Need your help guys.

[arkady]

This is an unusual post for me, because it is not for me.
A friend of mine is having a lot of trouble in the SH games and he wants some help. He is mostly a 2+2 lurker, but has gotten a lot of advice which I feel has not helped him out. I suspect it is because the advice has come from full table ringers (albeit solid ones), but I am not entirely sure. Anyway, I have already shared my opinions on what I think some of the problems are, but he is extremely confused due to the volume of mixed suggestions he has been getting. I know you good folks here will probably echo much of what I have said and will provide an impact for my struggling buddy.

Here is the scoop. He went to 5/10 a few months ago and crushed it; pic included. I am not thrilled with those stats regardless of his win. Then he proceeded to get smashed all over and pretty much lost back most of what he made. I feel he was very lucky and not playing optimally while enjoying a good run, now it has caught up to him. He goes through some of the most insane variance I have ever seen and I have included pics of his latest PT stats along with the alarming graph.

I have also included the positional stats which shows imo, a serious and fundamental flaw in gap theory. I of course could be wrong.

Help him out fellas, cuz I know you can.

http://www.computerecycle.com/images/poker/PreAugust.jpg

http://www.computerecycle.com/images/poker/NewStats.jpg

http://www.computerecycle.com/images/poker/MoreInfo.jpg

http://www.computerecycle.com/images/poker/AugustGraphP.jpg

http://www.computerecycle.com/images/poker/Position.jpg

[baronzeus]

Obviously sample size...but beyond that


His stats look like my 5/10 stats before the adjustments I made. He is paying off too many turn raises etc, and going to showdown with mediocre hands too often. (His WtSD is ridiculously high)

Another thing is he is getting killed in the blinds. Make him read some posts about blind defense .

The last thing is that he doesn't value bet enough (which is pretty obvious by his river aggression. Just point him to NLSoldier's thread on value betting and that should fix him up.

[___1___]

arkady,

Simple enough.

1) Read posts by Peter_Rus about blind defense
2) Play f****** position! Why is VPIP the same for every position? Steal.
3) Stop paying off like a slot machine.

___1___

[MicroBob]

[ QUOTE ]
2) Play f****** position! Why is VPIP the same for every position?

[/ QUOTE ]


Yeah...no kidding.
This is really terrible.


Does he play his opponents AT ALL.

It looks like he just has some group of hands that he likes to play regardless of whether it's been raised or is multi-way or he's opening on the button or defending his BB....and he just throws everything else away.

Is he thinking about the situation he is in pre-flop...or just playing his own little standard group of cards?


Looks like he has his happy-little pre-flop guidelines and then takes them to showdown a lot.


70k hands of doing this?
he's not really THINKING as much as he could at the table. kind of playing on super-duper-auto-pilot perhaps.

[7ontheline]

I don't have that much to add - certainly he HAS to consider postion more. I supect that would make him fold more in earlier positions and increase his pfr by adding steals in the CO/button. He needs to fold more. He needs to valuebet the river more. He probably needs to checkraise more. Given the fact that aggression factor is sometimes a crude measurement, while his flop aggro is not horrible I suspect that all his numbers are skewed by raising/calling/folding incorrectly, even if overall the frequency is close to normal. It all speaks to Microbob's point about him playing his little system with no adjustment for players/situations. He may as well be a bot, almost.

I think he should be very grateful that he's ONLY down less than 150 BBs. Without that little 11k-hand heater to start the run he should be way down. He's not a total fish but he's almost definitely a longterm loser with this style, especially now that the rake is up.

[arkady]

Yeah that was my suggestion in a nutshell, I am not good with the search engine - can we get some links going here?

[arkady]

Bob and 7ontheline,

Good stuff, I was actually quite concerned with the preflop and in the last minute asked for positional stats. They certainly do paint a grim picture. I like the suggestion that he is playing in a crude robotic style. At times I feel like he has to go right back to the basics, but it's hard to verbalize that suggestion. I don't even think that a chart is being used, since most charts would create a VPIP curve along the positions, it's practically linear here!

Maybe a chart is actually not a bad idea as I feel there still might be old habits left over from 10 handed play.

[___1___]

[ QUOTE ]
I am not good with the search engine - can we get some links going here?

[/ QUOTE ]

Ummmm...yeah....I suck at it too. A little help please? /images/graemlins/tongue.gif

___1___

[baronzeus]

http://forumserver.twoplustwo.com/showflat.php?Cat=&Board=headsup&Number=2898043&For um=f8&Words=-re%3A&Searchpage=0&Limit=25&Main=2898043&Search=tr ue&where=sub&Name=8358&daterange=1&newerval=1&newe rtype=y&olderval=&oldertype=&bodyprev=#Post2898043

[Surfbullet]

Come now arkady...if you needed the help that bad, you could just ask. None of this "My friend" stuff.

Seriously.

Surf

[MicroBob]

indeed. mebenhoe's 6-max pre-flop chart might be a decent place to start in the 'rebuilding' process.

Should get him a bit more on track regarding steals and defending at least.

[arkady]

I knew one of your smart asses would say that...just knew it. We good poker players can predict these things.

[Surfbullet]

har har!

Seriously though, your friend needs to do some serious work on his game - especially focusing on hand-reading IMO, to help him make better postflop decisions. I would suggest cutting back to 2 tables of 3/6 and working from there.

Surf