50k hands..........5-10 6max

[Victor]

if anyone is interested here are my stats.

a few notes:

i had 2 100bb downswings. i am not sure what my best run was but i think it was around 180 bb.

my vpip was 19 for about 30k hands and i have since loosened up quite a bit (thanks nate). my winrate responded positively to the increased looseness.
http://i3.photobucket.com/albums/y58/cvnpoka/vicstats4.jpg

http://i3.photobucket.com/albums/y58/cvnpoka/stats1.bmp

http://i3.photobucket.com/albums/y58/cvnpoka/vicstats2.jpg

[Victor]

http://i3.photobucket.com/albums/y58/cvnpoka/vicstats3.jpg

[MAxx]

that's pretty impressive in my book, V.

i dont really have any suggestions, but a few things that are kind of interesting to me:

1) your BB defense looks weak to this untrained eye.... maybe Rory is on to something- Care to provide your positional stats... particularly the BB

2) While your pfr is pretty healthily high (but not unusually so), your attempts to steal blinds is not as high as I would expect with this high a pfr.

3)Post flop you are very aggressive... normally when i look at total agression i dont include PF... so when you take that out you will be even higher... and it appears to be working well for you.

4)Please stay off my table /images/graemlins/grin.gif

[Victor]

http://i3.photobucket.com/albums/y58/cvnpoka/vicstats5.jpg

[billyjex]

i'm jealous.

how many tables do you play at once?

[B Mando]

[ QUOTE ]
i'm jealous.


[/ QUOTE ]

[raccon]

[ QUOTE ]
i'm jealous.

[/ QUOTE ]

[Victor]

[ QUOTE ]
how many tables do you play at once?

[/ QUOTE ]

4

[wowacedude]

[ QUOTE ]
i'm jealous.

[/ QUOTE ]

[Victor]

[ QUOTE ]
1) your BB defense looks weak to this untrained eye.... maybe Rory is on to something

[/ QUOTE ]

i definitely subscribe to the rory/tommy angelo philosophy in the blinds. after looking at others stats i seem to lose less in the blinds than others and i think tightness contributes to this.

[ QUOTE ]
your attempts to steal blinds is not as high as I would expect with this high a pfr.


[/ QUOTE ]

i am going to steal much more liberally from now on.

[ QUOTE ]
Post flop you are very aggressive

[/ QUOTE ]

the 5-10 is so passive that i am often checked to after raising preflop. i autobet this against 2 opps and often continue on the turn if i have any showdown value, or draw, or folding possibility.

[Erik W]

Quote:
i'm jealous.

[Zygote]

care to share your blind defense strategy? i want my bb and sb win rates to look so good!

[bobbyi]

[ QUOTE ]
[ QUOTE ]
1) your BB defense looks weak to this untrained eye.... maybe Rory is on to something

[/ QUOTE ]

i definitely subscribe to the rory/tommy angelo philosophy in the blinds.

[/ QUOTE ]
I don't know how rory is, but I understand Tommy's philosopy well (I have been reading twoplustwo for more than five year, so I have read plenty of his posts). It is about position. When someone tries to steal your blind, you often give up becuse if you play, you will be out of position for the rest of the hand. But this does not apply when it is folded to the SB who raises and you are the BB. In that case, you will be one the one with position for the rest of the hand. I don't have my stats, so I don't know how I compare, but folding your BB to steal from the SB (that's what the folded to a steal HU stat means, right?) over 72% of the time seems very high. In that situation, you can call pretty liberally. In fact you should, by the same philosophy Tommy uses, because you get to play the hand heads up with position. Note that if you are folding to a SB steal 72% of the time, it is very profitable for the SB to raise with any two cards (since he is risking $8 to steal $7). That doesn't mean that you are necessarily wrong. If the SB only raises with good hands, then you may be okay to fold this often. But you need to at least realize that your current calling standards are very exploitable by someone who simply raises every time from the SB and that you are playing way too tight against habitual heads up thiefs.

