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This page is a how-to on diagnosing leaks in your isolation plays. It walks you through the step by step process necessary to determine whether you have leaks in your isolation game, and, if so, will aid you in plugging them. It was written for utility, not readability.

Step 1. Filter for isolation plays.

In Hold Em Manager, go to the main filters page. Under “preflop action facing player,” deselect all except for “1 limper” and “2+ limpers.”

Then go to the “more filters” tab and select “PFR = True.”

In PT3, go to “actions” and click the boxes for “behind limpers” and “any raise.” Click apply. Then click the box for 3 bet, click apply, highlight it in the selected filters window, and click “NOT selected,” to filter out spots where you 3 bet an isolator.

In both tracking programs, save and close, and go to your position page.

2. Analyze your win rates by position.

You should be profitable from all positions, and, in a big sample, your win rate should increase as your position gets closer to the button. The exception to this relationship will be early position, where you are not really isolating a wide range, so much as raising your usual range when someone happens to have limped in front of you.

Your win rates in Hold Em Manager should look something like this:

• EP: 130bb/100
• MP: 80bb/100
• Cutoff: 90bb/100
• Button: 110bb/100

These win rates translate in Poker Tracker 3 to:

• 5: 0.65.BB/hand
• 4: 0.65BB/hand
• 3: 0.4BB/hand
• 2: 0.4BB hand
• 1: 0.45BB/hand
• Button: 0.55BB/hand

In PT3, you don’t have to worry about position 5 and 4 having the same win rate, or 3 and 2 having the same win rate. As long as the average for categories of positions is in the ballpark of the win rates listed above, you are doing fine.

If your win rates are below these win rates, and your sample size is pretty big, the most likely explanation is that you have a leak. If, for example, you are close to these win rates in all positions except one, you probably just experienced some variance. But if your win rates are below these benchmarks in two or more positions, you should assume that you have a leak rather than merely having been victimized by variance. The steps below will assume that you have a leak, but we will do some filtering to identify some types of variance.

Before we go on to identifying specific leaks, it is worth adding a filter for “saw flop.” in HEM, this is the first flop filter in “more filters.” In PT3, you can find it at misc/situations.

Before adding the saw flop filter, write down your win rate for each position. Add this filter and then check your win rates again. If your win rate goes up, it means you have, at most, small post flop leaks. However, if it goes down, it means that you have one or more significant post flop leaks you will have to identify and plug. As a general rule of thumb, your win rate from each position should be at least 150% of your isolation win rate when you add the saw flop filter.

In analyzing your win rates, pay particular attention to middle position. It is very often the case that players who like to isolate are isolating too wide a range from middle position. If you have a low positive or negative win rate from middle position, pay particular attention to the analysis in step 6 below. If you have a range you can’t play profitably (I refer to this as your preflop aggression having outrun your post flop skill), you’ll need to drop it from your isolation range. This is a VERY common leak.

Step 3. Review your biggest losing hands for positions where your win rate is below the benchmarks.

In HEM, just click on the appropriate position in the position reports window; this displays the hands you played from that position. Then sort by your biggest losers by clicking on the winnings column heading.

In PT3, sort the position hands window by amount won with your biggest losers at the top.

Look at the starting hands you have lost money with. If the top of your range is represented here (AA, KK, QQ, JJ, AK, AQ, AJ, KQs), you need to conduct some hand history reviews. Cue up the big losing hands and look at the action in the hand. Make sure that your replayer is configured to display your HUD stats, and review the big losses. Here is what you should look for:

a. Did you get all in preflop light against a limp/reraise? If you got AA or KK in against a limp/3 bet, then you’re looking at variance, and that hand is fine. If you were lighter than that, you need to reevaluate whether, given the limp/reraiser’s 3 bet stats, you were justified in getting aipf against him.

b. Did you stack off post flop? If so, look for indications that the player’s line was out of character. Here are some indications that you inappropriately stacked off:

i. The villain in the hand had a big gap between his VPIP/PFR, and/or an aggression factor below 2.4, and he took the betting lead in the hand at some point, either by donking into you or by check/raising.

ii. The villain in the hand took the line check/call, check/call, bet when the river completed a draw. If you called the river against a loose passive player, you are probably leaking by assuming that loose passives have a wider bluffing range than they actually have. The size of the bet you called almost doesn’t matter here; this line is almost always “I rivered the best hand,” when it comes from a loose passive player with a low aggression factor (or a high WTSD).

iii. HEM users can actually corroborate leak ii by adding river call efficiency to their position report. If your RCE is below 1.8 in any position when filtered for isolation plays, you’ve called some bets you probably should not have. Add the filter “River Call = True” and look for spots where you either called or bet/called a bet or raise from the loose passive player you isolated. PT3 users are stuck making a judgment call here, but if you check your win % while filtered for spots where you made a river call, a win % below 45% is an indication of a leak.

iv. Did you call any raises at all from any players you isolated? If so, the standard of proof that this was correct is “beyond a reasonable doubt.” You should assume that calling any raise from a loose passive player is a mistake unless and until you KNOW with complete confidence that this specific loose passive player is capable of raising a semi-bluff or air or a second best value hand. They usually are not.

