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teaulc

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    How to Interpret Your Opponent’s Poker Stats

    in Poker

    Posted

    How to Interpret Your Opponent’s Poker Stats One of the most effective ways to increase your online poker profits is to use and understand poker tracking software. In addition to keeping accurate details about your wins and losses, programs like Poker Tracker and Hold’em Manager will track every move your opponents make. using the heads-up display (HUD) you can convert that information into easy-to-understand stats and display them beside your opponents' names in real time, right on the table. The information on the HUD tells you precise details about your opponents' playing tendencies, and understanding these stats can make a huge difference in your win rate. Stats are something that all winning players use to a degree, but very few use to their full potential. Learn to master this powerful tool and you'll reap big benefits. A quick run down of the most popular stats: Preflop Stats VPIP% This is the average total % of times your opponent puts money into the pot voluntarily. That could mean raising preflop, cold calling, completing the big blind, etc. The higher a player’s VPIP, the looser the player. The lower the VPIP, the tighter the player. For six-max no-limit hold’em most regulars fall between 19-25% VPIP. Any tighter or looser, though possibly profitable, is by no means optimal. PFR% This is the Pre-Flop Raise stat and it’s pretty self explanatory. It’s how often your opponent raises before the flop. Most players' PFR fall within 4-6% of their VPIP. I.E if they play 20 VPIP their PFR is usually between 14%-19%. The bigger the gap between VPIP and PFR the more often a player cold calls. For example a player with a 35% VPIP and a 10% PFR has a 25% cold-calling range and is most likely a fish. CroppedImage320180-pokerstove19percent.jpg 19% PFR 3b% This is how often your opponent re-raises before the flop. As an example a 3% three-bettor would be AA-TT, AKs-AQS, and AQo and would have no light three-bets in its range. You can adjust from there. F3 This is how often your opponent folds to three-bets. This stat is extremely helpful when deciding which hands to three-bet and which to call with before the flop. Obviously someone with a high fold-to-three-bet stat is a player you can three-bet light relentlessly. Someone with a low fold-to-three-bet stat you can three-bet wider for value. These are the most popular pre-flop stats. While most players understand what each stat means, few take the time to think how they are all related. For example a player with a very close VPIP and PFR is also normally going to have a higher three-bet% because he is cold-calling less often. Conversely a player with a wide gap between his VPIP and PFR is going to have a very wide cold-calling range and thus will have many weak hands in that range. It’s not just about knowing what the stats mean. You must understand how to use them to draw real and useful conclusions about your opponents' games. Postflop Stats AG This is your opponent’s aggression factor. It tells you how aggressive he plays. Most players fall between 1-3. Anything less is very passive and anything more is very aggressive. If a player with a 0.5 AG is playing back at you, he's probably not bluffing and you would need a very good hand to continue. On the other hand if someone with a 6 AG is playing back at you, your top pair is starting to look pretty good. WTSD% This is how often your opponent goes to showdown after seeing the flop. Most players fall between 20 and 32%. Having a low WTSD can mean two things: He either folds very often before showdown or he makes his opponents fold very often before showdown. A good way to tell is use WTSD in conjunction with AG. If your opponent is passive and doesn’t go to showdown often, then he's weak tight. [url=http://edge2.pokerlistings.com/assets/photos/IMG6297.JPG] If your opponent is aggressive and has a low WTSD, he’s making people fold before showdown very often. If your opponent shows down 35% or more, he's showdown happy. Again, you have to examine WTSD and his aggression stat to get an idea of how he plays. If his aggression is low he may not be betting with the lead often enough and intuitively lets his opponents showdown much more than they should. If, however, he is aggressive yet still has a high WTSD, he probably also calls way too often with weak hands on the river. Seeing a number and knowing