Redefining Aggression - PokerAce Hud
 

I'm looking to create a more accurate aggression stat for the next release of PokerAce Hud. There was a thread here a couple weeks ago on how non-useful or actually harmful the aggression factor in PokerTracker can be.

Here is my idea (with help from a friend) for the new aggression stat. It would be represented as:

(times_bet + times_raised) / (times_bet + times_raised + (times_checked - times_checkraised))

This totally removes calls out of the stat. Basically, it's nothing but the pure aggression stats.

I'm going to do some testing to see what kind of numbers I get, but I would like to get your opinions on this formula. Do you think it will be an accurate representation of aggression?

Also, what should I name this stat? I've gotten one suggestion, "aggression frequency." I like it, but I'm always open to suggestions.

Re: Redefining Aggression - PokerAce Hud
 

Well checking and calling are similar actions in terms of aggression, so it is difficult to have one and not the other...

Re: Redefining Aggression - PokerAce Hud
 

Here's what I'm trying to accomplish. Basically, I'm turning aggression into a percentage. 0% would be the most passive play possible. 100% would be the most aggressive play possible.

Would this not be pretty accurate to define aggression?

I think we need to define what is aggressive and what is passive.

Betting = Aggressive
Raising = Aggressive
Check Raising = Aggressive

Calling = Passive
Check Calling = Passive
Check Folding = Passive

Check without Call/Fold = Neutral


After discussing things with my friend some more, we came up with this new calculation:

(times_bet + times_raised) / (times_bet + times_raised + times_called + times_folded)


Let's do an example. We'll ignore preflop play for now. This player is aggressive, so he check raises the flop, bets the turn, but check folds the river.

That's 1 bet, 1 raise, and 1 fold. Doing the formula:

(1 + 1) / (1 + 1 + 0 + 1) = 67%

If the player bets the river, then it's:

(2 + 1) / (2 + 1 + 0 + 0) = 100%

If the player calls the river, then it's:

(1 + 1) / (1 + 1 + 1 + 0) = 67%


Another example. A player check calls the flop, check calls the turn, and makes his flush so he check raises the river:

That's 2 calls and 1 raise. That would be:

(0 + 1) / (0 + 1 + 2 + 0) = 33%

If he bets the river, then it's:

(1 + 0) / (1 + 0 + 2 + 0) = 33%

If he misses and check folds the river, then it's:

(0 + 0) / (0 + 0 + 2 + 1) = 0% (no aggression at all)


Let's say we have a maniac who bets his flush the whole way. Bet the flop, bet the turn, bet the river.

That's 3 bets, nothing else:

(3 + 0) / (3 + 0 + 0 + 0) = 100% aggression.


So does this make sense or am I completely out of my mind?

Re: Redefining Aggression - PokerAce Hud
 

Aggression factor can sometimes be misleading. For example, if a player bets one flop and folds 99 their aggression factor would be infinite.

With this new formula that PokerAce and myself have come up with, if a player bets 1 flop and folds 99, their aggression frequency would be 1% which is extremely passive.

Re: Redefining Aggression - PokerAce Hud
 

Hey PA,

I liked the first formula where there was a correction term in the denominator for the amount of times one check-raised. I happen to think that a check raise is qualitatively extremely agressive. Perhaps the numbers didn't flesh that out. I was wondering why you removed the correction term.

Thanks
-J

PS... I [censored] love PAHUD.

Re: Redefining Aggression - PokerAce Hud
 

The problem with making a check raise count for more aggression than a normal raise is that if someone does nothing but check raise all the time, their aggression would be way higher than 100%.

Basically, if you want to know how often someone check raises, you'll need to look at the check raise stats. In the new version, you'll get check raises by street.

Re: Redefining Aggression - PokerAce Hud
 

yo dude,

I am very glad to hear someone is taking on this problem!

I like what you have done so far, although the issue with calling frequency may still be a problem in interpreting true meaning (see below...sorry this is a bit long and rambling but it is definately something i have been pondering for awhile).

First of all, I completely agree that the CR stats should be kept separate and measured by themselves (I would most definitely like to see them street by streeet.... those are going straight to the pop-up stats on my HUD).

When multiple stats are combined into one there will often be interactions involved, which as a result, can make the meaning difficult to interpret.

Which leads to the main problem I have with the current PT aggression statistics is that they do not account for the looseness-tightness of the player (which, with certain players, drastically affects how one should correctly interpret the meaning and can actually be misleading if not taken into account).

