Smallball

[Mhoram]

I guess we're all going to find out in a couple weeks when Daniel's book comes out. I get the feeling that most players know the term but few really understand it and at best have worked some smallball elements into their game. That's certainly me.

I'm just starting to figure it out, here are some of the things I consider part of smallball.

Not playing any big pots unless you are a pretty significant favorite.
Traditional wisdom says that 'you've got to win some coinflips to win a tournament'. The smallballer recognizes that while each 55% - 45% is a coinflip, the odds of winning say..three coinflips is about 7 to 1. The odds of winning 10 is 1000 to 1. Each individual race is still a coinflip, but just how many times can you put your tournament life on the line and expect to keep coming out ahead? If your tournament strategy includes winning several coinflips for your tournament life, you're just running against huge odds to win them all.

Instead a smallball player will usually only get all in preflop with aces or kings and MAYBE QQ or AK. The rest of the time he's going to see a flop and hit it good before he's ready to start shoving chips into the pot.

You're still aggressive preflop, but a lot of that is to set up a steal on the flop if you miss, giving yourself two ways to win. (I'm still working on learning to play good aggressive smallball, that's a lot tougher.)

You try to see a lot of flops cheaply, especially in position. You use your post-flop skills to win a lot of small pots without risking many chips. You won't see many smallball players firing several big bullets at a pot on a bluff (unless their read is really strong).

Reading skills come in big, knowing when there is an orphan pot to be adopted or a player that's looking for a reason to fold. Basically just looking for profitable situations to pick up small pots with minimal risk.

That's what I consider smallball, but i'm really looking foward to Daniel's book to advance and correct all this.

[jct]

The book 'Kill Phil' was written specifically to combat better 'small ball' players.

[SplawnDarts]

I think I understand small ball pretty well, but it would be like trying to write a book to explain it well. I'll be interested to see what Negreanu writes and how much of it he explains.

[Al Mirpuri]

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How do you play smallball? If anyone can explain this in detail I'd really appreciate it. [img]/images/graemlins/cool.gif[/img]

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No expert but let me give you an example. Beginning of tournament. 200 plus players. First hand. You find AK suited. Longball players go allin preflp; they are going to get called by A9-AK, 88-AA some you beat some you dont. The idea is to double up. You repeat these races throughout tournament. Maybe you win the tournament or maybe you bust out early. Small ball: you make the standard raise with you AK suited and let it go if you miss the contested flop. You win less when you win and lose less when you lose.

Smallball works by the way. My results improved considerably.

[stjohnychan]

When does Daniel N's Book come out? And who wrote "Kill Phil"? Good question btw- I reg'd today in part because I wanted to ask this exact question.

Also-- how many hands would a small-baller play? Since position is important in it, I'm assuming that limits where you can play it from somewhat. At a full table- how many hands you playing in a round?

[Mhoram]

I don't remember who wrote Kill Phil but you can find out real quick with Google. The basic premise I think was that against far superior opponents in a tournament a weaker player's best move will be to get a lot of chips in the middle preflop and thus force the better player to do the same or not play that pot. This takes away a lot of the superior player's postflop advantage and makes the confrontations more a matter of luck.

Daniel's book comes out Feb. 15th.

A smallballer doesn't have a preset % of hands he'll play, he just picks and chooses anytime he sees a profitable spot to see a cheap flop or otherwise outplay someone. He is willing to play a wider RANGE of hands because his postflop skills and reading ability allow him to play them profitably, or atleast..safely.

Lots of players are only comfortable playing a narrow range of hands, 25% or less. The smallballer will expand to 30%, even 35% comfortably, and could play any two in position against the right opponent. The longball player relies on picking up good cards, getting action to get a lot of his chips in, and come out ahead when the dust settles; picking up a lot of chips at one time and staying out of trouble when he doesn't have extra strong hands.

The smallball player turns straw into gold and gets those big hands just as frequently as the longball player and gets more action when he does have them.

And yes, that expanded hand range is mostly in position. Position is control. Position is key.

[Paul2432]

[ QUOTE ]
I'm just starting to figure it out, here are some of the things I consider part of smallball.

Not playing any big pots unless you are a pretty significant favorite.
Traditional wisdom says that 'you've got to win some coinflips to win a tournament'. The smallballer recognizes that while each 55% - 45% is a coinflip, the odds of winning say..three coinflips is about 7 to 1. The odds of winning 10 is 1000 to 1. Each individual race is still a coinflip, but just how many times can you put your tournament life on the line and expect to keep coming out ahead? If your tournament strategy includes winning several coinflips for your tournament life, you're just running against huge odds to win them all.

[/ QUOTE ]

The problem with this is that often your opponent will be all-in not you if you have already doubled-up a couple of times. This means that you can loose a few coin-flips and still be alive in a tournament.

A 55% edge is fairly significant, and anyone that consistantly passes up an edge that large cannot be successful in tournaments.

A great tournament player will steal lots of pots, but is also willing to go all-in with a small edge when the situation warrants. BTW, going all-in with a 55% edge is not as easy as it sounds. Part of the skill of a top player is finding the 55% situations while avoiding the 45% situations. A lot of casual players (like myself) either err on the side of missing close but profitable situations, or finding close but unprofitable situations.

Paul

Paul

[mvdgaag]

What do you guys think about smallball in cashgames? There's no argument from the multiple coinflip math anymore, since you can buyin anytime.
I think there is a huge psychological factor though...

To the other players you seem to pick up a lot of pots and play too many hands. You make fundamental mistakes preflop and get a loose image.

The setback of loose play is that you've more often than not are a dog to win and have loads of hard decisions. You shouln't care. If you don't pick up the pot you just give it up. So you correct the mistakes post flop and lose some doing so.

This would be bad play. It's better not to have to correct the preflop mistakes after the flop by not making them at al, or is it?

I think it's not, because you have the image of a loose player that plays marginal or even trash hands. This means you'll have far bigger implied odds when you flop a monster. In other words (with some acting) you are almost garanteed a huge pot where you are a huge favorite.

This makes up for all the bad play preflop. You play many -EV situations as safe as possible to get the maximum out of the monsters.

It's the game version of drawing. Instead of drawing for cards (where you loose more often than not, but the implied or pot odds should compensate), you are drawing for hands where you are a great favorite (where you don't get them more often than not, but when you do it compensates).

Any comments/other ideas on this?

GL

[mike1601]

any articles about smallball somewhere on the www? I'm having a hard time finding them