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A couple of important, but often over-looked statistics in most poker calculator software are the “went to showdown percentage” and the “went to showdown winning percentage”. They may in fact be overlooked even though they are quite important as contributing to the over-all profile of your opponents combined with VPIP and PFR indicators.

Being somewhat overshadowed as indicators useable on their own, the WSD and WSD% are actually relatively accurate clues to two very key factors when gauging your opponents. Knowing your opponent’s propensity to call bets like an “elephant” and knowing his likeliness of calling your bluffs are two pieces of information that can be very costly if you don’t have a handle on them.

“Went to showdown” is the propensity of your poker opponent to keep his hand active until the final play is made in a hand. By the very nature of this action, you know his VPIP has be higher, but if both are high, say like VPIP of 46% and WSD 32% you have virtually no chance of taking this player off a pot. This player is commonly called a calling station and generally plays by the axiom that he still has a chance to win the hand, no matter what stage of the hand he is in. They typify wishful thinking to dangerous and costly levels.

The “went to showdown win percentage” helps qualify an opponent’s play in the “went to showdown” indicator because if he is actually winning the showdowns he could be getting a good run of cards, playing great position, and even making some fantastic reads. The truth of the matter is though that your opponent is only proving his lack of poker fundamentals with hole cards and board cards. The lower this percentage is, also indicates a player’s overall experience where something around the 40% range or lower means you are dealing with someone who may simple not know the difference in rank between a straight and a flush.

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