You flop bottom set with only one opponent and two hearts on board. When the third heart comes on the turn he raises your bet. You're probably beaten, but can you fold? You see that you have logged 1,400 hands on this opponent and they have an aggression factor of 0.4, meaning he is very passive, and he has a W$SD percentage of 61% meaning he only sees the showdwon with very strong hands. Now you confidently fold. A player this passive does not raise you with a flush on board unless he has the flush. You save two big bets (one now and one on the river) and let the hand go with no regrets, certain that you have made the right decision.
In the same situation but with a different opponent you may see that his aggression factor on the turn is 3.4, which tells you that he is a maniac on the turn and might raise with anything. the pot is offering you 4 to 1 and your opponent is a nutcase so you call. You also check and call on the river and your opponent shows the A
for the nut flush draw on the turn and you take down the pot.That my friends is what PokerTracker (PT for short) can do for you. I discovered not long after getting PT a few years ago that I was losing money with AQo in middle position when I called a raise with it. I stopped calling raises with AQo in middle position unless I had information on my opponent that made the call (or reraise) a good one. Immediately I stopped losing money on that hand and started winning just a little more money on my play. Fix enough little holes like that and you see your win rate really start to climb.
I'll be doing a short blog every day this week (well okay I may miss a day or two) explaining a different feature of PokerTracker and how it works. For now I recommend that you get your trial copy at www.pokertracker.com and get it installed if you haven't done so already. There is quite a bit of information on the PokerTracker site and the forums are very helpful as well. Using those resources you shoudl be able to get a start and I'll be helping you through the various uses of PokerTracker throughout the next week or two.
You can register PokerTracker for $55 through the site or members of my site at www.pokerfox.net get a discount.
I also recommend an add-on for PT called PAHUD which you can download for free at www.pokeracesoftware.com. PAHUD works with most of PT's supported sites including Party, UB, PokerShare, all the Prima skins and PokerStars.
For now I would love to hear some questions about PT and what features of the program you don't understand. You can send me your questions at fox@pokerfox.net or PM me here on the pocketfives.
