Skilled ring game players, your avg VP?

Maybe too many variables to even answer the question. (I hear 'it depends' so often, and I know it's true).

I have been staying in $.10/.25 6max NLHE game for about 5000 hands, and I have a VP of something like 34.

I think this is high, but my question stems from the fact that I am regularly getting beat by much higher VP's (50's).

I heard someone say once that NLHE is played after the flop, and I took this to mean that you will want to play more cards in order to get to see the flop. (I know it's hindsight, but I'm getting awfully tired of flopping a straight, trips or two pair with that folded hand. This is potentially alot of money being thrown away because I didn't want to call the BB or even a min-raise with that 810o). I also see (or think I see) that if you sit around with a VP of 12 waiting for your AA's and KK's, it appears to me to be a losing propostion as they will be beat often enough anyway.


I'm still losing and frustrated. I read, I listen, I practice (I have played virtually every day since I started playing six months ago), and I am still losing.

I guess the upside is that I am losing LESS, but that doesn't help much when my bankroll only goes in one direction. (That's approx a $1500 bankroll, if it matters).

I would appreciate your thoughts.

Yes 34 is huge. What's your PFR? Some players get away with playing that many hands, but they have really good postflop skills and PFR is usually around 31 or so. Personally for 6max I played 20/17 (20% VP$IP) and at FR I play 16/14 (16% VP$IP).

PFR is low, like 16.

This probably exposes my tendency to just call alot of hands to see a flop.

Having played at 25nl 6max for 10k hands now ... I can say that a VPIP of 34% is way too high ... I think even for a LAG (Loose Aggressive) that is too high. I would definitely tighten your starting hand range, focus more on position possibly, and knowing that your PFR is 16, I would keep this number but greatly reduce the number of hands you are limping in with. Your VPIP and PFR numbers for 6max should actually be pretty close.

I do see the 50/33/1 players and either I am losing small pots to them (~$1) or winning big pots from them (~$7). I'm getting in there with good hands and knowing when they are simply calling me down trying to improve.

34 is way to big for someone that has played 6 months. Like zach said it is doable if you have great postflop play and are raising 30+% of hands. In 6max you dont want to be 12 either, cause you you will lose blinds and probably more importantly will not get any action on your hands.

My total 6max numbers are 24/21, but it really depends on the table and where I am sitting compared to the donks(those 50+ vpip people usually).

Yeah you definitely don't want to be seeing a ton of cheap flops and hoping to hit monsters. That's not where your money comes from. Your money mostly actually comes 2 places imo. One is the small pots you pick up by stealing, playing your position and outplaying opponents to pick up the pot without a showdown. The second place is the big pots when opponents are bad. If they will stack top pair with a bad kicker, then when the two of you play a big pot together, you'll have the better hand soooo much more often, and you win money that way.

The sort of style you're describing doesn't exactly accomplish either. You're being pretty passive, so you're not picking up too many blinds and stuff, and limping encourages multi-way pots where it is tough to pick up the pot postflop without a hand. On top of that, especially in multiway limped pots, not often will an opponent be stacking off super-light (there are still morons out there, so if you play well and know relative hand strength this should stil be a small edge) so you often won't be winning a huge pot. When you have a pocket pair it's more likely that your opponents also have pocket pairs or suited connectors, and when you flop a set they could flop a straight or a flush, and when you flop the monster they're not going to pay you off with just one pair. Basically in 6max play if no one before you has called, you should either be raising or folding, and even raising or folding when there are limpers.

Unless I'm doing something tricky, I'm basically never going to limp in 6max. It's a raise, fold, or call a raise from an earlier player. Try that though, play a session (drop down limits if you want to get comfortable and so you don't have to worry about losing a ton of money experimenting) where you are not allowed to call preflop ever. You have to raise or fold preflop. I think you'll find you play a much better game.

Also, when you fold you folded. You didn't know what was coming so what comes doesn't matter. You make a decision with the information you have. If someone goes all-in you fold 28o. If the flop comes 288 it's irrelevant. Poker's about making decisions, and obsessing about trying to make decisions based on unpredictable future events is just not smart.

TheNoob said:

PFR is low, like 16.

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TBH, if you play 34/16 at 25nl 6max, you're probably a fish.

First thing you could change is that you should never ever open-limp. When the hand is folded to you, you either raise or fold.

You can flat call, but only in position with high implied odds hands like small pp or connectors/suited one gapers. Other than that, if you like your hand enough to play it, raise it.

