PT question

how many of you use PT in detail? meaning you go into more than vpip/pfr/AF. beyond W$SD/W$WSF/Cbet %.

the reason i ask is i am having a bit of trouble with a concept i thought i liked, but it doesnt seem to pan out...or i have no discipline whatsoever.

i read an article about "profitable ranges" a couple of years ago...

basically, you go through your holdings after a "decent" sample size of about 20k hands, and determine which holdings you play profitably, and which you dont. you determine a "range" from which you are profitable, and STICK TO THAT RANGE as best you can.

the problem is when you set up your "filter," the article wants you to remove the blinds from your profit. they are thinking that the blinds arent supposed to be profitable anyway, so that skews your numbers, forcing holdings OUT of your range that you actually play well.

maybe this requires a lot more detail from me to get us on the same page, but i never seem to stay in that "range." even when i am focused primarily on said range for an entire session.

has anyone read the same article? one like it? or does anyone even care about it, as a concept? before i go into great detail, please let me know.

Wow... why have I never thought of doing this? I love the idea.


In relation to the blinds, I dont see howthis would "skew the numbers" over any decent sample size. Even over just 10k hands you would expect to have had AA, 72os or whatever just as many times on the button or utg as you have had on the BB for example.

Infact, leaving the blinds IN the stats would do much more damage than taking them out. You could be playing a hand theoretically profitably from the BB but still showing a loss, ie, you are not playing profitably enough to turn the hand +EV from the blnids but you could be making it LESS -EV by playing it well.


If you really wanted to get picky (which is probably what I will do when I try this exercise) you could filter out the blinds and get your starting hands for normal play, then filter everything but the BB and get your least -EV range for the BB and then do the same for the SB.

You could take that one step further over a much larger sample size and filter each table position individually and get your starting hand ranges for each position.


If you want to play the most profitable poker you are capable of, you should also be looking at which hands are not profitable but you think SHOULD be profitable. Once you get comfortable playing your "profitable range" you should then focus on adding some extra hands and learning how to make these hands turn a profit, keep doing this until you think you have reached your profitable capacity.

Disclaimer: I still suck

i'll get into a little more detail later, but i thought it was a neat concept, too.

the reason for the blinds, however, is because you look at your "profitable range" vs. everything. PT's default on the General tab shows everything. then, your "filter" cuts it down. those numbers will vary a bit, even if you only play inside your "profitable range" because of the blinds. hope i explained that right.

i have never been able to find the article again, so i am mostly going by memory. i think it was at bet-the-pot.com...not to refer away.

i like your idea of really breaking it down even further, but at the microstakes, we shouldnt need to go that far, other than just being dorks. which i'm fine with, btw...lol.

one more tidbit...you may play AK, AQ, AJ, A9, A8 all profitably, for example, but not AT. that doesnt mean you play A8, but not AT. you would include AT in your range, too. same for pp's...you play 66-AA well, but not 88 and JJ. dont take them out.

you are looking for "ranges." and you cut them off when you consistently lose for a couple of holdings in a row. not one random loser.

i'll walk some of us through how to set this up when i get some more time here in the near future...or at least how i set up mine.

once i get you to that point, i think we can look at why the numbers dont match up, and maybe figure out where i am missing something. logically, it makes sense. i dont know why i am getting logical results.

in the meantime, look for that article, and i will, too. it will certainly help.

ps, any mods have a problem with me posting the article, if i can find it, let me know. the last thing i want to do is redirect traffic off the site.

i found it. read the "part V." both parts. and you will be brought up to speed quickly.

http://www.bet-the-pot.com/poker-tra...ia-page67.html

however, if you want to read all the parts, they are in the margin to the left. it is a very thorough guide to learning PT.

i dont think anyone will mind if you go over there to look. but, we are going to discuss anything we find...HERE @ FTR. i wouldnt have it any other way.

mods, sorry if i found this too quickly. again, delete this from the thread, if you feel it isnt appropriate.

Sorry if my post sounded condescending.... I was at work and can only type a bit at a time, I didnt see your username and thought you may have been a newbie (like me).

Hopefully my post was still helpful to others reading the thread

nope, not condescending at all.

let me know if you get time to read the article. it will go way more in depth than i can. i am trying to reread it right now.

warning: if you read all parts, you've read a novel. its long.

i did it recently want me to post results?

yeah, go for it. hopefully, there are several other "respected" (and i'm using the term loosely...jk) posters that will do this, too.

i just want to see how much others vary off their profitable ranges.

