PokerTracker 4

Finding Leaky Hands to Study with PokerTracker 4

By Sky Matsuhashi on March 26, 2020

I get lots of emails from listeners and Poker Forge members about plugging their leaky spots. These leaky spots cause them to lose money and potentially stay at their current buy-in level for a really long time.

One of the study techniques I like to guide people towards is studying their database of hands in PokerTracker 4. All it takes is a little insight into your weaknesses and some PT4 know-how to filtering through your database of hands to learn from your play and to explore new strategies.

I’m going to help you find hands related to 3 common leaky spots.

Listen to this podcast episode #284: Finding Leaky Hands to Study with PokerTracker 4

Leaky Play #1: Calling Too Frequently Pre-flop

You might be a leaky preflop caller if… the gap between your VPIP and PFR is greater than your PFR.

I’m channeling my inner Foxworthy: “You might be a redneck if…”

The gap between VPIP and PFR shows how passive you are. This percentage is made up of all the calling and limping you do pre-flop. A large gap means you’re too passive with weak hands, and this means you’re probably giving your opponents a mathematical advantage.

Let’s say the worst King your opponent open-raises is KTs. If you’re calling with KQs, great, you dominate him. But, if you call with K2s-KJs and Q2s-QJs and other weaker non-pair hands, he’s dominating you. So, when you both hit a top pair, you’re crushed and losing a large pot. The best calling ranges are small and the hands are towards the top of your opponent’s range. So, if they open-raise K2s+, your call with KQs and KJs is crushing their King-high range.

Use PokerTracker 4 to see if this is a leaky spot for you

First, what’s the gap between your total VPIP and PFR? If it’s greater than your PFR? Then you just might be a leaky preflop caller.

Next, run the Holdem Hand Range Visualizer in PT4. First, look at the visualizer with the “VPIP” heat map statistic selected. All of the green highlighted hands are ones you’ve VPIP’d with. Check out all the “questionable” VPIP’ing hands you’ve played.

Now, change the heat map statistic to Call Preflop 2bet (I show you how in the video below). These are all the hands you’ve called with. Review any “questionable” hands like J4o, K4o and 32s. Also, find and review big losing hands.

Figure out why you made the calls you did. Were they +EV calls, or probably -EV? Were they calls out of spite, hopeful calls to hit a flush? Maybe you were in the BB and no matter how weak your hand is, you just can’t fold vs a min-raise. Figure out what mistakes you made so you can work to NOT repeat them in the future

Let’s say you think you have a particular issue with defending your BB and you call way too much in this particular position. Here’s a filter you can run in PT4 to see the profitability of your BB calls:

What’s your win rate with this filter? If it’s better than -100bb/100 hands, then you’re making +EV calling choices. But if it’s worse, and I wouldn’t be surprised if you told me yours was -300bb/100 hands, then you’re making some crappy BB calling decisions. You gotta work to fix this ASAP.

Leaky Play #2: Inability to Fold TP Post-flop

You might be a profit giving fish if… you can never fold a TP hand.

This leak often comes from the two different sources:

You HATE getting bluffed. Maybe you’re a frequent bluffer, so you see this same capability in your opponents. You need to realize that when players are betting multiple streets, they often have better than a TP hand.
You want to win this pot SOOOOOOO bad. You’ve put money in the pot preflop, on the flop and the turn. There’s no way you’re giving up on YOUR money and YOUR pot. Here’s the thing: You must realize that once the chips leave your stack, they’re not yours any more. Sure, it’s still worth fighting for, but don’t chase the money. The strength of your hand is just one factor. You want to make plays that take into account your opponent, the board, their range and their actions.

Use PokerTracker 4 to see if this is a leaky spot for you

First, is folding TP a problem for you? If so, my guess is you’ve been stuck at your stakes for a really long time.

Second, run this filter in PT4:

If your win rate is less than 100bb/100 hands, and if it’s negative, you have an issue here. Start going through the losing hands to understand why you’re calling and losing so much with just TP.

It’s critical that you spend time reviewing hands where you called a turn bet or called a river bet. Find your mistakes and learn from them.

Leaky Play #3: Playing OOP Too Often

You might be a leaky OOP player if… you’re IP on the flop less than 40% of the time.

This leak goes along with the first one above. If you’re OOP too often, it’s probably because you’re calling in the blinds too much. One way to make more profits in poker is to strive for Bread & Butter. This is when you see the flop IP as the preflop raiser versus one or two callers. When you call in the blinds, you’re giving them B&B. This means you’re giving your opponents theoretical money when you call from the blinds.

Do you remember what I said above about the chips that leave your stack? Yep, they’re no longer yours. So, don’t think of the blind you put out as your money. Instead, think of it as a discount to play only if you have a hand worthy of playing. Don’t defend your blinds with unworthy hands like J4o and 92s.

Use PokerTracker 4 to see if this is a leaky spot for you

First, be honest and admit if you call too often from the blinds.

