Excession’s Poker Tracker Tips - Part II: Auto Rating
by Excession
NEWSFLASH - I go into much greater detail concerning player types and suggest slightly amended autorate rules in Part 2A of this guide.
Note: The exported autorate criteria file referenced in this article can be downloaded here.
PokerTracker (PT) can auto-rate players based upon both pre and post flop play, it’s time to analyse my Party and PS database of 23,000 Ring hands at $25 and $50 NL tables to see what types of player we have, how common each type is and how successful (or otherwise they are).
I have defined 3 categories of pre-flop characteristics based on the percentage of times the player voluntarily put money into the pot (
VP$IP).
| VP$IP | Rating |
|---|
| > 40% | Loose |
| 25% -> 40% | Slightly Loose |
| < 25% | Tight |
Pre-flop, I’ve defined aggression by the pre-flop raise percentage (PFR%).
| PFR% | Rating |
|---|
| >= 7% | Aggressive |
| < 7% | Passive |
Post-flop, I’ve used the total aggressiveness (with the ignore pre-flop aggression stats checked).
| AF-TOT | Rating |
|---|
| > 1.2 | Aggressive |
| <= 1.2 | Passive |
My icon categories are as follows..
- LP-P (Fish) - This means Loose as in VP$IP> 40%, Passive pre-flop (as in PFR% <7%) and Passive post-flop (with post-flop aggression 1.2 or less) - thus Loose Passive Passive means loose preflop, passive preflop, and passive on the flop.
- sLP-P - This means Slightly Loose, Passive Passive - same as fish but VP$IP in the range of 25%-40%, so plays less bad starting hands).
- LP-A - Loose Passive Aggressive (plays a lot of flops and raises rarely but is more aggressive (> 1.2 aggression factor) post-flop.
- sLP-A - Slightly Loose Passive Aggressive (as LP A but sees less flops - VP$IP in the range of 25-40%).
You get the idea. The other categories (using the values set out above) are..
- TP-P - Tight Passive Passive (aka ‘Rock’)
- TP-A Tight Passive Aggressive
- LA-P Loose Aggressive Passive
- sLA-P Slightly Loose Aggressive Passive
- LA-A Loose Aggressive Aggressive
- sLA-A Slightly Loose Aggressive Aggressive
- TA-P Tight Aggressive Passive (or those who play by the book and then go weak-tight or slowplay lots after the flop)
- TA-A Tight Aggressive Aggressive (‘the much recommended ‘Stone Killer’)
Special Categories
Maniac
I also have kept a special 1 priority classification (all others bar
Calling Station are priority 2 - the program checks for category 1 classifications first and these override any category 2 classifications that would otherwise be applicable) for LA-A’s who are so loose and aggressive they can properly be called maniacs - more than 50%
VP$IP, more than 15%
PFR% and post flop aggression of 1.6 or more - their presence changes the entire table so I thought they deserved their own category.
Which icons you assign to which are up to you. With GT+ running it doesn’t really matter as you get the description as well as the icon.
Calling Station
My other priority 1 player is the Calling Station. As PT passivity is defined as anything apart from betting or raising it includes checking, calling and folding, the danger is that there are two sorts of post-flop passive player; 6he calling station and the weak-tight player.
Both are passive but one calls whilst the other one folds. It’s important to be able to differentiate these two types - as the weak-tight player is exactly who you want to bluff and the calling station is exactly who you don’t!
VP$IP 25%+ (I suppose you could have a tight calling station but it would be rare and it’s easier if you think of them as a type of fish.)
Total aggression (post-flop) <= 1.2. Go to showdown when see flop > 30%.
That makes 14 Categories in total (the current maximum).
Category Breakdowns
Note the following category stats:
(NB whilst I start auto-rating at 20 hands to get an early read these profit/loss BB/100 figures for each types are taken from those in my database who have played at least 40 hands logged):
| Category | No. players
(%) | BB/100 Profit/Loss |
|---|
| LP-P (fish) | 53 (4%) | -13 |
| Calling Station | 103 (8%) | -12 |
| sLP-P | 77 (6%) | -4 |
| LP-A | 91 (7%) | +11 |
| sLP-A | 214 (17%) | +2 |
| TP-P | 160 (12.5%) | -4 |
| TP-A | 241 (19%) | +4 |
| LA-P * | 19 (1.5%) | -6 |
| sLA-P | 32 (2.5%) | +10 |
| LA-A | 97 (7.5%) | +2 |
| Maniac | 16 (1%) | -12 |
| sLA-A | 110 (8.5%) | +7 |
| TA-P | 21 (1.5%) | +4 |
| TA-A | 42 (3%) | +15 |
| =1276 | |
* Warning sLA-P is one of the only two winning passive post-flop categories after 40 hands, and if I filter by 80 hands instead it is a losing style).
The players who don’t have 40 hands logged (and are therefore still default) have a dreadful BB/100 of ~30 - you would expect this as they will include those who bust out before logging the 40 hands needed.
You can probably figure that they are looser than average - indeed selecting
VP$IP 40%+ and
PFR% 10%+ for all players (from one hand logged up) shows an average of ~20 BB/100.
The above stats are therefore dangerous if relied upon to show what is a successful strategy overall to the extent that, by selecting only those players who have survived to 40 hands, there will be a tendency to select the more ‘lucky’ than average aggressive players - at least ‘lucky’ whilst I was watching - as the ‘unlucky’ ones won’t show in the figures.
Nevertheless - some pretty clear lessons about the value of aggressive play seem to stand out.
--excession
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