is there any value to examining chips won in early stages of STTSNG

mbrenneman0

mbrenneman0

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so im trying to get my early stages strategy right for 9man STTSNG.
is there any value to examining how many chips or bb you won/lost in the first 3 blind levels (10/20, 15/30, 25/50) as long as its a positive number its pretty good right?

today i played 79 hands in the early levels over 5 games. (small sample, i know.. but i dont want to include days where my early game was drastically more loose passive) with stats at VP:15/PFR:10/AFq:75 Won 3,298chips over these 79 hands (40chips/hand). is this 1. sustainable and 2. ideal? should i be playing looser at these levels?
 
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WiZZiM

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yeah poker trackers.

IMO these tools are best for studying your game and identifying where you are leaking chips. The filter tools are awesome once you know how to use them.

Basically you can filter for just about anything, how many chips won/lost in certain key spots like BVB shoving or if you want to check your early game you can filter by position and see how much you win from the UTG to button and how much you are losing in the SB and BB (yes you will be losing in these areas, the key is losing as little as possible)

So if you have a HUD great, if not, it's gonnna be hard to really identify anything sorry.

Stats don't really mean anything, i don't know how the general population of your games plays, so it could be too tight or too loose or just right. And yes, looking at anything over 5 games is pointless, which is another reason why huds are so great, you can check out stats from hundreds of games to make sure you are winning lots in key areas like raising from the button.
 
mbrenneman0

mbrenneman0

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erm... maybe i should clarify my question. yes, im using pokertracker 4. I filtered my hands by blind level to include only hands from the first 3 blind levels.

the stats listed are the result of that filter.

can I identify leaks in the early blind levels by examining if I regularly loose too many chips early in the game? (especially leaks involving too wide or too narrow of a range)
 
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WiZZiM

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filter again by position, it's the most helpful area to look at. You should see that you profit slightly in all areas expect the SB and BB where you will be losing.

Yes for sure you can identify leaks, but you need to have knowledge of where to look. position filters help that, you should be profiting in all areas expect the SB and BB in the early levels. Then it's all about making changes to improve the base numbers that you are getting.

Simple example.

Lets say you are profiting 1.5bb/100 from the button, You are playing 20vpip, which is "x" range. Lets say for pure example purposes that the bottom of your range is JTo. You want to make a change to your game, so you loosen it up to include things like J8s and T8s. you do this an check the results after a few weeks. You can then filter for hands before the date you played and see that you profited 1.5bb/100 and then filter for after with your new range and see that you now profit 2bb/100. If say you widen the range to include things like 67s and such, and after a few weeks you now suddenly drop to 1bb/100 it's time to change things back.

It's a balance game as you know. hope this helps. Also again, i repeat, don't focus on 5 game samples. You should be checking after say 3-600 games, otherwise you could be changing the way you play for the detriment. it's a slow process if you don't play much, but if you regular games and play 2-300 per week, you can see some pretty important leaks fixed and your bottom line showing much more in the green.

Fwiw, the late game areas are much more important to look at. you can use exactly the same logic as above but search for late game ranges or 3betting spots that you miss or take on too much. These are more important because of the ICM implications and also the fact that just from simply stealing the blinds you can make 10-20% of your stack which is huge.

I have plenty of other tips for studying using ICMizer or SNG wizard which utilizes your tracker once you get your head around this just hit me up and i'll be happy to show ya.
 
Jim Brown

Jim Brown

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Nice answer WiZZim, I should do some better tracking than just the ol' bankroll meter. No time like the present.
 
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