PFR too close to VPIP?

Hey guys just a quick question. I was playing on pokerstars last night and got chatting with this guy. He asked me if I bought hands histories from PTR to use with PT3 or if I was familiar with the site. I was aware that there was a disgusting place where you could buy data on your apponants if you were to lazy to collect it yourself. I asked him if there was any info on me.

He told me yes and that I was 160% TOO aggressive pre-flop. well it turns out that Phil Ivey is some 30% too loose and really needs to tighten up his play! Need I adjust my preflop game to be less aggressive?

My numbers are in the region of 14.5/13.5 with a PFAF of 7.7, I play full handed microstakes. Is it not true that the closer those numbers are the better?

I have seen people talk about the ideal ratio being 4/3 or 3/2 but assumed that this was a maximum ratio of VPIP to PFR.

Also while I am here, I am currently taking a shot at 10NL and am thinking table and seat selection could help my egde a little. I already choose the loosest, slowest tables to try to increase the chance of meeting weaker players but I am guessing there is more to it than that?

Thanks in advance as ever! Frank

Your VPIP and PFR is right were they should be. I've never looked at the PFAF number so I'm not sure what a good number is there. What you should be concerned with is what your BB/100 hands is. If it's at 5 or higher, don't change a thing. It's less than 3 it's still a positive win rate, but you probably have some leaks you can work on.

Basically if you have a win rate of 3 big bets per 100 hands, your stats don't matter that much, just play your game. If you dip below that or into a negative win rate, then you should go into your stats and start finding what your leaks are and patching them up.

How are you playing implied odds hands (say, 22-77, smaller suited connectors, smaller suited one gappers) on the button multiway?

One rationale behind having a bigger gap between VPIP and PFR is that there are some situations/hands that, in position, benefit from calling pf rather than raising - a very small gap between VPIP and PFR means you're almost never entering the pot without open raising or 3betting - above is an example of such a situation where you might call rather than raise or fold. 3betting a very loose opener in position who folds 90% to a 3bet and cbets 90% can be a mistake, since you may make more money off of him postflop - another spot where flatting can be correct.

That said, having a large gap is bad, as you're aware.

Pretty much as sly says, there are times that it's better to call a raise, especially in position, rather than 3 bet or fold. That should be where the slightly larger gap should come from.

But 95% of people have the opposite problem; too wide of a gap, so don't worry about it too much.

Thanks for your replies guys!

My general strategy for pairs from 22-66 is to raise them as I would K9s,T9s and A8s. With these hands I will raise if unopened 4 from the button, with 1 caller 3 from the button, 2 callers, 2 from the button... you get the idea. I have stopped open limping and always open with a raise with low pairs.

77-88 I play slightly looser as I believe they have slightly more options after the flop.

I must say that if I had a low pocket pair and was in late position with multiple callers I might well fold... purely because it would not be a safe raise, as it wouldnt be with K9s, T9s and A8s. There is obviously a flaw in my new pocket pair strategy though thankfully it should be easily fixed!

Its great when you start a thread about one thing and end up fixing a leak in another area of your game!

Connectors and gappers? I don't even play them... yet. I still have not figured out a strategy that I can get my head around being a long term winner. I know a lot of people limp with these hands hoping to get raised by a big stack for implied odds but I have recently come to realise that RAISING is the way to make money in poker. Since I stopped limping I feel I have much more control over the table and I am not just relying on the fall of the cards

As NL says, having too narrow a gap is much less of a problem than too wide, so think of this as something to think about over time - glad that the thread has been useful to think about!

If you go to the cash game may thread there's some good discussion between me and FP about opening ranges, and calling ranges OTB. You should have a look. For example I've started calling OTB with hands like AQ and JJ/1010 rather than 3-betting against most opponents. You get yourself into profitable situations post-flop to make more money.

If you think about it, 3-betting AQ will result in either a fold or re-raise against most opponents. Fish will still call a lot, which is why I still do 3-bet it sometimes. Good (non-bad) opponents will fold KQ's and raise AK's. We want to play against KQ's post-flop and not get forced out by AK's.

This is pretty much the primary argument for having a reasonable gap between VPIP/PFR. Really, the size of that gap should be relative to your skills post-flop. If you're comfortable playing suited connectors and small PP's from position post-flop, you should be more comfortable flat-calling as opposed to 3-betting or open-raising a limped field.

Pot control is another thing to think about. You have to keep in mind which hands want to see big pots and which don't. 3-betting pretty clearly leads to bigger pots.

So if you're still in the process of learning and getting comfortable with things you should probably stick more closely to the raise/fold mindset and expand a bit as you improve.