Thanks mpethybridge for a kind and really helpful reply!

Basically I was playing nit style for a long time then imporoved my aggression preflop but had awful postflop skills so this is one of the most important reasons why I'm now experimenting with loose play. Also I want to move to 6-max tables one day - this might be a good concept imo...

However I rarely open limp in any position and almost never in EP (only with 22-77 for set value which could be wrong? I just looked at my starting hand stats and I see i'm loosing with those omg only variance?). About SB - I lost two PP hands. One was coldcall EP's AA. Lost with trips villain rivered A and the second was about the same. I will read something about it anywayz.

And you are totally right about sample size - I have pasted it for august only with a little hope someone will comment it in the way you did so thanks again and if you don't mind I will invite you to comment my style at the next checkmark at the middle of october - I'm gonna grind EEE LOOOT and see what happenes with my winrate. Go for 10BB/100 over 40k hands@NL50

No, this is not variance. limping small pockets in ep for set value is, in and of itself, not profitable in today's game.

That said, as long as you are profitable with 22-66 AS A GROUP, it is not a big leak, imo.

But this is why a lot of us think a strategy of raising or folding these hands in EP depending on table conditions is better then limp/calling with them. I don't think there is a definitely correct answer, but it sure is hard to play them profitably enough when you hit a set to make a profit for all the times you miss and have to check/fold.

hey,

this summer my goal was to try and build my roll up enough to play 25NL with $500. I built up to 500 pretty quickly going on a massive heater and moved to 25NL. At 25NL I won 2 buyin then went on to lose 5 buyins there and moved back down to 10NL. When I got down to 10NL I then lost 10 more buy ins there. So the beginning of the summer pretty much went from excited to move up to totally crushed.

Right now im getting close to back to have my roll up to $500 but I feel like I've just been either breaking even or losing everytime i sit down to play.

Heres my stats for this summer. I don't play a ton but I try to get at least 5k hands a month.





Could the ev graph mean that I am just running bad or that I am missing out on value when I have the best hand? thanks for the help

This is NOT running bad.

It looks like a pretty standard TAg-who-loses-too-much-in-non-showdown-pots-graph.

Post your position stats and a graph of your non-sd pots winnings--one for blind hands, one for all other positions,

and im not sure if this is the right one:

Not necessarily trying to analyze my stats here, just trying to learn to read these HEM graphs:
1) With my all-in EV line below my actual winnings line, does this mean I was lucky or unlucky?
2) Is there a general consensus as to if the red line should be negative?

1. Lucky

2. No, but it usually is in TAgs. For most TAgs the red line is negative because of your losses in the blinds, and they are winners in non-showdown pots excluding the blinds. Yours looks a bit better than average.

Wow are you fast, thanks for the help.

I am not happy with the vpip/pfr ratio. This is your preflop aggression factor. i would like you to get it to 2 out of 3 times you vpip you are the raiser. You are in too many pots without the initiative.

Your W$WSF by position is good, with the BB as a standout exception. I think this is pretty standard.

Your winrate in all non-blind positions other than the button is pretty low, though. You are making, it looks like, an average of .03/hand outside the button and the blinds. This is too low, and, imo, is the explanation for your winrate, which is actually not too shabby. But basically, you are doing a bit better than breaking even on your play off the button. This means you are losing too much in the pots you lose or not winning enough in the hands you win, or some combination of the two. One reason for this could be a very high c-bet percentage on the flop. If you play "one and done," and fire most flops unimproved, then give up on the turn, then you are going to have a low win rate.

There could be other explanations as well. Possibly you are overplaying overpairs?

Two things I am sure of:

1. Your problem is not in showdown hands--you look like you do pretty well at showdown. The slope of your blue line is good, and your stats show that you are doing fine at showdown.

2. Your problem is not in the blinds. Your total losses in the blinds are .24/orbit. This is solid. You can do better, but this is solid and nothing to worry about for the moment.

I don't think there is any choice for you but to go through your non-showdown hands that you lost and analyze your play. Post some hands in which you think you went too far with the hand, lost too much, gave up too early, whatever. Just from looking at your stats, I can't tell you what you are doing to keep your winrate off the button as low as it is. I'll help, if you like, but you are not leaking badly anywhere, so it is probably going to wind up being a few small tweaks to try and bump up your win rate off the button.

If I had to guess, I'd say we need to tweak your c-betting strategy. But at this point, that is just a pretty wild guess.

PM me if you want me on skype or aim while you go through your hands.

