ITH Poker Forum

[internet]

This Forum is intended for hand examples so that you can see what other members would have done in the same situation. The use of Polls is a great feature for many examples.

To receive the best response, it is important that your examples include all necessary details. This includes the limit, position of each player involved, and the exact betting sequences. If the type of player is important then be sure to include this; otherwise, all readers will assume a typical player (for example, indicate if player is an aggressive maniac). Format similar to the hand examples in my book work very well.

Example format...

$15-$30 PartyPoker. You hold As Ad on the button. An early position player calls, an aggressive middle player raises, a very loose player calls
from cutoff, and you reraise. Four players see the flop of Th 8c 4c. The middle player bets and the cutoff calls. You raise and everybody calls to see the turn of the 6h. It is checked to the cutoff who bets. There is $355 in the pot. What do you do?

I highly recommend the use of the following hand converter. THis tool basically takes a hand history from Party Poker and converts it into a nice readable format suitable for posting (link edited by nsidestrate).

Cybrarian's converter

(end edit)

Posting hand examples are my favorite type of posts and I believe are very benefiscial in improving your game. I encourage everyone to contribute by posting their hands and providing feedback for others.

If you are a beginning player, try not to be intimidated. You might simply post, "I'm a beginner, but I would do this..." You learn the most by trying to think through the problem before reading explanations from the more experienced players.

I look forward to sharing your ideas. Matthew

[jeffnc]

To receive the best response, it is important that your examples include all necessary details.

Are the hand transcripts from the online services good to post?

[geormiet]

Most people prefer not to wade through hand histories. Look at some of Mchilger's or pilchard's hand examples - they are very clear and much easier to read.

[robrobrob]

I think posting like mathew and pilchard is ideal, but at the end of the post, include the transcript for those who use a hand player.

just my 2¢.

rob

[mchilger]

Jeff, I think written out examples get better responses. I normally paste a hand history and use it to write up the example. It doesn't take very much additional time once you get used to it and most readers appreciate the written out version.

Matthew

[saluki]

I find it easier to comprehend and follow the actual hand histories from the websites. Maybe it is just me. (<== just slow)

[subq]

I think the reason a lot of people like actual hand histories posted is because that is what we look at and that is what we are used to reading. The format someone summarizes with may not be as readable.

I personally like to see both. A summary of what happened and then the hand history if I want to see in detail what took place.

[mchilger]

I agree that both is best. The problem is that some people are not clear enough in the description of the hand to be able to make all the right decisions and a posting of the actual hand history can help clarify.

Matthew

[brady8714]

This hand converter is really nice too.
http://www.selachian.com/tools/bisoncon ... verter.cgi

[subq]

yeah bison's converter is very nice, he has added plain text and html posting too

all the hand examples on 2+2 use the same format, I talked to him about adding a phpbb format

[chrisjp]

As a newbie I have a hard time with the hand histories pasted directly from an online hand. I like Matthew's format better.

Thanks,
Chris

[subq]

As a newbie I have a hard time with the hand histories pasted directly from an online hand. I like Matthew's format better.

Thanks,
Chris

That is the whole purpose of bison's hand converter...to make it easier to read and understand.

[Fasttrack09]

Not sure if I'm posting this in the correct forum, but didn't see another place to post this question.

I'm reading through some hand examples and see things like

BB is 31.5% VP$IP, 6.5% PFR.

I know BB is Big Blind, what do the other things mean?

[jeffnc]

Not sure if I'm posting this in the correct forum, but didn't see another place to post this question.

The "General" forum is probably the right place.

BB is 31.5% VP$IP, 6.5% PFR.

I know BB is Big Blind, what do the other things mean?

VP$IP is a statistic from Poker Tracker software. It means Voluntarily Put money in the Pot. You will on many poker sites the flop % - how many players see the flop on average. Let's say there are 4 callers on every hand, including the small blind and big blind. The flop % is 40%. But the big blind didn't voluntarily put any money in the pot. So VP$IP is only 30%. Now let's say that there was a raise and 3 callers, including the small blind and big blind. Now VP$IP is 40% also.

PFR is the PreFlop Raise percentage. How often does a player raise before the flop? If a player has a very small PFR, you can usually tell what his cards are when he raises (AA, KK, QQ, AK). If it's very high, you have very little idea what he has.

BB is Big Blind in some contexts, and Big Bet in other contexts.

[Fasttrack09]

Thanks, that is very helpful. One more question. Do the internet sites have a place that calculates these percentages for you, or do people run these calculations themselves?

And, are the calculations just for the amount of time that they've been playing at the table or another amount of time?