Limit Hold 'em Perfection

[Sparks]

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18/10/3 means 18% voluntarily put money in pot preflop, 10% preflop raise rate, and 3.0 average postflop aggression statistic (which is itself the ratio of bets and raises to calls, worked out for each postflop street and then averaged).

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How about percentage of pots won when seeing the flop?

Also, I presume the 18% is based on HPFAP which advocates 20% voluntary PF betting, reduced when there is a raise in front of you. I guess the reduction is 2%. But what about 10% PF raising? And AF of 3? Those based on anything concrete? I'm more curious about the 3 than the 10.

Thanks.

Sparks

[jtr]

Percentage of hands won when seeing the flop is a tricky one. It's an emergent statistic, in that it depends not only on your play but very much on your opponents' play. If they lay down some hands to your aggression, this will be higher, for instance.

The 10% raise rate and the 3.0 postflop aggression suggestion basically come from the principle that good things happen to people who bet (and raise). I'm sure cogent arguments could be made for PFRs between about 7 and 14, and similarly some people might want aggression as low as, oh, I don't know, say 1.8 or something. If they were giving opponents rope with which to hang themselves, for example. The important point is that once people have got past the total beginner stage (calling with all manner of crappy cards) they tend to move into a weak-tight stage where they are tempted to call when they really should raise, or check when they really should bet. Nobody sensible advocates just random aggression, but, overall, looking for reasons to bet or raise rather than check or call is a good idea. And thus you'll be led to numbers like 10% PFR and 3.0 postflop aggression, that's all.

I'm not necessarily endorsing or rejecting the originally suggested numbers, by the way -- I play 6-max NL and have never done better than get by at limit.