I've said it once before but it bears repeating.

[Entity]

Two screenshots. Two periods of play from my poker playing past. Can you help me fix my leaks?

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Details tab:

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[GrunchCan]

When in your past? Were you a postflop n00b?

[Entity]

[ QUOTE ]
When in your past? Were you a postflop n00b?

[/ QUOTE ]

One sample is from a few months ago. The other sample is from the past few months.

I'd like people to tell me, if they can:

1) Which player they think is better.
2) Which player is making more money.
3) If one player has a leak they can see, what that player can do to fix it.

Rob

[bottomset]

very nice way of saying don't post stat posts

I agree

you can basically make educatated guess's from the stats but thats about it

here's a q

why did you play 32k at .5/1?

[Entity]

[ QUOTE ]
very nice way of saying don't post stat posts

I agree

you can basically make educatated guess's from the stats but thats about it

here's a q

why did you play 32k at .5/1?

[/ QUOTE ]

I like to have something to do when I'm designing web pages.

[Sasnak]

Where's the stat in PT for folding a set to a raise with a 3 flush on the board? I can't find it and yes I was a F-Tard! /images/graemlins/laugh.gif

[benkath1]

[ QUOTE ]
you can basically make educatated guess's from the stats but thats about it

[/ QUOTE ]

Would it be better to ask about a single stat than post all of them?

For instance, my w$sd is dropping, but my bb/100 is staying the same. What in the world does that mean?

[SlantNGo]

I'd like to say you're calling down too often in #2 but you're winning 53% at showdown so those seem legit. And you're raising more in #2 as well so it's not passitivity... I think #2 is the better player.

[DMBFan23]

Entity,

I vote for your first sample. your first sample has you seeing more flops and winning more when you see the flop. you're more aggressive postflop too. also, the data is over a larger sample, so we can trust it more too.

[Saint_D]

(posting in the dark)

Ok, I am looking at these two guys and I have some thoughts.

1. You should have posted under an alias. We all know it's entity and we fear you. /images/graemlins/smile.gif

2. These stats are IDENTICAL. Given the number of hands played and the sample sizes, you could have been playing the exact same style in both cases.

3. I wish my stats looked even this good.

4. I am unable to offer any ideas on possible leaks. This player is more skilled than me. I can't help others with leaks I haven't found in myself for the most part.

-D

edit: I think I see the point of this from reading other responses. Once stats get closer to "ideal" there is little point in posting them. I don't think stat posts are totally pointless. The input from mine on friday night gave me some great things to think about.

[bottomset]

I'm gonna be vague and just give generalized comments, since I know what the purpose of this was, but I think there is some value in looking at these

you recently said that you were testing the limits on aggressiveness preflop at .5/1 which makes me believe that the first set is the more recent of the 2, although it could be that you just started this approach in say the last 5k hands of one of them, or abandoned it

anyway you'll never fine tune your game by looking at stats, its good for spotting big errors, but terrible in deciding if your game is ready for the next level

post hands and better yet respond and think about a lot of hands in a lot of situations is the second best way to improve, the best being of course play and play and play, its a game where experience is very valuable

neither set has obvious apparent leaks in any of the stats(i browsed pretty fast, as i have to work pretty quick) so you can't answer the questions he asked with any realistic certaintity

moving up levels is entirely about comfort with the amount of money wagered, comfort in being able to play your game when things go bad, its something that should be eased into, not forced, rushed done simply because you played 10k hands at a level, or have 300BB of the next level .. if you work at the game, moving up will come eventually and you will be successful

[Reqtech]

Sample size is too small.


/images/graemlins/wink.gif

[Entity]

I will say that I have made some rather large changes in between the styles of player #1 and #2, so they aren't identical.

Rob

[tinhat]

I'm going to venture a guess based only on OP:

1) the 'important' stats appear so similar that no one can tell which player is better;

2) no one can (using OP only) tell who makes more;

3) therefore suggesting fixes for "leaks" for the 'losing' player might be misdirected and instead due to other reasons (like a downturn/variance).

Even if I'm way off you put up some fascinating posts :-)

[chris_a]

The VPIP numbers and the Won$@SD numbers seem too close to tell. They are less than a standard deviation away from each other according to my calculations. Same with PF Raising and blind defense.

Player 2 is going to showdown more but this is just barely on the threshold of significant based on the appropriate standard deviation of this number.