[Victor]

[ QUOTE ]
care to share your blind defense strategy? i want my bb and sb win rates to look so good!

[/ QUOTE ]

i think my rates in the blinds are pretty standard compared to most guys around here.

there are some low rates in this thread (http://forumserver.twoplustwo.com/showflat.php?Cat=&Number=1981584&page=&view=&sb=5& o=&fpart=2&vc=1) . i am not sure what to make of some of the numbers in the thread as intuition tells me that it should take many 100thousand hands to converge for positional stats.

many in that thread claim to be losing little by playing very loose. i try to play tight in the blinds as i hate being out of position with trashy hands.

in the sb i only call raises with hands that i am comfortable coldcalling with in regular position. i do play many pocket pairs from the sb as i have weakness for them (not a good reason and they seem to be -ev.) with 2+ limpers i will limp with anything playable in the sb. if there is a raise and 2 callers i will call with any2suited in the bb. fairly standard stuff.

postflop: if there was a preflop raise and i flop a decent hand i will almost always go for a checkraise. i often do this to a raiser if i flop a low pair on a raggedy board.

often, especially in the passive 5-10 games, someone will limp and will rap my bb and we will be heads up. i bet this flop automatically (unless this has failed against a certain opp many times, e.g., he is a calling station or maniac who raises everything)

anyway, i am not completely confident that i play even decent in the blinds. i certainly do nothing revolutionary although i am a bit tighter than the rest. all i know is that as i loosen up in the blinds my winning sessions seem to decrease. this is true in short, full and live.

i was on a bigtime losing streak about a year ago in live 10-20. i read a few posts by tommy advocating tightness in the blinds and i employed it. losing streak over and i havent looked back.

[Lost Wages]

Your VP$IP UTG is 18.17 (17.47 PFR). What are your standards UTG? My VP$IP UTG is like 12.

Lost Wages

[maxpowers21]

Really good post btw. I do beleive tightness is importnat in the blinds for 5-10 6max, and I agree with, for the vast majority, everything that was mentioned previously on this thread.

But, one must be loose in the BB and 3bet occasionally from the Sb when dealing with aggresive button raisers, and to a lessor extent cutoff raisers, when you know they have high pfr numbers. It's not only important from a +EV standpoint, but you don't want to be constantly playing a guessing game against tricky raising opponets who have position on you, where they know that you will only play back with quality hands. If you can get them to slow down some of their blind stealing it will greatly improve your SB BB EV.

I think that's the most important aspect of blind defence, and most directly related to SB and BB EV; defending when you know your opponent is going to be constantly rasing with weak, marginal hands in position.

[Victor]

the worst hands i open utg with are 10jo,q9s, 22. i have a thing for pocket pairs. for some reason i feel that if played correctly they should always be profitable. i dont think i play them perfectly yet tho.

of course game texture dictates if i go this low. if the table is aggro i throw these out. its usually not tho. if its super loose i throw out 10jo but keep the rest.

[Victor]

[ QUOTE ]
But, one must be loose in the BB and 3bet occasionally from the Sb when dealing with aggresive button raisers, and to a lessor extent cutoff raisers, when you know they have high pfr numbers. It's not only important from a +EV standpoint, but you don't want to be constantly playing a guessing game against tricky raising opponets who have position on you, where they know that you will only play back with quality hands. If you can get them to slow down some of their blind stealing it will greatly improve your SB BB EV.


[/ QUOTE ]

you make good points about playing back at aggro players. the guidelines i use is that when defending from the sb i want hands with showdown value: pairs or aces. i will either 3bet preflop or checkraise the flop with pocket pairs. in the sb i throw away a6 and below usually but the rest i often 3bet.

from the bb i defend more liberally and include any ace, and suited connectors down to 67s. i autocheckraise if i get a piece on non-threatening boards.

[Mr. Graff]

I lose roughly the same as you in the blinds (0.11 and 0.7) but I am much looser there. BB VPIP 24 and SB VPIP 32. Tight is not necessarily right, it's more about adjusting to the players as MaxPowers points out.

