Poker tracker...what does it all mean?

Soup66

I've just started using poker tracker while clearing my party bonus, I've not completed 700 or so hands, and I'm curious what the important statistics are that I should be looking for, and what they should be around?

SlantNGo

What type of game are you playing? For Party 0.5/1 Limit, a good tight-aggressive range is:

VP$IP (Voluntarily Put $ in Pot): 15 to 21%
PFR (Pre-flop Raise): 7 to 12%
AF (Agg. Factor, not including pre-flop): 2.25 to 3.75
W$SD (Won $ at Showdown): 52 to 58%

The key thing though is... don't force PT stats. i.e. if your AF isn't high enough, don't just start raising it to get that stat up. Read up, understand why your AF is so low, and what plays you should be making to raise it.

All this was assuming you're a limit player... no limit is a different cookie altogether.

SlantNGo

Also note that a sample size of 700 is nothing. At 2000 hands you can start to see trends, at 5000 you can start identifying leaks, at 10,000, they start becoming meaningful.

ScottyZ

Also note that a sample size of 700 is nothing.

I disagree. I would say I can put more than 90% of the opponents I play against in a reasonably reliable box after 50 hands or so. I think 700 hands is plenty to give you a good idea in terms of the PT stats you mentioned.

The "more than 10,000 hands" guideline normally (and correctly IMO) applies specifically to win rate statistics (BB/100 hands, BB/hr).

ScottyZ

SlantNGo

It's definitely good enough to group your opponents but not to judge your own play. I auto-rate opponents after 30 hands. As for the BB/100, one guy on 2+2 calculated that you need 500,000 hands assuming a "typical" standard deviation to be 95% sure of your winrate. 100,000 to be about 65% sure. A cold run of 1000 hands can significantly affect all four of the stats I mentioned, but especially the W$SD, which could be +/- 10%.

Soup66

I'm playing no limit mostly, what should it be for that?

magithighs

ScottyZ wrote:

I disagree. I would say I can put more than 90% of the opponents I play against in a reasonably reliable box after 50 hands or so. I think 700 hands is plenty to give you a good idea in terms of the PT stats you mentioned.

The "more than 10,000 hands" guideline normally (and correctly IMO) applies specifically to win rate statistics (BB/100 hands, BB/hr).

ScottyZ

Scotty, I'm interested to know how you query your pokertracker database while you're in a game. In another post, you seemed to have the PFR% of your opponents at your fingertips. Is there an easy way to type the 9 opponents and have their summaries pop up?

Also, on the 10,000 hands, I don't think this is enough hands to get an accurate representation of your TRUE win rate. At this number, if I have good/bad night (usually around 200-400 hands), it will push my win rate up or down by almost 1BB. Once I get to the 30,000+ range, then I need to have some sort of trend to move the win rate up or down.

Now, does it really matter? If after 10,000 hands you're a positive player, then you can assume you're a winning player. How important is it to understand the TRUE win rate. Well, for me, I like to make minor tweaks in my play and see if I can push the number up, so it does matter. But for most, I think even 5K would be a good indicator -- just not an absolute number.

Cheers
Magi

SlantNGo

Magithighs, search for a utility called GameTime+. It's a replacement to the PT GameTime window for ring games that overlays a player's stats underneath their name in the actual poker window. Very handy for multi-tablers.

ScottyZ

Scotty, I'm interested to know how you query your pokertracker database while you're in a game. In another post, you seemed to have the PFR% of your opponents at your fingertips. Is there an easy way to type the 9 opponents and have their summaries pop up?

You can open something called the "Game Time Window" in Poker Tracker. For cash games, push the 'spades' button and a separate window will pop up.

Make sure you have at least one hand history in the PT database for the game you're playing in. Then, you can hit "Preferences" in the Game Time window and select your current table from a drop down menu.

This window will be automatically updated whenever the PT database is, so you can get close to real-time stats on your opponents.

ScottyZ

SlantNGo

No-limit is an altogether different cookie. I don't know a whole lot about no-limit, but I think it allows for more freedom of playing style as opposed to limit... any no limit players wanna chime in?

djw

Here is a post on 2+2 about GameTime: http://forumserver.twoplustwo.com/showflat.php?Number=1290282

The app is here: http://download.statuspro.tv/GameTimePlus.exe

magithighs

ScottyZ wrote:

You can open something called the "Game Time Window" in Poker Tracker. For cash games, push the 'spades' button and a separate window will pop up.

Make sure you have at least one hand history in the PT database for the game you're playing in. Then, you can hit "Preferences" in the Game Time window and select your current table from a drop down menu.

This window will be automatically updated whenever the PT database is, so you can get close to real-time stats on your opponents.

ScottyZ

THANKS GUYS!! HOLY CRAP, I feel like I've been driving with only one eye open. I can't wait to try this out.

Cheers
Magi

Terry Bennett

Hey guys,

I have been observing a ton of s&g tourneys on Partypoker to try and build up a fairly big database, to be able to use gametime+ on As you can imagine, it is ttaking some time. Does anyone have a fairly large hand database that they want to share or swap? I would certainly give oyu the S&G database that I have so far as well?

REgars,

Terry

Phippo44

I have a databse of about 50 SNGs on party. When you observe these though, it doesnt record the tournament data though right, just the hand data?

I think over the long term, the win% on SNGs is one of the best indicators of the strength of your opponent.