Great read! These last two pages should be arranged into a single thread and sticky'd.

If you go up to "My 2+2" in the top left you can change your settings so that it shows 100 posts per page, way less clicking then .

Indeed, ty both.

What stats should I post, if I need help??

positional stats from PT are good or the HEM equivalents.

How can you post the picture on here??

RedJoker/Pokey, can you offer any advice?

After watching the LAG video by mdm13 a couple weeks ago, I've put in a ton of hours overhauling my TAGish game. I used to play around 16/14 and now I've got myself playing around 21/18. I realize this is not a ton of hands, but its something to work with for now and I'd like to know if I'm on the right track.

I feel like I may be playing a little too loose out of the blinds. Should I be folding blinds more? What about WTSD%? Any other things I can look to improve?

Have at it - plz tear my game apart! thx

P.S - I went through the entire conversation between Pokey/RedJoker, threw it into a Word doc and used the highlight feature to highlight everything I thought I needed to pay more attention to. I'm not sure how transferable it is, as I'm sure everyone has different areas of improvement, but if anyone would like the study notes, shoot me a PM and I'll email it to you.

Slightly OT, but this is direct at the previous poster:

I play a 16/14 game at the moment and feel like I open a very wide range, especially CO and the Button. I can't see how 21/18 is possible without adding in some really junky hands or playing marginal hands OOP.

Any examples of hands you added to open with from CO/Button as well as the other positions would be great.

16/14 is more nitty then taggy fwiw. Your stats look very solid.

Your VPIP from the SB is very tight. There's nothing wrong with this and playing tight OOP is very rarely a bad thing. However, if you wanted to, you could complete a few more hands when there's limpers or attempt to steal the BB when it's folded to you a little more. If you do decide to complete more make sure you take lots of stabs at the limped pots.

Your fold blinds to steal are fine, not overly tight or loose.

63% cbet is on the tight side but not a massive problem.

WtSD is fine, given that you've got a 52% W$SD and a 48% W$WSF it's likely you're running a little hot, how bad huh? Anyway, don't be concerned if one of them drops down a little over the next 10K hands.

You don't. As you improve you'll move away from the starting hand chart mentality and your opening range will become dependent on table conditions and your opponents. Sometimes it will be very tight, other times extremely loose.

From UTG a minimum would be 22+, KQ, AQ+, AJs+.
If you wanted to widen your range you could also include all SCs, suited one gappers, suited broadway and AXs as well as AJo.

MP will be pretty similar except that you can open slightly wider, stuff like offsuit broadways and A8o+ become more playable in your wide range. You can add in some of the suited broadways to your tight range, A8s+ would probably be a minimum.

CO tight range would be similar to UTG wide range with the offsuit broadways and A8o+.
Wide range can get very wide depending on table conditions. The tighter the opponents that are left the more stuff you can open. If there's a very weak player in the blinds we can still open wide but with hands that play well postflop, which is where we will inevitably be going.

BTN would have the CO tight range as a minimum as well as anything that looks remotely playable; offsuit connectors, offsuit one gappers, suited two gappers, K9s+, Q8s+, AXo, etc. Although I personally hate playing AXo myself.
BTN wide range can get to ATC and, more often, any two suited cards. It really depends on the table though.

SB opening range depends on the player in the BB, something like CO tight range would probably be a minimum but if the player is very tight then we can go up to BTN wide range.

Obviously if you're a beginning player the wide range doesn't apply to you. For those that are a little more experienced you could try using the wide range for a session or any time you feel like mixing it up. Remember that table conditions are extremely important, trying to force a table of calling stations to stop calling you will be impossible. Personally I use pretty stringent seat selection so that the fish is always on one of the three seats to my right. A fish on your left forces you to tighten way up.

T-Bird, RedJoker pretty much nailed it here. I used to wonder "how the heck can I open any more than I do from the button?" The truth is, when the table conditions are right (tight/weak players in the blinds to your left) you need to forget about hand values and be willing to open any 2 cards. I'm not saying open 100% of your buttons, but a big chunk of them.

