Ventures new. Cash

Nuggy962

Done a HU personal challenge long time ago and turned me from a loosing HU player to a marginal winning so thought give cash a go.

Started on a £100 roll and had some run good to move up fairly quick. Done a withdraw and set the roll at £200 amd going to plan in the following

• Achieve £1k roll 
• Move up to 10/20 level
• Edit - understand stats and set target around weakest area 

devonfish5

Good luck mate....

Any idea how long this could take you?

Tikay10

Hi Nuggy,

I'm not much of a NLH player, but trying to increase % of "flops won", is that really a wise target?

"Draws", where we are behind on the flop are a very important part of the game I'd have thought, & we are generally behind on the flop with drawing hands.

If we try to be ahead on the flop every hand, we are plying way too tight, & leaving a ton of equity on the table.
 
Maybe a few of the better players would care to comment. 

Nuggy962

In Response to Re: Ventures new. Cash:

Hi Nuggy, I'm not much of a NLH player, but trying to increase % of "flops won", is that really a wise target? "Draws", where we are behind on the flop are a very important part of the game I'd have thought, & we are generally behind on the flop with drawing hands. If we try to be ahead on the flop every hand, we are plying way too tight, & leaving a ton of equity on the table.   Maybe a few of the better players would care to comment.  
Posted by Tikay10

Ahh that makes sense.  

Maybe a better target is to understand the stats of my game and what that means. I  look at the bottom section and always seem to end up around the 34% mark. 

Noticed that my check % is through the roof at 19%. Fold is highest then bet / raise and call second lowest to reraise. 

Tikay10

Well I'm not an expert on these thing, but I can't help but think "% of flops won" is not really a key target.

Nuggy962

In Response to Re: Ventures new. Cash:

Good luck mate.... Any idea how long this could take you?
Posted by devonfish5

Dev

No idea to be honest. I am only a rec player, got a full time job which can takes up 50 hours of the week and 3 kids that do the rest. Decided cash as now tend to play when everyone is alseep and been told tjat is oerfect time for the cash game.

I fully expect to go backwards at first. 

Glad to see doing well in your new cash advebtures 

mattprawn

In Response to Re: Ventures new. Cash:

Well I'm not an expert on these thing, but I can't help but think "% of flops won" is not really a key target.
Posted by Tikay10

Whereas % of flops folded is clearly a key target for Tikay

Tikay10

In Response to Re: Ventures new. Cash:

In Response to Re: Ventures new. Cash : Whereas % of flops folded is clearly a key target for Tikay
Posted by mattprawn

Too right Accountant Bloke.

98% normally, 95% when I loosen up or am down to 3 Bigs.

markycash

In Response to Re: Ventures new. Cash:

In Response to Re: Ventures new. Cash : Too right Accountant Bloke. 98% normally, 95% when I loosen up or am down to 3 Bigs and 0% if BoxLuck raises my BB.
Posted by Tikay10

FYP

EvilPingu

In Response to Re: Ventures new. Cash:

Hi Nuggy, I'm not much of a NLH player, but trying to increase % of "flops won", is that really a wise target?
Posted by Tikay10

+1 to this.

I'd be interested in the reason behind setting such a target. Perhaps we've realised that we're not c-betting the flop enough, for instance if we're only betting when we hit a piece of the flop. In which case, I can see where such a target would come from, as we have a desire to c-bet more,  or perhaps check/raise flop more, which would naturally lead to winning a higher percentage of pots on the flop.

However, using "% of flops won" as a goal to improve is flawed in the same way that saying "My target is to win £x this month" is flawed. % of flops won is highly dependent on the people we're playing against, as well as being affected by how much ourselves and our opponent both hit the flop. Additionally, the statistic you are basing your target on doesn't consider magnitude. Extreme example but if we shove every flop, we're going to win a huge number of pots on the flop, while also losing a huge amount of money.

If you're playing a guy who is somewhat fit/fold post flop, then you're going to win tons of pots on the flop when they miss, particularly in position. As a goal, I like the idea of "C-bet the flop more against this type of player", rather than "Increase % of flops won" because that is dependent on the result of our action, which we cannot control - We can only control doing the right thing, which is c-betting with the frequency we believe is correct.

Against someone who is just blindly clicking the half pot button every time they have the pre-flop lead, maybe we want to raise the flop light more to take advantage of their leak. This is another situation where "% of flops won" is a dangerous stat though: Maybe calling flop, particularly in position, has a better outcome than raising and winning on the flop, and setting a "Win more flops" goal leads to us raising and giving up EV.

If you're playing a station, then trying to win a high percentage of flops is a bad idea that will cost us money, because they're probably going to call and we're going to not hit the flop particularly hard all that often. Against stations, you're better off c-betting tighter and just extracting maximum value when you do make a hand. Don't go bluffing stations just because you want to win more hands on the flop.

Against a stronger player out of position, are you going to want to be c-betting a high percentage of the time when they're going to float you, raise the flop, and do all sorts of funky things to take advantage of position? Maybe we're better off choosing to check/call certain parts of our range against these kinds of players, rather than c-betting and being forced to fold to a raise, or getting floated and not knowing how to continue on the turn.

As you can hopefully see, setting a "Win more pots on the flop" goal will almost certainly hinder your game more than it helps, because it's pretty terrible as a measure of anything, really.

I suspect that there's a leak in your game that you have identified that leads to setting this target - However, you'd be better off having a target which is more realistic to the leak you have identified - Maybe something along the lines of "C-bet a higher percentage of flops when I miss the flop against players where it is appopriate to do so", for example. Then maybe set some smaller goals to help with that. For instance:

- I'm going to watch YouTube videos about c-betting the flop

- I'm going to read about which board textures are good and bad to c-bet

- I'm going to spend X amount of time looking at hands I played earlier/yesterday/last week to see where I could have c-bet more

- I'm going to post X hands in the Poker Clinic where I am unsure about my flop decision

Tikay10

Thanks for that Andy.

