VPIP & PFR....

I was going to just make this part of my post on setting up my HUD, but I figured It would make a good post all by its lonesome...

I wanna be able to get the best deductions I can from my HUD software.

I'll use one of the villians I have the most hands on, and I particularly dislike.

I'm just curious if given these two stats, we can put an opponent on a pre- flop range, and what other stats go into ranging our opponents.
(i'll include some other stats also. Please let me know if there are any I don't include that you guys use.)

Villian: 191 hands VPIP: 18.1 PFR: 14.1 CALL PFR: 10.3

I know there is more that goes into putting our opponents on a range,
Just wanna know as much as I can when.

thanks guys

Depends. Is he opening the action? What position at the table is he? How positionally aware is he? Who else is left to act? Who has limped/opened? and so on.

All that said, if you enter a percentage like 18% into the range line in pokerstove and hit the tab key, it will fill out a range of the top x% of hands for you, you can then click "player 1" and click the "preflop" tab in the popup to see a graphical representation of the top x% of hands. If you take screenshots of these for say 5%/10%/15%/20%/25%/30% and print out a sheet of them that should help you start to relate vpip & pfr percentages to ranges, but of course villains can vary in their habits and preferences so their ranges won't necessarily be the "top" x% of hands.

EDIT: Here's my sheet of these;

http://i279.photobucket.com/albums/k...tileranges.jpg

OK, so first off, here's a sense of the limitations of the stats before we over-glorify what they can do for us.

These stats outline the average ranges for a Villain. Which means that they assume Villain plays the same range from the blinds as they do from EP, MP, CO and the button, which is almost definitely not the case. Also, they do not take lines into account, so they don't differentiate between limp-calling a raise and open-calling a raise. They do not take table-texture into account, either. So if Villain is playing a wider range because the donk to his right is opening every hand, these stats will be skewed.

Aside: You can round the %'s off to the ones digit. There is no real info in the decimals. E.g. 18% is just as good as 18.1%, and less cluttered.

Consider the Equilab ranges
total 18%: { 66+, A5s+, K9s+, Q9s+, J9s+, A9o+, KTo+, QTo+}
raising 14%: { 77+, A7s+, K9s+, QTs+, JTs, ATo+, KJo+, QJo }
CPFR 10%: { 77+, A9s+, KTs+, QTs+, ATo+, KQo }
limping 4%: { 66, A6s-A5s, Q9s, J9s, A9o, KTo, QTo }

NOW: consider you have a note that Villain likes to raise suited aces from the CO, and you've seen him show down A2s w/ pair aces on a raggy board. Does that mean the above ranges are wrong? Do we need to remove some other hands to add the suited aces? Probably not. We just need to know that from late position, this villain is likely to flush hunt, and will call down TPBK for showdown. It is common sense to me that ranges should be tighter in the blinds and looser in LP, so I always take that into account when I look at ranges.

NEXT: consider you've seen this villain show down SC's and S1G's from multiple positions. Does that mean the above ranges are wrong? Do we need to remove some other hands to add the SC's and S1g's? Probably yes.

Thanks Boris & MoJo,

Yeah I definitely understand position, table texture, other opponents all play a role in my pre-flop decisions. Therefore if our opponents are awake at all it plays a role in their pre-fl' decisions.

I'll also pull up PT3 , and look at their vpip, pfr in seperate positions. I just wanted to hear some of your opinions on how you use the HUD to range a villain.

Like the particular stats I used. He likes to 3bet big in blinds and late Pos. he c-bets 78% and 100% when he 3bets, he's folding to 3bet on flop a lot, and to resistence on turn. Which I think means he 's 3beting pref-flop w/ probably 25% of his opening range. I'll post two hands v.s him. One before my read and one after.

I'm definitely getting the drift of taking the whole package: notes, HUD, position awareness, and coming out w/ a nice range read on a villain.

Thanks guys

Boris and Monkey are correct as usual - there's a lot to range analysis and there certainly isn't any mathematical winning formula, even if we have thousands of hands on the villain. Throw in villains on tilt/adjusting to the fish at their table and we can potentially get ourselves in a mess.

Having said that, I'm getting into range analysis lately and playing around with Pokerstove is never time wasted and can be enlightening. If you need an introduction to the concepts including combinatorics, I found Phil Gordon's Gold Book fairly good (plus the book is also good in other senses for the improving player, including 3betting, 4betting, cbetting, etc, all in combination with your HUD).

