Playing any two - PokerTracker stats

[DaffyDuck]

I have been pondering Gus Hansen's style of play for a while, and how he plays a lot of hands and seems to "manufacture" hands that win big pots.

I have been using Poker Tracker for a while and trying to figure out how to learn from the stats it provides. I have a limited number (70ish) of real-money Pokerstars sngs and a couple of multis entered in the database so this may be statiscally meaningless, I don't know, but I think this cannot be ignored:

About 2000 hands played in tournaments, multis and sit-n-gos, on tables with between 8 and 9 players. This obviously ignores short-handed situations that could skew the numbers. I know 2000 hands is not a lot statistically, but these numbers tell me something.

My most profitable position at the table is the BB, by orders of magnitude almost. I have a profit, AFTER posting the blind, of 104k in tournament chips. This is profit on top of posting 40K in big blinds for a ROI of like 250%. My next most profitable position is the button with a profit of 20k. My SB is 5th most profitable with about $7k after posting 21k in SBs for an ROI of about 33%.

Appropriately, I won the smallest percentage of hands when I saw the flop from the blinds than from any other position, but not by a lot. I won 50-60% of hands when I saw the flop from other positions and only about 34% from the SB/BB. However, I won almost 20% of BB and 12% of SB hands dealt to me vs.6-9% won of total hands dealt to me in other positions.

Now mind you, these are statistics of profitable tournaments. VERY profitable in the case of one $20 buy-in multi I won for $3200 on Pokerstars. But even aside from that, they represent a profit of a few hundred bucks on about 70 $10 real-money sit-n-gos and multis for an ROI over 50%.

So, what can I derive from this? Since the BB is fundamentally any 2 cards, it seems playing any 2 cards has been immensely more profitable to me than playing "real hands" from other positions.

This implies that limping every time I don't have a raising hand would be profitable. Sure there are factors such as position that come into play. There are factors like people will often fold to a BB raise on a rags flop because they believe you check-limped in with rags and hit that flop. And $10 multis are full of "bad" players (but doesn't that actually bolster the argument of this being effective against the "new" style of player the name pros are complaining about?).

I need to really digest this data. I believe it reflects good post-flop skills and I guess this has to be the key to being able to play a lot of hands and playing them profitably.

Since I just check-limped when I had crap, these numbers don't even reflect Gus' style of raising with crap and winning pots because he was preflop agressor.

It certainly seems to demonstrate that proper play of any 2 can be profitable.

I'd like to hear about other players PokerTracker statistics for their blinds. Are my numbers typical? I'm VERY curious at this point.

Bob

[Lori]

I don't use PT for tourneys, but it strikes me that because you are running very well in the blinds you are running very well in the tourneys.

Just a thought.

Lori

[Eder]

I use pokerstat,but a few weeks ago I noticed my SB play was the big loser for me...+EV on all other positions,although I dont strongly defend my BB's....since I noticed this leak I either fold my SB or raise and results have improved...
I play fine post flop,but I usually have a hand when I get there...I hope people start trying to emulate Gus...will be like playing heads up with some of the maniacs in the 10$ SnG's and easy to beat.....jmo

[tallstack]

In my pokertracker stats (401 SNGs, 20,000 hands), the BB is my worst position with an average loss of about .06 big bets. My next worst position is the SB with an average loss of .03 big bets (it's funny that the SB is half as bad as the BB). All other positions are positive. In big bets per hand, 6 and 7 from the button are the highest, but they represent a small number of actual hands played. In terms of chips won, the button is the highest, followed by the cutoff.

I am wondering if your MTT stats may be skewing your data. For example, you make it far into a MTT and win a few big pots from the BB (say you win t150000 in chips over a few BBs). Now you lose t50000 from the BB in the other 70 SNGs and over all it looks great. Maybe try and filter out the MTT results (particularly the one you won since the blinds must have been huge at the end) and see how you are doing then.

As far as the "any 2 will do", I am assuming that you are joking here. I am not saying that you don't have good post-flop skills, but realistically you would still have the button and CO as the best, since you would have position on everyone working in tandem with your skills.

Dave S

[DaffyDuck]

I removed the multis from the stats and now I have like 1400 hands and the stats still indicate a 200+% roi in the BB after posting and it is still by far my highest win position. My SB is now a very small loser, but I suspect that is because in SNGs I don't complete much.

So, maybe my stats are an anamloy. Maybe Lori is right and I have been lucky in the blinds. Maybe I'm a friggin genius post-flop, I dunno. I guess I'll just continue to keep an eye on this.

I'm still interested in how Hansen wins with his style, and how playing any two at the right times can be profitable. And by the right times I don't mean stealin from the cutoff with AT. I mean raising from UTG with 27o and making a profit.

[golden goose]

One thought--Playing live is much different than playing online..obviously. The biggest difference being the amount of information you have available to you. If you have good skills at reading people it can allow you to play many more types of hands in a live game.

Online one doesnt have that luxury and a more straight forward play is usually best. I doubt even gus hansan could consistently make a profit playing "any two" in an online setting.....well maybe /images/graemlins/smirk.gif

[CrisBrown]

Hi Daffy,

Your win/loss out of the BB really doesn't represent your ability to play any two cards profitably, for several reasons:

1) If you're on two raggy cards, you're not going to play in a raised pot. So if you're on two raggy cards and in the pot, you're usually up against other weak hands.

2) If you're in a raised pot, and if you play the gap concept correctly, you're on a stronger than average hand, because you need a stronger than average hand to call a pre-flop raise, especially when you'll be out of position.

3) You haven't declared anything to be in an unraised pot. You're last to act pre-flop (if there's no raise), so you don't have to worry about someone behind you raising or re-raising you off your hand. That's quite different from limping or opening a pot with a raggy hand.

In short, unless you're playing at very aggressive tables where there is a lot of pre-flop raising, you ought to be showing a profit from the BB. You're seeing a lot of free flops that you couldn't risk seeing otherwise, and some of those are going to hit for a profit. Those that miss, you fold without any additional loss.

Cris