/ Theory — leaks
Common leaks in tournament poker at micro stakes
A leak isn't a one-off mistake in a single hand - it's a decision you keep making wrong, over and over, without even noticing. One such hand costs almost nothing; a leak that repeats tournament after tournament quietly bleeds more chips over time than any single bad hand ever could.
Eight categories Whygrid catches
Every leak is a deviation from one of the reference charts (the same ones on the charts page), not a gut call:
Opening too wide
Raise-first-in (RFI) noticeably wider than the reference range for the position.
Limping
Entering the pot by calling the blind instead of raising - except the small blind heads-up against the big blind, which is a legitimate line.
BB 3-bet too wide
3-betting from the big blind against an open, noticeably wider than the defense chart.
Shove too wide
Shoving all-in first into the pot on a short stack, noticeably wider than the push range for the position and depth.
3-bet vs open too wide
3-betting someone else's single open (not from the BB), noticeably wider than the chart.
Isolation too wide
Raising over a limper, noticeably wider than the isolation chart.
Squeeze too wide
3-betting over an open and a caller, noticeably wider than the squeeze chart.
4-bet too wide
4-betting after your own open against a 3-bet, noticeably wider than the chart.
The norm a leak deviates from is a range by position. See - what a range is
One hand isn't a leak yet
Opening a bit wide once isn't cause for alarm - could've been situational. Whygrid only calls a leak systemic once it's shown up in at least 2 playing days over the last 10 days - at that point it's a pattern, not a coincidence, and worth a closer look.
A leak isn't the same thing as bad luck
A hand where you played everything right but still lost to an even stronger hand is a cooler, not a leak - the coach doesn't count that as a mistake, even if the chip loss is big. A leak is the opposite: a decision that consistently deviates from the norm, regardless of which card landed on the river. Telling them apart by eye is hard - you're angry at the outcome, not the decision itself. That's why every leak here is counted by the action - opened, entered, shoved wider than the chart - never by the hand's result.
How this works in Whygrid
In every tournament review, the coach sees not just the single hand but the trend: does this same leak show up on past playing days, or was today the first time it didn't. That shows you not "you made a mistake once" but "this leak has been running for three weeks" - or, just as usefully, that it's already gone.
One of the eight is shoving too wide on a short stack. The reference is the push-fold chart
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