[Mr. Graff]

[ QUOTE ]
the worst hands i open utg with are 10jo,q9s, 22.

[/ QUOTE ]
You have green numbers with 22 in the utg?

[MAxx]

[ QUOTE ]
the worst hands i open utg with are 10jo,q9s, 22.

[/ QUOTE ]

open as in open raise? wo.

i dont really understand this. if you are usually playing things utg that I would fold from co... how is your vpip so low? oh yeah you dont play much from the blinds.

so you are raising things such as KT, QT, JT, 22, 33, from UTG and MP a good bit of the time? am I hearing this right?

if you can play these things so well post flop....
and on the other hand you will fold so easily in the blinds...if i am seeing this correctly all i can say is weird... man. not weird in the sense like you are wrong, but weird in the sense that I dont know what to make of it.

[TStoneMBD]

what are your stats on JTo and Q9s UTG? those a pretty marginal hands from those positions, especially JTo. Q9s may show profit for you there, but i would be very surprised if JTo did.

[Victor]

intution tells me that positional winrate is not anywhere near converging after 50k hands. if it takes 50k hands to get a decent idea of overall winrate then it should take like 5*50k to get an idea of a certain positions winrate.

so a lot of arguments and observations for our data is like discussing overall winrate after 8 to 10k hands. it doesnt mean [censored] yet.

also, many of you lose roughly the same in the blinds but play tighter but our much looser. wouldnt this correlate to a higher variance? also, wouldnt it give you more opportunities to make mistakes? by playing more hands you are required to make more correct decisions but there is no significant relative gain above folding. in essence, you are making 4 decisions to break even when you could only make 1.

also, could it hamper decisions on other tables? ultimately, i dont think there is much to gain from defending my bb with 54o or my sb with k8o when i have 3 other tables with larger pots.

[Victor]

im at work right now so i dont have my database. but understand that this is individual hands from an individual position. there is no [censored] way that it has converged yet.

[Victor]

[ QUOTE ]
so you are raising things such as KT, QT, JT, 22, 33, from UTG and MP a good bit of the time? am I hearing this right?


[/ QUOTE ]

yes. qj, q10 and k10 are definitely money winners for me. i dont know if i have numbers to back this up but i feel that they are. i always thought these were standard openers from reading old posts by schneids, gonores, el d etc.

the lower pocket pairs i am not so sure of but it seems to me that if you start with a pair you ought to turn a profit if you play expertly (thats the goal rite).

[ QUOTE ]
if you can play these things so well post flop....
and on the other hand you will fold so easily in the blinds...if i am seeing this correctly all i can say is weird... man. not weird in the sense like you are wrong, but weird in the sense that I dont know what to make of it.

[/ QUOTE ]

ive always tried to model my game after the successful and cool posters here. in the blinds i aim to play like tommy angelo and postflop i strive to play like clark or mikel. from reading their posts and seeing their results, their styles always made the most sense to me.

[MAxx]

word. i hear what you are saying. thanks for your post.... it has been interesting... maybe even a little enlightening.

i think i need to revisit some old posts about openers. i have been treating many of the hands you suggest like the plague and not touching.

if nothing else i see how i could do a style change from a 22/14 style to about a 28/20 or something like that. it appears like an option anyway.

[Jeff W]

[ QUOTE ]
It is about position. When someone tries to steal your blind, you often give up becuse if you play, you will be out of position for the rest of the hand.

[/ QUOTE ]

This argument is true but incomplete. All Hold'Em decisions should be purely about equity.

You will agree that you should play AA in the BB HU against a steal, despite your poor position, because you have excellent equity in the hand. I will agree that you should not play 23o in the BB, because you do not have enough equity. So, the minimum hand you would defend with is in between AA and 23o and it is dependent solely on your equity.

The problem I have with a lot of Tommy Angelo's and Rory's arguments is that they don't approach the decision to call, raise or fold from the big blind from an equity standpoint. They use a dogmatic argument that we should be folding our blinds a lot because we're out of position, when that is only one factor among many.

