As requested




EDIT: FFS, they are still small!! Photobucket or the forum must be resizing them If you right-click and select "save as" you should be able to increase the size of the image (i.e. zoom in) with whatever image software you have on your computer. It's not super clear when zoomed but legible enough.

Kush789 posts here (not seen him a while mind) and he destroyed NL$200 for a great clip over a large sample playing 85% cbet and 75% fold to 3-bet. Having only recently played some NL$400 I can say that player adaptation is by far the biggest change at the higher level. You can get away far more at NL$200 - nevertheless, I take your point and will try to look for a few more spots to contest 3-bets pots and a few more spots to check-it-back or give up rather than cbetting.

Ace:

OK, this looks pretty simple, actually.

First, wrt you being down in this sample. You are running about 1.5 ptbb/100 below EV. This is the difference between you being down and being up 1ptbb/100. So that's good news. We know a lot of your current negative results come from variance.

Second: The main reason you are winning at EV adjusted 1ptbb/100 rather than more is because of **** that is happening in the blinds. Your loss rates there are huge. You are -.83/orbit (more or less) from the blinds. Then look at your win rates--you are basically just playing the other positions to pay for the blinds.

In a sample that small, this could easily be variance. I had a month where I played about 50k hands and lost aipf KK<AA 8 times, and 7 of them were in the BB. So we have to consider the fact that this result is just something bizarre.

But it might not be. Your stats in the blinds (more so the BB than the SB) look leaky. Your VPIP/PFR are both borderline passive. at 21/12 in the BB, you look a little loose passive, and at 13/7 in the SB you look a bit tight passive.

It looks to me like you are calling steals a lot. This very well could be the problem. I recommend that you do some fairly tedious filtering to look at your results when you call out of the blinds. From the position page, filter for did cold call = true. Then look at your results. In analyzing them, keep in mind that if you folded, your loss rates would be -50bb/100 and -100bb/100. So, technically, any result better than that is preferable to folding. However, if your overall results are negative, but less negative than folding, what this usually means is that there are unprofitable hands/groups of hands in your calling range. So you have to find them. This is a simple, but tedious process of filtering for individual groups of hands.

So you start with 22-66, for instance. Go to filters/hole cards/deselect all/select 22-66. Look at the results. These hands are worth filtering based on the position of the first raiser, too (on the main filter tab). You're just looking for loss rates above -50 and -100. If you find a red number, click to your "all hands" to compare your results for this small 50k hand sample to your total sample. If you see a number that is close to being the same as folding for a group of hands, it is worth breaking the group down into individual hands to see if your losses in that group are concentrated in one or two hands. Again, you'll be working with tiny samples, so move back and forth between your current 50k sample and your total db.

Repeat this process for all types of hands you call with out of the blinds. In my experience, you get better results by grouping high suited connectors and suited one gappers together and grouping low suited connectors and one gappers together, than doing all SCs as a group and then doing all S1Gs as a group (it concentrates hands with high card value in one group).

Don't neglect your premium hands; I have seen plenty of people losing money calling from the blinds with AK, AQ, QQ-TT.

One thing we all have a tendency to do is to make an occasional loose call with some trash hand. So make sure that you do a group (the trash hand group) that is comprised of all starting hands minus all of the hands you routinely call with. So di it last, and then just select all hands, and then click off all of the hands you have previously analyzed. This group usually works out to be a big leak for people--like 2-5% of all blind losses! It's just bad discipline.

As you are analyzing the hands, you have to ask yourself some questions. Like, if you see that you are positive with KJs but negative with KQs, you have to ask yourself whether there is a logical reason for this other than variance. The easy example is small pocket pairs. If you are calling with these against steals, it makes perfect sense that you'd be losing with them, because stealers' ranges are too wide to pay off our sets, and the hand is impossible to play oop when we don't flop a set.

Look through the hands in the hand display window. Look at the big losses. standard cooler? or were you going to far with top pair against a better kicker?

Look at the lines you take. Do you see a lot of xc, xc, xf lines? Maybe some xc, x, xc lines?

I also think you should spend some time looking at your blind 3 bets. From the position page, filter for did 3 bet = true and look at your overall results. is your wr >400bb/100? Then do a filter for hole cards, deselect AA, KK, QQ and AK to look at your results 3 betting the bottom of your range. This may be something you need to work on as well.

If you do not find big leaks running these two analyses, I would be inclined to say that what has happened this month is that you have had some pretty bad luck, and that it has been concentrated in the blinds.

