pearljammed\'s raises
 

Last night I played the entirety of the 19k tournament on full tilt to the left of pearljammed. Some things I noticed....

1) His raises are small and consistent. 2.5x Even when he was down to 10bbs with a bb of 4k, he still made it 2.5x.
2) As the ante round started, Pearljammed's raises were NEVER reraised or called. It was like he could steal any blind from any seat.

My question is this. How does he get away with stealing soooooo many times? And with 10 bbs, if hes going to raise, why isnt he just pushing?

Re: pearljammed\'s raises
 

When you see a ~10BB stack raise like that instead of push in this situation, if looks like they want action, and demonstrates a willingness to call any re-raise.
Because of that, any opponent to him must be willing to call off 10BB.
My guess is that he is exploiting that fact.

Re: pearljammed\'s raises
 

A couple of thoughts

I always open raise any hand, which puts pressure on all behind me.

SOoner or later, i find out that either
i) people are calling, then floating on the flop, in which case i need to tighten up
ii) people are laying down and getting killed, in which case , i will loosen up, and rob you blind.

So, if no one (including yourself) was standing up to him, why the hell would he stop?

I think you had to resteal off him at some stage, say when you are button, or CO. Otherwise, you are in the horrible situation where
i) you dont get to steal blinds
ii) you dont get to play many hands
iii) as the tourney goes on, your relative blinds increase, so you are more hamstrung.

As for not pushing, most retards dont know that it is (usually) good poker just to shove with 11 or 12bb or less. But, if a table is willing to be slaughtered, time and time again, for only a betgo raise, then why shove?

Re: pearljammed\'s raises
 

1) I'm assuming you know about pearljamms success?

2) He got played back at twice and both times he had AA.
I think that turned people off.

3) If I was deeper, I would most certainly reraise, but I was card dead and had 10bbs in the money the whole time.

4) As a similar stack as him, what hands would you reraise an aggressive player in position late in tourny?

Re: pearljammed\'s raises
 

So, are we never ever ever shoving into a constant raiser, simply because they had AA twice?

Think about their range. If they are raising every button, and you have 12bb or so, you are going to either lay down and get raped, or going to fight back by shoving

Or, just wait for those magical cards to arrive

I think you have to realise that 12-15bb is prime restealing territory, and is prolly the best option against a constant mini raiser.

Once blinds go up, and you have say 8 or 9 bb, you lose the ability to fold out to a resteal, which really hamstrings you

Re: pearljammed\'s raises
 

Yea i've noticed this as well. He raises a ton of hands 2.5X but seems he only get reraised holding QQ+/AK, its pretty gross how long he survives on the short stack.

Perhaps he believes people just aren't that resteal capable, so he doesn't mind raise/folding at 8-13 BB's a lot. With some tournaments or line ups behind him, this might be true.

An extreme example is the mansion 100k, where given structure and players, the optimum strategy is to constantly riase like 2.3X and fold to shoves.

Re: pearljammed\'s raises
 

Pearljammer is very smart (and very good) and its usually pretty TAG from my experiences, and is very respected, and a lot of people just dont want to get involved.

A couple nites ago to my surprise he pulled a pretty sick 4 bet preflop against #1pen with Q high.

HEs 2.5x in almost every level, even 50/100 etc, hes very consistent, and it does it with all ranges of hands

Re: pearljammed\'s raises
 

This is exactly what Stu Unger used to do.

He would never raise more than 2.5x the BB, he wanted to play pots cause he was so good at reading people. Plus it makes it impossible for anyone to put you on a hand.

They talk about this in that documentary "One of a kind".

As far a Jammer doing it online, I dont know how big a benefit it would be. I guess he adopted Ungers style.

Re: pearljammed\'s raises
 

In terms of PJs playing the short stack....Is it correct to be raisisng 2.5x and THEN FOLDING when someone puts you all in?

Re: pearljammed\'s raises
 

[ QUOTE ]
In terms of PJs playing the short stack....Is it correct to be raisisng 2.5x and THEN FOLDING when someone puts you all in?

[/ QUOTE ]

Most of the time, no.