I truly believe a large part of this is due to variance. Does anybody see any glaring leaks from these stats?

Your W$SD is actually really high...

I don't really know what else is there though. It's just strange for that to be high, and still be down.

mb u're just too tight, it looks like u're just al oser to rake lol

and mb u fold too much

My WtSD is low, therefore one would expect my W$SD to be high.

One reason I've kept from loosening up is the fact that I have'nt been winning. If I'm misplaying my current hands (a tighter range), loosening up could be a very bad "adjustment" for me. Although I don't think I play most of my hands too badly, I am open to criticism.

The rake point is interesting, as at these levels PT tells me the rake is worth about 3bb/100. Obviously as you move up, the rake gets lower, the skill level of your opponents gets better, and so things do balance out somewhat. During this 80k breakeven (losing) stretch, my BR has grown by about 2k from bonuses/RB.

About folding too much, it is something I have had trouble with in the past. At one point I was showing down too much, other times showing down too little. When I had close decisions, I'd usually just go like "I showdown too little, therefore I should call down this time" or vice versa. However, I then decided that the best course of action is to play every hand the way I think is optimal, and whatever the WtSD # converges to is what I should be happy with.

1) Why do you continue to increase limits when you appear to be losing at all of them?

Some people are willing to play any limit that they can afford (300bb, or whatever).
To that I say, phuey!

People win money through rakeback and bonuses and their bankroll increases.
This often gives them the false impression that they "qualify" to play at a more difficult level of poker.

I will never play at any level until I've proven to myself that I can clearly beat the previous one.


2) I think your W$atSD % is too high.
This must mean that you are folding before showdown a whole lot of the time.
And while you are probably behind on most of those folds... the excess folding likely costs you more money than it saves you.
Because it only takes getting bluffed out of a few pots to really skewer your win rate.



I like this line of thinking.
But go back over some hands that you folded before showdown in a big pot and re-examine whether you think the fold was truly the best play.

--CM

1) These results are a bit skewed in terms of how well I truly play. By this I mean that I started to play SH last June, and I'm a far better/more experienced player than I was before. This is not to say that for the last few months I've been running hot or anything, if anything the last few months have been breakeven/slight win/slight loss periods. And I am very conscious of the fact that I do not beat levels and still move up, therefore I never do it w/o a very large roll. For example, currently my game is 3/6 for which I have ~1200 bets. Finally, I get a little bit sick of grinding the same limit for a while when my roll is much much bigger than the stakes I'm playing at. For example, I played 2/4 (lol and still do time to time!) with a 5.5-6k roll.

However, I agree with you that proving to beat a level is important. It gives you alot more confidence, and when you downswing you can usually avoid tilting as easily.

2) Agreed, I probably still fold too much. What I've begun to do now though is to start being more observant on my tables, take a lot of notes and really try to focus and absorb all the info available to me. This way I can make more sound folds rather than making "general" plays (ie fold when you hold xx and you get raised).

the alternative way of thinking about this is that you are missing profitable hands. for arguments sake, lets say the optimal stats are 28/20. if you're playing 25/16, there are several more hands you could be playing profitably. so the reason you aren't better than breaking even (net of rake) is not due to playing hands unprofitably, but not playing enough profitable hands.

more likely there are some post-flop decisions you could be making better, but its still valid. my advice is to look for opponent-specific hands to add. like if you find yourself against very aggressive opponents, look at add weaker aces and kings than you might normally play preflop, or to get involved with more speculative ones if you can get in cheap - against passives you can add in different types of hands as well. that advice is pretty obvious, but perhaps take it a step farther.

and to Coran and others who suggested staying at a beatable level - i think aim plays on Absolute and other bonus-heavy sites. Even for a profitable player, most of the profits there are derived from bonus/RB. Hypothetically, he'd be better breaking even at 3/6 than winning at 2/4, and better losing at 5/10 than breaking even at 3/6, so long as the changes in win rates weren't too great.

Good point, I never thought of that. However, I did try and up my VPIP by asking some posters to tell me how successful they are with stealing in the 35-40% range, and have decided to incorporate this into my pf strategy. Over at 2p2, they always refer to the new "TAG" as a 25/20 type of player, and I think I need to open up a bit more too now.

What your saying about postflop is true as well, but then again thats true for just about everyone on this board. Granted that I don't make the best decisions postflop all the time, I think that on average I make good (better than average) decisions. As I said before, I've begun to take note taking extensively so I can make the best decision against a specific opponent as oppose to making a general play vs a general class of players.

Finally, it is true that I've almost always played on sites where I have a bonus or RB (or both) backing me. Those games are tougher on average compared to games that run on big sites (stars, the old party, etc).

definitely - the players i "avoid" in full-ring are generally the 17/11's or so, depending on the site. in full-ring, there's usually a few multi-tabling 25/18's around who you can guess are winning players. they should probably just be avoided, though they do have patterns that can be very profitable for you if you don't force the issue. by that i mean trying to take a pot away everytime they look weak, etc.

notes are definitely key. there are just so few options in limit poker (call/fold/raise!) that it simply doesn't make sense not to use notes extensively. this is even more true for those of us playing on smaller sites, with repeating opponents. if you know how a blind defender will play a middle pair, a draw and/or a weak ace, you can profitably steal well over 50% against them. things like noticing the types of hands people will donk, check-raise, etc into adds tons of profitability to decisions.

I generally play at bonus/RB sites too, though they aren't always tougher. AP i don't find to be any tougher than other sites, though i don't have a lot of experience playing SH at 2/4+ at other sites.

sorry if some of this sounds patronizing, but unfortunately i'm not experienced enough to give any more in-depth advice for SH.

