ITH Poker Forum

[nsidestrate]

I read an interesting post on the pokertracker forum, where someone ran an Access query against their pokertracker databse to examine the net win/loss rates of their opposition. They were suprised to find that smiley faces outearn moneybags in their database. Another poster confirmed his results. I just checked my data and smiley faces outearn moneybags on my database at every level. My results could be skewed by the fact that I'm a smileyface and I win a bunch , so I also ran them excluding my stats. The results were essentially the same, although at 1/2 without including me, moneybags were 0.02 bb/100 ahead of smileys. I have very few 1/2 hands, however.

The original post contains the Access query needed to run it yourself. I'd love to hear from others.

Another interesting fact from my database: maniacs are profitable at all levels. The lesson: aggression pays huge dividends.

[RiverCascade]

What symbol are you using (and equation) for maniacs? I got my ... what are they called... "rules" for the ratings from Jsaw I think and there wasn't one for maniacs. This is really surprising to me... that they're ahead at every level! Blows my mind... these people are loose AND agg, right? How can that be profitable? It seems it goes against everything we learn with the emphasis on tight and agg. (As usual, I'm off topic. These thread rules are SO confining... Sorry.)

[nsidestrate]

Maniacs are icon #10 in the original rules -- the tasmanian devil or loose aggressive in pokertracker speak. I use the original bison-bison rules, although I'm giving serious thought to inventing my own new icon structure.

For me, maniacs are VP$IP > 30, PFR > 5, TA > 1.5

You'll notice that the OP showed maniacs as the most profitable group in his database

I have long believed that when conventional books teach tight aggressive play, far too many people focus on the tight and not enough on the aggressive. I think aggressive is more valuable by far. This is one of the reasons SSH rang true for me.

[reb]

I can confirm this also. The top 10 winners are:
4 smileys, 3 monebags, 2 fish (:roll:) and one eagle.

I'm working on getting my VP$IP up as I do believe a somewhat looser and more aggressive style is profitable with all these fish around, during December i got my VP$IP up 3 units and PFR 2 units and I've made more $ since. (It's not over 20% though, mind you)

[nsidestrate]

I can confirm this also. The top 10 winners are:
4 smileys, 3 monebags, 2 fish (:roll:) and one eagle.

It is important not to look so much at who the top individual winners are, but at the average for all players of that type. That way, you are averaging hundreds of thousands of hands together and the result is more reliable.

[Gen_Del_Pilar]

You raise a good point nside. I was (sort of) going to mention this in passing at the Record Keeping forum, but suspected I'd receive further protests as to how some of us place too much emphasis on the self-rating icons.

In my Crypto DB, 74% of moneybags are winners compared to 73% of smileys... i.e. not much in it at all. My theory is that, while both smileys and moneybags are clearly good categories in general, there are far more very bad smileys than there are very bad moneybags.

Edit: For instance, in my Crypto records (only 8k hands though), the worst smiley face is more than 47BBs down, while the worst money bag is only 7BBs down.

[nsidestrate]

Do you know what the average earn for the smileys and moneybags is?

[Gen_Del_Pilar]

I have moneybags at 7.22 BB/100 (total 3.7K hands) and smileys at 7.00 BB/100 (total 4.3K hands). I'll be interested to see what these figures are when they get beyond the "statistically significant" 10K or so each.

I just have the impression that being a smiley face would come more "naturally" to a total newbie (who hasn't read any publication on poker) than for instance being tight aggressive aggressive. That is, I'd find it far more likely for a very bad player to just "happen" to be classified as a smiley face (these categories only get you so far, of course) than for him to be a long-term moneybag.

Interestingly, if I filter out all players who've played less than 100 hands, moneybags suddenly have a clear edge - 83% winners (5.97 BB/100 in 2.2K hands) as opposed to the smileys' 63% (2.15 in 2.2K). Do your figures show similar results, nside?

Apologies if that last filtration point has been mentioned before in the original thread or wherever - still haven't fully recovered from an expensive yet excellent New Years' trip, so I'll be going to bed right now, before I can be bothered to check...

[willwonka]

I ran the query a while back.. but where can I find a definition for what the icon values are?

[janeg]

This is no where near the number of hands you guys have and it's only for the .25/.50 Level at Stars but so far, LA-A, sLA-A and LP-A are the biggest winners. In fact, looks as if everyone who is aggressive after the flop is a winner with biggest losers being TP-P and sLA-P; which appears to confirm that post-flop aggression is the most important factor if you want to win.

Code: Select all

                  
PokerStars Level .25/.50                  
Picture          Description    Icon ID   Players   Profit   Hands   BB/100
Default         no rating       1       1,123   (732.60)13,766   (10.64)
Fish            LP-P           2       174       (9.85)   8,571   (0.23)
Money-bag       TA-A           3       29       32.05    2,718   2.36
Smiley Face     sLA-A           4       35       118.75    3,002   7.91
Sad Face        sLA-P           5       23       (52.30)   1,382   (7.57)
Yield !         TA-P           6       10       (6.55)     539   (2.43)
Dice            LA-P           8       89       (8.70)   4,916   (0.35)
Rock            TP-P           9       44       (163.75)3,262   (5.02)
Tasmanian Devil LA-A           10       60       164.05    2,982   11.00
Question Mark   sLP-A           11       30       52.25    1,673   6.25
Phone           sLP-P           12       65       (20.40)   4,410   (0.93)
Mouse           TP-A           13       31       34.25    3,291   2.08
Elephant        LP-A           14       34       115.75    1,909   12.13
Eagle           TA-N           15       15       (12.15)     973    (2.50)


[Baston]

I did just that query last week, although without knowing much about access, I had to do it in execl.

1. elephants 2. moneybags. 3. questionmark. 4 smiley. But only 9k hands so disregard completely.

I'd be interested to know if anyone who's good with access could calculate what type of hand wins most pots for 2/4 (one pair, two pair, straight..) - or for any limit. could be an interesting gauge.

[nsidestrate]

Interestingly, if I filter out all players who've played less than 100 hands, moneybags suddenly have a clear edge - 83% winners (5.97 BB/100 in 2.2K hands) as opposed to the smileys' 63% (2.15 in 2.2K). Do your figures show similar results, nside?

Actually, I only rate players once I have 100 hands on them, so my original post is for people with more than 100 hands.

[honestbleeps]

I don't know if we're using the same rules... but here's some food for thought:

I'm a frowny face, and I am making slightly better than 3bb/hour at $5/$10 after about 11,000 hands were recorded...

My VP$IP has leveled off at around 22% - but it's worth noting that at Ultimate Bet where I play, there are a decent number of times where someone's sitting out, or the table is short a player or two, which may skew my figures slightly high. I do, however, disobey general convention. I'll limp with KJo in early position, because it's (so far, at least) profitable for me.

My maniac definition is not the taz devil, but rather the "bomb" icon -- it's the only one I changed - anyone with VP$IP>50% is the bomb, and .. I don't mean that in a good way... except for my bankroll (unless they're hitting flops, in which case they're the most frustrating person at my table)...

I've noticed that the most profitable players are definitely NOT the money bags, rocks or eagles, but rather the smiley faces, the warning signs, and believe it or not, the calling stations (phone icon) and frowny faces...

I don't have the ruleset I used offhand, but it was linked from a forum somewhere and I think it's one that many/most people are using. Basically VP$IP > 20% makes you either a frowny face or a calling station depending on your preflop aggression -- since I raise preflop roughly 6% -- I'm a frowny face...