I personally like player 1's aggression better. Particularly on the flop. That seems to be the most significant difference.

EDIT: Happy Birthday too!

[DeathDonkey]

I bet if you posted your VPIP by position it would be easy to tell the difference. The first one is the new one, which is "position means everything" and "i hate to play my blinds because they are OOP". I'm surprised your attempt to steal blinds is down so much though. I can't figure that out.

-DeathDonkey

[Shillx]

Happy Birthday duder!

Player one is quite a bit more aggressive and check/raises less (a good thing). My money says that he is doing much better then the old school monkey did.

Brad

[Entity]

[ QUOTE ]
I bet if you posted your VPIP by position it would be easy to tell the difference. The first one is the new one, which is "position means everything" and "i hate to play my blinds because they are OOP". I'm surprised your attempt to steal blinds is down so much though. I can't figure that out.

-DeathDonkey

[/ QUOTE ]

I'm not sure what the deal is with the ASB. I think it's just variance, or that I'm getting more limpers.

New stats:

Position Hands VPIP PFR
BUTTON 2272 23.5915 16.8134
1 2010 23.7313 17.9602
2 1923 19.4488 15.3926
3 1800 16.2222 13.1667
4 1614 17.0384 12.5774
5 1437 17.0494 11.5518
6 1059 14.2587 10.0094
7 502 14.9402 10.9562
BB 2485 17.1831 9.3763
SB 2313 35.3653 10.0735

Old stats:

BUTTON 1900 23.1053 19.0526
1 1713 20.7823 16.871
2 1623 17.4985 14.0481
3 1521 16.1736 12.0973
4 1367 18.1419 12.436
5 1176 16.4116 10.7143
6 915 16.8306 12.5683
7 463 13.8229 9.9352
BB 2005 17.8055 6.783
SB 1909 36.7208 10.4767

[DMBFan23]

[ QUOTE ]
Entity,

I vote for your first sample. your first sample has you seeing more flops and winning more when you see the flop. you're more aggressive postflop too. also, the data is over a larger sample, so we can trust it more too.

[/ QUOTE ]

everything I said here was a complete joke.

[aK13]

I think Player 1 is winning more money, because he seems to have better table selection (as noted by how many times blinds are stolen).

Less steals = less PFR and more players per flop, eh?

[toss]

Hmmm your new more aggressive stats look better. Your vpip and pfr is certainly higher than mines too. I think your wtsd rate is a little high, but I don't know. Is 34.35 a high number?

[shadow29]

[ QUOTE ]
Can you help me fix my leaks?

[/ QUOTE ]

Gladly. I'm proud that you can admit your nittiness and post for help.


http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v332/shadow29/1-detail.gif

[SlyGuy]

I would like to know what kinds of hands you are rasing with to have a PFR% of 13? I am around 9% in my last 2k hands or so based on advice from yourself I believe ( up from 7.75%).

Following SSHE gets you around 7-8% i've found. Can you direct me to some example of how to play with a PFR% this high?

[shadow29]

I think that 9%-11% is fine.

Raise stuff like 99, KQo, ATs. Isolate bad players with stuff like KJo. It depends, basically.

[Entity]

For those who haven't figured it out yet, my point is this: stats are meaningless when you're trying to figure out leaks in your game once you're even halfway proficient. If you know enough to not coldcall with A9o against a tight UTG raise, then you aren't going to get a whole lot out of statistical analysis.

The style of play I have in the first and second hands is very different. That said, #1 is running 2x as good as #2, but it doesn't have much to do with the stats at all.

Stats are useful if your VPIP is 9%, or if your VPIP is 30%. Once we're looking at someone who has a VPIP of 22 and an aggression of 2 postflop, though, you're going to have to post and analyze hands to really say much about the quality of your play.

Rob

[ErrantNight]

well yeah. player #1 is more aggressive.

[Entity]

[ QUOTE ]
Can you direct me to some example of how to play with a PFR% this high?

[/ QUOTE ]

I don't think 13% is necessarily good. I play more shorthanded than most of you here (when a game gets down to 3-handed, I'm really really happy), and I do a lot of isolating. I think it results in a much higher variance than most people would be comfortable with, too. I doubt that I'll ever play enough .5/1 for me to really see how it levels out.

