somebody correct me if im wrong; but isnt the rake at 2/4 on stars pretty low and very similar in terms of BB/100 to both 3/6 and 5/T

shady guy imo. never trust a man with a lobster avatar.

This is me not correcting you because you're not wrong. But the VPP/hand is hugely different. About .5/hand @ $2/4, .7/hand @ $3/6, and 1.1/hand @ $5/10.

You pretty much have to hit $10/20 before the rake really starts going down.

yeah i'm pretty sure in terms of BB/100 2/4 is actually cheaper than 3/6, dunno about 5/T

I researched this once, and the rake at Stars 2/4 3/6 and 5/10 was almost exactly the same in terms of BB/100... though siginificantly better than 1/2. As GiantBuddha pointed out, the extra VPPs earned at 3/6 and 5/10 do make the rake situation more favorable than 2/4 though.... especially for a lower volume player who may struggle to reach Supernova at 2/4 but could do it easily at 3/6 and 5/10. 10/20 is where you can really escape the rake trap at Stars since you get both more VPPs (1.4/hand or so) AND a nice drop in rake in terms of BB/100.

yes, but the VPP's represent a very similar RB% for all those limits so it is not like there is a difference in what you get back either. Again talking in BB/100.

I mean 5/10 should give you 2,5x as many VPP's/hand, while it is only giving you 2,2x as many VPP's/hand.
So it seems like 2/4 has the best deal looking at 2/4 and 5/10 only in terms of where you pay the least rake to stars (in BB/100)

Edit: of course I am not talking into account the fact that SN and milestones will be a lot more difficult to reach at 2/4, which I guess for most people will offset the difference and make 5/T more favourable than both 2/4 and 3/6

Okay, experiment over. I've been trying a much laggier style at 1/2 this year and my winrate just isn't as high. I have a 50K hand sample at 35/25.5, but my winrate is at least half of what it was last year in a 95% confidence interval. That doesn't mean necessarily that that style can't work or be better than a more classic 30/20 or 32/23 style, but I can't make it work and the stats prove it.

The games definitely are tougher this year though so there is that and I'm sure that contributes. I think the main reason I don't win as much with that style though, besides the rake, is that it's just too high variance for me. I'm pretty prone to tilt as it is and you really can't afford to tilt when playing that many marginal spots.

Anyway, back to being a nit.

Hi everyone. I've been lurking in SSSHE for about 2-3 months. Me and a few friends decided to study limit seriously back in January. The results have been less than spectacular and I'm trying to figure out why. These stats have been filtered for 5-6 players.



I have a couple of questions.

1) How easy is it for someone with basically ok stats to screw up otherwise to the point where they are losing players? I mean, in the abstract, it seems pretty easy if you try, by throwing an extra bet or raise into a hand here or there which they know they are otherwise going to fold/lose. But if someone isn't doing such on purpose, how easy is it?

2) To what extent could my positional SD's be a clue? I believe my UTG SD is pretty high and my BB SD is rather low compared to other players I've seen here.

I appreciate all help,
John

john, i think your stats in the BB are really really bad. imo u should have vpip of over 50 there for sure(not sure about exact numbers, but im sure others will elaborate).
i'd also steal more and would try to isolate limpers more or overlimp in spots.

also your flop aggression factor is pretty high, which indicates u're sometimes overaggro/give too much action/dont let people bluff enough/rebluff with bluffcatchers.


also if "fold f cbet" is the stat how often you're folding to cbets, then it's way too high(no clue of exact numbers here either, but folding 40+% of the time in 5.5SB pots for 1sb cant be right)

on the theme of folding bb, what are good fold bb to steal numbers to have vs a solid 30/20 , a 35/25 and a 20/15

Heh, I couldn't imagine ever playing a 35/25.5 style. I just don't understand how people can play this way. I really agree with the tilting part. When you're playing that many hands, being that aggressive, you can't be tilting or the variance will just skyrocket.

Thanks for the comments. I hadn't thought to look at BB VPIP. The more I think about it, the more I think I'm just not defending very well. I suspect this is also where some of my high fold to c-bet comes from.
My loss rate (.23/100) is a bit high as well from what other are saying(earlier in the thread).

This definitely gives me something to work on.

also, I have no idea why my flop aggresion would be so high. I'm virtually always betting the flop vs 1-2 opponents as suggested in the Stox book. I generally call most donk bets (even fairly strong hands) and decide what to do on the turn. This could be a leak. I figured it was good for balance forcing bluffers to spend 3 sb while gaining an additional sb when I have a strong hand by raising the turn. A month ago I saw people donking a wide range of hands, but lately it's been mostly good to great hands, and the occasional turn steal(when checked to) has become non-existant, so maybe I should reevaluate. While I can imagine spots to raise BB VPIP and increase BB WTSD, I don't know how I get aggresion factor down below 2.2 or even 2.5 as has been suggested earlier in the thread. (I combed back through the thread while waiting on responses.)

Thanks again, your post was great food for thought.