I try to imagine the table in 3 sections - try this and it may help you:

1. You have the blinds, where I'm going to play VERY tight and basically stay away from pots unless I have a ton of value in them.

2. You have the 2 early positions - Here I have a tight opening range that is more or less based off of a "mental hand chart" that I have in my head. These opening hands have little variation, regardless of table conditions.

3. CO and Button - Here I'm basically playing 100% based on table conditions. At times I'll make a squeeze on the B when a TAG opens from EP and a donk flats from MP. At times I'll just fold that same junk. If its folded around to me and I know the blinds are tight/weak as heck, I'm willing to open any two cards (assuming I haven't opened every button for the last 5 rotations).

Think of it this way. Most of the time you open from the button, you miss the flop, as does the blinds player, so what does it really matter what your cards have? Is it really that much better to open A9o from the button then T7o? Not enough for me to care. We are putting pressure on the blinds player OOP to make a hand.

Also look for timing tells from the blinds. If a blinds player quickly calls your button raise, his range is HEAVILY weighted towards low-mid PPs. When the board comes down KJ4, you can probably C-bet pretty safely. Most players that arn't total donks will fold the vast majority of SCs and will chose to 3-bet/fold hands like AQ/AJ etc. If the blinds 3-bet me, I usually assume that they have air or my range NEEDS to be ahead of JJ+, AQ+ (unless we are deep in which dynamics change and you can flat a 3-bet with a lighter holding).

Here are my stats.
Im sorry thats my stats are so messy, but I dont know how to make them better in PT3... Somebody have some advice?
I think maybe my blind play is my biggest fault.. I almost never defend or try to steal blinds. But is it really so important?
And beside for the blindplay, what do I have to work most with?

The gap between your VPIP and your PFR is a little low. I'd try and get them a little closer.

Your blind stealing is too low. Blind stealing isn't just about stealing, but its also about appearing to have a loose image that will have your opponents paying you off with weaker holdings.

Get your late position VPIP as close to 30%+ as possible and you won't believe the crap people are paying you off with.

What is standard % of a solid player for W$SD and W$WSF? I Generally through around 50% was pretty standard for W$SD and ~45% was standard for W$WSF?

What is a good C-bet %?

Well there's no "standard" number, there's just normal ranges and anything outside of those might suggest a problem. The thing is that they need other stats to have much meaning.

Around 50% W$SD would be normal. The higher your WtSD the lower your W$SD tends to be and the converse as well.

A player with low VPIP will usually have a W$SD over 50%, sometimes up to 55% or 60% depending on how weak-tight they are postflop.

A looser player with a high W$WSF will often have a lower W$SD because they're making some (or a lot) of their money from non showdown pots. So they tend to value bet more often and also bluff more frequently so when they do get to showdown they'll have a losing hand more often then a nittier player.

Given your high W$WSF it's unlikely you'll be able to maintain a high W$SD, so it suggests you may be running a little hot. It doesn't really matter though, playing good, solid poker is what's important, whatever your stats turn out as is pretty irrelevant except for spotting leaks.

Hi everyone,

Can I get some feedback on my stats at 50NL now? I have been on a big downer, and I think it has to do with my gameplay since I have a decent sized sample. I used to be 5PTBB+, but now I'm at barely 2PTBB.

Where do you guys see the most leaks? Am I not firing river enough? Why is my WWSF AND WSD both so low? I read earlier that if one is high, the other should be low and vice-versa.

I feel like I'm losing a ton of money at showdown as my EV graph shows (blue line taking a dive). How can I fix this? I am generally a tight player given these stats.

I'd like to move up to 100NL since I've been grinding for a while, so all comments are welcome. Please ask if you need more detailed stats.

thanks for your replay. never actualy limp when folded to me or UTG. i only call in position when fishes limps, i iso them sometimes.

and yes i am losse in the SB since many fishes calls and makes it a limp pot and i find my self there getting huge pot odds to call is that correct?

is it also correct to "ALWAYS" call a raise with a law pair? to hit a set or to check raise the flop if i have a read on the cb the raise make (i win alot with check raising) ?

since this thread is great i want to ask another question
if you play with a reg and you flat call or 3bet in position, then:
1 - reraise his cb (cost less/ win less / rish less)
2- float call and bet/reraise the turn (cost much/ win much/ rish much)

so which one is better?