Rob

[Entity]

[ QUOTE ]
well yeah. player #1 is more aggressive.

[/ QUOTE ]

Actually, I think the aggression is fairly close to the same. Player #2 might be more aggressive than #1, but #1 is more willing to let go of hands on the flop than #2.

Rob

[gvibes]

Semi-related question. I'm 22/15 over 5k hands at 1/2 9-max. Can I be profitable with those sort of numbers?

[Entity]

[ QUOTE ]
Semi-related question. I'm 22/15 over 5k hands at 1/2 9-max. Can I be profitable with those sort of numbers?

[/ QUOTE ]

I don't play 9-max. 15% PFR seems a tad too high. That's my range for 6-max. I'd suggest toning it down a bit, probably 21-22/12-13. Be prepared to deal with lots of variance playing like this.

Rob

[SlyGuy]

[ QUOTE ]
Semi-related question. I'm 22/15 over 5k hands at 1/2 9-max. Can I be profitable with those sort of numbers?

[/ QUOTE ]

All kinds of numbers can be profitable. Some just not in poker.

[bottomset]

[ QUOTE ]
anyway you'll never fine tune your game by looking at stats, its good for spotting big errors, but terrible in deciding if your game is ready for the next level


[/ QUOTE ]

glad to see ppl pay attention to what i post

and Happy Bday

[btspider]

happy birthday lag.

5/10 is mined and ready to go. i think i'm sitting tomorrow night.

[toss]

Damn't you guys are moving so fast.

Happy Bday monkey. Don't spend all day on poker now! /images/graemlins/smirk.gif

[gvibes]

[ QUOTE ]
[ QUOTE ]
Semi-related question. I'm 22/15 over 5k hands at 1/2 9-max. Can I be profitable with those sort of numbers?

[/ QUOTE ]

I don't play 9-max. 15% PFR seems a tad too high. That's my range for 6-max. I'd suggest toning it down a bit, probably 21-22/12-13. Be prepared to deal with lots of variance playing like this.

Rob

[/ QUOTE ]

I think I'm actually going to move to 6-max soon, for 5k hands or so, before moving up to 2/4. I'll just try to keep the same raising standards.

[Delphin]

I would think that the first sample is making more money than the second one, but I'd like to see the actual numbers.

I'm still at the stage where my stats say a lot about what could be fixed with my play, but I can definitely see that there is a point where stats posts become fairly useless.

[sthief09]

this is a very cool idea

[Entity]

In #1 I was a 3.5ish bb/100 winner. In #2, I was a 1.75bb/100 winner.

But what can you tell between #1 and #2 in terms of how I played differently?

There are about a billion differences in my game between #1 and #2, but it'd be hard to say what they are exactly. I've stopped betting overcards into people on flops that limpers like. I've started slowplaying more on good boards. I've slowplayed less on bad boards.

The important part, though, is that while you can glean some details from my stats, they don't tell you much. They tell you that I'm more aggressive but they don't tell you that it's probably because I'm checkraising bottom pair more on boards where I think my hand is good, not raising TP mindlessly.

Poker is a situational game, and while you can get some information from statistics (if you're a 13% VP'er at 1/2, you're too tight), you really can't get that much out of it.

So stop posting stats and start posting more hands. Start reading more and trying to figure out when sthief says to fold, why you should fold -- or when Clarkmeister says it's an easy 3-bet, why. Because that's the stuff that's important.

Baselines are wonderful things but they don't mean enough to really count.

There's a reason that when someone posts their 10k stats my usual response is: you don't play enough hands and you're too passive. It's because there isn't much I can get out of that, and honestly, my comments there really don't help much, if at all, with their overall game.

Rob

[Delphin]

[ QUOTE ]
So stop posting stats and start posting more hands. Start reading more and trying to figure out when sthief says to fold, why you should fold -- or when Clarkmeister says it's an easy 3-bet, why. Because that's the stuff that's important.

Baselines are wonderful things but they don't mean enough to really count.

There's a reason that when someone posts their 10k stats my usual response is: you don't play enough hands and you're too passive. It's because there isn't much I can get out of that, and honestly, my comments there really don't help much, if at all, with their overall game.

