Gap between VPIP and PFR.

A big gap is indicative of too much pre-flop passivity. To answer your question, I don't know how big the gap can be, but something like 4, 5, 6 is still totally ok. If it's more than that, you surely are calling too wide preflop, especially from the wrong positions. The only position where you should be calling preflop at a decent frequency is the BB for obvious reasons.
The better you are postflop the bigger the gap can be. Someone playing 28/22 may win the same or even more than someone playing 18/15. It's just a matter of how you choose to play your ranges. Now, if you have 25/14 or 14/5 you're clearly calling too much.

I don't use a HUD but I am aware of these stats and I suspect I also have a sizable gap between my VPIP and PFR because I don't 3/bet hands like pocket 55, 89 suited and A 5 suited but usually flat call with them.

I think at 2NL 5nl it is fine to call and not 3/bet with hands such as pocket 55, 89 suited and A 5 suited, because the tables are generally passive preflop, and post flop opponents don't bet big enough to charge for draws, and when your draws hit they pay you off with their top pair hands etc.

I recently experimented by 3/betting my entire range in order to play like a proper TAG or indeed LAG. I found the games contain too many calling stations preflop and post flop and I was spewing off money to the stations with speculative hands. I think the optimum playing style at 2NL 5NL is weak tight ABC poker. The only players I bluff against, 3/bet light etc, in certain spots, are good regs.

Your question is flawed.

The gap can be 100%. If you sit me at a table with the mods from Reddit I’ll be able to limp every hand and I’ll still make profit.

Sorry guys, but the other answers here are confused and make no sense. For example, Zeto said: “if you play 25/14 you’re calling too much”. This is impossible to know unless we know the villains. If the villain to your left 3 bets 25% of the time I suspect that playing around 25/14 will give you more profit than any other stats.

I sometimes play 35/5 and I never lose. I am something of an anomaly. A glitch in the matrix. I think that the mods here are too scared to play me??

Originally posted by yadijavadi
This is impossible to know unless we know the villains. If the villain to your left 3 bets 25% of the time I suspect that playing around 25/14 will give you more profit than any other stats.

Sample size.
If we adjust to the players at the table, sometimes we'll have a wider gap, sometimes a smaller gap, sometimes a tight VPIP, sometimes a loose one.

Over a few hundred thousand hands, though, our own tendencies tend to come out.
Rather than think of stats, think instead of how the other players behave.

I forgot to mention position:
playing 50/40 from the button makes a ton of sense if the blinds are tight.
Playing the same way from MP facing a string of loose aggro players makes somewhat less sense.

Aggregating your VPIP/PFR stats over hundreds of thousands of hands without regard to position doesn't really tell you much.

We only play one hand at a time, and in each hand we need to play it with regard to the information we have available.

Cheers,
VS

Yeah sample size is a good point... I automatically thought about individual tables for some reason.

On an individual table I may play tight or loose or anything in between depending on who’s around me. If the table is heavily aggressive I’m probably playing passive. If they are passive I’m probably playing aggressive.

My overall stats over millions of hands still differs depending on where those hands are played, but they are much more realistic than 35/5.

You don’t want to have static stats as they are exploitable unless they are GTO which is the devil. You want to be fluid, designing your strategy to match not just the opponents at your table but, like Vorpal says, the villains in the exact hand that you are playing.

A player from our Italian forum has started a challenge to demonstrate that he can make a good game with VPIP above 50 and the results are positive, if you have a good postflop game, the microlimits are of little importance.

Off course it's also good to know if you play full ring, shorthanded or HU cash games. That influence the GAP as well and how high the VPIP and PFR should be.

A VPIP of 50% in HU is low, but I doubt the player of the Italian forum was playing HU cashgames

Cheers,
SDK1987

I came to the conclusion that the more exploitative style you playe the bigger gap is.
The more GTO style approach, the less is gap.
What is the best ? GTO or exploitative style, or mix of both ?
It depends on your skill level, knowledge and experience. As well as different opponents in different situations.
So basically it really doesnt matter how big or small the gap is between VPIP and PFR.
What matters is the right play in the right time in the right situation against right player.
As long as you are winning, having positive long term results, the gap between VPIP and PFR does not make a difference.
Right ?