[ QUOTE ]
I don't have my stats, so I don't know how I compare, but folding your BB to steal from the SB (that's what the folded to a steal HU stat means, right?) over 72% of the time seems very high.

[/ QUOTE ]

The FBBHU stat includes all steals where it is folded around to you in the BB, not just hands where the SB attempted a HU steal.

[Mr. Graff]

[ QUOTE ]
the lower pocket pairs i am not so sure of but it seems to me that if you start with a pair you ought to turn a profit if you play expertly (thats the goal rite).

[/ QUOTE ]
Hands like 22 and 33 are nightmares to play post flop, especially if you get more than one caller.

[cartman]

I assumed "folded BB to a steal HU" meant that no other player before you called the steal raise, then you fold also. For instance, my "chances to fold BB to a steal HU" is 759 total occurences and my "chances to fold BB to a steal" is 1,157 total occurences (which I think includes the 759). That would mean that 65.6% of the time a steal was attempted, nobody else had called the raiser by the time the action got to me in the BB. This may not be correct, it is just my understanding of it.

Cartman

(EDIT: Oops. Jeff already cleared this up.)

[mike l.]

thanks for that. folding sb to a steal is clearly a problem for me, my number is way too low on that.

[TStoneMBD]

i think that your AA example is a bad one, because i think that these theories revolve around playing dominating hands out of position against raisers, but not playing hands that are dominated. obviously this is theoretically correct if you do not calculate equity with money already invested into the pot. TA and rory would probably argue that hands like 85s have reverse implied odds, even though you are getting correct pot odds to make a preflop call. players like peter_rus would say that a good player should be getting implied odds with hands like 85s, because he is a better postflop player than the preflop raiser, even without position. i tend to side with peter_rus moreso than i side with rory or TA. ive grown to liberally defend my blinds.

also victor, i like your thoughts on small pocket pairs. i agree with you that small pairs should show profit from early positions, but they are very difficult to play. an expert player should be able to show profit with them, and since you are trying to ascertain that level, i respect that you are attempting to play these hands. i too have been adding more and more small pairs to my pf openers, like playing 66 UTG in a soft 10handed game.

it seems couterintuitive that you are interested in playing small pairs out of position, but are not interested in defending your blinds more. both situations should technically show reverse implied odds for an average player, but since you are striving to show profit with small pairs, you should also be striving to show profit by defending your blinds more often.

[Victor]

[ QUOTE ]
it seems couterintuitive that you are interested in playing small pairs out of position, but are not interested in defending your blinds more. both situations should technically show reverse implied odds for an average player, but since you are striving to show profit with small pairs, you should also be striving to show profit by defending your blinds more often.

[/ QUOTE ]

i almost always defend with small pocket pairs. only sometimes do i fold my sb to a raise with 22 or 33.

[Victor]

[ QUOTE ]
folding sb to a steal is clearly a problem for me, my number is way too low on that.




[/ QUOTE ]

the guideline i use, and i think it is recommended in book somewhere, is to call raises in the sb only with hands that you are comfortable coldcalling with. of course, in shorthanded and especially against loose raisers (or obvious steals) you can afford to be little more loose. you still want to avoid dominated hands tho.

[TStoneMBD]

thats not what i meant. i was comparing open raising with 22 to defending with A5.

[MAxx]

[ QUOTE ]
[ QUOTE ]
it seems couterintuitive that you are interested in playing small pairs out of position, but are not interested in defending your blinds more. both situations should technically show reverse implied odds for an average player, but since you are striving to show profit with small pairs, you should also be striving to show profit by defending your blinds more often.

[/ QUOTE ]

i almost always defend with small pocket pairs. only sometimes do i fold my sb to a raise with 22 or 33.

[/ QUOTE ]

That doesnt sound quite as wild as the possibility that Victor is raising JTo from UTG but folding it in the BB to a steal raise.