[/ QUOTE ]

I hear you, but as a player who is still learning, I like to see the stat posts. I'm still trying to figure out what range of hands I should be playing in which positions and whether to limp or raise. The players who post their stats might not get much benefit out of whatever advice is given in the thread, but I think that players like me benefit from getting a reasonable sample of what winning players statistics look like. Sure you can just look at the ranges in the FAQ, but it helps me a lot to be able to connect the stats with an outcome.

Once I'm a lot more comfortable with my game, worrying about whether 18.5% is too loose/tight for $1/$2 is probably going to be a really dull topic to read, but for now, these stat posts help motivate me a lot. I can look at my stats and compare them with winning players and pinpoint some obvious mistakes. My VPIP is too high, my postflop aggression stats are too low, my WSD is too high, and my W$SD is too low. I need to tighten up preflop, call less and bet/fold more postflop and I expect my winrate to improve when I do.

I know that even if I could perfectly mimic the stats of one of these players that is crushing the low limits that my winrate wouldn't necessarily match because there is more to it than can be captured in these stats. I also read and reply to hands and post my own on occasion. But I'm still at the stage where most of my improvement comes from gross changes in the way I play more than fine tuning.

Just my $.02

[mojobluesman]

"I've stopped betting overcards into people on flops that limpers like. "

Examples please?

[gasoltub]

I have to disagree with the "Stop posting stats" statement.

So what if the stats look normal? No harm done. It's not like we are drowning in stats posts anyway.

And if there are some anomalies visible in the stats the poster can perhaps learn something and at least get some pointers about areas to examine.

Of course everyone should be careful to make sure they have played a lot of hands before posting. Perhaps it should be recommended to have 15K-20K hands to make it more likely that people at least play 10K before posting.

just my 2 cents

[Schwartzy61]

I'm not sure what's "profitable" but your statistics will vary with your opponents, especially preflop, If you are sitting next to a Loose Aggressive Maniac you will probably play fewer hands than if you were sitting next to a Loose Passive Fish. Now let's say you sit next to that same Maniac for your next 10,000 hands, your numbers will seem low but really you are playing optimally, no?

I worked out some numbers for preflop play for the Recommendations from the 3 most popular Low limit internet poker books (ITH, WLLHE, and SSHE). I used the "Tight Game" recommendations from SSHE because I have played at nano limits and don't see an average of 6 to 8 players in on a flop so I decided that the tight games recommendations is best for this little "test."

VP$IP and PFR% numbers considering an unraised pot and only an unraised pot. Theoretically these would be the high end of any numbers when basing your play and thus your statistics on these books.

EP, first 3 to the left of the BB
Book: VP$IP, PFR%
SSHE: 10.2%, 4.9%
WLLHE: 9%, 4.8%
ITH: 7.2%, 4%

MP, next 3 seats to left of EP
Book: VP$IP, PFR%
SSHE: 18.2%, 8.1%
WLLHE: 18.7%, 9.8%
ITH: 14.4%, 4%

LP, CO and Button
Book: VP$IP, PFR%
SSHE: 23%, 10.2%
WLLHE: 25.6%, 11%
ITH: 22.7%, 5.2%

So for SSHE the high end of a VP$IP not a blind would be around 16.4% over the long haul.

As for PFR% that would be around 7.43% outside the blinds.

If you take into account advanced plays like slowplaying AA or KK and making steal raises with the more marginal hands your stats should still work out around these numbers. Also the more aggressive the game you are in the lower these numbers will turn out which is why most of those on here are saying posting statistics isn't a great way to improve your game because we don't know the type of opponent you are playing against. I would still say some of you are taking Tight Aggressive to an extreme however. Raising a hand that plays well multihanded to get heads up with a weak player doesn't seem like a good move when you could be multiway against a couple of weak players. I guess it's one of those things that is player specific.

Statistics are always dependent on the variables which are the other players at the table in this case. Just an example, how often would the pot be unraised to you on the button when every player has a PFR% of 10. The answer is about 52% of the time. This will have a definite effect on your VP$IP from the button. That just shows you need some context as well as statistics. Statistics on their own are rather useless.

One thing I am working on is ideal preflop statistics based on the SSHE recommendations and your typical opponent as defined by some kind of average in your poker tracker stats. It would be interesting to really find out what kind of recommendation they are making in SSHE.

And always remember the first thing any Statistician learns:

"There are lies, damn lies, and statistics."

[Rev. Good Will]

An issue that I thought died down, but has recovered... enjoy