Outlier type players are the most problematic, such as very loose or very tight players who either call relatively often or little respectively, which seriously affects the outcome of the current aggression metric and the resulting inference that should be made.

Basically, the inferences that we make are that a very aggressive player's bet/raise action is not necessarily indicative of a strong holding wheras a very passive player's bet is much more indicative of a strong hand (keeping the looseness/tightness of the player out of the picture for now and lets say equal for all).

Perhaps if you were able to remove or at least account for frequency of call actions this would likely distill this metric into a much better measure of aggression itself (without the interaction of looseness-tightness to worry about).


Let me back up though, I am trying to work out exactly what we are after here so bear with me....

...It seems to me that with the original aggression stats we were trying to interpret the average strength of the hand that the player is likely to be playing/betting.


So the question becomes, is there any way to measure the relative strength of a hand directly and in-turn use this in relation to bet/raise frequency?

..…Again, the goal is trying to ascertain the relative strength of the hand a player is betting/raising with...

In keeping with this method might to CALCULATE THE MEAN reletive strength of the hands (compared to the current board of course) a player is BETTING out with, is RAISING with and finally CR with? Overall and for each street….

You would likely need a fair number of hands on a player for these calculate means to have any meaning.

We should be able to work out the meaning of the spectrum of reletive hand strength numbers and put a chart togehter tying the numbers together with hands (e.g., high card, bottom pair, pair, top pair, two pair, top two pair.....etc).

So what would it all mean?...We should be able to take the means for PlayerA and infer that he BETS with only Top Pair or better, RAISES with Trips or better....

Pokergrader's luck calculation is the only thing that comes to mind so far for measuring relative hand strength, as I seem to recall takes this into consideration...?


...Anyway, just a couple of new ideas. I hope at least some of it was clear. I may way off here as i have been camping all weekend and poker has been the farthest thing from my mind.



With the current formula you have developed, it would be nice to get a picture of what the different types of players score (i.e., LAA, LPP, TPP, TPA, LPA, very very loose and very very tight, etc..). if you have run these I would love to see them. Perhaps, this issue is moot with your new formula.


cheers and keep up the good work,
the Real Macoy

ps. still loving your HUD

Re: Redefining Aggression - PokerAce Hud
 

I have a feeling this formula is pretty accurate, regardless of how loose/tight a player is.

Loose players who are passive will have a low aggression frequency. For example, I'm looking at a player right now. The stats on this player are 33/11/.3. The Aggr Freq for this player is 14%, which is low as you would expect. If this player bets or raises, odds are, he has a pretty good hand.

Loose players who are aggressive will have a higher Aggr Freq. A 28/17/2.5 player has an Aggr Freq of 56%. This player can bet/raise with any kind of a hand.

Tight players who are passive will have a low Aggr Freq, and tight players who are aggressive will have a high Aggr Freq.

I'll do some players and their Aggr Freq:

VPIP/PFR/PT AGR = Aggr Freq

13/7/3.75 = 50%
22/12/1.2 = 42%
21/18/2 = 56%
20/15/5 = 74%
14/14/1 = 33%
31/4/.9 = 34%
22/16/2.6 = 55%
54/16/1.3 = 42%
13/8/5 = 65%
43/4/.8 = 34%

[ QUOTE ]

Perhaps if you were able to remove or at least account for frequency of call actions this would likely distill this metric into a much better measure of aggression itself (without the interaction of looseness-tightness to worry about)

[/ QUOTE ]

The more a player calls, the lower their aggression factor is. So a player, no matter how loose/tight they are, if they don't bet or raise much, their aggr freq will be low. If a player with a low Aggr Freq raises, you know he's got a good hand.

If would be very difficult to determine the strength of the hand the player requires before raising.

Re: Redefining Aggression - PokerAce Hud
 

Ace, I think your formula will definitely be better, but we really won't know its effectiveness until we get it into action. So I say go for it.
I'd like to see another stat too, called "Donkbet". What percentage of the time does a guy when first to act on the flop or turn, bet out?

Re: Redefining Aggression - PokerAce Hud
 

As someone (like AP10) who has spent a lot of time trying to make use of the current flawed 'aggression' stat, think we need to be clear about what we mean by aggression (and weakness and passivity) and what use we want to make of them

To me 'aggression' means the act of escalating the pot. I want to know 'how hard is it going to be to control the size of the pot against this guy?'

