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Server Time: 9/5/2008 4:53:40 PM PACIFIC |
 What % of time do you see the flop?, Forrest, 2. Jan 2003 15:51 | ||
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| I've noticed playing online I seem to see the flop about 40% of the time. I can't seem to get it much lower than that. I'll admit I'm probably guilty of playing an Ax (9 or lower) offsuit once in a while when I shouldn't. But otherwise I am sticking pretty much to a combination of Lee Jones' book, Abdul Jahib's table, and the Wilson software pre-flop decisions. I personally don't believe that the online site is rigged to give me too many calling hands, but that could be one conclusion (which would nicely fit in the "online sites are bent thread"). So my question is: What percent of the time to you actually see the flop? And I guess I should ask as a followup question, do you feel you are a tight player preflop? For that matter, how often should you see the flop percentage-wise? | ||
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| Re: What % of time do you see the flop?, Charles Kincy, 2. Jan 2003 17:58 | ||
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| [this got a little long :)] Because it is a button-and-blind game, hold-em is sensitive to position. You should see many fewer flops in early position (12% or fewer) and many more flops in later positions (25% on the button and 30% in the little blind--more if the game is 'soft') If you play well after the flop, you can see more flops in loose and passive games. If the game is aggressive, you will probably want to see fewer flops. In loose-aggressive games, it depends on the locations of aggressors relative to you. So, you can see, a lot depends on the types of players in the game. So questions like "is 40% too much" don't really have good answers. For instance, in a very loose and passive game, you will almost always play your big blind, and you will play your small blind at least 50% of the time. This means you end up playing about 15% of the time in a 10-handed game even if you folded every other hand! Thus, 40% might even be too low if you always got junk in early position but always got something decent in mid- to late position. But even 25% might be too high if you got the same hands but in reversed positions. A more useful figure is your 'total pots won' statistic RELATiVE to your financial condition. From B&M play I have done studies of the "pots won overall vs. blinds paid." My records show that I can break even in typical Seattle games with a ratio of 0.8 or better. This translates to a pots won percentage of 8.9%, because we play 9-handed most everywhere up here--but I like the pots vs. blinds method better because it automatically adjusts for shorthanded games. So how do you analyze this statistic? First, find your "benchmark." The lower it is, the better player you are and/or the better the games are that you play in. Hopefully, it's below 1--otherwise you have no hope of winning in the long term unless you continue to run lucky. Let's say your benchmark is 0.8 like mine is. That means: * If your pots vs. blinds ratio is lower than 0.8, but you are only slightly stuck or even ahead, that means you are either playing well or the game is very good. You should stay in this game. * If your ratio is below 0.8 and you are badly stuck, you are probably just running bad. You should probably keep playing unless you know the game has gotten bad or you feel stressed out, angry, or otherwise not up to condition. * If your ratio is higher than 0.8, but you are only slightly ahead or stuck, that means you are either playing poorly or the game is very bad. You should leave this game. * If your ratio is higher than 0.8, but you are well ahead, then you are probably just running hot. You should stay if you are having a good time or think the game is otherwise good, but if you are tired you should leave. * If your ratio is about 0.8, your luck is neutral and therefore your financial condition closely approximates either your level of play or the quality of the game. Unfortunately, they could also be cancelling each other out. Paying careful atention to the quality of the game should help you deduce how well you are playing. [I didn't invent this analysis...I read it in either CP or PD, but I forgot who gets the credit.] This analysis has been a good tool to help me analyze whether I'm still a winning player through periods of good and bad luck--it's helped me from getting too discouraged in bad times and helped me from getting too cocky in good times. :) But remember--statistics are only a minor tool...remember to use good poker principles, be constantly thinking about why you are making certain plays, and always observe your opponents' behavior for clues (not just tells, but general patterns of betting/folding as well). | ||
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| Re: What % of time do you see the flop?, NiceFella, 4. Jan 2003 16:52 | ||
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| I approached this question from two directions -- as a thought experiment and as a computer simulation. I'm only addressing the long-term average of a great number of hands, without regard to play in any given position. First my thoughts. With perfect precognition, you'd only play the hands you knew you were going to win. That would be 10%. You'll get a free ride on the big blind occasionally, so that's something less than 10%. This amounts to something less than 20% of flops, ideally. Because poker is played with imperfect information, we may end up playing more or less than this ideal: -- We have to play some hands that look promising but that we end up folding. -- We fold some junk hands that would have gone on to win. How much of a difference does this make? Will we end up seeing more than 20% or less than 20% of all flops? Ideally we want to see the fewest possible flops and err on the side of tight play, so I posit that the best players in low-limit games would see no more than 20% of all hands. Enough of my unscientific conjecture. Here's the unscientific computer results. I explored this question with Wilson's Turbo Texas Holdem software. I set up the simulation to recreate the low-limit game here in Seattle -- a 4/8 game with a $3 rake and $1 jackpot drop. I used a variety of low-limit player line-ups which I felt represented the players I see in these games, then went one-by-one through the "good" player profiles to determine which would fare the best against these lineups. For those of you familiar with the software, I found that Conan the Librarian fared best against almost all low-limit player line-ups. The following stats are Conan's results when playing against 9 Regular Rubes. This is artificial, but typical of the many lineups I tested. Over 12 million hands, Conan played only 18.8% of the hands dealt. Overall, Conan won 7.5% of hands. When I am playing my best, most disciplined online low-limit poker, I find these results are very similar to my own. Although short term results can vary widely, I do use the online stat report as a sort of "tilt-meter" to keep tabs on my play. I know that data-mining software exists which tracks online players to determine their long-term win/loss and tightness. I'd be very curious to see a chart of flops seen vs. profit per hand! Note that Conan wins 7.5% of hands, not 10%. This means that for every three hands Conan wins, he mucks the eventual winner. I'd be curious to see what others have found. I have a lot of other computer stats I've accumulated in this regard, but I do think they need to be taken with a grain of salt and as a consequence won't get too deep into them unless someone is interested. Happy folding, NiceFella. | ||
