Ramblings of a Semi-Pro

Review of Cardroom Supply, Inc.

Tony — Sat, 09 Dec 2006 23:44:00 +0000

***This post is sponsored by Cardroom Supply, Inc.***

I was contacted by Cardroom Supply recently about checking out their site, and I have to say, it's quite impressive. From poker tables, to chips to use in a casual home game, this is clearly the place to go if you want to raise the bar on your local poker night. The tables offered range from simple tables clear up to professionally designed furniture that any discriminating poker player would be absolutely proud to display in their home any night--not just card night.

This site offers some impressive pricing and the customer service is far more than you'd expect, which is to say that it's extremely impressive. I emailed them regarding specs on a table that I was thinking (if the wife would allow) of adding to my basement, and they responded back in no time flat. If you're looking for a reputable dealer (i.e., not eBay) to provide supplies to make your poker game the envy of your friends, look no further than Cardroom Supply.

May you get all your money in as a favorite!

How's Retirement Going?

Tony — Sat, 02 Dec 2006 01:05:00 +0000

Fine, thanks for asking.

As the year comes to an end, I'm looking back at the year it was in online poker, and truthfully (and this scares me), I don't really miss it.

I'm playing in the 50k buy in play chip games on Stars, and that's it. No real money games at all. It's still kind of odd, but it's for the better (at least in the short term).

I've played in a few local events, won some decent money, but it's good right now. I still lurk the forums, and answer questions, BTW.

With the above being said, the one thing I do miss...

...is the money. I looked at PT and my spreadsheets and such, and I netted just short of $10,000 this year in 10 months, so my early goal of $1000 a month was hit just about right on the button. So, behind the bitching about beats, the whining about variance, sat a winner.

Let's take the time to enjoy the extra money (hopefully) that poker brings us, the enjoyment we get from it, and the game we all (still) love.

A belated Happy Thanksgiving to all, some of us have a great deal

...to be thankful for.

As One Door Closes...

Tony — Tue, 31 Oct 2006 15:58:00 +0000

Another one opens. Last night, as I touched on in the forum, I played in a little $10 buy in home-game style tournament at a local Army-Navy Garrison. Just as I was having doubts about my game, and thinking things like "Can I actually play this game anymore?" I go and turn in one of the most dominating performances I've ever seen in a tournament.

The structure there is a little strange--I was invited by my father-in-law, who is a member, and they start with T100k in chips, with 500/1000 blinds, and the blinds double each half-hour. There is a 3 1/2 hour time limit, so with a 7 pm start time, whomever leads in chips at 10:30 is declared the winner.

These guys have no idea about me (or at least they didn't), so I figure I go in there and play a little weak. It's a rotate-dealer game, all NL Holdem, so I make a couple mistakes dealing cards, recognizing whose action it is (to make me appear fishy), and play starts in earnest. I play the first 5 hands I'm dealt (all junk) and watch the other players take pretty much everything to showdown. Bluffing won't work here (as you'll see later), and if you're seeing the flop, if you want to win, you're showing your hand down. No problem. I'll adjust.

I start to accumulate chips and I'm up to about T130K when the first victim falls. He's played every hand so far, so when he limps in, I'm not shocked. I am shocked to see KK though. I raise (with 1k/2k blinds) to 10k and am actually surprised when he calls. The flop comes Jack-high, and he insta-pushes the flop. Reading him for weak, and maybe a set, but having him covered (he had about 50k left at the start of the hand), I call and he shows 22. My kings hold up and he's the first guy out. The first of many to fall at my hands.

To make a long story short, I had 6 at my initial table. I knocked out 4 of the other 5 when they moved players to make another 6-man table. I knocked out two players in the same hand when they pushed into my turned nut-flush, and two hands later, I knocked out two more players when my 87s flopped the nut straight. We were down to 2 at my table, and there were 5 left at the other table, so when the other table made it to 6, we combined to the final table.

I had almost T1.3 million when I went to the final table, my nearest competitor had about T200k. I actually had to use CAFETERIA TRAYS to carry my chips over to the final table. I drew ooohs and aaahs when I brought my tray over, and drew "Omigod"s when the TD brought over the SECOND full tray.

The only bump in the road that I hit was about 4 hands into the final table when I raised to 100k (being a big stack is awesome) with ATs UTG and the remaining big stack pushed over me with his remaining 180k. I called him and he showed (I kid you not) T7o.

We flopped a ten, he rivered the seven, so I doubled him up and he had life. We got to three handed with me having a significant lead (about T1.2 million to about T400k each for the other two), and soon enough, the other two ended up all-in. The T7 guy above flopped a straight, then pushed into a turned flush, so I was heads up.

Heads up went back and forth, and we decided to chop (after I ran card-dead for almost the entire heads up period and gave up the chip lead). Not too shabby, eh?

They figured out just before the final table that I was a pro...Here's the conversation:

Guy 1: "Oh, look at this show-off. All these chips...(sheepishly, kidding around)"
Guy 2: "Yeah, he's been either real lucky, or he's a ringer. Isn't he Bob's son-in-law?"
Guy 3: "Yeah. He's either lucky, or a pro."
Me: "Hmm. Who told you that?"
Guy 2: "Oh shit."
Me: *smiling ear-to-ear*

Shockingly, I was invited back weekly.

Back to the Tables

Tony — Fri, 20 Oct 2006 03:36:00 +0000

I decided to make my comeback step tonight, playing (as promised) $50NL. God, there are some lousy players at that level at Full Tilt. Lousy in a funny, hysterical way.

Just to keep everyone up-to-date on my progress toward my goal:

Played 58 minutes tonight. registering 91 hands (2 tables).
Balance to Start: $300.45
Balance to End: $375.10

Won/Lost: $74.65
Win Rate: 82.03 BB/100 hands (heheh)

Amount needed to move up to $100NL: $224.90

I'm posting some of the funny hand histories at the forum...Enjoy folks. I did.

