Categorized play errors

Preflop you have 3 choices. In order of preference, Bet (or raise/reraise)/Fold/Call. Check also in the BB. Post flop you may also get the option of checking.

I’d like to categorize my errors/misplays, structured by what I did instead of what I should have done, and then when this misplay tends to happen for me.

Preflop:

• Call; should Fold
  • getting pot odds in the SB (gotta consider playablity of the hand)
  • calling behind limpers (not sure if I do this inappropriately or not)
• Call; should Raise
  • raising hand in late position
    • but not if they are limp/callers
    • maybe suited connectors/pairs are better for raising against limp/callers?
  • With better than average hand in a blind battle
    • Ed Miller says raise crap hands, especially when limped to in the blinds because they have no flop value
• Folding; should Raise
  • when against weak limpers who will fold
    
• Raise; should Fold
  • rare, I think. Possibly blind steal against loose or aggressive blinds

PostFlop:

• Call; should Fold/Raise
  • weak bet at flop w/no strong draws for me
  • weak draw, stabby or weak opponent
• Check Flop; should Bet
  • positional stab at pot that no one is interested in, especially with flush draw (too obvious to get money later) or gut shot or underpair (unlikely to hit)
  • decent draw OOP; acts as blocking bet or could win immediately
• Check Turn; should Bet
  • Trying to keep pot small with a marginal hand, but playing against aggressive or non-thinking players
  • Forget to bet when a flush/straight draw on table
    • even if not drawy board, may have 2 pair draw
• Bet/Bet; should Bet/Fold
  • stabbing at middle/bottom pair; should fold if unimproved
• Bet or Raise; should Fold
  • marginal hand when the opponent is not weak/tight
  • low stacks
  • against calling station and without good hand
  • against an aggressive player who will challenge/reraise
• Check raised
  • I think this is only good for pot building against most of my opponents

Obviously these patterns are geared towards the level of players that I usually play against these days, but it can carry on. For example, in the forum tournaments I made a few weak plays in some of these categories, like limping an otherwise raiseable hand behind a limp or throwing away a raiseable late position hand.

I think overall the errors tend to be calling errors where I’ll call preflop or flop/turn bets when instead I should be mostly folding and sometimes raising. (Seems funny to say that. That’s exactly a Dan Harrington statment, one that I understand, but one that makes so much sense to actually write in this situation) Less frequently the error will be over aggression and I’ll bet/shove against calling stations or when I’m behind and I don’t believe that my opponent has something, but these result in more spectacular crash and burns. The calling errors result in more frequent but smaller chip leaks, as well as more difficult decisions later.

Don’t like losing

I’m realizing how much I don’t like to lose. Back to the Islewars entry, I liked playing at a level where I won 60% of the time. Win too often and it’s no challenge and boring. Win too infrequently and it can be frustrating and pointless. That’s an oversimplification of course, especially if used too generally. Ask a college football player and they’d love to play for the Patriots, but most would also be happy playing for San Francisco, just to be playing. And of course it can be good to challenge oneself and play harder levels where you win less often, just to develop your skills. As a poker player though, you have to manage your bankroll. An athlete can try to always play with players who are better than themselves, but a poker player will go broke trying to do this all the time.

Right now I’m having most of my poker fun playing my $1 Turbo SnG project. 24 of 40 done, ITM 17 times; a 71% win rate. Cost including rake of $30.00, profit so far $22.20. In other words for every $1.25 it costs to play, I average 0.95 profit.

It will be interesting to compare to the Bet/Raise/Fold exercise when it’s all done. The differences will be 1) real money verses play money, 2) no restriction of actions, 3) turbo verses regular, and 4) site. So far the most interesting aspect is that I’ve already ITMed 17 times in 24, whereas the earlier experiment I only ITMed 20 out of 39 times so I’m actually finishing in the money more often I did with the play money experiment.

Having said that, I wonder how many beginners would read that and think, hey, I’m a winning player at play money. This means that I can win even more with real money!