Lol actually, I just started playing at AP this month. And don't worry, I think you know your **** good!

Hmm, dannyg's comments about profitable hands really got me thinking. Whenever I'm losing, I've been looking for places to tighten up, not the other way around. I did think about loosening up a few weeks ago, but still felt like it would be a mistake. So, here are my stats (filtered for between 5 and 6 players only):



21/15, too tight anyone?

your button and CO stats are very tight. also, for 12K hands, the differential between "raise first in" between button and CO is inexcusable. button should be closer to 20% than 10. also, you're never limping behind others. in all positions (except UTG), limping behind someone is something you can do with a decently wide range of hands. think about it - you're going against a player bad enough to open-limp, and/or other players who weren't strong enough to raise, and against the blinds. and you'll have position on nearly everyone. i don't have enough hands to compare stats, but i'd guess a winning player with lots of hands will have a bigger difference between VPIP and PFR for that reason.

you may be having the same problem i often do. basically its being scared to open marginal hands on the button, since your steal is so obvious you know you'll get played back it. hopefully someone else can give advice, because i suffer from the same thing. the only advise i can give is that your fold equity and position are so valuable, that even when you do get played back at, you aren't in bad shape, and you only have to win less than half of hands to make up for the dead blinds you pick up.

That's really tight when you filtered for 5-6 players.
That's closer to what you should be at for full ring on AP.


Just because people know you're stealing doesnt mean you should particularly care.
You're raising not just to steal blinds. You're also in position the whole hand.
And if they play poorly postflop, it should be easy to kill them even when they call with a slightly superior hand.

your WtSD% is way too low, you'd be much better served with it being around 36 at the lowest and 40 at the highest. You also need to raise more hands PF. 18% is teh lowest your want it to be. the general VPIP is fine if you want to play a tight tag style, but your VPIP should be more at 25/26 until you feel more comfortable. You should stick to 1/2 and 2/4 til you get the ship sailing right again

18% is lowest for PFR?

Seriously?

That's pretty high, for a lower bound, isn't it?

I always thought, and was told, that the "average" solid TAG was 25/17.

IMO, if you're playing 25% of your hands, you need to be raising more then 17% of the time. maybe at lower levels you can have that VPIP/PFR combo, but I think from 3/6 up, if you're playing 25% of your hands, raising 18 or 19 is much better. When I played, I was at 28/20, though that will probably be different when I jump back in in the next 6 weeks or so. the games are a lot more aggressive these days. the real problem with the OP is that he is most likely getting bluffed way too much on teh turn and not giong to showdown anywhere near enough. VPIP and PFR stuff doesn't fully matter when you're playing weak tight

See, I'm way too tight for SH, and I can't figure out for the life of me how, where to add hands in these tighter games. I used to be about a 25/18, now I'm like 22/18, or something like that. My PFR is high enough, I think, but I have no idea. My numbers could be off too, as my DB is on my old, dead, computer.

I think the jump between 1/2 and 2/4 is pretty big though, in terms of skill. The 2/4 and 3/6 games play very alike, the 1/2 game is considerably easier. What I'm going to do is experiment for a few thousand hands at 2/4 with a completely different preflop style and see how that goes. I think my postflop play is good enough for me to loosen up. As I said before, whenever I was losing I kept tightening things up w/o considering the fact that maybe I'm not playing enough profitable hands.

I agree. Because of multitabling, I never took a lot of notes on players. Last nite I cut down to 2 tables and took extensive notes on players, and quickly found that a lot of players were turn c/r'ing me on scare cards. From a game theory point of view, this is not a good strategy as long as it is balanced properly. However at these limits I found alot of players just peeling the flop very loosely hoping to be able to represent a scare card on the turn. Then again, others ONLY raise strong hands on the turn. By taking notes, I've begun to call down more on the turn depending on the opponent rather than "general" lines in situations.

Interesting article from the 2p2 mid limit sh forum:
http://forumserver.twoplustwo.com/showflat...part=1&vc=1

They all say a TAG is someone who's stats are around 28/20, looks like I may have found a major problem in my game after all!

while that is an excellent forum, for the levels you are playing, that style isn't fully recomended. Remember, the MUSH posters are playing 10/20 SH+, so they will be playing more short then 6 handed and a more aggressive game is needed. That style of play will also definetly work at 5/10 Short, but for 3/6 and below, you will need more experience to play that style of LHE

Agreed. I think your the one that mentioned roughly the same VPIP/PFR combo as the one they are advocating for a TAG style.

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Thx for all the replies and help every1, I really hope that the adjustments recommended here get me back on track!

The overall goal is to make money.
As much money as possible.

Being a winning player and obtaining bonuses is the best combo to make the most money.
The problem is, in order to accomplish both of these, we often need to sacrifice both in the short term.
And many players don't have the patience to do this.

As you pointed out, a losing player can still profit by amassing bonuses.
But this is a dead end strategy.
Because bonuses will cap out- they will not forever continue to get bigger.
And by playing for bonuses (i.e.: playing 5 tables at a time), your game will not be improving.
And thus your profits will never reach their potential.

But by taking a step back,
and focusing on fewer tables and smaller limits,
you can refine your game.
Make adjustments. Experiment with different styles. Find what works best.
The short term results will be that you are still a losing player, and you now have no bonuses to make up for it.
But in the long run, your win rate will rise drastically.
And you can then play at those higher limits and collect bonuses and obtain the ultimate goal of maximizing profit.

It just takes a little patience and dedication.

--cm