Your early position win rate is pretty low, too. You'll want to run a hand range analysis as above to see if there is a part of your range that is unprofitable. If you don't see a logical result in doing a hand analysis, then you will want to do a betting line analysis. As Doublefly noted, your c-bet stat is super high. so go to more filters do pfr = true, flop c-bet made = true, save and close. look at the results and the raw number of hands you took this line on. then go back to more filters and then, one by one, add the different turn actions you could take--turn c-bet made = true, then do turn check/call = true, etc. For each line, you are looking both at the results and the frequency with which you are taking that line. The last thing you will be noting here is your win rate. Bear in mind the size of the pot. So, if you have a flop c-bet = true WR of, say, 260bb/100, you are winning about 40% of the money that is in the pot on any given hand. However, if you are winning 260bb/100 on the turn, you are winning only about 10% of the money that is in the pot, and this may indicate a leak.

You'll want to pay particular attention to the various lines you are taking on the river, because your W$SD is waaaaay low for a TAg. This could easily be variance in a sample this small, but you have to go through the analyses to make sure that you are not, for example, getting a little stationy on the river, or betting the river second best a lot (going crazy trying for thin value).

I also noted that your button win rate is a bit low. This may indicate a leak in either your stealing or your isolating plays (in case I haven't said it enough, it could easily just be variance, too).

To determine whether it is a stealing leak, go to filters/main filters/preflop action facing player/deselect all except unopened. Then go to more filters and look at PFR = true. save and close. Your win rates in the CO, BTN and SB should be slightly positive. If it is red, it indicates that your stealing range is unprofitable, and this is a giant leak. You'll want to compare this to your long term results to see whether it is close, or represents variance. If it is close to your long term results, you are having problems for sure.

Before you do any analysis there, though, you want to go back to more filters and add saw flop = true. Now we are looking at your steals that got called (or 3 bet, and you called the 3 bet). If your preflop WR was green, your WR should go UP by about 20%. If it goes down, it means that your post flop stealing game is a leak.

Now you just apply some common sense. Your ATS at 1/2 and 2/4 is about 44%. This is pretty high, obviously. So maybe the problem is that you are facing a ton of 3 bets and being forced to fold. If this is the case, where your preflop WR is negative, you have to consider tightening up your stealing range, increasing your 4 bet%, stuff like that.

If your post flop stealing WR is lower than your overall stealing WR, then you should do some betting line analysis as described above.

Then run the same analysis on your iso plays--change the main filters to 1 limper 2+ limpers, and do as above. If the results are less than, say 200bb/100, you should look through your starting range to see if you can find an unprofitable portion of your iso range.

Lastly: as you noted, your W$SD is really low. If the 47% figure here is significantly below your long term results, this is probably just variance. If it is a leak, it indicates that you are likely missing some value with your good hands and maybe stationing a bit on the river.

OK, that wasn't last, this is last: Your flop c-bet% in Rush is the same as in regular games. There is a lot of talk around that Rush c-bet success rates are way lower than at the regular games. add flop c-bet success to your displayed stats, and if you see that stat staying lower than the regular games, you'll want to reduce your c-betting in Rush.

Wow, awesome response dude. Will take me a while to sit down and go through all that but I've immediately spotted a massive leak in the blinds (particularly the small blind)

When I filtered for "did cold call" I was $1400 down in the SB and $550 up in the BB. I went to SB hands and checked out the big losers which were, in order: 10s,10s,9s,10s,Js,10s,KJs,AQs,KJs,AQo,9s,Js,AJs,Ak o,9s,10s,J9s,8s,Qs,AJs,9s,KQo.

In short, I'm getting absolutely murdered trying to play 8s-Js, KQ and AQ oop against what is often a late-MP to late-position open. This is slightly problematic though because these hands are clearly NOT folds to raises from these positions in most cases. However, they are also not ideal candidates for 3-betting as they all would comprise "turning strong SD value into a bluff". I cannot profitably, ship any of these hands pre for 100bb the way the Rush tables are playing and I'm seldom enthusiastic about having my 3-bet called. The solution isn't immediately clear. All this said, a lot of these big losses where disgusting coolers and gross situations that were largely unavoidable. Neverthless, there is defo a leak with regards to me playing marginal hands that are likely to be best oop to a raise.

Will run the other various filters, etc later as I have to pop out. Chuffed that I've identified this problem though - it practically jumped off the screen when I selected all hands and went to biggest losers.

yep, this is a very common leak. I posted about this in another thread recently. These are hands that are supposed to be profitable, but lots of people are unable to realize their equity.

In addition to looking at the big hands, look for hands where you took a passive line. xc, xc, xf, or xc, x, xf.

It's a common line a,d it is usually unprofitable.


sweet. lemme know (either here or via pm) if I can be of further help.

Up until recently, I have shown a loss at my poker, but over the past nine days I have done well. About two pages back, you can see my post from December 30th (not good). My win rate for the past nine days, and for the graph below, is 8.3 bb/100, 7.7 EV-adjusted bb/100. I have been focusing on rush poker since it first started in January.

This graph is of 22k hands of 200NL Rush together with 1.5K hands of 100NL Rush, played since the 19th of this month.