What you just described:

“The gap doesn’t matter, what matters is that you make the right play at the right time in the right situation against the right player”

That’s how exploitative players think. GTO players are completely different:

GTO is just one strategy and so it’ll have a very specific and entirely static gap. My guess is that the gap would be around 3.5% in a 6 max game.

Exploitative players approach each individual decision as though it’s unique, and so their own stats fluctuate. The factor that makes each decision unique to exploitative players is the unknown opponent. GTO, on the other hand, doesn’t take into consideration the individual opponent. GTO players learn the GTO strategy for different types of situation and then repeat the same strategy everytime they find themselves said situation regardless of who they face.

The fundamental purpose of each style is completely different too: The GTO player tries to make the most money whilst remaining unexploitable. The exploitative player just wants to make the most money. GTO might sound appealing here, but it’s not like you can actually successfully exploit an exploitative player.

Lol. This tickled me. You see...

GTO players do try to exploit but they exploit like cute little kids. After hundreds of hands at the table they notice some trick you are using to rinse everyone and so they adjust their strategy. The exploitative player, who is well versed in adjustments like this, quickly changes his own strategy to counter the inexperienced attempts to exploit him. It then takes hundreds more hands before the GTO player realises what’s happened! During which time, the exploitative player rinses them way worse than they could have done had the GTO player just left them alone. When they finally notice that they are being abused again the GTO player usually goes on tilt for a while and starts throwing money away. Eventually they learn to respect you, and so slip back into their GTO strategy, or, usually, a tighter version of it.

...All long term exploitative players know will know that story well. They know that eventually all the regs bow to them, leaving them to boss the table.

Exploitative players are able to use GTO too, it’s part of their strategy, they just don’t need to spend years memorising it. I personally haven’t memorised any GTO plays but I could probably describe the strategy more accurately than any GTO player here. We could test that. I’ve been tested before and I did pretty amazing, not perfect though.

GTO players start off at a new table using their strategy until they learn enough about their opponent to exploit. Exploitative players might start off at a new table playing real tight, or they might play like a fish with stats like 55/14. The good exploitative player is perfectly aware of his own stats, he uses these to mislead you into adjusting your strategy against him. He is always trying to set you up. The skilled exploitative player might poke at his opponents searching for weaknesses. He might just try to destroy your soul. If he can’t find any weakness, he will just use GTO.

It’s a no brainer which strategy you should study. So why is GTO so popular? As an exploitative player I shouldn’t be the one to answer that question. But, before you make a decision mate, let me explain why almost every reason these GTO players give is complete nonsense.

I am not sure, but if i am right then a player who plays GTO poker style can not be exploited.
Best you can do against him is to play GTO by yourself, in wich case you will both be breaking even.
As long as player sticks to perfect poker strategy and plays GTO, others would not be able do anything to make his play -EV.

GTO poker approach is the best against unknowns or solid players, against good regulars, against new players you have no information on, in anonymous poker games where you do not know who you are playing, when you are not sure what line to take, GTO is the best possible option.

Despite sounding great in theory, the GTO poker approach has its problems, and it may not be the perfect solution in every single situation.

Even though the GTO poker strategy gives you the possibility to play almost perfect poker against everyone, an exploitative approach is how you make the most money.

The best way is to use a mix of both – GTO poker strategy until you get some reads and then change your game to exploitative play and try to win as much as possible.

Originally posted by NextLevel
I am not sure, but if i am right then a player who plays GTO poker style can not be exploited.

When did Doyle Brunson write "Super System"?
Get ready ...
1979

There is nothing in it at all about exploiting or game theory, but the ideas are there -- they just used different names.
In that book -- or one of his other ones -- he talks about "switching gears". He meant play tight for a while, play passive at times then switch to a looser or more aggressive style.
He also talks about how to play against different styles of player.

He talks about ranges -- what ranges to play in what positions, and when to switch them around.

From that the math folks did their thing, and we have game theory.

I think that if two people played a perfectly balanced set of ranges, they would lose the least, but not win much at all.

Playing NL 5-Card Draw I know who to 3Bet bluff, and who I should fold trips against when they 3Bet.
But in Hold'em, forget it -- I have an extremely difficult time accurately assessing people's ranges because they play such screwy ones.

