Isolating with the Gigabet Dilemma (long)
 

Irieguy had recently posted a question as to whether or not certain isolation plays(on short stack allin bets) that he frequently makes on final tables were the most optimal way to play in those situations. This post is really a continuation of the Choose Life post, but it directly solves Irieguy's confusion as to when it is correct to isolate an allin short stack.

This isolation play that he is referring to has its place, and oftentimes, if you are at a table where it is advantageous to isolate a short stack, it is usually a situation in which isolating the short stacks will be your whole theme for that table. I'll start from the beginning.

Not to long ago I wrote a post referring to a certain order of stacks relative to yours, that I feel, greatly improves your chances of winning the tournament. The question becomes, how can you be certain that placing the stacks in specific places will improve your chances of winning. First, let me remind you that the best possible stack order would be with you having the largest stack, with the second largest stack on your immediate right. And each subsequent stack placed on his right, in descending order until the shortest stack is in your immediate left. Like this:

Seat 1 Me: (t10,000)
Seat 2. (t2,000)
Seat 3. (t3,000)......
.
.
Seat 9. (t9,000)

Ok, we all know that there is alot of variance in poker, it almost seems like a crapshoot at the end, when the blinds get to very high levels. It is obvious that the more circumstances you can control, the less luck becomes a factor. One thing that you cannot control is what cards you are dealt, and what cards come out on the flop turn and river.

Because we cannot control that, we try to avoid all in situations for as long as possible. And when we do have to play for all of our chips, we try and get them all in on the flop, when we have more information about the most likely outcome.

Now we can deduce that if we could somehow avoid putting all of our chips in preflop(where we have 2/7's of the information), and get them in postflop instead(where we have 5/7's of the information), it would give us alot more control over our chances of winning. Ideally, you would like to have one all in confrontation, and that would be when you are HU with the only other survivor of the tournament.

By engineering this order of stack sizes, you can essentially eliminate any need for taking allin confrontations.

Using the model shown above, think about how the different sized stacks are going to start playing as the blinds increase. Obviously, the shortest stacks are going to be desperate to steal, so the blinds won't cripple them. So the shortest stacks start pushing allin. When the short stacks start becoming desperate, the most likely time they are going to push allin is while they are in late position, which means they are stealing from stacks bigger than they are, but still stealing from stacks that need the chips. So what happens? Marginal hands eventually call the push and someone busts or one gets crippled and the other one doubles. One less showdown for you if someone busts, and slightly easier blinds for you to steal when someone doubles.

Another factor with this specific model of stacks, is your own blind. It will rarely be stolen by one of those short stacks who are forced to push to survive. Those stacks want to have the greatest chance of surviving, so they aren't going to be open pushing from early position because they do not want to run into a big hand. Your blinds will still be stolen by the larger stacks who are in late position on your blind, but you can defend against those other stacks.

Another benefit of the players on your left being in survival mode, is that it becomes much easier for you to steal from them. They cannot resteal your late position raises without committing their whole stack, and they probably think(as they should) that you will call their resteal all in with anything you raised with, because your standard raise commits you to their stack.

So, all in all, when I said that you don't have to do anything to win when the stacks are set up that well for you, this is the actual why of it. The survivalists are stealing from the players who are on the edge of being a survivalist. You and the other largest stack are stealing from the survivalists. So, basically, until someone calls an all in bet, the survivalists are taking from the players near that point, and are giving me and one other stack those chips(which is why I said I think the best spot for the second largest stack is really two to my right, so he isn't getting any of the survivalists chips).

Now, back to Irieguys question, if the stacks were setup in this fashion, there is very little chance that he will even have an opportunity to isolate a short stack, makes a paradoxical kind of sense. By being positioned in the best situation imaginable, you have to depend on the other players to knock the short stacks out, which means that you are playing in such a way that is counterproductive to what most players think is the standard way to play in situations like that; ie, keep short stacks around until you can take enough chips from the larger stacks so they will not be a threat to you.

You still do that, but it is a fine balance of keeping the shortest stack healthy enough where he isn't pushing every hand, but short enough(so it is apparent that they could bust at any moment) that you still have that threat over the stacks that are close(in size) to you.

