fimbulwinter
03-19-2005, 05:43 PM
I'm going to try to make this concise. As evidenced by my previous posts, however, I will probably fail.
1. Deep Stacks
There have been a lot of posts about the new party format and SSNL people playing hands on 200BB or more stacks lately. Thus far it's been unfamiliar ground for a lot of you, so here are a few quick guidelines (as i see them, and i'd love feedback here). These are listed in order of importance, again as i see them. All assume a somewhat thinking player base, therefore most of this is directed at the guys who are on the SS/MH cusp, but most of it should be relevant to all.
- Position becomes more important
there are trillions of reasons for this, the easiest justification IMO is the following: As stacks get deeper, the final bet in the hand gets bigger. when you're deep, you can make a PSB on the river, which is typically many, many BB. position is, in general, good for making or saving one bet on the end; as that end bet gets bigger, position goes up in importance.
- Turn and river play matter now. A lot
Before, you were pretty much all-in on the turn when playing 50xBB and, when the pot was typically 70BB and you had 25 behind, that was for sure the right move with an hope of winning. now he turn and river are legitimate betting rounds and, more importantly, they're rounds in which a good player gets a much bigger overlay than even the flop. look at it this way: they're almost never drawing dead on the flop, so all money that goes in there, big or small, gets a sklansky-bad-beat discount. on a board of A739r AK is drawing stone-cold-mofuggin-dead against 33. on the same board, AK has only 20% to win against A3 where he has about 1/3 to win on the flop. this is one of the (many) reasons you're all seeing bigger winrates on deeper stacks: your bets are coming with greater overlays as you're able to make them on later streets. obviously this means that ply on these streets, where massive amounts of EV are won or lost, is paramount.
- Giving your hand away becomes much more dangerous
This is a habit a lot of you are getting into that it's time to break, if even just a little, in preparation for playing against semi-pseudo-maybe thinking players as you move up. The "YOU REALIZE THAT WHEN YOU PLAY BIG OFFSUIT CRAP YOU'RE GIVING OTHER PLAYERS IMPLIED ODDS" or whatever post kind of touched on this, but honestly (and i know some of you witnessed me espouse this) this is bunk. my response was kind of jerky, but it was right; here's the long version:
when you only raise hands that will very likely make one pair on the flop, you're announcing your hand. think about this for a moment: if i tabulated all of my hands i'd be willing to bet that JT is worth more to me in deep-stacked situations when held on the button/CO than AJ is when held in middle position. if you define hand strength as the amount won on average per hand, then i should be raising JT/CO, as i'll gain many advantages to it (discussed below) more often than AJ/MP. The real point is this: if you play by a preflop strategy that defines your hand, you will not pay dearly on short stacks as hands to crack yours just don't come up often enough and players make their mistakes and give you their money by making the mathmatical mistake of calling preflop with 3 clean outs etc. in a deep stacked situation, things need to change as forcing preflop errors, on those sizes of stacks is nearly impossible (for example, iy you both have 300BB and you only raise aces and can't let go of them, thn even a 6xBB raise is not sufficient to make 72o calling a mistake).
- Disgusing your hand early goes way up in value
This one follows from the above, but an easy way to think about it is this: if i put in 4xBB with 35% pot equity preflop (say raising 56s and gettin called by AK, math may be wrong but i'm not a math guy) that is a mistake that "costs" very little (i think it's actually 1.2 BB). if that deception allows you to win an extra river bet (where the losing hand has 0% pot equity) of 60-100 BB, you can see how easy it is to turn a profit simply looking at it from this perspective, not to mention the fact that this move improves the value of your big hands etc.
- Hand values normalize
in a deep game you're just going to have to put together big hands (or at least really nice draws with which to semibluff) to win big pots. you don't want to play a 400BB pot against anyone but a dolt holding unimproved AA. this may be a sort o sea-change for some, as i remember expecting to double up every time i saw AA at PP25NL's old structure, so here's a way to think about it: now the big hand is not a big PP, but the (insert playable hand here) you play on the button.
there are many more, but i'm failing miserably at my pithyness pledge, so i'll move on.
2. Implied Odds
There is a conundrum that a lot of SSNL'ers (myself certainly included) face when it comes to playing deep. usually it happens after we start to win and get introspective as to why.
it goes like this:
I need to raise all my one-pair hands such that the other guy doesn't get implied odds to flop a set under me. I also need to raise such that worse hands will call so that i can make some money off this hand.
on a 200BB stack, AQ to say greater than 15xBB satisfies the first while 4xBB or less satisfies the second.
so it appears we're at an impasse. WTF dude?
do we just limp these hands and hope to win little?
do we just chuck them in the muck cos we're scared?
the answer to the above two (except in really crappy position or facing a raise) is obviously no.
