Pokey said something interesting all the way back on page 2 of this thread:
Quote:
Originally Posted by Pokey
2. You are cold-calling WAAAAAY too much. If I'm reading your stats correctly, when you are faced with a raise you cold call an average of 8.7% of the time preflop. Zounds! I just checked my database ($200NL, but close enough) and of the players that I have at least 3,500 hands on there are exactly three winning players with CC% over 8.00. Three. Out of 741. You do not stand in good company. I'd try to get that number cut to 1/3rd of its current level as a start. Anything over 4% should be worrying you, and anything over 6% should be a leak. (Just to give you a reference, my VPIP and PFR look similar to yours but my CC% is 1.59%, so it really can go QUITE a bit lower.) How do you get it down that low? Easy: don't cold-call. If someone raises in front of you, make a decision: do I like my hand enough to three-bet this? If the answer is "yes," then three-bet. If the answer is "no" then you should fold unless you have a VERY good reason not to. Now, overcalling is a different matter; there are times when a speculative hand (usually a pocket pair, but sometimes a suited connector) does quite well overcalling a preflop raise, but for the most part when there's a raise in front you should be looking to either 3-bet or dump it (almost always dumping it, of course). The beauty of this plan is that when you actually find yourself mixed up in a hand postflop you almost always have the betting lead, and that's a recipe for success. Cold-calling is typically far less successful than reraising, barring an opponent-specific read.
Now I've been playing fairly sloppily (27/18-29/20), planning on tightening up a little bit, but it looks like my CCPF% might be one of my biggest leaks, at a whopping 12%! I'm playing at $10 and $25 NL. I almost always call pf with any pocket pair, and often with suited aces, and sometimes with suited connectors, also with dubious hands like QJo and ATo. What should I be doing instead? To get CCPF down as low as 4%, I would have to call ONLY with pairs 99 or less, and either raise or fold everything else. Or maybe sometimes fold, sometimes call w/ suited connectors, and sometimes raise with pairs to balance things out at around 4% (as for how to get as low as 1.59%
)? I almost never fold pairs, even 22 or 33, should I? Isn't it always right to call a 3-4bb bet just to setmine?