Winning Player

[imported_excel]

Firstly, Im starting afresh, no arguing with any posters, and sorry if I offenended posters in the past.

Secondly, if you dont like the subject of my posts, please dont read or leave dumb comments.
Thankyou.


Im not saying this is the way to play, Im just highlighting its not a losing way of playing, theres a few players with high vpip combined with high pfr who I believe are long term winners


The player I highlight below is the extreme and also one of the best.

Player always 4 tables, and can play for many hours.


$15/$30
Hands 83,797
VP$IP 51.78
VP$IP SB 67.29
Saw Flop all hands 49.97
Saw Flop not a blind 40.16
Folded SB to steal 49.57
Folded BB to steal 29.29
Folded BB to steal HU 23.01
Att to steal blinds 69.81
Won $ when saw flop 42.97
BB/100 2.48
Went to showdown 42.06
Won $ at SD 48.41
Raised preflop 41.01
Folded to river bet 40.64
Check raise 3.56


80k hands is a very good hand sample, hes more than a marginal winner.

Any comments, rather than dismissing as short term luck.

[Trix]

sort for 5-6 players, else it´s very hard to compare these stats as people dont play the same ammount of real short-handed.

[JohnnyHumongous]

I personally think a higher VPIP is more profitable in many cases (my VPIP at 6-max is north of 30), but I have to say this is the most blatant example of selection bias I have ever seen. Anyone who has studied statistics or econometrics can see this. You are selecting one person who has succeeded using a massively high VPIP. However, the fact is that if you took a field of say 1,000 players today who all play with VPIP of 50 at 15/30 the percentage that succeed 80K hands later will be VERY small. But, there will be a few; this is just probabilistic distribution. You have found those few and are now backwards-justifying their wins.

I heard about a guy who made like $17 million playing casino games (you know, house edge-type games that are "foolish" to selective gamblers like we try to be). This guy was walking around Vegas with beautiful Rolexes. He went flat broke eventually. Out of all the millions of gamblers who go to casinos, probabilistic distribution dictates that some of them will outrun the averages for a VERY long time and make massive money. But it proves nothing. They are playing -EV games pure and simple.

[JohnnyHumongous]

And yes, you should sort for 5 or 6 players because who knows if this guy is one of the heads-up specialists on Party who go around looking for 2- or 3-way games, in which case his VPIP is obviously going to be high.

[Danenania]

[ QUOTE ]
sort for 5-6 players, else it´s very hard to compare these stats as people dont play the same ammount of real short-handed.

[/ QUOTE ]

Agree. These stats could be great for someone playing primarily heads-up/3-handed but it seems nearly impossible that they could make money in a 6-handed game.

[MoDOH]

How is this possible?

VP$IP 51.78

Saw Flop all hands 49.97

[ALL1N]

[ QUOTE ]
How is this possible?

VP$IP 51.78

Saw Flop all hands 49.97

[/ QUOTE ]

How about you raise and steal the blinds? /images/graemlins/wink.gif

[MoDOH]

which leads me to believe these hands are from HU or 3-handed games rather than full 6-max tables.

[imported_excel]

The games are from Party $15/$30

3 games, always a queue waiting to join so very few 3-4 handed games,

When 6 players at a table he plays 40.99% vpip and pfr 40.86%

75,000 of the hands are with 5 or more players

No advantage of table selection, even when playing $10/$20 never tables swaps.

If other players cant adapt to this style then maybe it is profitable.

Also, he wins when he has nothing when also the other players have nothing, you cant bluff this player,

What are the advantages of this playing style?

[Kimpan]

possible to post some of the hands that are "loose"?

[MoDOH]

[ QUOTE ]
When 6 players at a table he plays 40.99% vpip and pfr 40.86%


[/ QUOTE ]

Am I the only one dying to know what hand(s) he isn´t raising preflop? How many hands does 0.13% constitute?

[imported_excel]

I could post hands, but its hard to pick out exactly what fits with his style, he mixes up his game alot, and sometimes plays the most absurd hands once in a while, e.g 32s UTG, or 64o, but played rarely

[MoDOH]

what are his aggression stats?

[sy_or_bust]

I think this is a misleading example for an interesting and often underestimated argument. VP$IPs of 20-25% are typically touted around here as optimal for the 6max games, with fairly little open dissent, but I know that many others win and play much looser. I personally play a 30/20/3 game. While I don't have great data (20k hands across .5/1 to 5/10), I've had significant success.

