Stats...how to decipher them...

On most poker sites I play on, they keep my poker/hand stats. What's good, what's bad, and what am I looking for? Like, games won, flops seen, etc...anyone help on this?

I think in general those aren't always the key stats you want to look at. Although, it is helpful in identifying what type of player you are and possibly where your weaknesses are by seeing the distribution of where you fold. The key things to remember are you want to win one big hand each hour, other than that, I think you should be folding preflop like 55-75% of the time.

there is no standard. every table is different and what you should do is adjust accordingly. if no one is raising flops and lots of passive loose/loose players are at the table, you should tighten up a lot and play your hands -very- hard, and should usually open up the hands you will call down to the river with (ie middle pair good kicker, etc). if there are very very tight players at your table you need to loosen up and steal more pots, but if they give you action, only show down very good hands. (over pairs on a non-dangerous board, top 2p, nut flush, hidden set on a non-dangerous board)

as fish has told me in the past, it can be correct to play both 5% of hands and 100% of hands depending on the table

For example, in one site I play on:

167 Hands
Games won:20%
Flops seen:49%
Wins if flop:37%

Pecentage of actions:
Fold 31%
Check 22%
Call 29%
Bet 11%
Raise 6%
Re-Raise 1%

Percentage of Folds:
Pre-flop 50%
Flop 12%
Turn 2%
River 6%
No Fold 30%
What can be learned from these stats?

What stakes/limits do you generally play and are they ring-games, MTTs, Single-table SnGs or what?

I play no-limit MTTs.

Well I'll first say that 167 hands is very few to judge from. My log has over 14,000 hands in it, and seems to be pretty representative of my play. But if I'm going to judge from that few of hands and take it as a representative sample:

first thing that jumps out at me is I think you're seeing the flop far too often. Nearly half the time is a LOT. I see the flop 27% of the time. Of course, depending on your style, some people can get away with more. But I'm almost certain that adopting a more tight-aggressive style would help you. This means being more selective with the starting hands you play, but to play your good hands aggressively.

You're only winning 37% of the time that you see the flop, and this number could be much higher if you were more selective. Perhaps you're playing too many cards just because they're suited, or perhaps you're playing ace-rags too often. These weak hands can definitely get you in trouble, because even if you're hitting an ace with your ace-rag, the likelihood that you're going to end up being out-kicked is fairly high.

I win 53% of the time when I see the flop, over half the time. That's because I have a tight-aggressive image and I'm only playing very good hands, or very high potential, low-risk hands (such as low pocket pairs or suited connectors that are easy to fold on the flop if I get no help). Even if I don't get a flop that helps my hand, I'm taking a lot of these pots down just from betting, thanks to my tight table image.

I'm also going to guess that you're chasing draws to the river without getting good odds too often, because, in my opinion, 6% of your folds being on the river is too high. I fold on the river less than 2% of the time, generally because I rarely get to the river unless I'm pretty sure I have the best hand, and I don't chase draws unless the pot odds and implied odds say I should.

This is just what jumped out to me on first sight, and maybe others could add to this. Best of luck to you.

Thanks, that makes sense. I think a problem I have, is going in on highcard/lowcard suited hands, looking for a flush. ie, an A4 suited...which is a bad idea I assume?

The thing I think is best about the stats is to have a good flops seen % to the % of hands won when you see the flop. Say if you see like 50% of the flops you need to have won more than 50% for seeing that many flops to pay off. In most games i play in though i see around maybe 30% of the flops. But basically just keep that ratio of winning higher than the % of the flops seen.