How do you play out of position? (TL;DR)

[stealthmunk]

With 100bb stacks, several cash game players have figured out ways to overcome the positional disadvantage of playing from the blinds, to the point where some of the best players even profit money from the blinds. (or come real close)

After railing the end game of the WCOOP ME, the game has gotten so sick aggro that I feel that I have lost a lot of my edge I used to have when I'd just run people over, and I haven't adjusted. Seriously, 4betting is last years 3betting. I couldn't believe how many times I saw co raise, button snap reraise, and a blind shove. In the days when I was good at donkaments you could count on the blinds mucking TT or JJ late in a donkament in that spot. So how do you play profitably from the blinds or OOP in general?

All too often in HSMTT 2p2 posts. I see a hand start off with a loose, aggressive, MTTer (how many of those are there these days, 10billion?) opening from late position with stacks anywhere from 25-50bbs. Hero is in one of the blinds with KJs. How does hero proceed? Standard line would be, stacks suck for 3betting, so I call. Can't fold, villians range is way too wide. Also, you can rest assure that if villian thinks he has fold equity your getting crammed on and nobody likes stacking off there tourney life with the king and the jack.

I think that there is just nonstop spewing going on from the blinds, and everyone is guilty of doing it. You don't want to feel weak/tight by giving up your blinds, but calling and planning on just c/ring everytime you flop a draw or a pair is so ridiculously -EV it boggles my mind that everyone does it. You just are going to reverse imply yourself to death, if villian has air, he's going to be folding, and if he has you outkicked/overpaired/has a big draw himself, you are either going to be racing or dominated. I guess in rare occasions you will have the person in position outkicked or have him stack off with a mid pair on like a J52 flop, but those times are far outweighed by the times you c/f the flop or he just has you beat. Yes, playing OOP sucks when you can't reraise and c-bet without being committed for your stack. It just becomes a lagtard mess of hero calls and hero plays and the only players that are truly beating the 109r are the very tricky ones and the ones that just have that knack for knowing when to 4bet pre and just can feel an opponents weakness via various betsizing/tells/history/etc.

I really think that a weak lead frequency is something that can help balance out your range/overcome your positional disadvantage/give you the oppurtunity to semibluff closing the action. However, its the general consensus among all HSMTTers that whenever someone weakleads its always garbage and/or setting up a semibluff and will pretty much always be essentially minraised for you to be put to the test. Can this logic be exploited?

How often should you be cold calling your big pairs from the blinds with intents of c/ring or perhaps even weak-leading? I remember when ActionJeff would absolutely crush tourneys (still does just talking about a year or two ago) and WHENEVER he called a raise from the small blind you could be like 100% sure he had KK+. However, people were so much dumber back then. I think MTTers these days get warning signals and practice pot control/just c/f when they see an awkward call oop and give credit for a huge hand. So what is the optimal frequency?

c/r air frequency. I play a lot of hu sngs and am a pretty big winner and I know one thing I work on a lot is my c/r air frequency with marginal hands. It doesn't have to be complete air, usually a gutshot/an overcard no a dry flop will help, but it is just a fact that you are going to have to be c/ring when u brick the flop some % of the time if you are goin to makeup for the fact that your opponent is going to cbet >80% of the time and you are going to miss the flop completely >60% of the time. Its getting this frequency down pat, the board textures, (paired flops, monotone flops) that make the best players the best. Also, if you get in your opponents head enough, they will just spaz donate stacks. I think (I could be wrong) that this is what makes Sorel Mizzi one of the best tourney players out there today. He spews so much so terribly sometimes, doesn't even have a clue about potodds or opening ranges really, he just has a knack for getting the fish to give him all their chips drawing dead. How do you get that image?

Finally, the last part of my rant where I'm trying to understand donkaments again as I'm on a 100k downswing from lovely PLO, is "the no value bet"

I'm playing with a guy who I know is repopping me ridiculously light. Just know he's gunning for me (I get that sometimes with my internet persona, lolz) Anyways, say I raise co at 200-400 50 with 20k effective stacks to 1100 and i have 99, he makes it 3800 on the button and action is back to me. I KNOW a 4bet is without a doubt +EV here. However, I also don't see him "making a mistake" if I 4bet (minus me getting slight edge vs AK/AQ n maybe him felting 77 or 88), so the 4bet has essentially no value. Am I right? So I guess I have to take a flop out of position? The flop comes down J67r and I check and he fires a predictable 6k. What do I do? Calling seems awkward because wwhat do I do on a high card turn. Folding seems stupid/weak given my read of the situation. I elected to shove and he snap called with J9o and my friend ridiculed me for turning my hand into a bluff and said I should c/ call down. I read him right preflop but can I really fold? Is this a cooler? At what point in a tourney does lowering your variance/just getting THAT pot makeup for the fact of not following the FTOP, make your opponent make mistakes! Other times where there is "no value bets" Lets say you have a super user account and can see your opponent has JJ. You call a raise from the small blind with AQs and flop comes A high. You check he cbets and the action is on you. Assuming an extremely nitty opponent, who 2barrel/3barrel/calls 0%. I can argue that a raise here is correct as your opponent never puts another chip in the pot if he doesn't hit his 2outer. Obv this scenario isn't that practical, but it clearly illustrates a time where "protecting your hand" does have value! Even though, when someone says that he is usually referred to as a donk. More elaborate situations can be created with some slighter 2barrel/3barrel/calldown frequencies and more marginal suckouts that can create an interesting scenario.

I think there are several aspects to tourney theory that 2p2 might be missing. As much as it is fun to ridicule the p5 idiots when they make ridiculously stupid, spewy plays. They obviously are doing something right, some metagame, some logic, for them to be crushing. And yes, some of them do [censored] crush. Yes, I know it is variance and a really swongy game MTTs, but these players must intuitively have figured out something about MTTs.


That was a long, probably incoherent rant. I just am glad WCOOP is over and am wondering if anyone has anything to add to maybe clear my mind.