Ok, now, if the stacks are not situated in this extremely favorable fashion, how do you play, and what happens if it is just obvious that you will not be able to orchestrate that situation, for instance, the 3 stacks closest to your stack size are on your immediate left, instead of right.

The isolation play Irieguy is referring to is pretty much your only real opportunity to gain equity over the average. Now, if it appears that you may be able to get the stacks closest to the optimal positions, and a small stack shoves, look at where that small stack is positioned, relative to all of the other stacks, would your long term position be hurt if he doubled or would it hurt your stack if he doubled. If either of those are yes, make sure that you have alot of added equity before you make the decision to isolate him.

If that short stack busted, would that greatly improve your chances of getting to that optimal situation, if that answer is yes, isolate that stack with any two cards from any position. Alot of times, there will be two middle stacks to your left, with a short stack on their left. Now those two stacks are feeding off of that short stack, and the short stack is feeding off of the bigger stacks, who are right where they should be, on your right. That is the type of short stack that you can make a very risky isolation play against. If you bust that player, those two middle stacks on your left will quickly become short. They usually will not want to steal from larger stacks than they themselves are, becaue they usually feel like they are too deep to risk going broke at that time. So they have to start stealing from each other, with me continuing to take from that direction, they are essentially taking from one, then giving those chips to me.

In situations where there are a couple big stacks on your left and a couple short stacks on your right, the best way to play is just isolate the two shorties whenever you have anything reasonable, and they are pushing on the blinds of one of the larger stacks on your left. That accomplishes two things, it starves the two larger stacks and it keeps those larger stacks from getting even bigger by busting the allin short stacks.

If you happen to double a short stack that is positioned on your right while making an isolation play, it won't matter, by doubling him, you have slightly improved your position. Once that stack doubles, it probably won't be a short stack, so you have essentially taken a short stack off of your right side.

When people tell me that I am just flat out wrong about the Gigabet Dilemma(intentionally taking -cev situations with the idea that if the gamble works, the +$ev gained later in the tournament from the power of the big stack, will outweigh the long term net loss of chips) being a reality inside the game of poker. This situation described above is what makes me certain that tournaments that use a freezeout structure fall outside of alot of the rules that Sklansky set forth in TOP. I have created and maintained this situation often enough to know that it enhances your chance to win the event outright by such a margin, that arguing that it cannot make up for several bad calls that were made earlier in the tournament, with the intention of eventually getting to this model, is completely ludicrous.

I know how to play a TAG style as well as anyone in the world, and I have played that style often enough to know that accumulating small edges over a long period of time is not how you get into the situation shown above. Because most of the players that I am in games with, are very advanced, or even WC, it is very difficult to get alot of chips from them, playing a TAG style. These players just don't put alot of chips in, unless they know they are ahead. I just look for the spots where they aren't as far ahead as they think they are, and use those to get "blocks" of chips, or, more frequently lose handfuls of chips to them that won't hurt my place in the tournament as it currently is.

This whole post was written because Irieguy asked exactly the right question on a day where I have nothing to do. I hope everyone who reads this gets something out of it. I probably will not respond much in this thread after today, so if someone grasps an idea that someone else is asking about, please post a reply.

Gigabet

Re: Isolating with the Gigabet Dilemma (long)
 

Sticky this

Re: Isolating with the Gigabet Dilemma (long)
 

[ QUOTE ]


So, all in all, when I said that you don't have to do anything to win when the stacks are set up that well for you, this is the actual why of it. The survivalists are stealing from the players who are on the edge of being a survivalist. You and the other largest stack are stealing from the survivalists. So, basically, until someone calls an all in bet, the survivalists are taking from the players near that point, and are giving me and one other stack those chips(which is why I said I think the best spot for the second largest stack is really two to my right, so he isn't getting any of the survivalists chips).


[/ QUOTE ]

I felt that this paragraph was the most clear and helpful for me - as it (for me) added yet another factor in the isolation push/fold decision (i.e., the degree to which stack sizes are correctly orientated w/ the "ideal" stack model). Now, to find out if I can actually apply it [img]/images/graemlins/blush.gif[/img]

Thanks Giga.