Second, as mentioned above, you can use the Holdem Hand Range Visualizer or simply filter for SB and BB 2bet calls.

Third, run these filters to see how often you see the flop IP versus OOP and pay attention to the different win rates.

Hopefully this first filter shows a + win rate. Write down the number of hands and the win rate.

Next, run this filter:

The NOT IP filter will probably show a smaller win rate, but hopefully, it’s not negative. Write down the number of hands.

Now, you know how many hands were IP and how many were NOT IP. So, what’s the % of IP hands? If it’s less than 40%, you have to make better blind calling decisions so you give less B&B to your opponents.

Take a look again at how more profitable it is to see the flop IP. Yep, let this help to spur you to play IP more often.

Take Action: Get to work!

Here’s my challenge to you for this episode: You know what you must do now. I told you 3 leaky spots and many different ways to analyze your hands. Get to work.

Now it’s your turn to take action and do something positive for your poker game.

Q&A: Don’t Get Married to Hands, PokerTracker 4 Episodes, Accept the Setbacks

Listen to this podcast episode #285: Don’t Get Married to Hands, PokerTracker 4 Episodes, Accept the Setbacks

Question 1: Avoid Getting Married to Hands

From: Matt Hubbard

I’d say the number one thing I need to get better at is not getting “married” to bad or marginal or just obviously loosing hands.

Answer:

This is a super common problem. Lots of players see a nice hand (either preflop or on any street) and suddenly get the idea that they’re going to win a huge pot. You’ve got to realize it’s not the strength of the hand you hold that matters, it’s the way you play the hand that can lead to a win or a loss (or minimizing loss).

Your problem might also stem from an attitude of entitlement with the strongest hands. We put hands like AA, KK or QQ on a pedestal and we expect to win with them every time.

Here are 3 things you could do to help not get married to hands:

1. Train yourself to NOT get married to hands.

You’ve developed a habit of over-valuing 1 pair hands or non-nut hands, so it’s going to take work to break this habit. Focus on it during your warm-ups. Write down all you can about this “marriage” problem you have and read your notes before you begin your session. Commit to NOT getting married to hands based on strength. Instead, force yourself to have this attitude with every hand regardless of its strength:

“What’s the best way for me to play this hand right now?”

Write that down on a sticky note and ask then answer it every time you choose to play a hand.

2. Remove your hand from your mouse when “marriage” is likely.

You know what hands and situations come up that make it hard to fold. Hands like big pocket pairs, flopping 2 pair or sets or hitting straights on 2-heart boards.

Removing your hand from your mouse helps to prevent “finger tilt” which is when you make a button click you know you shouldn’t make, but your emotions are running wild and your finger can’t help it. This gives your brain extra time to think through the situation and all the information present before your body makes its play.

3. Review your biggest losing 1 pair showdown hands.

When you get married to a hand, it’s often just 1 pair like an overpair or TP hand. You can get so enamored by its strength that you forget to think about all the other important factors. By reviewing these big losing hands, you’ll pickup on mistakes you’ve made. The idea is to catch your mistakes, record them in your poker journal then work to NOT repeat them on the felt.

Often times in these big losing pots, your opponents show they’re interested in the hand three times or more. When somebody opens the pot pre-flop then calls, that’s twice they’ve put money in. When they call your cbet, that’s a third time they’ve shown you they like their hand. Alarm bells should be ringing at this point. When they donk bet on the turn, that’s #4. The more times they’re willing to put money in the pot and the more money they put in, the more they like their hand and it’s a real possibility your non-nut hand is beat.

Question 2: PokerTracker 4 Podcast Episodes

From: Charles Ogle

I’d like to find all of your podcasts that discuss PokerTracker 4.

Answer:

I’ve done many podcast episodes that feature PokerTracker 4 and tons that mention it here and there. Here are 8 of my favorite PT4-related episodes:

#51: 5 Ways to Improve with PokerTracker 4
#54, #56, #58 and #60: Maximizing Your HUD (series)
#97: Steal Popup and Purposeful Practice
#225: Finally Learn to Use a Poker HUD
#284: Finding Leaky Hands to Study with PokerTracker 4

Check out my YouTube Playlist of PokerTracker 4 videos.

Make the PT4 statistics report more useful:

Question 3: Accept the Setbacks

From: Adam Broskow

Boils down to this: I was ready to play a tourney and was pumped in the days leading up to it. I cleared my schedule for the morning tourney, but it didn’t meet the player requirement so it was cancelled. This bummed me out, but I decided to play in the same tourney scheduled for later in the day. When it started, I wasn’t pumped anymore and couldn’t get in the right mindset because of the disappointment of the earlier tourney not running. How can I deal with setbacks like this?

Answer:

I think you can benefit from 2 things:

Accepting when things don’t go as planned

Most human misery comes from non-acceptance. Something goes wrong, whether you caused it or not, and fighting the truth of this causes us mental anguish.

We all have to work on accepting what life hands us.

