Wanted: a better mousetrap for $25 NL

[afreeman]

Since party opened up the number of tables you can watch at once, I've been watching 10 tables pretty much 24/7, and my database is up to about 700k hands total over about 9k players. Overall, about 40% of players are winners at $25 NL.

Turns out that many of the most profitable players are either mice or rocks (VP$IP under 25%, PFR under 6%, total aggression under 1.2). Basically, the weak-tight players.

I've got 42 players in my DB with 1k hands or more. Surprisingly, the winners/losers with 1k hands or more split evenly at 21 each. Even more curiously, 16 of those 21 winners are are mice or rocks.

On the other hand, the eagles (TAG players with VP$IP under 25%, PFR over 7 and total aggression greater than 1.2) didn't fare well at all. There were only 3 eagles with over 1k hands, but they were are fairly large losers; in fact, they averaged a loss of about 75 cents (3 BB) per hour.

Anyway, this is obviously a very small sample. However, it does seem to roughly correspond to my experience at the tables, especially if you consider that most of the players with high hand counts are probably also multi-tablers. Even if LAG-style play might be somewhat more profitable at these limits, it would be very hard to do well at 4+ tables.

I'm sure some of you have looked at this as well, so my questions are:

(1) what trends have you seen at these micro limits? Is your data more-or-less similar or widely diverent?

(2) if you assume that the mice are playing well from a game theory perspective (which this very limited data vaguely suggests), how do you adapt to their play? Have you developed any specific strategies to crush these mice?

[flyangler]

I am blown away by these stats in that I am an "Eagle" in small limit (2/4) and just started dipping my toe into NL Cash games. I've done pretty well at limit, so I decided to move towards NL and figured that my game would translate just as well there.
I find at 25 NL the fish are just as bad as .25¢ micro limit- they will play with any two hands. I have taken some very expensive bad beats so far with only a couple hundred hands played. Not debilitating to my BR but painful.
I can see how weak tight play would have saved me some money over the last couple weeks. I don't know if I am capable of getting passive after working so hard to learn to be TAG at limit. Maybe NL is just not my game, but I want to learn, so I will likely stick with it.
I am curious to see what the more experienced posters will say about these numbers.

I have played about 10k hands at $25PL. I was initially (about 2 months and 5k hands) beating the game for over 20PTBB/100. I then started doing more reading, including this forum, and increased my aggressiveness - pfr gone from 4 to 6, aggression factor increased on all streets. VPIP remains at 18-19. I now win about 8PTBB/100.

I think this comes from the increased ratio of calling stations at these micro limits. Continuation bets from a missed flop with AK are less likely to get away with the pot. Preflop raises don't reduce the number of people seeing the flop as much as they might. I think the pfr is still important - but following up may not be as lucrative. I am going to try betting less with a missed hand and see if I can increase my win rate. Of course at such a small sample size I may have just had some beginners luck.

[sourbeaver]

I would fit into the eagle category somehow .. and if you mined me during the last week, I'm definitely right up there in the losers bunch [img]/images/graemlins/tongue.gif[/img]

1k hand on someone is awesome to get a sense of how they play, but results-wise (BB/100) it's not very significant.

Your DB shows 40% winners, yet there are probably no more than 7-8% long-term winners in there. This figure is higher than it would be at another limit, because a very mediocre player can still be a long-term winning player at 25NL.

[stu-unger]

i wont completely discount your numbers because they do have some information implied within. i do believe that a super aggro style is not optimal in small stakes. i do think that when u r betting it should be for value because u will get called.

i cant agree that 40% of the players at this level are winners. i dont think that 7% of the players were winners when all of the skins where there.

[FreakDaddy]

Sample size is WAY to small. When you get up around the 100 mil range, send back some data for us. Weak tight play will win at this limits, but it's not optimal.

[afreeman]

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i cant agree that 40% of the players at this level are winners. i dont think that 7% of the players were winners when all of the skins where there.

[/ QUOTE ]

As I recall, that 7% number was the total number across all skins, at all limits, and was published in an annual stockholder report by one of the skins (Empire, I think).

However, its reasonable to figure that there is a disproportionately high number of people clearing sign-up or reload bonuses at this level. That would do two things: (1) encourage higher-skilled player to play below the level at which they might normally play, and (2) bloat the available pool of dead money significantly, enabling otherwise break-even players to be somewhat ahead.

I agree that 40% seems high (again, limited data here), but I wouldn't be surprised to find that a higher percentage of players are winners at this level than is the case for higher limits.

[Isura]

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Your DB shows 40% winners, yet there are probably no more than 7-8% long-term winners in there.

[/ QUOTE ]

This is a gross underestimate.

I don't have tons of experience but I play 25NL at party now. The trend I see is that usually the loose players are the winners. Sure, there will be TAG's picking up a couple big pots here and there, but they also lose the same amount when their KK all in's get beat by AA's. I used to play super tight but found it doesn't really pay off as well. Right now I 3 table and see the flop with about 23-25% of the hands. I think it works better, is more fun, and helps you win more. I haven't nearly mastered it yet, but I'm a winner overall.

[Finite_Risk]

An interesting exercise, for those autorating players with PT, would be to show aggregate stats by icon - %winners and PTBB/100...yes, I know some autorate rules are different than others, but it shouldn't matter that much. When I get home, maybe I'll post mine later - I'm sure many have more than the 40k hands in my db