John

I strongly suspect that something like 26/18-30/20 is really best at 1/2 tbh abso. Like I know you have heard Oink explain how rake affects the number of hands we can play, but I do not think that is the only factor. I personally am just not good as good post-flop as the mid-high 35/25-40/30 types, and that can have a fairly dramatic effect on the number of hands I can profitably play pre-flop. So high 1/2 rake + my leaks + omg it is hard to play higher than 30/20 playing 8 tables = I have to keep things 30/20 or lower at 1/2. All rough estimates, so obviously 30/20-32/23 might be right too... especially for someone playing less tables.

Awesome report... tyvm for sharing that with us. I wish I had large samples of myself playing contrasting styles instead of large samples of me randomly switching styles with no real pattern.

I think another factor is the general passivity of the games that low.

I'm playing quite a bit of 2/4 for the first time since UIGEA, and one thing I immediately noticed was that I'm 3betting and capping pf more than I'm used to. I also am faced with 1-2 bets in the BB more than I'm used to. I think the last point pushes vpip down a bit regardless of play style (that is, someone who gets raised in the BB less often should have a lower VPIP simply because he gets more opportunities to take free flops and then fold the bad ones)

i dont really have much to base this on, but my personal suspicion is that high flop AF comes primarily from two habits...

the first is not peeling loose enough.. if you find yourself in BB vs SB situations, dont be timid to peel very very light (like overcards to two board cards, plus a backdoor... or even unders plus 2 backdoors... or even pure floats on dry flops)... similar thing when you open OTB and face a SB 3-bet/flop c-bet... dont give up too easy, backdoor draws are you friend!

the second is playing pairs passively OOP, esp against bad hand readers or over aggressive villains... flop is AKx and you have Kx in BB vs an agro button stealer? just c/c that **** down!

Well, I played a 32/23 style all last year and had good results. I think I'm going to go back to more of that style. It doesn't sound like much, but those extra 3% on VPIP and PFR seem to really matter in my game. It's both tilt and too many -EV hands that makes it less profitable for me. Like I said though, I think the games are tougher this year and my winrate might be lower just because of that, unless of course I play less tables. I was still winning with the 35/25 style, but just not as much. I suspect I was on the other side of my optimal curve (much like playing a 27/18 style would be suboptimal for me I think). Still, it is only 50K hands and I do feel like I ran rather poorly for a lot of it (450BB downswing in there, with much better results on either side of it) so it is not conclusive. I just know that I was experiencing 100BB+ swings on a daily basis, sometimes more and that wasn't happening as often last year. A good chunk of it was tilt induced and I will admit that. Maybe when I can control that better I'll give in another shot. Oh, and at the end of last year I had already transitioned to the 35/25 style and had great results over about 20K hands, so who knows (I posted those stats somewhere).

Here are the numbers from last year:



So, after that I figured I would give that style a longer shot. I took December off, but in 2009 it hasn't been working out. Hey, if you add those 20K to my current 50 though, I'd probably still be around 3BB/100 I guess.

One more thing, this style seems to be working fine at 0.5/1 over 30K+ hands.

Are those stats filtered for 5-6 handed? I'm gravitating towards ~34/23 unfiltered, but in reality it works out to ~30/20 5-6 handed.

Sorry, correction. Those aren't filtered. Filtered it's 34/24.5 and it's most of the hands (18776).

I've been comparing the two samples and the main thing is that my WTSD/W$SD is down 2 points from where it was last year. Maybe I'm just getting played back at more often this year and thus can't showdown as much, which is costing me too much money. Or, I've changed my game and am folding too much. The rest of my stats seem to be about the same.

Right, of course. I figured out I wasn't peeling enough, but completely forgot that would factor into flop aggresion factor.

otoh, I hadn't considered the second point at all. Hmm... I just stoved a few hands and somehow I had gotten it into my head that I had more equity than I actually seem to have in some of these situations. Are you suggesting doing this mostly with Kx/Qx hands when an overcard hits and you are likely Wa/Wb, or also doing this when you hit a low pair on a low board?

The lower your pair the more will Wa/Wb shift into "little ahead/Wb".
Although you will be "little ahead" more often on a low flop than you were Wa in the high pair on high flop scenario.
This means that when you are OOP it will be worse to give your opponent free cards, so there will be bigger incentive for you to take the lead if he is the kind of opponent who wont double or trippel barrell UI overcards.

i'm trying to see if i can be a breakeven maniac, just cus i think it will improve my game. My goal is to be able to play like 60/40/2.0 and breakeven. (so if u see me in like .25/.50 playing like a maniac, i'm experimenting )

I've been able to play as high as 35/25/1.5 while being about breakeven (small sample size but i seemed to be going up and down but always hovering around breakeven.) However, i noticed when i suddenly nitted it up and switched to a like 25/19/1.5 ish type style i got alot of action and made alot of bets that i dont think i would have made with a tighter image. So, changing gears alot seems to be the key to this strategy to me.

i would be willing to bet a lot of money you cannot BE at 60/40/2

I won't make fun of you, for a couple days at least. Just stay at my tables.

I don't understand how people can play 25/19/1.5. What do you limp? It blows my mind.

Paul... how is playing 60/40 at .25/.50 going to help you play a reasonable style at 10/20+? I think it will teach you to play in incredibly bizarre situations that you will almost never encounter while playing normally. Why do you do this to me?