Re: Isolating with the Gigabet Dilemma (long)
 

Yay for good well thought out posts

Re: Isolating with the Gigabet Dilemma (long)
 

I know how to play a TAG style as well as anyone in the world, and I have played that style often enough to know that accumulating small edges over a long period of time is not how you get into the situation shown above. Because most of the players that I am in games with, are very advanced, or even WC, it is very difficult to get alot of chips from them, playing a TAG style. These players just don't put alot of chips in, unless they know they are ahead. I just look for the spots where they aren't as far ahead as they think they are, and use those to get "blocks" of chips, or, more frequently lose handfuls of chips to them that won't hurt my place in the tournament as it currently is.


I have no idea what you are talking about.

How does losing handfuls of chips help you advance?

Are you willing to lose blocks of chips 7 out of 10 times
to get a monster stack?

Bruce

Re: Isolating with the Gigabet Dilemma (long)
 

i think my head exploded reading this

but im finally starting to get what gigas been saying, now to sweat him in multiple tournies to see this applied

Re: Isolating with the Gigabet Dilemma (long)
 

I think you are vastly overrating how much you can control who has what kind of stack and where they are on the table (even moreso online, where players are constantly moved). And taking -EV plays to arrange it that way seems even more pointless (for obvious reasons). I think you should have stuck with the "I can accumulate more chips when I am big so I will take -EV plays to get big" theory.

I do agree that when you find yourself in a favourable table position, it is definately an edge.

Re: Isolating with the Gigabet Dilemma (long)
 

[ QUOTE ]
If that short stack busted, would that greatly improve your chances of getting to that optimal situation, if that answer is yes, isolate that stack with any two cards from any position. Alot of times, there will be two middle stacks to your left, with a short stack on their left. Now those two stacks are feeding off of that short stack, and the short stack is feeding off of the bigger stacks, who are right where they should be, on your right. That is the type of short stack that you can make a very risky isolation play against. If you bust that player, those two middle stacks on your left will quickly become short. They usually will not want to steal from larger stacks than they themselves are, becaue they usually feel like they are too deep to risk going broke at that time. So they have to start stealing from each other, with me continuing to take from that direction, they are essentially taking from one, then giving those chips to me.


[/ QUOTE ]

How much do you raise in order to prevent the big stacks from being involved in the hand? Do you raise a % of their stack with any two or just push all-in to isolate?

Re: Isolating with the Gigabet Dilemma (long)
 

this was pretty boring

summary: steal from medium stacks

Re: Isolating with the Gigabet Dilemma (long)
 

Your "dilemma" makes more sense to me now than before. Nice post Gigabet.

Freudian: Players aren't moved that much late in tournaments and this is pretty doable then.

Re: Isolating with the Gigabet Dilemma (long)
 

[ QUOTE ]
I think you are vastly overrating how much you can control who has what kind of stack and where they are on the table (even moreso online, where players are constantly moved).

[/ QUOTE ]

The OP is specifically about FT, so players are not going to be moved anymore. Clearly there is a big advantage in having a better seat with regard to stack sizes and so, although applying advanced techniques would only make sense when your opponents don't simply suck. But at most normal online FTs you'll very often be sitting with few bad players around you (in any case, they are not WC, like the ones Giga mentions), so I don't see the value in making some -EV moves against them in order to manipulate the order of stacks at the table. But when players are great the picture is different.

Re: Isolating with the Gigabet Dilemma (long)
 

[ QUOTE ]
First, let me remind you that the best possible stack order would be with you having the largest stack, with the second largest stack on your immediate right. And each subsequent stack placed on his right, in descending order until the shortest stack is in your immediate left. Like this:

Seat 1 Me: (t10,000)
Seat 2. (t2,000)
Seat 3. (t3,000)......
.
.
Seat 9. (t9,000)

[/ QUOTE ]

Thank you for taking the time to write this essay. This is an awesome OP that will take more than today to digest.

While I can understand your rationale for the ideal desired starting chip position, and am in no position to challenge your level of expertise, I had always envisioned the ideal position as being different.

As chip leader starting the FT, the last thing in the world I want is a tussle with 2nd or 3rd right away at least until 3 or 4 have busted out, unless I am very sure to make a huge score. Conversely, it doesn't necessarily hurt me too much if 2nd, 3rd or 4th do get into a tussle unless their stacks are very close to mine and one would open a big lead by busting the other.

