flops seen %

[daryn]

recently started playing 2-4 full tables. even after playing shorthanded for so long i'm pretty sure my full table game is still strong, but i'm wondering what a good flops seen % is.

[Homer]

My VP$IP is about 18% for 2/4 and about 16% for 3/6.

Whether this is good or not, I don't know. But I win at a decent rate so I guess I can't be that far off.

-- Homer

[daryn]

alright thanks, i had a 1000 hand session last night and my flops seen was 27%, i was getting worried and thought my shorthanded game was really altering my full game, but now that i think about it i really was getting hit with a large percentage of fabulous starters.

i played a comparable sized session again today and my flops seen was 19%.

[astroglide]

my 3/6 vpip over 100k hands was 21.5 and my bb/100 was 2.95.

[Webster]

15,000 at 2/4 28% seen 20%VI$pot

Party 2/4 aferave is 39% and is tight compared to many other sites.

[MicroBob]

i was at 21.5% VPIP on 2/4 and am looking to get it down to 19-20 or so.

my short-table playing has completely messed up my full-table play but that is mostly in post-flop decisions.

[LondonBroil]

[ QUOTE ]
my 3/6 vpip over 100k hands was 21.5 and my bb/100 was 2.95.

[/ QUOTE ]

Granted I only have 4k hands, but my VPIP is only at 11.89 with a 2.76 bb/100. It doesn't seem like I got that bad of cards either. Am I just playing to tight?

Interestingly enough, at 15/30 my VPIP is at 21.31 and my bb/hour is at 13.23. Maybe loosening up a little helps?

[Senor Choppy]

For 3/6, my VPIP was around 17% after over 300k hands, win rate of 1.5 bbs per table hour. i think expanding to 20% would be ok for better players, beyond that you might be adding slightly +EV hands, but more likely than not you're leaking chips.

[Dingo Puppet]

What does VPIP stand for?

[jerome baker]

[real843]

Voluntarily put money in pot=VP$IP

[MicroBob]

if you're asking what VPIP is then it's pretty obvious you don't have poker-tracker.

get it!!! if you play online with any degree of seriouness at all then you absolutely HAVE to have it.

go to pokertracker.com.....or search through the archives for all the posts on pokertracker.
if implemented properly it will be the best $55 you spent since you bought HEFAP and TOP together at the Barnes and Noble.

[DcifrThs]

[ QUOTE ]
if you're asking what VPIP is then it's pretty obvious you don't have poker-tracker.

get it!!! if you play online with any degree of seriouness at all then you absolutely HAVE to have it.

[/ QUOTE ]

really? if its that good i'll consider it but i have a great spreadsheet that i modeled after mason's...nothing ancillary though so this other info may help...

but the downside is i start to get into #'s too much and don't look at decisions as critically...

what do you think
-Barron

[Homer]

At least download the trial version (free!), import 1000 hands (or whatever the max is) and play around with it a little bit.

[sumdumguy]

[ QUOTE ]
my 3/6 vpip over 100k hands was 21.5 and my bb/100 was 2.95.

[/ QUOTE ]

You are a 2,000 post veteran, played over 100K hands, volountarily put money in the pot 21.5% of the time, and made 2.95BB's per 100 hands in 3/6 ring games?!

Gawd! No wonder I'm getting killed in the 3/6 games. You professionals play so freaking tight !!

[sumdumguy]

[ QUOTE ]
My VP$IP is about 18% for 2/4 and about 16% for 3/6.

Whether this is good or not, I don't know. But I win at a decent rate so I guess I can't be that far off.

-- Homer

[/ QUOTE ]

Wow ! No, you must not be far off at all.
A 5,000 post veteran, VOLOUNTARILY put money in pot 18% of the time in 2/4, and VOLOUNTARILY put money in pot ONLY 16% of the time in 3/6. Geezus. You are so tight you got diamonds coming outta your ass

That's it. I'm finally giving in. I'm getting pokertracker so I can figure out what hands to throw away.

[Nottom]

[ QUOTE ]
A 5,000 post veteran, VOLOUNTARILY put money in pot 18% of the time in 2/4, and VOLOUNTARILY put money in pot ONLY 16% of the time in 3/6. Geezus. You are so tight you got diamonds coming outta your ass


[/ QUOTE ]

Oddly enough, hes not even that tight compared to many of the folks in the SS forum.