The solution lies in two parts:
1. just play good.
2. cut down their odds and improve shania by adding hands to your raising repertoire.
explaining quickly:
1. this is obviously the cheaper, easier answer, however i still feel there is some substance to be fleshed out here. this means, in this instance, knowing your dang players. don't play marginal hands without reads. we all know this, but we do it sometimes anywho, like calling with a small PP when we don't have odds etc. Reads make money, and they make a lot more when you're deep. remember, making money and saving it are the same in the end, so take those first few orbits and get craggy.
2. This one takes a bit of thought. if you only raise big hands and can't let go, you'll lose. conversely, if you raise hands that you want to see cheap flops with (like 22) you'll make them losers. so wht do you raise?
well, you raise the AQ etc. but you also raise the 67s with position once in a while. check this out: if they can only count on winning that big pot 1/4 of the time (say you have a non-big hand 1/4 of the time and the other 2/4 you're able to get away) then their implied odds are cut way, way down.
3. Preflop Play
(this is kind of a continuation of the above)
the crux is this: you really really want to build pots with good hands in position in deep NL. this means raising in LP sometimes even with hands that might be dominated (i mean JTs, not KTo). the pot equity loss as discussed above is more than made up by the EV of being disguised, cutting their implied odds, and very importantly, taking a free card when you want it. Also look at it this way: if A4s is worth say 1BB/hand on average in MP3 but 1.8BB on average on button, my raise, which as above cost me 1.2 BB is already 2/3 subsidized by the increase in value of my hand by bringing it closer to the button.
wouldn't it be great if you could get the guy with TPTK to check it to you on the button with a draw-heavy board while you hold the NFD? even better, wouldn't it be nice to see him pay off two streets of PSB's once you turn it while drawing ice-cold-dead because he misinterprets your positional agressiveness preflop as LAGy play in general?
wouldn't it be great to be the one controlling the pot size in the vast majority of hands you play?
you can have all these things and more for the simple speculation of a 4xBB raise.*
*note: the above may sound like an endorsement of my personal play style which includes playing a lot of pots. I can assure you that it is not. I want you to play agressively, regardless of how tight or loose you play (we all agree aggressive is good, no?) and i want you to play in a way that is difficult to counteract and offers many options postflop. I'm not saying that raising 78s after 4 limpers every time is good business. it's not. i'm saying that mixing up your play maybe 10% of the time, in a way which costs very very little, even nothing, long term, allows you to play straightforward, in the most EV-making way, the other 90% and will force your opponents to not only let you do it, but pay you while you do.
finally,
4. The State of SSNL
This forum is exploding. new posters, new advice and new structure. both MH and SSNL are undergoing to boom, so to make this influx manageable, here are a few humble requests for the forum in general:
Posters:
- try to limit yourself to posting few hands. pick the hardest one you don't get and post it. flooding the board with 5 posts after a recent session will get you ignored by the better posters and will really hurt the quality of advice you're going to get.
- try to answer the questons you know; if you don't know, don't pretend. there are a lot of posts that i don't know the answer to, so i think about them and then read other's responses. if i don't get why, then i ask in the thread, but i don't give a logic-less response.
- the best posts from new posters, both for them and for the forum, are questions within posts. while i may get why soah or worst or whoever posted "Turn: C/R A-I", if you don't then ASK them in the thread. not only does this help you out, but it generates deeper discussion about making the thought processes that go into the answers, which we all benefit from.
- Keep the trash posts to a minimum. if you got it in with the best hand and lost, there is no discussion. likewise, if you had a bad day or took a drubbing from a dolt, post your bitch along with something legitimate for discussion or don't post it at all. we've all been there; if there were no bad beats, then losing player's wouldn't play. you owe bad beats for ensuring the profitability of our game.
