WOW!
Not to interupt a perfectly good sticky but-NICE job on this stuff, way to go!

I wonder if people will soon be raiding the BTP Limit section for this stuff?

Nice work.

At first blush this seems to be very similar to a calling station. Is there a fundamental difference between the two?

The big difference is the W$SD. The calling station will chase his one or two outer to the river, but he will fold if he has nothing. The showdown muppet will chase the flush w/ his 6,4s and still call the river with bottom pr or even with absolutely nothin.

Also, a showdown muppet may be aggressive. Note in the rule that aggression is not mentioned. This is a guy who believes that you're bluffing with something worse than he has. Like striker said, he will call down with third pair, king-high, etc.

Best part is that they KEEP DOING IT.

Here's my quandry:

We all know that aggression in limit can be vastly different than aggression in no-limit. It's also required to be aggressive on ALL streets, because of bet sizes. An aggressive no-limit player may show flop aggression and be able to win a large number of pots that way, but in limit, you'll frequently be called in that situation.

How should we define (and quantify) an aggressive player?

I think we need to measure total aggression. Aggression on any one street (except for the ultra aggressors) doesn't really determine how they perform throughout later streets. A player who bets a ton of flops may be trying to buy a pot, then shrivel up on the turn/river. So, AF-Total needs to be our measure.

Here are my current numbers for comparison:

Street.................Raise %............Bet%...........Call%..........Check%........Fold%........AF
Flop.....................6.91%.............39.24%.......21.65%.........17.27%........13.30%.....2.13
Turn....................5.38%..............40.08%.......18.82%.........17.61%........16.07%....2.42
River...................5.20%..............41.81%.......17.15%.........17.63%........15.03%....2.74
AF-Total=2.34

Yes, I'm borderline weak/tight. What is more notable about me is the whole raise+bet numbers. To wit, I'm throwing chips at 46.15% of flops, 45.46% of turns, and 47.01% of rivers. That to me is a lot of aggression. If you look at the limit aggression numbers thread, or even the NL aggression numbers thread , I don't think you'll find numbers like that from many players. I do tend to flat call flops, especially with overcards (AK, etc), or to throw a wrench into the picture. (Aside: You'd be amazed at how many 2/4 and 3/6 players fall for the check/call on the flop followed by the check/raise on the turn. It's the stop and go from hell, and I recommend it highly.)

My question is: Does that make me less aggressive?

But I digress. How should we measure aggression in limit? Should we be using Bet%? Raise%? A combination of both? On what streets? Or should we be using AF-Total? And if we do, what should be our cutoff?

Depending on the source of the info, people look at that magic number for aggression differently.

DriveTT uses the following:
AF-T < 2.00 = Passive
AF-T 2.00-3.00 = Neutral
AF-T > 3.00 = Aggressive

I think this is WAY too aggressive. My stats show that only 10% or so of players would be considered aggressive. Too far skewed to one side.

The PokerTrackerGuide guys use these:
AF-T < 1.00 Passive
AF-T 1.01-1.49 Neutral
AF-T > 1.50 Aggressive

excession's rules look more like this:
AF-T < 1.30 Passive
AF-T 1.30-1.80 Neutral
AF-T > 1.80 Aggressive

bisonbison's rules I think are:
AF-T <1.50 Passive
AF-T >1.50 Aggressive

The implication of aggression factor:

< 1.00: Calls more than (bets + raises)
1.00: Calls = (bets + raises)
1.10: For every 10 calls, 11 bets/raises
1.20: For every 5 calls, 6 bets/raises
1.25: For every 4 calls, 5 bets/raises
1.30: For every 10 calls, 13 bets/raises
1.40: For every 5 calls, 7 bets/raises
1.50: For every 2 calls, 3 bets/raises
1.70: For every 5 calls, 8.5 bets/raises
1.75: For every 4 calls, 7 bets/raises, etc.

I hate to rip off the work of others, but I'm believing that our cutoff should be between 1.5 (Tracker Guide guys) and excession's 1.8. Maybe we should be non-scientific and split the difference...

Looking at the graphs again:


The median is actually 1.35 or so. If you take 10% of the players on either side (the middle 20% of the distribution), you get 1.15-1.50--perhaps our neutrals?

That would yield:

VP$IP
<21.00% Tight
21.00-34.99% Semi-Loose
>35.00% Loose
>50% Extra Loose

Aggression (AF-TOTAL)
<1.15 Passive
1.15-1.50 Neutral
>1.50 Aggressive
>2.50 Ultra-Aggressive (or using excession's AF-F > 2.75, AF-T > 1.75, AF-R > 1.75)

Calling Station (CS) = VP$IP > 21.00, AF-Total , 1.00, WtSDWSF > 34.00%
Showdown Muppet (SM) = W$SD 1,00-29.00, WtSD > 15.00% (same as excession's)
Extra Loose (xL) = VP$IP > 50%
Ultra-Aggressor (UA) = AF-Total > 2.50, AF-T > 1.75, AF-R > 1.75 (to eliminate those players that bet into a flop and got folds.


Along with the 4 tweaked categories from excession's rules (thanks again for all the great work!!!), this should give us 13 categories (TA, TN, TP, sLA, sLN, sLP, LA, LN, LP, xL, CS, SM, UA). We need a 14th category. I'm loathe to use excession's weak/tight (WtSD 1.00-13.00), because that can be a winning category in limit, much more than in NL.

APerfect10's idea to flag only good weak/tight players may be applicable:

WtSD % is less than or equal to 18.00
W$SD % is between 67.00 and 99.00

Or, we can modify it to yield only the crappy weak/tight players (the ones we can take advantage of)

WtSD % < 18.00
W$SD % < 33.00

Or, we can use it to show this:

AF-Total < 1.00
Fold to River Bet > 67.00%

Discuss away. We should be auto-rating after 20 hands, FYI.

Great work so far Tibby.

Personally, I would like to see aggressive somewhere in the 1.8 to 2.0 range. No stats to back it up, just that I find those are the players I watch more closely when playing than the ones in the 1.5 to 1.8 range.

We could conceivably raise the aggression threshold to 1.75, but that would create a whole bunch of neutrals, and I'd personally be worried about a player with a 1.6 AF-T. It would look like this:

AF-Total
< 1.15 Passive
1.15-1.75 Neutral
> 1.75 Aggressive
> 2.50 Ultra-Aggressive

Plus, at 1.75-1.8, it would almost precisely mirror excession's rules. Not that excession's rules are bad--they're likely the most carefully thought out on the web, but I think there are many more passive limit players than NL, so IMHO, a lower threshold would apply. I'll try these rules in my DB and see where I get--it'll probably have to wait until Friday, but I'll post what I discover.

Also, think about that 14th category...

tiburon,

just wanted to say that i have really enjoyed this post!

great work and the stats have been very illuminating. i love the approach you are taking with this. i would love see how your latest autoratings hold up over over time (i.e., a much larger sample size). i am certainly taking all of this into consideration and trying to figuring out how to adapt my own rules.

keep up the great work,

cheers,
the Real Macoy