Note:

this has been while i havent been playing great poker.

Sample size 56k
Profit: -$3768 ) -2.81/100
Stakes: 40k @ 1/2nl the rest is split between 100nl and 2/4nl

Cliff notes:
22+44 are losers over this sample. I played one major pot where i got over setted on the river with 222 by AA 200bbs deep which would then make 22 a winner.
44 has not won a siginificant pot over this sample (yeah no stack!) and got stacked once versus a flopped straight

All other pokcet pairs are significant winners (note i raise pps in all positions, but dont necessaily always isolate)

Other notes:
the only significant winning offsoot broadway hand is QJo (played from CO only for a raise, always opened with)
ATo KQo KJo are fairly significant loosers, i certainly wouldnt open these UTG ever and might only play them from the CO (certainly not in smaller games however)
All mid sootde connectors are loosers but not masisvly, so maybe an issue of play/variance.
Add JTs there as well which i used to open in all positions and now dont.
Oddly, my biggest loser is AKo suggesting i need to fold more in my games to a 3bet+

Significant winners are obviously AA/kk/QQ/JJ (yest hsi hand rules) and all sooted big cards. A lot of big.medium big sooted cards rule also

My aggression sucks, im barely above passive
By street
1.34 2.79 2.01 1.70
i also play 19/12 (dont isolate enough and raise enough from CO/LP with just any two pretty much)
low W$WSF (35%) however i play in quite loose games so as long as my major pots won % is high then im killing the game (its not really, but my ev graph explains that, so really it is)

i only steal 20% of the time (too little by at least 5%)
I fold my blinds just about right IMO, 15% in the sb and 20% in the BB ( i lose 0.5bbs per hand in bb and 0.3 in the sb (still too high however)

my W$@sd is 52% (its normally 56% for me) and i go to showdown 26% of the time (perhaps a little high)

If i didnt overplay AKo preflop and hadnt lost 3 major flip hands 200bbs deep then this sample would be positive (my ev graph suggests it should be 3,5k positive)

if you take your profit from your "filtered" hands and divide it into your profit from all of your hands, what % do you get?

ex. $780 (supposed profitable filter) / $677 (all hands from general tab) = 1.16

or 16% overplay (outside my range)

supposedly that number should be as close as possible to 1.00.

hmmmm

net profit from my filtered range (i used the hands i play yeah?)
is $12708.
My profit is -3762.

so its 16485/-3762 = 4.38

lol?

scary fact

My preflop range is +16k
My non preflop range (eg stuff i seem to play in limped pots or oop in the blinds) is -2ok

I think i found my leak.

mt vpip with these hands is <6% yet i lose all that money. Wow.

Originally Posted by Miffed22001

hmmmm

net profit from my filtered range (i used the hands i play yeah?)
is $12708.
My profit is -3762.

so its 16485/-3762 = 4.38

lol?

if i get this correctly, you are WAY outside your "profitable hands" on a regular basis. pisses you off, doesnt it? it does me, too.

everytime i look at the comparison, i get hacked off.

my new db has only 8500 hands in it right now, and if i look at it, i am getting better with my discipline. oh, and i play WAY lower stakes than you do.

but, if i look at my own numbers this go round, i am...

profitable hands...$176
all hands.............$143

difference.............$176/$143 = 1.23

and btw, i think yours is a MINUS 4.38. and, yes, you have instantly found a HUGE leak....pf discipline. stick to your profitable hands, and presto......you would have been UP $12k, give or take a bit of action.

go back through your hands...go to preferences, load ALL dates, go to general and in the "known starting hands" section, click the "g" to graph them. they come up in a bar graph, and find the "range" from which you are profitable across all positions. should be pp's (except maybe a couple random ones), big broadways, and if you're lucky AXs, KXs (prolly not), and sc's, maybe a few suited gappers.

if you show profit on AA, KK, QQ, JJ, 99, 88, etc.....but not TT, it doesnt matter. you should still play TT because 99 and 88 are doing fine....meaning that TT is prolly a little flukey at this time, but will likely balance out.

