A different sort of stats question

[Aaron W.]

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Solid simply means that relative to my stakes and newbie status I'm not doing a lot of super stupid things to cost myself money pre-flop. My stats are reasonable - can 16/9 be that far out of line?

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"Out of line"? Nope. "Passing up spots to loosen up"? Yes.

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I rarely get bitched at in reviews except for missing an occasional situation or playing occasional hands from the loose chart in EP. I'm not doing a lot of cold-calling, I'm playing off a decent chart, etc. One thing that does worry me about my pre-flop play is that there's not enough variation in VPIP from early to late position. My button VPIP is just over 14% and that sucks. I think it was over 20 at .05/.10. Yet when I review my hands (and I review every single hand I play) I'm not seeing how to increase it without getting myself into a lot of marginal post-flop situations I'm not ready for.

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That's because you can't loosen up beyond 16 VPIP without sometimes running into marginal postflop situations. Actually, you probably can't get much past 12 without some marginal decisions. The question of whether you're "not ready" for them, because if you *ARE* ready for them they're probably not going to be that marginal.

14 VPIP on the button is very very tight. If it's folded to you there, you should be raising more than 14%; if there's one or two limpers in front of you, you should be playing more than 14%; if there are three or more limpers, you should be be playing more than 14%; if it's raised and there are two or more coldcallers or limpers, you should be playing more than 14%. You should only be running that tight is if it's consistently raised when you're on the button.

14 VPIP = 186 hands

Pocket pairs = 78 hands
Suited aces = 48 hands
Offsuit big aces (AK-AJ) = 36 hands
KQ = 16 hands
Total hands listed = 178 hands

Start throwing in hands like QJs-98s, offsuit broadway, and larger suited kings, and you should get over the 14 VPIP mark quite easily.