the phil ivey tourney style/ strategy...

[elmitchbo]

i considered trying to hijack davidross' atlantis thread with this post, but i decided i would get more discussion in a new thread.

if you haven't read the atlantis trip thread go check it out, it's an awesome post. one of the highlights is the time davidross spent at the table with phil ivey. the things he said about the way phil played have me thinking.

phil played alot of hands. he never open limped, but would frequently limp behind other limpers in late postion, would call raises frequently, and would bet out on almost any flop that was checked to him. this is the style of play i've been trying to use/learn, but obviously i'm no phil ivey....

one main question i have is his hand range given the prior stipulations.

1. if he never open limps does that mean he plays super tight in EP and MP? does he just lay down 'limpable' hands like suited connectors, suited aces, little pairs,etc. or does he just go ahead and raise with those hands? some combination of the two?

2. what kind of hands does he look for when he sees a few limpers in fromt of him? i assume it would be the normal implied odds-multi way type hands, but i don't really know. maybe he could play just about anything because...

3. if a flop is checked to him he bets at it. it seems that cards don't matter much in that situation. if you get in behind some limpers and they miss their flop, it's like free money. if you get played back at you make a decision to play or fold. (that decision seems to be the real skill in this type of playing style.) it makes sense to get in behind some limpers, or even call a raise, in position because you can win the hand so many ways. you can flop a monster, you can pick up a draw that lets you continue, or you can take the pot away because eveyone missed.

at the final few tables of the WSOP the 'bet at every flop ' thing really seemed to backfire. he bled alot of chips having to fold after someone came over the top of his flop bluff. never the less, that mentality seems to work for the most part.

anybody have thoughts on the style, the hand ranges, or anything else that would help? am i on the right track with the limp behind stuff? and for david, or anyone else that knows, how often does he reraise preflop?

[zoobird]

I'm guessing that a large part of it is based on who enters the pot ahead of him. Dave Ross' post seemed to imply that he was picking on the weaker players.

[FGators]

I think the Phil Ivey type of strategy is very dangerous in online poker tournaments. If you raise a ton of hands people will call you down with suspect holdings that could indeed have you beat.

Ivey does this in tournaments with tremendous structure coupled with the amazing reputation he has.

People tense up and do NOT want to tangle with Phil Ivey, because his first name is Phil and his last name is Ivey.

I agree it's a good strategy to use but Ivey's game is helped by his great track record, which helps him run people over.

It's weird to me because people try to take out Mike Matusow, Phil Hellmuth, and Greg Raymer based on who they are but from what I have read people run when Ivey comes in for a raise.

[davidross]

First comment is that he ALWAYS seemed to know where he was. He raised often enough that I know his standards were at least 3 times looser than mine. Some guys played back at him and he'd let it go...or come back over the top. He got it all in with KK against AK, which was a no-brainer, but he also went to war with QJ on a Q high board, and I was shocked to see both guys with QJ, the way the play had gone I was sure there was 2 pair or better out there.

I don't think anyone can know where they are as well online.

He was very active in level 1 when the weakest player was on his right. After he busted Phil tightened way up for a while, then seemed to choose my blinds for attacking. But when Greenstein took the seat to his left with 30K (soon 60K) in chips, he was limited again.

I don't have a clue what his hand ranges are because he was forced to showdown so rarely. But they are clearly very wide.

[cbloom]

A lot of Phil's ability to play this way comes from image. If you are just some average guy and start attacking flops all the time, people will play back at you and it will be -EV. People are scared to play back at Phil because they know he can call down with middle pair when that's the best hand, or he can come back over the top when they're weak. Your little stab at the flop has no "weight" unless the people are afraid to tangle with you because you're known as smart and aggressive.

You can create a strong LAG image by backing up some of your little stabs with some big plays, but you have to be very good at reading when you're ahead to that. Phil puts himself in a lot of marginal situations that are very hard to play, and you must play them correctly for this style to be profitable.

Also, even if all the little pot steals are -EV they create a wonderful image for when you actually hit a big hand, it makes it much more likely that you double up with a hand like TPTK.

The High Stakes No Limit forum has a lot of discussions of LAG play.

[roo400]

IF you play solid poker and only show good hands at showdown in the first few levels, people won't want to mess with you and they will fold a lot more to your steal raises. If you play loose agressive and you get all in with a marginal hand, people will now be more apt to call you with more hands than before. Table image is an important concept that many players don't use as well as they could.

[elmitchbo]

[ QUOTE ]
First comment is that he ALWAYS seemed to know where he was. He raised often enough that I know his standards were at least 3 times looser than mine. Some guys played back at him and he'd let it go...or come back over the top. He got it all in with KK against AK, which was a no-brainer, but he also went to war with QJ on a Q high board, and I was shocked to see both guys with QJ, the way the play had gone I was sure there was 2 pair or better out there.

I don't think anyone can know where they are as well online.

He was very active in level 1 when the weakest player was on his right. After he busted Phil tightened way up for a while, then seemed to choose my blinds for attacking. But when Greenstein took the seat to his left with 30K (soon 60K) in chips, he was limited again.

I don't have a clue what his hand ranges are because he was forced to showdown so rarely. But they are clearly very wide.

[/ QUOTE ]

thanks david. when he strated to attack your blind were you weaker than the rest of the table? or was it just a matter of the table positions?

the abillity to know where you are in the hand is certainly the crux of the whole strategy. it's certainly much harder to know where you are in a hand online, but it's not impossible.

how does phil ivey know where he is in a hand? is it mostly by betting patterns and the way a hand plays out, or is it more about seeing that a guy is nervous and doesn't want action? he's not superman with x-ray vision, so there must be some method involved that can be emulated.

i think i disagree to some extent about people just gettting out of his way because of who he is. i'm sure that happens, but i would say that people play against him the same way they play against everyone else for the most part. when they fold to his raise, they would have folded to anybody's raise. my assertion is that it's the fact that he makes that raise when other people don't that is the difference. if anyone made the same raise in the same spot it would yield similar results, phil is just able to identify those spots and pull the trigger.

[bowski44]

It doesn't work in online tournaments because you only have 1500 chips as opposed to the 20,000 that everyone starts with.

[davidross]

First off, If I knew how he knows where he's at I'd be able to do it. But If I could guess, it's part intuition, part physical reads and mostly experience.

He's very willing to risk chips to find out. It was pretty clear even to me who was running from confrontations, and who was playing back because "I'mnot letting Phil Ivey push me around", and he seemed to deal wth them appropriately. That being said, 4 hours in to the tournament he was down to 6 or 7K in chips anbd needed to double up with the KK hand. But in the last 3 hours he built up to 25K mostly picking up blinds and small pots.

I think he came after me because I was playing so few hands, and playing them very ABC. If I played back he would know that I had a hand, and most of the time he'd just get my blind.