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| Re: What % of time do you see the flop?, Charles Kincy, 5. Jan 2003 01:39 | ||
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| Your benchmark of 20% is too conservative for most games, because the best fifth of hands win far more than 20% of the pots. Think about it. Also, Regular Rube plays much worse after the flop than the typical Seattle 4-8 player. TTH doesn't model tricky players well, and it also doesn't defend well against tricky play. Still, as a training simulation, it can't be beat. | ||
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| Re: What % of time do you see the flop?, NiceFella, 5. Jan 2003 11:36 | ||
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| > Your benchmark of 20% is too conservative for most games, > because the best fifth of hands win far more than 20% of > the pots. Think about it. I think I need more explanation to understand what you're saying here. I agree that the best 20% of all starting holdings will win most of the pots. But it doesn't necessarily follow that the next best 5% of all holdings also have positive expectation. > Also, Regular Rube plays much worse after the flop than the > typical Seattle 4-8 player. TTH doesn't model tricky players > well, and it also doesn't defend well against tricky play. > Still, as a training simulation, it can't be beat. Agreed. The computer simulations are shaky at best. I did do simulations against many other lineups than just Regular Rube. In all cases, the most profitable player invested in fewer than 20% of all hands. Maybe all I've learned is that when you play against the computer you need to play tight. I perhaps didn't make this clear enough in my post, but I've focused on a low-limit, relatively loose game with a steep rake and unsophisticated opponents. In these games you must play extremely tight before the flop. If you want to consider what happens when you play against tricky players, or players who are skilled after the flop, well, you must not be sitting at my table :-) NiceFella | ||
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| Re: What % of time do you see the flop?, Charles Kincy, 6. Jan 2003 21:42 | ||
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| I just thought of something--turn down the amount of raising in your TTH simulations. Most low-limit players in Seattle *do* play too many hands, but play well after the flop. Therefore, you're just not going to do as well if you "just play tight." You will have to see more flops than what you might think is proper and then play even better than they do to win. You will also need to know how to bet draws properly and also know how to play things like bottom-pair-overkicker and stuff like that. I still think 20% overall is too conservative, given that in many loose-passive 9-handed games you can easily play 17% or so just in the blinds. I think the right number in such games is about 25-30%. | ||
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| Re: What % of time do you see the flop?, Forrest, 4. Jan 2003 23:00 | ||
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| Wow, two great posts! Thanks guys. I'll have to think about the ratio idea some more. Sounds pretty good to me though. I've tightened up my hand selection considerably, but it's still hovering around 30%. I was playing way too many offsuit connecters and 1 and 2 gappers (cards too low and/or out of position). | ||
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| Re: What % of time do you see the flop?, SmellsLikeVictory, 6. Jan 2003 14:06 | ||
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| The other two responses were excellent, so I won't add to that. I think 20-25% is about right, but as always "it depends" on any given session. My own % in online ring games w/ 8-10 players is around 27%. I'm a winning player, but nothing spectacular (a McD burger flipper makes more an hour, but I beat the rake and have fun). I'm probably still a bit too loose, but I get tigher as the months go by and I learn more. When I was first playing as an inexperienced newbie, I was in the 40s, but it's been coming down ever since. Other players I have in my DB that I consider winning, tough players are all consistently in the 20-25% range. They just don't showdown marginal starting hands very often. Definately stop playing Axo hands except as blind steals in LP and the very occasional limp in LP after one or two limpers. There's a page on pokerroom.com with EV stats from their real games(https://www.pokerroom.com/evstats/). This is great info and should be analyzed. I downloaded these stats and averaged all the EVs, sorted them, and it came out that 5 of the top 10 worst EV hands were Axo hands (A2o is worst)! Granted this is an imprefect analysis with imperfect data, but it shows that so many people play Axo, and they all lose with them when they flop an A and then get outkicked. Don't play them, that's a big leak. Ed | ||
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| Re: What % of time do you see the flop?, Forrest, 6. Jan 2003 16:12 | ||
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| on 6. Jan 2003 14:06 SmellsLikeVictory wrote: > Other players I have in my DB that I consider winning, tough players are all > consistently in the 20-25% range. They just don't showdown marginal starting hands > very often. What do you mean by "in my database"? Do you have something automated or do you simply watch and keep track of some players by hand? | ||
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| Re: What % of time do you see the flop?, SmellsLikeVictory, 9. Jan 2003 07:53 | ||
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| A program called Pokerstat. It parses your hand histories and puts it in a database. I have every hand of every player in every game I've played and all the stats that go along with it. Very handy. | ||
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| Re: What % of time do you see the flop?, Roy Cooke, 7. Jan 2003 12:57 | ||
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| Hi Forrest I have no set guidelines as the % I see the flop is dictated by my opponets more than me. That said 40% is WAY to high!! Roy Cooke | ||
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