Poker Tracker Update

For those keeping score, here is my previous post on Poker Tracker.

That was months ago. I've recently come to the conclusion that, if you want to be a winning player, you are going to have to use some sort of data mining program.

There, I've said it.

I still don't have to like it.

Here's my confession. (gotta stick with the theme, you know...)

I bought Poker Tracker. Finally. I use Poker Tracker. I hate that I have to use it. I would rather a world without it. But it is a necessary tool. I finally broke down when Full Tilt decided to turn on the hand histories. It has been a while. I wanted to use the tool for a while before I posted about it. If you aren't using PT, you can't really really know what your style is and work on leaks. Unless you personally count every single hand, and what you did with it. PT just makes life so much easier. After I get some good stats, I need to go over and buy the poker tracker guide and support Iggy. Don't know if he reads this blog anymore, but he's still my midget-hero.

I still don't have a "statistically significant" data set (needs to be greater than 10,000 data points, IMO). I currently have data on just over 3,600 hands. I don't like what I see.

To be a winning player, you have to be tight aggressive (see my other post on Good Poker vs TV Poker, below). I'm definitely not, according to my stats. Tight aggressive players voluntarily put money in the pot (VP$IP) less than 20% of the time. I'm at 27.46%. Not good. That kicks me into Semi-loose, according to the default rating scheme. My preflop raise % is up to 9.63%, but my calling % is over 18. Ugly. My total aggression, including preflop is 0.96. So I'm not passive at least, but I'm not aggressive enough.

Throwing out the preflop numbers, I'm a lot better, but still not great. My aggression factor jumps to 1.95. Not stellar, I should be over 3, but still aggressive, per their rating rules.

So my new goal is to get my little "auto-rate" icon to change. I'm the sad smiley face. I'm going for the money bag. Hopefully I can get there by 10,000 hands. That would make me uber-aggressive, however. My goal is to get there by 20.000 hands.

All these numbers are for cash games. Right now I'm having trouble with the Full Tilt hand histories for Tourneys, so I'm mostly ignoring those numbers. Practice at the ring games, and it should spill over into my tourney play.

So that's the update. I'm playing a bit more limit now, as my style causes more volatility at the NL tables. I need to get to good, solid poker before I head back to NL. Even at the micro-limit tables. So if you're looking for me, I'll be at 1/2 and 2/4 limit for a while. Need to practice, practice, practice. And get those stats whippped into shape.

See ya at the tables.