Iso them a lot, it's great.

Well pot odds are o.k. but the problem is that you're going to be OOP for the whole hand, players have weaker hand ranges so you have very little implied odds and players have very wide ranges so it's much harder to define their ranges. You also don't have initiative although you do have the opportunity to bluff first (which you should take as much as possible).

Not always, no. Depends on the player, the situation, history, etc., etc. A lot of the time you will but if you can add some extra EV by c/ring or showing down your unimproved PP sometimes then great. Just as an aside, try to avoid absolutes like "always" or "never" when talking about poker.

Whether to raise or float depends on your opponent and board texture. If you raised my cbet on a dry flop like K92r I'll probably 3bet bluff you a lot because it's so unlikely you have anything and most of my opponents aren't capable of 4bet bluff shoving. If you raise me on an A high board like AK7 I'll probably 3bet bluff you a lot because, again, it's unlikely you have anything and if you had an ace you'll usually call because you're in a WA/WB situation. But most of your opponents probably won't be doing things like that to you.

On wet boards it's probably better to bluff raise especially if your opponent doesn't take board texture into consideration when cbetting. If you float you can't represent a strong made hand but you can represent scare cards. If you raise you can represent both.

On the dry or A high boards a call signifies more strength because you're representing a wider range. On the AK7 board a raise represents 77 or maybe A7s only, AK/AA/KK would usually be 3bet preflop and K7 isn't a coldcallable hand. However a call represents AQ/AJ/AT/AXs/KQ/KJs/KTs/JJ/TT/99/88/87s/76s. So even though you're representing slightly weaker hands your range is actually stronger. Of course, again, most of your opponents aren't capable of putting you on a range. A lot of them are also extremely weak-tight and will just shutdown to any resistance no matter how unbelievable your line.

Floating or bluff raising is better if you have some type of draw or backdoor draw. Like made hands they're broken up into 3 categories; strong draws where you can raise and get it all in. Weak draws where you can raise and easily fold to a 3bet because you don't really care if you have to fold and marginal draws where you'd really hate to have to fold but you'd also like to see a turn card. The marginal draws are the best to float with while the strong and weak draws make good semi-bluff opportunities. It also depends on how hidden your draw is. A double bellybuster shouldn't be raised because it's so hidden while a flush draw is extremely obvious when it hits and raising is often better (although not always).

Sorry if that was a bit rambling, just some random thoughts.

I just took a look at my winnings at showdown and without showdown since I started playing NL20...and was shocked to say the least.
I basically won 20 buyins at showdown, and lost 20 buyins without showdown. All that over only 12k hands

I already knew I was bad at playing marginal spots but great at extracting value with good hands, but this just killed me!

So...does anyone general reasons why someone would lose money without show down in the long run?

I've spotted some of these leaks myself:
- Calling 3bets with small pocket pairs (using the 5/10 principle...12% is a fold )
- Cold calling with good but not great hands on the blinds (stuff like TT, AJ, AQ), and giving up on the flop unimproved.
- Not cbetting enough (only 58% ). This could be a side effect of isolating passive fish with hands that don't play well against their range (SCs), then giving up since they fold to cbet 20% of the time. This could also mean I give too much credit to semi-tight players (flop is 458, I automatically put them on PPs, even though they often call with 2 broadway cards just as often)
- Not knowing when and who to double barrel. My usual reason to double barrel is (well my cbet was called and it pisses me off...bet!)
- Not knowing when to bluff. Hard when you play with crappy players who can't fold top pair.
- Not bluff raising/floating. I'm usually the agressor, so I play like crap when I'm not the PFR.

Anyone else got some tips to add?