Based upon that, I would think that as chip leader in Seat 1, the best position for #2 is directly opposite me in Seat 5 or 6 with #3 and #4 to his immediate left and immediate right. This means that all 3 of my closest competitors have to be careful in choosing when to steal and bluff. This also puts all the smaller stacks to my right and left. This seems to offer the best of both worlds as far as pushing, folding or calling goes.

Is that totally whacked out thinking?

Re: Isolating with the Gigabet Dilemma (long)
 

[ QUOTE ]
[ QUOTE ]
I think you are vastly overrating how much you can control who has what kind of stack and where they are on the table (even moreso online, where players are constantly moved).

[/ QUOTE ]

The OP is specifically about FT, so players are not going to be moved anymore. Clearly there is a big advantage in having a better seat with regard to stack sizes and so, although applying advanced techniques would only make sense when your opponents don't simply suck. But at most normal online FTs you'll very often be sitting with few bad players around you (in any case, they are not WC, like the ones Giga mentions), so I don't see the value in making some -EV moves against them in order to manipulate the order of stacks at the table. But when players are great the picture is different.

[/ QUOTE ]

By the time you make the final table in a MTT stack sizes are way beyond Gigabets control and you have less time to make up for -EV gambles.

It makes even less sense if he is talking about final tables.

In a tournament with really deep stacks it might be worth thinking about.

Re: Isolating with the Gigabet Dilemma (long)
 

[ QUOTE ]
Based upon that, I would think that as chip leader in Seat 1, the best position for #2 is directly opposite me in Seat 5 or 6 with #3 and #4 to his immediate left and immediate right.

[/ QUOTE ]

This setup only guarantees that you will probably make it in the top 5 with no risk. What will happen here is the other stacks are going to be feasting on those small stacks directly accross from you, and they will absorb them. Or, if they aren't aggressive enough, because they just never get a holding that is good enough to raise through 3 or 4 short stacks(cause it is much more likely to get called, being that there are three shorties grouped together, and all of them need to double up)then the short stacks will be raising in the direction of the second largest stack, which if he takes a shot at them, which there is no reason he shouldn't, with just about any two cards, you will not be the big stack anymore.

The premise behind the shortest stacks being to your immediate left is that your presence protects them from anyone stealing from them, except for you. You say that you want to make certain that a few players get knocked out, before you worry about winning(or at least you implied that). If you start with this set up, in a perfect world, with no cards being random, the busts would look like this.

Seat 3 busts seat 2......seat 4 busts seat 3....seat 5 busts seat 4....seat 6 busts seat 5 and on and on.

because each stack has the ability to only put pressure on a stack that actually needs the chips, that stack is then, the most likely to bust the shortest stack. With you there to protect the small stacks from the other larger stacks on your right, you allow the shortest stack enough time to steal against the next shortes stack to the point where the next shortest stack, is either going to have to call with something marginal, or start stealing from the stack directly in front of it, and it continues like that, until it gets to a point where someone is eventually forced to steal from you, the big stack, but....since you are the only one that cannot go broke, and can bust everyone, the only stacks that should have no real fear raising you, are stacks #2 and #3, the two furthest away from you, when you have a blind.

Re: Isolating with the Gigabet Dilemma (long)
 

[ QUOTE ]
By the time you make the final table in a MTT stack sizes are way beyond Gigabets control and you have less time to make up for -EV gambles.

It makes even less sense if he is talking about final tables.

In a tournament with really deep stacks it might be worth thinking about

[/ QUOTE ]

Do you think that I wrote this post because I was bored? What is the relevance behind your post, I spend 3 hours writing a detailed post with reasoning behind every action, that follows a pattern of very identifiable logic, and you refute it in 41 one words.

Do you have some kind of reasoning to back up your refutation? HH maybe that can detail what it is that makes the stacks out of control? Or maybe it is your personal experience.....you have been to enough final tables where you are fairly certain that this concept doesn't work, because every single time that you attempted to put this concept to work you weren't able to?

One trick to changing the order of drastically inflated stacks relative to yours is to call utg raises. It works, but it is risky, you probably did that enough times where you know that doesn't work as well.

Re: Isolating with the Gigabet Dilemma (long)
 

Great post.

