How to use Poker Tracker.

[viper930]

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I might make another post on this, pokey said this was his opinion and I dont want to put him on the spot and I am curious how many other players dont raise pre flop.

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...you're joking right?

[ShakeZula06]

great post. I am somewhat new to NL cash games and this should help me a ton once I get some hands in the ole' DB

Shortcutted this post immediately BTW, I'm sure it'll end up in the FAQ

[Count Stackula]

Great post...i am pretty new and i never really learnt how to use poker tracker properly...they were all just a bunch of numbers to me...now i think i can start to make a bit of sense of it all....

[vulturesrow]

Someone that used to post in here and I wish I could remember who, said they rarely raised preflop, to include big pocket pairs. He had a very healthy winrate and was a well looked upon poster. His defense of this "style" was that he felt that the preflop equity he gave up was more than made up for by the postflop equity that he gained. I'll see if I cant dig up the posts, but with the search function on this system, dont hold your breath [img]/images/graemlins/smile.gif[/img]

[ooinsight]

Thanks for a great post. Definitely warrants reviewing some of my own stats.
Now on the PF aggression topic:
I think the game level ultimately plays a big part in your preflop aggression. If you are playing micro NL with a table of maniacs or call stations (standard micro) the equity of preflop raising can go down a bit. You can argue that it is still better to be aggro preflop in either circumstance but at micro/low limits this often leads to tears. Knowing that the other players thrive on raisewars (in maniac situation) or can't get rid of any 2 (station situation) do you really want to push your connecters hard preflop? I don't think this applies as you move up, even in higher SSNL, but if you know you are going to get called down when you hit it can be profitable to play less aggro. Again, I am talking specifically about uber SS before people tear into my line.

[PaulMTC]

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There are a variety of reasons why raising preflop too infrequently will hurt you:
1. When you've got the best starting hand, you're most likely to have the best hand at showdown. The more money you get into the pot, the better.
2. Every raise and bet you make has a chance of picking up the pot immediately; why pass up a chance to take down 2 PTBB with a hand like 98s? If you have a large database, check out your PTBB/hand for various preflop holdings and notice how few of them win you more money per hand than the 0.75 PTBBs that are in the blinds alone. If you've got one limper in front, the pot now has 1.25 PTBBs in it. Picking these pots up is a serious bonus.
3. Raising preflop sets you up to win the flop VERY often with a continuation bet. OK, so you got called; that's OK! You've now got one opponent who limp/called into a pot, and the board fell with garbage. Your opponent has checked to you. When you bet the pot here, you're going to take down the pot at least 2/3 of the time, showing a VERY tidy profit. Even if you get called, your hand can improve on the turn, or you can take a free river card. The odds of you making money on this hand remain extremely high.
4. Raising preflop makes hand-reading MUCH easier. So you limped preflop with A3s and five people see a flop that comes 743r. Is your hand good? You can't even GUESS at what BB has, since it could be literally any two cards. Anybody who limped with garbage could have hit this rather nicely. However, if you raised big preflop and narrowed the field to heads-up, your odds of having the best hand on this flop are MUCH higher; it's hard for a stray 7 or 4 to have survived a preflop raise. You can narrow your opponent's holding down dramatically: he's usually holding either overcards (that missed) or possibly a pocket pair (that might be getting scared). If he check/calls your bet on the flop, you can start to narrow his holdings, assuming he's more likely to have a small pocket pair, either 22, 55, 66, or maybe 88 or 99. If a big card comes, you can bet again and easily fold out a stronger hand. Sure, it can backfire on you, but there's nothing more frustrating than having your JJ die on a flop of 733 when the big blind had 83o.
5. Raising more hands preflop disguises your big hands more effectively. If you raise 10% of the hands you play, then your opponents can narrow down your hand holdings extremely effectively when you DO raise. However, if you raise 50% of the hands you play, and you change it up based on table conditions, your hands will be MUCH stealthier. He raised from the button; is that 65s or AA? These are questions you want your opponents to have to ask. Not only does this boost the winrate for AA by getting these hands called more often and building them bigger pots, but it also boosts the winrate for 65s by concealing it much more effectively. Any gain you get from making your opponents' hands more easy to read is mirrored by the gain you get from making YOUR hands HARDER to read.

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Pokey, every single last piece of the above on why to raise pre-flop was crystal clear and made absolute sense to me.

You sir are gifted in two areas:

1. The game of poker.
2. The ability to perfectly articulate your understanding of the game to others.

Respect.

[HoldenFoldem]

This is a terrific post , Pokey.
I have just been doing all you suggest and creating the filters for my "Pokey's Poker Checkup" as i go, and keeping them for future reference.
A question arises on #8.
What is the difference between :cold called, and Voluntarily put money in pot (but did not raise)??
ty

edit: JUst answeredthis dumb question for my self. duh, please ignore

[dp13368]

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This needs to be sticky-ed or FAQed. Great post.

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Agreed, great post.

[OrianasDaad]

I found this post during a search for info on "first action on flop after a pre-flop raise" information.

I read and followed the whole post before I realized that this was NL focused. It's still a fantastic peice of work, and valuable even for Limit players like myself.

[cgm93]

I just wanted to concur with others that this post should be stickied. Great Post Pokey. Thanks!