exhu... looks pretty good from the small sample you have there.

Ideally, we'd like to get the vpip/pfr a bit closer together, but 15/10 isn't a bad start.

It looks like you are limping too much up front. vpip/pfr should be nearly identical from utg and utg+1 as we should be raising when we come in from up front. Obviously there are aggressive tables, when we are going to be limp/rr AA and KK sometimes, but generally we should open from EP.

Your stats look really good except for the negative numbers in the mp win rates. These losses could be the result of a few big hands in a small sample, or you could be doing something wrong.

The only thing I see that might explain it is that your ccpf rates are on the high side; you should run a filter to try and figure out if your calling hands in mp are profitable. Filter for between 2 and 4 off the button, action was to cold call a raise and see if you are winning money. If you are, then most likely you are negative in mp because you have lost a few big hands in each of those positions. If you are negative, then you may need to look through the hands to determine what you are doing wrong. Just sort all of your mp hands by amount lost and study the big losses forst--if there are a lot of set ups or coolers, then your play is probably fine and the negative numbers are most likely an artifact of sample size.

You could open up more in the hijack--start treating it like a stealing position more so than you do now.

Otherwise, your leaks are not related to your basic style--you may have others, such as calling too light on the river or something. For somebody who does so well in the blinds, your win rate is far too low. You are definitely leaking somewhere.

The easiest way to do this is to go to the graph, set it for all hands, then filter/edit/more filters/all in on turn or earlier = true (toward the bottom of the list) click add filter/click save and close.

I doubt PokerEV is compatible with HEM, but i don't know for sure.

Care to elaborate on this? Posting in the CO at a full table nets you 6 hands before the blinds come around again for 1BB, or 0.16667BB/hand. Posting BB+SB at a full table nets you 9 hands before the blinds come around again for 1.5BB, or also 0.166667BB/hand. In one case you do not get to play a button, but you also avoid having to play BB+SB hands. Posting in the CO seems fine to me (though I typically don't because I'm likely busy trying to open other tables and enjoy the delay).

Thank you very much for this answer.

I filtered middle position and cold called as you say and it seems i'm bleeding money with 22-99 PP ... I guess i should less call with those

uh, no.

If these are the hands you are losing money with, then you really shouldn't stop playing them. Instead, you should study the way you are playing them.

These hands should be profitable. It is possible that you have not flopped the expected number of sets in these positions with these hands. It is possible that you are limping behind when you could be raising to isolate a limper with the bigger pairs--say, 77-99.

There is a limit to what i can do with your statistics. I can't tell you why you are unprofitable with these hands. But they should be profitable, and you can't stop playing them simply because you are unprofitable in a small sample.

The poster's expected profit from playing the CO through UTG is $0.026/orbit.

Posting costs him $0.10. Leak, imo.

Put differently, the poster's total profit in these positions was $24.50 in 5577 hands played from the CO to UTG. In 30 hands of posting the CO, he spewed off $3.00, 12% of his total profit from 5577 hands. Leak, imo.

More generally, posting in the CO costs you .5ptbb. If your total profit from playing the CO through UTG exceeds .5ptbb/orbit, then you could post profitably. I don't know about you, but my expected profit from playing these six positions is .38ptbb/orbit, and that is in a sample where I hand selected in the CO, rather than being forced to play a random 2 cards. So posting would be at least a .12ptbb leak for me as well, and, I suspect, for most micro-grinders.

It is certainly a leak for the poster whose stats I was analyzing.

Hope this helps.

It's definitely a leak, especially for me, not sure why I started posting the bb like that out of the blue and it turned into a bad habit. I am amazed by how much info I'm getting from just reading this thread beginning to end.

mpethybridge, thanks for that great post regarding blind play.

Hey all, quick Q.

I dled PokerEv today to take it for a spin. Now, under the Game Analysis Graph section, if my Skalnsky line is higher than my actual line, does that mean I've been unlucky, something else, or both? Would post pics but it's on the fritz right now + I need sleep.

TY

Hey, MPethy, how many hands do you normally like a player to have before you look at their stats, graphs, etc.?