Don’t allow your mood to sour like this just due to a small setback. It was like the words you said to yourself in the morning were, “Everything’s perfect, I’m going to rock this tournament”. And in the afternoon it changed to, “Dammit, now my whole day is shot and I have to play later than I want and this sucks!”

Try to keep things like this in perspective and accept the changes. You’re going to go through small setbacks like this thousands of time in your life. Are you going to let each of those throw you off your game like you did here? For your sake, I hope not. Roll with the punches in life.

Warm-up to help get your head in the game

Everybody warms-up before a big event, like people playing sports or before they go up on stage. We must do the same as poker players. Warming-up by looking at your notes or doing a hand reading exercise or watching a training video or meditating can help you get into the right mind space for poker. The goal is to begin your session in a positive frame of mind so you can play you’re a-game.

Improve Your PokerTracker 4 Use

Check out some of my PokerTracker 4 videos on YouTube. Watch and repeat what I do to learn a new way to use PT4 to improve your studies and skills.

Support the Show

Adri Van Kan picked up PokerTracker 4 (get it here to support the show), the best poker tracking software. I love it and use it everyday! In appreciation, I sent Adri a copy of my Smart HUD for PT4. With an ever-growing database of hands to study and all the helpful features, PT4 is the go-to software for serious poker players.

Ruud Averdijk and Toth Banderas bought the Smart HUD with a 1.5 hour webinar for PokerTracker 4. It’s the best online poker HUD in the business with every critical stat in the HUD and the 7 custom popups. This is what every online player needs to maximally exploit opponents.

5 Ways to Improve with PokerTracker 4 | Podcast #51

By Sky Matsuhashi on October 11, 2019

PokerTracker 4 is the best software for online poker play. In this podcast you’ll learn 5 ways to utilize this value program (and my favorite!) to improve your game.

Post updated 10.11.19

In episode 49 I helped you stop chip spew by plugging the leak of betting or raising without a good reason.

5 Ways to Improve with PokerTracker 4

Podcast Mission (4:15)

My mission for today is to outline 5 smart ways of using PokerTracker 4 to improve your online poker skills, thereby making you a more exploitative and dangerous player.

1. Utilizing the Statistics (5:40)

The statistics allow you to see your game as a whole, and how all your plays add up to the player you are.
Sort your hands by position, session, date, stake or even by starting hands.
Check to see that you’re positionally aware.
Check win rates by position and they should increase as position gets later.
Now analyze the stats and look for big frequency changes and numbers too big or too small.
Look at the hands played by position and analyze the questionably played hands.
You can analyze your stats and those of your opponents as well.

Try PokerTracker 4 for 30 days FREE and support the show! If you decide to purchase, I’ll send you my Smart HUD in appreciation.

2. Filtering your database for situations (9:15)

This is one of the best ways to learn from PT4.

3. Utilizing a Heads-up Display or HUD (10:30)

This is the #1 reason most players use PokerTracker 4.

Real-time statistics on our opponents that accumulate over time
Configurable with hundreds of different stats, but the most common stats to see are VPIP, PFR, AFq or AF, 3bet, Fold to 3bet, Cbet, Fold to Cbet, Steal or Fold to Steal
The HUD gets more useful with more hands on a player: 100 is okay, 250 is good, 500 is great and 1,000+ is super.
HUD’s can be used determine our strategy to exploit a particular opponent before or after we’re dealt a hand.

My Smart HUD in action:

4. Finding potential cash game leaks with LeakTracker (15:00)

LeakTracker feature analyzes your database and shows you how your stats compare to those of winning players at 6max and full-ring games.

Anything outside of the average winning player’s stats indicates a potential leak. After finding these potential leaks, you must return to the Statistics tab and begin filtering for specific situations to begin reviewing hands. The goal here is to find losing spots, dissect the hands, discover your mistakes then work to not repeat them on-the-felt.

5. Sharing Hands w/coaches, friends and forums (16:30)

One great way to study is to share these perfectly recorded hands with friends, forums or your coach to get feedback on your play. And the best place for you to start doing this is in the Smart Poker Study Facebook Discussion Group. Here’s a screenshot of a video hand history I put in the group:

Podcast Challenge (17:35)

Here’s my challenge to you for this episode: Get your butt in gear, and start a free trial of PokerTracker 4 to improve your game today. If you’ve already got PT4 and aren’t utilizing all of its features to improve your game, what are you waiting for? Commit to using the software for an hour a day over the next 5 days.

1st Day: Review the entire month of March starting with your statistics and look at them by position.
2nd Day: Test out the filters and start by filtering for opportunities to cbet and review those hands.
3rd Day: Improve your HUD by adding/subtracting stats as you feel is necessary to improve your in-game reads.
4th Day: Use LeakTracker and see what it tells you about your cash game leaks.
5th Day: drop a couple hands in the Smart Poker Study Facebook discussion group and ask for some opinions on your play.

Up Next…

In podcast 52, I’ll answer 3 listener Q’s about poker strategy and mastery vs overload, push/fold strategy and playing 50/50 SNG’s.