An Ambitious Project

Tony — Sat, 14 Oct 2006 19:38:00 +0000

As most of you who read my forum are aware, I'm in the middle of a "break" from playing. I've also cashed out a large amount of my active online bankroll (active bankroll meaning money that is actively committed to playing online, not anywhere near total bankroll), leaving myself with $300 and literally change at Full Tilt Poker.

Here's what I plan to do: I'm going to take my little break, purge the negative thoughts, get back into balance, then, when I decide to come back, I'm treating myself like I'm in the bankroll-building phase again. I'm taking my $300 bankroll, with ideas on playing the $50NL tables to build it up as fast as possible, with a goal of reaching $200 NL as quickly as possible, all the while, cashing out as I go.

I don't recommend this strategy for everyone, starting with 6-buy-ins at a NL game, but as I had mentioned before, I differentiate between active bankroll and total bankroll. My active bankroll is what is actually online, easily replaceable if I so choose from my total bankroll. The total bankroll is the actual amount of money I have to draw from, independent from money to pay bills or live from--extra money, shall we say. I've never had more than 10% of my total bankroll online at any given time. I cash out frequently (why I refer to myself as semi-professional), and I haven't reloaded from my total bankroll since February '05.

So here it is...At the to-be-determined time that I decide to play, I'll be rampaging through the $50NL tables on FTP. When I double my stake, I move up. At my current win rate at $50NL (17.85 PTBB/100), it should take about 1700 hands, then I'll start on the $100NL tables. I'll be single- or two-tabling, dependent on my mood. I'll be posting when it starts, and keep everybody posted on my progress...Wish me low variance!

Managing Your Bankroll

Tony — Wed, 27 Sep 2006 21:21:00 +0000

This is a little primer on how to manage (and keep your bankroll). This works, however, only if you (as you ALWAYS should) keep your poker money seperate from your real (bills and such) money...which brings me to my FIRST piece of advice. Don't play with money you need for the mortgage that month.

Sounds basic, huh? Stick to it. As online poker players, many of us straddle a fine line between hobbyists and degenerate gamblers with a problem, and sometimes that little sentence at the end of the above paragraph is all that seperates the two.

Now for active bankroll management. First of all, you should have an account with a company like Neteller. Neteller is the gold standard of online depositories, and since most US banks will not allow direct transactions to online gaming sites, it's probably your best choice. It's payments are accepted pretty much everywhere, and if you avoid using the Instacash option, it's totally free.

On poker sites, and this is the meat and potatoes of bankroll management, the single most important piece of advice I can give is not to play games over your bankroll. What does that mean? It means you should have at least 10 (ten) buy-ins sitting in your account for your chosen game. If you play FR Limit Holdem, a good idea of a buy-in is about 25BB. So, if you're playing 2/4 LHE, a buy-in is $100, and you should have at least $1000 in your bankroll. Got it? This prevents variance from making you go busto just from a single bad day. This is also very dependent on how replaceable your bankroll actually is, or more to the point, how replaceable you WANT it to be. I made a decision a while ago that I wouldn't redeposit any more money online regardless of what happens, so, even though it's not, I treat my bankroll like it's my last dollars on earth, and conserve it accordingly.

For NL holdem, the same 10-buy-in rule applies. When I mention a buy-in in NL, I mean a full buy-in. So, if you're playing 1/2 NL, and a buy-in is $200, you need to have at least $2000 available in your 'roll.

Variance and your style plays a great deal into this information, If you play a LAGgier (higher variance) style with big swings, where you can both win and lose big in short amounts of time, you should increase the number of buy-ins you need. Also, you should increase your bankroll requirements for playing shorthanded...

I'm going to start a thread in my forum about managing bankroll, so your comments are welcome there!

The Benefits of Aggressive Play

Tony — Fri, 15 Sep 2006 20:35:00 +0000

Here we are, discussing something that's not-Poker Tracker-related. I want to discuss something that crosses over the world of both NL and Limit Holdem, and it's the concept of aggressive play.

Last year, when I wrote the auto-rate rules for PokerTracker, I did a TON of research on literally millions of datamined hands, from Stars, Party, and Full Tilt, and the one thing that I discovered was that how many hands a person plays literally doesn't have a damn thing to do with how often or how much they win at the tables. The single factor that determined whether or not a player was successful was whether or not they were aggressive.

By aggressive (you knew there had to be a PT mention), I mean having an aggression factor of more than 1.5 on ALL streets (betting or raising 1.5 times as much as they call). At first glance, you might think that this requires a lot of bluffing, and yes, you're right. Bluffing, and SEMI-bluffing.

When you examine my PokerTracker NL database, the one thing that stands out to me is my W$WSF (Won Money When Saw Flop). My figure there (playing $50 and $100 NL mostly, with some $200 and $400 NL mixed in) is an obnoxious 41.84%. This means that for every flop I see, I'm winning a pot nearly half the time. How? Easy. The key to aggressive play in Holdem is to (drumroll please)...Play your drawing hands like they were weaker made hands, but made hands nonetheless.

An example in NL...I'm in the CO with KsJs, and I open after 2 limpers for 5 xBB. One limper folds, and the BB calls, so three of us see a flop of 8s-Td-3s. Limper checks to me, so my action is...

Bet the pot. I'll vary this here between betting half-pot to betting full-pot based on my read of the opponent. If I have an opponent who is very aggressive, I'll make him think about raising with what could be a top-pair only hand, and I'll fire out a full-pot bet, meaning that if he chooses to raise, he's going to be risking a damn-good sized portion of his stack...To put it into numbers:

$100 NL:
At this point, there would be $17.50 in the pot. If I bet full pot, I'm firing $18 into the pot. Any raise he puts in has to be AT LEAST $36, or over a third of a normal stack, and that's just for a min-raise. A real raise would be for at least half-a-stack.