- moreover, just respect one another. I've been pretty borderline about this lately, and i apologize. even if someone's spewing horrible advice, just post that you disagree and why, not how their thinking shows that they're a tard. going after someone, both at the table and on th forums, makes it impossible to change their minds and makes them look for ways to further justify themselves, even after they've realized they're wrong.
as a sidenote, this board has, despite the noise, never been better IMO. there's a lot of good discussion here and lots of learning going on. to the new guys who have been carrying this board, hats off to you and keep up the good work.
fim
1. Deep Stacks
There have been a lot of posts about the new party format and SSNL people playing hands on 200BB or more stacks lately. Thus far it's been unfamiliar ground for a lot of you, so here are a few quick guidelines (as i see them, and i'd love feedback here). These are listed in order of importance, again as i see them. All assume a somewhat thinking player base, therefore most of this is directed at the guys who are on the SS/MH cusp, but most of it should be relevant to all.
- Position becomes more important
there are trillions of reasons for this, the easiest justification IMO is the following: As stacks get deeper, the final bet in the hand gets bigger. when you're deep, you can make a PSB on the river, which is typically many, many BB. position is, in general, good for making or saving one bet on the end; as that end bet gets bigger, position goes up in importance.
- Turn and river play matter now. A lot
Before, you were pretty much all-in on the turn when playing 50xBB and, when the pot was typically 70BB and you had 25 behind, that was for sure the right move with an hope of winning. now he turn and river are legitimate betting rounds and, more importantly, they're rounds in which a good player gets a much bigger overlay than even the flop. look at it this way: they're almost never drawing dead on the flop, so all money that goes in there, big or small, gets a sklansky-bad-beat discount. on a board of A739r AK is drawing stone-cold-mofuggin-dead against 33. on the same board, AK has only 20% to win against A3 where he has about 1/3 to win on the flop. this is one of the (many) reasons you're all seeing bigger winrates on deeper stacks: your bets are coming with greater overlays as you're able to make them on later streets. obviously this means that ply on these streets, where massive amounts of EV are won or lost, is paramount.
- Giving your hand away becomes much more dangerous
This is a habit a lot of you are getting into that it's time to break, if even just a little, in preparation for playing against semi-pseudo-maybe thinking players as you move up. The "YOU REALIZE THAT WHEN YOU PLAY BIG OFFSUIT CRAP YOU'RE GIVING OTHER PLAYERS IMPLIED ODDS" or whatever post kind of touched on this, but honestly (and i know some of you witnessed me espouse this) this is bunk. my response was kind of jerky, but it was right; here's the long version:
when you only raise hands that will very likely make one pair on the flop, you're announcing your hand. think about this for a moment: if i tabulated all of my hands i'd be willing to bet that JT is worth more to me in deep-stacked situations when held on the button/CO than AJ is when held in middle position. if you define hand strength as the amount won on average per hand, then i should be raising JT/CO, as i'll gain many advantages to it (discussed below) more often than AJ/MP. The real point is this: if you play by a preflop strategy that defines your hand, you will not pay dearly on short stacks as hands to crack yours just don't come up often enough and players make their mistakes and give you their money by making the mathmatical mistake of calling preflop with 3 clean outs etc. in a deep stacked situation, things need to change as forcing preflop errors, on those sizes of stacks is nearly impossible (for example, iy you both have 300BB and you only raise aces and can't let go of them, thn even a 6xBB raise is not sufficient to make 72o calling a mistake).
- Disgusing your hand early goes way up in value
This one follows from the above, but an easy way to think about it is this: if i put in 4xBB with 35% pot equity preflop (say raising 56s and gettin called by AK, math may be wrong but i'm not a math guy) that is a mistake that "costs" very little (i think it's actually 1.2 BB). if that deception allows you to win an extra river bet (where the losing hand has 0% pot equity) of 60-100 BB, you can see how easy it is to turn a profit simply looking at it from this perspective, not to mention the fact that this move improves the value of your big hands etc.
- Hand values normalize
in a deep game you're just going to have to put together big hands (or at least really nice draws with which to semibluff) to win big pots. you don't want to play a 400BB pot against anyone but a dolt holding unimproved AA. this may be a sort o sea-change for some, as i remember expecting to double up every time i saw AA at PP25NL's old structure, so here's a way to think about it: now the big hand is not a big PP, but the (insert playable hand here) you play on the button.
there are many more, but i'm failing miserably at my pithyness pledge, so i'll move on.
2. Implied Odds
There is a conundrum that a lot of SSNL'ers (myself certainly included) face when it comes to playing deep. usually it happens after we start to win and get introspective as to why.
it goes like this:
I need to raise all my one-pair hands such that the other guy doesn't get implied odds to flop a set under me. I also need to raise such that worse hands will call so that i can make some money off this hand.
on a 200BB stack, AQ to say greater than 15xBB satisfies the first while 4xBB or less satisfies the second.
so it appears we're at an impasse. WTF dude?
do we just limp these hands and hope to win little?
do we just chuck them in the muck cos we're scared?
the answer to the above two (except in really crappy position or facing a raise) is obviously no.