I hope that I am not just getting lucky, because I have now been profitable for the first time. I am not sure if 23k hands are enough to prove anything.

I have three questions. First, are 23k hands enough for me to have any degree of confidence that I am now a winning player?

My second question is about the variance of the graph. I would think that lots of variance is not good because that also means I might just be getting lucky. Variance might not be good for other reasons as well, but I am still new to this graph-analysis, so I really do not know, so please tell me what you know. Does the variance in the graph look like it is okay?

Third, is there anything else I can learn from this graph?

I have been playing online for about eight months now. Total hands in my database is now 178k, total rush hands 85k, and total hands in this current rush win is 23k. I show basically steady losses for the first 155k hands prior to this win with 23k hands. I am very happy, but I also want to be realistic. Please give me your input/comments.

I'm aware of my HUGE redline problem and would like to fix it. Any comments would be much appreciated.

Graph is for all the hands I played and stats only for NL100 fullring RUSH (the game I now play)





My fold to 3bet is 83% (geez, I'm weak..)

(I used to cb 75.5% but I now have lowered it a lot at rush tables because players are calling your CB a lot (ie : Flop CB succes 46.8 and turn 34.8).

Thanks.

i think alot of people overvalue redline. i mean, you say its a HUGE problem but when it was closer to breakeven you were also breakeven.

i dont play rush so i cant help you too much with your other stats, jsut wanted to point out that the mindset of "my redline sucks i must fix it" is not the best way to approach increasing your greenline (the important one). do things you think will increase overall profits and redline will follow, dont try to increase redline just because.

fwiw this is comin from someone who's redline sucks but has a 7.9bb/100 winrate at 100NL. just my 2 cents.

What is considered an acceptable range of win rates from the blinds?

Lull:

Your red line problem is primarily a function of your big blind loss rate, which is huge. In a small sample such as yours, this could easily be attributable to variance. But it may represent a leak. To determine which is the case, run the filters for the BB that I posted a few posts up.

You also look like you might have a small problem playing your button stealing range post-flop. To check this potential leak, filter Main Filters/preflop action facing player unopened/ More Filters/PFR = True/. Note your win rate. Then add "saw flop = true." If your win rate goes down, you're leaking with some of your stealing range.

You might also check called a preflop 3 bet = true, which is another very common button leak.

_____________________

DoubleFly:

Rather than strive for an absolute value of loss rates from the blinds, I prefer to look at it as "what loss rate do my non-blind winnings allow me to tolerate?"

So what I do is I look at my loss rate. Say they combine to be -60bb/100, which i consider to be a leak.

If my button wr is 26bb and my cut off wr is 24bb, then I look at my blind loss rate as a 10bb/100 leak.

If, on the other hand, my button wr is 18bb and my sb wr is 15bb, then clearly I have a much bigger problem. But the problem is not limited just to the blinds; any combination of increasing my LP winnings and decreasing my blind losses will have the same effect. And since it is easier to make $$ from LP rather than the blinds, I would actually focus on fixing my LP play and then work on my blinds after that.

So here's a general guideline--you're in good shape if your button, co and hj winnings cancel out your blind losses. The more positions you have to use to pay for your blinds, the worse off you are.

This month, my WR from just one position is paying my blind losses, so I am crushing at 5.5ptbb/100. For the year, it is taking me the button, co and hj to pay for my blinds, and my WR is 2.37ptbb/100.

So don't worry about your blinds in a vacuum; focus on reducing the number of positions it takes you to pay for your blind losses, and use a combination of strategies to reduce the number it takes.

Hope this helps.

hellllllllllllllllllllp?!

Mpethy, thanks for the reply. Imo, the win rate from the blinds could almost be a stand-alone pice of analysis. If you have a good win rate from the steal positions, it can actually mask a bunch of leaks you can have from the blinds (by aggregating the win rates from the last positions). Just my opinion.

Yeah, I definitely see what you're saying. I do analyze win rates from the blinds as a stand alone piece of work. What I don't do is just think about them in a vacuum.

A pretty average loss rate among players I consider to be leaking in the blinds is -25bb/100 in the small blind and -37bb/100 in the BB . I consider these pretty leaky. I see some players losing more, and some that are losing less, but I consider to still be leaking. This loss rate is a problem for a winning player with solid button and cut off win rates, but it is a disaster for someone who has mediocre stats in those positions. So this was sort of my point.

I really don't look beyond the win rate for players that are at a combined -44--you can have a long and prosperous career with those loss rates, and you probably have bigger leaks elsewhere to work on.

