Pokertracker Stats in SNGs

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Pokertracker-Stats in SNGs

by Bobbs

In general you can say: The more information you have about an opponent - whether it be notes, tells or stats - the better you can adjust to his play and react. That is why nothing speaks against using PokerTracker stats in addition to the obligatory notes, when playing SNGs. There are however some problems with this:

• PT-Stats are with exception to the "Attempt to steal" value not dependent on position
• PT-Stats do not take blind size into consideration
• PT-Stats, unless adjusted, do not take the amount of players into consideration

The last point can be taken into consideration by employing the filter option in PokerAce. These are my filter-settings for the amount of players:

• 7-10
• 5-7
• 4
• 3
• 2

Feel free to discuss if there are in fact more sensible values to take for the above in the feedbackthread. PT-stats are especially helpful if you are playing 10 or more tables and cannot concentrate fully on each and every table.

By filtering Hands according to the number of players you need a much bigger sample of hands from each and every player in order to have Stats which with sufficient explanatory power. This is why you should nearly always trust your notes more than the values you get from Pokertracker. Yet in combination with notes and/or timingtells - Stats from PT can be very helpful in SNGs.

Important values which you should have displayed:

• VPIP - Voluntary put $ into pot
• PFR - Preflopraise
• Hands - Number of Hands
• CBet - Continuation Bet
• ATS - Attempted to steal
• FoldedSB - Folded SB to steal
• FoldedBB - Folded BB to steal

More concrete information can be found in the Article: Pokertracker Stats and how to use them (Still to be translated)

You could have these values displayed in following fashion:
Hero:foldSB/VP$IP/hands/ATS/foldBB/Cbet/PFR/

It is important to pay special attention to the different raise-sizes of opponents in different positions. Some opponent will often attempt to steal the blinds with minraises from the BU or CO, but will raise their good hands 3BB or potsize. Other opponents will act in an exactly opposition fashion.

If you have seen through the betting-patterns of your opponents, you can then start adapting to his range. Yet without notes on the strength of your opponents hand at different raise sizes, PT-stats are only half as helpful. Only through combination of notes and stats can you really start to effectivly analyse your opponents. If an opponent always raises the same amount of the other hand it becomes impossible to better pinpoint his hand strength.

The VPIP and PFR values are mostly useless, since you aren't able to differentiate if a 15/12 player only limps pocket pairs after other limpers or also first in. If the difference between the two values is very large on the other hand, such as 40/25 you can assume that a limp from this player in middle position does not represent a very strong hand and that he will fold to a push.

Example 1
5 Players
CO(40/25) (12 BB) limps
BU folds
Hero SB (7 BB) holds QTo

Without notes about whether this player Limp/Folds it is very hard to assume that the CO will fold in this situation. Yet the existant stats tell us that a fold is more likely than not. Hero should push here.

Example 2
The table has been very active and there have been lots of pushes against limpers. Due to our multitabling we did not notice this nor know what kinds of hands were pushed. though.

5 Players
CO(18/18 over 700 Hands) (12 BB) limps
BU folds
Hero SB (7BB) KQs

This screams trap! Without our stats we might have fallen into the trap and pushed here, especially since we are multitableing with 10+ tables. It would be better to fold here.

It is similar when an observant player in the BB with similar stats only completes and we have under 10BB.

SB (12 BB) completes
HERO (6 BB) with QJs

Here we would like to push loosely, because we give ourselves a lot of fold equity. Yet if he knows that we are multitableing and will often fold against a push, he will only often complete his aces here hoping to provoke a push.

The ATS tells us in how many percent of the cases a player from the CO or BU will try to win the blinds through a raise, when all other players have folded to him. Loose players can have very high ATS values once play has gotten down to 5-7 or 3-5 players.

Since this value is based on position we additionally filtered our hands according to how many players were still at a table this value does not become very reliable until we have played very many hands.

With 5-7 players the blinds are most likely around 100-400 and it becomes profitable for nearly all players to start stealing blinds.

