Useful Poker Tracker stats, a definition

1. Voluntarily Put $ in Pot % (VPIP/VP$IP) - The percentage of time a player voluntarily puts money into the pot. Blinds only do not count unless you play your SB or call a raise from the BB. Obviously, raising from any position including the blinds counts towards VPIP.
2. Preflop Raise % (PFR) - The percentage of times a player raises pre-flop.
3. Aggression Factor (AF) - A unit-less ratio which describes how often a player is aggressive vs how often they are passive. AF = (raise% + bet%) / call% Aggression factor is calculated on a street by street basis as well as a cumulative factor based on all streets. AF, when discussed, does not typically include the preflop AF calculation.
4. BB/100 – Number of big bets won per 100 hands played. *note* Poker Tracker uses 2x the big blind for NL games since there is no such thing as a “big bet” in NL poker. This is often referred to as ptBB/100 (poker tracker BB/100) in the NL forums. This is what we use to measure our win-rate.
5. Went To SD % (WTSD) - The percentage of time a player gets to showdown once they have seen the flop.
6. Won $ At SD% (W$SD) - Percentage of time a player wins money when the get to showdown.
7. Attempt to Steal Blinds % (AttSB)- Percentage of time a player open raises (ie raises as first person to enter the pot not counting posters) from the button or cut-off (CO – one to the right of the button).

PFR – Preflop raise tells us just what you think it would; how often we are raising preflop. We all know why we raise preflop (hopefully ), but we need to figure out WHAT we should be raising and what we realy are raising. There are tons of hand charts and other materials detailing exactly how we should play preflop. First, let me say that if anyone is just doing what a spreadsheet or book says, you are not playing good poker, nor are you learning to play better. If you play FR, your PFR will be lower than if you play 6m. This should be a fairly obvious statement, but when you are playing FR, there are a few basic reasons why this is so. One example is that in FR, you need to be tighter in early position (EP) and will not be raising hands like 77/KJo UTG, which is a common open UTG in 6max.

A good thing to do is to measure your PFR against your VPIP. If your PFR is too close or similar to your VPIP, you are either playing too fit/fold’ish or far too aggressive. If you are playing 14 (VPIP)/12 (PFR), you are playing extremely fit/fold and are only entering pots in which you have a very sizable advantage. This tends to be more of a VPIP type issue though. ON the other hand, if you are playing 22/18 (as a FR player), you are raising in too many spots where you should just be calling (typically too many light 3bets, or opening too early w/ god, but speculative hands) or checking/completing in the blinds (*note that this really starts to disappear when looking at 6max games).

For FR stats, a target range is ~0.5 of your VPIP or a 2:1 ratio of VPIP:PFR. Based on the ranges listed above for VPIP, we can come up with a PFR range of ~8%-11% for a strong aggressive, yet tight player. PFR for 6max games have a reasonable range of 13-17, though there are several players on this forum that have a PFR closer or even slightly >20 (matching VPIPof typically ~30). Successful playing styles come in far more variations in my opinion for 6max. Basically, the better you play postflop, the better you can squeeze smaller EV positions which makes playing slightly more hands and more aggressively perfectly fine. PFR ranges converge at a similar rate as VPIP.

AGRF – Agression Factor is the 3rd of the typical PT stat trinity. Almost everyone uses AF (along w/ VPIP and PFR) to describe players, yet AF is probably the most misunderstood and misapplied commonly used Poker Tracker stat. So what is AF? As I mentioned above, AF = (bet% + raise%)/call%, but what does this really give us? Well the resulting number gives us a way to analyze how aggressive a certain player is. By looking at the formula, it is plain to see that betting ang raising increases our AF, while calling lowers it. Seems pretty simple right? Wrong! AF, can not be viewed in a vacuum as it relies heavily on other factors such as VPIP, Fold Flop% and WTSD% and is very relative to a player’s “style”. Let’s look at some examples:

