- In position.
- With a premium draw played hyper aggressively.
- By flat calling with KK preflop.
- By raising a set on a wet flop.
- With 75-150% of the pot left to bet on the river.
- Check raising wide on dry flops.
Showing posts with label theory. Show all posts
Showing posts with label theory. Show all posts
Sunday, May 17, 2009
Spots where you can throw a party on my dime.
Ask me why I haven't posted lately.
I've been telling myself to post about some poker strategy that I have been dwelling on before I do anything else.
What strategy have I been dwelling on? Glad you asked.
1. There is an enormous aversion to panacea in no limit theory. This is a given. However, there is a secondary aversion to relinquishing the panaceas that are still available. This is generic, of course but let me get into the guts of it.
A huge number of strategy discussions in no limit hold em do not relate to a strategy that truly represents significant changes in expected value. For example, when you get it in with aces on the flop, you know what you are facing: TPTK if you are lucky, a set if you are not, and a big draw otherwise. Against an opponent with skill, it's +EV to call not because you are a huge favorite but because you did a good job getting the money in preflop and the follow through is mandatory or you're leaving your money on the table.
But it is not a spot where you are printing money or letting someone else party on your dime. Go through a micro or small stake strategy forum's front page. Among all of the hands discussed, how many focus on a decision that can be changed away from letting someone throw a party on the poster's dime or towards printing money?
Secondarily, among those posts how many have a different spot than the one in question where you can talk about a shift in EV? I would say maybe a third.
How often is it pointed out? Probably about half the time.
How often is the advice acknowledged or seriously considered by the posters? Maybe another half.
And there you have it. If you read the small stakes no limit forums, 1/12 of all threads have a nugget for the original poster in them.
These are things that let me print money.
On the flop or before:
Lately, I've been trying to get more comfortable with the spectrum of hand outcomes, what flops will set them up, and how the opponent will behave. I've been imagining it almost like a tunnel, or a level of super mario brothers.
Which pipes do you take, how do you time your jumps? By now I've played most of the levels, so it's just a question of making sure my timing is up to scratch. More on this later.
What strategy have I been dwelling on? Glad you asked.
1. There is an enormous aversion to panacea in no limit theory. This is a given. However, there is a secondary aversion to relinquishing the panaceas that are still available. This is generic, of course but let me get into the guts of it.
A huge number of strategy discussions in no limit hold em do not relate to a strategy that truly represents significant changes in expected value. For example, when you get it in with aces on the flop, you know what you are facing: TPTK if you are lucky, a set if you are not, and a big draw otherwise. Against an opponent with skill, it's +EV to call not because you are a huge favorite but because you did a good job getting the money in preflop and the follow through is mandatory or you're leaving your money on the table.
But it is not a spot where you are printing money or letting someone else party on your dime. Go through a micro or small stake strategy forum's front page. Among all of the hands discussed, how many focus on a decision that can be changed away from letting someone throw a party on the poster's dime or towards printing money?
Secondarily, among those posts how many have a different spot than the one in question where you can talk about a shift in EV? I would say maybe a third.
How often is it pointed out? Probably about half the time.
How often is the advice acknowledged or seriously considered by the posters? Maybe another half.
And there you have it. If you read the small stakes no limit forums, 1/12 of all threads have a nugget for the original poster in them.
These are things that let me print money.
On the flop or before:
- Position. God, the button is awesome.
- A hand with weak players.
- An image contrary to the nature of the current hand (LAG with aces, TAG with 67s).
- 3 betting weak tags.
- A pot against a hand range that is forced to play face-up. Pots where I am the aggressor.
- Check raising light 3 bettors with a completely polarized range.
- A hand that is at the top of its range.
- A hand that is well-concealed.
- Rivers played after well-sized bets. In river pots with less than 60% of a pot left to wager, or more than 200%.
- Smallball. No one plays well with money behind out of position.
- In bet-fold and check-call spots, as opposed to bet-call.
- As a delayed c-bettor.
Lately, I've been trying to get more comfortable with the spectrum of hand outcomes, what flops will set them up, and how the opponent will behave. I've been imagining it almost like a tunnel, or a level of super mario brothers.
Which pipes do you take, how do you time your jumps? By now I've played most of the levels, so it's just a question of making sure my timing is up to scratch. More on this later.
Tuesday, April 21, 2009
The longish story on flopping top pair with a good kicker.
Recently I saw a posted hand exemplifying the poster's difficulty with responding to check-raises with top pair, good kicker hands like KQ. I instantly saw the connection with an old hand of mine from the "lost databases".
The last real AHA! moment I had as a player was against a straightforward, weakish TAG at $1NL. I raised with QQ in the CO and he called in the SB. The flop came something like Th6d4h. He checked, I led out for the pot, and he minraised. Without much thought, I flat-called. The turn brought a 7s and the villain bet again.
At this moment, I looked at the bet and saw I was committed to showdown if I called. I looked at the villain's stats, saw that he almost always folded to continuation bets, almost never defended his blind, and played for pot control on the turn most of the time.
