** Official Beginners NL Holdem Stats Thread **

[Mr Beer]

SteveO, that is not anywhere near 10K hands and contains no information which anyone can reasonably comment on. Use the reporting function to obtain your stats and make a thread in the Beginners forum - myself and others will be happy to give you some pointers - but not in this thread unless you have 10K stats.

[1052gsxr]

80K hands at 5nl 6 max. Any thoughts? been doing crap the last few weeks and have really tightened up but even so i still struggle to put in winning session.

[ArtySmokes]

Originally Posted by 1052gsxr

80K hands at 5nl 6 max. Any thoughts? been doing crap the last few weeks and have really tightened up but even so i still struggle to put in winning session.

14.7/9.4 is rather nitty for 6max, and villains will often get out your way when you have a monster, because of your tendency to play so tight.
1.58% for 3-bet is also too passive. I'm not a huge 3-bettor myself, but at 6max, you've got to be more aggressive in order to defend your blinds from steals and to get value with big hands. If I'm faced with a villain that 3-bets less than 2%, I know there are no bluffs in his range and I can fold AK to a single 3-bet, because he always has QQ+.
Post-flop stats look fine, so I think you need to work on your pre-flop play. When you sit at a table, look at the HUD stats of the players to your immediate right. If they are raising often, especially in LP, then these guys are the ones you should 3-bet with a wider range (including AQ, AJs, TT) as you often have the best hand. Don't restrict your raises just to the big pairs.
Your pre-flop positional awareness isn't particularly high. This usually means that you're not stealing often enough. If it's folded to you on the button, get in there and raise any pair, any ace, or any two cards higher than 8. Since you have tight stats overall, villains will think you have a strong hand and will often fold their blinds. If they call, you can still c-bet most flops and take it down.
If you find that you just can't bring yourself to be more aggressive, then you may be better off playing full ring, where just playing strong hands and making your 3-bets purely for value can be profitable. I've personally avoided 6max because I find the idea of 3-betting light and bluffing is just too stressful! Good luck!

[1052gsxr]

Thanks very much for taking the time to have a look over the numbers Arty, appreciate it. You are spot on from where i feel i have being going wrong (too passive not stealing enough) but when i do ramp up the aggression 9 times out of ten i find myself in crappy spots with TPMK or 4 bet shoved on and im holding TT AQ or less and I'm not calling a shove with then hands.

Lot's of stuff to work on anyway,cheers.

[Mr Beer]

1052:

1. What Arty said especially about being too nitty - I play 18/14 at 6-max and I'm nitty myself.

2. You need to steal more. You can open the BTN for value with something like pairs/any two broadway/any suited A/A8o+/suited connectors 54s+ which would probably make your steal bigger (as I suspect this is looser than you currently open with if folded round to) but if you have two nits in the blinds you can open with anything until they adjust.

3. If you open looser and steal more from BTN and CO that will probably fix your positional awareness that Arty alludes to. I don't know without your stats by position by I strongly suspect that's the problem.

4. Your c-bet flop is 60%? That seems low, you are opening with such a value range that you should be betting most flops. It should be 70%+.

EDIT

With 3-betting you need to pick your spots a bit. So for example my default 3-bet range is something like QQ+/AKo but I won't 3-bet a nit's UTG open with QQ or AKo. If I have a 40/20 type player open in say MP and I'm on the button I would probably 3-bet JJ+/AQ+. And then against someone who is just open shoving every other hand I would get it in with AJo+/TT+ or looser.

[1052gsxr]

Thanks Mr Beer, I'll give it a go.
These were my stats for the first 41k hands with PT and since then my last 40k hands just seem to be meh as in everything miss's or I get sucked out on (obviously not everything but you know what i mean) so i tightened right up, maybe too much so.



Thanks again for having a look over the figures.

[MooBsOf3D]

Hey guys, been lurking for a while. About 70k hands in 2ish weeks of 2nl zoom 6max, only been playing poker for a month. Been slowly getting better as the times gone on. Any comments appreciated

[ArtySmokes]

All looking good from a quick once-over, Moobs.
You might be able to add a little to your winrate by c-betting a little more frequently (65% might be the sweet spot), as your c-bet success rate is almost at 50%. A little bit more stealing on the button wouldn't go amiss either. You could add a couple of bb/100 to your winrate (while also getting your overall VPIP up to around 18%) by opening up a few more hands in late position. Since your overall VPIP is fairly low, villains will have you flagged as somewhat nitty, so they'll still give you credit for a hand when you ATS, even if you have something like 65s.

EDIT: Oh, I forgot this was zoom. I'm not sure how the dynamics have changed. Are buttons steals getting through fairly often? See if you can find the "Overall steal success" stat.

[chairmo]

Having a nightmare downswing at the moment, I've come here from this thread.

Hope someone can help.

Here are my stats:

[ArtySmokes]

Yikes! Am I seeing things, or are you really going to showdown almost 40% of the time?
This is a HUGE leak. Most winning players have a WTSD of around 22-28%. Anything over 30% usually indicates a calling station. 40% is just ridiculous! I'm surprised you won any money at all when you started.

