Which poker stats are most important?
Live poker tip 3: Flat more playable hands on the button. Live poker tip 4: Look for poker tables where players drink alcohol and are having a good time. Live poker tip 5: Don’t pay off passive players when they check-raise or lead into you. Live poker tip 6: Pay extra attention to hands in the showdown to gain valuable reads. Raise’Em Poker Raise’Em poker is a variation of Five Card Stud Poker played with a single deck of cards dealt from the dealer’s hand or card shu˜er. Raise’Em Poker At specific stages in the game, players are given the opportunity to raise their bets should they wish to do so. A raise is where a player makes a bet higher than the amount bet by other players. E.g 'Rakesh bet 150 after the flop, which was raised to 450 by Andrew.' Other Letter 'R' Terms.
They call too often preflop. Good players frequently fold or raise preflop, especially if no other players have yet raised. If you are not prepared to raise, then you should consider folding. Calling preflop just in case the flop is good for you is not a winning poker strategy. To be eligible to claim the New Player Welcome Bonuses, players must deposit a minimum of $10 in one instance, for Poker Terms Min Raise each bonus. New Player Welcome Bonuses will only be offered on your first four (4) deposits, unless otherwise stated.
Our poker HUD software offers a large amount of statistics. Knowing which ones are relevant and important can be overwhelming. If you are new to poker software you can initially ignore all statistics except the essential three poker statistics. Once you have understood how to use the basic statistics, you can add more depending on your style of play, and your chosen table size.
The big three poker statistics (and one bonus stat):
- Voluntarily Put $ in Pot (VPIP)
- Preflop Raise (PFR)
- Postflop Aggression Frequency (Agg)
- A bonus stat: Big blinds won/100 hands.
These three statistics are a great starting point to get an idea of a person’s playing style. They only require 25 hands or so to reliably give a good idea of a player's tendencies.
Voluntarily Put $ in Pot (VPIP)
VPIP in poker measures how often you voluntarily pay money into a hand before seeing the flop. Paying the big blind, the small blind, or the ante is not considered voluntary. Therefore this percentage indicates how often you called, bet, or raised. The lower this value, the tighter your hand selection is. The higher, the looser. Only preflop betting is taken into account.
Good players know to only invest money in the pot when they have decent starting hands. A simple way to measure whether you are doing this is to keep your VPIP at a sensible value.
What is a good number for VPIP?
Simple answer: between 15% and 20%. This assumes you want to play tightly, you are playing micro-stakes, and you are playing on full ring cash tables.
Now the more complicated answer: it depends a lot. If you are still learning to play good poker, then you should be very selective in which hands you play, so your VPIP might acceptably be a tad lower than 15%. The less people on the table, the more hands you can play. If you are on a table full of ultralight players, you can also loosen up. An experienced player who understands the subtleties of the game can get away with a VPIP between 20% and 27%. In 6-max or heads-up, most players have a much higher VPIP. In Pot Limit Omaha, VPIP values will be even higher.
Preflop Raise (PFR)
The PFR statistic indicates how often you have raised before the flop is seen. A high value is an indicator of an aggressive player. A low value indicates a passive player. Good players are aggressive players.
Your PFR has a possible range between a minumum of 0% and a maximum equal to the value of your VPIP. That is, if your VPIP is 20%, then your PFR can’t be higher than 20%. Ideally it should be a little lower than your VPIP, but not much lower.
Poor players and beginners play timidly. They call too often preflop. Good players frequently fold or raise preflop, especially if no other players have yet raised. If you are not prepared to raise, then you should consider folding. Calling preflop just in case the flop is good for you is not a winning poker strategy.
What is a good PFR range?
Between 2% and 3% lower than VPIP. If your VPIP is 15%, PFR should be about 12%. These two numbers in combination indicate that you are only playing quality hole cards, and you are predominantly raising with them pre-flop. In other words, you are playing how most poker books and poker forums say you should play.
Postflop Aggression Frequency (Agg)
Agg indicates how aggressively you play postflop. The higher this number, the more aggressively you are playing. This must be interpreted in combination with VPIP. Players who see very few flops will naturally tend to have a higher aggression percentage because they are only playing top-quality hole cards.
