Sharkscope NLTRN
 

This is my first post for a while - I used to be one of the few regulars on this forum when it was really quiet, and have just got back from a bit of a poker break.

I've been reading posts here for a few days, and have developed a bit of a bugbear. Many posts analyse decisions in the context of "villain is a losing player on Sharkscope" - how can this possibly be relevant?

It is definitely -EV to base any decision other than whether or not to sit down on Sharkscope, and I'm curious to know why people do it.

Re: Sharkscope
 

If you use the advance search engine on player you can tell how they have been playing LATELY. also i dont see how its -ev to wabt to play a loosing player rather than a winning player. while im positive its not 100% accurate,i am sure that it is a good example of how goos a player might be. i mean its common sense, would you rather sit at a table with a player who is +$5k total profit over 1500 games with an average stake of $50, & a roi of say...10% or a player , who is -$5k total profit over 1500 games withea $50 av. stake, and an roi of -10%? its simple. its +ev to play loosing players period. you may run into a few players who played poorly for a few years then got good, that still show poor stats,but thats why you use the advance search. it obv, doesnt garauntee a win but it gives you an edge on the plyer by knowing that they suck, and it can help you avoid players that are consistant winners at your level

Re: Sharkscope
 

Ok, wait, I don't believe that it's irrelevant at ALL. If you filter for turbo HU S&Gs, and see someone who has played 2k games at a -11% ROI, to possibly be that bad they have to be doing something extroidinarily wrong, either WAYYYYYYYYYYY too tight (doubtful), or somehow crazy, usually you can find out what it is they do in the first 5 min, and exploit it, for instance they may 3bet wayyy too light, etc., but I dont think playing games with losing players is a bad idea by any means... how is it not relevant?

Re: Sharkscope
 

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... how is it not relevant?

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Re: Sharkscope
 

To quote the original poster:

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It is definitely -EV to base any decision other than whether or not to sit down on Sharkscope

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My read on this is that he believes the decision to play the person or not is an appropriate use of Sharkscope data, but is saying that's the *ONLY* decision that can be based on whether somebody's a loser on SS or not.

Bad players are bad in many different ways, and SS only tells you they're bad, not how. So the fact that they're a loser on sharkscope really has no bearing whatsoever on the analysis of a particular hand.

It certainly can't be the entire basis for a "read" on a player, and is definitely not a substitute for match history, but it seems a lot of people try to use it that way when posting hands.

In fact, it could be argued that if you even post the fact that the player is a loser on SS when posting a hand, that you already are putting too much importance on that stat, which is basically meaningless in that context.

How'd I do in your defense, Penguin? [img]/images/graemlins/smile.gif[/img]

Re: Sharkscope
 

OK, so just curious, let's say your playing 3 different opponents with 3 different hands all in the same scenario:

Opp 1: 5,000 -17% -30,000
Opp 2: 5,000 15% +28,000
Opp 3: 7 -1% -208

Hand 1: AKs
Hand 2: JJ
Hand 3: 77

Situation, the VERY FIRST hand, your in the BB, they make it 60, you 3bet to 200, they shove

personally this plays a bit differently for me, but let me know if you play these exactly the same (all permutations of hands / opponents)

Re: Sharkscope
 

P.s., all stats are filtered for heads up turbo S&Gs [img]/images/graemlins/smile.gif[/img]

Re: Sharkscope
 

i often sit first and use sharkscope to help me know how to play the opponent. against winning players certain plays will work that won't work against donkeys. I feel like pretty much anybody at the 55s/115s is going to be a dog to me (i have an ego) so I just use SS to figure out how to play them best.

Obviously sitting with fish is going to help your ROI a little over the long run BUT I think that people really misuse the statistics a lot. I mean, in the words of Lennox Lewis, "styles make fights." I do better agaisnt some of the sharks than I do against some of the fish. Basically, my style does poorly against a fair number of the fish. But yes, SS will give you a slightly better ROI over say, 1000 games or so.

Indy

Re: Sharkscope
 

haha, im the opposite however, I feel that alot of plays will work on winning players and against the donks you can't make plays, just gotta go ABC most of the time, but I guess it depends on their style of weirdness ;p

Re: Sharkscope
 

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haha, im the opposite however, I feel that alot of plays will work on winning players and against the donks you can't make plays, just gotta go ABC most of the time, but I guess it depends on their style of weirdness ;p

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that's what im saying.

Re: Sharkscope
 

Personally, I call AK and JJ, and fold 77.

But I play those three hands the same against all 3 opponents on the first hand.

But, I do see your point. On the first few hands, the only information you have is whether they're a winning or losing player. The thing is, you still don't *really* have any information about what they could be pushing with on the first hand. Opponent #2 has probably sharkscoped you, and could just see an easy 200 chips there, knowing you're going to need a monster to call, and wanting to establish a dominant position in the match.