Well, here's the thing. It MIGHT mean that you were unlucky, or it might mean something else, or it might mean a combination of things including that you were unlucky. the developer of PokerEV tells us NOT to use the sklansky bucks line to determine whether we are running lucky or unlucky. Only the all in graph can tell us that and it can only tell us about one specific type of luck of the hundreds of types of luck involved in poker, so even that graph has very limited utility.

So this raises the question--what IS the sklansky bucks line on the graph good for? The answer is--not much. If it stays far from your total winnings line in a HUGE sample--100k 200k hands, you should go back through and filter your hands and look to see if you can detect a pattern that could explain it--you might, for example, be leaking in some bizarre way, such as usually bluff check raising a flush card or when the board pairs on the river.

What is FAR more useful in PokerEV is the tab that allows us to see, street by street, how much equity we had in each hand as we bet. This is an awesome tool for analyzing hands that went to showdown. But like every tool, it has to be used with caution, as we play the hand against a RANGE, and the tool shows us the villain's equity based on his exact cards. So you have to constantly be asking yourself how your equity was against the villain's range, while PokerEV tells us what hand he had. But it is nevertheless a good tool for teaching us correct bet sizing in various situations, and for getting us thinking about equity and whether each bet was a +EV play.

as many as possible, lol.

Cliff's notes: 40,000.

TL;DR:

seriously, this is a subject of controversy. There have been threads over the years that tried to calculate how many hands it takes for us to have confidence in our win rates, how quickly villain stats normalize, etc. etc.

In fact, the validity is going to vary widely depending on the statistic. For example, VPIP represents the full sample, but VPIP OTB represents 1/9 of the sample--so In a 9000 hand sample, i really have a practically useless for some purposes 1000 hand sample of button play.

But that's not very helpful to new players, and I do the best I can with any reasonable sample.

My personal opinion is that to do a decent stat review, I need at least 10,000 hands and the player's opinion (or graphs showing) whether the player ran hot, cold or neutral in the sample. With a sample this small, I can look for some tendencies, but some stats, such as win rate by position, will be almost useless.

Most of the new players who post ITT thread post fewer hands, so I have to qualify the analysis by saying basically, "this looks like a leak, go check this and confirm." That seems to work pretty well most of the time, but I am still concerned that the guy a few posts up is going to stop calling raises with 22-99 because he was negative with them in a small sample, lol.

OMG, you deserve a medal for this undertaking.

Lol, no no, i'll just be more careful. I think i tend to overvalue the higher ones and cbet/raise the flop with them even if i don't get the set

Greetings,

I recently started playing some cash games, I've been a tournament grinder for the past couple of years and have decided that learning to play full ring cash would make me a much better player in every respect. Anyways, I've started at NL50, to make sure i'm not donating too much to begin with. These are my results after my first 10,000 hands.

I've analyzed them a bit on my own, but i know it would help to have others take a look and see how I am doing. This thread has been invaluable. Really, thanks alot for making it. PT is sort of overwhelming if your not familiar with it, and this has helped alot.

Anyways... the stats aren't great, but it could be worse. Help me out fellas!

Your stats are a little off for playing a TAg cash game, but mostly you look pretty good.

You should tighten up considerably in early position. Run a filter--position is UTG and UTG +1, action preflop is to limp. You will probably see that you are losing money limping in EP. So you need to tone it down or stop altogether. The hands you are currently limping you should either raise or fold, depending on whether the table is passive or aggressive.

I wouldn't mind seeing you playing about 8% (although 6% is somewhat more usual) of your hands from EP, but you should be bringing them in for a raise and using initiative to win some, since you are oop.

The other thing is you are cold calling a lot. your average ccpf is 12; something around 4-7 is more normal for the solid FR TAgs. Like your vpip, your ccpf should increase as you move toward the button, and your average should wind up somewhere in the range I indicated.

The net effect of limping too much and cold calling too much is that your vpip and pfr are out of proportion. You will know you are doing things right-ish when your pfr is 2/3 of your vpip.

Right now your winrate is low-ish because you are playing about half your pots out of position and without the initiative that inheres in being the preflop raiser.