[EWillers]

35K hands at 3/6 (mostly party) VPIP 13.2 3.09 BB/100 but i think i was running pretty good 4 a while.

I prolly give up a little EV on more marginal hands (especially considering the "quality" of the opposition.

33K hands at 2/4 (mostly at party) 14.2 VPIP 2.85 BB/100

[astroglide]

my vpip is definitely on the loose side

[MicroBob]

"really? if its that good i'll consider it but i have a great spreadsheet that i modeled after mason's...nothing ancillary though so this other info may help..."


ptracker is not a spreadsheet to detail your winning and losing sessions.
it is a database that gives you stats on each and every hand you play.
with 30k+ hands i have details on over 4,000 opponents and their VPIP and other stats (% folded to blind-steal, % win hand at showdown, etc). i use the new ptracker export to put these stats directly into my player notes on party so whenever there is a player i have ever played against before shows up i can just click on his name and see if he is a rock or a super-fish.


i can see that my stats show that i don't do as well as i would like with big-suited conncetors from EP.
i can also see that my win % at show-down overall is only 53% which is a little low.

there are about a zillion other details and examples but hopefully you get the idea.
it is a tremendous tool.


get the free trial.....it is the exact same as the version you pay $55 for....except it is only good for 1000 hands so it just gives you a general idea.


a spreadsheet is nice to keep track of your wins and losses too (i have a program called statking for this) but is not what pokertracker does at all.

[pretender2k]

Most of my tracked games are at .05/1 but I am getting up there in the 1/2 level since I started testing the water and have been running good so far. All full ring and my VP$IP is running between 15 and 16 at both levels. I still play pretty tight because playing too loose was my problem at first and since I am averaging 1.5 to 2 BB/hour I am happy with my game but some day I may look to increase that stat.

[goodguy_1]

holy chit 300K hands is alot of hands at 62 hph 4838.70 table-hours!!!And I thought my measly 2000 was something special.

My VIP in $2-4 has evolved from ~22% to a now stable~ 18.50%.I make $7.75 per table-hour equivalent to 3.17bb/100 at ~61 hph after like 1860 total table-hours.

My short $2-4 VIP is around 26-27%.I'm making $9.15 per table hr..this should be higher ie $10-$12 per hour.

$3-6 VIP for me is around 17%.


I play alot of short $2-4 and $3-6 on Party...doing this will completly dilute the accuracy of your full PT ring game stats obvioulsy raising your VIP and PFR.

I play more NL than Limit anyway.Party has added these great 6MAX NLHE games BUT still not the $2-4 or $3-6 6MAX's which is very annoying.I have had some monsterous swings in these 6MAX NLHE games thu...they can get really wild...total crapshoots ...the suckouts in short NLHE tables are brutal-hehe.

[Senor Choppy]

[ QUOTE ]
[ QUOTE ]
my 3/6 vpip over 100k hands was 21.5 and my bb/100 was 2.95.

[/ QUOTE ]

You are a 2,000 post veteran, played over 100K hands, volountarily put money in the pot 21.5% of the time, and made 2.95BB's per 100 hands in 3/6 ring games?!

Gawd! No wonder I'm getting killed in the 3/6 games. You professionals play so freaking tight !!


[/ QUOTE ]

That's actually pretty loose for most people. Unless you play as well as astro, you need to get it down to 20% or less. S&M and Lee Jones are way off on preflop strategy. Look for Abdul's preflop guide online, it will help you lose a lot of marginal hands that you shouldn't be playing without excellent position, like JTo, 87s, etc.

[Homer]

That's actually pretty loose for most people. Unless you play as well as astro, you need to get it down to 20% or less. S&M and Lee Jones are way off on preflop strategy. Look for Abdul's preflop guide online, it will help you lose a lot of marginal hands that you shouldn't be playing without excellent position, like JTo, 87s, etc.

In what way is S&M off on preflop strategy?

[goodguy_1]

I agree I've been a devotee of Abdul Jalib's LHE strategy for the last 2 years after being a S&M clone earlier in my career.

I havent used S&M pre-flop hand requirements in a long time.

Abdul was a pioneer with using computer simulations/TTHE to perfect his game.Amazingly he has shared the results with anyone interested free of charge.

[Nottom]

I always thought Abdul's advice was the one that was too loose for most party games. Oh well.

[ApolloQuiet]

Is his stuff available online?

