Poker statistics are one of the great ways that the new era of online poker has allowed players to improve. In some cases, into the professional ranks.

By collecting statistics of the hands you've played, you can analyze your play and locate areas where you may be able to improve. Whether the improvement is big or small, it will add to your bottom line.

Understanding Poker Statistics

Poker statistics can be any facts you can compile from your hand histories - about your own play or the play of your opponents.

But most online poker tracking software collects certain specific statistics that they think are relevant to the game. These statistics can tell anyone looking at them at a glance what general type of player you are.

Major Poker Statistics to Analyze

Some of the most common statistics about your hands that common poker software tools analyze are:

• • Voluntarily Puts Money in Pot (VP$IP)
• • Pre-Flop Aggression
• • Post-Flop Aggression
• • Pots Won at Showdown
• • Win Rate

Put together, these statistics can create a picture of what kind of animal a player is. You can see where your strengths and weaknesses lie. Seeing is the key to fixing.

VP$IP

What is the importance of some of these statistics? Take the first one, Voluntarily Puts Money into Pot. This is an indicator of how loose or tight you are.

In the early days of poker, it was thought that a tight aggressive style was the only truly effective style of poker. However in the Internet age, many players have had great success playing a loose aggressive style.

If you are one of these, it's fine to have a high VP$IP. However, if you are not winning a decent percentage of the pots you enter and are a losing player, a high VP$IP may indicate that playing too many hands may be the source of your difficulties.

To find a base number for this statistic, you can start at the number of players that are seated at the table. If you're ten, you'll have the best cards in 10% of the hands. This means that if you play, say, 8% of the hands, you're probably too tight, giving away equity. On the other hand, if you play 30% of the hands, you're bound to play with the worst cards in 2/3 of the hands.

Then again, if you're only three at the table, a VPIP of 30% would mean you're too tight again, since you'll be having the best cards in 33% of the hands.

It's up to you to find the balance. One of the basic poker tournament tips is to adjust this number to the number of players at the table, which may vary wildly during the course of a tournament.

Aggression

Similarly, your pre-flop and post-flop aggression numbers, which are a ratio of the number of times you bet or raise to the number of times you simply call, may indicate that you are more passive or aggressive than you may have realized.

An aggression number that is too high may reveal that you are a maniac who is spewing chips, while one that is too low may indicate that you are a rock (or if you have a high VP$IP, a calling station), who allows opponents to take many pots away from you.

There are no right or wrong numbers, it all comes down to what games you're playing, how many opponents you have and, not least, how those opponents play.

Hand analysis is a vast science and art, and practice is the only way into this important area.