I think of your main point as being,
“Create situations where the stacks that worry you have a hard time getting more chips, even if it costs you some chips”

The key question I’d have is, ‘how do you figure out whether you are paying too much to create these situations”?

I realize its not so easy to answer that question simply, but that seems to be the crux of whether your stratgegy will be successful or not.

-g

Re: Isolating with the Gigabet Dilemma (long)
 

[ QUOTE ]
The key question I’d have is, ‘how do you figure out whether you are paying too much to create these situations”?


[/ QUOTE ]

you will know, trust me. if you play for any amount of time at all, you will easily be able recognize when you need to stop dusting your chips off, and start playing as if they mean something.

You have to realize that the example I created showed the very best situation possible; IMO. What this situation can do is show you #1. If you see a shortstack push, you will be able to analyze whether it is worth the risk to isolate the stack, based on how much your position improves, and sometimes, your position declines, because a short stack moves. This ten handed example is an example of something that I strive for, and when i am able successfully create the situation, it is usually 4 or 5 handed. I am pretty certain that I have never intentionally moved enough chips around to change the position of several stacks to get an optimal position in a 9 or 10 handed field.

Some of the tactics required take a long time to complete, once set into motion. The idea is to have a specific plan that you are following, if you start 10 handed play, with specific goals in mind, by the time you get to 5 handed play, you may have accomplished enough to set up a perfect 4 handed game, but not 5 handed, cause the shortest stack is in the wrong place.

Re: Isolating with the Gigabet Dilemma (long)
 

[ QUOTE ]

This whole post was written because Irieguy asked exactly the right question on a day where I have nothing to do.

[/ QUOTE ]

Are you in Tunica still? I'm doing nothing today too and would like to meet you/talk to you. PM me or something, or find me at the Grand, or I'll PM you my number and hope your box isn't full.

Re: Isolating with the Gigabet Dilemma (long)
 

I am playing the ME tomorrow at the Grand, so I will be here for awhile yet.

Re: Isolating with the Gigabet Dilemma (long)
 

Thank you very much for contributing so much to these forums Giga. Now I just need to figure out how to get to the final table with chips.

Re: Isolating with the Gigabet Dilemma (long)
 

DMK,

[ QUOTE ]
summary: steal from medium stacks




[/ QUOTE ]

That is just about as close to the opposite of the what I am driving at as you could get. If you were to summarize it....Resteal from the big stacks, cause you got position.

How are you stealing from the middle stacks? Did you see the order that I had prearranged the stacks? They are the furthest away from you, so there is alot more inherent risk in stealing from them, not to mention the fact that you have raise through the shortest stacks to get to the middle stacks, and at the very least, two of the short stacks are looking to double up, so you may be forced allin with them while you are trying to "steal" from the middle stacks. Thanks for the well thought out summary, though.

Re: Isolating with the Gigabet Dilemma (long)
 

[ QUOTE ]
[ QUOTE ]
By the time you make the final table in a MTT stack sizes are way beyond Gigabets control and you have less time to make up for -EV gambles.

It makes even less sense if he is talking about final tables.

In a tournament with really deep stacks it might be worth thinking about

[/ QUOTE ]

Do you think that I wrote this post because I was bored? What is the relevance behind your post, I spend 3 hours writing a detailed post with reasoning behind every action, that follows a pattern of very identifiable logic, and you refute it in 41 one words.

Do you have some kind of reasoning to back up your refutation? HH maybe that can detail what it is that makes the stacks out of control? Or maybe it is your personal experience.....you have been to enough final tables where you are fairly certain that this concept doesn't work, because every single time that you attempted to put this concept to work you weren't able to?

One trick to changing the order of drastically inflated stacks relative to yours is to call utg raises. It works, but it is risky, you probably did that enough times where you know that doesn't work as well.

[/ QUOTE ]

The reasoning is by the time you end up on a final table stack sizes vary greatly and seating is random.

Sure in an hypothetical situation you could probably create a scenario that is good for exploiting stacksizes and position (in fact you did). But the picture you paint of being some sort of master of puppets of a final table is somewhat silly. Sure you can get involved in a lot of spots you shouldn't, hoping to get lucky and get the small stacks in the right spots. But if you take -EV gambles to do it there is a big chance of it backfiring and you according to your own theory end up in a disadvantageous position.

