Should I make PT4 Add-On that shows typical opponent range?

[Noonlinepro]

Im not basing my ranges of other regulars off tools and programs and what not, im basing there ranges off what i have personally seen them do and thee individual tendancies, in no way am i using a tool to guess there range, i have nearlt a quater of a million hands with some regulars, my asssumption of there range is purely based on the never ending manipulation of eachothers percieved ranges, for example closing the opening range with particular regulars behind that havent adjusted and continue you to pile in there stack and wonder why they hit top emd of my range..

unless your telling me exact whole cards for that exact player in the last 3months with me as the villian in that spot i couldnt careless for your data because its useless, he is playing a range based off his assumption of my tendancies which are continuely changing...even if you told me data for the last 3months of a player, that stat would be relivant in my situation being im a sng player, for probably one session before he alters it to how i play agaisnt him..


number two sounds to me boarderline cheating in my opionion, they ban in game nash programs, well beginners dont follow nash so you are actually giving them even more information then a program thats already banned, id be consulting pokersites before implementing such a stat, i mean yea sounds great of course lets know what there shoving, but it also sounds wrong and if thats the way poker tracking software is going id rather they ban software altogether that destroys the game thats just my 2cents

[oracle3001]

Is there any magic (for you) in the fact that, in our research database with all hole cards known, we actually know the answers? Asked a different way - are you so comfortable with the assumptions implicit in other range analysis tools ... that having hard empirical fact wouldn't be a head-turner?

As I understand your database, it is a billion hands of data from several years spread ago across different limits and games, which you can make very general assumptions about the population, in order to produce a range in a certain spot.

It isn't a matter of being comfortable with my assumptions, it is that you are also making some massive assumptions, which I wouldn't be comfortable with either i.e that the ranges you find for certain spots are the same across all games, limits, players and are still as valid today as they were several years ago. I think most serious players would say that they don't even keep data that is more than 3-6 months old.

For the beginner, what about something simpler than range? Something like a tool to answer the question "am I ahead" (or, more accurately, "historically, how often do I have the highest hand strength v. the field")? Or one level deeper, but still less complicated than range: "what's my equity" (or, more accurately, "historically, what's my average to-the-river equity v. the field").

Again, that is "I am ahead" presuming that all assumptions are valid....You could well end up giving out false information. Again you are also presuming that beginners would be excited by such a tool, again a big leap there.

[Dave_Thornton]

Thanks guys this is truly valuable feedback.

Noonlinepro: regarding your last point, if this tool gets made, it won't be available for real-time decision support, for the reason you articulated (violating sites' ToS). Sorry for not making that clear.

oracle3001:
- Good point about trading one set of assumptions for another. For what it's worth, we can distinguish between games {NLHE, PLHE, LHE} and limits {micro, low, medium, high}. We can't distinguish between [real] players because of the level of anonymization applied to the data, but in later versions of the tool we could add the ability to further filter by common tendency stats like VP$IP, PFR, 3bet, etc. (Although players are anonymous in our data, they're anonymized in a consistent way, which enables us to calculate these variables reliably.) I'm guessing that the "old data" issue ends your interest in this tool by itself, but do you think you'd give it a spin once player tendency variables were added?

- With respect to the simpler "am I ahead" or "what's my equity" questions:
- We'd go out of our way to make it clear this is information based on historical data only, and that the past is not a perfect predictor of the future.
- I definitely take your point about beginners even being interested. Do you have any ideas how we might go about assessing beginner demand?

[oracle3001]

Without being rude, and I am not trying to be...I can really see the benefits of "big data" in many areas and have an academic background working with some huge data sets.

With my academic hat on (and research experience working with "big data" albeit in a different domain) - I completely understand the corporate side of the technology you have / are developing. Being able to do fast complex analysis for poker sites on their massive databases is hugely valuable, and from the little insight I have, most are nowhere near as advanced as they should when it comes to analyzing this.

However, with my professional poker playing hat on, whichever way you try and sugar coat it / slice it up, the data set you are proposing to base this tool on is 3-5 years old. To put in perspective, 3 years ago most people just sat their mashing the pot button as the standard open / 3bet size. These days if you see people doing that, even at low limits, they will be identified as a weak player straight away. Poker is a constantly evolving game, and even a year is a very long time. If you talk to any good player, they will tell just how different their own game is from 2 years ago, let alone up to 5. Some changes are the "flavour of the month", others are genuine discoveries along the extremely long path to an unexploitable approach to a particular variant of poker (and this information slowly but surely filters its way down the pyramid).

[Dave_Thornton]

Translation: "yes, the 'old data' issue ends my interest in this tool"?

Message I'm taking from the last two generous commenters - nothing here for serious players.

If anyone wants to offer any other opinions, please do!

I'm especially interested in whether some version of "am I usually ahead in this spot" or "what's my average equity in this spot" or "what's my opponent's typical range in this spot" might be useful to someone who's just starting their journey towards becoming a serious player. In other words, is there *anything* that you can get from a ca. 2011 dataset with hole cards known that you can't get elsewhere?

[Noonlinepro]

I think there is SOME value in it, however i would kill any student of mine who dared to use this stat as a way to build there ranges, im really thinking its only got some value at the micro's and even then i cant even comment on how the games have changed in the micros, im assuming this data cant differentiate between those who have a r/f range at 8-10bb and those who have a pure shoving range, because if it cannot do this you are strictly taking there shoving ranges, which would be purely incorrect, eg i personally in the CO at my stakes r/f J10s for 8-10BB however of course im raise/folding AA, A2 93o Ect. Where as some one not as developed when it comes to the game would Shove A10s for 8-10BB where im raise calling (the majoirty of course, this is dependant on who is behind yet to act), so if you are identifying and seperating these people from the people who purely shove which im assuming you are not then i think the ranges would GENERALLY be somewhat the same based on pure shoving, i would never start throwing in stats for 12bb+ because the game is completely different at that depth to as little as two years ago.

I wouldnt be inveting much time and money into this stat, because the people who this has SOME value are probably that new to the game that i dont know if they even would have PT4 and i dont knoe if they are to even know about adding on stats if that makes sense i may be wrong, but i doubt those with bankrolls in the micro's are investing in PT4 which is 50%-100% of there rolls