I know these are not great, so all input, observations, criticisms etc are very welcome.

I'm about 6 buyins down on 4.3k hands , and before I sank to this low, I was down to 5 then came back up to 3. I've played very badly in some circumstances and was unlucky in others. I seem to win a lot of small pots but get hammered by the big ones.

General Stats

Total Hands - 4,329
Vol. Put $ In The Pot - 11.5
Won $ WSF - 26.3
Went To SD - 14.21
Won $ At SD - 49.5
PF Raise - 2.38

Aggression
Pre-flop - 0.24
Flop - 5.06
Turn - 5.8
River - 3.54
Total (including preflop) - 0.82
Total (excluding preflop) - 4.92

I've only check-raised 4 times!

All help gratefully received.

I'm far from an expert but my opinion is that you're way too tight. Vpip of 11.5 is just about the tightest I've ever seen. Are you only playing big Aces and pairs? Also, your "went to showdown" seems very low, yet your "won at showdown" isn't very good... so I'm guessing you're paying people off but not getting paid off yourself.

You may also want to raise more preflop since right now, if someone is paying attention, you're very easy to play against. With a pfr so low everyone can assume you only raise with AA-QQ and AK.

I'd recommend loosening up a lot in the later seats, playing more speculative hands and coming in for a raise more often. This is the first time ever my advice has been "loosen up" and "raise more hands preflop".

It would be interesting to see your position stats.

Thanks for the input! What type of hands do you think I *should* be raising?

I wrote a pretty long post about starting hands as a reply to another thread here:

http://livepokerforum.com/forum/viewtopic.php?t=3890

I'll copy/paste ot for you:

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Here's some pretty basic rules that will help you with your preflop raising problems.

When you raise, raise 4xBB +1BB for every limper. You can increase this if the table tends to call raises a lot. I'm usually raising 6+1 when I play $20, but if people are calling higher or lower raises all the time I adjust. Obviously I want people to call as big a raise as possible preflop while I am most likely still a favorite (due to high raising standards).

Hands to raise with in EP:
TT-AA, AK. (I tend to limp with AQ and AJs, as well as 55-99, fold the rest)

Hands to raise with in MP:
88-AA, AQ-AK (I tend to limp with 22-77, ATs and AJ)
Call a raise with AK, 88-JJ, re-raise with QQ-AA, fold the rest.

Hands to raise with in LP:
If unopened: Everything you're going to play (always give the blinds a chance to fold)
If opened: 88-AA, ATs, AJ-AK (I tend to limp 22-77, Axs and all SC's down to 54s)
Call a raise with 55-JJ, AK (possibly with SC's if you have more callers). Re-raise with QQ-AA, maybe JJ and AK.

However, NEVER call a raise that is bigger than 10% of your stack or the opponents stack (whichever is smaller) with a "speculative" hand. That pretty much means anything but QQ-AA (and here you should usually be re-raising). If the raise is less than 5% it's an easy call, if it's between 5 and 10, you're going to have to use your judgement.

Generally if the pot is raised infront of you, I'd only re-raise with QQ-AA, possibly AK, without a read on the opponent as a LAG. The QQ re-raise is actually a bit iffy but I want to get an opportunity to fold, if the opponent comes over the top, so I do it against rocks.

I can't guarantee anything but this is pretty much my "basic" preflop game. Obviously I mix it up somewhat, especially in live games where people are more observant. Not saying this is a perfect strategy or anything but I think it gives a pretty solid basis and should ensure you're not out of line or putting in money as a dog.

Hope this helps!

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I'm not a bona fide expert, but I think this is pretty solid advice for lower stakes, which is what I play. Also, even though following these guidelines will tighten up most peoples game, it should actually server to loosen up yours.

wow, you are tighter than me and I'm at 12.35 VI$IP and I'm pretty much the tightest person I know. You've won a good amound less at showdown than me but this could just be a bad run as 4.3k hands is a small sample.

You are too passive preflop and much more aggressive than me on the turn and river. Flop is fine as I do try to steal a decent amount of pots that people don't seem to want. Normally its at least a semi-semi bluff. I think you may be firing too much on the turn and just playing into people's traps. On the river, I don't know if its a weakness or discipline but you really have to think of when to bet and raise the river if only a hand that would beat you would call.

As for stoneburg, you fold 22-44 in ep? I'll at least try to limp with any pair anywhere. They can make too much money to fold for a limp in any position. I tend to limp often with AK in ep and limp to raise with AA and KK.

I fold AQ and AJ to raises but call with any pair if it follows the 10:1 rule we all should know by now.

Depending on the table, I raise suited connectors and 1 gappers I feel its a good time to playi in mp and later, especially if I'm open raising otherwise its a limp or fold accordingly.

Stoneburg does this mean at a .50nl table u would raise 99 in mp to $2.50 or $3 with one limper?
great post, by the way

Bri: I usually limp 22-44 in EP as well, but not always. I just don't like them since other than a set they can't produce much, at least not 22 and 33. With 44 you can at least get a decent straight draw. I feel that since you ONLY play 22-33 for a set and they will be over-seted more than any other pairs, they're not quite as sexy as the otherones. Also, the guidelines I posted are tighter than my play and I wanted to err on the side of caution.

Stoni: Some of the time, not all of the time. A lot of the time I just limp behind with pairs up to JJ.

I do think I've had an awful run of cards. Virtually nothing (hole, and every street) seemed to go right for me even when I did have a good hand and played OK.

I'll take all the advice (thanks), do another 4k-odd hands and run the stats over those and post again in few days.

Oh, and what kind of figures should healthy W$WSF and W$SD look like?

While I appreciate and agree with what the other posters are saying about you playing too tight preflop I do not think that this is your 'problem'. Here's why:

I have been playing online for a couple years. I have been playing small stakes NL for the past month. My VP$P is around 12.5 or so (at work now and cant' check) and my PFR is around 4. I have played around 15,000 hands during this time. My PTBB rate is 15+/100 during this time so it is certainly possible to win at a good clip playing like a rock at the small stakes NL tables.

I know about variance and have played in excess of 200,000 hands online so I also know how well I am playing vs. my opponents compared to simply 'running well'. I am also still making mistakes at this level and missing out on some EV because of it.

I think you should concentrate on your post flop play. If your winning small pots and loosing big pots I think you should look at those hands where you loose big pots and consider if other players would have released the hands in your situation. I also think it's very possible that other players are letting you bet for them and hang yourself as another poster said.

Are you lossing big pots with overpairs and TPTK? This would be my first guess given your degree of tightness preflop (lets face it, your not playing a lot of drawing hands lol). Look at your hand histories in PT and replay the hands in which you lost big. 4,000 hands isn't a lot and it could be variance, but I think it's a mistake to not look for patterns. The sooner you can identify leaks the sooner you can work towards plugging them. If your stacking off on or after the flop with big pairs that is usually a mistake.

Oh yeah, those stats are 4 tabling too.