Stats 101

[Swax]

Hello all...first post, looking forward to joining some good convos.

Anyway, I've been playing on line for about 7 months now I think, mostly .5/1 and 1/2, and I generally make money, etc. etc...but I have never done anything to track hands. I've looked at some people's stats postings on here, and I have no idea what most of the stuff means, to be honest. and I haven't seen a post that explains them. So I guess I have 3 questions:

1) Is there a post on here that explains all of the statistical acronyms and their importance?

2) Do any of the online sites have this kind of statistical analysis built in, or do you need some sort of seperate app (I believe I've heard Pokertracker or something)?

3) Does it matter what site you play on for this purpose or do the stats programs work with any of them? I usually play on Pacific, but it seems that the general feeling is that their software sucks.

Anyway, if there is a thread that will tell me all of this, if someone could direct me to it that'd be great (and sorry for the spurious post). Look forward to better discussion and posting some hands.

[davelin]

Try www.pokertracker.com (http://www.pokertracker.com) for most of your questions.

[jay1313]

There have been a lot of great posts and I am sure someone will stick a link for you. As far as keeping track of the stats, you are better served doing it yourself or buying pokertracker for about $55 which is far and away the best data gathering tool and provides some very useful analysis features.

Check the Books and Software section of this forum as well.

[droolie]

Welcome to the forum.

Most of the stats discussions revolve around data collected by pokertracker. Go to pokertracker.com and download their free trial. You will quickly understand what everybody is talking about. The best way to know what numbers to shoot for is to read any of the numerous thread on stat posts, they shouldn't be hard to find by using the search function. Also run searches on poketracker topics as well.

[Swax]

Wow you guys are quick - thanks! My momma always told me to listen to the guy with the morphing Fred Savage, so I looked at it.

So this means that I can't use Pacfic anymore. That's fine...but does anyone have another site that they recommend? I really don't dig Party much.

[droolie]

Party or one of the many "party skins". It has the best (ie worst) competition on the net and has the best data collection method available.

It's not even close.

That being said the lowest limit they have is .50/1 and you will need to start at a lower limit or else risk losing lots of money in the learning process. I recommend pokerstars as a good beginning point. Start at .5/.10 and work your way up every time you get 300BB's for the next level. By the time you've earned $300 you'll be more than ready to beat party. All of the party skins (and many other sites) offer great signup bonuses so make sure you go to bonuswhores.com forums and fully research this and develop a gameplan.

[Swax]

oh I think I have the skills already - I've been playing longer live than I have online. I play casino 3/6 and live 2/4 a decent amount and do quite well at both (although with hand speed your bankroll can fluctuate quicker with online .5/1 than casino 3/6!).

I've already played Party, UB and Full Tilt and used their bonuses but didn't really hang around much. just played around with some PL and NL (which I am still VERY new to) for fun.

I did try the .50/$1 tables at Party, and maybe it's me, but I actually found them to be TOO fishy. I know this is probably blasphemous to a business-oriented player, but at the same time, I don't see how you improve much by playing people who play awfully on all streets. tables with one or two fish are great...tables with 8 are just frustrating, in my experience, even if you do end up cleaning up in the long run. That's why I like Pacific - there's definitely morons on there, but there's also occasionally a decent player at .5/1, maybe cause it's not the lowest limit. so there's five guys to pay you off, and two guys that are actually a challenge. that's ideal to me. I've never played at stars though - always heard it's the toughest of the onlines. maybe I'll try that next!

but anyway, I'm going way off topic now - sorry. so all of these sites work equally as well with the tracking software? oh, and my comp is relatively dated with a tiny little 5 GB HD - does this data take up a whopping amount of space?

[droolie]

You're playing for the challenge of it? That's unusual. Most of us play for money and will play the highest limit/ most tables that mathematically yields the highest $$$ per hour. The fishier the better at every level. I have yet to find a table too fishy.

Given your experience level you must know the game well enough to quickly plow through the party ranks if you so chose so you can probably skip pokerstars.