A while back there was a very interesting post for full-ring games that used bisonbison's PT autorate rules to compare different styles of play with long-term profitability over many hands. Obviously this was a very informal analysis, but the data suggested that preflop, barring absurdly tight play, was not a significant indicator of success. Postflop aggression was. The sLP-A and LP-A players fared at least as well and often better than TA-A players.

I believe this was in .5/1 or 1/2 full ring (I'll search later for this post), which is obviously a factor, but I just want to point out that loose play is vastly underestimated around here. Excel's example is a terrible starting point, but the topic of loose/aggressive shorthanded play is certainly complex and interesting.

[Danenania]

If I "cant bluff this player" then it should be easy to value bet him to death since he will often be making second best hands with his weak holdings. Can't have it both ways.

[spamuell]

[ QUOTE ]

A while back there was a very interesting post for full-ring games that used bisonbison's PT autorate rules to compare different styles of play with long-term profitability over many hands. Obviously this was a very informal analysis, but the data suggested that preflop, barring absurdly tight play, was not a significant indicator of success. Postflop aggression was. The sLP-A and LP-A players fared at least as well and often better than TA-A players.

[/ QUOTE ]

If you're talking about rharless' The EV of different playing styles (http://archiveserver.twoplustwo.com/showflat.php?Cat=&Number=504807&page=&view=&sb=5&o =&fpart=all&vc=1) and The EV of different playing styles part 2 (http://archiveserver.twoplustwo.com/showflat.php?Cat=&Number=558060&page=&view=&sb=5&o =&fpart=all&vc=1) (who says the search function sucks?) then that's not what they showed at all.

EDIT: Hopefully fixed links

[sy_or_bust]

[ QUOTE ]
If you're talking about rharless' The EV of different playing styles (http://archiveserver.twoplustwo.com/showflat.php?Cat=&Number=504807&page=&view=&sb=5&o =&fpart=all&vc=1) and The EV of different playing styles part 2 (http://archiveserver.twoplustwo.com/showflat.php?Cat=&Number=558060&page=&view=&sb=5&o =&fpart=all&vc=1) (who says the search function sucks?) then that's not what they showed at all.

EDIT: Hopefully fixed links

[/ QUOTE ]

That's not it, but it's very interesting. Thanks for links.

[tolbiny]

absolutely-
but only if players are making the correct adjustments to him. To many times your averagae, or even strong players try ot "outlag" the lag. Mentally adjusting to this type of player (especially when others are in the pot aswell) can be tough.
I would like to see his standard deviation and have a math guy kick around the likelyhood of this player running good over 80K hands to his winrate. Just for curiositys sake.

BTW- Thanks Excel, this is what a lot of us want, open discussion about styles, with some numbers to back them up.

[imported_excel]

Screenshot

http://www.adult-friend-finder-personals.com/highvpipstats.jpg



Standard Deviation 100/hands $699.85 23.32 big bets

[imported_excel]

I selected this player because he was a winner from the start, secondly he plays alot so I could get a good hand sample.

Also note, not many players play this style, its not just the vpip, its played with the most aggression Ive ever seen pre flop over large sample.

[Grisgra]

Given his win rate, SD, and hands played, his 95% CI for performance is something around 0.9 to 4.1. Given the selection bias problem here (you didn't select this guy at random, you selected him BECAUSE he is a winning player) my guess is that he's more of a 1BB/100 to 1.5BB/100 player on a good streak. I could be wrong, of course, but you just can't ignore the selection bias problem here.

It does seem as though he has a winning style, though, even if I doubt that it's a 2.5BB/100 winning style.

[krishanleong]

Grisgra,

This all may be true. But before these stats I would have said no matter how well you play, you couldn't be a winning player with the VP$IP and PFR this guy has. Excel, can you post his positional stats?

Krishan

[kiddo]

[ QUOTE ]
Given his win rate, SD, and hands played, his 95% CI for performance is something around 0.9 to 4.1.

[/ QUOTE ]

Yes, with SD 23 there is a good chance he is way off after 80K hands.

Anyway I get a feeling that many posters in this thread is answering the wrong question. I dont think anyone thinks that playing 50% of all hands 5 or 6 handed is the best style against good players. He will of course get killed. This means that if the other player adapted in the right way he wouldnt be close to this winrate (he would be losing).