Which is actually sort of an interesting point. There's no way in hell I'm going to push without a monster against Opp 1 or 3, because I don't know what their mistakes are yet (and calling too much is much more common than folding too much) but I *might* against Opp 2, because you don't get stats that good without the ability to lay down pretty big.

So I guess intuitively I believe that you can make decisions based on good stats, but not bad ones.

Which makes sense, because there are MANY ways to be a losing player, but fewer ways to be a winning player, and there are things that most winning players have in common, no matter what their style differences are.

Re: Sharkscope
 

ok, so your reactions would be the same based on all 3 players, but now think if we raised, he 3bets, we 4bet and NOW he shoves, you see how it changes, I think you can almost fold all 3 to opp 2, but still might call one to opp 1, I mean I kinda get what your saying, and I know you need to analyze each player individually, but the point that they are a losing player should tell you something, and also should let you know to look for the major leaks hurting their game, and be able to exploit it, as well as when sitting with a winning player you have ideas of what is probably going on in their head, if you yourself think like a winning player, and just need to exploit their style, I believe SS CAN provide some valuable information, although it's not perfect and doesn't give you any reads, absolutely correct, it still can be very useful IMO

Re: Sharkscope
 

TNixon - you'#re absolutely right, that's exactly what I meant.

Obviously it is best to be playing against losing players rather than winning players, but what baffles me is when people post a marginal hand on about hand 15 and say "I was tempted to [call/shove] because Sharkscope shows he's a donk."

Yeah, but some are donks because they'll try a huge bluff in a situation where you're clearly strong, some because they call way too much, some because they fold way too much, some because they can't lay down a nice looking hand etc. Sharkscope (unlike, for example, PT) doesn't tell you any of those things, just that they are a losing player. It just tells you that there are leaks to look out for.

TNixon put it way better than I did, although I was being slightly vague on purpose!

Re: Sharkscope
 

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ok, so your reactions would be the same based on all 3 players, but now think if we raised, he 3bets, we 4bet and NOW he shoves, you see how it changes, I think you can almost fold all 3 to opp 2, but still might call one to opp 1, I mean I kinda get what your saying, and I know you need to analyze each player individually, but the point that they are a losing player should tell you something, and also should let you know to look for the major leaks hurting their game, and be able to exploit it, as well as when sitting with a winning player you have ideas of what is probably going on in their head, if you yourself think like a winning player, and just need to exploit their style, I believe SS CAN provide some valuable information, although it's not perfect and doesn't give you any reads, absolutely correct, it still can be very useful IMO

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You make some very interesting points, and I've found myself agreeing with your position even though I was black and white on this before. I still think though that SS should barely even be used to determine the playing of a hand (the situation you describe is maybe the only one), and it certainly shouldn't take the place of reads.

I think any decent player should have enough reads after 5 hands to make SS redundant in that respect.

I suppose, thinking about it, the natural conclusion of your argument is that their record should to a certain extent determine how willing we are to put our chips in when we are unlikely to be a long way ahead. If you think the SS stats mean you're likely to beat a player 65% of the time, they should be looking for coinflip or slightly sub-coinflip situations, and you should be avoiding them.

Re: Sharkscope
 

yeah ss just gives you an indication of the severity of their leaks. But I think someone with a very negative roi is way more prone to stack off way light so I will take that into account in individual hands.

Re: Sharkscope
 

Generally when I ask about a Sharkscope it is to get a better idea of how much of a winner the player is. A lot of people post very read dependent hands and say "no reads." So I try to get all the information available at that point in time to figure out what I would do in their spot. Looking at his sharkscope helps to an extent if it is all you have to work off of.

Re: Sharkscope
 

A players SS stats absolutely can and should influence how you play specific hands. For example I would say at least 90 percent of all players with a bad SS ROI will call to many large value bets. Against this player I will increase my implied odds and make much larger value bets with made hands. This is just one example. I don't use any other software then SS and for 100s and 200s hu matches I use it exclusively as strategy help rather then a table selection tool.

Here are a couple less common uses of SS

1. If its early in a match and you cant tell if someone is getting hit with the deck or being agro. Check there last ten games and see the average length of matches. It helps to know whether they are multi tabling but this has helped me more then a few times.
2. A player who does much better in HU matches then 1 table sit and gos is probably on the very aggressive side.

Re: Sharkscope
 

Having information on a player is much better than being entirely clueless. It's absolutely absurd in my opinion to NOT use sharkscope for every single one of your opponents if you're playing HU SnG's. Donks tend to call more, my value bets might be a bit bigger and I'm not going to bluff as much. If I get up against a better player, for the most part I'm going to be a little looser when feeling him out. Knowing that he has an idea of what he's doing, I'll play accordingly.

But claiming that knowing whether a player is good or bad is useless is just ridiculous.