Instantly- like a bolt of lightning- this came to me: I should have folded on the flop. There was just no reason to continue in this hand. Moreover, the turn bet made it 100% certain the villain either hit his set or had a pair bigger than mine. But the only worse hand he had on the flop was JJ and I would have to call at least two bets to see a showdown against that range- I'm not sure he wouldn't check-call AA on many turns.
As trivial as it might seem, this was a watershed moment for me- and I am a worse poker player now than I was then. I could suddenly interpret an opponents actions well enough to fold an overpair to the board on the flop even when it was fairly benign.
Of course, TPGK on a semi-coordinated board is another thing entirely. But, like the decision above, the entire hand comes down to your opponents hand range once he calls your raise preflop and his postflop style.
And indeed, the texture of my decision making with those hands transformed after my AHA! moment. Suddenly, many more lines were available to me. For example, if a villain is very tight preflop and very aggressive with his made hands and draws on the flop but fit or fold otherwise, it's tough to get value from him without a monster on a semi-wet board. This might be a spot to take a card and try to induce action. There's not a lot of turn cards that move you off of TPSK, after all.
... I could do this for a ton of styles and hand ranges, but it really comes down to this: the better a player is, the harder it is to play TPGK against him, even in position. The reality is that you have to have more data to play it well and even then, it's a volatile spot.
With no read, it's just marginal. That's not to say it's not worth thinking about, but I think it is something that a good player must accept.T he nature of no limit can sometimes make TPGK tough to play in NLH, even when you have position. the more exact your read and the more experience you have in that spot, the better it works out for you. But it's still only picking up a few bucks here and there.
The last real AHA! moment I had as a player was against a straightforward, weakish TAG at $1NL. I raised with QQ in the CO and he called in the SB. The flop came something like Th6d4h. He checked, I led out for the pot, and he minraised. Without much thought, I flat-called. The turn brought a 7s and the villain bet again.
At this moment, I looked at the bet and saw I was committed to showdown if I called. I looked at the villain's stats, saw that he almost always folded to continuation bets, almost never defended his blind, and played for pot control on the turn most of the time.
Instantly- like a bolt of lightning- this came to me: I should have folded on the flop. There was just no reason to continue in this hand. Moreover, the turn bet made it 100% certain the villain either hit his set or had a pair bigger than mine. But the only worse hand he had on the flop was JJ and I would have to call at least two bets to see a showdown against that range- I'm not sure he wouldn't check-call AA on many turns.
As trivial as it might seem, this was a watershed moment for me- and I am a worse poker player now than I was then. I could suddenly interpret an opponents actions well enough to fold an overpair to the board on the flop even when it was fairly benign.
Of course, TPGK on a semi-coordinated board is another thing entirely. But, like the decision above, the entire hand comes down to your opponents hand range once he calls your raise preflop and his postflop style.
And indeed, the texture of my decision making with those hands transformed after my AHA! moment. Suddenly, many more lines were available to me. For example, if a villain is very tight preflop and very aggressive with his made hands and draws on the flop but fit or fold otherwise, it's tough to get value from him without a monster on a semi-wet board. This might be a spot to take a card and try to induce action. There's not a lot of turn cards that move you off of TPSK, after all.
... I could do this for a ton of styles and hand ranges, but it really comes down to this: the better a player is, the harder it is to play TPGK against him, even in position. The reality is that you have to have more data to play it well and even then, it's a volatile spot.
With no read, it's just marginal. That's not to say it's not worth thinking about, but I think it is something that a good player must accept.T he nature of no limit can sometimes make TPGK tough to play in NLH, even when you have position. the more exact your read and the more experience you have in that spot, the better it works out for you. But it's still only picking up a few bucks here and there.
Tuesday, March 31, 2009
100 million hands analyzed, none of them by me.
http://cigital.com/resources/gaming/poker/100M-Hand-AnalysisReport.pdf
100 million poker hands from 2008, December on pokerstars.
Summary result:
*Most hands (74%) are decided without the winner showing the precise cards he/she is playing. Thus the nature of the hands is irrelevant.
*In the remaining hands, >50% are won by a player who does not have the best possible hand among those dealt preflop.
Sumamry judgement impending:
*It is difficult to imagine that pure chance is the governing factor in the majority of hold em hand outcomes.
It is likely that a larger-scale study could define and quantify different types of skills in poker:
*table selection (playing in situations where the above numbers are skewed)
*Ability to manipulate frequency of showdowns.
*Ability to manipulate the expected value at showdown.
100 million poker hands from 2008, December on pokerstars.
Summary result:
*Most hands (74%) are decided without the winner showing the precise cards he/she is playing. Thus the nature of the hands is irrelevant.
*In the remaining hands, >50% are won by a player who does not have the best possible hand among those dealt preflop.
Sumamry judgement impending:
*It is difficult to imagine that pure chance is the governing factor in the majority of hold em hand outcomes.
It is likely that a larger-scale study could define and quantify different types of skills in poker:
*table selection (playing in situations where the above numbers are skewed)
*Ability to manipulate frequency of showdowns.
*Ability to manipulate the expected value at showdown.
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)