There is a problem here straight away as at the moment a 1x BB bet and a push all-in are treated as showing equivalent aggression. The next generation of NL PT (or PT type) trackers is actually going to have to factor in the size of bets somehow. It might be handy to see for each player the average flop, turn, river and showdown pot-sizes where that player was still in a hand on that street..

Also when playing we tend to factor in positional factors and 'who has the lead' when judging aggression - if you are OOP, betting into a pre-flop raiser is much more aggressive than if you were the PFR and are simply leading out...or if you bet out on a flush draw board OTB when it's checked around to you that is much less aggresive than check raising from EP in the same scenario.. I suspect that's a bit sophisticated for the moment though..

The current 'aggression stat' really indicates how unlikely it is that the player will call. Passivity in PT is about making more calls than bets or raises. It's still useful to show that.

Weakness is the other general stat - how likely is is that someone will fold - we can already see that for each street with PT.

I think trying to use one stat - 'aggression'- to indicate all of aggression, passivity and weakness is asking too much - that's the real flaw at the moment- PA and AP10 are quite right in this thread to focus on escalation and not weakness or passivity (ie calling station tendencies) but to get a decent read you are going to need to know how to use all three...

Re: Redefining Aggression - PokerAce Hud
 

To attempt to isolate aggressiveness as a property, valued between 0 and 100, may be a suboptimal approach because of the high degree of intertwining of aggression along the range of very loose to very tight.

Aggressiveness from a loose player is very different from aggressiveness from a tight player. You welcome the LAG and avoid the TA type in most cases.

Consequently, since adjusting to Aggression requires context info to get the adjustment "just right", it may be suboptimal to isolate Agg as a property. Perhaps a value from 0 to 100 where 0 is loose passive (calling station) and 100 is super-tight super aggo may be closer to an optimal approach.

Re: Redefining Aggression - PokerAce Hud
 

You are absolutely right that aggression from a loose player is different than aggression from a tight player.

However, I'm not trying to come up with a stat on how good a player plays, just how aggressive.

A loose aggressive player and a tight aggressive player will have pretty similar aggression frequency stats. Look at two examples I posted above:

54/16/1.3 = 42%
22/12/1.2 = 42%

The first player is very loose, and is no doubt a very bad player. However, you know that this player is semi aggressive. The second player is tighter, but he bets/raises/calls/folds just as frequently as the first player. When this player is in the hand, expect his actions to be very similar to the loose player.

This isn't meant to be a universal stat that displays how good a player is, just how aggressive they play their hands. You will need to use it in conjunction with other stats to determine the skill of the player.

Re: Redefining Aggression - PokerAce Hud
 

OK... isn't this just bet% + raise%?

(Which I think is fine as an indicator of aggression)

Re: Redefining Aggression - PokerAce Hud
 

It's close, but not exactly.

I actually added those stats as well: Bet Street %, Check Raise Street %, and Raise Street %.

Re: Redefining Aggression - PokerAce Hud
 

Oh ok, you don't have times_check(ed) in there.

Why do you think it works better without the checks? As far as classifications with limited context go, they would be very close, with the main difference being the previous action facing the player (bet/raise vs check), IMHO.

Re: Redefining Aggression - PokerAce Hud
 

I don't want one tidy number to fit it all in. Here are the stats I want.


Bets flop when checked to: 47%
Raises flop when confronted with a bet/raise: 23%
Calls flop when confronted with a bet/raise: 32%

Bets turn when checked to: 47%
Raises turn when confronted with a bet/raise: 21%
Calls turn when confronted with a bet/raise: 42%

Bets river when checked to: 45%
Raises river when confronted with a bet/raise: 11%
Calls river when confronted with a bet/raise: 53%

Re: Redefining Aggression - PokerAce Hud
 

I've decided that checking should be considered a neutral action. Check raising is aggressive while check folding/calling is passive. Since there's no way to determine the player's motive, it's better just to remove them from the formula all together.

Re: Redefining Aggression - PokerAce Hud
 

[ QUOTE ]
Bets flop when checked to: 47%

[/ QUOTE ]

This is the new "Bet Street %"


[ QUOTE ]
Raises flop when confronted with a bet/raise: 23%

[/ QUOTE ]

This is the new "Raise Street %"


[ QUOTE ]
Calls flop when confronted with a bet/raise: 32%

[/ QUOTE ]

There is no direct stat that shows this, but looking at the "Raise Street %" and "Folds to Street Bet %" should give you an idea how often the player just calls.

Re: Redefining Aggression - PokerAce Hud
 

Good move! On making checking neutral.