In the meantime, don't get discouraged and keep things in perspective. You have a solid 2.64ptbb/100 winrate. That's a very nice base from which to be trying to improve.

Good stats.

Edit: I just saw that I overlooked some position winrates that are higher, and that makes your average quite a bit higher. It doesn't change my opinion, though, because the low winrate in some of your positions indicates that you are having some sort of problem. If it's not variance, we still need to try to figure out what it is.

Well, I closed my 10NL experience and decided to move up to 25NL and played about 5k hands there until now.

But to see if there are some obvious leaks in my game/stats I would like to post my 10NL stats and hope you ppl can comment a bit on them...

I included the 6max persiod (about 3k hands) because well, I sometimes end up with 6 ppl at a fullring table as well. Can also post stats without the 6max period.

Overall stats:


Positional stats:


Graph:


Main things I see, come in raising a bit more pf (now I tend to limp more speculative hands with limpers before me). Become a bit more aggressive postflop (try to balance by sometimes checking made hands and the speculative hands often don't hit after which I go into check/fold most of the time), go to showdown a bit more often and decrease non-showdon losses a bit (dunno if this is necessary but would like to work on that, think it's also linked to going to showdown more often... not folding the best hands).

Any other comments are very welcome, cheers!

I've been playing 50NL recently, and I'm getting absolutely slaughtered in non-SD pots... My red line has always been slightly negative at 25NL, but this is just crazy and it's killing my winnings, is there anything that particularly stands out about my stats? Sorry it's such a small sample, but I want to fix this ASAP.







If there's any other stats you need I'll dig them out.

If anyone can help that'd be awesome

Hi,

I'm new to TwoPlusTwo forum and got realy happy with all this kind of infomation the forum offers.

I've played about 5,6k hands at NL30 FR and feel just a bit unconfortable with my results.
Now i wish to plug my possible leaks from beginning, not running deeper and becoming standard with my possible leakish play.

It's clear to me that such a small sample size will not reflect a true winning rate. It is more about the played stats.







Can anyone analyse my stats as played and explain the "Money Won $ Withot Showdown" graph a bit clearer ? I have currently no idea how to read them.

Any comments and suggestions would be very welcome
Thank's alot

dagrim, the stats and graphs you posted look really good. The only thing I would nit pick about is your vpip/pfr ratio. Right now you are at 17/10, which i think is fine for $10, but as you move up you should try to make sure you have the initiative in most pots. So you should probably tone down the cold/calling and any EP limping you are doing, and try to wind up at about 15/12, 17/13, something like that. This will happen naturally--don't play for the stats--as you do two things: steal more in LP and cold call a bit less. Look through your stats and see which suited connectors have been unprofitable while you were at NL $10--don't cold call with them at $25. If you are limping in EP, tone it down. Raise or fold, depending on table conditions, with some of the pocket pairs you are currently limping.

Your own analysis was right on in the other minor tweaks you could try to make. Don't focus too much on the non-sd line, though; yours looks pretty damn good for a TAg.

Toning down the limping and cold calling is, in my opinion, a minor tweak to your game, with which i think you will do well at $25. Nice stats, keep it up.

OMG, you hacked my computer and stole my graph!!! Your stats look so much like mine it is scary.

As for your stats--you have a very solid nit game outside of the blinds. Obviously I use the term "nit" fondly, since I am one as well. (Though you are 10/8 and I am 11/9, lol).

Outside of the blinds, the only thing I saw about your stats is that you don't go to showdown enough--18% WTSD is probably at least 3% too low. This is not a huge leak--you are doing well enough, outside of the blinds, to have a solid winrate. But go back through your hands and see if there are hands you could have shown down that you folded. First, try to filter in your tracking software for hands where your action on the river was a fold. Review these, looking for hands where one of the draws hit and you put the villain on the draw and check/folded or folded. Carefully review the hand to make sure that each time you folded, the villain's line was consistent with the draw. You are looking for those few spots where there is a good chance the villain is bluffing at the pot. You may find some profitable calls--remember to consider the odds you were getting--if the villain bets 1/2 pot, you only need to be right more than 33% of the time for it to be a profitable call. So rather than auto-folding, you ask yourself whether there is an X% chance the villain is bluffing, and, if you think there is, you call.

Now to your blinds, which is where your big problem is. It's my problem, too, so I am not really the best person to be advising you on how to plug this leak. Here are some things I have looked at or are on my "to do" list for plugging this leak.

