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So you have been playing poker on one of those free sites for a while and finally feel comfortable to try your hand with real money. So you go out to PokerStars, PartyPoker, or other favorite site and transfer some money into an offshore account (if like me you are from the U.S.)
You've studied the rules of the game, could tell anybody any odds for hitting any hand, have read all of the bluffing books, and have watched every WSOP since Chris Moneymaker won back in 2003.
So, you play for real, and you suddenly realize "Toto, I don't think we are in Kansas anymore".
Playing online is a lot of fun but don't be naive --- it is not like inviting over a bunch of your friends and putting a $20 down. And I'm not talking about the possibilities that players may collude against you. What? Players could do that? Well, yeah, any number of players could be chatting in chat windows outside of the main application. But even if that is just a remote possibility, there is another highly legal way that a player might get an advantage on you ...
DATA! They have it, and you don't!
What kind of data do they have? Let's take a look at a sample Party Poker No-Limit Texas Hold 'Em hand provided by http://www.hand-histories.com/
note: IBrakeForData has "scrubbed" the data to make it anonymous
#Game No : 8570802646
***** Hand History for Game 8570802646 *****
$10 USD NL Texas Hold'em - Monday, November 02, 11:32:42 EST 2009
Table Table 169074 (Real Money)
Seat 5 is the button
Total number of players : 9
Seat 9: Player1 ( $1.85 USD )
Seat 4: Player2 ( $11.21 USD )
Seat 7: Player3 ( $10.74 USD )
Seat 2: Player4 ( $10 USD )
Seat 3: Player5 ( $10.62 USD )
Seat 6: Player6 ( $15.15 USD )
Seat 5: Player7 ( $3.02 USD )
Seat 8: Player8 ( $9.64 USD )
Seat 1: Player9 ( $4.73 USD )
Player6 posts small blind [$0.05 USD].
Player3 posts big blind [$0.10 USD].
** Dealing down cards **
Player8 folds
Player1 folds
Player9 folds
Player4 folds
Player5 folds
Player2 folds
Player7 folds
Player6 raises [$0.35 USD]
Player3 calls [$0.30 USD]
** Dealing Flop ** [ 5h, 9h, Js ]
Player6 bets [$0.57 USD]
Player3 folds
Player6 does not show cards.
Player6 wins $1.33 USD
As you will likely notice, this is the same output that you are used to seeing when you are at the table. The key attribute, however, is the sheer volume of data that you are able to get.
If you are playing at PartyPoker and the game is No-Limit-Holdem, you can buy this data based on the dollar amount of the table. For example, for a $10.00 table game with Full-Ring (7 - 10 players) you can get 800k hands for the special price of roughly €8.00 (about $12 USD at the time of this posting) or a staggering 5 million hands for €35.00 (about $52 USD at the time of this posting)
So, this is going to be one of those cases where IBrakeForData is going to say that the data alone is not incredibly valuable. The reason is quite simple --- you don't have all day to sit and analyze data at a table. The good news, however, is that you don't have to do this. Software programs have been written specifically for the analysis of hand history data. Two of these support a wide range of sites and have many users: Poker Tracker (PT) and Poker Office (PO).
And at this point: the data, combined with specialized software, becomes INCREDIBLY VALUABLE.
Just how much of an advantage does a player get with this data? Just look at the statistics that these programs are capable of calculating for you:
The Key Statistics
VPIP Voluntarily Put Chips In Pot %: Percentage of hands in which a player puts money (other than the blinds) into the pot
PFR Pre-flop Raise %: Percentage of hands in which a player raises the pot before the flop
PFA Post-flop Aggression Factor: A measure of how aggressive a player is after the flop
WTSD Went To Showdown %: Percentage of hands in which a player goes to showdown having seen the flop
W$SD Won at Showdown %: Percentage of showdowns won by the player
BB Steal Blind Steal %: Percentage of hands in which a player has an opportunity to steal the blinds, and attempts to do so (by raising preflop)
BB Defence Blind Defence %: Percentage of big blind steal attempts which fail against this player (because they called or reraised the 'stealing' raiser)
Continuation Bet Continuation Bet %: Percentage of the hands in which the player raised preflop then bet out on the flop
When you can better predict what a player is likely to do, you have gained a serious advantage over them.
IBrakeForData
This is, in my opinion, one of the major factors that discriminates online poker from face-to-face poker. It takes talent, training, and practice to monitor all these factors while playing people, whereas online most sites will generate some subset of these statistics for you in near-real-time; there are also "monitoring" programs that will watch the hands you and the others with you play and accrue this data.
ReplyDeleteIBrakeForData's stance is that Online Poker is simply a different game, no better or worse than a live game, just different. The key is that in a live game, you can only use your brain. That isn't to say that quite a bit of "homework" wasn't done to prepare ahead of time. Whereas in an online game, the analysis may not stop once the game begins. I would imagine this is an eye-opener for some of our readers --- and the intent of the article.
ReplyDeleteIBrakeForData
I find it interesting that these sites are making money both by hosting the poker tables and by selling the data from the hands that are played at those poker tables to the players that are playing.
ReplyDeleteI think that your points are interesting, but I am not sure that it is as easy as just looking at some data to get an edge. Consider that players are likely to change play when they have more chips as opposed to having fewer chips. Some players might not play as aggressive in the first part of a game and then become more aggressive as the game progresses. These changes in play could skew the data on any given player making it invalid for the situation at hand.
The fact is the players should be playing based on the situation at the table and card they are dealt, not the probability that the player will fold based on data that was collected on that player in the past.
@Craig
ReplyDeleteI think we can both agree that "data" is a tool, not a guarantee. It no more guarantees future performance or behavior than does than does analyzing every stock trade for a particular symbol.
But in a game where I am forced to play blind (can't see the actual player), IBrakeForData, given a choice, would prefer to have all of the data at my disposable.