To fix these leaks, really all you need to do is tighten up in EP and loosen up considerably in LP. Your vpip otb of 20% is good, but a bit too low. You should be raising, first in otb, maybe 30-35% of the time, at least. The best uFR grinders are telling me that they are profitably stealing 40% of the time. Stealing 30-35% of the time usually yields a vpip of about 25-27%

Your CO vpip should be higher and closer to your button vpip. You should be stealing from the CO as often as you steal from the button. Only when you have an unusually solid and aggressive player to your immediate left should you tone down the stealing in the CO, and even then you should only tighten up a bit, not stop.

Treat the hijack as a stealing position, too, but you will have to tone it down far more often, as you will often have a good player behind you that will play back at you.

You are leaking a little bit from the small blind. It looks like you are too loose passive from the SB. You should rarely just complete the SB. If it is folded to you, you should raise >50% of the time. If there is one limper ahead of you, you can raise a smaller, but still very wide range. You should only complete with decent implied odds hands when there are multiple limpers ahead of you.

Just to give you some perspective in small blind aggression: my steal success rate from the CO is 51%, it is 57% from the button, and it is 63% from the small blind (playing $50 and $100). As you have fewer players to get through your steal success goes up--so in the SB you should be stealing with basically everything. When it is not a steal situation, raising the pot gives you the initiative, which is critical to compensate for the fact that you will be out of position, and will increase the credibility of your c-bet over that of a donk bet out of the sb in a limped pot (which players tend to laugh at and call extremely lightly).

Your big blind loss rate is marginal--right on the border of leak/ok. try to trim it down some. The easiest way for you to do this would be to tighten up just a bit--fold a bit more to steal attempts--and make sure you are 3 betting with a decent number of hands.

(I don't want to get into the optimal 3 bet % argument here, but you should make sure you are 3 betting at least 2.5% in the BB with a mix of your strongest hands and some hands that are not really good enough to call a PFR and defend your blind with. Higher than 2.5% is almost certainly better, assuming you are a skilled post flop player--if you think you are not, then it is probably best to just tighten up preflop. Just remember when 3 betting light to pick your spots, hands and villains carefully.)

As an interim step in improving your loss rates in the blinds, aim for these loss rates over the next 10,000 hands:

BB: -0.20ptbb/hand
SB: -0.12ptbb/hand

I hope that you notice that this is only a slight reduction in your loss rates, which, in turn, means that you should modify your blind play only slightly. As you get more comfortable with ramped up aggression in the blinds, slowly open up with an eye toward further reductions in losses. The very best micro-grinders come very close to break even in the SB (between 0.00ptbb/hand and -0.07ptbb/hand is the range those best players are in) and are somewhere around -0.10 or -0.12ptbb/hand in the BB. So these figures are your ultimate goals, but if you are getting even close to them it is probably past time for you to move up.

The only other thing I saw is that your W$WSF is too low. In your case, this is almost certainly a function of playing too many pots out of position and without the initiative. I suspect your W$WSF% will climb toward 40% as you plug the leaks I have mentioned here--if it doesn't post again after the next 10,000 hands or so.

Pretty good stats, all in all. Good luck.

This confirms alot of my assumptions about the holes in my game. I figured i was being a little too much of a calling station from my relatively high CC% and Vpip in relation to my PFR. I'll attempt to tighten up alot OOP, so can ratchet up the aggression in position.

Really, thanks a ton for the advice.. I know it will help me ALOT!

I'll report back after a few more days,

Thanks Teach!

Nick

I'd appreciate any help. I've been playing poker for a while, up and down a lot. I've done alright with SNGs, cashing out a few hundred on Bodog, and then building my bankroll from 50 to 200 on Full Tilt, but I've been hearing cash is better so I want to try that and my results have been horrible (other than a nice beginning which I'm thinking now was variance). I do realize Full Tilt is awful with their rake at 10NL, but being US, it's one of my few options. I realize I don't have enough hands, but at this rate, I'll go broke before I do!

Tyler:

I see just a few things wrong:

1. Big Blind. Read post 489 ITT. SB is a small leak for you, too.
2. Late Position. You need to loosen up considerably in late position. Your ATS is very low--aim to be stealing at least 30% of the time from both the button and the cut off.
3. Calling too much in early/mid position. You are playing a few too many pots out of position without the initiative.