The solution lies in two parts:
1. just play good.
2. cut down their odds and improve shania by adding hands to your raising repertoire.
explaining quickly:
1. this is obviously the cheaper, easier answer, however i still feel there is some substance to be fleshed out here. this means, in this instance, knowing your dang players. don't play marginal hands without reads. we all know this, but we do it sometimes anywho, like calling with a small PP when we don't have odds etc. Reads make money, and they make a lot more when you're deep. remember, making money and saving it are the same in the end, so take those first few orbits and get craggy.
2. This one takes a bit of thought. if you only raise big hands and can't let go, you'll lose. conversely, if you raise hands that you want to see cheap flops with (like 22) you'll make them losers. so wht do you raise?
well, you raise the AQ etc. but you also raise the 67s with position once in a while. check this out: if they can only count on winning that big pot 1/4 of the time (say you have a non-big hand 1/4 of the time and the other 2/4 you're able to get away) then their implied odds are cut way, way down.
3. Preflop Play
(this is kind of a continuation of the above)
the crux is this: you really really want to build pots with good hands in position in deep NL. this means raising in LP sometimes even with hands that might be dominated (i mean JTs, not KTo). the pot equity loss as discussed above is more than made up by the EV of being disguised, cutting their implied odds, and very importantly, taking a free card when you want it. Also look at it this way: if A4s is worth say 1BB/hand on average in MP3 but 1.8BB on average on button, my raise, which as above cost me 1.2 BB is already 2/3 subsidized by the increase in value of my hand by bringing it closer to the button.
wouldn't it be great if you could get the guy with TPTK to check it to you on the button with a draw-heavy board while you hold the NFD? even better, wouldn't it be nice to see him pay off two streets of PSB's once you turn it while drawing ice-cold-dead because he misinterprets your positional agressiveness preflop as LAGy play in general?
wouldn't it be great to be the one controlling the pot size in the vast majority of hands you play?
you can have all these things and more for the simple speculation of a 4xBB raise.*
*note: the above may sound like an endorsement of my personal play style which includes playing a lot of pots. I can assure you that it is not. I want you to play agressively, regardless of how tight or loose you play (we all agree aggressive is good, no?) and i want you to play in a way that is difficult to counteract and offers many options postflop. I'm not saying that raising 78s after 4 limpers every time is good business. it's not. i'm saying that mixing up your play maybe 10% of the time, in a way which costs very very little, even nothing, long term, allows you to play straightforward, in the most EV-making way, the other 90% and will force your opponents to not only let you do it, but pay you while you do.
finally,
4. The State of SSNL
This forum is exploding. new posters, new advice and new structure. both MH and SSNL are undergoing to boom, so to make this influx manageable, here are a few humble requests for the forum in general:
Posters:
- try to limit yourself to posting few hands. pick the hardest one you don't get and post it. flooding the board with 5 posts after a recent session will get you ignored by the better posters and will really hurt the quality of advice you're going to get.
- try to answer the questons you know; if you don't know, don't pretend. there are a lot of posts that i don't know the answer to, so i think about them and then read other's responses. if i don't get why, then i ask in the thread, but i don't give a logic-less response.
- the best posts from new posters, both for them and for the forum, are questions within posts. while i may get why soah or worst or whoever posted "Turn: C/R A-I", if you don't then ASK them in the thread. not only does this help you out, but it generates deeper discussion about making the thought processes that go into the answers, which we all benefit from.
- Keep the trash posts to a minimum. if you got it in with the best hand and lost, there is no discussion. likewise, if you had a bad day or took a drubbing from a dolt, post your bitch along with something legitimate for discussion or don't post it at all. we've all been there; if there were no bad beats, then losing player's wouldn't play. you owe bad beats for ensuring the profitability of our game.
- moreover, just respect one another. I've been pretty borderline about this lately, and i apologize. even if someone's spewing horrible advice, just post that you disagree and why, not how their thinking shows that they're a tard. going after someone, both at the table and on th forums, makes it impossible to change their minds and makes them look for ways to further justify themselves, even after they've realized they're wrong.
as a sidenote, this board has, despite the noise, never been better IMO. there's a lot of good discussion here and lots of learning going on. to the new guys who have been carrying this board, hats off to you and keep up the good work.
fim