I once folded a decent hand in the button, because the CO raised first in, and had not done so in the previous 30 or so hands.
He got called and had T2o

So it goes.

I have just started to use a free HUD which displays the four main stats, VPIP, PFR, AGf and hands played. After 5k hands its apparent I am weak tight with 12/9 stats and 25% aggression at full ring. But I am still in the top third of players for overall aggression at 2NL, and while it is ideal to be more aggressive according to the purists, if I was to play this way, I would be spazzing off my stacks to fishes who can't fold post flop with weak holdings, and my passive stats isn't indicative of weak play on my part, but the fact I play the player and realize fish can't be blown off hands. I also play passive to trap aggro players as well.

I am sure when I move up I can transform more into a TAG player.

Another thing about the stats I have gleaned so far. They only tell half the story. Some players with TAG stats are fish post flop who will stack off with TPTK no matter what. So it is important to make notes and study each player type and not go by the stats only. I have colour coded and noted aggro fish previously and have since discovered with the HUD they have tight preflop stats. Maybe they were on tilt when I noted them, or perhaps they are too aggressive post flop.

Overall I am very happy with my free HUD. While it is extremely basic it is ideal for me to identify playing styles much quicker than before.

That’s a good strategy in those games Author, and you are starting to read a hud well...

We use the HUD to build an idea of the villains strategy and an understanding of the villain himself.

With only 4 stats you are not going to understand all the postflop plays that each person makes and so I suggest you add loads more stats. I’d add 20 or so stats to your main hud, and then use the big pop up for 100 or so more.

The strategy you are applying seems quite static. For some reason, I suspect you are only going for value (blueline).

“The steal” is the most obvious of redline plays. If the villains fold their blinds often enough you could bet any hand on the button to make clear clean profit from them folding. To find out how they play the blinds, you look at the stat. This is one that I would have on my main hud as we find ourselves in this situation a lot.

As well as looking closely at stats like this when appropriate, I also regularly look at all the different stats I have on each villain to build an idea of the entire strategy he is using. Once you do that, once you have a good idea of all the plays he makes with his range, you get a feeling for who this villain is, and what he knows about Poker.

You learn whether he’s cautious, or daring. A gambler or a professional. Whether he plays for just value or also plays for folds. The idea is to know this villain better than he knows himself. This might sound hard but it’s easy to do. Most people don’t look at 100 of their own stats.

GTO players can be exploited, the GTO strategy cannot. If you spend a decade or so learning GTO you might be able to avoid being exploited by someone like me. Until then, you aren’t going to stand a chance against me. You will bleed money.

If you spend 1 hr learning the correct exploitative theory, you could play against anyone.

Everyone thinks that you should use GTO against unknowns, but there is not really any such thing as an unknown villain. And, it makes more money to poke at them or set them up anyway:

We know this guy is reading our range so do what Brunson did. We lure him into thinking we use some strategy so that we can flip it around and abuse him with a different strategy.

GTO players try to remain unreadable. This is not the goal of the exploitative player. The exploitative player wants you to think he is strong whenever he’s weak. And weak whenever he’s strong.

If you come to the tables demonstrating a GTO type strategy all that’s going to happen is that all the other villains use something similar to a GTO strategy against you. If you come to the table looking very tight, everyone is going to be scared of you. They will think you are aiming for the high boards, so aim for the low ones often to screw them over.

yadijavadi

Thanks for the advice.

I am using a totally free HUD and because it's free, it only comes equipped with four basic stats. That's it. But it is helping me to classify villains into five main groups much quicker than before. I only four table (stars) and I make relevant notes on villains. To be honest I don't think my brain could handle looking at all the different stats and coming to a snap decision without timing out on all my tables. I am getting old now and my eyes struggle with small fonts.

Originally posted by SDK1987
Off course it's also good to know if you play full ring, shorthanded or HU cash games. That influence the GAP as well and how high the VPIP and PFR should be.

A VPIP of 50% in HU is low, but I doubt the player of the Italian forum was playing HU cashgames

Cheers,
SDK1987

Logical I was referring to short handed tables,

@yadi I often follow you I like the way you see poker

@arthurbentley Look at the offers of the tools I paid only 6 euros for a good 1 year subscription hud and track holdem and omaha. the micro version up to nl5 and tournaments 5 euros