how often a player goes to showdown is helpful but seeing a number and figuring out why he goes to showdown as often as he does is invaluable. CB How often your opponent continuation bets on the flop as the pre-flop raiser. Most players continuation-bet on the flop between 55% - 88% of the time. CB% should be looked at in conjunction with the PFR stat. The lower the player’s PFR%, the higher the player’s CB%. That’s because the fewer hands the player is raising pre-flop the stronger the hands. The stronger the hand pre-flop the more often he’ll make strong hands worth betting on the flop. As a player’s PFR gets higher, he is going to miss the flop more often because he’s raising so many more marginal hands before the flop. If his CB stat remains high then he is going to be c-betting air very often and therefore is exploitable. 2B This is how often your opponent second barrels as the pre-flop raiser when his flop c-bet is called. Obviously it should be used in conjunction with the CB stat. If your opponent has both high flop c-bet and turn c-bet stats then he is just going to be barreling his air very often and you should, in turn, call him down lighter. If your opponent has a high flop c-bet and a low turn c-bet then you’ve identified your opponent as a one-and-done player. These guys fire one barrel at the flop and give up when called. If your opponent is a one-and-done player then floating becomes your best friend. FC How often your opponent folds to flop continuation bets. The higher a player’s FC, the more “fit or fold” he plays. The lower the number, the more often he calls the flop with marginal hands. Used in conjunction with the VPIP stat you can really get a feel for a player’s overall game. A player that has a large VPIP and a small FC is going to be seeing a lot of flops and a lot of turns. And, chances are, he's a fish you can play as such. Or, if he's a regular and has a low FC, you can use the pop-up stat and look at his bet-when-checked-to stat. If that is high, then you’ve found an opponent who loves to float. F2 How often your opponent folds to a second barrel. Some fish love to call pre-flop and love to call the flop but won’t continue past the turn without a decent hand. You can instantly tell these types of players if they have a low FC stat and a high F2 stat. Obviously you should punish these types of players by firing second barrels more often. Sample Size The thing about stats is that they can be extremely misleading without an accurate sample size. Hold’em is a variance packed game and in the short term stats can vary considerably. One of the biggest mistakes you can make is treating a player’s stats as gospel when you have a small sample size - only to find in real life they play in a completely different manner. Hold off from drawing advanced conclusions about how someone plays until you have logged enough hands. What “enough hands” means varies from stat to stat. While 100 hands might be more than enough to draw conclusions from the VPIP and PFR stats, it’s not nearly enough to understand WTSD, barreling frequencies, or three-bet stats. As with everything in poker, the bigger the sample size the better. A Tool Not a Crutch Stats are a tool, not a crutch. Too many players rely only on stats in a game. They’ll paint everyone with similar stats with a broad, sweeping brush when in actuality everyone plays differently. You can have three different players all with stats that are very similar. However one player might crush the game for 4BB/100, one might break even and one might beat it for 1BB/100. If you treat all of those players the exact same, you're making a big mistake. Relying too heavily on stats leaves you playing an ABC, robotic game and will stunt your growth as a poker player. Stats are just one tool in a successful player’s box. They need to be used in conjunction with observation and non stats-based reads. Stats only give you an average of how your opponent plays against all different types of opponents. It’s up to you to figure out how he plays against you and you can only do that by paying attention and taking notes. When you're able to look past the basic information contained in a stat and start to draw real conclusions about your opponent’s play, looking at his stats as a whole and how each relates to the others, you'll start to get past your inner ABC poker robot and you will start to play better poker. If you can do that - while observing and taking non-stat notes on your opponents - you're going to be a force to be reckoned with.

