Quite frequently I’ve read a comment in a popular poker forum, like 2+2, that just makes me shake my head and laugh. If you’ve read enough poker strategy forums, I’m sure you’ve come across it before too. It sounds something like this:

“Yeah… poker stats don’t really matter. What matters is that you’re thinking about what play is the best play on every street.”

Well… it’s true you always want to be thinking what the best play is, but that’s the whole point of why someone is posting to begin with. They don’t know what the best play is, and they are asking for advice. I can’t even tell you how many times I’ve read something just like over the years. Most of the time it’s when people are talking about Leak Buster stat ranges, so of course you’re going to get people chiming in who know nothing about Leak Buster, what it does, or why stats actually do matter.

burning dollar in hand

Knowing what a particular stat range should be for any given poker stat won’t make you a better poker player. However, they will make a more thoughtful and reflective player about your own game if you know how to use them correctly. You never want to try and force yourself into making a specific play in order to increase or decrease a particular stat for your online poker game. You want to use them, if you will, as signposts for how to make profitable changes to your poker game. I’ll start with a couple of the most popular stats talked about in online poker – VPIP (voluntarily put money into pot), and PFR (pre-flop raise).

 

Both of these stats are used together to form the omega of what someone’s poker game is going to generally be like. They are the primary go to stats when online poker players glance up at their HUD. Why? Well, it’s certainly not because stats don’t matter. 🙂cartoon_whale_wall_sticker_kids_s

 

If you see someone playing with a VPIP/PFR of 60/6, you know you have a whale on your hands. There’s not a whole lot more you’re going to need to know, beyond perhaps how aggressive they are. But if they are playing 60% of their hand range, and they are only raising 6% of those, you have an ATM ready for withdrawal at your poker table.

 

Let’s take a common example from a bad regular who might be wondering why they are losing ever so slightly at the poker table, and they post that they have a VPIP/PFR of 19/3. While I’m sure they have tons of other leaks in their game, we don’t need to know much more than they are far too limp limpty to be profitable. If they are just cold calling almost all of their hands, and only raising the very top top of their range, they will be super easy to play against. So how would we correct that leak? We’d advise them based on their PFR stat of 3, to start raising or folding more pre-flop. Don’t limp or cold call so much.

 

So do stats matter? I rest my case 🙂

 

You bet your ass they matter. But again, you don’t want to force your game to match a stat range, you just want to use those guideposts to gently start making corrections and adjustments in your poker game. When done correctly, it can completely transform your game. Leak Buster uses TWO of it’s ten steps to analyze stat ranges, and find clues into your poker game, and why you’re missing value, or not playing most ideally. Just TWO… but those ten steps can be very powerful. And in those two steps, 144 stat ranges are analyzed, and compared against the most profitable stat ranges of tens of millions of hands. That’s a lot of information in just two steps. It’s a lot that you should be aware of if you’re serious about your poker game.

 

If you haven’t checked it out before, Leak Buster has a free non-expiring limited trial. I plug it here because I get countless letters from people about how it’s transformed their poker games. I also have countless tops professionals who use it to analyze their own games, and make their database time more efficient. I won’t mention their names, but it’s more top players than you’d suspect.

You can check Leak Buster out here:

http://www.acepokersolutions.com/Holdemmanager-leakbuster/

 

Up next… I’ll break own VPIP/PFR Player types and 3-bet stats.