[Senor Choppy]

[ QUOTE ]
In what way is S&M off on preflop strategy?

[/ QUOTE ]

"Specifically, in early position in a typical hold 'em game, if you are the first one in, or if there is only a call to your right, be prepared to play only those hands in the first four groups." (pg. 18 in HPFAP)

(I should've said starting requirements, not strategy).

In any case, suggesting that 98s or j9s, (both group 4 hands), is playable in early position without callers in typical games is insane. And the rankings of hands is equally bad, (98s in group 4, 77 in group 5)!

[Senor Choppy]

Yeah, I abandoned S&M preflop recommendations about the same time.

I took Abdul's approach and came up with my own hand rankings with TTH for the limit I play. A lot of hands I used to limp with UTG I now fold on the button in certain unraised pots, which feels pretty good.

[Senor Choppy]

[ QUOTE ]
I always thought Abdul's advice was the one that was too loose for most party games. Oh well.

[/ QUOTE ]

If you look at his recommendations for loose aggressive games, it is more accurate for conditions on Party than the standard S&M recommendations. Keep in mind, he's more concerned with higher limit games that are tighter and more aggressive, so it's certainly not perfect for the low limit party crowd.

Regardless, if you played 100% according to Abdul vs. 100% S&M, you'll be playing much fewer hands going the Abdul route, FWIW.

[Senor Choppy]

[ QUOTE ]
Is his stuff available online?

[/ QUOTE ]

http://www.posev.com/poker/holdem/strategy/preflop-abdul.html

Learn it. Know it. Live it.

[ApolloQuiet]

Grazie

[DcifrThs]

[ QUOTE ]
my 3/6 vpip over 100k hands was 21.5 and my bb/100 was 2.95.

[/ QUOTE ]

Does this simply mean that of the over 100k hands dealt, you voluntarily put money in the pot 21.5% of the time?

if so then i think that is definately loose...but you're also definately good enough to play. I'd like to know what mine is. I'm sure its less than that b/c flops seen linger around 13-17% but that obviously doesn't count when i raise, folded and i win uncontested. here i chose to put money in there and it doesn't register as a flop seen. but on the flip side, when i post a blind and check and then check fold the flop that counts as a flop seen but i didn't choose to put any money in there...and that happens more than me raising and winning uncontested...

anyway, 21.5% is almost 50% more than i play...and your win rate is clearly also higher...its posts like these and the preflop threads that make me think i may be too tight in some spots...but i just feel more comfortable playing a touch tighter, yet at the same time i'm right now seesawing back and forth between how i should be playing...very transitional time for me.

do you have any suggestions astro?
thanks
-Barron

[astroglide]

yes, it means i voluntarily put money in the pot preflop 21.5% of the time (that does not count free plays in blinds).

i don't know. i have to pay attention to keep away from 23%, i'm definitely not looking for places to add hands. as far as playing tighter, though, i really can't imagine what hands i would actually have to start folding to do it. i fold KTo, QTo, JTo all over the place (anywhere but the cutoff or button and i'll fold vs multiple limps). i don't play suited connectors anywhere near as liberally as others. i fold AJ and KQ to raises. i don't play suited aces or small pairs without limpers in front of me. etc. it would honestly PAIN me to play less hands than i do. so i probably don't have much advice.

all i can say is that i wouldn't go making any signifigant changes because your natural style has led you to play as you play. plenty of people do well at 17%, much more than do well at 21.5% i suspect, so focus on profiting the most / losing the least with what you're doing and slowly add stuff AS IT MAKES SENSE. if you add hands because you feel like you're supposed to i would think it unlikely that you would play them optimally.

[Schneids]

[ QUOTE ]

my vpip is definitely on the loose side

[/ QUOTE ]

I have roughly 40,000 hands at all full table levels between 2/4 and 5/10, and my combined VPIP is 21.44, so, I'm pretty close to you /images/graemlins/smile.gif.

Only 12,000 of those are at 2/4, however, which was Daryn's Q. In those 12,000 my VPIP was 24.34, and during those hands I'm 5.69/100, and I do not think I was playing too loose. If you find the right tables there are a plethora of hands great for multiway action.

[TimM]

Your VP$IP will depend a lot on the pre-flop raising character of the tables you play on. I think that makes it a hard stat to compare at the level of only a few percentage points.