To be honest, though, your stats are sufficient for you to be winning at NL $10 (or NL $25 and maybe even NL $50). Your preflop game--vpip/pfr/ccpf/ats--is not your problem. I'm not saying that you shouldn't improve your game in the ways I have suggested--you should--I am saying that you are misplaying your hands post-flop in ways that are costing you big money.

Your stats don't really give good clues to what you are doing wrong postflop. the fact that you are a former tourney player makes it a pretty safe bet that you are consistently over valuing one pair hands and possibly stacking off too often with your overpairs. The fact that you are losing money on the button in a pretty decent sample indicates that you may not be adequately controlling your aggression--that you are trying to bet villains off the pot with air far more often than is optimal.

These are just guesses on my part, though. I think you should spend some time in your tracking software looking for these leaks. Look at your c-bet profitability, look at your river calls, look at your all in equity, study your biggest losers. Look at how much money you put in the pot with second pair and other vulnerable hands. Look at your by-street aggression.

More importantly, get a more experienced cash game player to sweat you for a few hours--a good player will be able to spot the things you are doing wrong consistently. We have a micro-player sweat session thread--sign up. There are also a lot of solid regular posters who are normally quite willing to help out with a sweat session on short notice.

Thanks for the analysis. I'll definetly be taking all of your suggestions. You pretty much nailed it though. I didn't want to influence your analysis, by throwing in my own guesses, but a few thousands hands ago, I realized I lost a lot of pots trying to keep people honest, i.e. calling down with second pair, especially if they overbet the pot, which I saw as a bluff. Now I though I still have been losing with overpairs and top pair top kicker. I haven't gotten the discipline yet, but my latest thought is that unless I have a very specific read or crazy good pot odds, I'm going to try to avoid getting my whole stack in with less than two pair (not to say always with two pair, but just don't consider doing so without it). Now off to look into the Sweats.

here's since 9/1................ been playing bad, coolered and probably some tilt in there too, I feel everytime I cbet I get raised, so I just have to fold, I did try to change my game a little and improving my AF, but that didnt went well.....
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stats
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positions

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If there's something I can get let me know, any help or input I can get from anyone is much appreciated..........

Don - My VPIP is the same as your but my VPIP from the hijack is 16%, CO is 20% and BTN is 23%. At NL 50 you should be stealing more. About 35%+ would be good. You'll make most of your money from Late position.

Your flop AF seems very low, my turn AF is higher then your flop for example. Your probaly calling in spots where you should be raising which will give you some FE and help take a pots down.

AF a trickey beast to figure out though, your river one is alot higher then mine but that could be because your are folding in spots where a call might be best, or betting in spots where you wont get much value.

Okay, I know that I'm doing well, but I really feel like there might be a significant leak or two in my game. First of all, I was playing very TAGish, running 11/8/3 and doing well, about 15bb/100. But the last couple thousand hands, I've opened my game up quite a bit to more of a 25/4/2.25 and my winrate's jumped a ton. Over those hands, I'm at 25bb/100. So there's definitely room for improvement still.

The things that are sticking out at me mainly are:

1) My cbet%. I'm winning 51% of flops w/o showdown. So should I just cbet the crap out of everything? Or is that going to change the amount of FE I get? I'm not sure how things work at this level.

2) My fold to river bet. 68%??? That sounds HUGE, but is it? I have no idea.

Obviously anything at all that you see on top of these points I'd love to hear it. Thanks a lot!

I am relatively new to online cash games. For the past 2.5 years I have been playing tournaments and SNG's religiously and didn't really have to much luck. I decided I was going to move to cash and by pokertracker. I have been doing very well compared to tourneys. I have tracked 5500 hands over the past month and have been winning rate of 8.65 BB/100 at 0.05/0.10.

My question is when should I move up? Should I keep playing until I get to 10k hands and re-evaluate the situation. I would like to grind my online bankroll up but playing 10NL is basically inconsequential to my financial situation. Should I throw a couple hundred more into my online account and try 25NL for a while.

I am posting some of my pokertrackers stats. I don't think I value position as much as I should. I think I also have been running pretty good, probably a little above average.

thx man, you sure are right about the flop and turn AFs, that's something I'm trying to wrok right now, I will try to bump my numbers from CO and BTN..............

thx again man