Advice on Stats Etc....

zuutroy

This is my second time trying to post this...just deleted about 15 minutes typing.
Short version:
Deposited $250 in iPoker to start my cash career. Started at $50nl to clear bonus and made no progress. Decided to forego 1/2 the bonus, move to $20nl, start a new PT database and join cardrunners. CR helped a lot and I'm playing pretty OK and happy with the results and feel I can continue to win at the rate I'm winning here.



The stats in the Word doc at the bottom of the post are since then. I know the att. to steal is awful and I play probably too tight. One thing I really struggle with is stealing from the small blind. Is it really profitable to bet, c-bet, fold to resistance from the SB with weak holdings against the stations at this level?
If you spot anything else that jumps out of the stats please tell me. Also, my won without showdown is quite negative. Is this the result of the way I play, or is it a leak?


I figure to have about $1000 in my ipoker account after the bonus clears in 3 weeks if I run at near the rate I'm running now, and $350 in my Stars account. Reckon thats enough to move to $50nl at the time? I was thinking of having a go, and then moving back to $20nl if I drop to say $800 in my iPoker account. Sound ok? Lastly, is there any sense in staying with the same skin when the bonus clears, or is it best to just move and get a new signup bonus.

Thanks Lads!

ianmc38

1st off well done. That's a v nice looking graph.

Once you hit 1k I would definitely have a shot at 50NL. You appear to be beating 20NL very well, so if you continue playing like that, you should have no problem beating 50NL too.

Your stats look fine. i think at those levels, a tight strategy like you're playing is probably optimal. You could look to loosen up your button raising range. 19VPIP OTB is v tight. I'd also look to be a little more aggressive on the turn and value bet more on the river. Your river aggression implies you're missing out on some value.

But well played and keep up the good work. Best of luck with the 50NL.

cooker3

Well beating a game for 9.54 bb/100 is very good.
It's hard to say your doing anything wrong with that good a win rate but none the less if you feel comfortable then you should try playing more hands otb.
Your attempt to steal blinds% is very low and the amount of hands you play on button is low.
When your against bad players in position you should want to play more hands. My range when against donks in position are any picture cards, any pair, suited connectors, gapped connectors, non suited connectors, basically I need an excuse not to play with them because the more pots I play against them the better.

Now I am not saying to automatically do the above, but think about gradually opening up, adding some of these these hands and see how you do, see whether you make money and take it from there.

I'd definately move up, your crushing the game and 50nl shouldn't be that big a jump for you
Good luck

dvdfan

Dont have time to analyze stats fully, but everything seems fine in the context that your playing tight, you can still play very tight as far as MP but youll have to be a bad player not to make more money by playing more hands in late position so dont be afraid to especially the button and maybe play slightly tighter from the CO. Even if you just steal and cbet and give up unimproved your going to be much more profitable, your really under estimating how profitable playing a wider range in late position can be.

Add the Fold to BB steal to PAHUD and anyone with 75-80%+ just raise pretty much any 2 from the SB blind on blind, cbet and fold unimproved and again youll be fine. If they are aggressive type players try not to make it obvious as they tend not to like having someone steal.

If theyre fold to BB steal is low and their fold to cbet is low then youll need a stronger range vs this type to raise from the SB, so use the stats to your advantage. try not to limp much in the SB unless you have a good reason, either fold or raise and dont be afraid to fold.

Also use the same stats i mentioned above when stealing from late position to see what type of range you need to be stealing with, some people like to raise from late position regardless of the villains stats but i like to consider how often my raise and cbet will be successful and so if i have 64s ill raise against tight players in late position and fold against looser player that call too much PF and dont fold to cbets too often because my hand dosent really matter against someone thats folding 80% of the time wheras i need something that can at least make top pair to have showdown value vs the looser player who most likely wont fold too often. Also expect your SB and BB to be your least profitable positions by a long way this is normal

Good luck anyway

zuutroy

Thanks lads...Its only 6k hands so I'm not that excited about the winrate yet! I'll try to start playing more hands from the button and CO between now and when I move up and see how I get on. That should get me up to around maybe 18/14 which should be ok for $50nl. Would you adjust your range much if there are limpers already in the pot or do you pretty much ignore them? I'll also try Ian's advice of getting a bit more aggro on the later streets. I'm still a bit nitty on the turn and river. I tend to check behind a bit on the river rather than thinking if I'm missing out on value. I really need to tailor my PA Hud again, I haven't sorted it out since I got the miniview one, and I miss having the pop-ups.

