[Mpethybridge's Guest Post continued from last week.  He is a principal contributor/moderator to the SSFR Stats Thread and is a Poker Coach specializing in database analysis.]

2. Three Betting Light Leaks

The single most common 3 betting leak people have at 6 max is 3 betting the wrong hands against the wrong people. This gets them into all sorts of nasty, -EV spots post flop that exacerbates the leak.

Here is how you go about determining whether you have a 3 betting light leak:

a. Do you have a 3 betting leak (from the blinds, for this discussion)?

Go to the position report. then go to filters and add (preflop) "Did 3bet = True." Then go to the holecards HE tab, and select all cards, then deselect AA, KK, QQ and AK (both).

Look at your blind win rates. The following should all be true in a big sample:

i. You should have more raises from the BB than the SB.

ii. Your SB WR should be higher than your BB win rate.

iii. Your win rates should average about 1.2bb/hand.

Higher is better, lol, and the further you are below 1.2bb/hand, the bigger your potential leak (obviously variance is always a complete to partial explanation for any win rate in a small sample).

If you have a leak, here is how to figure out whether it is a preflop leak or a post flop leak. As I said earlier, the most common leak is 3 betting the wrong hands against the wrong people. So here is how you look for that one:

b. 3 Betting the Wrong Hand Against the Wrong People:

Basically what we are doing here is looking for your understanding of fold equity.

i. Filter for your pure bluff 3 betting hands.

Go to the holecards report and note all of the trash starting hands that you 3 bet in the sample. You know, the J5o, the 720, the 53s type hands that you 3 bet.

ii. Check your win rate.

If your win rate with these hands is below the benchmark 1.2bb/hand, you may have a leak.

iii. Do a Hand History review of these hands Analyzing Villain stats.

This isn't nearly as tedious as it sounds; it is actually kind of fun. In the hand display window below your stats, click on to highlight the first hand, right click on it, and click "replay all hands"

In the replayer, make sure villain stats are displayed from your HUD and then look at the fold to 3 bet and fold to flop c-bet stats on all of the villains (add them to your HUD if you don't have them on there already--if you don't have them on there already, their absence is probably your leak!)

What you are looking for here is confirmation that your plan makes sense. Every hand you see where you 3 bet trash against a villain who didn't have a high fold to 3 bet or a high fold to flop c-bet is almost certainly a bad decision. You should see a a parade of players whose stats are high for one or both of these -- either he folds preflop a lot, or he folds postflop a lot, or you made a mistake by bluffing in a spot where you didn't have sufficient fold equity.

iv. Filter for your light value 3 bets.

Depending on your habits, this range is probably stuff like AQ, AJ, KQ, TT, 99 and 88, maybe a few more hands in that range.

iv. Check your win rate.

If it is a problem, you may have a leak.

v. Cue them up in the replayer.

Check the stats of the villains you played the hands against. Are they people who will call the 3 bet with a range that is primarily comprised of hands you're ahead of? if so, good, but if you see a lot of questionable 3 bets here, this is likely the cause.

An interesting and useful exercise (and this one IS tedious, sorry) is to do this:

1. Pick a villain OTB on a steal who you 3 bet for light value.
2. Note his steal % (let's say it is 40%)
3. Note his fold to resteal % (let's say it is 70%).
4. Note that this tells us he continues with 12% of starting hands (30% of 40%).

We can assume that he will 4 bet his premiums most of the time for most people, so we eliminate those from his range. The remainder of those 12% are his calling range.

5. Run it through Poker Stove against each of the hands in your light value 3 betting range.

If none of the foregoing analysis has disclosed a leak (extraordinarily unlikely) then your primary leak in 3 bet pots is almost certainly in your post flop play.

c. Finding Post flop Leaks in 3 bet Pots

The easy place to start here is to go to your position page. If they are not currently displayed, go to your stat selection box and add flop c-bet %, turn c-bet %, flop c-bet success % and turn c-bet success %.

I have to generalize here, because people play differently. But basically the idea here is to check the profitability of your c-bets. If your average c-bet is 60% of the pot, you need a success rate of 40% to break even on the c-bet. So what you will do here is to figure out a guesstimate of what your average c-bet is, and figure out what success rate you need for it to break even. Then you look at your actual success rates to see whether they are at or above what you need them to be.

Assuming your success rates are below where you need them, then this is the explanation for why your win rate is not where you want it. But it is not the leak in your game.

To find the leak, there is no choice but to do hand history reviews, and look for patterns.

Continued next Saturday...