Special Bug Pages

Monday, March 3, 2014

Better late than never... Donkey Test Results

Wow. Got an email out of the blue the other day from Lyric, the owner of the Donkey Test that I've written about so much before (see this page here for more info).

Lyric said he's been having trouble with payment processing, and therefore wasn't able to send me my detailed report analysis because of lost contact information. He'd read on my blog where I wrote that I'd sent in my $9.95 but never received anything, so he contacted me and, long story short, I now have my original (pre-REDi and pre-detailed analysis) test results from when I first took the test cold. Here's the results:

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Personal Intelligence Profile for
Bug


Poker IQ Score
Your General Poker IQ Score is 105 and shows how skilled you are in general. Anyone with a score this high is considered to be an average player. This score is better than 63.06% of all persons taking this test. You should expect to lose slowly in raked casino games and break even in homegames or in unraked games.
You scored higher than your average score in 8 individual ability categories. 2 of these better scores could be called statistically significant and may indicate special abilities, or that you were distracted on those parts of the IQ Test that counted more heavily in the other ability categories.

Position

Solving many of the IQ Test's problems required the ability to analyze your position at the table, considering blind levels and stack sizes, the tendencies of your opponents and the strength of your hand.. Many poker situations require analysis of position. The ability to play in and out of position strongly is required for skilled NL Hold'em players.
Your Positional Play score of 108 is not significantly different from your average score. This score is better than 70.31% of all persons taking this test.

Blinds

Understanding what changes occur when out of position but required to put in half a bet are important. By far, the blinds will be any NL Hold'em player's least profitable seats. It is important to play out of the blinds correctly in order to minimize losses over time.
Your Blinds score of 101 is not significantly different from your average score. This score is better than 52.66% of all persons taking this test.

Tournaments

This is the ability to change your strategy, hand strengths, calling and pushing ranges as blinds and antes rise. It is most useful during tournament play, but is useful in dealing with short stacks in deeper stacked cash game play. It is important to learn tournament skills even for cash game specialists. Strong tournament skills should translate to more tournament cashes and deeper finishes.
Your Tournament Play score of 106 is not significantly different from your average score. This score is better than 65.54% of all persons taking this test.

Big Pairs

The ability to play big pairs correctly is important for any successful NL Hold'em player. Although over time big pairs will be the most profitable hands, playing them incorrectly can lead to disastrous results. Beginners get themselves into trouble by slow playing and/or overplaying big pairs, and often try to be excessively tricky with them. Although poor players sometimes play their big pairs correctly, it is rare. In general better players will win more and lose less with JJ+ as they gain skill and experience.
Your Big Pairs score of 103 is not significantly different from your average score. This score is better than 57.93% of all persons taking this test.

Small and Medium Pairs

The ability to play small and medium pairs is typically difficult for beginners. Typically beginners will call too much pre-flop with these hands and overplay overpairs on the flop. Folding a set is rarely correct but sometimes necessary.
Your Small and Medium Pairs score of 114 is exceptionally higher than your average score. This score is better than 82.47% of all persons taking this test.

Bluffing

Bluffing is big part of NL Hold'em. Bluffing and semi-bluffing at the right times is important. So is recognizing that an opponent is likely to be bluffing and acting accordingly. Balancing your own bluffs and adjusting opponent calling ranges is essential.
Your Bluffing score of 110 is not significantly different from your average score. This score is better than 74.75% of all persons taking this test.

Flop Texture

Adjusting your play based on the "texture" of the flop is important. The flop cards should be analyzed in light of your opponent's tendencies, his suspected hand range, and the strength of your own hand. Failing to include the flop texture in your post flop decision making is a typical beginner mistake and is easily disastrous. As you gain experience in NL Hold'em and play against more experienced opponents, it will become second nature and of paramount importance.
Your Flop Texture score of 94 is significantly lower than your average score. This score is better than 34.46% of all persons taking this test.

Pot Odds

Sometimes you are required to call when you know you're losing because the price is right. Sometimes you must fold because you're facing a bet that is too big or because an opponent does not have enough money behind to justify an implied odds call. Failing to make the correct odds calls is a major error. Sometimes it is correct to call in some surprising situations.
Your Pot Odds score of 110 is not significantly different from your average score. This score is better than 74.75% of all persons taking this test.

Logic

Logically analyzing the action during a hand is important. Players with strong logical ability are quicker to see where a given set of conditions is leading, better understand the technical aspects of the game, often move up quickly in stakes and have little trouble with bankroll management.
Your Logic score of 104 is not significantly different from your average score. This score is better than 60.51% of all persons taking this test.

Betting Patterns

An awareness of betting patterns serves a number of purposes. It is useful for analyzing the playing styles of opponents and for finding errors in your own game. Often beginning players have no awareness of common betting patterns. Experienced players are sometimes able to watch a hand, adjust for the skill, experience and tendencies of each player and determine almost exactly what each player holds.
Your Betting Patterns score of 100 is not significantly different from your average score. This score is better than 50.00% of all persons taking this test.

Hand Selection

It is important choose which hands to play by adjusting for position, stack sizes, and the tendencies of your opponents. Beginners often have no awareness of relative hand strength, often play weak hands out of position, or easily dominated hands against tight opponents.
Your Hand selection score of 120 is exceptionally higher than your average score. This score is better than 90.88% of all persons taking this test.

Aggression

Aggression is important in poker. It increases your equity in most hands by giving you an extra way to win the pot. Your opponent may fold. Playing passively yields only one way to win -- with the best hand at showdown. Beginners typically play too loose and too passive. Excessively aggressive players will lose less than passive players. A balanced tight aggressive strategy is typically best for NL Hold'em depending on game conditions and stack sizes. Loose aggressive style is more difficult to master but can often be extremely profitable.
Your Aggression score of 109 is not significantly different from your average score. This score is better than 72.57% of all persons taking this test.

Computational Speed

Solving problems quickly indicates a combination of experience and card sense. Experienced players can often play most hands automatically, and only require significant thought for the most complex situations. Experienced players should easily answer a good amount of the questions on this test, leaving extra time to focus on the more complex situations.
Your Computational Speed score of 81 is significantly lower than your average score. This score is better than 10.26% of all persons taking this test.
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Pretty interesting and sobering stuff. Per the Donkey, I was just an average player back then, who was probably going to lose money over time due to the rake. This actually wasn't far off the mark for where I felt I was back then. Also, I agree with much of what the Donkey said about my abilities; I was pretty strong preflop with good hand selection, was reasonably aggressive, and understood set-mining, but I played poorly out of the blinds, didn't understand flop texture or betting patterns well, was only so-so in tournaments, and was quite slow analyzing situations to come to the right decisions.

If I get a spare hour or so, I'm probably going to re-take the test again cold. It will be interesting to see how well I score this time 'round.

All-in for now...
-Bug
PS. Jetting off this morning for two long weeks on the road for biz stuff. Ugh. Posts may be sporadic or frequent, depending on jet lag and mood and yada yada yada...

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