Common leaks in early position and from the blinds....help

[bronxbomber]

I am a small stakes hold'em player. I have just begun to scratch the surface of PT and it's usefulnses in identifying leaks. I have amassed 23k hands thus far at 2/4, which I think now should be representative of my play. Over this time I had been up about .5BB/100 (until a recent run of horrible luck and got me a little tilty). I am rated a TA-A using BisonBison's rules.

Upon playing around with the program, I used the feature that filters hands by position. I set it to show me my stats from positions 6-9 (I usually play 10-handed games), and was shocked to see that my net was immensely negative (about $3k).

The question I have is, besides simply accounting for losses in the blinds, are there other huge leaks that relative newbies such as myself make from early and blind positions? If so, can someone please post the things I should be looking for.

One that I have identified thus far is my reaction to late raisers that appear to be stealing the blinds - I do not respect and fold often enough I think. But this amount is trivial compared to my total losses, so I know there are plenty of other leaks.

Thank you.

[KikoSanchez]

[bronxbomber]

I appreciate any/all help. Here are my numbers...please help!!!! I need it. Sorry if I've posted too many but I figured I'd give the whole thing....

Total hands: 23,145

VP$IP 15.25%
VP$IP from SB 25.11%

Saw Flop all hands 19.67%
Saw Flop Not a Blind 13.13%

Folded SB to Steal: 86.62%
Folded BB to Steal: 78.8%
Fold BB to Steal HU: 70.87%

Blind Defense: Fold% Ww/oSD% WSD% W$SD%
Small Blind 23.81 28.57 47.62 50.0
Big Blind 39.13 21.74 39.13 61.11

Att. To Steal Blinds: 13.83%

Steal Succ: No Flop% Fold% Ww/oSD% WSD% W$SD%
25.0 20.83 47.22 31.94 60.87

Won $ When Saw Flop: 30.29%

Went to Showdown: 29.54%

Won % at SD: 59.55

Raised Pre-flop: 6.51%
Limp/Call Reraise PF 0.02%

First Action on Flop After A Pre-Flop Raise:

Raise: 11.55%
Bet: 41.47%
Call: 4.51%
Check: 25.95%
Check/Raise: 3.98%
Fold: 4.45%
No Flop/No Action: 8.10%

((I can post the actual action numbers if someone thinks they will be useful, otherwise just aggression factors from this table)

Aggression Factor
Flop: 2.42
Turn: 2.99
River: 1.88

BET/RAISED/CHECK-RAISED
Player Actions: Ww/oSD% Fold% WSD% W$SD%
Pre-Flop: 25.81 32.25 41.94 60.76
Flop: 26.65 22.91 50.44 59.22
Turn: 27.87 8.40 63.73 57.05
River: 21.64 1.11 77.25 78.73

JUST CALLED
Ww/oSD% Fold% WSD% W$SD%
Pre-Flop 9.62 67.34 23.04 59.53
Flop 6.72 50.10 43.19 61.78
Turn 2.59 21.36 76.05 57.87
River 0.00 0.37 99.63 31.37


Folded to River Bet: 49.63%

When Folds Hand:
No Fold% Preflop% Flop% Turn% River%
9.01 79.63 7.00 3.15 1.21

Check Raises: 269 Times, 2.24% possible actions,
Flop% 60.59 Turn% 32.34 River% 7.06

[Tiburon]

Here's my take:

VP$IP stats: You're actually a little tighter than me. Good stuff, and your VP$IP from the SB almost matches mine to the decimal.

Blind Steal/Defense: I defend my blind a little more aggressively than you do. Funny part is that you're more successful in your defense than I am. That should tell me something...

If you're going to showdown 29.54% of the time, and winning 59.55% of the time, it sorta reeks of weak-tightness. You actually may be leaving some money on the table by folding out early.

You're aggressive pre-flop, at 15.25/6.51. You actually raise a higher percentage of your hands than me. However, it seems like you tend to slow down after a PFR. I'll show you my stats post-PFR to compare:

First Action on Flop after PFR..............BronxBomber.......Tiburon
Raise.........................................................11.55%.............9.63%
Bet.............................................................41.47%............66.30%
Call.............................................................4.51%...............5.75%
Check........................................................25.95%..............3.90%............. (wow)
Check/Raise................................................3.98%..............2.78%
Fold.............................................................4.45%...............0.47%
No Flop/No Action.......................................8.10%..............11.18%

I am also ridiculously aggressive with leading betting, PFR or not.