I instinctively know the logic is wrong, but I'm not so good at explaining why.

Logically, of course, we don't NEED to be ahead on the flop, ever. We just need to bet in a manner which convinces our opponent we are.....

 

EvilPingu

In Response to Re: Ventures new. Cash:

In Response to Re: Ventures new. Cash : Ahh that makes sense.   Maybe a better target is to understand the stats of my game and what that means. I  look at the bottom section and always seem to end up around the 34% mark.  Noticed that my check % is through the roof at 19%. Fold is highest then bet / raise and call second lowest to reraise. 
Posted by Nuggy962

Tbh, I don't think that the stats given on Sky are really useful for anything.

Showdowns won is probably the only somewhat useful thing there - On videos where people are playing on sites where HUDs are allowed, you do sometimes hear about WSD%, or win at showdown percentage, which is the exact same thing. It has some merit in assessing whether we're light on the river too often, but even then it doesn't tell us whether we're bluffing people who don't like folding when we have 9 high, or if we're calling too much. Also, money going in pre-flop affects the statistic. Plus if I have a guy betting 50p into a £100 pot then I'm happy to call if I'm winning 5% of the time, so even an abnormal value isn't an indicator of a leak in all cases.

For that reason, even that is broken down to WSD% after river bet and WSD% after river call.

craigcu12

In Response to Re: Ventures new. Cash:

In Response to Re: Ventures new. Cash : Ahh that makes sense.   Maybe a better target is to understand the stats of my game and what that means. I  look at the bottom section and always seem to end up around the 34% mark.  Noticed that my check % is through the roof at 19%. Fold is highest then bet / raise and call second lowest to reraise. 
Posted by Nuggy962

When you've played micro stakes cash as long as myself you'll realize the stats are not showing your true game The tables are generally very passive so rather than fold pre you'll Ch the junk on the flop. The mid pairs you have on less scary boards are usually Ch or bet because the villians themselvesgenerally Ch missed broadway cards and you'll rarely be calling against semi bluffs or bluffed river scare cards because players always chase the draws and only bet scary rivers they have hit they rest are ch

EvilPingu

In Response to Re: Ventures new. Cash:

In Response to Re: Ventures new. Cash :  Noticed that my check % is through the roof at 19%. Fold is highest then bet / raise and call second lowest to reraise. 
Posted by Nuggy962

This is another situation where the statistic provided is terrible. It takes the number of times we have chosen a particular action then divides it by total number of actions we have made.

If we check the big blind, then check and fold the flop, we have check 66.666% and fold 33.333%

If we then fold the small blind, it's 50/50.

We then raise the button, call a 3bet, call flop, then bet the turn when it's checked to us, at which point the opponent folds.

Our stats would then be, out of a sample of 8 actions made:
Fold 25%

Check 25%

Call 25%

Bet 12.5%

Raise 12.5%

Which means precisely nothing. For example, my stats say "Fold 56%" but that doesn't mean I'm playing 44% of hands that i'm dealt. I have "Call 7%" but I'm not folding 93% of the time if you try to steal my blind, or if you c-bet the flop against me.

The "When you fold" thing is equally silly. If I check the big blind and fold the flop, then fold the small blind next hand, the stats would then display that I fold pre flop 50% of the time, although I've 1) Folded pre every time I can, not including the 'option' to fold pre instead of check BB and 2) I've only folded flop 50% of the time even though I've folded every flop I've seen.

I then fold every hand until get a walk next orbit in the big blind, at which point it'll tell me that I didn't fold 14% of the time. Just lol.

Nuggy962

In Response to Re: Ventures new. Cash:

In Response to Re: Ventures new. Cash : This is another situation where the statistic provided is terrible. It takes the number of times we have chosen a particular action then divides it by total number of actions we have made. If we check the big blind, then check and fold the flop, we have check 66.666% and fold 33.333% If we then fold the small blind, it's 50/50. We then raise the button, call a 3bet, call flop, then bet the turn when it's checked to us, at which point the opponent folds. Our stats would then be, out of a sample of 8 actions made: Fold 25% Check 25% Call 25% Bet 12.5% Raise 12.5% Which means precisely nothing. For example, my stats say "Fold 56%" but that doesn't mean I'm playing 44% of hands that i'm dealt. I have "Call 7%" but I'm not folding 93% of the time if you try to steal my blind, or if you c-bet the flop against me. The "When you fold" thing is equally silly. If I check the big blind and fold the flop, then fold the small blind next hand, the stats would then display that I fold pre flop 50% of the time, although I've 1) Folded pre every time I can, not including the 'option' to fold pre instead of check BB and 2) I've only folded flop 50% of the time even though I've folded every flop I've seen. I then fold every hand until get a walk next orbit in the big blind, at which point it'll tell me that I didn't fold 14% of the time. Just lol.
Posted by EvilPingu

Andy

Thank you for taking time to respond in such detail. Makes total sense and actually feel a bit silly setting such a goal. Turns out didnt really understand what these stats were made up of. I wrongly assumed that increasing % of floos won meant in a nut shell, out of the total hands that a flop was seen and i was in the hand, i took it down at some point or at showdown. As you have said, in reasing this % means nothing in isolation as i could just open shove and end up with a stunning % as well as a zero bank roll. 

Going to take the time to watch some video's as suggegsted and reasses goals

Thanks again