Until next time, study smart, play much and make your next session the best one yet.

Q&A: Playing with Restrictions, Making Better Bluffs and Improved Software Usage | Episode 188

By Sky Matsuhashi on May 23, 2018

I answer 3 questions about playing online poker with restrictions, making better bluffs and improving your software usage skills.

In episode 187, I discussed how to get more Bread & Butter out of your poker play sessions and how to avoid non-B&B spots.

Q1: Playing Online Poker with Restrictions (2:10)

From: DL

Situation: Tilting over the fact that some online sites don’t allow the use of HUD’s nor the use of certain software like Flopzilla. DL is so used to using them that not being able to has hampered their play and motivation.

One question asked was: Any advice on how to get unstuck and just start over? Just stop whining, buckle down and get to it?

Answer:

I did an MED Monday episode about this called “Playing poker… but without a HUD?!” (episode 16… you’ll have to scroll down a bit): https://www.smartpokerstudy.com/MEDMonday

Here’s the link to Nathan William’s article: https://www.blackrain79.com/2018/05/poker-hud-banned.html

Don’t think of these as “restrictions” that hamper your ability to play. Instead, treat them like challenges to overcome to turn yourself into a better poker player. Once you develop these no-HUD and no-software skills, you’ll be an even better online and LIVE player.

Because you can’t use Flopzilla while you play, do more things off the felt to help you on the felt. Create 4 different range one-sheets to reference as you play. These are pieces of paper, one each for 2bet ranges, 2bet calling ranges, 3bet ranges and a fourth sheet for 3bet calling ranges. You’ll include screen shots of each range along with combo counts and %-form for each. When you face an opponent, put them on one of the ranges from the corresponding sheet and judge how well it hits the flop.

To help you with this aspect, you can also put how well each range “hits” various boards. Like a 15% calling ranges A92r 35% of the time and it hits Js9s8h 54% of the time.

NO WHINING. Every bad thing or situation that happens to you is your fault. Do not blame others as that won’t solve your problems. Take responsibility and deal with every problem in the best way you can. The recommendations I made above will help you with this situation, but I’m sure you can come up with other helpful responses as well.

Q2: Making Better Bluffs (6:50)

From: Andreas Roder

Q: I am interested in learning about bluffs, steals and re-steals.

Answer:

Bluffing and stealing are important aspects. Before you click the button to steal (or throw out the LIVE chips), ask yourself this question:

“Can my opponent fold here?”

Here are some things to help you answer this:

How does their range interact with the board?

If they called preflop and the board comes JT9, be very careful as people love calling with broadway and middle pairs. If they’re a nit who opens a small range, they won’t like the 862 board and you can bluff as the caller more frequently.

Player type: Nits and TAG’s are the most likely to fold as they don’t like to go too far in a hand or put too much money in a pot without a strong hand. LAG’s and Whales can call more often as they like to chase draws and they hope their 2nd pair hands are good.

Before you make the bluff, name the better hands they can fold.

For example, on an A92 board you might say “My bet can get them to fold underpairs and Kx, Qx hands. Even 2nd pair will fold because I raised preflop and have many Aces in my range.” If you can name lots of hands that can fold, then you’re thinking through your bet and it’s more likely to work.

If online, look at their Fold to Cbet on that street. If it’s greater than 60%, your bluff is more likely to work. Also: Cbet Raise, Check-raise, Donk Bet, Fold to Bet stats.

In position bluffs work more frequently than out of position bluffs.

Utilize sizing that they’ll fold to:

Too many people call 1/2 pot bets now. You’ve got to make it 2/3 or greater to get opponents to fold, especially on the flop. You can also make special double-barrel betting strategies. For example, you can bet 1/3 pot on the flop then increase it to 1/2 or 2/3 on the turn. This saves your flop and turn bluffs some money and it looks incredibly strong. It’s like you were trying to extract some value on the flop, now on the turn you’re trying to extract even more value.

Q3: Improved Software Usage (12:15)

From: Hans

Q: I want to understand PT 4 and how to use it.

Answer:

Learning how to use PT4 just comes with experience. Dedicate :15 per day to just reviewing hands, running filters and reports and seeing what it can do. As you mess with it, new ideas will popup in your head and you’ll try to do them (like filtering for specific situations or running reports to find the most aggressive 3bet winners).

One of my favorite motto’s is:

The more you do, the more you can do.

Get in there and use it repeatedly.

Also, run Google and YouTube searches for videos related to the software.

Here’s my playlist PT4 videos in YouTube.

Whatever videos you watch, follow along and copy exactly what the video creator is doing. Don’t do it with hands from your database yet. Try to match their exact inputs and get the same results. If you do this successfully, that’s when you can start using your own database of hands or creating your own HUD’s and Popups.

