A new concept I've developed

[gol4pro]

Listen to me a second here, and don't just write me off as a moron because I don't use PT that much.

I'm trying to develop a formula that equates an opponents TOTAL LEVEL OF AGGRESSION.

Obviously, a Player that is 60/4/2 is different than a 15/10/5. However, both players are rather aggressive, almost excessively. I'm trying to come up with some sort of formula that equates their relative level of aggression; that is, their total aggression with their VPIP as a consideration.

Here's what I was thinking. Since preflop aggression seems to be of equal importance to post flop, or more clearly, divide aggression into 2 directions-- post flop/preflop. That way, they should be weighed equally.

Preflop aggression is defined by PFR, NOT raise%/call%

Post flop aggression is defined by sum(flop ag + turn ag+ riv ag)/3; or the average of the 3 post flop streets.

Here's what I was thinking. (VPIP*2)/(PFR*agressiveness post flop)

Here's why I weighted VPIP. If you compare a 30/10/2 to a 10/10/2, the 30/10/2, in all likelihood is much more than 3x more aggressive than the 10/10/2. The reason being that his aggressiveness is probably slightly above 2 if he had a 10% VPIP, but the other 20%, comprised mostly if junk hands, balances out to only be slightly below 2. Therefore, he's going to be betting on air a lot of the time to have a post flop aggression factor of ~1.6 with the bottom 2/3 of his hand range. Thus, I adjust it.

Does this TAL (total aggression level) make sense to anyone? Is it a good idea that just needs tweaking?

Hey gol4pro,

I didn't understand why you were taking 3 numbers VPIP/PFR/PFA, and turning them into a single number.

Doesn't this just lose information? (for no gain, since anyone using PT will see all these numbers anyway)

Now a post analysing what the PFA actually meant for different VPIP/PFR families, along the lines of your initial thoughts, would be pretty interesting.

[gol4pro]

The other numbers are still very useful; this is just a basis for relative aggression comparison amongst people with very different VPIPs

[elus2]

[ QUOTE ]
Now a post analysing what the PFA actually meant for different VPIP/PFR families, along the lines of your initial thoughts, would be pretty interesting.

[/ QUOTE ]

[wtfsvi]

I think you're maybe overrating the impact of vpip in the formula. Your reasoning is that he will bet/raise much less postflop with the junk hands than the good hands, but remember that he will also call less. I don't really know, just a thought.

[afreeman]

[ QUOTE ]
Post flop aggression is defined by sum(flop ag + turn ag+ riv ag)/3; or the average of the 3 post flop streets.

Here's what I was thinking. (VPIP*2)/(PFR*agressiveness post flop)

[/ QUOTE ]

I don't think its that useful.

Averages and ratios, raw or otherwise, are useful for getting a general idea of your opponent's tendencies, but as I gain more experience, I'm beginning to find that knowledge of specific tendencies are a lot more useful than knowledge of general ones.

For example, some players religiously make continuation bets, and some don't. Others (like Daniel Negreanu) put more of an emphasis on pushing the turn and less on the flop. Some players can lay down a big hand; some cannot.

IMO, these are really the tidbits of information that can make or break the decision to try a certain play, and I'm skeptical that finessing a particular average or ratio could ever give you that same type of information.

Also, we all know that poker is a game of very high variance; even with 100 or more hands logged for a certain opponent, their true VP$IP or PFR% can still be far out of line with what is listed. For example, I'm around 18.5% and 9.3% over the last 2k hands, but I've been variously classified all the way from rock to maniac over the short term. And, in many cases, you won't even have 100 hands on someone.

Don't take this as a criticism of your idea in general, but rather one of your specific implementation; its a good idea, but I think you're going after the wrong data.

I would suggest trying to directly catalogue an opponent's reaction to common situations, rather than trying to extrapolate their probable reaction from a couple of moving averages. For example (in limit hold'em), knowing that an opponent cold-called with less than a premium hand 4 times during the current session tells you a whole lot more about their ability and preflop standards than a VP$IP number of 27.3%.

Plus, a number like this is far more reliable over the short-term. In this example, you now have clear evidence of four clear pre-flop mistakes that your opponent has made. A high VP$IP number might suggest the same thing, but what if the guy is just catching a good run of cards?

Anyway, just my 2 cent raise.