Poor players play passively postflop. They’ll check or call too often. Good players know to play good hands aggressively postflop:
- because players with speculative hands are forced to fold before they get free cards
- because if they hit the flop or have a dominating hand, a bet or raise will increase their return
What is a good Agg range?
50% to 60% is ideal, assuming that you have a VPIP of 15% to 20%. Much higher, and you are probably overplaying speculative hands and bad hands, and bluffing too much. Much lower and you are not playing your good hands strongly postflop.
Leave the bluffing for the movies and for live play. At low stakes online play, bluffing is much less important than a good understanding of the probabilities of winning hands.
Big blinds won/100 hands
The three stats I've presented so far mean nothing if you can't keep your win rate positive. A nice way to 'normalize' your win rate across different stake levels, table sizes, and opponents is to measure how much you won in terms of the big blind. If you are playing at a table where the big blind is $0.50, and you won $20, then think of this as winning 40 big blinds.
If this number is not positive, then you are losing money. The best remedy is to drop to a lower stake level, where the opponents are weaker. If, according to this stat, you consistently win over time, then you should consider going up to a higher stake level.
Adjusting your play based on the villain's poker stats
This is where our poker HUD software gets really useful: analyzing and exploiting opponent weaknesses. Let's consider some hypothetical players:
Tight Tim has VPIP of 5%, PFR of 5%, and Agg of 100%
With such a low VPIP, we can guess that this player folds anything except the very best hands. And with a PFR equal to VPIP, when he gets premium hands, he raises. So if this player raises, and you are next to act, you know that you should fold every hand except the best few hands, such as AA, KK, QQ. You can be almost certain that if you go to the flop, he'll raise postflop. So play tighter than usual with this player. But when you do get a premium hand, and he comes along, you can be sure that player B will put plenty of chips into the pot. Your pot, hopefully.
Passive Pete has VPIP of 20%, PFR of 16%, and Agg of 10%.
This player seems take have a good handle on preflop play. But when he gets to the flop, he gets timid. He is probably going to give you a chance postflop to see the turn and river for free. If you go to the flop with him and raise, there is a good chance he'll fold. So you can play a bit more aggressively both preflop and postflop.
Eddie the Eagle has VPIP of 22%, PFR of 19%, and Agg of 55%.
Eddie has a good all-round balance between preflop and postflop play. Preflop, he plays tight and aggressively. Postflop, he balances between pushing hard with his good hands, and being willing to fold or check with his weaker hands. Eddie would be well-served to move on to understanding more advanced poker statistics.
Tracking your poker stats
Poker players use poker software like Poker Copilot to automatically record their hands. Each hand is broken down into many statistics, which are then aggregated into simple percentages.
See And Raise In Poker
Poker Statistics Guide
What’s next after you’ve understood the basic poker stats? Read our Poker Statistics Guide for a comprehensive explanation of understanding and using all the main poker statistics.
On This Page
Introduction
What Does Call And Raise Mean In Poker
Photo taken at 2014 Global Gaming Expo.Criss Cross Poker is poker variation by In Bet Gaming. In 2014, I started to hear reports of the game in several casinos in the eastern United States. The thrust of the game is the player bets on two hands, in part using five community cards placed in a cross pattern.
Rules
- Play begins with the player making Ante Across and Ante Down bets of equal size. The player may also make an optional Five Card Bonus Bet.
- The dealer gives the player two hole cards and places five community cards face down in a cross pattern.
- The player may make an Across Bet, based on the Across Hand, equal to 1x to 3x the Ante Across bet, or fold.
- The dealer will reveal the two outside cards on the horizontal row of the cross.
- The player may make a Down bet, based on the Down Hand, equal to 1x to 3x the Ante Down bet, or fold.
- The dealer will reveal the two outside cards on the vertical column of the cross.
- The player may make a Middle Bet of 1x to 3x either Ante bet or fold.
- The dealer will reveal the middle card.
- The player uses his two hole cards and the three cards on the horizontal row of the cross to form the Across Hand.
