Poker Tracker Wrecked My Game!

I'm not really sure what happened to spike people’s interest, but I have been getting a few emails in response to my posts recently, so I figured I better try to get back to having more regular updates. Thanks to everyone who has responded/contributed!

Party Poker started off great for me and I was consistently winning in ring games (NL $25) and at the $5+$1 tournaments. I would say that 3/5 times I would place in the tournaments and I was averaging about a $22 net return at the ring games. I had a couple of big nights bringing in over $50 in ring games and started seriously looking at this as a supplemental form of income so I began to concentrate on building my bankroll.

I figured that if I was going to need more insight into my game to see what I was doing well, and what could use some improvement. I found that just about every poker blog out there was using and recommending Poker Tracker (http://www.pokertracker.com/). The way that it works is that it downloads every hand you ever play analyzes how you act (and everyone you play against) with it and produces a plethora of statistics surrounding it. It even has a rating system whereby you can determine what type of player you (and everyone you play against) are based on rules that you set up. I am obviously not experienced enough to setup my own rules, so I used a set that was configured previously (See Excession’s decsritpion of player type and a download of the autorate rules at http://bet-the-pot.com/poker-tracker-part-2a-page44.html for more detail).

Needless to say when I found out that I was ‘Mini-Fish’, I was none too pleased:

Slighty Loose Passive Passive (‘Mini-Fish’)

Similar to fish although not as bad. Note that there are slightly more of these than true fish. They drop off at an average rate (they don’t play so many hands as the true fish so take longer to lose their money). But lose it they do. Again you want these guys at your table and preferably to your left.

Here I was winning a lot of money/hands and it turns out I am a sucker? This has severely screwed up my game because now I am always questioning my plays and wondering if I am doing right/wrong. Since I started using this, I have begun a slow downward spiral and am barely breaking even when playing. I think this has rattled my confidence a bit. I think the fact that I am playing about 4 hours a day is not helping either. I am going to take the next 2 days off from playing and then start playing without the PT software in the background. I will try this for a week and then revisit my stats.

While I was able to find a list of description for player types, I have not yet been able to find a explanation of how to change from one type to another. If anyone has any suggestions, let me know. Here is the breakdown:

963 hands

Vol. Put $ In Pot: 32.71%

Saw Flop All hands: 36.03%

Won $ When saw flop: 37.75%

Raise% Bet% Call% Check% Fold% Agression Factor
Pre-Flop 4.42 0 29.15 6.67 59.76 0.15
Flop 1.38 25 14.68 34.17 24.77 1.80
Turn 2.20 27.75 15.42 30.84 12.50 1.94
River 10.83 39.17 10.83 26.67 12.50 4.62