Then you need to take a hard look at your positional vpip/pfr stats. They should vary strongly depending on position. you can probably be profitable playing up to 50/35 on the button, while you should be more like 12/12 UTG.

Im playing something along a 18/15 at 25nl 6 max. Maybe a little tightish but it seems to be working.

Helpful feedback guys. Thanks to everyone. (zach, very complete and well thought out response above. I appreciate the time you took).

This higher VP is recent (in that last 5k hands I mentioned that I have stayed in the .10/.25 game).

I actually had numbers more like 26/18 in the .5/.10 game, and for whatever reason I'm letting myself get into expanding my starting hands.

Well, it's not for whatever reason, the reason is that I thought I needed to see more flops and I'm getting my money in where I shouldn't.

Thanks for the ideas and advice.

35/17 is a problem. I have 16/13 for FR and 22/19 for 6 max.

I suspect you are cold calling way too much from the sounds of things. Your cold calling range (when you are learning) should really only be pps, s/cs, and big broadway cards (preferrably suited) and you should be calling these primarily on the button (or CO if you don't have squeezy players behind, which ofc is 99% the case in nl25) so that you have position postflop. All those hands play terrible out of position.

You have to think about what you are trying to accomplish and how you intend to make whatever you choose to do a profitable play. That means that you don't call with s/cs and pps in the blinds vs a wide opening range, because 1. you are oop 2. you will almost always miss your hand and 3. when you do hit your hand the odds are that villain doesn't have a strong enough hand to enable you to extract enough value to make this a +EV play.

Sounds from your OP that you are calling with alot of random garbage, probably often oop, and then trying to hit a magical flop. This is simply going to result in you seeing way too many flops and then being forced to play fit or fold on the flop, which is going to lose you alot of money. 27o will flop a full house every now and then, but that doesn't change the fact that it is a shitty hand that shouldn't be played.

Preflop should be about 3 main things:
1: Trying to get an immediately profitable situation-->stealing nits blinds for example. Your hand doesn't matter when they are going to fold so much that you auto profit by opening 100% on the button and folding whenever they play back at you.
2: Setting up a postflop advantage-->Two main parts to this. a) It always helps to be the PFRer because you are *typically* representing a fairly decent range and have initiative in the hand. Another example is setting up an advantage by isolating a loose passive fish that plays fit or fold after the flop because you have a HU pot vs somebody who will fold often to your cbet and b) To gain position on everybody else in the hand. If you open from the CO you want the btn to fold so you can get HU with the blinds or an early limper. Or if you have a good speculative hand or just a good hand you don't want to 3 bet, calling in position allows you to be in control of the hand to a degree.
3: To get money in the pot when you have a good hand (kinda obvious).

So when you are cold calling all the time, you have to ask yourself "just what am i trying to accomplish here?". If you are just randomly calling hoping to hit a bit hand, without thinking about things like the pfr's range, your position postflop, players to act afterwards, etc. then you are just going to be spewing money.

You have to learn to be able to do things like auto toss aj in the bb if a nit opens from ep, because you are going to be oop for the hand, and your hand is trash vs a nit's opening range from utg. On the surface you are probably thinking "aj sweet i have a nice hand" but you have to think how exactly are you expecting to win any money by calling in the big blind with a potentially dominated hand vs the utg's range, having no initiative in the hand and being oop? The answer is you simply aren't. And there are millions of examples like this i'm sure you'd find if you went through some of the hands you've played.

So tighten up, raise if you are going to open a hand, narrow your cold calling range drastically (pps, some s/cs and suited broadway cards) and MAKE SURE YOU ARE CALLING WITH THESE IN POSITION.

The final thing i'll say is that i highly highly suggest that you stop playing 6 max. 6 max is quite a bit harder than FR to get the hang of and if you are struggling then playing FR and tightening way up should make it quite easy to grind out a profit. As you improve you can loosen up, but playing loose simly does not work unless you have a much better understanding of the game dynamics and are very good at things like hand reading.

feitr said:

35/17 is a problem. I have 16/13 for FR and 22/19 for 6 max.

I suspect you are cold calling way too much from the sounds of things. Your cold calling range (when you are learning) should really only be pps, s/cs, and big broadway cards (preferrably suited) and you should be calling these primarily on the button (or CO if you don't have squeezy players behind, which ofc is 99% the case in nl25) so that you have position postflop. All those hands play terrible out of position.

