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View Full Version : Letter to a Break-Even uNL Player


cwar
12-08-2006, 02:51 PM
<font color="blue">This is part of a letter I sent this to a 6 handed 50nl player wondering what he could do to become a winning player. He specifically wanted to know about preflop play. As of now he has a vpip of about 50%. Its pretty basic but outlines some good ways of thinking preflop so I thought I would share. </font>

http://forumserver.twoplustwo.com/showflat.php?Cat=0&amp;Number=5892078&amp;an=&amp;page=0&amp;vc=1
This is a link that I think you will find helpful. It is chart of the varying statistics that winning players submitted for SSNL games.

To address your specific stats questions in my opinion it is IMPOSSIBLE to beat 100nl and below with a vpip of 40% or higher (I can prove this if you want as I have datamined about 3 million hands at 50nl and 100nl games). You have to remember that small stakes rake hits your profit VERY hard, I pay a little less in rake then I make in profit.

Generally I can tell you probably play too loosely and too passively preflop. When you enter a pot in 6handed no limit you generally want to be the raiser OR have a pocket pair that you are set hunting with. If your vpip is 50% you are probably calling too many other peoples raises with unpaired cards. A good example is if a standard player raises in first position, everyone folds to you on the button and you have ATo you should fold 90% of the time (depends on the player of course).

Another good thing to remember is you should almost never "defend" your big/small blind with unpaired cards (at these limits). If you have a pocket pair you can call but if you pick up something like AJs (which is the minimum hand I would play against a raise out of position, and generally only from an aggressive player in the CO or OTB) I generally want to reraise with it. AK and AQ are different, you can call these but should strongly consider reraising unless the player is very loose. In short I would aim for a vpip of 23% +/- 2% depending on your style/game selection, although playing tigher would definitely be ok.

Goodluck at the tables,
Chris

Gelford
12-08-2006, 05:31 PM
100NL is though ... 2000NL on the other hand has been crushed by Samoleus for ages with a vpip of 50.


Not fair ... eh ??? /images/graemlins/grin.gif

kitaristi0
12-08-2006, 05:33 PM
cts beats 25NL at 98 VPIP.

GtrHtr
12-08-2006, 06:16 PM
Overall I like what you sent him and he would be better served tightening up a lot.

However this is very wrong IMO:

[ QUOTE ]
To address your specific stats questions in my opinion it is IMPOSSIBLE to beat 100nl and below with a vpip of 40% or higher (I can prove this if you want as I have datamined about 3 million hands at 50nl and 100nl games). You have to remember that small stakes rake hits your profit VERY hard, I pay a little less in rake then I make in profit.


[/ QUOTE ]

cwar
12-08-2006, 07:21 PM
Fair enough, I filtered my PT database and did find a couple 45+ vpip'ers beating 50nl at a fair clip over 5k+ hands. I should have said when your starting out you should keep your vpip on the tigher side until your very confident in your postflop skills.

Antinome
12-08-2006, 07:21 PM
It may be true that most people with high VPIP% lose money and most winning players have low VPIP% but that proves nothing.

cwar
12-08-2006, 07:55 PM
[ QUOTE ]
It may be true that most people with high VPIP% lose money and most winning players have low VPIP% but that proves nothing.

[/ QUOTE ]
It proves nothing but one could come to the logical conclusion that theres is some kind of correlation.

SirNeb
12-08-2006, 09:30 PM
high VPIP players are loose players that uses their superior postflop play to win. Their hands are only relatively strong, and their crappy hands have more value than tight players.

Loose player's A10 &gt; Tight player's AQ. This is a pretty difficult concept for some people to grasp. People will rarely put a truly loose player's hand to be A10+. When their hand is good, it'll dominant other marginal hands easily. While the tight player's AQ will be very weak because most people won't play the tight player without AK or something relatively stronger.

In short, loose players rely on RELATIVE strength, and tight player rely on ABSOLUTE strength. Of course these overlap but these are pretty close assumptions. And lower stake players rely on their absolute strength because it doesn't require as much player reading, hence they will have a lot more success with low VPIP. One mistake can cost you a whole session worth of winnings, low VPIP will lower down your variance and chance of downswing. If you are a high VPIP player, you rely on your reading skills, if that fails you, your variance will be huge. A high VPIP player might have very normal 10+ Buyin downswings. But know that these players will also have HUGE 10+ BI winnings to compensate.

In theory, if one can be so good at hand reading, and make very few mistakes, high VPIP would be the best way to go in any stake. But of course very very few players have this type of skills and confidence. Overall, I think 99% of the people should listen to the OP if your VPIP is really high and you are losing or just breaking even.

Antinome
12-08-2006, 09:35 PM
[ QUOTE ]
[ QUOTE ]
It may be true that most people with high VPIP% lose money and most winning players have low VPIP% but that proves nothing.

[/ QUOTE ]
It proves nothing but one could come to the logical conclusion that theres is some kind of correlation.

[/ QUOTE ]

Bust out the ANOVA and coplot and we can dance Herbert Kornfeld style, bizzatch.

Edit:
AT is what a bad loose player thinks is a good hand. That is a very bad example, IMO.

h0ser
12-09-2006, 01:54 AM
Nothing is better for your confidence than actually having a decent hand.

carnivalhobo
12-09-2006, 02:42 AM
tell the guy to read LGB or HOH1, this is a lot easier than telling him about vpip and what not, baby steps.