no fold equity.. "

This is a problem I came across a lot in middle stakes Limit holdem. They say any hand you play in limit is worth raising with. So lets say there is a limper and I raise in the CO with QTs. Problem is the blinds are probably coming with me and will sometimes 3 or 4 bet it and the guy who limped, limped with a better hand so I've inflated the pot gotten at least 2 callers and probably have the 3rd best hand.

This scenario repeats itself a lot in the 1-2 and 2-4 no limit cames I'm playing currently. I always play the tables with the highest average pot where there are usually 2 and sometimes 3 or 4 players playing with a VPIP of 40+ and at least one playing 70+.

So when you say you should raise frequently in position to punish limpers I think you should be limiting the range to nothing worse than AT/KJ unless you're playing against very very passive opponents.

I think it must be a game selection thing so. The tables I look for will have at least one mega passive fish on it or else 2 fairly passive fish. I'm not looking for tables with hyper aggressive players on it unless they are very bad and I have good notes on them. I guess the difference in the stakes we play is what is giving us different perceptions, the players you play against will generally be far more aggressive anyway.

Because I don't look at table VPIP or avg pot size, the tables I play on will often be relatively tight except for one or two weak spots. It's these weak spots I'm looking to isolate, and I'll do it with a wide range. If the whole table is full of hyper aggressive or extremely loose players then I can see why limping behind could be a better play.

Macspower · 25-10-2007 5:16pm

the VPIP/PFR debate is all relative... today I've had another winning session thankfully but overall my VPIP/PFR of 24/17 today does not reflect the way the play was going...

on one table I was the table captain at 27/23 and was chewing the place up vs a lot of weak passives....

On another table I was swimming in fish. there were 2 70%+ players that played every hand regardless... When I raise I like to have some FE and not 0% there guys called every raise and most c-bets.. and called down with any pair.... onyl way to play these guys is with cards... So I think a better approach is have position on them and play as many pots with them as possible and when you hit a hand these guys will pay you.... c-betting is effectively bluffing and these guys are unbluffable.... My stats on this table was 22/11 and I managed to leave with 300bb's by seeing and hitting flops...

dunno what the opinions on this are but I find it's all relative to table... you cant say with certainty that 24/20 is good all the time... it may be good most of the time but you do need to adapt to your table

zuutroy · 25-10-2007 5:58pm

I agree Mac, I just moved to iPoker from Pokerstars yesterday and to be honest the $25nl is a joke compared to pokerstars. I dipped into $50nl for a while and it still seemed worse than PS $25nl. The only way to play against these fish and lags is to wait to get paid off on a made hand. IMO blind stealing goes out the window, as does c-betting a whiffed flop without extreme caution. Also, what is with every table having 2 or 3 people with 20bb stacks?

Macspower · 26-10-2007 3:47am

I know it's only a small sample over the last few days 4 tabling at50/1 but am I heading back in the right direction?

feels like it to me but do my stats reflect it? I've been trying to impliment the advice given above

Mac

RedJoker · 26-10-2007 10:39am

Show off

.

They're def heading in the right direction. Your VPIP to PFR ratio is going up, your att. to steal blinds is looking very healthy now. Can only see your flop AF but it's heading in the right direction, still a bit low.

You're still fairly loose OOP though, maybe you do a lot of 3betting against steals or it's mostly min raises. It's usually not profitable to be playing marginal hands OOP.

Could you post a screenshot of your position tab over the last few thousand hands?

Any Advice on the Worst Run in a while? tonights stats added...

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