BobSloane

I also think you should loosen up alot more from button and cut-off. Try to get used to playing a little looser and a little more aggressive. I would often disagree with advice given to people here about playing super tight at the micro limits and trying to open to 22/16 or whatever when u move up a few levels. The players at $10 and $20 NL are worse, so you should play looser

dvdfan

BobSloane wrote: »

I would often disagree with advice given to people here about playing super tight at the micro limits and trying to open to 22/16 or whatever when u move up a few levels. The players at $10 and $20 NL are worse, so you should play looser

I think playing 22/16 is fine at 50nl but regardless of what level im playing ill tighten up against loose/bad calling stations type players because they wont fold to my raise, cbet or double barrell so whats the point in doing it with marginal hands that wont make TP when i can never outplay them, ill look to play lots of pots in position with them and value bet them to death when i hit TP but im less likely to raise with low suited connectors and small PP type hands against them as theyre not going to hit very often, so im looking for any broadway type hands and probably even any broadway card with a 9 or higher kicker that can make TP and PP 88+.

I would probably limp suited connectors and small PP from late position against them as most of the value from these types of hands come from your ability to take down the flop with a cbet if you get called and the chance s of this on a loose table is small or non existant against bad/loose calling station type players which we see alot more of at the lower levels.

When im stuck at a tight table id be much more inclined to play loose there or leave because marginal hands will take it down Preflop or on the flop alot of the time and after that i know i need a hand to continue as a tight player is rarely double barrelling.

dvdfan

zuutroy wrote: »

Thanks lads...Its only 6k hands so I'm not that excited about the winrate yet! I'll try to start playing more hands from the button and CO between now and when I move up and see how I get on. That should get me up to around maybe 18/14 which should be ok for $50nl. Would you adjust your range much if there are limpers already in the pot or do you pretty much ignore them? I'll also try Ian's advice of getting a bit more aggro on the later streets. I'm still a bit nitty on the turn and river. I tend to check behind a bit on the river rather than thinking if I'm missing out on value. I really need to tailor my PA Hud again, I haven't sorted it out since I got the miniview one, and I miss having the pop-ups.

See post 42 here for a compact mini view PAHUD layout if you dont already have it

http://www.boards.ie/vbulletin/showthread.php?t=2055138203&highlight=pahud+mini&page=3

BobSloane

Fair enough dvdfan, matter of taste maybe. My strategy would be almost the opposite of yours though.
I know when I started playing cash first at $25NL I had really fishy stats maybe 40/10 or the likes. I tightened up to about 30/20 but stayed around that. I called alot of raises on the button. Three of the biggest mistakes I feel that players make at this level is betsizing, slowplaying when they shouldn't and misplaying draws. Too many players think any overpair is the nuts. The opposite type of player is the very nitty 12/6 sort of player who just looking to flop sets and play the big pairs and AK. These guys are easy enough to get the better of as well although they will always crush the microlimits because of all the bad players who keep paying them off. They have no lag game and cannot suddenly conjure up an extra dimension when they move to say $100NL where more opponents have pokertracker and more players are reading their hands. I had to tighen up a bit at 0.25/.05, a bit more at 0.5/1 and am 20/15 at 1/2 - which imo is too tight.
I get the feeling that alot of players move the other way, thinking they have to open up, get trickier or whatever as they move up. But they have no practice of playing the lets say 10% of hands that is the difference between 12/9 and 22/16. They could have got this practice over the tens of thousands of hands played against bad players at lower limits. But foolishly decide to train on the job against better players for more money.



The OP is 14/10. He's my dream player to have one or two places to my left. I can steal his blind, and his button with little resistance.(no offence zuutroy:p ) If he loosens up a bit at $25NL or $50NL it may hurt his winrate for a while but it will help his game.