    same again - same player....Call or Fold?

    in Poker

    Posted

    PokerStars Game #54729409185: Omaha Pot Limit ($0.10/$0.25 USD) - 2010/12/23 19:47:34 WET [2010/12/23 14:47:34 ET] Table 'Peacock V' 6-max Seat #5 is the button Seat 1: VidrikVello ($61.11 in chips) Seat 2: teaulc ($7.79 in chips) Seat 3: topseed86 ($41.45 in chips) Seat 4: gnupa ($32.61 in chips) Seat 5: Rexonja ($37.13 in chips) VidrikVello: posts small blind $0.10 teaulc: posts big blind $0.25 *** HOLE CARDS *** Dealt to teaulc [Ac 3h Ah Qh] topseed86 has timed out topseed86: folds gnupa: calls $0.25 Rexonja: folds VidrikVello: folds teaulc: raises $0.60 to $0.85 gnupa: calls $0.60 *** FLOP *** [6d Qd 2c] hari9 joins the table at seat #6 teaulc: bets $1.71 gnupa: raises $5.13 to $6.84

    what do you do? Call or Fold?

    in Poker

    Posted

    PokerStars Game #54728901128: Omaha Pot Limit ($0.10/$0.25 USD) - 2010/12/23 19:37:53 WET [2010/12/23 14:37:53 ET] Table 'Peacock V' 6-max Seat #5 is the button Seat 1: VidrikVello ($58.91 in chips) Seat 2: teaulc ($19.50 in chips) Seat 3: topseed86 ($43.30 in chips) Seat 4: gnupa ($10.55 in chips) Seat 5: Rexonja ($41.68 in chips) Seat 6: Ronny Win ($8.55 in chips) Ronny Win: posts small blind $0.10 VidrikVello: posts big blind $0.25 *** HOLE CARDS *** Dealt to teaulc [Kh 7s Jh Qh] teaulc: calls $0.25 topseed86: folds gnupa: raises $0.85 to $1.10 Rexonja: calls $1.10 Ronny Win: folds VidrikVello: folds teaulc: calls $0.85 *** FLOP *** [7c Jc 7d] teaulc: bets $1 gnupa: calls $1 Rexonja: calls $1 *** TURN *** [7c Jc 7d] [Kc] teaulc: checks gnupa: checks Rexonja: checks *** RIVER *** [7c Jc 7d Kc] [8d] teaulc: bets $2 gnupa: raises $6.45 to $8.45 and is all-in Rexonja: folds

