Re: Kill Phil in Cash Games
Hi Biloxi,
In the above tournament example all stacks were very deep at around 20,000 each. For cash game comparison, I made the same assumption. It's true that your fold equity is better in tournament play, but this is still a very difficult call to make in a cash game without a set.
If the aces get stubborn and play, you're a 56% favorite and don't mind getting played with. You're a very slight favorite over bottom two pair and a very slight dog against top two, but the dead money in the pot makes it profitable to play against these hands. Flush draws are unlikely to call in this spot.
The one hand that presents a problem is a set, although some players will fold bottom set faced with a decision for this much money. Even then, you're 40% to win a showdown against any set. The fold equity, image, and intimidation factors more than compensates for this IMO.
I'd like to clarify one point from my prior post. Kill Phil in its basic form is primarily a pre-flop strategy. This is to keeplesser-experienced players from having to make tricky post-flop decisions. As Mason correctly points out in his post above, this strategy is effective in tournaments due to the escalating blind structure, but is ineffectual in cash games due to the relatively small blinds compared to average stack sizes in most cash games (hence his statement that KP would be effective in cash games if your buy-in is small ala Miller).
I agree.
What Blair and I are talking about here, however, is extending KP long ball tactics to post-flop play, as in the example I provided from the Aussie Millions. Once players learns how to use KP and gain experience, they can incorporate long ball into their overall game including post-flop play, mixing it in with the excellent small ball tactics as described in books such as HOH I & II (which we whole-heartedly recommend) to become a complete player. The combination is dynamite. Even a lot of the top pros haven't fully developed their long ball game for fear of going broke--an error in our judgment.
Regards,
Lee Nelson
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