Other software to learn this way: Flopzilla, HM2, Equilab, PIO Solver, CREV

Challenge (14:50)

Here’s my challenge to you for this episode: Get in there and build experience with your chosen software. Do you want to learn Flopzilla, PT4, PIO Solver or CREV? Find some videos on YouTube and copy what they’re doing as you watch. Then, use your own database and repeat the steps with your hands. Commit to just 15 minutes per day for the next week, and I guarantee you’ll get more out of the software.

Now it’s your turn to take action and do something positive for your poker game.

Support the Show

Darrel Rodgers picked up my “Poker Mathematics Webinar” and he got $5 off by going through this link: https://gum.co/bYkwJ/5off Thank you so much, Darrel.

Using PokerTracker 4 Reporting

By Sky Matsuhashi on August 13, 2015

I use PokerTracker 4 as my poker tracking software of choice. It gives me an incredible advantage over many of my opponents, who at the micro stakes, don’t use it (or possibly don’t even know it exists). The reporting features that allow me to review my hands are invaluable, and being able to sort through and filter my hands for specific situations that I find troubling have really helped me to improve my poker game.

PokerTracker 4 Feature: Reports Viewer

There’s an abundance of report types and grouping choices available to view your poker database, and all of them allow you to research your stats and analyze your poker game.

In fact, there’s so many choices that it’s a bit difficult (not to mention boring) to detail each of them here. So, to make the information more palatable, here’s a video that walks you through a lot of the reports I use and how I go about configuring them:

As mentioned before, with such an abundance of report options available to you, I encourage lots of playing around with the program to find what reports and groupings work best for you. The more you use it, the more you’ll get out of it.

Another great aspect to PokerTracker 4 is the ability to not only view your own hands played, but you can view those of your opponents. Just select a particular opponent’s screen name in the drop down box at the top, then review how he plays his hands. This is very helpful when trying to find the weaknesses of other regs at your tables.

PokerTracker 4 Feature: Easy Hand History Reviews

Hand History Reviews within PT4 are easy to do. If you’ve never done a hand history review, get ready for some eye opening info.

Hand history reviews allow you to see every hand you played within a given cash session, MTT or SNG. You can review your play for good decisions, errors made, trouble spots, opponent tendencies and any other aspect you want to dive into. You can use the Hand Replayer to view the hand as it was played (albeit without the timing in place), and you can thoroughly dissect situations to find the most profitable lines.

Once again, it’d be a bit cumbersome to write out here how you can do hand reviews, so I made a video to help you get started in doing this on your own within PT4:

Some of the details you may want to look for when doing Hand History Reviews are (among many others not mentioned here):

How you play by position – What are your stats in each position for VPIP, PFR, 3bet, Cbet, etc? Are you positionally aware? Are your opponents? Where do you tend to fold to cbets or 3bets most often? Which positions are you most profitable in, and which ones are you constantly losing money in?
Starting hand strength – Are you playing good, strong ranges that open up as you get to later positions? What are you defending or 3betting with? Are you too nitty and playing a small and overly strong range, or maybe too weak and wide of a range?
Facing pre-flop actions – what hands do you call opens with, 3bet with, fold with? Are you playing too nitty IP vs opens, or maybe too loose? How do you react to 3bets or squeeze opportunities in late positions or in the blinds?
Viewing each hand played at a table – view the entire hand history of one SNG, MTT or cash table from start to finish. How does your play change as the game goes on, stacks change, opponent’s change, tourney structure changes, etc? Look for leaks in your game as situations change.

There are so many other details to look for, and you’ll learn them all as you get more familiar with PT4.

PokerTracker 4 Feature: Convenient Filtering System

The hand filtering system within PT4 is easy to use and allows you to drill down in a super detailed way to review hands for whatever situation you want to focus on.

Want to see hands where you called a 3bet pre in the small blind? Or hands where you faced an open shove with a pocket pair and folded? Looking to dissect your play in squeeze spot situations? Want to see how you react as the pre-flop raiser on monotone 9 high boards? You can view each of these (and thousands more) by getting familiar with the filtering system. Here’s a video to help you get started:

Additional PokerTracker 4 Features

Besides the items mentioned here, there are loads of additional features that PokerTracker 4 contains:

Poker HUD (Heads-up Display) for in-game exploitation of opponents
LeakTracker
More poker stats than you can shake a stick at
Graphing Features
Note Tracking
Training Videos
Dedicated Forums
and many more

There’s too much to go over in this post, so I’ll be creating lots more for your poker learning.

If you’re interested in a free trial of PokerTracker 4, please click on the link below to access my affiliate page.
Make your next session the best one yet!

My New Poker HUD Part 8 – the 3Bet Pop-up

By Sky Matsuhashi on May 25, 2015

This is the final part in a series about my newly developed poker HUD for MTT’s and SNG’s. It’s adapted from Assassinato’s and Apestyles’ poker HUD’s that they’ve recently discussed in some Cardrunners.com videos.

In this post I’ll discuss my 3Bet Pop-up. It’s taken directly from Apestyles’ pop-up with a few stat changes and aesthetic changes to suit my own game. I’ll cover this pop-up with an emphasis on dissecting a particular opponent’s stats.

