It should be possible to get away from QQ when the villain has KK, or to get away from KK when the villain has AA at least some of the time.

It's a cooler situation in which you are going to lose a lot of money. So success in this situation is salvaging some of your stack. But it is very villain dependent, too. You might have to stack off every time against someone whose stats are 43/37/5, but you might be able to fold against 11/4/1 set miners.

With QQ oop in a raised pot (say villain is trappy and has flatted behind) I tend to lead on flops that give me an overpair. KK or AA is going to want to raise you at some point, just as a set will. Your goal ought to be building the pot unless and until you are raised--then your goal becomes trying to get the hand to a cheap showdown, and usually folding when you can't.

When villain raises you on the flop and then you check the turn and he bets 2/3 or 3/4 of the pot, you are almost never good. So it comes down to the villain--is he capable of betting a good draw hard (and is there one)? The general rule here is that an 11/4/1 is not, but a 47/37/7 is capable-- and in between 11/4/1 and 17/14/3 you have a really tough decision (that in my opinion ought to be weighted toward folding). Also, consider how much of an over pair you have--a 248r board allows the villain to spaz with 99, TT and JJ, whereas a 48T board leaves no under pairs to yours other than JJ.

Against an 11/4/1, you have to make your decision preflop. these players are not really 3 betting machines (although there is one 11/4/1.5 villain at $50 whose 3 bet% is around 7, lol), so you can narrow their range when they 3 bet you preflop. IF you call, you should understand that you are semi-set mining QQ. You want to hit your set or you want the villain to appear reluctant to put money in the pot. In this case, assuming I have an over pair on the flop, I might check/call (depending on the size of the bet) the flop but I would often, maybe usually, check/fold the turn.

The best line for an 11/4/1 with a set or KK or AA to take against me here would be to bet the flop, check behind on the turn and then bet the river--I'd be hard pressed to fold to a reasonable bet on the river.

You may have run a little hot--your EP win rate is obscenely high, for instance, but your stats are excellent. Don't change a thing for now, and if your results start to taper off a bit, look to see if it is due to your EP results falling off to something like normal (0.08-0.10 is kind of standard for excellent players, imo).

The only other thing I saw is that your CO win rate is a bit low. This isn't really cause for concern, but you might want to play around with the filters and see what you might change about your CO post flop play. Bear in mind I am talking about a very small adjustment--you might find 10 hands where you could have saved $2 or made $2 more.

Great stats, congrats!

wowowowow, that was a brutal 1000 hands that started at hand 5147--my condolences to you, sir.

You have run a bit hot in all in ev--+$40 in suck outs or dodging suck outs, so your leaks are quite possibly actually a bit worse than your stats indicate.

You have pretty typical weak/tight leaks:

1. Blind play. read post 489 ITT--this is the most significant leak you have. You are winning back about half the money you post in the blinds. You will never be much more than a very modest winner--maybe 2ptbb/100 or so, until you can start to win back more from the blinds (don't feel like I am being overly critical here--this is one of my three biggest leaks, too, even though I keep working on it during every session).

2. Your W$WSF is too low. This is ALWAYS the case with people who leak from the blinds as much as you and I do--it will start to creep up as you learn to play more aggressively out of the blinds. But look for other situations to pick up the occasional pot--like when you are on the button and it is checked around to you.


You may have additional leaks--I'd want to spend some time looking at your filters to say more.

I think your AF is fine, but I agree with you on your blind play. You are not leaking, per se, but there is room for improvement there. Set your goal as trying to break even in the small blind and really concentrate on ways to improve that.

Do the same with your CO play--you are at .12, which is very good, but you can definitely get that up to .15 or .16.

Great stats, congrats.

ok, done for the day--if your stats are ITT but I haven't gotten to them, I will get them tomorrow (Thursday).

Thanks again for your very complete reply. I will post some more when I'll reach something like 25K hands and see where I improved my play.

This button only gives me the option to enter a URL. Can't I upload pics from my comp?

From the FAQ
To post an image or photo, first you must HOST it on the web. Even if you are just posting an image that is already on the web, unless it is on your website you MUST rehost it. Hot-linking an image (linking directly to an image on somebody else's site) is very bad and may get you banned. Always rehost!

The most popular hosting sites are ImageShack and Photobucket.

In other words:
1. Sign up on ImageShack or Photobucket
2. Upload a picture
3. Click the Image button and paste in the picture URL

Thanks pele. It's funny I read the FAQ 2 days ago and it said about upload attachments button (dont know how that works :s), no wonder I was so confused .

np, glad I could help!