We have 2 players at our table which have the following stats over the same amount of hands (let’s basically ignore convergance issues, and assume the sample in converged):

Player A : 13/10.5/2.5 (VPIP/PFR/AF)
Player B : 75/9/1

Now if we just looked at AF alone, one would think that Player A is more aggressive since his/her AF is 3. But is that really the case? Player A has a VPIP of 15 which basically is a range of 77+,A8s+,K9s+,QTs+,JTs,ATo+,KJo+. Note that I do understand that there is a difference between what a 13 VPIP player is playing and just the raw top 13% of hands. I do not want to adjust the range due to player tendancies, but thankfully it is not needed for this execise. Player A has a very small range compared to Player B, who at a VPIP of 75%, sits with a range of 22+,A2s+,K2s+,Q2s+,J2s+,T2s+,92s+,83s+,73s+,63s+,5 2s+,43s,A2o+,K2o+,Q2o+,J4o+,T6o+,96o+,86o+,75o+,65 o. Player A also has an AF 2.5 times that of Player B. Is he really 2.5 times as aggressive? Well the answer is MAYBE, BUT PROBABLY NOT! I can already hear your thoughts, “Wait… maybe?”. If Player B was as fit/fold as he is loose, then he will be folding a ton of his range on the flop. If he folds his additional 60% of played hands, plus he folds just as often as Player B does with his top 15%, then yes, Player B would be 3 times as aggressive. The reason I say probably not is because you will hardly ever find a player that plays so loose PF (75 VPIP), yet folds so very much on the flop.

Player A is almost always going to be the aggressor heading into the flop because he plays so few hands, but most of the hands he does play, he is playing strong PF with a raise. It’s pretty easy see that having such a small range of hands (all very strong/premium) will result in someone betting or raising 2.5 times as much as they call. Having such a strong range, this player will also not have to rely on a good flop to continue betting and raising. Compare that thought process to Player B now. Player B must be very aggressive if he is betting and raising at the same clip as he is calling. He is going to be betting and raising very often (equally often as calling if AF = 1) which will be extremely difficult with such a wide range of hands unless of course he is folding a ton of the flop as I mentioned earlier. The above example shows how AF is relative to playing styles in relation to VPIP and Fold Flop %. WTSD% is another stat which can have a pretty significant impact on a player’s AF. Obviously, the more a player makes it to SD, the more opportunities the player will have to bet/raise/call/fold. Players with high WTSD numbers have to work harder (be more aggressive?) to keep their AF from dropping. These types of players will be very good at value betting, or very bluffy, or just stubborn (bet/raise several barrels throughout entire hands).

A typical TAG player will have an AF between 1.5 and 2.5. 6max players should be very careful not to spew by being over aggressive just because it is shorthanded, while FR players must contend with seeing flops with potentially more people. FR players will be playing less hands and raising less PF than if they were playing 6max, thus actually making it easier to keep their AF up. Since we typically do not consider preflop when discussing AF, FR and 6max AFs will be fairly similar.

AF convergence is another interesting topic. One could assume that because there a many decision possibilities in each individual hand, that AF would converge faster than VPIP or PFR. The problem here is that the “type” of hand can have a huge impact on AF of smaller sample sizes of hands. Imagine a player flops a set and gets to raise/cap the flop, bet/3bet the turn and bet the river. This player has had 5 actions and bet them all. If this player is tight and aggressive, it will take a while for his AF to normalize. The more aggressive the player, the longer it will take for his AF to become something truly comprehendable, while a very passive player will typically show a quicker stabilization.

Are there other ways to measure a player’s aggression? I’m sure there are, but I’m not gonna address any approaches here, though it would be a great topic to cover, even if only in a thread for exploratory ideas. I would contend that any method should take folds and WTSD% into consideration.

So in conclusion, not all similar AFs are ACTUALLY similar and not all sub-1.25 AFs = passive.