Looking at PokerTracker metrics

You will no doubt be aware of my fondness for all things statistical. Poker is after all a statistics and mathematics based game when all said and done. The real skills in online poker these days are not in the playing of hands in a fundamental sense but the retrieval, storage and analysis of data. The best online players in the world and the solid professionals use PokerTracker and if you want to be like them then when in Rome do as the Romans do. So let us look at a few factors then based on your PT percentages in certain key game situations.

Here I will be looking at more than just basic PT/PFR/AF metrics and the first one is your opponents “went to showdown percentage”. This blog post could apply to any variation of poker and if your opponent has a low went to showdown percentage then this clearly indicates a player who does not see the showdown very often. In games like six handed limit hold’em where aggression and the ability to fight well for pots is a key requirement then this is a big leak. If you encounter such players then you need to attack them by raising their blinds if you have position and bluff raising more often post flop.

Your number of winning pots will increase against these players and they may even have a fit or fold mentality. In fact if your opponents do play in a sort of fit or fold way then you can expand your range accordingly to play more hands against these players. This also means that you can possibly float or raise their donk bets as well more liberally than what you would do with other players. Likewise if your opponent has say a high flop folding percentage. This is linked to the previous example but once again is something that PokerTracker indicates and picks up on.

This also shows a weak tight mentality which can dominate the lower levels of play. Any aspect of your opponents game that strays too far from the norm is possibly a weakness but only if it doesn’t get exploited. For example if you open raise 70% from the button then this is a very wide range even from that position. However as you move up through the levels or your game improves then you are going to be using opponent dependent strategies. If you have two “super rocks” in the blinds and not only that but players who play weakly and poorly post flop then open raising 70% may just be an optimal strategy or close to it.

So there is no absolute percentage for anything that you do if you are looking to play the game at a high level. If you are playing sophisticated players in any form of poker then a 70% button raising range will be far too high and get exploited. But once again this highlights just why opponent dependent strategies are the next step up the evolutionary ladder for any poker player.