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Using Poker Tracker
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Tuesday, January 8, 2008
By Green Plastic
CardRunners
Poker Tracker (PT) is a great tool for any poker player trying to keep track of their results as well as improve their play. In this article I am going to explain to you how I use PT to increase my bottom line at the tables. For those of you that don't know, PT takes hand histories and stores them in a database that gives you all of the stats you could possibly want about both yours and your opponent's play.
First, you need to get in the habit of "grabbing" all of your hand histories. There are programs available on the PT website (pokertracker.com) that will save all of your hand histories so they can be easily imported to PT at the end of the session. I use one of these programs to save my hands on
UltimateBet. If you can't find a grabber for the poker site you play on, you can request your hand histories from customer support. It is essential that you get into the habit of saving ALL of your sessions. It is tempting to not track your play when you are running poorly, but do yourself a favor and grab all of your hands so PT can give you an accurate assessment of your game.
I am not going to give you too many specific statistics to look for, as different PT stats would vary among some top players (depending on game, stakes, style, etc.). Rather, I am going to explain to you the process of how I use PT to make sure I am playing my best game over time. I have found that it is easy to develop bad habits in poker, and PT is the main tool I use to "police" myself and make sure I am not getting sloppy.
The first thing you should do is look at your Vol. Put $ In Pot column. This means how often you are putting money into the pot (pre-flop) when you don't have to (i.e. not on the BB or on the SB but you fold). My percentage is 34.81%. I would imagine this is pretty high compared to what most NL players would have because I am very aggressive and I usually play short-handed. However, there is something you can take away from this statistic. My pre-flop raise percentage is 25.46%. What does this tell you? Over two-thirds of the time I am voluntarily putting money into the pot I am RAISING. I am playing a lot of hands but I am NOT calling. This is very important. I think this is the single most important piece to becoming a winning no-limit cash game player. When you enter the pot, be the aggressor! Even if your numbers vary from mine, make sure that the majority of the time you are voluntarily entering the pot you are the raiser.
Also, take a look at how often you are folding your SB/BB to a steal (folded SB/BB to steal). I fold 78% of the time in the SB and 70% in the BB. This is noteworthy because I am playing shorthanded. I am not playing very often out of the blinds when a late-position raiser makes a standard raise. Even though I know that he probably has just as bad of a hand that I have, I am giving up my blinds and waiting for a better spot. I would suggest that you try to make sure your numbers in these columns are as high as mine, if not higher.
My Attempted to Steal Blinds percentage is pretty high at 34.5%. This means that when it is un-raised to me in late position I make a raise 34.5% of the time. Remember, I am playing short-handed as well so this figure is probably higher than I would recommend most NL players playing.
Another tool that I recommend using on PT is the Misc. Stats tab. At the bottom of the screen you can filter the stats to see your month-to-month results. I like to look at my voluntarily put $ into the pot over time. I compare my stats month-to-month and I make sure that I am staying pretty consistent. There are times when I notice that I am playing too loosely and I will make a conscious effort to tighten up my play. Look at how your stats are changing over time and you can see how your game is progressing.
I hope this helps, feel free to post on the boards about any questions or other P
