For the hell of it, I tracked my stats today. I was pretty card dead. I didnt calculate my stats until the session was over but I knew whatever they were, they would be artificially low because my cards sucked so bad.

I raised 75s twice
I raised 63s once
I raised Q8s once
I raised 97s once
I 3 bet A4s once

I called raises with 97s, 76s, and several pocket pairs.
You can see I'm not all that picky in the right spots.
I also raised the very few premiums I got.

I still ended at 17/10 because my cards were so bad.....and I got called a nit as I walked away from the table to get my racks.

On another unrelated note, people always say they get 30 hands/hr. I got 47.5 today. My tables are nitty during the daytime so I get more hands and smaller pots, but I dont think Ive ever played anywhere with so much action that I was only getting 30 hands/hr.

@MikeStarr, I don't know where you play, but in my area, dealers have to confirm the bank is correct every 30 minutes. Then each dealer likes to 'tidy' up the bank the way they like it, so dealer change takes close to a minute.

They have to give players more chips, taking cash & thus having to get their bank reloaded with chips. It is impossible to get 30 hands an hour, unless the game is dead.

Numerous female Asian dealers are not only slow, but need help confirming who has the winning hand. One male dealer in his 70's can't deal 12 hands in a 1/2 hr. Another one botches up side pots every single time, unless he scratches his head for 30 seconds & he's been dealing for years.

If I play in a game for 1.5 hrs where nobody has needed to buy chips, it's a bad game & it's time to table change.

They count the bank about once every 90 mins in my room. First buy in is at the cage but all other reloads and rebuys come from the dealer. Sounds like your dealers really suck. Most of ours are pretty good for sure.

But the difference between 47.5 (Ive counted numerous times and we avg about 40) and less than 30 is massive. Have you actually sat and counted over a few different tables over a few different sessions? I know 30 is the number people use for the gold standard but I dont believe it.

Ive counted while playing in other rooms and not once have I gotten a number below 35.

I say showing a few bluffs is still likely to help (and I do not mean bluffing for the sake of showing bluffs, I specifically suggest showing the bluffs you make normally).

We are talking 1/2, not 2/5 or 5/10. At this level there is a considerable amount of pure nits (mostly OMC types). These guys do not ever bluff or otherwise make a move. They strictly wait for hands and if they start betting or check-raising - they got it every time.

Hero wants to show that he is not one of those guys and that he actually came to play poker. Couple shown bluffs might be enough for some level of doubt to creep in and for villains to feel "they need to keep us honest" and that we do not necessary have it every single time (even if most of the time we do lol).

I primarily play in excellent games in Philadelphia and the number is actually around 30 on average when the game is full (sometimes it is closer to 20 even with good dealers!). The regional difference is that if you play in nittier games some hands are raise and take it pre, which improves pace. Where I play, its typically 3-4 players to a flop and when a hand ends pre, its typically a raise, a call or 2 and then a 3-bet, after which even if everybody folds (and most of they time there is at least 1 caller) they still hem and haw for 30 seconds each before saying goodbye to their $20-25 and throwing their hands into the muck.

I played at Parx, Sugarhouse and Borgata a couple months ago. There was definitely more action than my room so I know each hand takes longer. I didnt count hands but Id be shocked if was under 30 though.

The dealers at Potowatomi get tracked on how many hands they deal per hour and when I asked they would say they get 18-22 hands per 30 minutes. That number does not include pots under $10. Stakes were $1/3

That sounds about right to me. But I dont know why they arent counting pots under $10. They still have to deal 2 cards to 9 different people. Wait for people to fold, get the cards back, put the cards in the shuffler, get the new deck...ect. That obviously doesnt take as long as a hand with a raise and several callers with people tanking...but it still takes time.

If they did include pots under $10, they would be low to mid 40s I would think.

I checked with Poker Bankroll Tracker's live hsnd tracker and BB is counted in the denominator regardless of action but only counts towards VPIP if you call a raise or raise yourself. E.g. we have this round of hands preflop

BTN - 2 limps we raise
CO - 2 limps we overlimp
HJ - 1 limp we fold
LJ - folds to us we raise
MP - EP raise we fold
UTG+1 - Folds to us we fold
UTG - We fold
SB - 3 limps we complete
BB - 2 limps BTN raises we fold

So we have 9 hands of which 2 we raise and 2 we complete, VPIP is 4/9 = 44.44 and PFR is 2/9 = 22.22

If we had called the BTN raise from BB it would be VPIP 5/9 = 55.55 and PFR 2/9 = 22.22

So the BB is counted in the denominator (number of hands) but only counts towards VPIP in second case

My main room they change dealers every 30 minutes and it's very annoying they recount everything

How often is the dealers bank off more than $1 or $2? If they miss dealing 1 hand every time they count the bank, they lose 2 hands per hour. Lets say they avg $3-$5 in rake per hand......Why cant these people figure out that they are losing more money counting the bank than they could ever lose in dealer errors or theft or whatever they are trying to stop by counting the bank so often? SMH

So much this, imo.