The dream stats in the blinds that I aspire to (because I have seen better players achieving them) are -12bb/100 in the SB and -22bb/100 in the BB. Those latter figures I consider to be close to perfect.

i feel like alot of stuff you've posted in this thread has made me a better player but i really dont get this. it feels like you're saying "well its ok that i lose money when i call raises because when im the raiser i make twice as much as most people." sure, you're winrate might be the same this way if you were just solid at both but there's no reason you cant improve calling raises w/o hurting the other. so just cuz your winrate is higher from the CU i dont see why that means you shouldnt be as concerned with leaking from the blinds as someone else.

unless you're trying to say that its just easier to improve your winrate in other positions so even if you have leaks from the blinds its easier/better to look for other places to increase winrate?

Thanks for the feedback. I don't look at the data as much as you, so I was curious. BTW, are those stats big blinds or big bets per 100?

The last point you made is definitely one I was trying to make--I thought I had said it explicitly.

The other point I was trying to make was simply that counting up the number of positions you use to cancel out your blind losses is a good way to describe the size of your leak from the blinds; i.e., if only the button, you rule, if button and CO you are in great shape, if button, co and HJ you're in good shape, and past that you have an increasingly large problem.


doublefly: big blinds per 100.

How many hands should I play before I can have a decent degree of confidence in...



...my playing stats like vpip, w$sd%, etc, so I can post them here and get feedback?

really need sum help plz?

Clearly I need some help only have 20k hands hoping I can attribute the negative win rate to a smallish sample size. Although I'm beginning to feel I need to make some real adjustments if I even want to be a marginal winner. All advice welcome.


By null at 2010-03-31

Curious what you think about this bb/100 breakdown:

BB: -28
SB: -12
Early: +21
Mid: +19
CO: +25
BTN: +34

Seems odd my Mid is lower than Early...dno if I'm giving too much away in blinds though, I fear I am defending/3b too often but I'm not sure

[x] veiled brag itt

[ ] veiled

I'm serious =/

I think I do too much stupid sh*t from blinds

and isn't early > mid weird?

That looks fantastic, actually. Curious about your sample size, because EP looks unsustainably high. I mean, seriously, your EP WR is roughly 3 times what I am used to seeing from solid winning players.

Your blinds as a stand alone analysis (nod to doublefly) are right at the arbitrary cut off I tell people is "fine--not leaking at all."

I'm going to be a little harsh here. Please take it in the "tough love," spirit in which it is intended.

When I look at your stats, almost everything about them screams to me that you are almost unthinkingly aggressive early in the hand, and that you then tend to mess up the hand quite a lot. What I see are a lot of indicators that you pound, pound, pound, without really giving much thought to opponents' ranges, maximizing value and (gasp) pot controlling when appropriate. In many respects, your stats look pretty, but your WR indicates that you are playing more for good stats than for good results.

To get more specific, here are some of the giant leaks I saw:

1. Your blind losses: Are huge. Your preflop stats look nice, you are playing solid TAg and restealing a lot and not cold calling or completing much, but you are getting slaughtered. Here's what I suspect:

a. Small blind raising--If I had to guess, i would say that you are raising a lot of marginal hands that other players are completing. You should probably fold some of that stuff.

b. Restealing from both blinds: Your 3 bet stats are really high. They are not so high as to cause much of a problem for players that have the post flop skills to back them up, but I suspect you have a problem here. I bet if you filter out AA, KK, QQ, AK from your 3 betting range from the blinds, that you will see a winrate between 100bb/100 hands and -200bb/100 hands.

c. Cold calling. You don't do it very much, but I would wager that you are negative with the best hands you cold call with.

2. LP stealing. It looks like you steal a lot. But your WR is so low that I can virtually guarantee you that you are losing money when you run the filters main filters/action facing player is unopened/more fliters/pfr = true/saw flop = true. If this is the case, it means that you are misplaying your stealing range post flop.

3. This may also be the case for your isolation plays.

4. Your W$SD is far too low for your TAg preflop stats. Given that your aggression factor is 4.0, my suspicion here is that you are betting and raising marginal hands a lot and getting looked up, especially on the river.

5. Your flop c-bet is on the high side. You're probably losing money when you filter for pfr = true, flop c-bet made = true, saw turn = true.

6. Your Turn c-bet is low.

The combination of 5 and 6 means that you are one of the more floatable players in your game. You are checking a ton of turns and opponents are betting it at you. Which means you are either folding a lot to worse hands, or, more likely, doing spewy things like check/raising light and mixing in occasional check/guess on the turn, check/guess on the river lines.

I'm not entirely sure how you are getting to showdown a high percentage of the time, losing most of them, checking a ton of turns, and all the while maintaining an aggression factor of 4. Those stats do not tell a coherent story, and, usually, when that is the case, you have giant post flop leaks.

Unfortunately, I can't really tell what they are from the stats you posted.

The big problems you have are showdown, blind losses, and your low LP win rates. Work on those first, and you should see significant improvement. PM me if you have questions about anything I have said, or about some of the filters you will need to run.