FWIW, I play about 18/14 on 10nl full ring so I'll probably be similar to the villain you dislike. I'm always looking to get involved with fish and overly aggressive players in position, but my standard opening range is about the following:

EP: 88+, ATs+, AJo+
MP: Per EP, plus 66/77, KQ, QJs, some smaller pp, some Axs.
LP (co and btn): Per MP, plus 22-55, all Ax, K9s, KTo, all suited connectors, all suited gappers, some other connected/suited two gappers/trashier hands.
Blinds: I'll leave this as it's too big to get into.

I'll rarely call out of position with any cards and ditch a lot of pps in position against competent players HU. I'm calling a large part of my LP range in position against fish that may stack off against a set however and also multi-way.

PS: Never "dislike" a villain - you're just asking to be stacked due to sub-optimal decisions. Be especially careful that you aren't levelling yourself into bad calls against this villain too - been there, done that.

PPS: As far as making deductions from your HUD is concerned, I find these two stats the most useful as a first guide to a player's ability. For instance, anybody with a large gap between the two is a fish pre-flop and almost certainly a fish/calling station post flop.

I found Phil Gordon's Gold Book fairly good (plus the book is also good in other senses for the improving player, including 3betting, 4betting, cbetting, etc, all in combination with your HUD).

It's funny you mention 'The Little Gold Book' . I checked it out at the library about two months ago when I first started playing again. I realized quickly it deserved much more than a one week borrow from the library. So I bought it. I took detailed notes on the whole thing, it has really helped to guide my current play. Like you said it covers 3bet and 4bet really well. And was basically the reason I started PT3.

I'm glad to hear someone in the forum mention it, as I was going to sooner or later and ask if anyone had read it.

It has really helped me a lot. I've only deposited once about a month and a half ago. I put $30 bucks on lock, would have like to put more on but my current financial situation, and my wife wouldn't allow it. I went on a horrible downswing the last two days. I know now why you should have 20 buy-ins for the level your playing. I'm wayyy down, but ill build her back up. I'm playing as much as I can , and doing at least an hour of PT3 analysis at night. I have all intentions of beating 4nl by summers end, I know with your guy's help I can do it, and then move on. If I had the roll I could probably beat 10nl , but you can do with what ya got. right?

Will have to check that book out.

Yeah, I think being properly rolled is pretty important, but it's really no problem if you can reload if necessary. The important aspect of that is that you mustn't let your play be affected by how well you are rolled, sometimes easier said than done but really you should be able to stack off 10 times, quit for the day, and come back tomorrow without any emotional baggage that will affect your game. That's why I like being overrolled compared to most peoples recommendations for roll size. If you check out ev++ Poker Tools :: Poker Variance Simulator you'll see that a solidly winning player can easily expect 20 buyin downswings, and a 30 buyin downswing is not even that unlikely. Variance is a bitch, but it's also the source of all your profit because it's the reason fish continue to play. Especially when you're first starting out, and it takes a _long_ time to know whether you are beating the game, I like having a 100 buyin roll, so in the longer term I'd advise you to aim for that, either by having a reasonable bit of luck and winning your way there, or by gradually redepositing until you have 100 buyins.

Also, just beat 4NL - maybe you could beat 10NL if you were rolled, but really it's completely unimportant, it's just the same game with different numbers. I started back after a long break at 50NL, I got told to move down, I didn't much like the idea but I sucked it up and moved down to 25NL, it was absolutely the right thing to do, even though I was rolled for 50NL - the name of the game is to improve, that is the only thing that matters, the bigger limits are appropriate once you can beat them, not because you are rolled for them, dig?

EDIT: I just noticed, and wanted to second The Bean Counter's point - you can't "dislike" a villain profitably, and if the thought even crosses your mind, it exposes an underlying problem with your mental game (which is fine, since it means you have another potential avenue of improvement) - I've plugged it before, and I'll do it again now - read Jared Tendler's "The Mental Game of Poker".

You've got a good attitude, which means you can beat 4nl and 10nl over time. Study and BRM are important for sure, but volume is key - once you get through 100k hands, you have pretty much seen and handled all villains in all positions with all cards on all board textures and can begin to piece together the perfect plays. Consistency will come with even more volume.

Boris is right re BRM and beating each limit consistently over time before moving up. I'm technically rolled for 100NL after building a roll from freerolls and gradually micro tournaments, but I won't be moving out of 10nl until I can beat it for 20bb/100 hands as a minimum (which should be easy enough if I can play consistently). I like having a decent roll behind me too as it means I don't play scared.