52K HAND MEGA TUNE UP (REALLY LONG instructional content)

[droolie]

Here is the long awaited follow up to my first check-up thread obnoxiously called....
10,000 hands 6.80BB/100 Is this what Ed means by crushing micros? (a very good read BTW despit the obnoxious title. It got lots of great responses as this was during the week of no converter and content was low.)

Many players never show how their games have changed and when they "get it" they just post in other tune up threads. I was hoping to have a different sort of tune-up... one where I break down what's going on in my own numbers as a guide for newbies getting their feet wet with their own PT stats.




Here is all the crap from my pokertracker database.

I think there's a lot of interesting things in here. While I certainly am not the greatest player I do not think I win by shear luck alone. I hope that by showing my entire stat set some of you guys can learn a thing or two. Many of my stats are very debatable and I would love to hear feedback and criticism. These stats are all for party .50/1 only and are certainly not ideal for higher levels where I recommend tighter and more aggressive play.
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Here is the basic "look at my stats" screenshot. These are my .50/1 hands that I played at the party poker network. This includes hands from when I was much less aggressive pf when I first began playing at party poker. I had played about 10-20K hands at nano-limits at pokerstars prior to moving to party and I had read SSH by that time and had absorbed some of it too so I was pretty decent already but certainly had leaks. My winrate was actually 6.8BB/100 through the first 10K hands (I was running hot, duh). My BB/100 started falling over the next 10K hands and has remained more or less where it is for the last 30K. I would put my true winrate somewhere between 3BB/100 and 6BB/100 for this level.
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This is where most of the debate about my game will begin and end. It shows a player who is aggressive but not nearly as aggressive as most of you. I stongly believe that massive aggression is a mistake at .50/1. I only raise when I have a good reason to do so. I take implied odds into account and peel (call) when many of you would fold. If I sort my hands since 4/1/2005, through my last 10K hands my pfr% is 10.64. That is probably the minimum pfr% I would recommend all you guys try to attain. Ideal is possibly as high as 13% but I'm not there yet (I'm still a little weaker than some of the true masters in this area).
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I included this because it shows my standard deviation. I don't worry about this stat as I think it closely mirrors VP$IP and neither should you.
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This shows how I vary my play by position. This is not great as it should show better gradation but I'm relatively comfortable with what I see. You can see I raise pf much more from the last 3 positions than from EP as I do raise quite a bit to isolate, buy the button and to steal the blinds. It also shows that I'm losing $$ from the blinds but I think my numbers are actually pretty decent here as everybody loses from the blinds but the amount I lose isn't all that bad. Lastly it shows the majority of my cold calls are from the button. Do you see why?
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This one shows how I win $$. I win through big hands. That's the name of the game at .50/1. Suited hands and pocket pairs skyrocket in value at this level IMO. Look at the amount of money I win on flushes and full-houses. This is because when I flop a flush draw or set ramming the pot is always rewarded and is +EV. I ALMOST NEVER SLOWPLAY. YOU SHOULDN'T EITHER (at this level)
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Here are the hands that make me money. It's nice to see all the usual suspects in the order you would more or less expect. You can learn a lot about my pf game by looking at these stats. You can see which hands I raise pf and which ones I only raise when first in (RFI%). You can also check out the hands I limp with after other players limp (LwPC) Lastly you can see the hands I will cold call with (CCPF) on rare occassion. Notice to all you freaks who don't like raising 99 pf. This is why we raise it! It wins $$.
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Here are the hands that are losing me money. I was happy to see that none of them were $$ making hands (hands with high VP$IP) with the exception of 33 and 76s.
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I hope this helps some of you guys to examine your own stats in greater detail and makes some of you see that massive aggression is not necessarily the only way to win money. When looking at your stats keep in mind that your individual hands that are losing money may not have a decent sample size and may mean next to nothing about how you are playing them. Winning one or two big hands with 22 took my winrate from the red to green relatively quickly. I expect in time 33 will follow. However you may be misplaying some of them and if a $$ making hand shows up as losing it is certainly worth taking a look at how you are playing them from time to time. I know I was playing suited gapped hands too liberaly for a while and only after tightening up on them did I get them out of the top 10 biggest losers for me.

To those of you who are concerned about any aspect of my play, FIRE AWAY! There's certainly a lot to chew on here. This is a tune up thread after all.

[shadow29]

You're a nit.

[ArturiusX]

Cool post.

Just looking at your stats, I find your aggression interesting. I compared it to my aggro (keeping in mind, I'm an animal at 3.5/3.2/2.7), and the big difference seems to be I like to bet out a lot more, and you like to check a lot more. I'm not sure which is better, but its given me something to think about for sure. I also raise the flop more than you at 10%.

[grjr]

[ QUOTE ]
My winrate was actually 6.8BB/100 through the first 10K hands (I was running hot, duh). My BB/100 started falling over the next 10K hands and has remained more or less where it is for the last 30K.

