Love to Grind?

Its always worth a chuckle reading some of your comments on here to my blog. If it was spam I would do it more often....think about it guys.....anyway... let us look at the three main online poker tracker metrics of VPIP/PFR/AF stats. These stand for “Voluntarily put $ into the pot” (VPIP)….. “Pre-flop raise percentage” (PFR) and “aggression factor” (AF). The VPIP stat measures how often you place money into the pot by way of limping, raising, calling a raise or completing the small blind. In short then it measures how loose or tight your online poker style is. The PFR statistic is pretty obvious regarding what it means but the aggression factor measures post flop aggression.

Some years ago when tracking software first came into vogue then there was a greater disparity in opponent types in online poker than there is today. There is a big and very important reason for that and it can be summed up in two words…….better education! Your average online poker opponent will be well versed these days in all of the basics and advanced basics of the game. This means that their VPIP and PFR stats will be similar to other players at the same level. For example in full ring games then most players fall into a very narrow band of VPIP and PFR which kind of makes these stats much less effective.

The aggression factor is a metric in online poker that measures vital post flop aggression. As a rule then the average tight-aggressive or loose-aggressive player will be more aggressive post flop. However this is a metric that has less significance in no limit hold’em than limit because it is often correct to go into pot control in no limit and so checking and calling is often the right line to take. The AF metric is of much greater use in six max games than full ring where more players are aggressive post flop.

So the bottom line is that if you play online poker and you are not necessarily statistics orientated then you would be much better off playing full ring games than perhaps six max games or heads up games. Because you will be doing much more folding in full ring then it will take your opponents far longer to get meaningful sample sizes on you and this is especially the case when it comes to play on the river for example.

If you game is heavily statistics based then you will find that six max may be where your greatest strengths are because this is where you will be able to get the biggest edge over your opposition.

One key set of metrics in online poker that are just as important whether you are playing full ring, six max or whatever are your 3/bet stats along with those of your opponent. This can also be tagged along with your fold to 3/bet stats as well which indicates how often you raise and fold to a re-raise. The key reason why this is important in games like no limit Texas hold’em online poker games is because play in and around the blinds is far more aggressive. So the bottom line is that you need to learn which metrics and statistics are important in online poker and which are of lesser importance and then focus on the more important ones.

Carl Sampson plays online poker at www.888poker.com

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Let us start this post off by looking at a very common example taken from a $0.50-$1.00 game that I play in. It had been folded around to the cut-off player who raised to $3.50. Now in online poker you need to have as much information as is possible to form your decisions but in this hand then my opponent was new to me. I held the Qc-Jd on the button which was clearly a hand that I would have raised with had my opponent folded.

They had a stack of $98.50 having gone through the blinds once after buying in for 100bb. My stack was 117bb on this table and my choice here is between calling the raise, folding and three betting. I do not know my opponent but I have a hand that fares well against what is probably an average range of a position stealer. At the level of online poker that we are playing at which is NL100 then most players are pretty strong as a rule and will open their ranges from position to steal.

The best players use a piece of software that is absolutely free called PokerStove although I use and prefer Equilab. This helps you to visualise the hand by way of equity. We need to put our opponent onto a range of hands and then find out how our hand stacks up against that range. I think that my opponent would raise with any pair and certainly any Broadway hand. They would also raise with suited aces and many suited connectors and kings. Using PokerStove allows us to see that this is around 30% of their total range as a minimum in online no limit Texas hold’em.

So entering my Q-J hand allows me to see that against a 30% range that my hand has around 46% equity against that range which is very good considering that I also have position. That is simply too much equity to fold even though folding isn’t really all that bad in a vacuum. You at least have to make your opponent feel uncomfortable about raising with too wide of a range because they will deny you many opportunities to make money. Three betting is also an option but you can see how having a fair indication of our opponents ranges allows us to see what a good play is here but more importantly to know why we are making the play that we are.

In online no limit Texas hold’em poker then it is often remarked how “any two cards can win”. This is true but only when looked at within the confines of a single hand. Unless you begin to look at the long term profitability of poker hands rather than the short term then you will find it very difficult to become a winning online poker player.

To know that you have 46% equity against your opponents estimated range is to know where you stand in the hand or to go some way towards understanding where you are. You could three bet them as part of your short term poker strategy with a hand like 7-2o but what happens if your raise gets called? The profit potential of your hand is so low that it is difficult to win money by any other way other than bluffing and this makes playing the hand in the first place a long term mistake in no limit hold’em.

Carl Sampson is a professional poker player who plays online at www.888poker.com

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This is a question that I have asked myself many times and the fact that I am asking the question at all would confuse an awful lot of people. I play poker so I must be a “poker player” would be many peoples reply. Of course there is some truth to that as anyone that plays poker is technically a poker player but that isn’t what I was referring to. When I say “poker player” then I am referring to being a “natural poker player”. I think natural poker players simply take to the game and have to do far less work than other people.

For example you have already mentally evolved before you come into poker and because poker is a mental game then any issues that you have away from poker will be highlighted within the game itself. So if you are easily bored then you will probably become easily bored at the poker table. Also what about compulsive behaviour? If you are prone to compulsive behaviour by way of over drinking, over eating or anything else then you may have problems controlling your behaviour at the poker table.

At its very core then poker is a simple game although it has the capacity to be complicated immensely, it is just that as humans we tend to automatically complicate things. Also because a human being is many times more complex than a poker game then what we have is a relatively simple but easily complicated poker game played by unbelievably complex entities.

This is why poker can be so frustrating for many people because of the fact that it can seem unbelievably complex. At its very core then we need to concentrate on three key areas to be a poker player.

These are our overall poker system, this is our style of play that we end up playing after we have studied all that we can about the game. What we end up with is our poker game and this poker game will either be good enough or not good enough to make us money……that is the bottom line. Most poker games will need to have certain environments for them to be able to make money. For example depending on your level of experience and ability then your own game may need to be played at a level that is no higher than NL25.

Even then if your own destructive personality traits are holding you back then you may struggle to make any kind of meaningful money. The next question is when you have found a way of playing poker to then estimate your edge. This is more difficult than what it sounds which is why I have designated two ways to go. The first is to use conventional theory and hope that your opponents or a number of your opponents do not know it. The problem with this way of playing poker is that you can find a way of making money fairly quickly but the profit potential will be limited.

Conventional poker theory isn’t called “conventional” for nothing and years ago then the data that you had may have been sufficient to make money on its own but not anymore. So I think that the biggest edges in poker these days are gleaned from understanding theory in an un-conventional way. While this may not ultimately work for many people, it at least allows you to do something different to what the masses are doing which I think is very important. I think that if you play like the masses then your results are going to be broadly similar.

I simply cannot stress this often enough. You are better off thinking about the game differently even if you end up going down a few blind alleys along the way. However if you are working very hard on your game and you still find that your results are not what they should be then there is every possibility that you are simply not cut out to succeed in the modern world of online poker against the new breed of shark. Learning theory simply isn’t enough unless you want to recycle money.

In the games that I play in, most players tend to have a good grasp of poker theory at levels as low as NL25. So this means that getting an edge in terms of knowing more theory is difficult. In full ring cash games then you need to devise a solid strategy based on what your opponents are broadly doing. If you can learn to think strategically in poker rather than merely on a hand to hand basis then you may just find that you can make considerable money from the game. Any player that can make $60/hour and find 40 hours per week to play online is an absolute monster in online poker.

Carl Sampson is a professional poker player that plays online at www .888poker.com

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