So: How much lag can u be against players not adapting? When we play tourneys in my local homegame I often win if I survive until last 3 players beause I simply start to raise every pot and they dont call enough and certainly dont reraise enough.

Last weeks I have played a lot against VPIP 70% (pretty aggressive postflop). There were some guys adapting in the way that played almost any 2 against this guy because - as he said when guy left - u can win so much if u hit any pair on flop. And I have a feeling I dont come in with enough hands against theses really bad players, yes, I play more hands, but I dont go from my normal 25 to 45, more like 25 to 33.

[Grisgra]

[ QUOTE ]
Grisgra,

This all may be true. But before these stats I would have said no matter how well you play, you couldn't be a winning player with the VP$IP and PFR this guy has. Excel, can you post his positional stats?

Krishan

[/ QUOTE ]

Note this though:

>When 6 players at a table he plays 40.99% vpip

This is certainly oddly high, but it's not nutso-maniac-high. (Though the PFR *is* nutso-maniac-high, of course.)

[sthief09]

I don't understand how this really means anything other than the fact that some players who may appear to be maniacs are incredible postflop players and not the type of person you want to [censored] with. you say you're not here to argue but you're presenting this purely to prove people wrong.

first of all, it's pretty likely he's running well but he's clearly a winning player if this is a randomly selected trial of hands. you say he probably doesn't have particularly good game selection and doesn't play that shorthanded, so he's winning purely by ability.

just think about how good this guy has to be to win with those numbers. are any of us that good? definitely not. so what's the point of even studying this guy? his style does not fit anyone here. it's not like anyone can just start becoming a postflop maniac and make lots of money.

there's one thing though, that I think should be pretty obvious. this guy could make more money by playing less hands.

[kiddo]

[ QUOTE ]
are any of us that good? definitely not. so what's the point of even studying this guy?

[/ QUOTE ]

This makes no sense, does it?

[B00T]

His winrate is 2.4/100?

I am assuming you picked the prettiest diamond in the rough to post his stats. I guarentee you at least 5 people on this board have a higher winrate over double the sample size of this player. You harp on and on saying this is profitable. It's all well and good you can prove he is profitable (which I am not arguing) but nobody is going to believe this play is optimal.

[TheCaptain]

I love you, Excel. You are so +ev. Keep it up. Can anyone get a moderator to sticky his posts?

[Nikla]

I'm not surprised that these stats are obtainable. However that doesn't mean it's an optimal way to play. My guess is that people don't adjust or adjust too late. Against more perceptive opposition, eg. higher limits, he would most likely be in big trouble.

[AlexSem]

who cares... honestly...

excel how much do you make in poker? what limit and your BB/100...


All this jerking around with data mining that you've been doing and arguing, it's a waste of time.


This trash seems to be really bringing the forum quality down. Like who cares, honestly... If you win, you don't care since you're already winning. If you're not winning, it's not data mining and jerking around arguing in forums that's going to make you better.

So the point of this?

[BottlesOf]

It does to me, what's the problem?

[imported_excel]

[ QUOTE ]
I'm not surprised that these stats are obtainable. However that doesn't mean it's an optimal way to play. My guess is that people don't adjust or adjust too late. Against more perceptive opposition, eg. higher limits, he would most likely be in big trouble.

[/ QUOTE ]

I never said it was optimal, and no offense but were not talking higher limits, were talking the limits he is playing at,

[imported_excel]

I didnt mention "optimal" I just pointed out a winning player,

Many players would lose to this guy and just assume he would end up a long term loser.

If you learn anything from this its the fact these types of players can win.

[imported_excel]

he may make more money playing less hands,

however, the way he plays now it is "IMPOSSIBLE" for you to have any read of his cards,

When he does get lucky hes going to reap maximum benefit.

[imported_excel]

[ QUOTE ]
His winrate is 2.4/100?

I am assuming you picked the prettiest diamond in the rough to post his stats. I guarentee you at least 5 people on this board have a higher winrate over double the sample size of this player. You harp on and on saying this is profitable. It's all well and good you can prove he is profitable (which I am not arguing) but nobody is going to believe this play is optimal.

[/ QUOTE ]

Winrate is very good considering he is 4 tabling.

The fact hes 4 tabling and can play for 8-12 sometimes longer hours shows he has the confidence in his play,

Yet again I highlight, I never mentioned "optimal",

You say double the sample size, I rarely see sample sizes over 80k,

If you can guarantee only 5, thats not many is it?