if you see that AK, AQ, and AJ are profitable, but AT, A9 are not....you may have found a cutoff point for where you should stop raising as your default play. or maybe you should take them out altogether.

point is, you only want to stick to your "profitable" holdings as much as possible. if you can, you should win long-term. if you are already winning, you should win MORE.

then, once that habit is ingrained, you should add other holdings slowly as you learn to play them better. but, most of us will still struggle just to stay in our profitable ranges.

the higher the skill level, though, the wider your range can get. someone like daniel negreanu can no doubt play a much wider range than i can. but if he sticks to his range, and i stick to mine...in theory....we should both be rather profitable players.

and i think thats all most of us "beginners" are striving for.

ps, i know you already know most of this, miffed. i am just using this as an example for the others reading this thread. but, that said, i bet those monetary numbers shocked the piss out of you, and made you say, "i wish i had stayed in my range."

Originally Posted by Chopper

Originally Posted by Miffed22001

hmmmm

net profit from my filtered range (i used the hands i play yeah?)
is $12708.
My profit is -3762.

so its 16485/-3762 = 4.38

lol?

if i get this correctly, you are WAY outside your "profitable hands" on a regular basis. pisses you off, doesnt it? it does me, too.

everytime i look at the comparison, i get hacked off.

my new db has only 8500 hands in it right now, and if i look at it, i am getting better with my discipline. oh, and i play WAY lower stakes than you do.

but, if i look at my own numbers this go round, i am...

profitable hands...$176
all hands.............$143

difference.............$176/$143 = 1.23

and btw, i think yours is a MINUS 4.38. and, yes, you have instantly found a HUGE leak....pf discipline. stick to your profitable hands, and presto......you would have been UP $12k, give or take a bit of action.

go back through your hands...go to preferences, load ALL dates, go to general and in the "known starting hands" section, click the "g" to graph them. they come up in a bar graph, and find the "range" from which you are profitable across all positions. should be pp's (except maybe a couple random ones), big broadways, and if you're lucky AXs, KXs (prolly not), and sc's, maybe a few suited gappers.

if you show profit on AA, KK, QQ, JJ, 99, 88, etc.....but not TT, it doesnt matter. you should still play TT because 99 and 88 are doing fine....meaning that TT is prolly a little flukey at this time, but will likely balance out.

if you see that AK, AQ, and AJ are profitable, but AT, A9 are not....you may have found a cutoff point for where you should stop raising as your default play. or maybe you should take them out altogether.

point is, you only want to stick to your "profitable" holdings as much as possible. if you can, you should win long-term. if you are already winning, you should win MORE.

then, once that habit is ingrained, you should add other holdings slowly as you learn to play them better. but, most of us will still struggle just to stay in our profitable ranges.

the higher the skill level, though, the wider your range can get. someone like daniel negreanu can no doubt play a much wider range than i can. but if he sticks to his range, and i stick to mine...in theory....we should both be rather profitable players.

and i think thats all most of us "beginners" are striving for.

ps, i know you already know most of this, miffed. i am just using this as an example for the others reading this thread. but, that said, i bet those monetary numbers shocked the piss out of you, and made you say, "i wish i had stayed in my range."

12k up puts me at a 5+bbs winner at 2/4nl and a 12bbs/100 winner at 1/2

are u shitting me? (im not that good ffs!)

Originally Posted by Chopper

ps, i know you already know most of this, miffed. i am just using this as an example for the others reading this thread. but, that said, i bet those monetary numbers shocked the piss out of you, and made you say, "i wish i had stayed in my range."

no fucking shit

Looks like my hand ranges for preflop play are fine. I need to auto fold anything but the nuts from the blinds and ill own from what it seems.

Easy hands to dump, ATo KQo KTo T9o 76o 65s (only because i lost a major pot so i think this is wrong)

rest looks standard, fold the blinds fish!

sadly or eye-opening, whichever way you want to look at it, you prolly ARE that good.

the other thing i forgot to mention (you will prolly say "duh" to this, too) is that pre-flop with those specific hands may be fine, it may be overplaying them post flop that has the "marginal" stuff losing. hands like KQs, KTs, JTo, AJo. shit like that tends you get us all in trouble.

sure, they are "in our range," but i have to scale back on them. i see AJ, and think "holy shit i have the nuts, look out my biotches." only to find a sleepy AQ ready to pwn the F out of me.