Looking at the multi-leveled thinking...What do you have? You have the second-nut-flush-draw (9 outs), you have two overcards (6 outs, potentially, assuming your opponent doesn't have a set or a pair with your shared overcard), and you have a backdoor straight draw (1.5 outs). You could have as many as 16.5 outs, giving you a 66% chance of hitting SOMETHING by the river. What does your opponent have? I don't know, and I don't care. All I care about is what he would raise me back with. Would he raise me back with AT (TPTK)? I hope so. Would he raise me with a set? Yes. Would he raise me with Axs? Possibly, but how many players are going to risk >half of their stack with just a naked flush draw?

See my point? If you're re-raised, you can re-assess the situation, but typically, you're beaten. If you have a good read on your opponent, this becomes second nature. More often than not, your opponent will fold to your show of aggression and you'll take down the pot.

In the above example, if your opponent is passive, bet half-to-three-quarters of the pot. Why? Because secretly, you WANT that call. Again, a raise usually means you're behind, but if he calls this "smaller bet," one that would be considered "weak" by your aggressive standards, all you're doing is building a pot for when you DO hit your draw. It also almost ensures that he'll check the turn to you, allowing you to see a free card to beat him.

In Limit Holdem, betting and/or raising with your strong draws allows players to get odds to continue to call your bets, AND it builds pots for when the draws come in.

To be more aggressive, start playing your draws more like made hands. You and your winrate will thank me for it.

PokerAce HUD and Custom Layouts

Tony — Sat, 09 Sep 2006 02:10:00 +0000

I'm working on a PAHud layout for NL Holdem that pretty much makes the other player's range DEAD obvious:

Click to enlarge...

Notice me in the 6-seat, with almost a double stack. Seriously though, this layout utilizes the "Combined Stats 1" stat in PokerAceHUD. I placed the stat bar over each player's name in the following format: VP$IP/PFR/CPFR/AF-T/Hands

VP$IP: Voluntarily Put $ In Pot
PFR: Pre-Flop Raise
CPFR: Call Pre-Flop Raise
AF-T: Aggression Factor-Total
Hands: Number of Hands in DB

Now, how do we use this information? Let's look at the player in the 1-seat. Remember when I told everyone to download PokerStove? Here's where it comes in useful. What does this stat line tell us? His VP$IP is 16%, which makes him pretty tight. Specifically, it tells us that he plays the top 16% of his hands (with respect to position, of course...a little more in LP, a little less in EP). His general range therefore is (using PokerStove's help): 22+, A8s+, KTs+, QTs+, JTs+, AT+, KJ+, QJ+

There is also more info there. You know you have hands you play, hands you raise, and hands you'll call a raise with to play. His PFR is 5%, so he's raising with the top 5% of hands: 99+, AJs+, KQs+, AK. However, he'll call raises to play 12% of his hands, which is essentially the entire rest of his range. So, if he's raising, he likely has a top 5% hand, but if he calls a raise, he either has one of his top 5% hands, or a hand in the top 12% range (his CPFR number).

So, what do we know?
He's in with 22+, A8s+, KTs+, QTs+, JTs+, AT+, KJ+, QJ+. (16%)
He raises with 99+, AJs+, KQs+, AK. (5%)
He's calling raises with 77+, A9s+, any two suited Broadway cards, AT+, KQ. (12%)

This is how PokerTracker and PAHud can help you be a bigger winner.

Sizing Bets in No-Limit Holdem

Tony — Sat, 19 Aug 2006 21:55:00 +0000

The obvious difference between Limit and No-Limit Hold'em is the variability in the size of bets you can make based on the situation. While this ability changes the game, it is extremely important to choose your bet and/or raise size appropriately to accomplish the goals of No-Limit Holdem:

1) Force your drawing opponents into making a mistake by calling.

2) Maximize your profits from opponents when you have a made hand.

3) Minimize your losses in situations where you don't have the best of it.

These two goals are profound, yet contradictory. You want to bet enough so that your opponent will make a mistake (mathematically) by calling, but you want to keep him putting chips in the middle as an underdog.

First of all, you need to evaluate your opponents to accomplish this. The initial evaluation is that 3/4 of your opponents (at most small stakes games) have no concept of pot odds or anything else--all they know is that they have 4 hearts and another heart usually means they win the hand or that Norman Chad said on ESPN that 98o is a coin flip against 77.

Second of all, you need to use what you know from the above, and what you glean from your opponents play to make appropriate decisions on how to best approach your post-flop play.

Example: You're on the button in a $200 NL game with 8s8d. Two players limp, you raise to $8 and the BB and both limpers call your raise. There is $33 in the pot when the flop comes Jh-8s-3h. The limpers both check to you. What is your action??

Let's examine each potential action and analyze it's merit:

1) Check. This makes me scream almost as much as cold calling raises in LHE. Slowplaying can only get you in big trouble. You have a set. Right now, you're only behind JJ, but there are two potential draws out there to cause you trouble. There is a heart flush draw (Xh-Xh-Jh-3h) and a few potential straight draws--the open ended draw (Jh-Tx-9x-8s , for the player with T9), or some gutshots (Qx-Jh-Tx-8s, for the player with QT), and some player may actually even have both draws (if they have Th-9h, Qh-Th, Qh-9h). Checking here gives these drawing players free cards, and if I'm drawing here and you check, I'm just checking behind, ESPECIALLY considering your raise. Giving free cards to drawing players is the single worst error you can make in holdem. Don't get fancy here and go for a check-raise, because even if it works, and a player bets large enough and you raise enough to create a pressure point, now you may be playing a vulnerable hand for your entire stack against an opponent with potentially as many as 15 outs (which actually would make him a favorite to get there by the river)...Checking is very bad here.

2) Bet. Aggression is by far best here. But now, how much do you bet? It depends mostly on who or what draws you want to price out of the action (or what players you want to eliminate from the hand). First you need reads on players, so I'll give them here:

MP1 is a solid player by all accounts, VP$IP of 19%, PFR of 9%, AF-T of 2.1. He has $175 in his stack.
MP2 seems to call a lot, VP$IP 32%, PFR 4%, AF-T of 0.85. He has $140 in his stack.
BB seems to be quite loose, but aggressive, VP$IP 44%, PFR 19%, AF-T of 3.2. He has $260 in his stack.