Hi guys, after taking a break from Poker (mainly cause of lots of uni work to do etc) I've come back. I started out nl20 and ran at over 11 big blinds/100 for about 15k hands so I took a 2 buy-in shot at nl50 (because I wasn't properly rolled for it yet). Things went OK for about 4k hands and was up about $250 (although not nearly as good bb/100 as nl20). Then for the next 4k hands I lost it all and am now going to move back down to nl20 (without loosing the initial 2 buy-in shot). Once I have built my BR a little more I may take another shot. I've been trying to explain these events to myself and would appreciate your comments:
a) I am not a profitable player in any sense and I just got lucky. (I don't think this is THAT likely since my stats fit very well with what this thread
says is a good TAG and I have put a lot of time and effort into improving my game over the last few years).

b) I'm a profitable NL20 player but not at NL50. This is def a realistic possibility since I'm so new to this level, I know there will be leaks in my game and although I tend to come to the same conclusions as the regular 2+2 posters I can see my hand reading skills defiantly need improving. However I'm not convinced this is the mostly likely reason as I don’t feel there is THAT much difference between NL20 and NL 50. Also my stats say to me that I'm quite a good solid player at these levels.

c) I am profitable at both these levels but had an average first 4k hands followed by a bad 4k hands. I feel like this is the most likely explanation but am not very experienced in variance so its hard to say.

Any thoughts on this would be greatly appreciated since whether it is a, b or c will effect how quickly I try to move up again. Here are some stats on me and thoughts on my leaks:
Other than the basics I'm not that great at interpreting my stats (not had too much experience at it). After reading the info at the beginning of this thread I see that my stats fit the bill for a good TAG (which I'm happy about ).

1. Firstly I notice my vpip is WAY too high for the SB and at nl50 particularly is a big leak in terms of bb/100. This is also the same for BB but not quite as much. Can anyone give me any advice to improve this? Note: I'm playing premium hands (obviously) plus SC & PP's very aggressively from this position (I've read a lot about defending and stealing blinds and THINK I do this quite well). What occasions would you just complete the SB?
2. W$SD%: This seems OK in general (I think but this thread is a little vague on this one) but for nl50 I'm quite a bit below 50, so this could mean I'm calling off bluffs too often (I felt I was getting quite good at this at NL20 and so I think its possible that I now do it too much cause I'm a bit over confident) or is it just this low because I play so aggressive or because I've hit a bad patch or because I'm bluffing in bad spots/too much?
3. I also noticed that a big looser is my one pair hands (particularly NL50), is this normal?. I think I probably bet 2nd & 3rd pair hands (semi-bluff on flop) a bit too much, any advice on this? I also think that I maybe spewing a little too much with my TP hands. (I think if Alex writes his article about pot control this could maybe help me here quite a lot (I am eagerly awaiting it Alex ).)

I know I don't have enough hands for NL50 to be able to read too much into it (especially if I've been running bad) but surely there must be some convergence plus all my hands together come to about 26k which must help.

Comments on anything I have mentioned so far (or on something that I haven't noticed) would be greatly appreciated, I will be happy to post more screen shots/info if you need any.

Thanks, very much in advance.

PS. Apologies for the long post

My general stats:


My Graph (all hands):


My Graph (NL50 only):


My Positional Stats (all hands):


My Positional Stats (NL50):


My Showdown Hands (all hands):


My Showdown Hands (NL50):

Yeah, 3 things:

1. You're leaking pretty badly in the small blind. In such a small sample it could just be variance, but you need to check it out.

2. VPIP/PFR are a bit out of balance. 18/11 is too passive; you want to raise more and call less. You wind up playing too high a proportion of your hands without the initiative, which cuts into your win rate.

3. W$SD is too low. TAGs normally run >50%; you are probably taking too many marginal hands to showdown

Yeah, I would like to see you at 8/6 rather than 8/4. Raise 99+ from any position 88+ from MP and this should get you there. 8/4 is too passive for a nitty style--your preflop action pretty much defines your hand exactly for any thinking player.

Your SB loss rate is too high,but it could just be variance--you can't draw reliable conclusions from 1100 hands. Keep an eye on it, and maybe tinker a little with the way you play the blinds, but don't make any radical changeso such a small sample.

Your BB loss rate is far too high. Focus on improving your BB play. You will have to review your hand histories to see what you are doing wrong.

Otherwise, I think you have identified the significant leaks in your game, except that I do not think your cold-calling is too out of line. If you are profitable in hands you are calling with, then keep doing what you are doing. If not, look for common leaks--putting too much money in with low pockets unimproved, not being aggressive with draws.

Beyond these things I agree with your analysis. Nicely done.