I know you are a very good player but is it possible that this theory of yours is the reason you has gone out early in the live final tables lately on seemingly very risky plays?

Re: Isolating with the Gigabet Dilemma (long)
 

[ QUOTE ]
I know you are a very good player but is it possible that this theory of yours is the reason you has gone out early in the live final tables lately on seemingly very risky plays?




[/ QUOTE ]

You are goofy, you have no idea what you are talking about. Give me an example of a final table where I exited late due to a risky play?

I got third at the mirage poker showdown last april due to a very risky play. But that play was purely read based. I acquired all of those chips that I had at that time, because I was able to successfully create a fairly optimal positional advantage over the rest of the table. An example of the idea in place and working. When chad brown was on my right, I reraised his open raise 4 consecutive hands in a row. And was able to take the pot then, or postflop with very little added risk.

Another example from the previous day...remember the 63 hand I played? Using bubble aggression as a positional tool, same ideas presented here.

As far as I know, that third at the Mirage was my only bust that occured that no other knowledgeable player would have made.

Re: Isolating with the Gigabet Dilemma (long)
 

[ QUOTE ]
The idea is to have a specific plan that you are following, if you start 10 handed play, with specific goals in mind, by the time you get to 5 handed play, you may have accomplished enough to set up a perfect 4 handed game, but not 5 handed, cause the shortest stack is in the wrong place.

[/ QUOTE ]

This has been an interesting thread and I appreciate you taking the time to fully clarify your thoughts. I'm still trying to digest everything you've written above but I had a question regarding this particular section.

Assume a standard WPT setup where there's a "final" table of 9-10 and a FINAL table (with seat redraws) when you get down to 6. Thus, any work done to shift stacks around could potentially be negated.
What strategy changes would you employ at the first final table that differ from any normal final table?

Re: Isolating with the Gigabet Dilemma (long)
 

This post has me amazed. This is incredibly deep poker thinking. I also understand the posters who aren't so quick to jump on the idea. I think they need to be a little more courteous though.

Thank you for the post.

Re: Isolating with the Gigabet Dilemma (long)
 

Excellent post. Thank you for taking the time to post here.

Re: Isolating with the Gigabet Dilemma (long)
 

I know this is a big thing to ask, but I would love to see either a full single table tourney hand history with this theory at work or a multi table hand history with this theory at work. Also, not that it matters, but I wonder what sklansky or other top pros think about your theory. Personally, I think its the best thing Ive heard in 7 years of online poker. This is like hearing something that would be in the 5th book in a series of 5 harrington books. I also think a handful of touring pros use your theory, but never put it into words or knew they were doing it. Thank you for your extremely enlightening posts.

Re: Isolating with the Gigabet Dilemma (long)
 

PS If hand history is out of the question, maybe you could post as to where you might be playing your next few online multi with a time. thanks

Re: Isolating with the Gigabet Dilemma (long)
 

[ QUOTE ]
Assume a standard WPT setup where there's a "final" table of 9-10 and a FINAL table (with seat redraws) when you get down to 6. Thus, any work done to shift stacks around could potentially be negated.


[/ QUOTE ]

There is no redraw at 6 players

Post deleted by Mat Sklansky
 

Re: Isolating with the Gigabet Dilemma (long)
 

I'd be pretty interested in some specific examples of how you "manipulate" the table's stack sizes. Are we talking about deciding who you steal/resteal against, who you make loose calls/tight folds against, or something else?

Re: Isolating with the Gigabet Dilemma (long)
 

[ QUOTE ]

You are goofy, you have no idea what you are talking about. Give me an example of a final table where I exited late due to a risky play?

[/ QUOTE ]

Sure. It is a pretty pointless affair though since one is immune to critique by claiming to have a read for making the decision. So with the full expectation of you telling me that I have no clue what I am talking about:

Five Diamond Classic. You probably have something around 2 million chips here.

"Patrik Antonius has the button in seat 2, Dicken raises to $300,000, Pedersen moves all in for $1.2 million from the small blind, and Dicken calls with Q-J. Pedersen shows Ah-Js, and he's in a dominating position to double up here.

