Adjusting with Aces by Nate Melvis

[jfk]

[ QUOTE ]
I viewed MP as potentially good or excellent but more likely mediocre-to-good

[/ QUOTE ]

How did you reach this assessment?

[ QUOTE ]
I had picked up both a preflop betting pattern and two physical tells on him. When he opened for exactly 3x the big blind, he had shown down a steal-type hand, or at least one happy to win uncontested, but when he opened for 3.5x or 4x, it had been a stronger preflop hand. When he said "I'm going to raise" or "raise," his hands had been very strong, and silent bets had accompanied weaker hands. Finally, he handled his chips much more casually, and displayed much more casual body language in general, with a good hand than with a bad one.

I had only played with MP for 35 or so hands but had observed him carefully in the pots he had contested. None of the observed factors are infallible, but they agreed and were thus mutually reinforcing. When you play live tournaments, you will often face unfamiliar opponents and play thirty hands per hour. I've found it's far better to search for information despite small sample sizes than to hide behind standard lines.

[/ QUOTE ]

For those of us who find focusing on each hand of play for many hours to be among the greatest challenges of play, how do you go about do this? Did you focus on this player specifically for a reason or were you able to give a similar bit of attention to each at the table? Is it common for you to find a tell of this (apparent) reliability so quickly or was this an aberration?

[ QUOTE ]
I had just processed this information when the dealer burned and turned

[/ QUOTE ]

That seems like like pretty quick thinking at the table. I would imagine that you'd anticipated this range beforehand. Is this a safe assumption?

[ QUOTE ]
45% of the time he would have QT or JT. He would usually call and usually check behind with those hands, so my bet would gain roughly 600 chips relative to checking, for a weighted gain of 280 chips.

30% of the time he would have T9 and J9 and betting and checking would be equivalent.

20% of the time he would have T7. Sometimes he would check behind and save me my stack. I estimate my weighted loss at 85 chips.

5% of the time he would have QJ and occasionally bluff with it. My weighted loss by not inducing this bluff is small, 15 chips or so.

[/ QUOTE ]

To be frank, I would have a hard time with these calculations at the table (one reason why I don't play high end MTTs). From your article it seems like you had these figures worked out quickly. At what stage of your MTT career did you get to this point. What sort of time elapsed for you to make your river decision. In online tournies where the decision time is more finite can you reach the same comprehensive conclusion?

Also, I'm curious as to the degree to which stack preservation figures into your equation. You mention it but don't quantify its consideration. How crippled would you have felt with a 725 chip stack and blinds of 25/50?

[ QUOTE ]
Even if you occasionally land in a tough spot -- I hope you would play better than I did on this river, for example -- I hope you are be willing to trust your reads and abilities instead of automatically making pot-sized bets and never slowplaying preflop. When you have hundreds of thousands of chips to collect, dogmatic autopilot is among the biggest leaks you can develop.

[/ QUOTE ]

Please forgive my confusion, but I'm unclear with this last paragraph whether or not you're content with the decision (if not the outcome). Apparently your range considerations were on target. In hindsight, would you've made a different river play or were you destined to stack off? Might you've put more turn pressure on if you felt stack committed?

Thanks again for the article.