[tolbiny]

"if nothing else i see how i could do a style change from a 22/14 style to about a 28/20 or something like that. it appears like an option anyway."

then this should blow you away- Vic has a 22% vpip, and a16 pfr- or something like that.

[tolbiny]

[ QUOTE ]
thats not what i meant. i was comparing open raising with 22 to defending with A5.

[/ QUOTE ]


Part of Victor's play that i greatly admire is his ability to understand the showdown value of hands very well. He realizes that A5 is a tiny in sd value to the aces smaller than it, and a BIG looser to bigger Aces. small PP's have great showdown value compared to a hand like A5.

[Victor]

[ QUOTE ]
i almost always defend with small pocket pairs. only sometimes do i fold my sb to a raise with 22 or 33.


--------------------------------------------------------------------------------



That doesnt sound quite as wild as the possibility that Victor is raising JTo from UTG but folding it in the BB to a steal raise.

[/ QUOTE ]

i call with j10o in the bb to a steal raise. i just fold it if utg or utg+1 raises. i loosen up if the button or cutoff raises

[tolbiny]

"Hands like 22 and 33 are nightmares to play post flop, especially if you get more than one caller."

They can be nightmares.. but not always- I think what is happening is that Vic is openraising with those hands, getting one or two blinds who over defend, and then taking down 3 BB pots with one sb bets on the flop. These are also hands that will hit big hands (sets) with some frequency so someone trying to push him around will often run into some of those perverbial monsters.

[bobbyi]

[ QUOTE ]
the guideline i use, and i think it is recommended in book somewhere, is to call raises in the sb only with hands that you are comfortable coldcalling with.

[/ QUOTE ]
That is the "Ciaffone rule". (It is intended for 1/2 blinds, so you might even be a little tighter here with 2/5 blinds, but the difference between the two structures is pretty slight).

[MAxx]

[ QUOTE ]
"if nothing else i see how i could do a style change from a 22/14 style to about a 28/20 or something like that. it appears like an option anyway."

then this should blow you away- Vic has a 22% vpip, and a16 pfr- or something like that.

[/ QUOTE ]

i am quite aware...... i was just saying if i added some of his marginal, aka reverse implied odds hands, aka dominated hands to my openers line up from ep/mp.... i would bump my preflop vpip/pfr quite a bit. This is so blatanly obvious.... but what is interesting is that it could be profitable as opposed to how I would have previously assessed as a probable leak.

However this would assume that I could play as skillfully postflop as victor...... which is not something I am in a position to assume.

[tolbiny]

I wonder if there is also a question of raising to much and losing respect. Vic's total pfr% is low enough that people will still get out of his way, but it may be the case that if he (or you) were to add hands then he would be in too many situations where postflop play was very difficult, and not enough of the heads up against loose blinds situations.

[MAxx]

thats a good question... maybe good poll question (if there ever was such a thing).

it maybe intesting to see how V does when he attempts to bump his steal raise attempts up.... if he does.

[TStoneMBD]

[ QUOTE ]
[ QUOTE ]
thats not what i meant. i was comparing open raising with 22 to defending with A5.

[/ QUOTE ]


Part of Victor's play that i greatly admire is his ability to understand the showdown value of hands very well. He realizes that A5 is a tiny in sd value to the aces smaller than it, and a BIG looser to bigger Aces. small PP's have great showdown value compared to a hand like A5.

[/ QUOTE ]

this is just common sense. to admire somebody because he understands something so obvious is retarded.

[Siingo]

Now, when I look at your stats then I understand why everyone calld me a [censored] fish !!!

I played 5/10 6-max for my first time today. Usually I play 5/10 10 handed. But it was time to try 6-max. I am slightly loose at 10 handed tables becaus I often steel and defend my blinds. But this I compensate with preaty good postflop play..

But now at 6-max there was so many opertunitys to steel ( I even tried from UTG+1 since it was not that many that had to fold and if I miss then I love heads up ). But they did not fold that often ( almost never woorked becaus everyone defend like XXXX against me /images/graemlins/smile.gif ). The result was that my VPIP freeked out!