I think you ought to weight raising more than betting. Such as TA = Bets + 2xRaises / calls. I think raising is much more indicative of aggression than betting.

Re: Redefining Aggression - PokerAce Hud
 

You might be onto something.

Perhaps we should make raising count as more aggressive than betting and calling as more passive than folding. So the formula would look like this:

(times_bet + (times_raised * 2)) / (times_bet + (times_raised * 2) + (times_called * 2) + times_folded)

Thoughts?

Re: Redefining Aggression - PokerAce Hud
 

How about re-raising?
Re-raising should be more aggressive than raising.

Soh

ps ...I didn't read all the posts.

Re: Redefining Aggression - PokerAce Hud
 

I am glad you are doing this. I would prefer to just get the bet+raise% for each street and the fold% for each street.

Other stats I would like to see is W$SD when called the river and W$SD when bet the river.

Re: Redefining Aggression - PokerAce Hud
 

I like it. There is an alluring simplicity to it. But I think you should make a few small modifications: I think raises (both check and normal), 3 bets, and caps should all be weighted slightly. I was thinking maybe 1.2 for raises, 1.35 for 3 bets, and 1.5 for caps. I think the concern that percents might get over 100 is mute; it is a good indicator if they are as such.

Also, your formula doesnt take into account that cehcking behind 3 times is MORE passive then calling 3 times. I think the solution to this is including checking in the denominator *only when you are closing the action*.

Edit to add: I also think calling (and checking behind) should be valued higher then folding. I think a 1:2 ratio is a bit too strong however. Maybe 1.2 for calling , 1.0 for checking behind, and .8 for folding.

Re: Redefining Aggression - PokerAce Hud
 

Check raise is not really 100% aggressive. It is often a probing manuever designed to see where you are (typically after the flop) and can accomplish certain other goals, like getting a free card (etc). The check raise is often used as a semi-defensive play early in the hand, such as when you hold 2nd pair after the flop and need to better define your opponents likely holding.

Consequently check-raising may not really apply here. As the final point, I notice that Doyle, arguably the definitive aggressive player, states in SS1.0 that he 'does not like' the check-raise, mainly because the opponent can GET AWAY when you use it.

Is the check-raise 100% indicative of pure aggression?

Probably not.

Re: Redefining Aggression - PokerAce Hud
 

Yes, I think you are really onto something

Re: Redefining Aggression - PokerAce Hud
 

I think you could easily weight raising more than betting, and check raising more than both. I would not use folding at all. I think calling is the best denominator. Also, event though it is less than ideal, I think you want something that works across all games, Limit, PL and NL.

Thx. for asking, and good luck.

Re: Redefining Aggression - PokerAce Hud
 

I agree. Don't worry about folding. Went to Showdown % is already a good indicator of how well you can push Villain out of the pot. Aggression Factor should be used in conjunction with WtSD% to narrow down Villain's holdings. Including folding in that equation is redundant IMO.

Re: Redefining Aggression - PokerAce Hud
 

'Went to Showdown % is already a good indicator of how well you can push'

WtSD% is OK but there are two reasons why a hand doesn't get to showdown - villain may be very aggro and so a lot of his hands end with his big bets/re-rasies on turn/river or villain may fold a lot.

You need a separate criterion for 'weakness' (or propensity to fold) as a cross-check to see how 'safe' it is to push.

Re: Redefining Aggression - PokerAce Hud
 

[ QUOTE ]
I agree. Don't worry about folding. Went to Showdown % is already a good indicator of how well you can push Villain out of the pot. Aggression Factor should be used in conjunction with WtSD% to narrow down Villain's holdings. Including folding in that equation is redundant IMO.

[/ QUOTE ]

I find the "Folded to a bet" street by street stat to be one of the more useful ones. Combined with the WTSD and W$SD %, you can get a pretty decent idea of how to play that specfic opponent.

I am not adverse to changing the the way aggression is presented, but I think right now between the "street by street aggression", "street by street folding", and WTSD/W$SD, that a pretty accurate picture of a player can be created within 100-200 hands.

Are you planning to configure AceHud to other sites?
 

I love your software, but am stuck without when i play on the PRIMA network. Any chances this site might one day be supported?

I look foward to all new improvements, and thank you for your time.

Re: Are you planning to configure AceHud to other sites?
 

You'll have Prima support in a few days.

Re: Are you planning to configure AceHud to other sites?
 

BOOYAH!!!