Playing UTG (6-max)

[Ugly Grump]

OK, so I have a whole bunch of huge, massive leaks showing up in my UTG play (NL25 on FTP, NL100 on PKR), but I'm going round in circles!

I start with a tight UTG range (22+, AJ+, KQs) which should be slightly disguised from those looking at basic HUD stats as LB gives me a slap on the wrist for open raising more than 50% on the button.

And then things go massively wrong. I become a massive showdown bound calling station who can never release TP:

UTG WTSD% = 39.8%
UTG W$@SD = 35.3%

Yeah, horrid isn't it; what a ****** fish!

So my interpretation of these figures is that anyone who notices knows that they have great Implied Odds (which must mean that I am losing with terrible RIO) whenever they have position on me. If they hit with a speculative hands I'm going to pay them off, like always. Which tells me, I guess, that I should learn to fold more often post flop. Simples.

But then, my W$WSF is also an absolutely horrendous 36.7%.

Now I would have thought, given that the standard ROI problem is that with top pair you can win a lot of small pots or lose a stack, that my W$WSF should be quite high versus speculative hands.

Oh, and my turn c-bet UTG is way too high too (55.2%), so it's not like I'm giving players an opportunity to float me or hit their flush or straight for free.

So how do I fix my problem? Playing any tighter preflop would be crazy. My WTSD+W$@SD tells me I'm a calling station and I need to give up more. My low W$WSF (given that I start with a tight range) suggests I may be letting people catch up (too passive), while my high turn c-bet suggests I'm too aggressive.

[Leak Buster Support]

Your questions are a little all over the place. Hit the export button in step 2 and 3, and post your graphs here. It's too hard to speculate what you're doing wrong and correct based on what you said, and not having a complete picture.

I'm having difficulty understanding how tightening your range is now making you always want to go to showdown. What was your W$WSF in your first sample? W$WSF is a lot about using position correctly, and applying pressure to your opponents. You understand what flops to profitably float/raise, and profitable bluffing situations.

Post your graphs using that export function button in LB, and I'll provide more specific feedback.

[Ugly Grump]

The stats I gave were for the same sample (the last 30 days), and I didn't post all my stats to start off with as I have so many leaks it's hard to know where to start!

Anyway, here they are in all there horrid glory (stats slightly different from those quoted as I've played a bit since then),


This image was produced from Leak Buster


This image was produced from Leak Buster

[Leak Buster Support]

Ok, so these posted are for the last 30? What is the sample size (I think we added this to the graphic for 2.0, but it's not in this version.

Your overall stats look pretty good. It's just some of the tweaks you need to make from position. Just don't get carried away with your hands from early position. People aren't going to be calling against you more of you tighten up your UTG range. I'm not sure how you're making this conclusion. You just need to make sure you can get away from top pair. You may just be running bad also depending on the sample size. 30 days of play for step 2 can be pretty small. But then when you break it down by position, the variance gets even larger (because you have less data from each position).

If you tighten up that range from early, get away from your mediocre holdings a little more (from almost every position), value bet more when you're in position, don't cold call as much from the SB, then you'll be ok.

You're doing ok, you just need a few tweaks and more hands.

[Ugly Grump]

Thanks for that, it is a ridiculously small sample size; just 15,000 hands. Before then my aggression was way too low, but I seem to be getting better there. So I was just a little impatient to work on my next leak.

I'll leave it a little longer before I take another peak.

Anyway, thanks a lot for taking the time to reply. Much appreciated.

[Leak Buster Support]

Thanks for that, it is a ridiculously small sample size; just 15,000 hands. Before then my aggression was way too low, but I seem to be getting better there. So I was just a little impatient to work on my next leak.

I'll leave it a little longer before I take another peak.

Anyway, thanks a lot for taking the time to reply. Much appreciated.

You're welcome. 15k hands is ok, but not great for step 2, but for step 3 it becomes really small. So take a little time being cognizant of the leaks it showed on your first run, and SLOWLY make some tweaks to your game. Then re-visit when you get at least about 50k, and see how you're doing.