It looks like you were running really good for a while (after around 30K hands you were 8BI's above expectation). At the moment you look like you're running pretty bad. I wouldn't move up until you have a bit more confidence in your game. Remember you are a winner over the long run.

As to your stats - they all look pretty solid.

Hey everyone

This is my NL25 career and it has not been going all that well. Criticize, flame, bash - i'm ready to take it all, i really need to know if there are any blatant leaks here so any comments are appreciated.

Blinds:

It looks to me like you are playing way to many hands out of the blinds. I used to be a terrible terrible player out of the blinds. I did an experiment over about 15,000 hands where I played overly tight from the blinds to see how it effected my winrate. I basically folded everything other then AA-JJ/AK, and I would 3-bet 100% of those and play for value. My winrate sky rocketed.

You are obviously a losing player out of the blinds, so in theory folding 100% of hands in the blinds is going to cause you to make more money. I wouldn't be this radical with it, but I think for a while you should basically fold everything in the blinds except for big premium hands. (this does not include stuff like AQ/KQ/JT/ low pps - just fold them in the blinds for a while).

Over ISO'ing multiple limpers:

If you are at a table full of loose donk/calling stations and more than 1 of them limps PF, do NOT ISO them from the button with total garbage. As soon as the first limper calls your raise, you can be sure the 2nd limper will call and now you're in a raised pot post-flop with a crap hand and two calling stations. For the next little while, concentrate on only ISO'ing when there is 1 limper PF (unless you have a good hand).

Bluffing:

Your non-showdown winnings are pretty bad. I can't tell enough from this information, but if you are bluffing a lot you need to stop. I used to have a huge problem with bluffing the river. Until you are a much better player, try to avoid bluffing on the river as you probably don't really now why you are doing it. If your draw misses or your AK doesn't hit, don't try and bluff it off. To be honest, you can crush 25nl/50nl never bluffing and only value betting.

The only time I think a bluff might be called for at these limits is in a well executed double barrel. Assume you hold AsQs in position and the flop comes down 8s5d4c and villain C/C's your C-bet. Turn is a Ks - this is a great card to double-barrel bluff at the turn. You just picked up some nice equity with the spade hitting and you are probably going to fold out any 5x/8x/99/TT that called on the flop.

Value betting:

Learn to value bet your hands. If you open from the CO or B and get called, it's better to C-bet with air or strong holdings then it is with marginal holdings. The last thing you want to do is turn a marginal holding into a bluff. So when you hit 2nd pair on a dry board and you know your opponent is a calling station, there is no need to C-bet and bloat the pot. Try and keep the pot small and consider value betting it on a safe turn instead. You will also cause loose villains to barrel at the turn with air.

When you make a value bet against a TAG, regardless of your holding being strong or marginal, consider how it fits your range. Is the hand you are betting at the top of your range or at the bottom of your range? Is it well disguised or not?

When someone UTG or in EP raises, you flat or 3bet and see a flop, consider what YOUR range would be for open raising or calling a 3-bet/4-betting from UTG or EP. Chances are if someone is a TAG like you are, your ranges UTG and from EP are similar. You can apply these ranges throughout the hand to figure out how strong they probably are.

Hi everyone! I´ve played some NL10 the last days but I´m not running very well. As you can see on the graph my game changed at ~6100 hands but still isnt´t good as I´m losing money when went to showdown. But I made an improvement on my game without showdown. So how to interprete this? Am I bluffing too much or in the wrong spots and thus losing when get called? Thanks for replies!
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What did you change to improve your game without showdown?

Well as I´m losing much money when went to showdown and overall I don´t know if it is real improvement for my whole game. But basicallly I started to observe my opponents more. I´m trying to find out what certain lines of the opponents mean and to react accordingly and not to give up too fast,e.g. I´m looking for the right spot for a second barrel.... But this postflop game seems to kill my game when went to showdown anyhow, I think. Hope you guys can help me.I still have to make a lot of adjustements.
BTW, here are my stats for my last 3400 hands (since "changing my game"):