The data doesn't take up much hard drive space but the software is very RAM intensive. It might cause you're computer to crash if it is on the slow side. You might want to consider upgrading your processor, memory and hardrive.

[davelin]

Playing these types of tables presents it's own challenges that a good player can definitely exploit to his/her advantage. And if rumors be true, a lot of these B&M games are "fishier" than even the .50/1 PP games.

[Swax]

I'm not necessarily playing for the challenge, but at these limits I'm playing to get better more than I am for a stringent win rate. I mean, of course I'm also going to go to a table that I can win on, but I'd rather learn from facing a decent player or two with a slower win rate than milking some game with 9 people seeing a flop because they play any suited cards. This certainly will not be the case when I move up to, say, 5/10 or something. At those levels, yeah, I'll be much more concerned with winning as much as possible. what I'm trying to avoid is the typical thrashing one receives when they first start to play at tables that actually have decent players. I dunno, maybe it's just me, but I tend to learn better with the "throw me right into the MF'ing fire" approach.

davelin what is a "B&M" game? I gotta get hip to this jargon lol...

In any case, thanks guys for the help, and I'll hopefully have some results to report soon enough! I'll also probably have some questions for you on this software, so stay tuned if you wish!

[davelin]

B&M - brick and mortar i.e. your typical card room

[Swax]

oh, well then, yes, you are certainly correct. I was AMAZED the first time I played 3/6 in Vegas. I figured it was Vegas, you know, so even the low stakes players would be sharks. and boy was I wrong. people were turning up middle pair no kicker hands regularly! I was the only person to even try a c/r in like two and a half hours! granted, this was at Circus Circus, which is hardly the Bellagio, but still.

Even worse, I played at the Hollywood Park casino in Inglewood...oh man alive. I swear three old people at my table honestly didn't know what game they were playing. they'd just keep calling and like match up their hand with the board to see if they have anything - like they were playing slots or something!

[droolie]

You don't want to stay at the low levels too long just enough to win your BR to the next level. The reason why we recommend playing through every level is that each game takes different strategies to win at. Beating .50/1 is easier in some ways than beating the higher levels but it definitlely provides it's own set of challenges.


Each type of player takes a different type of stategy to beat as well. No matter what level you play at you will find tough players and bad players. You will find tough tables and bad tables. Sometimes a bad table will suddenly lose its fish and be full of tough players. This happens at party .50/1 all the time when you play the highest average pot tables. They get high averages by bad players spewing chips but then the sharks jump on the waiting list likes moths to a light in the dark. Before you know it the fish bust out and you're sitting in a rock garden. You might well find a very juicy table at 5/10 and you will thank yourself for being able to successfully fish with the best of them.

Think of playing at the lower levels as building a foundation to a skyscraper. The higher you go the more thankful you'll be that you spent extra time on the ground floor.

[Swax]

Yeah that makes sense, and I'm sure as a veteran poster your advice is far superior to my instincts - I guess it just feels like SUCH a step backwards for me in all facets since my live games are $2/$4 as far as stakes, and most of the people that I play with are at least competent. I don't even think that I'm necessarily a "good" player per se, but some of the stuff I see on these micro limit sites just seems like borderline retardation, man! haha - and it has this whole "back to the minors" aura about it. Plus, in my live game I will NEVER have to fear losing with AA to a guy with 96o that cold called 2 bets to play it as I did last night. so part of me thinks "how am I ever going to learn anything playing against these people"?

so I'll start relatively small. What do you think is a decent size bankroll for .5/$1? is $100 OK or not enough?

[droolie]

300BB is the standard recommendation. So I would say $300. The last piece of advice I think will help is to buy SSH if you haven't already. It is the bible for micros and small stakes alike. Think of it as building your house with bricks instead of straw.

[Swax]

Already read and re-skimmed both WLLH and SSH, so your shameless plug has no effect on me!!

hahaha...seriously though, it's definitely a very helpful book, no doubt.

Thanks for all the advice - I feel like Paul Pfieffer with all this goodwill from ya! Hopefully I'll have some results for you guys soon (although I guess I gotta transfer my bankroll out of Pacific - how is Paradise?).

Later my man...