[rory]

With a STD of $700/100 and 80k hands, there is a 90% chance that this guy's win rate is accurate to within +/- 1.75 BB. I suspect this guy is just one of the few guys with such a high variance style who happens to be running good.

We talk about large sample sizes, but even 80k is not enough to have an accurate win rate with such a large standard deviation. With a standard deviation of this size, to be 90% confident we are within 1 BB of our true win rate, it will take 240k hands. To be 90% confident we are within 0.5 BB of our win rate, he will have to play over 1 million hands.

If you take a typical HUSH poster, they have a standard deviation of 15 BB. With a standard deviation of 15 BB, we will be 90% confident our win rate is within 1 BB after playing 50k hands. We will be 90% confident our win rate is within 0.5 BB after 200k hands.

This is why people advocate the more tighter styles as the road to becoming a winning player-- we have enough stats between all of us to prove that this is a way to win. Since our standard deviations are lower, we can make other strategy changes and see the effects with 50k hands, not hundreds of thousands of hands.

So, excel, everyone sort of disses you, which is fine. But the one interesting thing your posts bring up is that we have to consider optimizing our poker as not moving up this single peak. The poker landscape is a complicated, multidimensional one filled with local optima and valleys and troughs. For instance, in order to beat the Party games, you basically just have to not play badly and play against opponents who do. There are very few really tough games out there, you don't play enough against the same people to get fancy and try all kinds of moves, you just have to play solid, good, ABC poker. That is not optimum, but I think it is pretty close to optimum to beat those games. However once you move away from the Party games, move up or something, like Schneids and BK, you actually have to learn how to play good poker, and how to play against other people who play good poker. This requires a new exploration of the fitness landscape of poker strategy, because the straightforward not-bad solid ABC style that beats the Party games will not cut it anymore.

I think for all of the aspiring new pros out there, we should keep some things in mind. Poker seems like it has been a largely untapped place to make a lot of money fairly easily, because there are so many bad players. But like the stock market, once a source of untapped revenue has been found, people will flood to it and exploit it until the revenue is dried up. There will be just as many bad players, but there will be so many more good players that there are not enough bad players to go around. To survive, long term, playing poker, we will have to explore a new place on the fitness landscape of poker, one that is designed to exploit and beat other players who have only learned how to beat bad players.

This is why multitabling, while profitable for the time being, I think will be ultimately severely damaging to the long-term profitability of the multitablers. While the multitablers are maximizing their short term profit, people who roll up a bunch of money, move up, learn to beat the good players and survive are investing in their future ability to beat the games.

At the very least, I think the people who can already beat the games should take a portion of their week and devote it to getting better. Really devote it. That may mean really deeply reading a book and taking notes. Or single tabling. Or going through the archives. Hiring one of the good teachers. Playing in some bigger, tougher games. Really committing to getting better. Because I think, eventually, the guys who spent so much time getting better are going to get, and the guys who became complacent and lazy are going to get broke. In that way I really appreciate excel's posts. He is really casting his net wide across the sea of possible poker strategies to find the absolute best one. We all should be doing that. In a more open-minded, calculated, thoughtful and constructive way than excel, of course, but he definitely has the right idea. He is definitely right that we have on the HUSH forum, as a whole, blinded ourselves to possible more-optimal poker strategies.

[kiddo]

[ QUOTE ]
It does to me, what's the problem?

[/ QUOTE ]

Poster said this guy was a better postflopplayer then all of us:

[ QUOTE ]
are any of us that good? definitely not.

[/ QUOTE ] .

In what way does it make sense to say we got nothing to learn from this guy? Poker is all about postflopplay. Preflop is the easy part.

[Michael Davis]

Good post, rory. One thing I would say is that choosing to crazy multitable right now does not inhibit your opportunity to improve your game now or later: you can study the tougher games, keep up with 2+2, and have conversations with better players.

-Michael

[imported_excel]

Good post Rory.

Please note I highlight one exteme player who I think is a long term winner.

yes I see players 60vpip, high prf, but I dont think they are long term winners.

However, I do see many players 30-40 vpips pfr 20-25, so I think if a player who plays 50 vpip and 40pfr, then surely many of these other players are also long term winners.

We all have to admit playing a 35 vpip 25 pfr is not an easy player to play against, yes they are playing marginal hands, but when you also get a good hand and go against them, you maybe prone to making them pay and overplaying your hand, not being able to place them on a hand in which they may well be infront.