Your stats look ok at first blush. I am inclined to think you are playing too aggressively, but I am not sure. In Hem, go to the graphs page, click the button on the left that says "showdown winnings" and snap me new screenshots, please.

Thanks for taking the time mpethy, much appreciated! Will provide an update on how it's going in a month or two.

Thanks you taking a look mpethybridge (really enjoyed your well posts btw).

My new graph (all hands):


My new graph (NL50):


I would be very interested to hear what can be interpreted from these lines?

lemme answer this question real quick and then will go take a second look at your stats.

Basically, the red line tells me whether you are playing LAg or TAg style. LAgs tend to bet aggressively, semi-bluff a ton and just generally push people around. As a result, several things are often true about LAg graphs and stats:

They make money in non-showdown spots
They lose money in showdowns
Their W$SD is <50%

Knowing what a successful Lag and TAg graph looks like, I am able to look at your graphs and stats and infer things about your post flop play that I can't from just looking at your stats.

I needed to see your red line because your stats exhibited some, but not all, of the characteristics of a LAg.

Back in a while with an analysis.

OK, here's the deal. You exhibit some of the characteristics of a LAg, and some of the characteristics of a TAg. Based on your post, I am assuming you are aiming for TAg. My advice and analysis is based on this assumption to a large extent.

1. VPIP/PFR. If you are aiming for a TAg style, I think you ought to call/limp less--not a lot less, but just a bit less. You know your calling limping habits better than I, so you are better able to determine the best stuff to cut out than I am. But if you are open lipming 22-55 in EP, maybe consider adopting a raise or fold strategy with them depending on table conditions. If you are calling in the HJ or CO with 75s when a 15/12 opens in EP, maybe start folding stuff like that.

2. Fix your blind play. you are leaking pretty badly from both blinds. Post 489 ITT addresses blind play. This advice is not contingent on you aiming for TAg.

3. Tone down the aggression. Yes, that is right, tone it down. Don't try to push everybody off of every pot. Pick your spots much more carefully--you are winding up at showdown with marginal hands and the players at $50 are successfully looking you up way more often than the folks at $20 were doing. You may be bluffing too much on the river. As a TAg, you should be aiming for a W$SD around 52-55%. Given your aggressive propensity, 50% may be OK for you.

4. Since moving to $50, you have ramped up the aggression in terms of 3 betting out of the blinds. This may be part of your blind leaking. But look at your stats--you 3 bet most often out of the blinds. So you are playing most of the 3 bet pots OOP. This is -EV, most likely. Filter in HEM for 3 bets from your position report page and take a look at your win rate. It should be several hundred bb/100 hands; if it is not, there is a problem with your 3 betting out of the blinds. After you have looked at 3 bets in general by position, look at 3 bets where you saw a flop (saw flop=true filter). You probably need to tone this down. Study the 3 bet hands you lost. use the replayer and click the box for "show villain stats to date of hand." Look for three things: 1. Given the player's stats, 2. Was this a good 3 bet? and 3. Did I play the hand appropriately for a villain with these stats? This advice is not contingent on you aiming for TAg.

The "Att To Steal" stat in PT3 is when everyone folds to CO, BTN or SB and you put in a raise, right?

Why isn't this considered a stel of the blinds then:

Pre-Flop: T K dealt to Hero ()
7 folds, Hero raises to $0.70, SB calls $0.60, BB calls $0.50

No wonder my "Att To Steal" stats are so low

yes.

what makes you think it doesn't count as a steal?

Thank you mpathy, I'll start going through all that stuff and see what I find. I was thinking about my style the otherday as it happens and thought I may have a slightly confused style. I think I'm playing a LAGY TAG style. Do you think this could be counter productive? I think I naturally tend towards LAG but due to lack of info on that style i've ended up forcing myself to TAG which is where the overlap has come from.

Yeah, I think,at least in your case, it is counter-productive to be mixing styles. You have the showdown losses of a LAg and the non-showdown losses of a TAg.

I sort of inferred that you preferred the LAg style, but you are correct; there is not a lot of information out there on it. Just don't try to win every pot--if you are meeting a lot of resistance with some trash hand, give it up and move on to the next hand. Play another table or two if that will help you to get away from hands.

These are all of my hands at NL5 6max. Just looking for ways in which I can improve my winrate, because I'm pretty sure I should be getting more than 6.75ptbb/100 at nl5. I usually play 6 to 8 tables, maybe this has something to do with the fairly low winrate? Looks like I'm also losing way to much in non-showdown pots.

Graph



Graph with non-showdown winnings




Overall stats and position stats.





Any input would be greatly appreciated.

Typing this reference into search doesn't bring up the right article. How do I find it?