Need some professional counseling

[Nate_Dogg]

Despite moderate success in NL Hold'em cash games (mainly live games) I recently realized that I suck at Limit. After gettting smacked on Party's 3-6,2-4, & 1-2 tables I purchased Poker Tracker to see where I was going wrong. From reading other posts I have seen the following recommended stats.

VP$IP: 17.5%
PFR%: 7.50%
W$WSF: 35%

My (abysmal) stats are the following after 6000 hands:

VP$IP: 25.3%
PFR%: 5.3%
W$WSF: 27.9%

I am generally sticking to the recommended hands in "Winning Low Limit Hold'em" by Lee Jones. I think part of the problem is playing some of the 'approved' hands out of position. My questions are the following.

1. How can I use P-Tracker to determine which hands are hurting me? i.e. playing QTo too often etc.

2. For you professional multi-tablers- what hands (besides the obvious) are you not playing to get to a VP$IP of 17.5%
versus what is recommended in Low Limit Texts?

3. Any other suggestion on how to become a successful low limit multi-tabler. I would like to make around $800/wk to supplement my income. I understand the basics of this game but am clearly missing out on some of the finer points. I'm not expecting overnight success, but need to get on the right track.

-Thanks

[amirpc]

Looks like you're trying to play a NL preflop style imo.

I think for starting out in limit a fit or fold preflop strategy is fine, where you raise or fold. That'll keep you to big pairs, big aces, suited broadway cards.

Once you learn how to play these hands well preflop and postflop you can start limping some pairs and Axs type hands in position.

Limit and NL are different in that you are basically trying to extract maximum value from the hands that have positive value and lose minimum from your hands that have negative value - you're not in there trying to bust someone.

[yeltzen]

Where the Ed Miller fanbois at!? This guy needs you!

[MicroBob]

25% is mighty high.

QTo for example is something that I will pretty much play in the blinds or on a steal. Playing it too much?? This is in the muck for me more often than not.


There's a lot of good advice in the ML and SS forums.


Additionally, the PF recommendations in SSHE are pretty solid too. And it's a much better book than WLLHE.
Still, without looking at WLLHE right now, I can't imagine that you are correctly following the PF guidelines with a VP of 25.

You may also want to check out Internet Texas Holdem by Hilger which I think is a better book than WLLHE.
But SSHE is the obviousy choice here and it's not even close.


If you can....I might recommend becoming a VP-13 player for a little while. Just play much tighter than you think is necessary and you will probably get it to around the VP 13-15 range.

Interestingly, there are a number of winning players around here who are at VP-14 who are trying to figure out how to INCREASE their VP because they just can't seem to find the opportunities.
But they're winning, and they might have PFR-8 or so along with their VP-14 so they are mostly on the right track...just a bit tighter than they perhaps should be.

But I think this is where you should want to be right now.
In your case playing too tight at VP 12-14 would probably be better for your game and your bankroll and your discipline than just trying to lower your VP-25 to a more appropriate VP 18-20.



Here are some thoughts on what you might be doing:

EP raises...you have have 44 in MP. I hope you're not cold-calling (unless there have already been a couple cold-callers or you can expect a bunch of cold-callers)

.
A fairly tight EP raises, you have AJo. I again hope you're not cold-calling.

You have KTo UTG....muck.

etc etc.


Look at your cold-calling numbers. If you are CCPF more than 1% of the time you are probably cold-calling too much.

There are some situations where it's raised early, cold-called by a couple players, and you have a hand worth CC-ing with (like a pocket-pair).

But typically, if there's a cold-call you are either going to want to 3-bet or fold. Your hand is either good enough that you want to get value out of it PF...or it's worth mucking since it's been raised already.


so get that CC% down....this was a very simple recommendation I read when I was really struggling and it helped my game a lot. I was cold-calling PF far more than many other players.

This recommendation has been repeated in SSHE as well.


And, if you can, raise that PFR:
4 limpers, you have ATs on the button. RAISE!!
A lot of passive players just call...and Sklansky says you are losing a LOT of value by not doing this.

You are missing a lot of opportunities to get aggressive and get pre-flop value if you only have a PFR of 4-5.

you should be reading SSHE (or perhaps ITH) and reading in the ML and SS forums.