As for aggression, you are also very aggressive, but you're allowing people to check too often. Yes, the numbers would be useful. Mine for comparison:

Street............Raise%.............Bet%............Check%
Flop................7.50%.............41.09%..........16.69%
Turn...............4.71%.............42.38%...........18.10%
River..............5.21%.............48.29%...........16.56%

My overall aggression numbers are similar to yours, though my river numbers are higher, and I'd bet that I check a lot less (but I do call more--my personal leak).

Your numbers by action do show symptoms of weak/tightness, and do tell me that you may be leaving money on the table by not betting solid but non-nuts hands. By that, I mean that you're winning an obscene number of hands when you bet the river--you're only betting with solid hands. This really isn't a bad thing, but like I said, comparing them to when you just call, you're really ONLY betting hands you're sure are winners. I also show these tendencies in my play, only not to the extreme level of your numbers.

My only suggestion is to enhance your reading ability. You seem (and I could be wrong here) to be playing on the first level of poker thought and maybe into the second:

Level 1: What do I have? What is my hand, and what hand can I make from this?
Level 2: What does my opponent have? What is his hand? Can my hand beat what I think he has?
Level 3: What does my opponent think I have? If I were him, what hand would I put me on? Does he think he has the best hand even though I know he doesn't?
Level 4: What does my opponent think that I think they have? What hand is my opponent thinking that I feel they're playing?



I think you're a solid player (from your numbers). Your main problems (IMHO, of course) are the following:

1) Are you laying down solid, but non-nut hands, leaving money on the table when your hand is really good?
2) About your losses from EP and the blinds. Everybody loses money from the blinds. It's normal. What hands are you playing in EP? Go into the position stats tab of PT and highlight your losing positions one by one, then print out the list of hands you've played (I believe the second window, that lists everything by AKs, AKo, etc). Look at the hands you're playing with a VP$IP > 50%. These are the hands you play more often than not from the respective position. Evaluate your pre-flop hand standards, and look at what you actually play from EP. Ideally, your VP$IP should be lowest from the blinds, and increase steadily to the button. Don't worry if yours isn't a perfect curve, but look for the trends above all. You could also be losing hands because you're scared off by raises after you act early on.

I hope this helps you a bit, and please realize that your mileage may vary with my advice.

[bronxbomber]

Thank you SO much. I'm going to review things after your thoughtful post. Things just got so bad on a recent bad luck stretch where I've lost a ton of money that I had to take stock and try to find out what the heck is going wrong. Your assessment however leaves me wondering exactly why I've been on such a horrific losing streak, if my numbers aren't all that bad. Variance?

Anyway, I am going to look at the numbers and your suggestions and try to take it to the next level. Thank you again.

And if anyone else has suggestions/comments, they would be really appreciated.

BB

[Tiburon]

It could easily just be variance. Also, the 2/4 games (where you play would be very helpful) are often the upper limit of the bonus whores, who come out in force whenever a nice bonus is offered. That could also be a possibility.

Good luck, and if you need any more help, feel free to post or PM me!

[KikoSanchez]

Thanks for posting your stats Bronx, but what I was hoping for are the position-specific stats for seats 5,6,7. VP$ip, BB/100, and PFR for each seat should do. Also, if you can explain what hands you play/raise from EP off the top of your head would help also.

As for your recent downswing, I think variance can always be a factor. You should think about how you are playing, if anything could possibly be affecting you. Of course, this hard look at your playing is definetly a good thing. If you have only been winning at .5BB/100 I think there is room for improvement and some leaks that can be found. Maybe post some hand examples where you have won or lost more than 5 BB.

[piersmajestyk]

You are folding too much against steals when you are Heads Up from the Big Blind. I virtually never fold in that situation although I am certainly not advocating that style of play for you to tackle but you should definately be defending more. I have posted several things about blind defense and also Tib has some pointers from his blog that you can find in his journal section. Good luck.