The dirty little secret about Miller's book for players with PT

[smbruin22]

interesting comment, although i don't see the extension to miller's book.

miller's book is about low limit games with lots of callers so things such as stealing/defending blinds aren't an issue (i think you mentioned these things, sorry if i'm confused).

miller has a starting strategy for blinds, and then he goes thru playing second pair on the flop as that's the type of situation that blind play gets you into (i.e. play marginal hands and they hit part of flop).

but sophisticated blind play seems more applicable for higher level games which miller's book is NOT geared towards.

[clutch1979]

What tool are you guys using to come up with your stats outside the blinds and in bb and sb position? Where can I get a tool like this? Or do you just keep track of this on your own?

[ErrantNight]

a pencil and paper
































or poker tracker. whichever you find easier.

[MaxPower]

I agree the how you play out of the blinds has a large effect on your win rate, but I don't see how this relates to SSH.

Also, the exact amount you should lose from the blinds is going to depend on the blind structure and the game texture. Your guideline of .2 and .09 should not be generalized to all games.

As games get more aggressive you will lose more in the blinds. You will also lose more in the 2/3 blind structure than in the 1/2 blind structure. You will lose even less in the 1/3 blind structure that they use in 3/6.

I would be carefull about defining these standards.

[pistolero]

Interesting post, by the way.

[ QUOTE ]
lets say "Joe" plays $2-4 and has played 50k hands so far in pt. he makes .07 outside of the blinds (which is 77% of your total hands played). so he has made $10,780 outside the blinds. now from the bb he loses (.28) per hand. that means he lost $6440 from the bb and lets say he loses (.11) from the sb = $2530.

[/ QUOTE ]

This is fine, but the unwritten assumption is that Joe plays in games that average just under 9 people per table. If he only every played on full tables (10 people), then he should be taking 80% of his hands outside the blinds - likewise for full 9-max games, he'd be taking 77.8% outside the blinds.

This makes quite a difference - especially for some of you guys posting your 6-max results. You're taking half as many hands outside the blinds as people playing full 10 player tables (4 vs 8). For the 6-max guys, your bb/hand outside the blinds should be much higher (probably not quite twice) and your losses in the blinds should be a bit smaller than someone with the same win rate playing only full tables.

I'm at work, so I don't have PT here to look through, but if there's a way to get the average number of players per hand, then that would help make comparisons more meaningful.

Edit: Also what MaxPower said

[Wires]

2/4

.09 BB/Hand
.17 SB
.20 BB

I fold SB to a steal 82% of the time.

Not sure what causes this relatively high SB number - something to think about though. I guess the BB is borderline.

[SeaEagle]

[ QUOTE ]
lets say "Joe" plays $2-4 and has played 50k hands so far in pt. he makes .07 outside of the blinds (which is 77% of your total hands played). so he has made $10,780 outside the blinds. now from the bb he loses (.28) per hand. that means he lost $6440 from the bb and lets say he loses (.11) from the sb = $2530.
so his profit is $1810 over 50k hands which = 0.90 bb/100
that is not a good average.

now lets take "Joe" and improve his blind play alone.
he still makes $10,780 from outside the blinds, but now he only lose (.16) from the bb. thats a loss of $3680 and he loses (.07) from the sb for a loss of $1610. now his total profit is $5490 which is now 2.74 bb/100 !!!


[/ QUOTE ]
If you're trying to show that improving your blind play will help your overall earn, then I agree.

If you're trying to show that the best way to go from .9 to 2.74 BB/100 is to improve your blind play, then I think your logic stinks. You propose that Joe goes from (.28) to (.16) in his BB earn in your example. In other words, Joe really sucked bad in his BB play. Even if Joe did nothing with his BB play except follow SSH's starting hand requirements, I'd expect Joe to do better than (.28).

Additionally, it's not at all clear to me that Joe should be working on his blind play in the first place. He gets 4 times the value by improving his non-blind play (which also helps his blind play). So, Joe would get the same value as you show in your example by only moving his non-blind profit from .07 to .09, which should be a heck of a lot easier than reducing his losses in the blinds by .04 and .12 respectively.

The reason Ed doesn't spend a lot of time on blind play should be self-evident. It doesn't come into play that often, especially at low limit. And it doesn't have near the impact on your earn rate as improving your overall game does.
[ QUOTE ]
and that is how alot of good players continue to get break even results. (the dirty little secret is that miller never talks about blind play in his book and THAT is why so many good players cant reach 2bb/100)

[/ QUOTE ]
There are way, way more players that don't make a good earn because their overall play is poor than there are good overall players who don't make a good earn simply because their blind play sucks.

[callmedonnie]

I think this is a nice observation. I just read SSHE again this weekend. I never realized how many examples are from you raising in the button in that book. I think that book is great and does a great job really getting one to notice specific concepts and understanding why one play is superior to the next, but it is a book and limited in size and scope.

I think that poker is so situational that without the forums I would be clueless in many situations that the book neglects. Like I said, to no fault of the others, the book would be endless. It would be impossible to demonstrate every situation from every chair. That's what the forums are for. The book alone is not enough to make someone a winning player. Practice and analysis make up for that.

[droolie]

I agree SSHE sucks. I think I bought the last copy anyways so don't bother looking for it if you haven't read it yet.

Play Poker Like the Pros on the other hand might as well be a recipe for minting money.

To the OP- How many books have sizeable and groundbreaking discussions on improving blind play? I can't think of one... Ed Miller et al did more to impove your play from every position, including the blinds, than any other book yet published. The point of SSHE is that there is typically so much money on the table on any given hand that building pots and maximizing your chances of winning big pots is where the money is. Do you really think an extensive examination of blind defense was germain to the type of game they were teaching us how to beat? If holding your blind loss to a minimum is the difference between being a big winner or marginal loser you aren't playing in the games they are describing or are misapplying what they taught you.

[callmedonnie]

I don't think it sucks by any means. I think it is instrumental in understanding certain concepts in limit hold em. I think it is great in teaching a new player when a c/r is appropriate to face the field w/ two bets, when to wait for the turn and get a bigger equity edge, when you want overcalls, etc.

I just noticed that almost all the hands are two limper you raise on the button, or something of that variety. In reality many instances occur when you are not in this spot. And like OP points out, there is little attention to playing from the blinds.

Like I said, that is what forums are for.