*Also, it’s key to note that I use PokerTracker 4 as my software choice, so some of these stats might be named differently or even calculate differently in other software. If you’re interested in getting PT4 for yourself, please click on my affiliate link in the sidebar, or check out the Resources page for more info.

3Bet Pop-up

This pop-up is attached to my opponent’s 3bet stat on my Player Stats HUD. It gives me a more detailed look at my opponent’s 3bet tendencies. It’s broken down into a few sections: Total Stats (3bet, squeeze, fold to 4bet and 5bet+), Positional Stats (call 2bet, 3bet, squeeze), 3bet vs positions and two post-flop 3bet+ pot stats that can help me determine what my possible options are post-flop to steal or get value from this 3bettor.

On this particular opponent I have 965 hands. I also include the VPIP and PFR in the white area up top to remind me of his overall play. This guy, at 39/16, is quite fishy and loose-passive (LP). He likes to see lots of flops and raises a rather strong range.

‘Total’ Stats (top part in orange)

3Bet (in PT4 make sure to use ‘3Bet Preflop’ and not ‘Total 3bet’)

Most value 3bettors fall around 8 to 10%, with anything below being rather nitty (TT+ and AQ+). At about 10-14% you’ve got a tough player who likes to throw in hands just below his flatting range (if the worst he’d call your open with is KTs, then he might 3bet bluff K9s and K8s). This is the sweet spot for most regs, which makes them pretty hard to read. Unfortunately, this guy falls in this range, but looking at his 39/16 stats, it’s probably just dumb luck on his part and not an attempt to stay balanced. Anything over 14% is just a whole lot of bluffs.

The key to using the 3Bet stat efficiently is: Every time you get 3Bet look at this stat by position (next section below) to determine their likely hand strength. But having said that, knowing their total 3betting tendencies can really help to play opponents. This 11.5% total 3Bet is 29/252 instances, so it’s a decent sample size. You can put him on roughly any pocket pair (maybe not 22-33) A8s+, ATo+ and some good suited K’s. For help on calculating ranges on the fly, check out my Learning Poker Ranges the Easy Way post. He does have some decent value hands here, but maybe some hands with negative implied odds (hands that when hit can win small or lose big, like AT and KT).

Squeeze

The Squeeze is a great play to use to steal pots or to get extra value from two calling stations. Most of the time, squeezes work as a steal because the first to raise can often be relatively weak (rampant aggression in today’s game means people open w/very wide ranges from any position). The overcaller is weak b/c if he were strong, he would’ve likely raised it. A 3Bet here puts lot of pressure on the opener b/c he doesn’t close the action, and it puts pressure on the overcaller b/c he’s most likely weak. Some opponents use this as a steal spot, but the %’s fall in line with 3Bet %’s outlined above. At 6.1% he’s overall a value squeezer, so watch out if you’re caught in this. You can probably value 4bet pretty big w/AA or KK as he’ll likely call or overshove.

Fold to 4Bet

He’s only faced 4bets twice, but both times he didn’t fold. Even though it’s a small sample, it’s safe to assume that he’s likely calling a 4bet.

5Bet +

This can be helpful when especially deep (100bb’s+), but for the most part players are getting it in before a 5bet in MTT’s and SNG’s. This can be a bit more helpful in cash games, but it’s probably not until you’ve got 3K+ hands on a player that you even see one or two instances when he has the chance to 5bet. It does take some balls to make a bluff 3bet and a bluff 5bet, so if you get 5bet, I hope you’ve got AA against most players.

Positional Stats

Call 2Bet

I include this stat so I can see the difference between his calling 2Bets and making 3Bets. If you would add these two together, then he’s playing vs a 2Bet 36.5% of the time, and folding 63.5%. But, sometimes he may call with a hand like KQo and sometimes 3bet (depending on opponent). Since some hands could fall into both plays, I would say he plays about 30% of hands to a 2Bet and folds 70% of the time. If he plays 30% of the time, and only raises about 1/3 of those hands, his 2bet calling range is pretty weak: he’s a prime candidate for a bluff squeeze to succeed (his hand is in the bottom 67% of his playing range).

3Bet

A great stat to see would be how often they 3bet IP or OOP. PT4 doesn’t offer this stat, but you can get a good sense of what it is by what position they’re doing the majority of 3Bets from. If most are on the BTN and CO, then they like IP. If they 3bet a lot from the SB then they don’t really care about position or he likes to resteal a lot. This guy seems to be doing most of it on the BTN, but it’s not much more often than other positions. I think he doesn’t really 3bet bluff IP a lot, so his 3bet from any position is the practically same range. Of course it’s good to keep in mind that as the positions get later and later there’s more chances to 3bet from them, so the stats are more reliable in on the BTN, SB and BB (45 instance, 71 and 90 respectively).

Versus this opponent I would probably 4bet any KK or AK and I’d flat with hands that I think could hit hard and crack his pretty tight range.

