preflop raising. pokertracker stats.

[mosta]

There've been a lot of pokertracker stats postings--so many that they're probably very tiresome for everyone by now. But--my question is I think new.

In more than one discussion I've seen better mid to high limit online players talk about their PreFlopRaise% number. Some were raising 9%, and others said they were raising 11%. I have one friend who's successful at that level (over almost a year), and he only raises PF 6%. That's also where I was in my 5-10 stats. So, okay, maybe 6% can make you money, but maybe it's not optimal. After consulting privately with some other advanced players, I decided I should try to at least get my PFR% to 9%. And we agreed my problem was probably cold calling too much when I should be reraising or folding. Now I'm a three-betting fool (not really), but still I've only gotten my PFR% up to 7.7%.

So--here are my stats by position, broken down with cold calling and raise first in, and I'm hoping someone can ascertain where I'm missing preflop aggression:

_______VP$P___cold call___win%___wentSD__PFR%___R 1st in
button__19.6____2.2______7.0_____34.1____12.3_____ 5.4
____1__15.7____0.8______7.6_____36.0____10.8_____5 .0
____2__15.4____0.8______6.7_____32.3____9.7______4 .3
____3__13.4____0.6______6.5_____39.0____8.0______4 .5
____4__13.3____0.2______5.9_____38.8____5.8______2 .1
____5__13.1____0.0______4.8_____32.4____4.3______3 .6
____6__11.6____0.4______4.2_____37.9____3.8______3 .4
____7__14.2____0.0______7.3_____30.3____3.4______3 .0
___BB__13.6____0.0______15.8____20.0____5.8______0 .1
___SB__20.3____0.0______7.4_____23.5____8.7______3 .6
total___15.2____0.5______7.5_____28.5____7.66_____ 3.52
this is with about 700 hands in each position, except 7 off the button which is only 230.

I hope some will find this interesting and useful, and, more, that someone may have some insights.

[lorinda]

At the risk of talking about a game that I suck at, I would have thought (and my stats bear it out on a small sample) that your CO raise % should be higher than your button raise %.

Lori

[Senor Choppy]

Mine is around 10% and I'm far from overly aggressive. Even so, if you're up to 7.7% averaging in your early hands where you were at 6%, you're probably around 9 or 10 already.

Even 7.7% isn't that terrible. You're better off playing the game you're comfortable with than trying to go nuts when you don't feel it's warranted. The added aggression will come as you get more familiar with the game.

[mosta]

[ QUOTE ]
...Even so, if you're up to 7.7% averaging in your early hands where you were at 6%, you're probably around 9 or 10 already.

[/ QUOTE ]
Thanks for the reply. Actually, this 7.7% is only the hands I've played since I decided to try getting my PFR into the 9-11% range--so that's all I got, 7.7%. (My first 40,000 or so hands my PFR is between 5.5-6%.) I just can't figure out where I'm missing the raises. I don't think I need to retract my "hand with a jack" rule, do I?--meaning, when I first read a book and decided I was going to be a winning player and went to the 3-6 tables, I figured any hand worth 20 or 21 in blackjack was worth a raise. But then I only really understood tight preflop play when I understood to (usually) throw away a hand with a jack in it (other than JJ). AJo, EP--I fold it happily. MP--sometimes I raise, hesitantly. Three-bet it?--almost never (only if I know the guy is really really bad). (Yes, suited hands, late position, unraised pot. And late position opening the pot,... .) I suspect one spot I could be raising more is mediumish pairs. Sometimes I three-bet an open raiser to isolate with a hand like 88, but I rarely open raise it myself from EP or MP (much prefer to limp and will often fold to a raise).

One place to look at the numbers--I think you can see how much I reraise by comparing PFR% versus Raise-1st-in. EP you can't reraise all that much just because there aren't as many people in front of you who could have raised first (and you need more...). So I think the place to get at my question is the difference for the later positions? For those of you who are PFR% in the 9-11% range, is the difference compared to my numbers more in the Raise 1st in (so that you are just playing more hands), or in the reraises (as represented by PFR% minus Raise 1st in)?

[mosta]

I don't see why cut-off raise percent should be higher. Could you explain? My figuring is that as your position improves you play (and raise) more hands, and button is better position than CO. No?

[guppy]

I think the idea is that a raise from the cutoff has the added benefit of sometimes forcing out the button when he would have called a single bet, giving you the best postflop position.

[Phil Van Sexton]

For a VP$P of 15.2, I think 7.7 might be ok. It would be quite difficult to get a PFR of 11% when your VP$P is only 15%.

I'm guessing that players with PFR of 10+% also have a higher VP$P, like say 20%.

Basically, you shouldn't focus on PFR% in isolation. If you play very few hands, obviously you will be raising very few hands.

Maybe you should look at PokerTracker's Aggression Factor instead. I don't know exactly how its calculated, but you may well have a high Aggression Factor already. I believe >1.5 is considered aggressive. Search the archives where others have posted their AF stats.

[Senor Choppy]

I went back and looked at my 3/6 numbers just to see where I thought I was playing more hands/raising more often and it's nice to know I'm completely talking out of my ass when I'm giving advice here.

My first 200k hands or so, I was around 19% VP$IP and 9% PFR, if I remember correctly. My last 70k I was 14% and 6.25%, even tighter than you've been playing, and far tighter than I've been suggesting. One caveat, I took very few notes and made almost no adjustments based on the players because I was playing 8 tables at once. My BB/100 wasn't as high as a lot of the better 3/6 players because of this, but I made up for it with volume despite playing less than optimally. Also, because of the small blind structure in 3/6, that accounts for my VP$IP being lower than yours in 2/4.

If you're paying more attention to the games though, I'm positive you should be playing slightly more hands than I did, because I was usually missing opportunities to isolate LAG players with AJo, 77, etc.

All things considered, I think your numbers are actually close to perfect.

[mosta]

[ QUOTE ]
...than yours in 2/4.


[/ QUOTE ]

Thanks for the thoughtful replies. Just one note (this was kind of buried in the first post), these stats are from playing Party 5-10, not 2-4. Thought I'd mention it since the texture of the game is pertinent.

[dogmeat]

My stats are mostly from Party $3/6. Raised pref-flop 7.22% on Vol. Put $ in Pot 19.62% Maybe I need to get my numbers up a little also. Dog

[Senor Choppy]

Sorry about that, I thought I edited it afterwards after seeing that you were actually talking about 5-10. Was responding to a similar thread involving 2-4 and got them mixed up.

When I played 5-10 (very briefly), I was playing fewer multiway hands (76s, 22, etc.) but A LOT more big cards, open-raising late. FWIW, my VP$IP was close to 20% and my PFR was pretty close to 10%. I played 300k 3-6 hands during the previous year, and can probably infer a lot about the 2-4 as I think it plays similar, but I really don't have enough 5-10 experience to say what's optimal.