- Likewise, the player uses his two hole cards and the three cards on the vertical column of the cross to form the Down Hand.
- The Middle Bet pays according to the higher ranking of the Across and Down hands.
- All bets pay according to the pay table below. Wins are expressed on a 'to one' basis.
Criss Cross Poker Pay Table
Hand Ante
Bets PayAcross, Down &
Middle Bets PayRoyal flush 1 500 Straight flush 1 100 Four of a kind 1 40 Full house 1 12 Flush 1 8 Straight 1 5 Three of a kind 1 3 Two pair 1 2 High pair (J-A) 1 1 Low pair (6-10) 0 0 All other -1 -1 - The Five Card Bonus bet pays according to the five community cards in the cross pattern and following pay table.
Five Card Bonus Bet Pay Table
Hand Pays Royal flush 250 Straight flush 100 Four of a kind 40 Full house 15 Flush 10 Straight 6 Three of a kind 4 Two pair 3 Sixes or better 1 Loser -1
Analysis
Between two sets of possible hands, four combinations of raise bets, and folding at various stages of the game, there are 975 possible outcomes. I indicate the probability of all of them in my Criss Cross Poker Full Expected Value Table. However, I don't want to scare you off with that gigantic table here. Instead, I summarize the outcome of each hand below.
The following table shows the possible outcome of both the Ante Across and Across bets. The 'pays' column shows the combined win between the two bets. The lower right cell shows that the player can expect to lose 0.600581 units between the two bets.
Ante Across and Across Bets
| Hand | Across Bet | Pays | Combinations | Probability | Return |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Royal flush | 3 | 1501 | 12,972 | 0.000000 | 0.000231 |
| Royal flush | 1 | 501 | 116,748 | 0.000001 | 0.000694 |
| Straight flush | 3 | 301 | 25,944 | 0.000000 | 0.000093 |
| Straight flush | 1 | 101 | 1,141,536 | 0.000014 | 0.001368 |
| Four of a kind | 3 | 121 | 12,167,736 | 0.000144 | 0.017468 |
| Four of a kind | 1 | 41 | 7,601,592 | 0.000090 | 0.003698 |
| Full house | 3 | 37 | 48,800,664 | 0.000579 | 0.021423 |
| Full house | 1 | 13 | 68,414,328 | 0.000812 | 0.010552 |
| Flush | 3 | 25 | 2,101,464 | 0.000025 | 0.000623 |
| Flush | 1 | 9 | 163,550,976 | 0.001940 | 0.017464 |
| Straight | 3 | 16 | 2,451,708 | 0.000029 | 0.000465 |
| Straight | 1 | 6 | 288,484,308 | 0.003423 | 0.020537 |
| Three of a kind | 3 | 10 | 538,234,224 | 0.006386 | 0.063859 |
| Three of a kind | 1 | 4 | 1,170,645,168 | 0.013889 | 0.055557 |
| Two pair | 3 | 7 | 811,632,096 | 0.009630 | 0.067408 |
| Two pair | 1 | 3 | 3,010,230,432 | 0.035715 | 0.107146 |
| High pair | 3 | 4 | 1,170,593,280 | 0.013889 | 0.055555 |
| High pair | 1 | 2 | 9,458,722,620 | 0.112224 | 0.224448 |
| Medium pair | 3 | 0 | 1,385,409,600 | 0.016437 | 0.000000 |
| Medium pair | 1 | 0 | 11,610,887,160 | 0.137759 | 0.000000 |
| Loser | 3 | -4 | 1,240,719,912 | 0.014721 | -0.058883 |
| Loser | 1 | -2 | 44,512,795,932 | 0.528127 | -1.056254 |
| Fold one unit | 0 | -1 | 4,576,521,600 | 0.054299 | -0.054299 |
| Fold two units | 0 | -2 | 4,203,010,800 | 0.049867 | -0.099734 |
| Fold four units | 0 | -4 | 0 | 0.000000 | 0.000000 |
| Total | 84,284,272,800 | 1.000000 | -0.600581 |
The following table shows the possible outcome of both the Ante Down and Down bets. The 'pays' column shows the combined win between the two bets. The lower right cell shows that the player can expect to lose 0.597666 units on the two bets combined.