You have $225 in front of you.

What does this tell you? MP1 may actually know what the hell he's doing. If you make a smart bet, and don't give him odds, he's probably smart enough to dump his hand. MP2 will be tougher to get to leave. The BB might re-raise you if you fire out, which is exactly the result you'd like. He'd fire with a draw, top pair, or just because he liked the way the sunlight hit his monitor.

Back to the topic at hand. How much should you bet? Let's put each player on a range of hands. MP1, being very solid and tight, likely has a hand like a small pair, AQ, AJ, KQ, KJ, QJ, or a suited connector (because he limped, which means he likes his hand a little bit, and called a raise, which means that he likes the odds he's getting to hit something). Does he have a hand like T9? Unlikely--he wouldn't think that hand is worth a limp-call. QT? Possibly. Could they be suited? Very possible. So, I have him limited to big Aces (AQ or AJ, likely offsuit), suited Broadway (two face cards), or MAYBE lower suited connectors. What could he have? He could have TPTK (you hope--AJ makes him top pair top kicker, the dream hand for an opponent to have vs. a set), a gutshot (with QT), or a flush draw (with two hearts). AJ has him drawing just about dead (since he needs either running Js, or running As. The gutshot or the flush draw are your worries here. A gutshot draw gives him 4 outs twice, a 16% chance of hitting, and 10.75-to-1 odds against hitting his hand. The flush draw gives him 8 outs (because the 8h gives you the stone cold nuts) twice, a 32% chance of hitting, and 4.875-to-1 odds against hitting his hand.

If you were playing him heads-up, this would be easy. You would pick the worst case scenario and bet so that he would be incorrect in drawing to his hand. Here the worst case is a flush draw (short of JJ, of course), and you need to give him worse that 4.875-to-1 odds on his money to force him into a mistake by calling.

He needs to get worse than 4.75-to-1 odds on his money to call. We can accomplish this by betting $9. This makes the pot $42, and makes him call $9 to win $42, which is only 4.67-to-1 on his 4.875-to-1 shot. This is an incorrect call for him, so if he folds, (we're talking heads-up here) you win the pot, and if he calls, you win because he's made a serious mistake in calling without odds to make the call.

Of course, we're NOT heads up, so it's a different situation. You have two other players to get through to get to this solid player, who is likely smart enough to fold to that bet anyway. Let's look at the BB, the aggressive player. He could have any two cards, but for him to call this raise, considering his general level of aggression, he probably has suited cards. Could he have Th-9h (the biggest draw here)? Yes. Plan for that. He has 14 outs here (8 hearts--except the 8h) to make his straight or flush, and he's actually a 56% chance to get there. He has 2.36-to-1 odds to make his hand, so you have to force him into a mistake with your bet size. The appropriate bet here (apologies for the algebra) is one that makes 2.36 x > 33 + x. To solve the equation for x, you come up with x > 24.26. If you bet $24.50 (3/4 pot), he does not have odds to draw to his monster draw and would be making a mistake by calling.

Since this player is the first you have to deal with, we'll pick up the action here. You bet $25, a nice round number, a little more than 3/4 pot. He can either fold (you win the encounter), call (a CRITICAL mistake, and out of character for such an aggressive player), or raise, because he either made a hand (two pair, other set), has over-valued his draw (flush, straight, or both), or thinks you're bluffing. A raise here by the BB will make this hand heads up, undoubtedly, unless MP2 is an idiot, or MP1 has a set.

We'll deal with the raise first. Since he's too aggressive to limp-call JJ, you have to assume you're miles ahead of a drawing opponent. Any raise he makes here to your $25 bet has to be at least $50, so your next move would be clear--all-in. It would again force him into another huge mistake. He would be calling $192 to win the $108 in the pot, $50 of which is his, and he would be calling it as a massive underdog. Again, unless he's not only an idiot, but a lucky idiot, you win the hand right here.

He won't just call that bet, so that's eliminated. He folds. MP1 sees your $25 bet and realizes he's behind. He folds as well, leaving you heads-up with the MP2 calling station. When a player is non-aggressive (passive, with an AF-T under 1.0), he will call more frequently, and usually call larger bets than their more aggressive brethren. If he does call this bet, you've forced him into another error. Let's say he calls, because that's what calling stations do.

Now there is $83 in the pot, he has $107 in front of him, and you have $192 in front of you. The turn card is another heart, and not the 8h. What do you do? If he has the flush, you still have 9 outs. How much of a bet can you profitably call after a check? You have 4.11-to-1 odds to make a full house on the river, which will give you the win, and most likely your opponent's stack. This is where implied odds come into play as well, but on face value, your opponent must bet at least $27.67 to make your call unprofitable (1/3 pot) on it's face value, but you also must consider the fact that if you call this bet, he will be pot committed and get the balance of his stack in on the river. So the pot's effective size here isn't $83, it's actually $190 due to the implied odds you're getting for him to get the rest of his stack in the middle. His bet to make you unprofitably call still has to be 1/3 the size of the pot based on the pot odds, so his minimum bet to push you out has to be at least $63, which would completely pot-commit him.

If he bets $63 or less, you can either call the bet or raise him all-in. If he bets more than $63, you can assume he made the flush and properly priced you out--fold the hand and walk away.

Now let's say that the turn card doesn't complete any draw--it's a blank. It's you and MP2 heads up, and the pot here is $83. What do you do? He already called a ridiculous bet on the flop, so make him call another one on the turn. Assume he has the 14-out draw and bet accordingly: 3/4 pot (as detailed above). Bet out $60. See if he calls. If he calls, he makes another mistake by calling, and yet another by pot-committing himself to a draw on the river. Another victory for you.