Summary of the potential leak of losing big pots with big hands: Loose passive players who limp/call rarely take the betting lead unless they have flopped a big hand. If you have lost a few big pots to players of this type, then you almost certainly are giving them too much credit for having a wider bluffing range than they actually have, or for being capable of value betting non-nut hands.

Step 4. Recalculate your win rate. Add up the dollar value of the mistakes (or justified stack-offs) you made in step 3, and add that dollar value back into your win rate. Then recalculate your win rate by dividing your adjusted total winnings by the number of hands you played. If your adjusted win rate is at or near the benchmarks, you have found your leak and can stop at this point. If you are still below the benchmarks, continue the analysis.

Step 5. Check who you are losing to. If you are losing most of the decent sized pots to players who call behind your isolation raise, then you have likely identified the leak that you are failing to look behind you before isolating. Losing some pots to these players is the cost of doing business, but if it is a major source of your losses, you simply are making preflop mistakes by volunteering to play a raised pot out of position with a weak hand.

4. Add filters for C-bet flop = true and c-bet turn = true. Review your hands. You should be heavily weighted toward value when you double barrel. Double barreling air against a loose passive player who limp/called, check/called, check/called is normally a mistake. If you are double barreling air with any significant frequency, you need to stop bluffing fish who can’t fold. On a wet board, bet/check/bet (when the draws doesn’t come in) is a much better line against loose passive fish with a lot of draws in their range (see the free article on isolating). They’ll call on the turn because they still have hope of getting there on the river. This is great for when you are value betting, but bad for when you are bluffing. Balancing your double barrel range is not a consideration when you are playing hands against limpers, so bluffs against them are usually unjustified spew. there are rare examples, such as when a scare card falls, that your bluff might be justified, but, for the most part, doubling is a mistake against this group of players.

To determine whether this is a leak for you, review the hands that you double barreled and look for any air at all. If you find it, carefully review the hand to determine whether it was REALLY a justified bluff; and again, assume it is a mistake and then try to convince yourself beyond all doubt that it was correct. If you can, then, fine, it just didn’t work.

If you identify significant mistakes here, repeat step 4 to determine your win rate adjusted for these mistakes.

Step 5. Raising donk bets. Add in the appropriate filters for spots where the limp/caller donked into you and you raised the donk bet. Any win rate below 2ptbb/hand or 400bb/100 is a significant leak.

If your win rate when you raise a donk bet is below this benchmark, you should analyze every hand that you raised a donk bet and did not win the hand. Again, work from the assumption that when a loose passive player takes the betting lead, he is acting out of character. If he has low indicators of post flop aggression, such as a low AF, low flop c-bet, high WTSD, it is not normally going to be correct to raise a reasonably sized donk bet (obviously, tiny donk bets are different and can be raised more liberally than a reasonable bet).

Repeat step 4 if necessary.

Step 6. identifying any unprofitable hand groups in your isolating range.

This is actually a pretty common leak; many people are leaking by isolating hands they can’t play for a profit against loose passive players. to determine whether you have any significant leaks here, switch to the holecards report and sort the starting hands by losses. Look for patterns in the hands you are losing money with. Filter by groups of like hands as follows:

• Small pocket pairs
• Suited connectors
• Suited ragged aces
• offsuit ragged aces
• Trash hands

In a big sample, being negative with a group is a leak. In a small sample, where you are looking at a group of isolation plays of, say 100 or so ragged suited aces, your results can be subject to short term variance.

To filter out the noise of variance, simply look through the group and look for rare events that are skewing the results. For example, you might have gotten all in with a few combo draws and not realized your all in equity. Or you may have lost with an ace high flush to a straight flus. With small pocket pairs, set over set is the usual culprit (you can NOT count straight or flush over your set as a standard cooler).

If you find rare events that have influenced a small sample, simply remove the hand from your results and recalculate your win rate with the hand and the lost money removed. If your win rate swings positive, you are almost certainly safe to continue isolating with the group. If your win rate remains negative, you are probably leaking by playing a group you cannot isolate profitably. In this case, the short term fix is to tighten up and stop isolating those hands. the long term fix is to improve your post flop skills by analyzing the hands you are successfully isolating, and identifying how the dropped group has to be played differently, both preflop and postflop.

If you run this series of filters and conduct the hand history reviews described on this page, you should find all of the spots in which you are leaking in your isolation game.