VPIP 30/20 today, 20/15 yesterday.... and tomorrow?

[Silverback]

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At the higher limits you just get in alot less situations where you can open up the betting.

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Why is this? Please explain.

Thanks

[Nikla]

The games are just alot more aggressive.

[mindflayer]

I posted this exact question last month saying my stats were 30/20 and what should they be, optimally, for 5-10 6 max??

The only real reply was.. it depends.

I dropped down to 25/18 to 4 table while running game time+ substiting good reads for player stats,
but my results this month have been poor.
Last night I droped back down to 2 tables but kept the 25/18 to see if it made any difference. (moving down in vpip was not a result of reading inside the poker mind.)

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Quote:
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Strategy and adaptability are what count


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I just walked over to the coffee shop in our hospital to grabs some lunch. On the wall there is a picture with the slogan:

"Only those who adapt survive" -- Charles Darwin

...the picture is of a Shark!

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What is odd about this statement is that sharks and cockroaches are probably the only non microsopic animals that have survived UNCHANGED for the last 300 million years.

Just wait untill after WWIII
the only survivors will be bomb shelter survivors, bad tv and mutant cockroaches,
oh yeah, and poker too!

[sthief09]

being a lag is fun:

[Jeff W]

Based on these stats, I conservatively predict that you're running at >3.0 BB/100. Probably >5.0 BB/100.

[sthief09]

the showdown stats are worthless because yeah, I have been running good, but I was just making the general point that being a lag is fun. I also play a good amount of 2-3 handed

[sthief09]

when you raise preflop, you're putting 1 BB into the pot. when you play postflop you put in 2-6 bets. that's why postflop play is omportant.

[sweetjazz]

Cool post. Let me play devil's advocate a little bit, though.

I certainly agree that it's just not possible to discern +0.01 BB/hand vs -0.01 BB/hand at the table in a given situation, and that the variance is so large as to make this distinction irrelevant.

However, I suspect on the one hand that expert players have a finer ability to distinguish EV values. They are less likely to make a PF raise/call that has -0.05 BB EV (vs 0.00 BB EV for folding) than a typical player. This situations come up often enough that if you are better at this than others, it will make a difference.

Also, I like your raising on the button with JTo example. It seems true to me that whether you raise or fold here is not that important. And going with your style is one aspect that should guide your decision. Even so, an expert player is probably thinking about the particular players in the blinds and how that might swing his decision. Most of us would consider how tight the blinds are in deciding whether to steal here or not, but you can look beyond that too as well. Is the blind likely to call down with A high? Is that good for us (he makes a big mistake when we hit our pair) or bad for us (reduces our chances of taking down the pot when we miss)?

I agree that it's probably not worth putting too much though into this hand at the time. But an expert player has thought about these types of issues a lot, and so his decision comes somewhat naturally to him. I think this helps a lot over the long run.

At least this is what I tell myself is the reason I keep studying the game and thinking about all kinds of different possibilities and complexities involved. I'd like to eventually develop expert player skills and get away from being a mediocre player all my life. [img]/images/graemlins/smile.gif[/img]

I don't think what we're saying is necessarily inconsistent. Away from the table, we study lots of things, including sometimes close decisions that don't matter too much one way or the other. The reason for studying them is not just to squeeze a tiny bit of EV out of them, but also to improve our overall decision-making abilities, which helps with the tough and important ones.

I guess my conclusion is that to become an expert, you have to really think about the tough issues. Sometimes, you will conclude that a given decision is too close to tell which line is best. But by trying to discern which is better, you increase the likelihood that you can correctly make a distinction, and you decrease the likelihood that you make a decision which you believe to be a toss-up when, in fact, one line is "clearly" superior. I think this is somewhat on the mark, and completely consistent with what you said as well.

But, then again, what do I know? [img]/images/graemlins/laugh.gif[/img]

[StellarWind]

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I like your raising on the button with JTo example.

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Actually my example was JTo in *cutoff*. From a recent poll.

I generally agree with your post and don't feel you are disagreeing with mine. Experts spend an enormous amount of time thinking about close decisions away from the table. This is essential because it is only by thinking carefully about decision X that the expert eventually realizes that it's close. Until then the expert must assume that X might be a not-close decision that is causing a leak.

Furthermore the "close" determination cannot be a one-time thing. Not that I am an expert, but I periodically revisit topics that I have thought about and settled in the past. My understanding of poker changes and the games change and that means revising my ideas.

But once an expert gets to the table he has a general idea what he wants to do when (e.g.) JTo in cutoff arises. Maybe his style is to always raise and worry about more important things. Maybe he likes to make the play that matches his blind reads. Maybe he attaches importance to his image and makes the decision that goes well with his last 20 hands. Maybe several of these things at once. But nothing too complicated because he only has a second to decide and after all it doesn't matter very much.

But there is the matter of the bell. Bridge players speak of someone ringing a bell to wake you up when you need to make a nonroutine play. The same concept applies to poker. The expert has a well-developed sense of when a routine decision is actually not routine. Then he drops his style-based decision making and actually considers the unusual situation that has arisen. Perhaps it's the realization that the Button is on tilt and his new mission in life is to stop your endless stealing. Now maybe it's not a close decision anymore. Need to analyze for a moment.

[sweetjazz]

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But there is the matter of the bell. Bridge players speak of someone ringing a bell to wake you up when you need to make a nonroutine play. The same concept applies to poker. The expert has a well-developed sense of when a routine decision is actually not routine. Then he drops his style-based decision making and actually considers the unusual situation that has arisen. Perhaps it's the realization that the Button is on tilt and his new mission in life is to stop your endless stealing. Now maybe it's not a close decision anymore. Need to analyze for a moment.

[/ QUOTE ]

This is a really good point, and this is what I was missing in my original post. It's probably not surprising I missed this concept, because it's something I am still trying to develop. I think I understand your initial reply better (not that it was poorly written, but rather I did a poor job thinking about what you said), and you are right that it's *much* more important to be able to discern when a decision is close than to be able to figure out the better line wen the decision is really close.

Anyway, I appreciate your replies, as you always have very interesting comments.