Finally, let's say you hit gravy, and the turn card gives you either a full house by pairing the board or quads. What now? You have the nuts (assuming again, he doesn't have quads to your full house or JJ for a bigger boat). You need now to bet enough to KEEP HIM IN THE HAND. Maximize profit. He has $107 in front of him, so your absolute betting cap is about half his stack. Bet out more than the $25 you bet on the flop, but less than $50 to keep him from panicking over the size of his remaining stack (which won't be remaining much longer). Let him hang himself by calling. I'd toss out just enough for a flush draw (9 outs) to properly call, about $30. If the turn card was the 8h, do the same thing. LET him call you and feel good about it, then pounce on the river for the rest of his stack.

No Limit Holdem is a complex game, and when you consider than truly good players do what was detailed above in their heads within about 15 seconds, you realize exactly how complex and challenging a game it is.

Off the Schneid...and A Little Bit About Winrates

Tony — Thu, 17 Aug 2006 00:33:00 +0000

Well, my breakeven streak is apparently over. As some of you reading my forum saw, I had a monster session at the $50 NL at Full Tilt. I had run up my initial buy-in up to almost $180 in a matter of 40 minutes before I lost a little back with a set-over-set beat and another weird beat. More than that, I have confidence in my game again (not that I was lacking in that regard, but positive results have a reinforcing effect on the mental side), and it's just in time for me to play in tomorrow's Green Chipper--even though PLO isn't my game.

A lot of people have asked me in various forums about winrates, both in Limit Holdem and in No-Limit Holdem. It's in our nature as poker players to be competitive, and many of us actually wonder how we're really doing. Those of us who are winning players--exactly HOW winning are we? We can see the results in our bankroll, but if a player plays 10,000 hands a month and wins $1000, it's vastly different than a player who wins the same $1000 over 4,000 hands.

This is another use of PokerTracker. The software tracks your play and winnings as well, and expresses your winrate (how much you win--standardized) in terms of Big Bets per 100 hands.

Limit Holdem: In Limit, a Big Bet is the amount you would bet on the turn or river. In a 3/6 game, the Big Bet amount is $6. Because of the nature of Limit Holdem, winrates in terms of Big Bets per 100 hands (or per hour) are often lower than their No-Limit counterparts, but since the Big Bet is far larger in most cases, it can still be used to approximate how well a player is doing:

Here are some examples of winrates and what they really mean:

If Joe Holdem has a winrate of 2.2 BB/100 hands at 3/6 LHE, that means that he wins an average of $13.20 for every 100 hands he plays. This winrate is representative of a successful Limit Holdem player. What this doesn't take into account, however, is multi-tabling and table hours--hourly rate. Say that Joe plays 2 tables at a time all the time he plays. If the average online table plays 60 hands in an hour, and Joe plays 2 tables, he plays 120 hands an hour, so at 2.2 BB/100, his hourly win rate (that PokerTracker also calculates) is 2.64 BB/hr or$15.84/hour. For an online small-stakes player, that's extremely respectable. If Joe plays 15 hours per week, he'll make $237.60/week--not bad at all for a hobby, huh? As the number of hands you play go up (over the long run), your winrate becomes more significant. Winrates in the short term (on good runs) aren't significant in terms of classifying you as a player, but over time, it gives a good idea of where you stand among players.

Winrates start to become significant over about 10-20,000 hands. At most online games, if you're playing a single table:

0-1 BB/100: You're a marginally winning player.
1-2 BB/100: You're fairly successful, but can probably use a little work on your game to get over the hump.
2-3 BB/100: You're a successful online player.
3-4 BB/100: You're an outstanding Limit Holdem player, and if you can sustain this rate, you're doing extremely well. You're in the top 5% of poker players.
>4 BB/100: You are CRUSHING the game. You're one of the best players at that limit in the world. Very few players ever touch this level even over as few as 10,000 hands. This, if it were sustainable long term (which, IMHO, it just plainly isn't) would put you among the top 0.1% of all poker players at that limit in the world. You are elite.

If you're playing multiple tables, the focus changes, as your winrate in terms of BB/100 comes down a bit, but your hourly rate (since you're playing vastly more hands) goes up:

0-1 BB/100: You're a marginally winning player.
1-2 BB/100: You're reasonably successful.
>2 BB/100: You're a VERY successful online player. This is where most online multitabling LHE pros live. At higher limits, you can make a VERY nice living being here. An example:

A small-stakes online pro is 3-tabling 10/20, and is winning at 2.1 BB/100. His tables deal about 45 hands per hour--he's playing about 135 hands/hour, and is winning therefore 2.835 BB/hour. 2.835 x $20 = $56.70/hour. Over a 30 hour week (which is a TON, BTW, and not easy--it's a real grind), he's making a hair over $1700 a week, or $88,000 yearly. See what I mean?

>3 BB/100: You're a liar. Nobody beats the online games multi-tabling for this type of winrate long-term. Nobody. :-)

No-Limit Holdem: Since PokerTracker was originally designed with Limit Holdem in mind, it keeps track of big bets in a similar way. In No-Limit Holdem, just as in Limit, a Big Bet is the same as twice the Big Blind. (Note: In a 3/6 LHE game, the SB is $1, and the BB is $3, a Big Bet is $6--in a 1/2 NLHE game, the SB is $1, the BB is $2, and a Big Bet is $4) So, in reporting NLHE winrates, unlike in LHE, you can't just multiply the stakes by the winrate--we record NLHE winrates in terms of PTBB/100 hands, which is slightly different than a corresponding Limit winrate.

Another example: Joe Holdem decides that Limit is too much of a grind and switches to NL. He starts playing 0.50/1 NLHE (known as $100 NL for it's $100 max buy-in). After playing a while, he sees his winrate is 8PTBB/100. What does this mean? PokerTracker sees a Big Bet in this game ($0.50 SB and $1 BB) as $2. So, he's winning $16 for every 100 hands. He's doing quite well. In fact, if he were playing 3/6 LHE, he'd need a winrate of 2.67 BB/100 to match his earnings in this game. He'd need to be a VERY good LHE player to sustain that winrate. In NL, as you will see, 8 PTBB/100 is very sustainable for a good player.