FWIW, I consider myself a pretty big nit. I play very few hands. I've never straddled. I don't drink. I don't do bomb pots or blind shoots (although I obviously never stand in the way of them and voluntarily fold blindly). I never check it down (except for in the blinds where we've agreed to see a flop for BBJ purposes).

And yet I get paid off all the time, and am likely one of the biggest winners in my room at these stakes over the last ~8 years (hard to know for sure without knowing everyone else's stat's, it's just an educated guess).

The key really is as simple as just being a pleasant enjoyable person to play poker with. I've never worn sunglasses (lie: tried it for about an hour and had difficulty making out the suits). Never had earphones in. Never watched a video on my phone (I "text" all the time, although really I'm updating player profiles). Obviously never berated anyone or ever gotten remotely upset at a river suckout or whatever (a couple of sessions ago I received a compliment from a person I had never met before at the table, where after a bad beat he stated "wow, I don't think I've ever seen anyone take a beat as well as you did just there"). I participate in lots of the conversations, and I think I mostly do so very genuinely, and I try to keep the conversation light and fun.

Gjustbeaniceperson,it'sassimpleasthat,imoG

I think this is still up for debate. Im pretty sure the VPIP/PFR stats were first commonly used by PokerTracker. When we hear someone say "That guy is a rock, he plays like 12/7", they are talking about Poker Tracker numbers.

Im almost certain that Pokertracker does not count the BB in the number of hands played if you check the BB. You didnt "Voluntarily put money into the pot" which is what VPIP is.

I guess Poker Bankroll tracker does it the other way, but that's not the common way to calculate those stats.

No one is suggesting it’s included in vpip. But trying to figure out if it’s counted in hands played (the denominator).

I suppose someone who has a PT account can email support. Just out of curiosity.

Yeah it's not counted towards VPIP if you fold or check the BB but it still counts as a hand played.

BB - limped to us we x
SB - limped to us we complete
BTN - fold to us we raise

We have 3 hands, VPIP 2/3, PFR 1/3

BB - raise in front we fold
SB - limped to us we complete
BTN - fold to us we raise

We have 3 hands, VPIP 2/3, PFR 1/3

So the BB doesn't affect VPIP except in the sense it counts as a hand played.

I don't have Poker Tracker anymore but I'm pretty sure Poker Bankroll Tracker uses the same algorithm in calculating VPIP/PFR etc.

@MikeStarr - do you just literally count every hand you play? I tried to do that a few times to see what my stats were like, but I have like ADD and will forget to do it after like 20 minutes.

im also in the same camp. people will (occasionally) make comments about how tight i am or whatever. but im probably major spew from 2p2 standards. i open hands people here wouldnt. i flat hands people here wouldnt. i 3bet hands people here wouldnt. etc.

i also think my image plays into it (quiet asian kid).

Im not 100% sure Im correct so Im not trying to argue, but what Im saying is that I believe your example is wrong according to Pokertracker.

I believe the both examples are VPIP 2/2...PFR 1/2

When Im tracking this stat I do. I only do it once in a blue moon because its a pain in the ass. Its much tougher than any other tracking that I do. I might track it for 20 hours over 4 sessions once every 6 months. Its just for kicks. I pretty much know what my stats are.

I find this interesting, because it seems like the easiest stat to keep track of.
Especially given you keep track of prf hands which is 2/3 of your hands.

it's pretty easy to lose count. i mean you have to count every time you get dealt a hand for 5 hours. which isnt hard to do, but i mean people tend to lose focus, start watching tv, go on their phone, etc. its very easy to let 20 minutes go by and suddenly realize you have forgotten to count how many hands you were dealt.

I thought we were talking about hands played.

If u r note taking hands played and the position seems easy to me. You don’t actually count hands dealt. But then I’ve never done it.

He calculated his vpip and pfr which require total hands dealt

Hmm...Thought I had this down but I stuck both scenarios into Poker Bankroll Tracker

In the first where we check BB it is VPIP 3/3 = 100%, PFR 1/3 = 33.33%

In the second where we fold the BB to a raise it is VPIP 2/3 = 66.66%, PFR 1/3 = 33.33%

Confusing. So it's counted as a hand played both times and in first case they do count it as VPIP which seems wrong as there's no "voluntary" component.

I have no reason to think the programs algorithm is wrong but this makes no sense to me.

I'm tossing up my hands at this point with a big "wtf knows?"

Right. But, if you are taking notes of every hand played and obv the position, you know the number of orbits. I supposed one could forget to count the orbit when one doesn’t play a hand that orbit.

Im not taking notes of every hand played or the position.