In the small blind, when it is folded to you, raise almost any 2 cards.
In the big blind, when there is only a LP limper, raise a lot of hands.
In the big blind, when the action is only the small blind completing, raise almost any two cards (but be careful and respect 3 bets, because people often limp big hands here).
In limped pots, Hu or 3 way, bet any pair or draw you flop if the texture of the flop is bad.
It's an oldie but goodie--consider betting with any two cards in a limped 2 or 3 way pot when the flop is paired.
In the big blind, HU against the SB, if he checks, bet. always. seriously, always. If he calls, bet a lot of turns, too.
Analyze your 3 betting. make sure you are 3 betting hands you want to felt and hands that are just barely not good enough to call a steal with--flat call with everything in between.
Carefully analyze your 3 bet hands that see a flop. This is a HUGE leak, because these are big pots. Losing too much in these spots is KILLING my blind play. If you are negative in hands you 3 bet out of the blinds (excluding your monsters) you would be better off for the time being folding these hands while you crack the code on how to play these pots (most villains will not notice your temporarily unbalanced 3 betting range).
Avoid getting into ego-driven pissing contests. I lost a $30 pot a few days ago in the big blind with 82o. Yep, true story! It folded to the SB, who completed, and I raised to 2. He called. Flop had two spades. He checked, i bet, he called. Turn completed the flush. he bet $10, I RAISED, lol, and he called. Common sense eventually returned, and when he checked the river I checked behind (and saw his flush). lol, oh well, meta-game. But really, $30 of absolutely mindless spew, just bound and determined to WIN THIS POT. lol, don't do it.

Thanks mpethy!!

YaN:

First, don't be uncomfortable with your results. A. your results are fine; and B. worry about making correct decisions, and the results will follow.

Second: The graph is straightforward. The blue line is the money you have won at showdown, when the hand is turned face up after the river, and we get to see who won. The red line is your (winnings) in hands that end with somebody folding, rather than a showdown. The green line is total winnings, in your case, the blue line minus the red line.

Don't worry too much about your red line--it looks good. Most players have losses in non-showdown pots. This is a function of the blinds--most of the time we lose our blinds, and we don't make enough in the small non-showdown pots that we win to make up for these losses. The idea for most players is to keep the slope of the red line as shallow as possible. Some really aggressive players have a positive red line just from pounding on every pot they are in, but this often comes at the expense of making the blue line break even or slightly negative (because a lot of the time the money goes in these players are behind). It is just a different way of making about the same amount of money.

You are doing very well in the small blind, but you are leaking a bit in the big blind. Your defense rate in the bb is pretty high, and you are getting yourself into a lot of tough spots there. I'm not going to suggest that you defend less, but, rather, that you study your hands and see what it is that you are doing that is costing you money. For example, you may be calling pretty light and then playing "fit or fold." If that's the case, then you will be losing most pots you defend, and, rather than losing 1 bb on these hands, you are averaging a 3 bb loss, say, 2 of 3 times you defend. Alternatively, you could be trying too hard to win a few hands you should have let go for a small loss. There is no way to tell from your stats exactly what you are doing wrong, but it is clear that you are losing a bit too much from the big blind.

As for the rest of your stats, I have to say two things before I talk about your potential leaks:

1. You are winning at the game you are playing. You probably could very easily make no changes to your game and go right on beating the game you are playing. Feel free, then to completely blow off all of the suggestions I am going to make--the bottom line is that what you are doing seems to be working at your game.

2. I don't know you, and I don't know why you play poker, and i don't know what your personality is. This is important in your case, because it is not obvious to me what style of play you want to be playing/are most suited to playing. You are right on the border; with a few tweaks, we could change you into a loose aggressive player, or we could change you into a tight aggressive player. Right now, you are sort of in between, what i would identify as "semi loose and passive preflop."

Consequently, I do not know which direction to send you--both LAg and TAg can be profitable styles. And if I have your stats analyzed correctly, I think you have the post-flop skills (relative to your competition) necessary to succeed as a loose aggressive player.

With that in mind, you need to get rid of the preflop passivity. You are limping and/or cold calling a preflop raise way too much. Your VPIP is 18, and your PFR is 9. Ideally, i would like to see 18/12 at least--this would have you raising some of the hands you are currently limping behind, open raising or folding with most any hands you are currently limping, and raising more in late position.