What do these winrates mean? For a single tabler:

0-3 PTBB/100: You are a marginally winning player.
3-6 PTBB/100: You're doing well, but you can stand to plug some leaks to play better.
6-10 PTBB/100: You're playing solid poker, and doing very well at this limit. You're among the top 10% of players in that you're a fairly big consistent winner.
10-15 PTBB/100: You are CRUSHING this game if you're here long term. You're in the top 2% of players if you're here long term.
>15 PTBB/100: Unsustainable long term, you are elite if you're here over the long term. I'm talking top <1% of players at the limit worldwide.

Again, just as in LHE, your winrate means more the more hands you have played to establish and back it up. Winrates at a given limit really aren't significant (and I can't stress this enough--for your own good, DON'T overestimate yourself over a big winrate over 5,000 hands) until you've played over 10,000 hands at a given limit. Some players discount winrates until you're over 25,000 hands at a given limit.

If you're multitabling, you can still pretty much maintain the same numbers as above, but more toward lower ends. For example, if you're winning at 10 PTBB/100 while multitabling, you're crushing a certain limit. Winrates at >15PTBB/100 for consistent multitablers just doesn't happen long term. You're very successful multitabling if you win 6-8 PTBB/100, which can be done. Think about this example:

Back to our friend Joe Holdem. He's playing 0.50/1 NL ($100 NL), he's 4-tabling and winning 6.5 PTBB/100. His tables average about 50 hands per hour. What is his hourly rate?

6.5 PTBB/100 sounds like a very modest winrate. Let's look closer. He's 4-tabling, and this means he's doing very well for himself. How well? 6.5 PTBB/100 = $13/100 hands. He's playing 200 hands/hour, so he's making $26/hour. Again, not bad for a hobby. Compare this to a player who is crushing the same game but only single tabling. He wins 13 PTBB/100--double Joe's winrate. At 50 hands/hr, he's making 6.5 PTBB/hr, or $13/hour. The multitabler, despite half the winrate is making twice the money.

Multitabling, if you can do it, can be VERY profitable. Remember, the best way to read your opponents, especially when multitabling, is using PokerTracker and PokerAceHUD.

Best of luck at the tables, all!

Frustration or Introspection??

Tony — Fri, 11 Aug 2006 23:48:00 +0000

It's very frustrating for a player like myself to not see the results I'm used to seeing. I'm right now in the midst (hopefully at the tail end) of about a 5k hand break-even streak. Most of my losses have come at my "home site" of PokerStars. Sometimes it's just my being impatient, sometimes it's just a matter of me being wrong on a read or running into a cooler (99 vs. TT, etc.).

All I know is that it needs to stop. I had a fairly lame month last month, only netting about $800 or so, and even though much of it is due to my playing less, some of it is due to bad play.

That's why I'm writing this post.

When you get into that bad groove, you need to get yourself out of it. Pronto. No way is better at getting you out of the doldrums than getting back to basics. Think about hands you're playing--review your PokerTracker info--look at the hands that are costing you money. Look at the hands that you lost the most money on. Were they due to just poor play? Was it an unfortunately unlucky break? For me, most can be attributed to poor play or a blown read.

What I do is go session-by-session, and I find those sessions (NL) where I lost a stack or a good chunk of one, then go hand-by-hand to see where the money's disappearing to. I look at the opponent, their PT numbers, then break down the hand in the hand replayer. I look to see if someone sucked out on me, was it because I gave them adequate odds to call? Or was it because I tried to slowplay and got it stuffed down my throat? I look at hands I played out of position, in position, and just look at each mistake I made--and how to correct it. One of those introspective sessions is overdue, IMHO.

It's amazing how much either success and failure can change your game. What separates the truly great players from the merely good is how you react to either success or failure and how you adjust to make your game the best it can be.

Utilizing PokerAceHUD to the Fullest

Tony — Wed, 02 Aug 2006 23:28:00 +0000

I would hope that many of you have taken advantage of VPP's many promotions to get a license for PokerAceHUD, what I believe is the top add-on for PokerTracker.

This program allows you to display statistics on your opponents, as an overlay on the poker table, in REAL TIME. I'm sure you can see how this could be an advantage. As you play at a table, PokerTracker analyzes the hand histories you generate and not only tracks YOUR play, it also provides the same statistics on your opponents. With this information, you can...

--Help put an opponent on a range (VP$IP)
--See how solid a hand he/she will raise with (PFR)
--Determine how aggressive an opponent is (AF)
--See how reliable these stats actually are (number of hands played)

I have my own system with PAHud:

***WARNING: This presupposes that you have read the tutorials on http://www.pokeracesoftware.com, so if you haven't read them, make sure you head over there, as Josh has really put together some nice info.

I use the "Combined Stats" option, and put in to this line the primary stats you look at to get an "at-a-glance" read on a player:

VP$IP/PFR/AF-T/# Hands

I also use the color range option to sort these players. In recent updates, Josh has added the ability to change the color of each stat within a combined stat line to match pre-determined ranges. I use pretty basic color schemes--first selecting VP$IP (Voluntarily Put Money into the Pot) and setting say <20%>55% as green. Then, I'll do the same for PFR--<5%>15% to be red. These are oversimplified and not my actual ranges, but I'm sure you get the point. You want to be able to look at the line above the player's name and get a quick and dirty read on how they play, and this is a fairly easy method. The same goes for aggression factor. Your goal here is to essentially render the auto-rate rules I wrote to be obsolete. You want to look at a player's line, and see a red VP$IP, a red PFR, and a red AF-T and say, "He's tight-aggressive/aggressive," and know that if he's raising he's raising with a solid hand.