Here is my stats: 5/10 6-max

Total hands: 2600 (exactly)
VPIP: 42,92
VPIP from SB: 57,48
Folded SB to steel: 65,43
Folded BB to steel: 9,71
Att. to steel blinds: 36,04
Won $ WSF: 39,15
Ammoun won: $1266
BB/100: 4,87
Went to SD: 41,11
Won $ At SD: 51,43
PF raise: 19,73
Total rake: 775,50

To bad I probably can not keep up that winrate /images/graemlins/smile.gif
(Do I need to have a homepage to post a picture here or is there a way to go around that? I had a screenshot but did not know how to post it.)

First everyone loved me becaus I was such a fish. Then when they noticed that I did not suck totally postflop ( Lag is not always the same as bad pokerplayer ) and not lost alot of money, then they wrote "fu" and left...

And I had a sweet run of cards sometime too /images/graemlins/smirk.gif...

Guess it is time to tighten up so the other player can like me too and get rid of the enormus variance if I shall paly 6-max more. It was like a rollercoster /images/graemlins/smile.gif. And I absolutly think I will play 6-max more!

[tolbiny]

you didn't seem to get it.

[Michael Davis]

VPIP: 42,92
BB/100: 4,87

Keep insulting excel all you lemming tools.

-Michael

[TStoneMBD]

ok i understand what you mean. youre saying that A5 doesnt beat A2 often enough because of overcards. i still dont understand how this is really relevant. also, when i picked out "A5" as a hand to defend with, i was just picking a random hand out of the blue. obviously there are times to defend with A5 and times to fold it.

[tolbiny]

" obviously there are times to defend with A5 and times to fold it."

this is true, what vic is good at is knowing what situation is which- sorry if i didn't make that clear.

[TStoneMBD]

im not so sure if i agree. victor should definitely be able to play more hands out of the blinds for profit. if that is true then his problem lies within the fact that he cannot judge what is profitable from the blinds, which would indicate that you are wrong.

[Victor]

[ QUOTE ]
victor should definitely be able to play more hands out of the blinds for profit

[/ QUOTE ]


what should my bb/100 be from the blind?

[TStoneMBD]

i dont think that there is any particular number you should reach, and say that youve mastered BB defense. -.17 is a bit high. ive seen some players show -.10. even still, there is always room for improvement.

in general, i think that as your postflop play progresses, you should be looking to add more hands to what you will defend with. you should gradually show profit with more and more hands. i think that settling into a really tight blind defense strategy limits you to potential earn in the future. granted, you may think that you have an optimal approach your blind defense strategy, which may be correct for your level right now, but just understand that it you will have eventually loosen up more and more as you progress in order to maximize profit.

[mike l.]

"That is the "Ciaffone rule"."

in other words it's flawed bad advice.

i dont cold call ever. ed miller told me not to and he was right.

anyway no. ive noticed something players doing really well online 6 max are doing that im not and that's folding their sb to a raise like constantly. im constantly 3 betting their asses with stuff like A7o and so on and so forth and it seems like i lose every time when i do. theyre never raising that light, and when they are they refuse to fold and oftentimes pair up or make something big before the river.

[Michael Davis]

A7 (http://archiveserver.twoplustwo.com/showthreaded.php?Cat=&Number=1006703&page=&view=&s b=5&o=&vc=1)

[tolbiny]

I am not sure if i agree with you- Victor is claiming a bb lost in the BB right around the same as a large portion of the posters here, but doing it playing fewer hands. What this tells me is that a good percentage of the hands that people are adding over what victor plays are -ev (or he is sig better than them postflop). He also appears to have the lowest numbers out of the sb that have been posted (just going by the recent "what is your performance out of the BB thread). I am not suggesting that vic is playing flawlessly (despite all of the forum dicksucking i have been doing in this thread), but he seems to be handling the blind situations aswell or better than most.

[ravballz]

hmm, 98.59 VPIP with AA /images/graemlins/blush.gif what did you put him on? A-wild? /images/graemlins/laugh.gif