Welcome to our deep dive into RF Score, a robust metric designed to quantify player performance at the poker table. In this blog post, we will explore what RF Score is, why it's important, how it's calculated, and how you can improve your score using the RF App.

What is RF Score?

RF Score is a numerical representation of a player's performance, incorporating various aspects of gameplay to provide a comprehensive measure of skill and consistency. This score helps in standardizing player performance, accounts for both luck and variance, and provides actionable insights based on live data.

Why We Have an RF Score

Standardizing Player Performance

RF Score aims to be a universal benchmark for evaluating player actions, making it easier to compare performance across different games and sessions. Players will be able to feel their skill improving or regressing based on a single number’s fluctuation.

We Have the Hardware to Capture the Necessary Information!

Our tables uniquely capture every action that takes place in the game, and we leverage that unprecedented level of insight in order to create a singular data point that reflects all aspects of a player’s performance. With our tables’ capabilities, RF Score can dynamically adjust and provide real-time feedback, making it a powerful tool for any player looking to understand their game on a deep level and pinpoint the areas where improvement is possible.

Accounting for Luck and Variance

As we all know, poker is a game that incorporates both luck and skill. RF Score takes both into account, ensuring that a player's true skill level is accurately reflected. One's RF Score is continually influenced by the occurrence of bad beats and coolers, the quality of starting hand selection, All-In EV, and more in order to implement variance into the final number.

In poker, what is “correct”?

In poker, there's often no singular correct way to play. Although we generally strive to make optimal decisions at every point, specific adjustments based on your exact opponents are necessary. When calculating RF Score, historical trends as well as consistency contribute to determining how consistently a player is winning and whether that is due to variance or skill.

Therefore, to calculate RF Score we utilize a number of data points from all played sessions, weighting certain aspects appropriately in order to produce a deeply nuanced view that captures the full complexity of player decisions as it relates to optimal play. What we do not do is try to compare you to the most Game Theory Optimal playstyle or check your decisions directly against a solver. We understand that every decision is unique to your situation, and your prior experience with other players on the table.

How We Calculate RF Score

Hand Analysis

1. Scoring Each Hand: Each hand is scored based on how well the player performed, considering predetermined factors like optimal moves and missteps.

   
   

2. Weighing Each Hand: Each hand gets a basic importance score which increases if the player made significant actions like raising preflop or moving all-in. Here is a list of metrics that we continually capture and update at our tables:

   
   VPIP (Voluntary Put In Pot) - % of preflop hands where Hero voluntarily put money in the pot
   PFR (Preflop Raise) - % of preflop hands where Hero raised

   RFI (Raise First In) - % of preflop hands where Hero raised when all previous players folded

   Optimal RFI - % of preflop hands that were correctly opened/folded from specific position

   Limping - % of preflop hands where Hero limped (includes overlimping)
   3-Bet - % of preflop hands where Hero 3-bet when there was an open before them
   Cold Call 2-Bet - % of preflop hands where Hero cold called a single raise
   Cold Call 3-Bet - % of preflop hands where Hero cold called a 3-bet
   AFQ (Aggression Frequency) - % of postflop actions that were bets or raises
   WTSD (Went To Showdown) - % of postflop hands that went to showdown
   C-Bet (Continuation Bet) - % of hands where Hero bet the flop after being the preflop aggressor
   Bluffs - % of hands with a relative strength of under 40% that are bet
   Value Bets - % of hands with a relative strength of over 75% that are bet

   
   

3. Stats Adjustments: Each above statistic has an optimal range. Points are assigned based on how close the player’s stat is to the optimal range, with increasing reduction of points as a player’s actions depart meaningfully from optimal play.

Session Analysis

1. Adjusting for Different Games: RF Score accounts for number of players, field size, and game modes in order to get a better understanding of the context in which decisions were made. Your optimal stats are compared to other situations in similar contexts.

   
   

2. Adjusting Scores: We adjust the score of each hand based its importance weight and combine them for the whole session. Although we look at each hand in its own vacuum, putting sessions of hands together helps reflect game style for that point in time.

   
   

3. Adjusting for Time Decay: Since players can change behavior over time, we weigh your most recent hands more than your oldest hands. This allows for you to learn from your mistakes, make changes, and see them be reflected in your score over smaller sample sizes.

Player Analysis

1. Combining All Scores: We mix the adjusted scores from each session with a player’s prior game statistics to get a balanced view of the player's performance, giving more weight to recent games.

   
   

2. Results Based Scores: Results are also a small fraction when calculating RF Score. For tournaments, whatever place you finish is noted with considerations for field size. For cash games, your resulting BB/100 hands dictates the session score. In both examples, the resulting session is then weighted (more recent sessions are weighted more heavily than older sessions). Although your results alone are not the most accurate reflection of your skill, accounting for consistency and variance helps determine if your play style is making you a winning player.

   
   

3. Final RF Score: We combine these adjusted scores to get the final RF Score, which reflects the player's overall performance and consistency. We use your RF Score to determine which ranking you fit in, with Fish being the lowest and GOAT being the highest.

   
   

What You Can Do to Improve Your RF Score

Using the RF App, you can gain insights into what you're doing right and where you can improve. The app provides detailed feedback on your gameplay, helping you to make informed decisions and enhance your performance.

For specific hand questions, players can review past actions exactly as they happened at the table with immediate feedback for how their hand was played. For a deeper strategic dive, players can also receive an AI-powered analysis of every hand with a single tap.

The playstyle grid on the in-app profile provides a visual understanding of how their approach to poker is perceived as it relates to RF Score. Players should strive for balance between aggression and passivity, as well as balance between tight and loose decision-making. Tight players fold a lot of hands preflop and fold to aggressive bets at high frequencies. Loose players play a lot of hands and call down regularly. Aggressive players will raise and lead into pots, and passive ones feel at home when calling or folding. ‘Tight’ and ‘Loose’ reflect hand selection and continuing frequencies whereas ‘Aggressive’ and ‘Passive’ reflect a player’s bet sizing and frequencies.

As we collect more data and get feedback from players, we will continuously improve the accuracy of RF Score and how players can use it to improve their gameplay. Stay tuned for additional tips, strategies, and insights.

Good luck at the tables!