Squeeze

He obviously likes to do it from the BTN, but it is only 1 out of just 4 chances. But it’s still at least a little reliable. He’s probably just doing it with great value hands, but w/only 4 chances it’s hard to say for sure, but that’s how I’d treat a squeeze from him in any position.

Versus Position Stats (2nd set of orange)

Sometimes you’ll encounter players who love to 3Bet vs the MP, or vs the BTN. If you find a player like that, then you want to see the flop if you’re in that position or come over the top to resteal as that’s likely his intent. The key to utilizing these stats here is to find discrepancies to exploit. For this opponent, the vs CO stat seems to be an anomaly, but the other stats are all within just about 4 points of each other, so this is another indication that he just 3bets the same range from any position and against any position. If I’m calling his 3Bet from the BTN, then I’m also calling from MP or the BB.

Post Flop 3Bet + Pots (bottom section)

Cbet

If you find an opponent has this stat too high, then you can flat them pre, then stick it to them post flop and get them off most hands. Use the stat below this to help you gauge as well. A high Cbet and high Fold Cbet to Raise is a perfect opponent to flat anything pre and raise or c/r them off of most flops. This guy, at a 78% Cbet doesn’t want to give you that 3bet pot, but his 100% fold Cbet to Raise stat says you can get him to do that, on the right boards at least.

Often against opponents like this one, if he’s got AKs he’ll 3Bet then Cbet any flop. If you would shove pre, he’d definitely call you. But on a flop like J23r or TT8, he’s just giving up to flop aggression. Flatting pre gives you another way to win a pot on the flop if his flop stats say he’s got a weakness here.

You can also see his turn Cbet stat is 100% (but just 1 for 1 instance). If you’re going for value, just call the flop and give him the chance to fire the turn before you raise and go for additional value.

Fold Cbet to Raise

This, along with the Cbet stat above helps you determine how flop honest the guy is. Look for high/high in these two numbers for someone to blow off their hand on the flop if you’re bluffing. If you want value, don’t raise too much or not at all.

So many stats, so little space

With your HUD and pop-ups, you’ve got hundreds of stats to choose from. Some are good for multiple situations and others are good for more detailed hand history analysis and review. Experiment with different stats from week to week, take notes on your use of them, and determine which ones will benefit you at the tables and include those on your HUD and Pop-ups.

HUD and Pop-up space is at a premium, so be judicial in your choices and practice using them all constantly. Focus on one Pop-up and one set of HUD stats each session. This will help you gain utmost understanding of these and will put their use in your unconscious competence, making it so you can use these skills without even thinking about them.

Please let me know what stats I’m missing from my poker HUD in the comments below. Let’s work together to build up our skills.

And please, if you liked this article and think it can benefit your poker playing friends and followers, tweet it for me: Tweet

Make your next session the best one yet!

My New Poker HUD Part 7 – the Fold to Cbet Pop-up

By Sky Matsuhashi on May 23, 2015

This is part 7 in a series about my newly developed poker HUD. It’s adapted from Assassinato’s and Apestyles’ HUD’s that they’ve recently discussed in some Cardrunners.com videos.

In this post I’ll discuss my Fold to Cbet Pop-up. It’s taken directly from Apestyles’ pop-up with a few stat changes and aesthetic changes to suit my own game. I’ll cover this pop-up with an emphasis on dissecting a particular opponent’s stats.

*Also, it’s key to note that I use PokerTracker 4 as my software choice, so some of these stats might work differently or even calculate differently in other software. If you’re interested in getting PokerTracker 4 for yourself, please click on my affiliate link in the sidebar, or check out the Resources page for more info.

Fold to Cbet Pop-up

This pop-up is attached to my opponent’s Fold to Cbet stat on my Player Stats HUD. It gives me a more detailed look at my opponent’s post-flop play when I’m the aggressor and he’s on the defensive. It’s broken down into 2 Bet Pot and 3 Bet+ Pot sections. The 2 Bet section is broken down into Total, In Position (IP) and Out of Position (OOP) segments.

You can see that they’re all broken out by street as well. This is great to see how sticky an opponent is to his hand, and how many barrels I’ll need to fire to get him to fold. It also helps to gauge how much value I can get from great hands.

2 Bet Pots

‘Total’ Segment (Green)

Fold to Cbet

Seeing this street by street let’s me know a couple of things: how flop honest he is and how many streets I’ll have to barrel to get him off of mediocre hands. On this particular opponent I have about 1,100 hands so this stat is very reliable. At 69% he folds to Cbets quite often and probably only continues when he hits the flop or has a good draw. Because of his flop honesty, his Fold to Turn Cbet is necessarily low at 17%. So, if he sticks around past the flop he’s likely to have a strong hand and will see it to showdown. I should only barrel the turn with good hands looking for value, as bluffs are unlikely to succeed.

Raise Cbet

Both his flop and turn Raise Cbet stats are very low, so if he raises I need to continue only with the top of my range like top 2 pair+. Even with top 2 pair, I’d probably be better off pot controlling w/out the nuts for the rest of the hand. Overall, this guy is very flop honest, so I should look to play lots of pots against him, especially IP.