[/ QUOTE ]

I think I have a lot to talk about here but I wanted to get to this first. Do you know what your VP$IP was for those first 10K hands? I have a theory that 20% is too low to maxamize winnings. For .50/1 I think it's around 25-26%. Even for higher limits I think it's not much lower than that.

To go with that higher % I also think that a PFR% of 12-14 is optimal. I've been close to that for the last few days and 3 out of 4 tables are outright bowing down to me.

I watched several hours of 30/60 friday night and saturday and virtually all the people who were killing those tables had a VS$IP of between 25-30% and a PFR% of between 12-15%.
They were also a lot more aggressive on the turn than I am but people were folding out there where they wouldn't at .50/1 so I'm not sure what is optimal on the turn for the micro-limits.

Any comments on all this?

[droolie]

If you follow the link at the top of the post my stats are in that thread. I think I was at 21% or so.

The way I look at VP$IP is that there is a law of dimishing returns at some point. What that means is as you get above 20% the hands and situations you add to get that number up are not big $$ making hands. Look at the hands that I have that make me money. The premium hands make the most and as you go down the list the hands that are weaker make less. You might be adding hands that make money but your also adding hands that lose you money. When it all comes out in the wash you're not picking up much value and at some point you begin to lose it. I'm sure the top 2+2 players could squeeze a profit out of all 25%VP$IP hands but beyond that I don't think they'd be picking up much value. There is a balance you need to find according to your skill level and I think mine is right around 21-23 tops right now. I make a conscious decision not to back away from any +EV situations and my VP$IP is usually around 20-22. It's not higher because I'm not seeing the +EV in all the times I fold. Hopefully as I improve that number will climb.

As far as players killing the higher limits with those numbers I'm very skeptical. Datamine those levels for a while. Players with higher VP$IP are probably more volatile and can run hotter over short periods but I'm reasonbly confident over the long haul the TAG's are getting the money. I realy don't know though as I don't play or even watch those games much. The few times I have most flop were comtested HU or 3-way and you cannot convince me that there is +EV in 25-30 VP$IP in that kind of game against good players.

[grjr]

Maybe the 30/60 was unusually loose due to the friday night factor but I swear it looked like a typical 1/2 party game as far as players seeing the flop.

If it's been a while since you checked 30/60 out then you might not know that they added a ton more tables. Now all the "fish with money" can play all the 30/60 they want instead of waiting in line behind 30 other people. Prior to this they were probably playing in the 15/30 game.

Ok, enough of that. Here's something I find interesting and is also related somewhat to VP$IP. Look at my position stats below and compare the blinds to yours. I call a lot more raises from the blinds with marginal hands but I have lost far less money there which really adds to my overall BB/100. What do you think about that?

[btspider]

raise more PF on the button.

[droolie]

Your BB hold is awesome dude. I've never seen anything close. There's certainly a major discount in the blinds but I would never guess that it would be profitable to be that loose. I hate to say you're just running good but I think you might be.

I've been trying to account for the blind discounts more lately but I just checked my stats for the last month where I've been a little looser and my numbers are worse (.17)BB and (.16)SB. You have the midas touch man. I might try rethinkg my blind play even more.

On a side note some of our other stats are freakishly similar. I'd really like to see how you'd do if you tightened up because I'd bet your leaving money on the table being so loose. You must play really well postflop and I'd be willing to bet the majority of your profits are coming from the top 21% and you might be giving some back with the bottom 3% you're playing. Just a thought.

[droolie]

[ QUOTE ]
raise more PF on the button.

[/ QUOTE ]

I'm slowly bringing that number up. Over the last month I've been raising CO 13.86 and button 13.23. What yours at these days?

[grjr]

Another post here a couple of days ago got me looking at my losing hands from early position. Since then I've decided to drop those hands and it's dropped my VP$IP to around 25%. My BB/100 has gone through the roof but I think I've been getting some really good cards.

Getting back to the blinds, I catch a lot of flak here for calling raises in the blinds with marginal hands. Basically I'll call just about any raise with suited connectors and one-gaps with both cards 5 and up. The more other people in the pot the better but as long as I think there will be at least one other caller I'm in. I've won some really big pots with those type hands.

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I'd be willing to bet the majority of your profits are coming from the top 21% and you might be giving some back with the bottom 3% you're playing.

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I've been thinking about this. I think a lot of the bottom 3% consists of the medium suited connectors and one-gaps. When you win a pot with these hands it's usually a big one, especially if the pot was raised pre by someone else.

The hands I've decided to drop from early position are the Kxs and (maybe) Axs. Also I'm folding pairs below 66 early. I'm still limping J8s (and up) early (even though everyone hates it) because that hand makes me money from ANY postion. I'll fold T8s and T7s though.

Oh, I've also decided to stop calling raises in the blinds with junk suited hands. After looking at the results they were doing pretty badly. If you take out those losses I'm pretty close to even money for the BB.