flop %

I was wondering if anyone had any idea what a good flop% over a session is. As a novice, I play micro limits on line to improve my B&M game. I have only played twice at casinos in the past 6 months - losing $400 in vegas playing 4/8 (having no clue with a big sign that I am a smelly fish on my forehead)in July and winning about $100 last month at a riverboat. I feel that I have turned the corner and some, if not most is due to tighter starting hand selection. I know that it is based upon the table, the stakes, etc., but I find my flop% about 30% when I keep track of it. If there are 169 starting hands, that means that I play about 50 hands - with time being infinity and over time the hands come out random. I guess the question that I am asking is, is there a benchmark % - other than following the level 1-8 rules of starting hands? The other thing that I find is that my good starting hands seem to run hot - so I find myself raising kk, then QQ, then AKs on consecutive hands and not getting to showdown. By the third hand, caller assume that I am stealing blinds - and that is, of course when the board comes blank and I am beat. Is there a general rule that one should use for not looking like a calling (raising) station - even when the cards are there to protect the table image?


Just some general questions - but I am going back to Vegas next month and would like redeem myself.


Thanks,

kevin

A rough average should be around 15%. There are lots of factors involved though, as you will be playing fewer hands in an agressive game and more hands in a passive game. You will also be playing much tighter in early position then late. Also you will see a lot of flops out of the blinds etc etc....there are all kinds of factors, the key is to just learn to play well preflop and not worry about arbitrary numbers.

Kris

This week I tracked my percentage for about 200 hands. I use $1 and $5 chips to represent changing denominations and keep them in the corner of my stack like a vertical abacus. I did this because I thought I was seeing too many flops. In the nine-handed games here, which on average have eight players dealt in per hand, I think 20% is my optimum frequency. But I don't think percentage-of-flops-seen is as important as percentage-of-flops-seen-from-each-position. My abacus won't handle that and I wish it would.


Tommy

Since you are playing on-line it will be much easier for you to keep track of some things you could not at a casino. As Tommy said, % of flops seen by position will tell you a lot more. You could simply keep a spreadsheet (or piece of paper) in which you record seeing a flop and then record the net win/loss when you do. To do so you could simply make a collum 1-10 (positions) and put a hash mark on the corresponding row when you enter the pot and then record the win/loss. Do this for about a 1000 hands or so and you'll have a much better idea not only of whether or not you are too loose, but WHERE you are too loose. You could track specific hands if you want, but it would make the record keeping much more complex. If you play on Paradise PokerStat might be bale to do this all for you, but I don't know I haven't used it.


Another thing to remember is that the loose/tight passive/agressive nature of your table will effect the number quite a bit.


Paul Talbot

I wouldn't be so concerned about the flop percentage as I would be about the quality of those cards. It doesn't matter if you are seeing 90+ percent of flops if the hands are high quality.


If you are seeing the flop on junk, then you have reason to worry. There is no logic to support you are going to be dealt all hand combinations before they recycle.


Mike

Here's my numbers, for what they are worth:


Position: Percentage:


SB: 18

BB: 63

UTG: 6

4: 6

5: 7.5

6: 9.5

7: 10.5

8: 12.5

CO: 15

BT: 16


for an average percentage of about 19%. This is from a 60k paradise hands database.


You need a lotlotlot of hands for your percentages to be meaningful, i think its better to ask about certain hands in certain positions than it is to expect your percentges for a weekend's worth of play to be anything close to stable.


Best,


zooey

Maybe.

Its in the Essays # 2 book.

Called --- "Playing 15%".


Wish I had read it my first year of hold'em.

remember, it's pretty hard to play too tite before the flop...gl