Ante Down and Down Bets
| Hand | Down Bet | Pays | Combinations | Probability | Return |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Royal flush | 3 | 1501 | 45,792 | 0.000001 | 0.000815 |
| Royal flush | 1 | 501 | 83,928 | 0.000001 | 0.000499 |
| Straight flush | 3 | 301 | 37,116 | 0.000000 | 0.000133 |
| Straight flush | 1 | 101 | 1,118,700 | 0.000013 | 0.001341 |
| Four of a kind | 3 | 121 | 12,233,808 | 0.000145 | 0.017563 |
| Four of a kind | 1 | 41 | 7,485,048 | 0.000089 | 0.003641 |
| Full house | 3 | 37 | 48,603,888 | 0.000577 | 0.021337 |
| Full house | 1 | 13 | 68,156,856 | 0.000809 | 0.010513 |
| Flush | 3 | 25 | 6,951,456 | 0.000082 | 0.002062 |
| Flush | 1 | 9 | 157,641,288 | 0.001870 | 0.016833 |
| Straight | 3 | 16 | 4,780,980 | 0.000057 | 0.000908 |
| Straight | 1 | 6 | 285,297,516 | 0.003385 | 0.020310 |
| Three of a kind | 3 | 10 | 540,593,136 | 0.006414 | 0.064139 |
| Three of a kind | 1 | 4 | 1,160,967,816 | 0.013774 | 0.055098 |
| Two pair | 3 | 7 | 814,576,176 | 0.009665 | 0.067652 |
| Two pair | 1 | 3 | 2,988,662,184 | 0.035459 | 0.106378 |
| High pair | 3 | 4 | 1,336,724,496 | 0.015860 | 0.063439 |
| High pair | 1 | 2 | 9,281,584,656 | 0.110122 | 0.220245 |
| Medium pair | 3 | 0 | 1,417,841,568 | 0.016822 | 0.000000 |
| Medium pair | 1 | 0 | 11,550,329,616 | 0.137040 | 0.000000 |
| Loser | 3 | -4 | 1,450,469,088 | 0.017209 | -0.068837 |
| Loser | 1 | -2 | 44,370,555,288 | 0.526439 | -1.052879 |
| Fold one unit | 0 | -1 | 5,013,003,456 | 0.059477 | -0.059477 |
| Fold two units | 0 | -2 | 3,766,528,944 | 0.044688 | -0.089377 |
| Fold four units | 0 | -4 | 0 | 0.000000 | 0.000000 |
| Total | 84,284,272,800 | 1.000000 | -0.597666 |
The following table shows the possible outcome of Middle bet. The lower right cell shows that the player can expect to win 1.111675 units on this bet.
Middle Bet
| Hand | Middle Bet | Pays | Combinations | Probability | Return |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Royal flush | 3 | 1500 | 259,440 | 0.000003 | 0.004617 |
| Royal flush | 1 | 500 | 0 | 0.000000 | 0.000000 |
| Straight flush | 3 | 300 | 2,323,104 | 0.000028 | 0.008269 |
| Straight flush | 1 | 100 | 0 | 0.000000 | 0.000000 |
| Four of a kind | 3 | 120 | 39,488,184 | 0.000469 | 0.056221 |
| Four of a kind | 1 | 40 | 0 | 0.000000 | 0.000000 |
| Full house | 3 | 36 | 231,865,848 | 0.002751 | 0.099036 |
| Full house | 1 | 12 | 0 | 0.000000 | 0.000000 |
| Flush | 3 | 24 | 325,921,056 | 0.003867 | 0.092806 |
| Flush | 1 | 8 | 0 | 0.000000 | 0.000000 |
| Straight | 3 | 15 | 375,011,412 | 0.004449 | 0.066740 |
| Straight | 1 | 5 | 199,154,268 | 0.002363 | 0.011814 |
| Three of a kind | 3 | 9 | 2,751,292,188 | 0.032643 | 0.293787 |
| Three of a kind | 1 | 3 | 399,927,564 | 0.004745 | 0.014235 |
| Two pair | 3 | 6 | 5,494,091,328 | 0.065185 | 0.391111 |
| Two pair | 1 | 2 | 1,329,787,368 | 0.015777 | 0.031555 |
| High pair | 3 | 3 | 11,485,872,240 | 0.136275 | 0.408826 |
| High pair | 1 | 1 | 4,170,202,716 | 0.049478 | 0.049478 |
| Medium pair | 3 | 0 | 12,309,204,636 | 0.146044 | 0.000000 |
| Medium pair | 1 | 0 | 4,837,617,228 | 0.057396 | 0.000000 |
| Loser | 3 | -3 | 1,789,381,740 | 0.021230 | -0.063691 |
| Loser | 1 | -1 | 29,763,340,080 | 0.353130 | -0.353130 |
| Fold | 0 | 0 | 8,779,532,400 | 0.104166 | 0.000000 |
| Total | 84,284,272,800 | 1.000000 | 1.111675 |
The next table summarizes the expected win of all three groups of bets.