Bleh my 2 cents anyway - oh and nice results and graph zuutroy. wp.:)

zuutroy

Interesting points....I widened it out to 17/14 yesterday and upped my stealing to something like 28% without much hassle! Plus I watched a couple of the CTS videos on Cardrunners. That guy is unreal at playing the LAG style

cooker3

zuutroy wrote: »

Interesting points....I widened it out to 17/14 yesterday and upped my stealing to something like 28% without much hassle! Plus I watched a couple of the CTS videos on Cardrunners. That guy is unreal at playing the LAG style

While this seem a bit contradictory to my above advice, you shouldn't be really aiming to make your stats look better, the stats only are representive of how you doing, your end goal is not have good looking stats, it's to win money. You should look for situations which you feel are profitable and I agree with Bob aim to play with bad players more in position. You do this well then the stats will sort themselves out.

zuutroy

Well I wasnt doing it just to make them look better, I was taking on ye'er advice of playing more hands in position against bad players, and the upshot of that is stats that look a little bit more 'loose' and aggro. I know trying to play to a set of stats is a bad proposition!

RedJoker

People have already commented on most of the stats so there's not much more to add there. Just one other thing I noticed:

Your cbet% is at 64%. This is a little low imo, particularly when you're going to have stronger hands then most players postflop since you're only raising 10% of your hands.

At micro limits your opponents are in fit or fold mode postflop and you need to allow them to fold.

Obviously you'll still need to consider opponent tendencies, board texture, image, etc.

zuutroy

Yeah...When I'm actually playing it seems like I c-bet nearly every time. I guess I need to start doing it out of position and against more than 1 opponent more. They're the only times when I go a bit easier. 2nd barreling is something I need to brush up on too. My turn aggro is too low.

dvdfan

RedJoker wrote: »

People have already commented on most of the stats so there's not much more to add there. Just one other thing I noticed:

Your cbet% is at 64%. This is a little low imo, particularly when you're going to have stronger hands then most players postflop since you're only raising 10% of your hands.

At micro limits your opponents are in fit or fold mode postflop and you need to allow them to fold.

Obviously you'll still need to consider opponent tendencies, board texture, image, etc.

Jees im obviously not cbetting enough: Heres my stats

First Action On Flop After a Pre Flop Raise:
Raise: 3.90%
Bet: 48%
Call: 6.5%
check: 35%
check/raise: 0.62%
Fold: 6.7%
No Flop/No Action: 53%

What am i doing wrong, i always follow up with a Cbet after i raise preflop, even sometimes on drawy boards if there not calling stations, i dont cbet against calling stations or shorties that much though without a hand for obvious reasons althouh i will sometimes, maybe thats whats diluting it?

RedJoker

dvdfan wrote: »

Jees im obviously not cbetting enough: Heres my stats

First Action On Flop After a Pre Flop Raise:
Raise: 3.90%
Bet: 48%
Call: 6.5%
check: 35%
check/raise: 0.62%
Fold: 6.7%
No Flop/No Action: 53%

What am i doing wrong, i always follow up with a Cbet after i raise preflop, even sometimes on drawy boards if there not calling stations, i dont cbet against calling stations or shorties that much though without a hand for obvious reasons althouh i will sometimes, maybe thats whats diluting it?

Yeah 52% is very low. Your cbets seem to be about 85-90% of pot so you might find it hard to take stabs when you're cbetting so high, your cbets need to work a lot more then if you dropped your bet size to about 75% of pot.

When you get to higher limits you don't want your cbet% too high because you'll be exploitable against good players who will raise/float you more often. However at micro limits this doesn't really apply and you can look at each hand in a vacuum to decide if a cbet is +EV or not.

A/K high boards should always be cbet heads-up and you can cbet paired boards multiway most of the time. One high card and two low cards are good boards to cbet too.

Most shortstackers are useless and won't shove anywhere near optimally so cbetting against them can be profitable. The easiest thing to do is just not steal too lightly against them.

Cbetting should be a default play at micros, you really need a good reason not to cbet.