Since your aggression stats are on the low side, it's pretty clear that you're doing far too much calling post-flop and not enough raising or (more importantly) FOLDING.
If you've been calling pre-flop with marginal holdings like 76s, KJ, AT etc, just STOP! You are getting valuetowned by stronger hands. You might also be unable to fold TPTK when a villain raises the flop or turn. You've got to learn to fold more often when you get raised.
Also stop chasing draws if villains bet more than half pot. With the modern aggressive game, you can no longer just call with draws and expect to make money in the long term, as you never have the immediate odds to call, and rarely have the implied odds of winning a stack. To make a profit with suited aces and suited connectors, you have to harness fold equity and occasionally make a semi-bluff raise when you flop a flush/straight draw. You might make money at 2NL when fishy villains minbet with TPTK and price you in to chase (and then they call a shove when you hit the flush/straight) but at 5NL it's just not happening.
So advice number 1: RAISE OR FOLD WITH DRAWS. Don't call down, hoping to get paid off when you hit.
If being aggressive with draws just isn't your style (I'm bluff-resistant myself) then just stop calling with speculative hands pre-flop.
Tighten up your range so you're only entering pots with pocket pairs and big Broadways and aces. Eliminate drawing hands, and focus on hands that play themselves. i.e. they make TPGK, 2pr, or a set, and then bet-bet-bet.

Leak number 2: Calling in the Big Blind. While there are certainly some hands that you can call with in the BB (pairs, suited Broadways), you should usually either be folding or raising in that seat. Your BB PFR is just 4%. Try 3-betting a few more hands when villain is stealing on the button. Even if he calls, your raise means you can c-bet the flop and often win the pot there. If you just call in the BB, you have no initiative and are out of position, so you can get bluffed off the best hand.

I actually think you might be better off playing full ring. You're currently not playing aggressively enough for 6max, and you're getting punished by stronger players. In a full ring game, you have more opportunity to play drawing hands in position, as pots will often be multiway, providing you with better pot odds. Full ring is also less aggressive. You just bet when you have it, and fold when you don't. Very little aggression or (semi-)bluffing is necessary.

[ulrichw]

Originally Posted by chairmo

Having a nightmare downswing at the moment, I've come here from this thread.

Hope someone can help.

[...]

Originally Posted by ArtySmokes

Yikes! Am I seeing things, or are you really going to showdown almost 40% of the time?
[...]

The same thing jumped out at me - and everything ArtySmokes said sounds right on the money.

One additional piece of analysis:
- Your W$SD is actually quite good - significantly over 50% in most positions

This is actually semi-unusual. Many winning players actually have W$SD < 50%.

How, you ask, can they be a winning player if they win less than half the pots they show down? The answer is that they win big pots and lose small ones by using pot control. (of course, there's the red line, too, but at microstakes, that's frequently negative)

In your particular case I think this stat may be an indication that you're not building the pot enough when you're ahead.

Betting more aggressively when you're ahead will have two effects:
1. Your winning margin will increase, because you'll be winning bigger pots
2. It will also bring your WTSD more in-line (not that this is a goal in itself, but this will be a natural side-effect), because stronger betting will cause some percentage of opponents to fold before you reach showdown.

I'd suggest going over hand histories for your showdowns and see if there are times when you should have known you were ahead and pushed your advantage.

[chad0x001]

Ive never really paid much attention to these pages before. Now Ive had a look I see lots of VERY HIGH or VERY LOW type warnings. I think they are warnings anyway. If you could take a look, make some suggestions about what they might mean. That would be good

[ArtySmokes]

Chad: Those high/low warnings in HM1 are based on a central database of stats that the makers of HEM have for games going right up to high stakes. As you know, micros play quite differently and are much less aggressive and "bluffy" than the higher levels. So where it says a fold to 3-bet of 67% is high, it's not actually for the stakes you play. With all the nittiness and basic valuebetting at 2-10NL, it's actually good to be folding to 3-bets around 70-80% of the time, because villains just aren't 3-betting light very often.
Likewise with the "very low river cbet" at 45%. At 2NL, anyone c-betting 50% of rivers is a loser. Blackrain won his 2NL dollars with c-bet stats of something like 62% on flop 38% on turn and 30% on river. 3-barrelling with anything less than a monster at these stakes is suicidal.
Looking quickly at the rest of the stats, I think you should probably be folding to c-bets a little more often, unless you have a plan for the hand (floating? trapping?). If your W$SD is good, then it's not a problem to peel 50% of flops against the right players.
You can make a few more stabs at limped pots, for sure. I like leading out on flops with low cards when I see a free flop in the big blind, for instance. If the flop is 742 and you're in the BB, that flop hits your range (junk) and you can often win the little pot uncontested.
0% for check-raise in 3-bet pots is actually fine I think, as going for check-raises is fancy play syndrome. While you can do it occasionally when trapping an aggro player, playing straightforawdly and betting out as the PFR is just as good.

On the whole, I wouldn't worry about these "warnings".

In HEM2, I think they've changed the algorithm. It now compares your stats with the players in your own database, rather than HEM's central database, so your aggression (or lack of it) at 5NL is shown in comparison to the actual villains you play against. So if you have a 3bet of 5%, where HEM1 would say "Warning: Low 3-bet", in HEM2 it would be "Average 3-bet" or (on soft networks) "High 3-bet".
I've been playing 12/8 in full ring 2NL games lately, and my PFR of 8% is actually above average! (I'd get killed at 10NL being this weak tight, naturally).

[chad0x001]

you do a brilliant job of interpreting the numbers Arty. really appreciate it.

[matt_88]

hey, can someone take a look at my 2NL FR Zoom stats?