Summary
| Bet(s) | Expected Win |
|---|---|
| Ante Across & Across | -0.600581 |
| Ante Down & Down | -0.597666 |
| Middle | 1.111675 |
| Total | -0.086571 |
The lower right cell shows an expected loss of 0.086571 units. Since the player must wager two units at least, I divided that by two to get a house edge of 4.33%.
Considering the raise bets, the average total bet by the end of the hand is 5.86529 units. Thus the element of risk, which is the ratio of expected loss to the total amount wagered, is 8.6571/5.8629 = 1.48%, which isn't bad for a poker variant game.
The standard deviation, relative to the combined initial wager, is 4.802.
Strategy
With all decision points, the only viable options are fold, minimum 1x raise, or maximum 3x raise. Never raise anything between 1x and 3x.
Across Strategy
- If the hole cards are unsuited, unpaired, and the largest one is five or less, then fold.
- If the hole cards are suited J/Q or any pair, then make the large raise.
- With all other hole cards, make the small raise.
Down Strategy
This is a very similar decision to raising on the Across hand. However, the player has the benefit of seeing two extra cards. This can help in borderline situations. I have not implicitly identified these deviations from the Across strategy. However, I can say that knowing them, whatever they are, will increase the expected return by 0.29% the amount of the Ante Down bet, or lower the house edge by 0.15%.
Middle Strategy
With four cards seen, there are thousands of possible situations in terms of a Middle bet strategy. However, a perfect decision can be made by averaging the win over all possible 46 cards left in the deck under both a small and large Middle bet. I can say that if the player made either 3x bet, then he shouldn't fold. I can also say that 4.5% of the time the player will make both a small Across and Down bet and then fold the Middle bet.
Five Card Bonus Bet
The following table presents the possible outcomes of the Five Card Bonus Bet. The lower right cell shows a house edge of 3.53%, which for a side bet isn't bad.
Five Card Bonus Bet
| Hand | Pays | Combinations | Probability | Return |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Royal flush | 250 | 4 | 0.000002 | 0.000385 |
| Straight flush | 100 | 36 | 0.000014 | 0.001385 |
| Four of a kind | 40 | 624 | 0.000240 | 0.009604 |
| Full house | 15 | 3,744 | 0.001441 | 0.021609 |
| Flush | 10 | 5,108 | 0.001965 | 0.019654 |
| Straight | 6 | 10,200 | 0.003925 | 0.023548 |
| Three of a kind | 4 | 54,912 | 0.021128 | 0.084514 |
| Two pair | 3 | 123,552 | 0.047539 | 0.142617 |
| Sixes or better | 1 | 760,320 | 0.292548 | 0.292548 |
| Loser | -1 | 1,640,460 | 0.631199 | -0.631199 |
| Total | 2,598,960 | 1.000000 | -0.035336 |
Methodology
The game was analyzed by me in C++ by looping through all combin(52,2)*combin(50,2)*combin(48,2)*46 = 84,284,272,800 possible combinations. The program is about 600 lines of code and takes about six hours to run.
Internal Links
Full expected value table. This page shows the probability and return from all 974 possible outcomes.
Written by:Michael Shackleford