What has Poker Tracker taught you?

About yourself or about others? Here's some weird ones I've noticed over about 10K hands...

1. KK is not nearly as profitable for me as AA, although it's still one of my most profitable hands. QQ is actually better for me than KK. I've also been dealt fewer of KK than any pocket pair, by a surprising amount. Just a slight statistical abnormality I guess.

2. My third most profitable hand, no fooling: 22.

3. My least profitable hand: A7s?? I guess I have a soft spot for that kind of hand in 6max/late position. Lesson learned - I'm dumping it.

4. I'm making far more with AKo than AKs. Like three times as much per hand on average. Crazy.

5. Out of left field winner: K9 suited. Currently my 7th most profitable hand.

6. "What the hell" category: KQo and KQs? Both slight losers for me. I'm losing less with QJo, and actually making money with QJs; why is KQ such a problem? Gonna have to reevaluate what I'm doing with these hands.

7. I'm not breaking even with any hand, but the closest is 83o, with which I make one cool penny per time I am dealt it. I win with this hand 2.94% of the time. Sweet.

8. Surprisingly unprofitable: pocket sixes. Reviewing the hands, it looks like I had a statistically low number of sets, and I didn't get paid on the sets I did make with it. It also doesn't help that I chucked a bunch of money away one time on a board of K45K4... I was correct in my read that the aggressive guy betting into me did not have a king or a four, but what he did have was pocket sevens. Grrrrrr.

Originally Posted by dalecooper

6. "What the hell" category: KQo and KQs? Both slight losers for me. I'm losing less with QJo, and actually making money with QJs; why is KQ such a problem? Gonna have to reevaluate what I'm doing with these hands.

i'll take a stab at this one.

my problem turned out to be raising preflop with KQ in MP and getting called by AK in late position .. a king flops and im stuck losing the pot.

i started limping with this hand and when someone raises from behind and likes their king on the flop, i lay it down without a Q by the turn.

dale, how many hands is this a sample from?

About 10,000.

element, thanks for the tip. I'm going to look through all my KQ hands and see what I did wrong. I feel like I'm probably making some basic mistakes that could be corrected to make these profitable for me again.

I'm multi-tableing and what do I get while reading this? KQ on one table and 6-6 on the other.

Anyways, I play KQ very weakly in ring games. I play it about the same as QJ. I rarely raise with it and usually wil fold to any strong raises. If I limp and get reraised 1-2x I will call, but anything more I throw it away. I could be losing pots when I had the better hand here but I think more often than not I would be dominated, and if I wasn't (they could have JJ or 10-10) hitting usually wont pay off to well.

10 000 hands is not nearly enough for proper analysis of specific hands. I have 95k hands and I still have some statistical abnormalities which can only be explained by too small sample size.

Anyhow in contrast to you 22 is my biggest loser!

Similar to you QQ has been a lot more(almost 2 times) profitable than KK.

Yeah the only thing poker tracker has really taught me is that 10k hands isn't a big enough sample size.

are these stats separated out into nl / 6max / rings etc or is it just a hands sample from all the games you play combined?

I agree with you guys about the sample size - these are more "amusing oddities" than anything meaningful about my game. Except that part about KQ, I really think that's something I need to work on.

fkn2pt - these hands are all $50 NL 6max. That's all I play any more.

I've learned I like 9's too much, K/9, Q/9 I usually play and usually lose. (Or at least used to.)

Originally Posted by Bmxicle

Yeah the only thing Poker Tracker has really taught me is that 10k hands isn't a big enough sample size.

Yes. I was just about to say this.

Dale, KQo is a slight loser and KQs is a slight winner for me over about 12,000 hands of 6-max. I've always considered KQ a strong hand in 6-max and my PFR % for KQ and KQs are both around 80%. I know I'm playing it from any position. I may need to rethink the way I'm playing this hand.

dale,

i haven't used pokertracker myself, but i'm just wondering how applicable it is to 6max nl, because thats also what i play.

i would have thought a hand by hand analysis of my play would be a bit misleading on a 6max nl game since most of the decisions made at 6max are made not on cards but on situations, ie you may have lost money on KQo, but that doesn't mean you shouldn't play the hand at all, because it will be profitable in some situations and not others. i would think a computer program which analyses hand stats etc would be more suitable for limit games?

just wondering whether i should shell out for a copy myself?

Originally Posted by Cocco_Bill

10 000 hands is not nearly enough for proper analysis of specific hands. I have 95k hands and I still have some statistical abnormalities which can only be explained by too small sample size.

Anyhow in contrast to you 22 is my biggest loser!

Similar to you QQ has been a lot more(almost 2 times) profitable than KK.

sample size isnt the only thing creating abnormalities... progression as a player over that time period will skew results quite a bit as well.

fkn2pt - I think it's a useful program no matter how you slice it. In this instance I'm not planning on dumping KQ, but it lets me know that maybe I could be playing it better - it gives me something to work on.

It's true that hands will play with a lot more variance in 6max, but over larger samples - i.e. playing a single hand 100 times or more - there are still unignorable trends. Me being a slight loser with KQ is definitely a trend of some sort, I just have to figure out what to do about it. I haven't won or lost a lot of big pots with this hand so I think I'm doing something wrong with it almost every time I get it. It might be as simple as raising more or less with it in early position, I don't know yet.

well stuff like AKs less profitable per hand than AKo, or 33 a LOT more profitable than 22 does not really have anything to do with my progression as a player.

Results and win rate do though.

Originally Posted by Cocco_Bill

well stuff like AKs less profitable per hand than AKo, or 33 a LOT more profitable than 22 does not really have anything to do with my progression as a player.

Results and win rate do though.

AK changes alot through a poker players progression ... starts off as the holy grail of hands as a beginner because the pros push all in with it.. then you learn its just a drawing hand, then you learn it can lose .. etc.

AK is not a drawing hand

Originally Posted by ChezJ

AK is not a drawing hand

I disagree. HU it may not be a drawing hand, but once you get 3 way or more it definately loses UI value. If you're going to a showdown multiway you usually need something better than the nut nothing hand to win.

Originally Posted by ChezJ

AK is not a drawing hand

you have to think about what other people are playing.. AK is a drawing hand.. if someone hits the flop and you miss, you are way behind.

if someone calls with 22 and the flop misses you completely, and they push all in on you .. do you call ?

Nothing I don't have it yet :P

I have just under 25K hands of full ring limit hold 'em in PT. I'm starting to see some of the 'abnormalities' flatten out, but still have quite a few. This may be enough hands to begin comparing the differences between AKs and AKo, but it's pretty easy to see there is still to many abnormalities to really have any idea how profitable any one hand is. I can see I make more with KK than with JJ, but that's just more evidence backing up what we already know.

One thing I have been enlightened about is the power of hands like 99 and TT. They can be played a variety of ways in a variety of situations and positions. This makes them a more valuable hand than I ever thought was possible for a middle pair starting hand. I think they are more valuable in a limit game than a lot of people will give them credit for.

One other thing, if you want to get the aggression factor up, relentlessly value bet the river, even when you think you may be beaten. (That's more Fnord and e-jeff teaching, and PT just backs it up.)