PokerAceHUD also allows you to use "Pop-Up" stats, which are stats that you can access by clicking on the opponent's name at the table. The stats you select will then pop up, stay for a few seconds, then disappear until you click on them again. When playing NL, I'll put these type stats into the "Pop-Up:"

--Call PFR--if I raise, and he flat calls, how likely is it that he's trapping me?
--Aggression Frequency--a PAHud-exclusive stat, it gives more insight to Aggression than the old aggression frequency does. I select it by street (flop, turn, and river) and use to to see how likely a player is to bet when checked to, and if that bet means you're beat or if he's just firing to fire a bullet.
--Went to Showdown--how far will my opponent take a marginal hand? Will he play his TPGK hand all the way even though I'm betting/raising him to death? The higher this number, the more likely it is...
--Won $ at Showdown--is he taking only monster hands to showdown, or is he value betting with marginal hands to chase you away?
--Won $ When Raised Turn/River--Don't you just love when you're leading out, leading out, and some donkey decides to raise on the turn, usually a min-raise? This stat (over 100s of hands) lets you know how likely he is to have a solid hand. If this number is low, he's a bluffer and is trying to buy a pot (more often).

My next article will have some screenshots on how I use PAHud, so stew on this for now, and continued luck at the tables!

The Schooling Concept--My Way

Tony — Wed, 26 Jul 2006 03:04:26 +0000

You may have heard of the "schooling concept." I want to illustrate another level of the schooling concept.

Fish like to travel in schools. If you ask any poker players what type of player they'd love to play against, they'll tell you instantly that they want to play the "fish." Unfortunately, a lot of fish together in a school can make your life misery.

Take this for example: AA against a random hand is an 85-15 favorite to win the hand. I like those odds. Now, look what happens as the number of players increases, each with garbage and a random hand:

AA vs. 2 random hands: 71% to win.
AA vs. 3 random hands: 62% to win
AA vs. 4 random hands: 54% to win
AA vs. 5 random hands: 49% to win
AA vs. 6 random hands: 43% to win

The point is that while you're getting your money in with the best of it, playing against a couple fish is great--playing against a table full of fish might not be that great.

Poker Tracker Auto-Rate Rules and Player Types--Part Four

Tony — Thu, 20 Jul 2006 00:22:00 +0000

Now that we're finished with the examination of VP$IP in terms of gaining a "PT read" on an opponent, let's focus on that which is THE most important factor in determining the appropriate line against a certain player--Post-Flop Aggression.

Regardless of a player's VP$IP, a player who is very aggressive--one who bets and raises far more often than they call--is extremely dangerous, with few exceptions. Some players are just maniacs, like a LHE player I found over at Full Tilt. His PT line was VP$IP: 93%, PFR: 75%, and AF-Total: 3.5, over 200 hands. I'm not sure how he lasted that long, but he was still hanging in there (until he ran into me). He was stealing small pots just by firing away, and losing the big pots when he had to show his 9-high on the river.

Keep in mind that just as aggression is selective, so it passivity. Sometimes with a player like that, it's better to just let him spew chips in every direction, while you just call or gently edge him down the path to hell with your monster hands.

Anyway, I'm off track. What I'm saying, though, is very important to your long-term success. In the vast majority of situations, aggression is better, and a purely passive strategy will not make you a long-term success in Holdem.

Playing the Passive Player:

Some of these players will be prioritized as calling stations, some will be prioritized as weak/tight, but all are generally losing players. The biggest thing to watch out for with a passive player is for that infrequent time that they actually show aggression and blast off. If a player has a VP$IP less than 1, and he raises your turn bet, you need to be extremely careful, since it's becoming increasingly likely that he has the goods.

Something was discussed in the PT forum a while back about the use of stats like "Won $ at Showdown when Raised Turn/River," which is a PAHud-derived stat from PokerTracker (and is available exclusively through the use of PokerAce HUD, available in the VPP store). When dealing with passive players, this stat (over time, since it can take a long time--hundreds of hands--to level out and become statistically significant) can be very valuable, and can differentiate the "Habitual Bluffer" type passive player from the "Oh S***, he has the nuts" type passive player.

Nothing is more frustrating than sitting in your $50 NL game on Party with KK and seeing a King-high flop. Yay! I flopped top set with a rainbow on board, but there are donkeys out there, so let me bet pot. One guy calls. The second diamond hits the turn, you bet pot, he calls. The third diamond hits the river. You, wanting to maintain the aggression, bet pot. Donkey-boy raises you, and you're stuck. Do you call? The above stat will help your decision.

The biggest hint in playing a passive player is to never attempt to bluff them. They will call you in a heartbeat, because that's what they do best. Call-call-call-call-call. "Look them up," by getting a read with your PokerTracker numbers on them. Make an assessment about a range of hands they could be playing, and realize that they can be calling with top pair, two pair, overcards, or some sort of draw. Sometimes, they'll even call with a draw to a draw. Be ready, and play your strong hands into them strongly. They'll pay you off, and usually nicely.

Playing the Neutral Player:

Just like any middle ground, this is a tough place to be. However, if you're using my PokerTracker auto-rate rules, these players are still on the more passive side, so a lot of what is written above still applies. A neutral player is more likely, though, to toss out things like value bets, semi-bluffs, and will even sometimes pull out things like the bluff-raise.

An aside: If you suspect weakness, a bluff raise can be just flat-out MONEY. A situation a few weeks ago: I was playing $100NL at Stars when I got dealt AJs on the button. I raised pre-flop to $5 (5BB), and got two callers, one from EP and another from MP. The flop came Q-high and uncoordinated, but with 2 hearts. The EP bets out $12 and the MP folds. I insta-raise to $35 and EP folds just as quickly as I raised his bet. I may or may not have had the best hand, but I collected $17 from EP and $12 from MP plus the blinds because of a bluff-raise. Like I said, if you suspect weakness (especially from a neutral or aggressive player), the bluff-raise CAN be money, in the right situation.

Back to the topic at hand. This player will be trickier than the passive player, and sometimes even trickier than the aggressive player. Be wary of his bets and raises. While they're not the telltale sign of trouble they are for the passive player, they can still mean you're behind, or that this player at least has something. The biggest difference in practice between the aggressive and passive players is that this player type (neutral) will tend to bet out or raise more with his draws, especially his nut draws. Keep that in mind as you see this player throughout the online ranks.