Also some of the better players may well stay out the way of some players way, e.g 22 vpip pfr 14

Your ability to protect your blinds will be fully tested, and if the LAG is in the blinds your ability to steal will be restricted, both ways they are testing and possibly restricting your play, they are dictating the pace and the play, they are taking control and possibly the chips.

[imported_excel]

I think people maybe surprised by the players aggression factors.

I would imagine that most players would assume his post flop aggression would be higher.

To me he has good judgement of when hes ahead and when hes not, he'll do the betting to find out.

What do others think?

[Schneids]

[ QUOTE ]
I think people maybe surprised by the players aggression factors.

I would imagine that most players would assume his post flop aggression would be higher.

To me he has good judgement of when hes ahead and when hes not, he'll do the betting to find out.

What do others think?

[/ QUOTE ]

His postflop aggression factors, while aggressive, are not maniacal, which I think greatly helps in this guy's ability to win. Basically, he's winning pots he doesn't deserve, sometimes paying off better hands because of how many marginal situations he enters, and sometimes getting paid huge when people don't realize how strong he is.

Curious I am: does this player's alias on Party revolve around "loving" to do something?

[sethypooh21]

[ QUOTE ]

A while back there was a very interesting post for full-ring games that used bisonbison's PT autorate rules to compare different styles of play with long-term profitability over many hands. Obviously this was a very informal analysis, but the data suggested that preflop, barring absurdly tight play, was not a significant indicator of success. Postflop aggression was. The sLP-A and LP-A players fared at least as well and often better than TA-A players.

[/ QUOTE ]

I performed the same analysis on my database of 6-max players, and I found that all the postflop "aggressive" groups were aggregate winners (aside from the 'true maniacs' which I have set as 50/20/2.5 in my DB) and all the passive groups were aggregate losers.

[JohnnyHumongous]

[ QUOTE ]
[ QUOTE ]
I think people maybe surprised by the players aggression factors.

I would imagine that most players would assume his post flop aggression would be higher.

To me he has good judgement of when hes ahead and when hes not, he'll do the betting to find out.

What do others think?

[/ QUOTE ]

His postflop aggression factors, while aggressive, are not maniacal, which I think greatly helps in this guy's ability to win. Basically, he's winning pots he doesn't deserve, sometimes paying off better hands because of how many marginal situations he enters, and sometimes getting paid huge when people don't realize how strong he is.

Curious I am: does this player's alias on Party revolve around "loving" to do something?

[/ QUOTE ]

LUV2SANDBAG???

[sthief]

[ QUOTE ]
[ QUOTE ]
[ QUOTE ]
I think people maybe surprised by the players aggression factors.

I would imagine that most players would assume his post flop aggression would be higher.

To me he has good judgement of when hes ahead and when hes not, he'll do the betting to find out.

What do others think?

[/ QUOTE ]

His postflop aggression factors, while aggressive, are not maniacal, which I think greatly helps in this guy's ability to win. Basically, he's winning pots he doesn't deserve, sometimes paying off better hands because of how many marginal situations he enters, and sometimes getting paid huge when people don't realize how strong he is.

Curious I am: does this player's alias on Party revolve around "loving" to do something?

[/ QUOTE ]

LUV2SANDBAG???

[/ QUOTE ]


hey, good job. he wasn't purposely not mentioning the guy's name or anything

[MrFeelNothin]

[ QUOTE ]
[ QUOTE ]
[ QUOTE ]
I think people maybe surprised by the players aggression factors.

I would imagine that most players would assume his post flop aggression would be higher.

To me he has good judgement of when hes ahead and when hes not, he'll do the betting to find out.

What do others think?

[/ QUOTE ]

His postflop aggression factors, while aggressive, are not maniacal, which I think greatly helps in this guy's ability to win. Basically, he's winning pots he doesn't deserve, sometimes paying off better hands because of how many marginal situations he enters, and sometimes getting paid huge when people don't realize how strong he is.

Curious I am: does this player's alias on Party revolve around "loving" to do something?

[/ QUOTE ]

LUV2SANDBAG???

[/ QUOTE ]

Uhhh......LUV2SANDBAG is very TAGgish in my database.

Is this just a random guess?

[Grisgra]

[ QUOTE ]

Uhhh......LUV2SANDBAG is very TAGgish in my database.


[/ QUOTE ]

And in mine as well.