[MicroBob]

yeah. i dig abdul's stuff too and have been going over it again the past couple of days.
obviously you can pick and choose which advice to follow amongst the abdul and S&M as your level and table conditions change. if there are certain hands that you don't feel comfortable playing....then simply don't play them. you can always add them later if you like, and you probably don't lose a heckuva lot of EV by playing a bit tighter....conversely, if you are playing hands that you are not comfortable with just because 'you are supposed to' then there is a decent chance you will be misplaying them on occasion and turning them into -ev hands (trust me....i know all about this from personal experience).



overall there is some very good stuff there on the pre-flop recommendations and strategy....even if some of it differs from S&M.
i also like his discussion on post-flop play ( outs, sucking-out, etc.)


some of the other articles look pretty interesting on posev.com but they have broken links.
anyone have alternate locations for these articles??

[daryn]

it's been a while since i read hpfap i guess, but i seem to remember them saying to only play ground 1 and 2 hands from early position, including group 3 hands if the game is very soft.

[Senor Choppy]

[ QUOTE ]
it's been a while since i read hpfap i guess, but i seem to remember them saying to only play ground 1 and 2 hands from early position, including group 3 hands if the game is very soft.

[/ QUOTE ]

Group 4 is the default with group 5 added in a passive game.

[daryn]

first in from EP? i mean hey, you say you've got the book right there, and admittedly i don't, but i can't see how S&M would approve of playing a group 5 hand from EP

[MicroBob]

"in early position, in a typical hold-em game, if you are the first one in or there is only a call to your right be prepared to play only those hands in the first four groups.
in a loose game, as long as the players are not too aggressive, you can add the group 5 hands, especially the suited connectors. in a tough game, it is probably best to discard even the group 4 hands. these guidelines are very important. playing too many hands up front is one of the most costly errors you can make."

HEFAP - page 18.

[daryn]

well how do you like that, it does say that. but i also remember it saying that hand groups are meant for a beginner really, and as you become an expert player you don't think of starting hands belonging to rigid groups, but instead you judge them based on their value in a certain situation. not bad advice for a beginner in a soft game i think.

[astroglide]

yeah, and KTs/KTo are worse hands than JTs/JTo. 64s is as good as a small pair. etc...

[Senor Choppy]

[ QUOTE ]
well how do you like that, it does say that. but i also remember it saying that hand groups are meant for a beginner really, and as you become an expert player you don't think of starting hands belonging to rigid groups, but instead you judge them based on their value in a certain situation. not bad advice for a beginner in a soft game i think.

[/ QUOTE ]

I think you're saying that since the book is meant for advanced players, and because advanced players don't adhere to a rigid set of groupings for starting hands, the fact that certain hands seem out of place should be overlooked. But despite the title of the book, it's meant for beginners (not people like my mom that have never played the game, but people just starting to get serious about making money playing holdem).

It's for this reason that the mistakes made in the hand groupings are such a disaster. They qualify certain hands placed in group 4, like qjo and kjo, saying how bad it would be to play them up front. If they're going to do this, it's especially important for them to say the same thing, but more ephatically, for j9s or 98s.

HPFAP has excellent advice for beginning and advanced players, and is probably the best book written for the game. But there is a lot of better advice out there (on 2+2, at izmet's site, etc.), especially for preflop play. People need to put aside their hero-worshipping of the authors and look at this stuff objectively. Anyone that ranks 98s above 77 deserves to be questioned.

[daryn]

i still think it's all situational. poker is not about having a blueprint for success, it's about thinking critically about different situations and making the right move. to say 77 is always better than 98s is probably untrue.

[astroglide]

their preflop rankings are flawed, and there is no way around it. that being said, even using your example i would take 77 over 98s in every position regardless of the limit or number of people in the hand.

[daryn]

i'm just saying there are more factors at work than the number of people in the hand or the limit. how about the actual players in the game, whether they will pay of many bets, etc.

i'm just asking questions and making statements here, not really trying to defend the almighty authors.

[Senor Choppy]

Everything is poker is situational, nothing is ever absolute. This could preface any advice written on poker, but it shouldn't be an excuse for incorrect information.

Having said that, if you're going to generalize and provide beginners with a blueprint for preflop play, you can do a lot better than S&M did. 77 is ALWAYS going to be better than 76s, 33 is ALWAYS better than 53s, etc. And once they start singling out certain hands as exceptions, like QJo and KJo, then the book is obviously incomplete because they ommitted other mediocre hands like the small suited connectors as well.