The flop comes Ac-9c-9d, and Pedersen solidifies his lead with a pair of aces. Dicken needs something runner-runner to survive, but the turn card is the 3s, and he is drawing dead. (The meaningless river card is the 5s.) Rehne Pedersen doubles up to over $2.5 million in chips."

This hand took a big chunk of your stack, with the exit half an hour later after a push with pocked fours. When I read your OP I thought about this hand. It is no doubt a risky play. It is no doubt -EV.

Re: Isolating with the Gigabet Dilemma (long)
 

To make sure I am correct about this, you wouldnt isolate the short stacks when your stack size is well above the avg line of blocks correct?

Re: Isolating with the Gigabet Dilemma (long)
 

Worst case scenario this is clearly dependent on the range of hands we put the villain on. If both the villain and hero have been aggressive it's easy to put him on a range of 2 broadway, pairs, Ax and the hero has over 40% equity - good enough to call. I don't think this was the Gigabet Dilemma in action, just a decision based on a hand range and pot odds.

Re: Isolating with the Gigabet Dilemma (long)
 

from reading that hand history this isnt even close to the theory we are talking about gig raised to 300k blinds 100/200k. He wasnt calling 900k more for -ev with two broadway he was calling completely on a range of hands pot odds evaluation. Please pick another hand this one doesnt work.

Re: Isolating with the Gigabet Dilemma (long)
 

[ QUOTE ]
This hand took a big chunk of your stack, with the exit half an hour later after a push with pocked fours. When I read your OP I thought about this hand. It is no doubt a risky play. It is no doubt -EV.




[/ QUOTE ]

Freudian,

You are talking about a hand that the lowest level amateur can play. There is no advanced tactics going on here.

I see that you spend time on 2+2, but do you really play the game? I am not intending on being offensive, but you are giving an example that is a very easy call. It may look bad, because he had me dominated, however, I definitely had proper odds before I made the call. Even if you exclude the added equity that you gain from a money jump from busting a player, I am still getting the correct odds. However, even if I wasn't, I could definitely get my money in with way the worst of it in this spot, and still come out ahead in the long run. My equity in the tournament almost doubles when the next player busts out.

Really Freudian, this is not something that you can question on my play, go define it for yourself. You really think that my knowledge is that lacking that I cannot do even the simple math, while I am in a hand to figure whether to call or not?

If you want me to defend my play, which you clearly think that I need to do....I will defend it, I don't have anything else to do. But please pick a situation where it isn't obvious that the correct play was made.

Rehne just pushed with A8, so his range was obviously at least as low as the top 23%. Stopping right there, and saying that he isn't pushing with more hands, there is well over the amount of dead money that I need in the middle to make the call very profitable.

Coincedentally, when I did the math at the table, as it was happening, I used the top 23% as his range of reraise hands in that position. So the A8 hand at least validates that my read on him was dead on.

I played with him the whole entire previous day, and 23% would be the correct number for the rehne who was playing the day before. However, he had almost 2 million more chips the previous day, and lower blind levels. I really think that he was coming over my late pos raise with alot more than the top 23% on the final day. But based on what happened that day, 23% is about as high as I can go, since I never saw anything he turned over.

Re: Isolating with the Gigabet Dilemma (long)
 

This might be slightly off topic but can you quickly run through the math on this hand, as you would do so at the table (without any of the tools we have at home).

Re: Isolating with the Gigabet Dilemma (long)
 

You asked me for an example of risky play that led eventually to your exit. I gave you one. If you don't even concede it is a risky play getting over half of your stack in the middle in a 40/60 situation it is pointless discussing.

Re: Isolating with the Gigabet Dilemma (long)
 

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You asked me for an example of risky play that led eventually to your exit. I gave you one. If you don't even concede it is a risky play it is pointless discussing.

[/ QUOTE ]
Then it's pointless. While there's certainly risk involved it appeared that it was at worst a neutral EV decision if not slightly +EV. Since he was compensated for the risk your only argument is that he shouldn't make what he thinks is a +EV call. This decision simply just doesn't apply to what we're trying to discuss here.

Re: Isolating with the Gigabet Dilemma (long)
 

how'd you get that A8 means he's pushing 23% of hands?

And you seem to have some specific knowledge about 23% of hands, you said thats what you assumed for your table math. Dunnno, it's not a simple number that you'd want at the table, so theres gotta be something special about it.