In my opinion this is not a correct conclusion to draw because the first 3 differences are big. “2) restriction of actions” in particular meant that I was playing handcuffed in the Bet/raise/fold experiment. I have poker skills beyond what I was using in the play money project, and I am allowed to use them in my current project. A play money player who can match my play money results won’t get the same results that I’m getting in the $1 project. If you read this and plan to try anyways, please leave me a comment and let me know.

I’m somewhat curious as to the degree that turbo/non-turbo is a factor as well, but I don’t have the time/patience to play a regular length SnGs these days. I’m pretty sure that the pressure of the turbo blinds causes problems. People probably panic after a few orbits if they’re down a bit, and I’m pretty sure some of the weak, weak play I’ve seen when the blinds go up is due to lack of understanding. Last game SB limped AJ into my BB when the table was 4-5 handed and the blinds were high. Later HU he did the same thing. Mind you, he’s -$128 after 101 games.

End of the play money version

Report: after 40 SnGs:

Hands	2,694
VP$IP	19.12
from SB	30.87
Steal attempts	33.45 (184 of 550)
Steal success	58.7
Won at SD	56.82
Raised PF	16.11
Limp/call PF	0.00
1st action after PF raise	Raise 7.85 Bet 61.78 Call 7.85 Check 14.66 Fold 7.33
PF aggression	4.06
Total aggression	3.24

There still seems to be a lot of calls, even preflop, but all I can recall are calling shoves and then allowing myself to call when it gets heads up. Mind you, I play a lot of hands when it gets heads up as you should, so the sheer quantity of hands may be a factor.

(Apparently a file this wide won’t display as readable. Click on it to view in proper size; much more readable )

Pretty standard increased VP$IP, raise, and win % as position improves. I like the 0.11 Cold Call PF%. Those would be heads up calls of raises plus maybe one or two of my own shoves against big stack shoves.

In case you’re reading and wondering, this is a program called PokerTracker. If you run it with another program called PokerAce it will display stats for play money but it will not import play money poker for analysis. What I did is edit each text file for each tourney and changed it to a $1 tourney and then the import is fine. I created a new database just to help keep these results separate from everything else.

Finishes:

1. 6
2. 7
3. 7
4. 6
5. 4
6. 2
7. 3
8. 1
9. 3

Plus one that I only seem to have a few hands and not the complete tourney. ITM 20 out of 39 so 50%. It would be nice to see that higher as these are play money players and the restriction of not calling shouldn’t degrade my finishes too much. I can see 2 where I sat out; they’re easy to spot as I get blinded away. One I finished 5th and the other 2nd. I’m not sure how that affects my stats. Maybe my fold PF rate is slightly higher, but I don’t know that it affects the overall aggression rates since I’m neither raising nor calling.

I just realized there are a lot of calls after PF raises. Some are shoves in the early/mid stages (either mine or the opponent’s), but most should be when I allow myself to call when we get to heads up. But, that’s a lot; 7.85% calls after PF raises. Mind you, as I said, I play almost every hand when I get to heads up so that will affect the stats. It still seems like a lot, but I don’t think it’s worthwhile to investigate.

(Click to view full size)

This is interesting; my VP$IP goes up nicely as does the PFR% as the blinds increase (= table gets smaller, value of the blinds increases). But there is an interesting negative net when the blinds hit 100. This is the point when I and others start looking to steal blinds/shove to stay alive, yet my VP$IP does not take a jump. The only thing that does increase anomallessly with the negative net is the preflop aggression, while the flop and turn aggression levels decrease slightly. How can that be? How does the PRF slowly increase while the preflop aggression jumps?

~

So, I tried my first $1.00 + 0.20 real money SnG using this exercise, finished 3rd. I will try a few more, but I may have to up the stakes as the early going was badly played, like the 2,000 play money buyin. You’d think this was one of those points satellite freerolls where, because it’s a freeroll and because it’s a satellite (only 1st place wins), people shove early and often trying to get ahead.