Steve Selbrede - The Statistics of Poker: Data Mining Statistics Applied to Small Stakes No Limit Holdem

The

Statistics of Poker

Data Mining Statistics Applied to Small Stakes No Limit Holdem

rd Edition

Steve Selbrede

COPYRIGHT 2013, 2015

All rights reserved.

No part of this book may be reproduced or transmitted in any form, by any means, electronic or mechanical, including photocopying and recording, or by any information storage or retrieval system without the express permission in writing from the author. Questions or comments can be emailed to the author at .

Available at Amazon.com

Beat the Donks is a book about the lowest stakes No-Limit Holdem games played in Las Vegas. These games are filled with Donks that are easy to beat as long as you can recognize and exploit their mistakes. This book defines a Donk as an experienced player who makes the same mistakes over and over again, unwilling to adapt. This stubbornness makes the Donk very predictable and, therefore, easy to beat.

This book discusses some of the biggest mistakes the Donks make, including: playing too many hands, playing out of position, limping too much, calling too many preflop raises, chasing draws, poor bet sizing, and paying off with the worse hand. The book also discusses some of the most exploitable tells made by these Donks.

This is not a how-to poker cookbook. It assumes the reader is already familiar with No Limit Holdem and much of the poker jargon that goes with it. It does not teach you how to play basic NLH. Instead, it aims to refine your game by pointing out how you can exploit the various major weaknesses common to the typical Vegas Donk-fest poker games.

Available at Amazon.com

Donkey Poker is designed to teach you how to play low-stakes live-action no-limit holdem using a method that most players can readily accept. It doesnt require you to raise-raise-raise. And it doesnt require exquisite postflop soul reads. Instead it is a low-variance, small-ball and exploitive brand of poker.

Volume 1 covers all the key preflop concepts, including VPIP (playing too many hands), PFR (playing too passively), and the critical value position plays in these statistics. Donkey Poker also shows you when and why its often profitable to limp rather than to fold.

There are also chapters on the psychology of poker and preflop tells. Understanding these topics are important keys for maximizing your profit.

Finally, there are several interesting topics rarely covered in poker books, such as straddling, preflop bluffing and the best time to take a potty break.

Table of Contents

to the Third Edition

: Analytical Techniques -- 6

.1 Our Starting Point

1.2 Hand Histories

1.3 The Database

1.4 Merged Players

1.5 The Loser

1.6 The Winners

1.7 Using a HUD

1.8 Chapter One Pearls

: Preflop Statistics: General -- 20

2.1 VPIP (Voluntarily Put money In the Pot)

2.2 PFR (Pre Flop Raise)

2.3 Preflop Aggression Stats

2.4 Hand Rankings

2.5 CCPF - The Gap Concept

2.6 Examples

2.7 Chapter Two Pearls

2.8 Chapter Two Appendix

: Preflop Statistics: Position -- 48

3.1 VPIP Position Awareness (PAW)

3.2 PFR Position Awareness (PAW)

3.3 PFR/VPIP Aggression Ratio

3.4 ATS (Attempt To Steal)

3.5 RFI and LFI

3.6 RWPC and LWPC

3.7 Defending Against a Raise

3.8 Squeezing

3.9 Examples

3.10 Chapter Three Pearls

3.11 Chapter Three Appendix

: Preflop Statistics: Blinds -- 92

.1 Blind Ambition

4.2 First to Act in the Small Blind

4.3 Previous Limpers, From the Blinds

4.4 Previous Raisers, From the Blinds

4.5 Examples

4.6 Chapter Four Pearls

4.7 Chapter Four Appendix

: Constructing a Starting Hand Chart -- 108

5.1 Chart Components

5.2 Hand Ranges

5.3 Chapter Five Pearls

: Flop Statistics 118

.1 The Continuation Bet

6.2 Having Called a Preflop Raise

6.3 In a Limped Pot

6.4 Flop Aggression Stats

6.5 Chapter Six Examples

6.6 Chapter Six Pearls

6.7 Chapter Six Appendix

: Turn Statistics -- 154

7.1 The Turn Continuation Bet

7.2 The Turn Donk Bet

7.3 Floating

7.4 Check/Raising the Turn

7.5 Turn Aggression Stats

7.6 Chapter Seven Examples

7.7 Chapter Seven Pearls

7.8 Chapter Seven Appendix

: River Statistics -- 188

8.1 The Continuation Bet

8.2 The River Donk Bet

8.3 Floating

8.4 Check/Raising the River

8.5 River Aggression Stats

8.6 Chapter Eight Examples

8.7 Chapter Eight Pearls

8.8 Chapter Eight Appendix

: Comparing Different Stakes -- 216

9.1 VPIP

9.2 PFR

9.3 PFR/VPIP Aggression Ratio

9.4 Position Awareness

9.5 Miscellaneous Stats

9.6 Conclusions

: Miscellaneous Ramblings -- 230

10.1 Is Data Mining Fair?

10.2 Set Mining

10.3 Is NLH a Game of Skill?

10.4 Table and Seat Selection

10.5 Monsters (under the bed)

10.6 Six-Max

: Poker Definitions 253

: PT3 Definitions 255

: References 261

Introduction to the Third Edition

"Every philosophy is tinged with the coloring of some secret imaginative background, which never emerges explicitly into its train of reasoning." Alfred North Whitehead

This is the third edition of The Statistics of Poker. The first edition was the original, available only as an eBook. The second was a slightly-corrected version that became the first available in a printed format. This edition is a major rewrite, including:

• A new statistical analysis using a three times larger database. This is the major reason for this new edition.
• New and improved methods for some of the statistical analysis.
• Additional content.
• Adjusting fonts and presentation style to match my later books.
• Fixing typos and grammatical mistakes while improving the clarity of the exposition.

I have played small stakes no limit holdem for many years, both online and "live". To say the least, it has been a struggle to make a profit. So what was my problem? I studied the books. I lurked in the forums. Was I a mediocre player, or just unlucky?

My background is not in poker. I was a scientist and research engineer in Silicon Valley for over thirty years. My usual approach to a tough engineering problem was to design and execute an experiment. Data rules for engineers. But for poker, experiments are difficult to design and usually not practical to carry out. If I want to determine whether a particular 3Bet is my best option, I can try it. But a single data point does not a trend make. If I want to repeat the experiment 100 times, the circumstances will be different each time; with different players, different stack sizes, different hands. An engineer would say that he cant control all the variables. So, what is a respectable techno-nerd to do?

My science background is in physics and astronomy. A physicist will often construct an experiment, take some data and test his theory. (The granddaddy of such experiments might be the Large Hadron Collider in Europe, the world's largest high-energy particle accelerator, whose goal is to find the 'God Particle'.)

Astronomers usually take a different approach since they can rarely perform a controlled experiment. (Let's build a star and see how it explodes.) Astronomers can only perform observations and take lots of data. Then they analyze their data and look for truths.