Grade the June Magazine

[tewall]

[ QUOTE ]
Colin Moshman's article was good too, although I'm not sure that I agree with his analysis of restealing in stts.

[/ QUOTE ]

What do you disagree with?

[Galwegian]

[ QUOTE ]
[ QUOTE ]
Colin Moshman's article was good too, although I'm not sure that I agree with his analysis of restealing in stts.

[/ QUOTE ]

What do you disagree with?

[/ QUOTE ]

Well I think the resteal is really more of an MTT move. I think that z32 makes the point in his article that STT players (even at moderately high buyins) are just much more likely to call your resteal with marginal hands like KQ or AT etc... They are much less afraid of busting out than an MTT player is and this really makes the resteal dangerous. I'm not saying that you should never resteal, but it should be used more infrequently than Colin suggests. I think a lot depends on table dynamics and how close you are to the bubble.

[smbruin22]

[ QUOTE ]
Well I think the resteal is really more of an MTT move. I think that z32 makes the point in his article that STT players (even at moderately high buyins) are just much more likely to call your resteal with marginal hands like KQ or AT etc... They are much less afraid of busting out than an MTT player is and this really makes the resteal dangerous. I'm not saying that you should never resteal, but it should be used more infrequently than Colin suggests. I think a lot depends on table dynamics and how close you are to the bubble.

[/ QUOTE ]

yes, this is what i was trying to say last night in my drunken stupor... don't drink and post [img]/images/graemlins/crazy.gif[/img].... yes, in alot of MTT's people don't want to die. in lower $$$$ SNG's, there's a "what the heck" attitude that pervades (word??) until bubble time.... not sure about $100+ SNG, then maybe people care about getting knocked out but then also in most SNG's many stacks get pretty short.....

[tewall]

Thanks for the input. I've not given much attention to restealing. I just fold unless I have a really strong hand. I'm sure I'm giving up some opportunities in doing so.

What Colin makes sense, about targeting whether a raise is for value or not, and then trying to resteal if it's not for value. The question of what hands one will call with makes a big difference, of course. You're saying the flaw with Conin's article is that it assumes the stealer will just fold, when he might make a loose call. Therefore just having a better than average hand, like Q9s, might not be enough. I'll have to play around with the numbers some here. Since you can't just feed them into SNGPT, it will take some work.

[tewall]

I did an ICM calculation assuming a resteal of an opponent who would steal with anything and call with the best 25% of those hands, which would include hands as bad as K6s and K9o. (I used pokerstove, setting at 25%). I had to make up chip amounts, etc., but assuming this scenario restealing with Q7s was clearly profitable. In the scenario I did, the resteal would be just over 25% of hero's stack.

The calucaltion was roughly

a.Just under .14 equity to start with
b.Equity rises to .155 if resteal works
c.Equrity rises to over .23 if called and win
d.Equity goes to 0 if called and lose

Probability of winning is 1/3 if called.
Probability of opponent folding is 3/4.
Total equity rose from just under .14 to about .19, a huge gain.

The precise numbers aren't important, of course, but it gives a feel to what is happening. Most of the equity gain comes from the fold equity, but a good chunk comes from 1/3 of the time when called.

I used a serious simplication here which favor the restealing calculation, which is that no one behind will call. Also I assumed the stealer would steal with any two. However, the assumption that the stealer would called with hands as bad as K9o is a conservative one.

I would be happy to do other calculations with any given assumptions, but based on a preliminary trial, it appears to me that if one is correct in the assumption that the opponent will steal with any two, restealing with Q7s in a scenario similar to the one Colin laid out would be clearly profitable.

Out of curiosity, I redid the calculation assuming restealing with 32o. This was also profitable, raising the equity from just under .14 to almost .16.

It would probably be more accurate to weight the calculation. Something like x% of the time it's a steal, and y% of the time it's a value steal. That is, villain might not have been intending to steal, but woke up with a hand, and our guess that his raise was a steal was incorrect.

I redid the calculation assuming that villain would be raising with a legitimate hand (top 10% hand) 1/3 of the time, and any two 2/3 of the time. Under this assumption, the resteal with Q7s was still profitable, raising the equity from a little under .14 to .15.

So one's guess that the villain was restealing would have to be way off for the resteal with Q7s not to be profitable. If one were absolutely certain that villain would raise with any two, and fold hands worse than K6s, then restealing with 32o would be profitable in the scneario I ran. Having a hand as strong as Q7s allows one to be wrong by quite a bit in the guess that villain is stealing, and still have that be a profitable play.

Of course, even though villain is stealing, he might not steal with any two. He might steal with top 50% or something like that, so there's many different assumptions that could be made. But it appears to me that regardless of the assumptions one makes, Q7s will be a profitable resteal, given that your guess that villain's raise is a steal is reasonably accurate.

[tewall]

I should amend this by saying that since Colin didn't include chip sizes for everyone, I just made up my own scenario. In my scenario, hero had 16 x BB, which seems to be a far better stack size for a resteal than around or under 10 X BB, which Colin was suggesting. There's a discussion of the resteal plan in the STT forum. Colin said he would post a reply to this forum (i.e. the magazine forum) soon.

[Galwegian]

[ QUOTE ]
I should amend this by saying that since Colin didn't include chip sizes for everyone, I just made up my own scenario. In my scenario, hero had 16 x BB, which seems to be a far better stack size for a resteal than around or under 10 X BB, which Colin was suggesting. There's a discussion of the resteal plan in the STT forum. Colin said he would post a reply to this forum (i.e. the magazine forum) soon.

[/ QUOTE ] I guess that my main objection to the extract is that it doesn't seem to take enought account of table dynamics at or near the bubble. I think that this is one of the crucial factors when considering a resteal in a STT. It's not just the stack sizes of the two players involved that are important. If you are on the bubble then you can sometimes resteal with really bad hands if the situation is right. On the other hand, if you are still 6/7 handed and the stacks (of all players) are fairly even, then I think that you should resteal far less than you would in an MTT. Chip accumulation is less important in an STT than it is an MTT. The important thing in an STT is chip preservation.

I think that the resteal really comes into its own as a chip accumulation technique in MTTs

[tewall]

Thank you for your comments.

I don't think what you wrote is entirely accurate. Both STT's and MTT's are about taking advantage of +EV situations. Because of differences in the tournaments (both in terms of structure, and the way people play), what is +EV for one may not be +EV for another. In particular, in the context of our discussion, an MTT resteal might be profitable whereas the same resteal would not be in an STT.

I redid the resteal calculations I had done, assuming the action was not near bubble (so that chipEV could be used as as a good aproximation in place of the ICM model), and indeed the resteals were FAR more profitable than in an STT, so one could justify more aggressive action in an MTT, but the reason, I would think, would primarily be because the plays are so +EV, and one would not want to pass up such plays.

However, even though the plays are much better for an MTT, that still doesn't mean they aren't profitable for an STT. Looking at a range of from 20xBB to 12xBB, assuming villain would steal (3xBB raise) with top 50% of hands, and fold half of those, raising with Q7s would raise your equity by at least 25%. Assuming the calculations and assumptions are correct, this seems too good an opportunity to pass up, even in an STT.

The most important part of this would be getting the raising range of the villain correct.

[jfk]

Solid June issue. Based on the excerpt, the Moshman book looks very promising.