The Summary Tab Finding the Big Fish
The auto-rate feature allows us to rapidly categorize players, but there are some players that deserve special attention. We're talking about the biggest of the fish, those whale-like players that fling their chips in the pot without caring what happens. These big fish are worth some extra attention, since finding them usually means adding a nice pile of big bets to our bankroll. Poker Tracker's Summary tab makes it easy to quickly identify the big fish.
Before tagging the big fish, we must first decide on a reasonable number of hands that are required to qualify a player for fishy behavior. We suggest choosing a relatively large number, since it's common to see players go on tilt for a session and depart from their usual game. The fish we are targeting play terribly ALL the time, not just when they're on tilt. For this reason, we filter out all players with less than 150 hands when fish-finding. This is done by going to the "Preferences" tab and checking the "Use player filter" checkbox, then typing "150" into the "At Least: ___ Hands Played" box. After setting the minimum number of hands, we click the "Summary" Tab to start fishing.
The summary tab allows us to sort our opponents by Voluntarily Put Money in the Pot, and you will be pleasantly surprised to see how many players find it nearly impossible to fold. Click the VP$IP column to sort opponents by VP$IP, and the players who have an aversion to folding will rise to the top of the list. Once the players have been sorted, we can quickly go through them and "tag" them by entering a brief note. For example, if we double click on the top player in the list, we'll be taken to that player's General Info. In the box labeled "General Description", we might write a note like, "FISH - sees 99% of flops". When our notes are exported, this note will be on the top line of the player's note box, and we can quickly take a seat next to him.
We suggest writing brief notes for every player with a VP$IP of over 60%. Typically these players will fall into one of two categories—extremely passive (total fish) or extremely aggressive (maniac). Players with a preflop raise percentage (the column to the right of VP$IP in the summary tab marked PFR%) of over 15% and an aggression factor greater than 2.0 are maniacs, and should be noted as such. While maniacs are tough to play against, they usually loosen up a table, putting normally solid players on tilt and creating a gambling atmosphere at the table. More passive players are more predictable and extremely profitable, and should be tagged using the general description field.
Once we've tagged the fish and the maniacs, we can use an online poker site's "buddy list" feature to seek out these players. To do this, open up the online poker application and login. Usually the buddy list feature is accessible through the site's lobby (for example, on PartyPoker and skins, you can access the Buddy List under the "My Account" file menu in the lobby). To add a player to the buddy list, simply type in their player name. The player's name will appear in your buddy list with a small icon to the left of their name. This icon indicates whether or not the player is currently logged into the site: a red icon means that a player is online, and a gray icon means that they are not.
Once we've determined that a player is online (the icon next to their name is red), we can use the "search tables" feature to find the player. On PartyPoker, we do this by closing the buddy list and clicking on the "Search Tables" button at the bottom of the lobby screen. When the search screen pops up, click on the right tab titled "Player Search". Clicking on the "Buddies" button will bring up a list of the players in our buddy list that are currently online. If you'd like to search for that player, click the checkbox next to their name (we can select as many checkboxes as we like to search for more than one player) and click the button marked "Buddies" again. The selected players names will appear in the search box, and clicking the "Search" button on the right will initiate the search function. If a player is currently seated at a table, the name of the table will appear underneath the player's name (if the player is playing at more than one table, all of the tables where the player is currently seated will appear under the player's name). Double clicking on the table name will bring you to that table.
The player search feature makes it extremely easy to find the "big fish," and we recommend doing a quick search upon logging in at the beginning of every session. Usually we won't be so lucky as to find any of our favorite players, but it only takes a second to check. We also urge caution with these types of players—we've found that many times, solid players at the higher limits will drop down to lower limit tables in order to "blow off steam." It's a lot less harmful to the bankroll to play 60% of hands at a lower limit than in a higher stakes game, and these players usually play pretty well after the flop. So if you see that a player that you've tagged as a big fish is sitting in a higher stakes game, it may not be a good idea to sit next to him.
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