Find a few hands where you want to make sure you played it correctly. and post them....and be prepared to get blasted because you will learn pretty fast that you probably were not playing them correctly.


Getting the courage to share my crappy-game with the rest of the world and letting myself get called a weak-tight retard was the best thing I could possibly do for my game.

[Ed Miller]

Where the Ed Miller fanbois at!? This guy needs you!

I was wondering that myself.

[Nate_Dogg]

Ed... just ordered your book, thx

[yeltzen]

Ed I want my royalties check in the mail kthnx.

[Vern]

Excellent advice Bob, I would like to add some uses for PT since that was part of his original question.

Spend a lot of time on the position tab. Position in limit has a much greater effect on the EV margin of hands than in NL. I don't play anywhere near as loose as Bob recommends, but not as tight as 14. I have found my own level.

The Position Tab lets you look at your VP$IP by position and lets you look at each hand's BB/Hand by position. It also lets you examine your Cold Call PF% and Raise First IN% by position. Typical recommendations are that in a full ring game you should be around 10% UTG and 20% by the button with a stepped gradient between. You should also see a near zero CCPF% until you get to MP then it should also increase as you get in later position since more opportunities to CC with small pocket pairs or suited broadways comes up after you have a raise and several callers.

Look at your pre-flop aggression too, your listed PFR% is low for a tight aggressive pre-flop game. Again, as you progress closer to the button, you should be raising more pre-flop both for position and because you have more info on what players have done before you.

Another very useful function of the position tab, and necessary to make sure you compare your apples to apples, is to set the Filter: Hands With Between to 9-10 Players to get full ring stats, 7-8 to get not-full ring, 5-6 to get full SH ring, 3-4 to get non-full SH ring and obviously 2 for HU.

The second window lets you look at specific hands and how you are doing. The problem with a 6K sample size is it will be hard to see trends, you need 25k+ really to see start to see trends with hands by position and more like 100k+ to feel confident in them. It doesn't mean you ignore them until you get to 100K, just be aware the sample size is small. I suggest you sort the middle display by BB/Hand twice, so the biggest loser per hand is at the top of the column. Then look at what you biggest losers are by position. Then drop down to the hands and replay them. Evaluate them for whether you should have been in the hand to start. You can look at later play as well to see how your position with this hand affected your ability to maximize a win or minimize a loss.

Last, don't forget to examine the blind play as well. When defending the blinds you need to know who your opponent is and from what position they raised from. A TAG, raising UTG will get me to fold just about anything but a three-betting hand or PP from the BB but the same TAG open raising from the BTN would leave me defending with just about any hand I could have limped into a multiway pot in late position and raising with any pair, ace or two broadway cards.

That is how I evaluate my starting hands by position using PT.

Vern

Standard Disclaimer, I am by no means an expert at any of this.

P.S. Additional help with PT can be found in the PT forums, great place with many of the same faces as here.

Edit: This is a good recent thread too: Preflop Strategy Thread
It specifically discusses multitable strategy. You might also do some searches on your own through the limit forums on things like +starting +hands +preflop +strategy and go through old posts. There is gold in them there posts.

[Zygote]

read and re-read and re-read SSH. With a lot of play between readings. Stick to very low limits so you can afford the learning experience. Do not move up to quickly. 10,000 hands is not a sample size, depsite what many here will tell you. Buy poker essays by mulmath and learn about bankrolls and emotionally withstanding swings. This is probably the most important part of winning poker, once you've got the tactical skills down. Winning low limit holdem should only be used to learn the game and perhaps pot odds, but other than that, ignore all its advice and listen to Ed when you read his book. Don't try follow books by their starting charts, learn to understand why you do what you do, otherwise you will have a hard time being consistantly successful. The best way to do this is by reading books like Gambling theory, poker essays, theory of poker and Hold em' poker by sklansky. Sorry for the scattered advice, good luck with your endeavors.

[SheridanCat]

[ QUOTE ]
Where the Ed Miller fanbois at!? This guy needs you!

I was wondering that myself.

[/ QUOTE ]

What's your favorite color, Ed? What makes you so dreamy?

Your fan,

T