His higher Turn Raise Cbet is probably indicative of a player who likes to commit and build the pot once he sees the turn. If we had his Turn AF or AFq here it would probably tell us this is his most aggressive street.

‘In Position’ Segment (Blue)

Fold to Cbet

Breaking this down between IP and OOP helps to play against him in each situation. When looking at the differences here, he obviously likes playing IP and is more willing to call flop Cbets. When he’s IP he’s a little less flop honest, so I need to proceed with some caution, but I should Cbet most flops that probably hurt his pre-flop flatting range (Ace highs, baby flops, very dry spread out boards like Q72r).

Seeing a Turn Fold to Cbet of zero is very telling, and I should only double-barrel w/the nuts or close to it.

Raise Cbet

This IP stat is just a little above his total Raise Cbet, so just like above, should I face a raise I need to proceed with only the top of my range. Cbet raises are very telling for this opponent. With a higher Raise Cbet on the turn, he likes to just call flops and build the pot on the turn. If I’ve got a great value hand and we get to the turn, I need to bet in hopes he likes his hand and raises.

Float

This is a great stat that tells you how often he fires at a pot when the pre-flop raiser doesn’t Cbet. Often we think of a float as just calling a bet IP, but PT4 uses this term a little differently. With his Float at 25%, his bet after my missed Cbet is most likely pair+, and possibly good draws like a nfd or oesd. I can continue on the turn with good hands and draws, and checking to entice a value bet is probably the best way for me to get value if I’ve got a super strong hand on the turn.

Combo Stat: Fold to Cbet and Flop Float

If an opponent has a low fold to Cbet % but a high Flop Float % (this guy’s opposite) then c/r instead of cbetting would be a good idea if you’ve got a hand only worth bluffing. Your cbet is likely to be called, so just don’t do it unless you’re willing to fire the turn and he’s likely to fold with a high Turn Fold to Cbet.

Combo Stat: Fold to Cbet and Turn Float

This is a good combo to see how likely opponents are to call a Cbet with intention to steal on the turn. If the opponent has a low Fold to Cbet and a high Turn Float % then he’s a good one to c/r the turn to resteal or c/c to get extra value from him on the river as he’s likely to fold to your turn c/r.

‘Out of Position’ Segment (Green)

Fold to Cbet

When OOP he’s quite cautious, so I should bluff Cbet every time he checks to me as he’s folding 73% of the time. If I’m going for value, the best may be to check behind and let him try to catch-up on the turn.

Check Raise

A c/r would be very scary and I can only continue with a nut hand or very near it. Same goes with the turn: c/r from this guy = the nuts!

Flop Donk, Turn and River Probe

Flop Donk % is pretty telling of flop honesty just like the Flop Cbet stat. At 20% this guy only donks w/TP+. If this were at 50%+, then he donks w/pairs and draws. At 65%+ then he’s got some likely overcards on baby flops that he’s betting.

Turn and River probe %’s work just about the same. These stats are calculated by an OOP turn/river bet when the pre-flop aggressor checks the street before. These low %’s probably signify he wanted to c/r the flop for value, or was maybe just waiting for the turn to make his move to build the pot.

Combo Stat: Flop Donk and Fold to Cbet

Looking at these in conjunction tells you how honest his donk bets are. If he’s got a high Fold to Cbet, then a low donk % is an “honest donk” with good hands, whereas if the donk % is high, he’s probably honest vs Cbets but likes to donk bluff occasionally. You can also just ignore the Donk Flop stat, and when they donk into you on the flop, check their Fold to Cbet stat before making a decision (low or high tells you how flop honest he is). Conversely, a low Fold to Cbet and high Donk Flop means he bluffs a lot, so to call or raise is now your decision.

3 Bet + Pots (Red)

Having these 3bet+ pot stats helps to see how his play may differ when he’s fighting for bigger pots. In general, regs and LAG players will fight harder for 3bet pots. With this particular opponent, it’s a bit hard to judge as his 100% and 0% could just be out of a couple instances.

If these stats were in line with his 2bet stats, then we could treat him the same in either scenario. But sometimes you’ll encounter players who fold to Cbets a lot less in 3bet pots or C/R or Raise Cbets a lot more. These guys fight for the bigger pots, and if he’s a tight/nitty player this would make sense as he’s getting to the flop with a stronger range. If he’s a LAG then he may be more likely to fight with or without a good hand. Keep in mind his overall aggressiveness when deciding how to approach the post-flop streets in 3bet pots.

My next post will go over the final HUD pop-up I use; my 3bet Pop-up. The stats here will help you determine how to react to a player’s pre-flop 3Bets.

Am I missing stats on my poker HUD that you use when thinking about post-flop play as the aggressor? Please let me know what I’m missing in the comments below.

And please, if you liked this article and think it can benefit your poker playing followers, tweet it for me: Tweet

Make your next session the best one yet!