Profiling villains

I've been using PT to analyze villains in my database with 1k+ hands. I check their detailed stat sheet, their position stats, and watch every hand they played. I will list some notes I have been making, but I'm new to this and wondered what you more experienced folks do to profile. Each profile takes about 15 minutes, but I end up with an "attack plan" for the regs. Here's my points of analysis.

1. Blinds. Do they let their blinds go too easy? How often are they stealing?
2. Opening range. Which hands do they open? When do they limp? What hands do they play for a rr?
3. Flop. Do they c-bet with air? How often? What's the cr frequency? Do they like tricky plays? How do they bet monsters (flopped sets, etc)?
4. Aggression. Note the passive call stations and the overly aggressive.
5. Betting patterns. What do standard bets and raises mean? What plays are the capable of?

My plans of attack are simple. Target their blinds. Tighten up my estimate of their range. Look to play big pots when their range is narrow and I have a good two-way hand. Attack the calling stations with value bets, and avoid c-bets (take a free card when they're too passive). Look for rr opportunities against the aggressive, see if I can get them out ahead of their hand.

Of the 5 profiles I've made so far, I'm up $$ against 3 of the 5 already. And I feel great every time I get into a hand with one of them.

Any advice on other common leaks to look for? And how do you exploit those leaks?

Do they chase draws - exploitation is pretty simple if so!

Do they play position - after a few hundred hands PT should be able to tell you this. Very useful both for assessing their utg and button ranges. You'll be surprised at how few do.

a lot of this stuff can be can be seen just from stats.

play position just look at pfr and attempt to steal.
blinds, there are attempt to steal stats and fold to steal stats
flop stuff you can see cbet percentage and how often they CR.
aggression by the aggression stat obv.

Originally Posted by EzDuzIt

a lot of this stuff can be can be seen just from stats.

play position just look at pfr and attempt to steal.
blinds, there are attempt to steal stats and fold to steal stats
flop stuff you can see cbet percentage and how often they CR.
aggression by the aggression stat obv.

I assume you mean glancing at "pop-up stats" in PA HUD or similar, without going into PT to analyze. First, what # of hands do you feel is enough to make estimates of their play?

How many hands before you consider, say, a 5% difference between pre-flop r % and blind steal % to be significant?

Second, about aggression, there are different types. cr/bets/raises all increase total aggression factor, but are very different plays. Also, FOLDING and CHECKING are not included in the aggression factor calculation, so different patterns of aggression/checking/folding could have exactly the same aggression factor. Also, most folks' aggression changes from street to street. How do you parse the different types of players based on a single aggression factor number? And again, after how many hands do you consider it relevant to your plays?

Third, I was planning to profile 15 - 20 regs, maybe more, and see where it got me. I was hoping after doing the work to find some "shortcuts" to exploitation, to be able to quickly relate certain pop-up stats to a fairly detailed attack plan. I would also like to learn at what number of HH's I could use the plan of attack with a good level of confidence.

Thanks for the advice, btw.

P. S. After getting good at finding leaks in villains' play, I plan to profile myself. I've used various methods of analyzing my own HH's, but I think it will be interesting to do it from the perspective of "how could a villain who played exactly like me be exploited successfully?" Probably be embarrassing and painful, but good for my game.

I have 3 major notes
1. How does he play a set
2. How does he play a draw
3. Does he 3 bet light (and what range)

After that im more interested in how they play in certain spots

eg: c-bet percentage
willingness to steal
folds after limping etc.

Originally Posted by Robb

Originally Posted by EzDuzIt

a lot of this stuff can be can be seen just from stats.

play position just look at pfr and attempt to steal.
blinds, there are attempt to steal stats and fold to steal stats
flop stuff you can see cbet percentage and how often they CR.
aggression by the aggression stat obv.

I assume you mean glancing at "pop-up stats" in PA HUD or similar, without going into PT to analyze. First, what # of hands do you feel is enough to make estimates of their play?

How many hands before you consider, say, a 5% difference between pre-flop r % and blind steal % to be significant?

Second, about aggression, there are different types. cr/bets/raises all increase total aggression factor, but are very different plays. Also, FOLDING and CHECKING are not included in the aggression factor calculation, so different patterns of aggression/checking/folding could have exactly the same aggression factor. Also, most folks' aggression changes from street to street. How do you parse the different types of players based on a single aggression factor number? And again, after how many hands do you consider it relevant to your plays?

Third, I was planning to profile 15 - 20 regs, maybe more, and see where it got me. I was hoping after doing the work to find some "shortcuts" to exploitation, to be able to quickly relate certain pop-up stats to a fairly detailed attack plan. I would also like to learn at what number of HH's I could use the plan of attack with a good level of confidence.

Thanks for the advice, btw.

for how many hands you need on someone it just depends on which stats you are looking at and stuff. even from a smaller number of hands you can get some out of it. like 10/3 after 20 hands is going to be tight player maybe not that nitty but you can get the general picture. same with a 70/55 after 20 hands maybe not that crazy but some assumptions can be made.

a 5% difference between pfr and blind steal isnt much and means they probably arent widing too much with position. but like a 15% pfr and 40% attempt to steal would mean utg they are tight but are really wide in lp and understand position.

and about aggression as for different types i have it under pop up stats how often they check raise. and higher aggressions mean they will be bluffing or semibluffing more. like a 2 for aggression is pretty straightforward not making any moves. and for changing from street to street i can see that in the pop up too if i need to.

and you say that folding and checking are not included in aggression factor, but you can see aggression frequency %. so if someone has a low agg factor and a high agg freq % that means they are more likely to bet/call or check/call. and that is because to have a low agg fact when you are betting a lot (high agg freq) you have to be calling a lot to bring it down. and the opposite would be if you have a high agg factor and low agg freq %. then you would be check/folding bet/folding a lot more than the other player.

ok, im done lol. i feel like im just rambling on and not making any sense.

I look for what street they like to fold on. You can make a lot of money off the guys that will call two streets but figure you really mean it when you bet the river.

Originally Posted by EzDuzIt

you say that folding and checking are not included in aggression factor, but you can see aggression frequency %. so if someone has a low agg factor and a high agg freq % that means they are more likely to bet/call or check/call. and that is because to have a low agg fact when you are betting a lot (high agg freq) you have to be calling a lot to bring it down. and the opposite would be if you have a high agg factor and low agg freq %. then you would be check/folding bet/folding a lot more than the other player.

ok, im done lol. i feel like im just rambling on and not making any sense.

Quite the opposite - I learned something important here about the relationship of those two stats. I have been looking at both flop agression % and flop aggression factor, but not really making this connection about the what different combinations mean. I see how the info I'm getting with my profiles is probably available in outline form in the pop-up stats. I think I'll still try to profile a few more, though, just to get better understanding.