Know What Leaks Are?
Leaks are recurring mistakes that drain your bankroll over time. These errors might seem small in individual hands, but their cumulative effect can turn a winning player into a losing one. Identifying and fixing leaks is more valuable than learning advanced plays because leaks actively cost you money in every session.
Most players have three to five major leaks that account for the majority of their losses. These aren’t random mistakes made in unusual situations; they’re systematic errors repeated consistently. The good news is that once you identify a leak, you can work to plug it, often dramatically improving your win rate.
Leaks exist at all skill levels. Even professionals have leaks in their game, though theirs tend to be smaller and more subtle than those of recreational players. The difference between players isn’t the presence or absence of leaks but how quickly they identify and correct them.
Tracking Your Hands
Detailed hand histories are essential for leak detection. For online play, use tracking software that automatically records every hand. These programs store thousands of hands in a database, allowing you to review specific situations later. Without this data, you’re flying blind.
Live players face a bigger challenge but should still maintain hand records. Immediately after each session, write down notable hands while they’re fresh in your memory. Include your position, action, bet sizes, and thought process. Even a partial record is better than relying on memory weeks later.
Review at least 30 hands per week, focusing on pots where you lost money or felt uncertain about your decisions. Don’t just review your bad beats; those are rarely instructive. Instead, focus on hands where you had legitimate decision points on multiple streets.
Position-Based Leak Analysis
Many leaks are position-specific. You might play well from late position but make costly errors from early position. Filter your database by position and examine your results from each spot. Losing money from an early position is expected, but losing too much indicates a leak.
Players often play too many hands from an early position. They know they should be tight but convince themselves that certain marginal hands are playable. These hands show a small profit occasionally but lose money in the long run due to positional disadvantage.
Check your button play statistics. If you’re not showing a healthy profit from the button, you’re missing opportunities. The button is the most profitable position, and failing to maximize value here means leaving money on the table in every session.
Preflop Tendencies & Mistakes
Preflop leaks are the most common and often the most costly. Check your VP$IP (voluntarily put money in pot) statistics. For full-ring games, this should typically be between 15-22%. If you’re above 30%, you’re playing far too many hands and bleeding money before the flop even comes.
Your preflop raise size matters more than most players realize. Raising too small allows too many players to see flops profitably against you. Raising too large risks too much when you get three-bet. Standard raise sizes of 2.5-3 big blinds in most games provide the right balance.
Three-bet and fold-to-three-bet percentages reveal defensive leaks. If you’re folding more than 70% when facing a three-bet, you’re opening too wide or giving up too easily. If you’re folding less than 50%, you might be calling three-bets with too many marginal hands.
Post-Flop Continuation Betting
Continuation betting too frequently is a classic leak. Many players adopt a strategy of betting the flop whenever they raise preflop, regardless of if they are connected with the board. This approach worked years ago but gets exploited easily in modern games.
Check your continuation bet percentage. If it’s above 75%, you’re likely betting too often with air. Opponents who pay attention will start calling you down more widely or check-raising you more frequently. The result is a slow drain on your stack across many hands.
Your fold-to-flop-continuation-bet percentage also tells a story. If you’re folding more than 60% of the time when facing a continuation bet, you’re either playing too many weak hands preflop or giving up too easily on flops. Either leak costs you money.
Turn & River Play Analysis
Turn play separates competent players from weak ones. Filter your database for hands that go to the turn and examine your decision-making. Players often make correct flop decisions but fall apart on the turn when the pot gets bigger and decisions become more difficult.
Double barrel bluffing requires careful consideration. If you’re betting the turn as a bluff more than 40% of the time after betting the flop, you’re probably over-bluffing. Most turn cards don’t improve your range enough to justify continuing aggression.
River decisions make or break your win rate. Pay special attention to river calls. If you’re calling river bets more than 50% of the time, you’re likely calling too much. Players rarely bluff on the river as much as you think they do, especially at lower stakes.
Bluffing Frequency Problems
Over-bluffing is more common than under-bluffing at most stakes. Players watch high-stakes poker and try to emulate the aggressive play they see, but they’re playing against different opponents in different games. Bluffing too much against calling stations is expensive.
Track your showdown percentage. If you’re showing down a hand less than 20% of the time you see a flop, you might be bluffing too much or playing too fit-or-fold. Healthy showdown percentages typically range from 25-35%, depending on your style and stakes.
Your bluff-to-value ratio on each street matters. On the river, you should generally bluff less frequently than you value, perhaps at a 1:2 or 1:3 ratio. If your bluffs outnumber your value bets, you’re giving away money to observant opponents.
Sizing Tells & Patterns
Inconsistent bet sizing creates patterns opponents can exploit. Review your bet sizes in similar situations. If you bet larger with strong hands and smaller with medium-strength hands, you’re giving away free information. Your sizing should depend on the situation, not your hand strength.
Many players bet too small with their value hands, leaving money on the table. On the river with a strong hand, you should often bet 60-75% of the pot. Betting 30-40% might still get called, but you’re missing value over the long run.
Check your check-raise frequency. If you never check-raise, you’re missing opportunities to build pots with strong hands and protect yourself from aggressive opponents. If you check-raise more than 10% of the time you check, you might be over-using this play.
Reviewing Specific Hand Ranges
Examine how you play specific hand types. Filter for pocket pairs and see how they perform. If small pocket pairs are losing you money, you might be set-mining in unprofitable situations or playing them poorly post-flop.
Suited connectors require careful analysis. These hands can be profitable but only in the right situations. If your suited connectors show significant losses, you’re probably playing them from poor positions or getting involved in too many multi-way pots where they lose value.
Check your results with top pair hands. These are the most commonly misplayed hands in poker. Players either over-value them, refusing to fold to aggression, or under-value them, failing to get enough bets in. Your top pair results should be solidly positive.
Red Flags in Your Statistics
Certain statistics serve as red flags for major leaks. An aggression factor below 2 suggests you’re too passive, calling too much and betting too little. An aggression factor above 4 might indicate over-aggression and too much bluffing.
Your win rate when seeing a flop versus your overall win rate reveals important information. If you lose money on average when you see a flop but show an overall profit due to blind stealing, your post-flop play needs work.
Check your stats in three-bet pots separately. These situations involve larger pots and require different strategies than single-raised pots. Losing heavily in three-bet pots is common and symbolises a significant leak for many players.
