lurker request; DERB update!

[YoureToast]

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... if it weren't for those god-awful stats of his: 30/18.



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it continues to amaze me that some of the seemingly best 2+2ers fail to understand that optimal limit hold 'em poker requires a greater than 25 vpip......"MOST" of the winners play a solid style, like I do -- because most of us are incapable of playing a more difficult aggressive style....However, although I can't prove it, I am almost 100% certain that the best limit hold em players in the world have a vpip of >25 and probably > 30.

[teddyFBI]

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Those stats are not all that horrific if he's playing short-handed.


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For the record, those stats are ALL full-ring game -- i don't import any hands with < 9 players.

[mach3]

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it continues to amaze me that some of the seemingly best 2+2ers fail to understand that optimal limit hold 'em poker requires a greater than 25 vpip

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I think you are partially correct, but in a full ring game at PP 30/60, a 30% VPIP is not a long term winner. You simply don't see as many donkish plays, unless no one has taken control of a hand or someone goes on tilt.

When the DERB thread first popped up, I played 30/60 but didn't have any idea who they were talking about. When I finally did get his name, I hadn't played many hands with him. I do pay attention when I sit w/ him now and some of the stuff he pulls is amazing. Again it's not enough to say 'something is up', but the DERB nickname really sticks from what I've seen. He doesn't strike me as a particularly strong postflop player. What amazes me, is that my WORST stretches in this game have come when I BARELY get out of line w/ the VPIP and CCing, something DERB routinely does. You can get hammered, stepping ever so slightly over that line, yet he *appears* to do it w/ impunity.

[17percent]

can someone PM me his PP screen name?

[Lestat]

And what amazes me is how many people fail to realize that vpip should not be a static number. How many hands you play is greatly dependent on the game type and quality of your opponents.

Go ahead and play +30% against a table full of the best posters on this forum and I'd be willing to bet even a top notch player would get chewed up and spit out. I am willing to concede that great players can play a few more hands. But you simply cannot play too loosely against a group of tough thinking players who will adjust and exploit these weaker than average hands. So...

Either this guy is a great player who is taking advantage of the better players multi-tabling (does anyone know if HE multi-tables?), or there is something else which is causing an aberration.

[mach3]

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Either this guy is a great player who is taking advantage of the better players multi-tabling (does anyone know if HE multi-tables?), or there is something else which is causing an aberration.

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What amazes me, having watched it now for a bit, is how dead on the original thread was. The guy always seems to hit his cards. I routinely watch him bet into the field out of position and catch whatever he needs. I keep telling myself that my observations are tainted due to the forums, but he keeps winning.

Everyone sucks out once in a while, but he's made it into an art form. Oddly (thankfully???), he and I never seem to tangle.

[Stuck]

Just a quick observation. There's a lot of overlap in the data. We're all essentially looking at the same data set. 10 of us seeing a 50k hands isn't the same as 1 person seeing 500k hands. I don't believe anyone can play 30/60 with a 30% VPIP - he's probably simply a statistical outlier.

[glen]

good post lestat. Do you happen to know if the 30% vpip was filtered to 10 handed games, or was it 8-10 handed games, or did it also include short?

[YoureToast]

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And what amazes me is how many people fail to realize that vpip should not be a static number. How many hands you play is greatly dependent on the game type and quality of your opponents.

Go ahead and play +30% against a table full of the best posters on this forum and I'd be willing to bet even a top notch player would get chewed up and spit out. I am willing to concede that great players can play a few more hands. But you simply cannot play too loosely against a group of tough thinking players who will adjust and exploit these weaker than average hands. So...

Either this guy is a great player who is taking advantage of the better players multi-tabling (does anyone know if HE multi-tables?), or there is something else which is causing an aberration.

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Agree and disagree.

One reason I believe that a 30% vpiper who plays close to perfect postflop (and I'm not saying DERB does this) would theoretically have a higher win-rate than a 20% vpiper (which is what I am) is that the he/she can win money from both the big fish and the good players. One thing that us "solid" players have difficulty with the DERB types is putting him on hands. When you, the "solid" 2+2er, raises me from early position, I can put you on a range of hands pretty easily; with DERB I simply CAN'T DO THAT. This puts me at a huge disadvantage throughout the rest of the hand, a disadvantage that is offset somewhat by the fact that if I stay in the pot, I will likely be ahead of him preflop. With a very good postflop player however, I think the advantage he gets from me NOT knowing what he might have outweighs the advantage I have from likely having the best hand preflop.

Lets try an example:

You (the solid 2+2er) open-raises from UTG+1; I 3 bet with 99 on the button. Heads up to the flop. Think about how easy this is for me to play postflop -- If an A, K or Q pops on the flop, my play is ultracautious; if the high card is a J or T, I can feel pretty confident that I have you beat for the moment.

By contrast, say that J or T (or both) hits and the initial preflop raiser is DERB. Now what the f&^* do I do? It is much more difficult to play.

When I watched DERB's play on PT, I noticed that many good players were calling him down with worse hands; this happened frequently. These good players would not have called down me had I had been betting the same way and they had their same holdings. Thus, these "good" players were feeding this fish, just like the real "fish" were also feeding him.

[Lestat]

I also see what YOU'RE saying, but I am assuming a good player will adjust. I don't think that playing a DERB heads-up should be a problem for a good player, however...

I do think that playing hands against a DERB AND a solid player(s) in the pot WILL present some serious adjustment problems. DERB might be very good at playing solid players off each other. In other words, the presence of a solid player in the hand along with DERB could make things very problematic for the solid players who are trying to play well to know how to proceed. I think it's much more complicated than this, but I don't have a lot of time right now to put a lot of thought into how to word this.