Poker Statistics


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How Keeping Statistics Can Improve Your Poker Game

Statistics on your poker play can be kept with the help of the many software packages available, or even manually – for example using a spreadsheet to record your profits. Keeping statistics can improve your poker game in a number of ways, including assessing which games or levels are the most profitable for you, or seeing which hands and positions win you the most money over time. This article looks at the various statistics that can be kept for poker and shows how these can be used to improve your game.

We will begin by looking at statistics on overall profitability, looking at how your hourly rates can be calculated for both cash game and tournament (or Sit N Go) play. Next we will look at how tools which record your hand history can be used to find and then plug any leaks in your game. Finally ‘heads-up-display’ software is mentioned, showing how this can make decision making easier while at the tables.

Many poker players mix the buy-in levels of the games they play. For example, if a player mixes a $25 buy-in and $50 buy-in no-limit Holdem tables then keeping statistics would be able to show which is the most profitable over time. The standard notation for these games is to use what is known as big bets per 100 hands (this actually originated in Limit Holdem). For example if the player won 10 big bets / 100 at $25NL (25c Big Blind) and 7 big bets / 100 at $50 NL (50c Big Blind) then profits would be $5 and $7 respectively. Though it may feel like more pots are won at the lower limit game, the larger profits are revealed to be in the $50 buy-in game. The benefit of keeping statistics about your play are that they allow you to focus on the most profitable games.

Of course, the comparison from cash game to cash game is relatively straightforward. However, statistics can also be used to compare cash games with tournaments. For example the same player also plays $10 SNG tournaments and wishes to use statistics to show whether these, or the $25 No-limit Holdem, is the best use of time.

Here we need to use statistics to calculate the ‘hourly rate’. In SNG games the standard notation is ‘return on investment’, to keep things simple we will use 20% - for a profit of $2 (on average) per game, and suggest 2 SNGs per hour and 100 hands of NL Holdem per hour. Statistics now show that the cash game profit is larger - $5 compared to $4. However, if the player now plays 3 SNGs in per hour then this may be the most profitable game – without keeping statistics the player would never have known which is the most profitable use of time.

Investing in poker software which keeps your hand history data is another way in which to use statistics to improve your game. This often has the dual advantage of showing statistics in a number of ways, for example separating 6-max from full ring games or showing profitability of certain hands from each position at the table. Using such a database can help show you which hands are losing you money over a large sample. For example you can ask the question – how much money do I make on average with A-8 suited from 6th position. By highlighting losing hands you can identify ‘leaks’, using this information either to change your play or avoid unprofitable hands altogether.

Finally, the same database software can be used to collect hand history data from your opponents and often displays this directly on the screen. This is known as a ‘heads-up-display’ (or ‘HUD’). These statistics can prove very useful in making decisions while playing. For example by seeing how often opponents raise (helping you define their range) and how often they get to showdown (are they capable of folding?).

To summarize, there are a large number of ways in which statistics can be used to improve your game. Assessing the profitability of your game at different buy-in levels – or between games – can ensure you use your poker playing time in the most profitable area. Keeping a database of hand histories can help identify leaks in your game, and HUD software can even assist with decisions at the table.

Good luck!

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