The reason i suggest these changes is because you show very little positional adjustment. In early position, where you are at a disadvantage, your vpip/pfr is 15/8, while on the button it is 21/10. You are playing far too many pots in early position, and not enough in late position. (just to contrast, a lot of TAgs play something like 6/6 under the gun, and 21/16 on the button.

If you are aiming for a LAg style, you should be folding the weakest hands in EP, the ones you are currently limping, and raising more of the hands you play in late position. LAgs have a smaller position differential than TAgs, but it should still be closer to playing 2 hands in LP for every hand you play in EP.

If you are aiming for a tight aggressive style, then you should be usually folding all of the hands that you are currently limping. It would be correct to raise or limp those hands on some occasions, depending on the table dynamics, for the purpose of deception, and things like that. Then, you should cold call less and open raise with about the top 30% of hands in LP.

(Your attempt to steal figure at 18% is far too low--aim for 30%)

Regardless of the style that you are aiming for, to make the early position changes I have suggested, use the filters in your tracking software. Filter for EP and MP and action "open limp" and see the hands you are doing this with. In EP, consider folding any hands you are open limping that have shown a loss to date; in MP, consider raising or folding them. Then filter for positions early and middle position, and action "cold called a PFR" and start folding the hands that have shown a loss to date.

Note: because your sample size is small, you will need to use some judgment here. For example, if you open limp 77 in EP, and it shows a huge loss, and, upon review, you see that this was the result of a bad beat, then obviously you could retain 77 as an open limping hand.

I mentioned your attempts to steal a bit earlier, but it deserves its own paragraph. In a 10 handed game, the hijack, cut off and button are all potential stealing positions. Your attempts to steal in these positions are 18 OTB, 16.6 CO, and 13 in the hijack. You need to ramp up your positional aggression, no matter which style (LAg or TAg) you opt for. Aim to bump these numbers up to 30/30/20. Use (or get and then use) Pokerstove to see what the top 30% hands are, fiddle with those--add some you like/win with, drop some you don't play well--and then start raising them when you are first in.

Because you play a 10 handed game, you will need to focus more attention on isolation raising than players in 9 handed games (and good players in 9 handed games focus on this A LOT). Most of the hands you currently limp behind are good candidates to isolate with (I am usually not crazy about isolating when holding a small pp). If you are not familiar with this play, search the forums and read up on the conditions under which you should be trying it.

Those are about all of the comments I can make without knowing whether you would prefer to play LAg or TAg.

Reply or PM me with any questions.

Steal alot more. At nL 50 it's easy to get away with 40% steal and be very profitable at it, generally open up alot more in LP. Isolate and raise limpers alot more, you should win when you c-bet alot of the time.

any suggestions?

This is about as good as it gets for a 20/5. If you are happy, and there's no reason not to be, given your winrate, then, nope, no suggestions.

When you are ready to move up, you will probably need to revamp completely.

so i really suck then? right?
im only winning cause it easy uNL right?

thats wat i thought........ i knew i just couldnt be a good player. frick.

nope,that's not what i said. 20/4 is a very "loose-passive" style of play. Most players who use it lose. The fact that you are winning with it actually means that you are doing pretty much everything else right--you are extracting good value, hand reading better than the competition, etc.

But it is also an exploitABLEe style, and the higher you go in stakes the more it WILL be exploited. So you'll have to adapt your game to the new conditions at the higher stakes when you get there.

That's all--no insult was intended. I am a break even player, more or less, so i do not criticize anybody, especially any winner.

Tnx mpethy! Appreciate it... and nice to hear I'm on the right way

Any opinions, first 14k hands at 100NL

Thanks for the fast,detailed Reply mpethybridge

First want to mention that i realy respect the work you do within this thread.
I mean, constantly viewing and analysing tons of stats and graphs and leading peoples with some advises, is somewhat honestly imho.

I will rarely drop advises without thinking of it..

You are obviously right about my playing style. For myself I didn't found the sytle i prefer. Sometimes I play more nity (most on loose tables) and on the other hand will loosen up on too nity tables. But also switching gears to be unpredictable.

That's the biggest leak i'm aware of and have to fix

What I will try to do:
a) positional awareness, also including more steeling from LP
b) raise or fold a bit more instead of limping or cold calling
c) reviewing hands from BB to find looses - probaly from overplayed defend manouvers, bit less defending
d) find out what isolation raising means and how to use it properly (maybe you can PM me with such kind of information too? )

I though with this points in mind my play will become naturaly more TAG style.

Again, thank you

fantastic stuff here