If a player has an ATS value >35%, it means that he will try to steal with a very broad range of his. Yet if we don't know how he will react against a push, we cannot safely calculate if a push would be profitable enough. Once again notes can help us here.

If you are sitting in the blinds and an aggreisve player raises from the BU and you hold a hand which is good enough for a push such as AK or QQ, you should open up the Note window before the push and note the blinds, the position and the size of his bet. After the push you should note the results and how he reacted in order to comlete the note. That way you can keep track of the players that play with often, and gain a more concrete idea of what part of their range they will fold against resistance.

Example 3
Blinds 100/200
UTG 2000
MP2 3000
MP3 3000
CO 3000
BU 3000
SB 3000
BB 3000

4 folds, BU raises to 500, Hero ?

If the BU has a range of e.g. 22+, Ax, Kx, Q9o+,
Q5s+, JTo, J8s+, T9s (40%) and you only see him call with 33+, A7s+, A4s+,
KTs+ (15%) you could profitably re-steal with 22+, Ax, Kx, Q9o+,
Q5s+, JTo, J8s+, T9s.

These values explain themselves. They are especially interesting for players whose values are close to 100. With less than 10BB you should - when first in become a lot looser when such a player is the BB than when playing against an unknown.

The decisive facotr when calculating your pushing range is almost always the stats of the big blind since he will mostly have the widest range.

If he is the typcially bad player, who will call a lot of hands, then he will have done so several times before the stats are actually displayed. This is why you will be easily able to identify such opponents through PA once you have gathered enough hands.

If he is tight, and we can see this due to PA stats, we can widely extent our expected value.

Here an example:

Example 4
UTG 3500.0
UTG+1 4000.0
CO 3200.0
BU 3000.0
SB 2500.0
BB 3800.0

PT tells us (100/100) on x Hands, with the folded BB value coming from a total of ten hands.

Nash gives us a Pushingrange of 40.0%,
22+, Ax+, K2s+, K9o+, Q5s+, Q9o+, J7s+, J9o+, T6s+, T9o, 96s+, 86s+,
75s+, 65s, 54s based on the calling range of the SB of 15.4% and of the BB of 17.6%, 44+, A3s+, A7o+, KTs+, KJo+, QJs

Now we know however that the Big Blind will call rather tightly. We have to take into consideration that the probability that a player who calls 17,6% of his hands against a Stealraise, will not have held a hand of his range over the last 10 hands is ~14,4%. We can therefore assume that the BB will call even tighter than it is optimal.

If we give him a calling range of 10% 55+, ATo+,
A8s+, KQs and keep the calling of the SB, our pushing range increases by 100% to 87,3% 22+, Ax, Kx, Qx, Jx, T3o+, T2s+,
95o+, 92s+, 84o+, 82s+, 74o+, 72s+, 64o+, 62s+, 53o+, 52s+, 42s+, 32s.

If our calcuations are accurate we have just vastly expanded our expected return vastly thanks to PT.

If he calls with a hand outside of his range, we need to once again consider him looser and correct our pushing range accordingly. If we had immideatly considered that the player in the BB would always make perfect calls against us, we would have missed lots of potentially profitable blind steals in many situations.

If this value is close to 100, an obvious additional option we have is to c/rAI our strong hands. On good boards we also have the option of floating.

If the value is only about 35, he will only bet if he has hit something, and we can easily steal a lot of pots.

Example 5
6 Players / Big Blind 80

CO 2400 raised 200 (ATS 25,Cbet 35)
Hero is BU with 2000 55 called
SB folds
BB folds

Flop(480) A9s7
CO checks, Hero bets 240, CO folds.

Values that concentrate on post-flop play are often not useful in SNGs, even if they are based on a lot of hands, because most decisions are either made pre-flop or on the flop.

Another potentially interesting value which can be interesting once you have gathered enough hands is the "Continuation Bet Turn" value. If this is low, but the continuation bet value high, floating can become very profitable against this type of player.