You have to think about what you are trying to accomplish and how you intend to make whatever you choose to do a profitable play. That means that you don't call with s/cs and pps in the blinds vs a wide opening range, because 1. you are oop 2. you will almost always miss your hand and 3. when you do hit your hand the odds are that villain doesn't have a strong enough hand to enable you to extract enough value to make this a +EV play.

Sounds from your OP that you are calling with alot of random garbage, probably often oop, and then trying to hit a magical flop. This is simply going to result in you seeing way too many flops and then being forced to play fit or fold on the flop, which is going to lose you alot of money. 27o will flop a full house every now and then, but that doesn't change the fact that it is a shitty hand that shouldn't be played.

Preflop should be about 3 main things:
1: Trying to get an immediately profitable situation-->stealing nits blinds for example. Your hand doesn't matter when they are going to fold so much that you auto profit by opening 100% on the button and folding whenever they play back at you.
2: Setting up a postflop advantage-->Two main parts to this. a) It always helps to be the PFRer because you are *typically* representing a fairly decent range and have initiative in the hand. Another example is setting up an advantage by isolating a loose passive fish that plays fit or fold after the flop because you have a HU pot vs somebody who will fold often to your cbet and b) To gain position on everybody else in the hand. If you open from the CO you want the btn to fold so you can get HU with the blinds or an early limper. Or if you have a good speculative hand or just a good hand you don't want to 3 bet, calling in position allows you to be in control of the hand to a degree.
3: To get money in the pot when you have a good hand (kinda obvious).

So when you are cold calling all the time, you have to ask yourself "just what am i trying to accomplish here?". If you are just randomly calling hoping to hit a bit hand, without thinking about things like the pfr's range, your position postflop, players to act afterwards, etc. then you are just going to be spewing money.

You have to learn to be able to do things like auto toss aj in the bb if a nit opens from ep, because you are going to be oop for the hand, and your hand is trash vs a nit's opening range from utg. On the surface you are probably thinking "aj sweet i have a nice hand" but you have to think how exactly are you expecting to win any money by calling in the big blind with a potentially dominated hand vs the utg's range, having no initiative in the hand and being oop? The answer is you simply aren't. And there are millions of examples like this i'm sure you'd find if you went through some of the hands you've played.

So tighten up, raise if you are going to open a hand, narrow your cold calling range drastically (pps, some s/cs and suited broadway cards) and MAKE SURE YOU ARE CALLING WITH THESE IN POSITION.

(a)The final thing i'll say is that i highly highly suggest that you stop playing 6 max. 6 max is quite a bit harder than FR to get the hang of and if you are struggling then playing FR and tightening way up should make it quite easy to grind out a profit. As you improve you can loosen up, (b) but playing loose simly does not work unless you have a much better understanding of the game dynamics and are very good at things like hand reading.

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(a)
Very interesting.

I'll be honest ......... I started playing 6 max because with fewer players it just seemed like I had less to think about!

As time went by I just stuck with it.

I'm embarrassed to admit it but it's true.

(b)
A understanding of game dynamics is where I fall well short. As is evidenced by my original post, I have yet to really get a good grasp on something as basic as starting hands, let alone the very complex aspect of game dynamics.

Really, your post is perfect proof of that. I can barely get a mental grasp on these concepts as I'm simply reading them in your post, let alone apply them in the context of a game.

Man, I either have to figure out a way to step up, or admit that this game is intellectually over my head.

Hey, thanks though. The effort you take to lay down a five hundred word post to help me out is greatly appreciated.

Tonight I will switch to the FR.

With online NL, ur at a disadvantage as opposed to live play. Tight, aggressive preflop action is your key and playing on a table that stays in tact. Many poker stars Pros play only limit cash games and only NL tourneys. You need the live factor to utilize full NL play. online poker is dry ABC little bluff grinding suited for limit. It will enhance your discipline and enhance your tourney and live play.

BelgoSuisse said:

TBH, if you play 34/16 at 25nl 6max, you're probably a fish.

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Honesty is the best policy, that what my mum always taught me .

Seriously op, listen to the advice, you will benefit so much from it.

TheNoob said:

Man, I either have to figure out a way to step up, or admit that this game is intellectually over my head.

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Or you can realize that there is always more to learn at poker, continue to get better, and slowly but surely get better and better. Start out with this right here, and as you progress you will run into more problems, which you can address and get even better. It's not a problem of being good or not. Just by using your brain when you play you're better than a lot of people. If you stop limping too much, you'll be better than even more people. As you get better at hand-reading, when to run bluffs, when to value bet, etc. you'll get better and better. Even the pros aren't perfect, poker has yet to be solved, so everyone can be better.