Playing the Aggressive Player:

This is real trouble. Other than the Ultra-Aggressor player type, these players (Tight, Semi-Loose, and Loose-Aggressives) are the biggest winners in the online game, and it isn't even close. In fact, there are only IIRC 4 player types that are long term winners--yep, they're all aggressives.

There are two schools of thought on how to play aggressive players. One is the "Contrarian" style, that says that the best defense against a particular player type is to play the contrary or opposite style. In this theory, you play a passive player extremely aggressively, and an aggressive player passively, letting them build pots for you then pouncing. This isn't a bad idea, because so many of these players (and ultra-aggressors in particular) will fire a bet for no other reason but the fact that you DIDN'T fire. The aggressive player is the ideal player to slow play a monster against in this theory, mainly because you KNOW they'll bet out for you and build a pot. You'll see me doing stuff like this:

$100 NL: Dealt 55 in MP, I limp in. Aggressive (AF-T 1.9) player in LP raises to $4, BB calls, I call the raise. Flop comes K-7-5 rainbow. BB checks, I ???

Of course I check, for two reasons--one, it's very possible this guy flopped top pair, and second, since he's aggressive and he just got checked to, you know he just has to fire a barrel. He bets the pot, $16. BB folds, I ???

Of course, I flat call here. Without a real redraw on the flop (or a coordinated flop), I'm willing to flop a set here and let this guy take the lead until...a T comes on the turn. Here, I'd probably send out a weak lead, like $20, and watch him go crazy. He pushes, and I gleefully call with the set and scoop a huge pot.

That's ideal. I don't recommend that often, since you can easily be burned, but that's an example of the Contrarian theory of playing poker.

My theory of playing the aggressive player is to play right back at them. These aren't your superstars--these aren't the guys who'll raise you all in because the waitress shot them a cute look. These guys are aggressive, but they're not the guys who bowl over tables. Like I mentioned above, bluff raising works more often against these players than any other, and bluffs in general come more into play when you're playing aggressive (read: solid) players than others.

Don't be afraid when an aggressive player raises just because they raise. Be afraid when conditions tell you to be afraid. Be afraid when they hit a flop (by your read on their range of hands). Be afraid when they get you pot-committed (an article for another day), but don't just be afraid of them because they're aggressive. Maybe they're bluffing...or are they?

Poker Tracker Auto-Rate Rules and Player Types--Part Three

Tony — Tue, 18 Jul 2006 02:25:21 +0000

Since we're now out of the "priority" player types, I'm going to focus on two simple, but sometimes conflicting concepts. Sometimes, as you "look up" a player online, you see that he is classified by his VP$IP (tight, loose, etc.), and by his total aggression number (aggressive, passive, neutral). Sometimes, these player types give you conflicting information about how to effectively play them.

The first general piece of advice: If you're in doubt, play a player based on his post-flop aggression. Like golf, when a common mistake is when a player spends 75% of his time with his driver, the similar mistake in poker is when a player spends too much time worrying about his own or another player's pre-flop game. 75% of this game is played after the flop hits the table, so the way a player plays post-flop is of the utmost importance in determining his successes and failures.

Let's look at VP$IP first.

VP$IP is a great way to "look up" a player, and gives you your first clue about what hand a player is playing. It gives you your first "read" on a player. For example, if a player has a VP$IP of 14% and a PFR of 8% and he raises pre-flop, and the board comes all low cards, you can reasonably expect that he doesn't have a set, since by his VP$IP/PFR pair, you can tell that he's not raising with 77, 44, or 22. Of course, position, game texture, and table texture will cause you to modify your first impressions, but this is your first real chance to get a read on your opponent's hand, what we call Second-Level Thought.

Depending upon the rules you use, whether you use mine, the default rules that come with PT, or modify the rules to suit your own needs or the needs of the games you play, you can assign VP$IP levels to "tight" players, "loose" players, or anything you want. You can also use the color ranges in PokerAceHUD to create even more classes to give you an even more at-a-glance way to look at a player's pre-flop play.

Playing Strategies Against VP$IP Types:

It's somewhat ironic, but it has been said by many a smart poker mind that the easiest players to play against are the players rated as "Tight," because they're generally straightforward and value hands "by the book." Generally, these players are playing truly premium hands, and should be played against knowing and expecting to see a solid hand. These players aren't generally playing lower suited connectors unless it's for a change. They will play pairs, big Broadway cards, and based upon other stats like post-flop aggression, WtSD and W$SD, and others, you can tell how far they'll take these cards before they realize they've been beaten. You usually shouldn't try and play lousy hands against a tight player, because if they're in the hand, they likely have better cards than you.

When a player gets into that whole "semi-loose" area, when their VP$IP is in the 20's to the low-or-mid-30s, you start to see players who, if they play well post-flop can really get you into trouble. It's harder to put these players on a range of hands, but at the same time, we see again where aggression is key. If a player plays 87o passively, they're much easier to defeat than if they play the same hand aggressively. More will be discussed on that later, in part four. However, it's worth mentioning that since a player has lesser standards to enter a pot, they may be coming in in LP with AA, but they also may be coming in with 65s. Again, and you'll hear this again and again, monitor the other stats to assess the player, and adjust accordingly.

"Loose" players are an entirely different story. There are many kinds of "loose" players--those who play a 45/5 style, who generally like to play a lot of hands cheaply, will call raises, and will raise with their premium hands. These players are what we call "dead money" most of the time--players who toss chips into pots with garbage to see if they hit something--and those who play a 45/35 style. The latter are players who play J7s like it's AA, and who will gladly show you either one if you look them up too hard. It's quite hard to put these players on a hand, and the more aggressive they are, the harder it is to play them...

Preview of Part Four

I'm going to make you wait for Part Four, because it's vastly more important, and requires a greater analysis of concepts. Just think of it this way: Which player is easier to play:

1) A player who calls frequently, with middle or bottom pair, with a draw, but who bets out with his straights, sets, flushes, and other made hands.

2) A player who calls rarely, and who plays gutshot straight draws the same way he plays a made flush, and who plays a flush draw the same way he plays top set--fast.

Think about that--Part Four will be out later this week.