    5 Rules to Save Your Online Bankroll

    in Poker

    Posted

    Lots of poker players - even winning players - are prone to burning through their online bankroll, ruining weeks or months of successful grinding by going broke in one or two bad sessions. Not surprisingly, players who lose money playing live poker (about 90% of the live-poker world) also claim they're simply unable to keep a balance online. Strange. What is surprising though is the number of truly winning players who have the exact same problem. If a player is a consistent winner in live poker, it stands to reason that his or her game is profitable and should be similarly profitable online. Unfortunately, being successful in online poker requires significantly more discipline and control than live poker. Players are stronger, play is quicker and you don't have anyone to see when you go off the deep end. If you're a good poker player, and you know you're capable of making money online yet can't seem to keep a roll, this article might be just what you're looking for. 1. Play Within Your Roll Start with the most important concept first: you absolutely must play within your roll if you want to make money online. The simplest way to explain it is to look at the mathematical theorem Gambler's Ruin. One of the concepts of Gambler's Ruin is this: take two players and pit them against each other in a zero-sum game (such as flipping a coin, where each player has an expected win/loss rate of exactly 0%). One player has a finite bankroll. The other has an infinite bankroll. Given infinite repetitions of the game, the player with the finite roll will eventually go broke. In the online poker world, it's you against everyone else. This means it's your roll against the infinite roll of the rest of the world. If poker was a zero-sum game, you'd go broke. Luckily, if you're a winning player, you can expect a positive return on your investment. But you need to have enough money in your roll to make the swings and variance irrelevant. Your bankroll, although finite, needs to be large enough to seem infinite. Stick to the standard rule of having less than 5% of your roll in play on one table at a time. If you really want to be robusto, drop that number as low as 1% or 2%. Some of the most profitable and serious online grinders play with rolls 10x that. If you never have to worry about going broke from losing at a specific game, chances are you won't. 2. Don't Monitor Your Balance If you're following the first rule and playing with a legit bankroll, then (outside of a serious and lengthy downswing defying all odds) you're in little-to-no risk of going broke. You play poker with chips, not money. You can't think about the money you're playing the game with as it's completely irrelevant. With checking the amount of your online roll as easy as clicking a button, it's very easy to fall into the trap of micro-managing your account. When you're on an upswing, every time you check your balance you feel good. The number goes up, so does your spirits. But it only takes one beat to make that number go down. A lot. And if you're still checking your balance, seeing that smaller number will make you feel bad. You want it back to where it was and you want it back immediately. As soon as you have that thought, you've started "chasing your losses." You're going to start forcing your play to get back to where you think you should be. This can be the first step towards total self destruction. Typically in poker, making money is a slow grind, and losing money is a quick drop. If you're watching your balance, you'll fall into the depression of "a week's work lost" or "It will take me a week to get back what I just lost in an hour." The only way to get it back fast is to jump limits and take a shot at a big score. This breaks rule #1, and is the first step to going broke. 3. Treat the Game Seriously When you're playing for real money, every session, pot and decision matters. Even the smallest of mistakes costs you money. The more money you lose from mistakes, the harder it becomes to generate profit and keep from going broke. Limit distractions: By the very definition of the word, a distraction is taking your focus away from the game, moving it on to something else. As soon as you start playing poker without paying attention, you're almost certain to make multiple mistakes. Every person is different. Some players can play just as well, if not better, while watching a movie. Other players need to shut everything else down to keep their mind on the game. You need to honestly assess your capability for multi-tasking and set yourself up to play in an optimal poker environment. Don't play out of boredom: You play poker because you want to play, or because it's what you do to make money. Playing because you're bored will force you to make poker your personal entertainment. Sometimes, poker is not entertaining at all. If you're only playing because you're bored, and you're having a boring session, chances are you're going to make dumb moves to push the action. If you're bored and you don't legitimately feel like grinding, find something else to do. 4. Pay Attention to Your Human Needs You are human. Humans require constant maintenance and upkeep to stay healthy. If you're not healthy and feeling good, you're not going to be playing your best poker. The most important of these factors for poker: Hunger: If you're not eating well or just plain hungry, you're not going to be thinking as quickly or proficiently as possible. Also, if you're hungry, that's just one more distraction to keep you from thinking about poker. Comfort: If you're uncomfortable, you're distracted. Get a good chair, a good monitor, and set yourself up as ergonomically as possible. If you want some good tips, Google is your answer. Use every tip you can find to keep yourself healthy, comfortable and carpal-tunnel free. Exhaustion: If you're exhausted, you're not playing your best game. If you're not playing your best game, you're losing money. Regardless of how good the game is, when you feel extremely tired, go to bed. Mental Distractions: If you have anything pressing on your mind, you're going to have a hard time playing your best game. It's best to not play at all when you're in a mental state that's anything other than "normal." Drugs and booze are another mental distraction. It's one thing to have a beer or two while you play; it's another to try and play while hammered. Regardless of what you may think, you can't play your best poker when you're drunk. 5. Integrate a Tilt-Induced Kill Switch Tilt is the #1 bankroll killer in the world. Usually brought on by breaking any combination of the previous rules, or something as simple as a bad beat, tilt can drive even the most measured player into a frenzy of ridiculous bets, raises and calls. The cause of tilt is personal and can come from anywhere. Although it will vary in degree from one person to the next, it's impossible to avoid all tilt entirely. Some players, such as Phil Ivey, are rarely tilted. And when they are, it's rarely enough to affect their game all that much. For the rest of the world, when you feel any signs of tilt, no matter how slight or seemingly harmless, it's time to log off, get up, and go do something else. Poker will always be there when you get back. End Note: If you follow all of these rules, and you're capable of playing winning poker, chances are you will never go broke online. But be warned: Once you break just one of these rules, the others can come crashing through the door right behind it. Be diligent, and at the first sign of any rule being broken, abandon ship. Remember, poker will always be around tomorrow, but once your roll is gone, it's not coming back

    Pokerstars festive Bounty

    in Poker

    Posted

    Re: Pokerstars festive Bounty Play Poker with Julian Thew in the PokerStars Festive Bounty Takedown! This festive period there are even more chances for you to win cash for free. Exclusively for players in the UK & Ireland, the Festive Bounty Takedown lets you play great value tournaments and take your shot at Team PokerStars Pro Julian Thew. Knock him out of the Bounty Final and you’ll win £250, plus your share of a £2,000 prize pool! How to Play Festive Bounty Takedown Free-to-enter and cash satellites to the Festive Bounty Final are running now at the times and dates listed below. You can find all of the tournaments in the PokerStars lobby by selecting ‘Tourney’ & ‘Regional’.

    TournamentBuy-inDateTimePrizes
    Freeroll QualifiersFreeDaily, December 20-29 20:00 UK Time (15:00 ET)9 seats to Bounty Final + Top 20% share £100 prize pool
    Cash Satellites £1.1020:30 UK Time (15:30 ET)36 seats to Pro Bounty Final + £500 added
    Bounty FinalN/AThursday, January 3020:00 UK Time (15:00 ET)Top 20% share £2,000 prize pool + £250 Bounty on Julian Thew
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