Kill Phil in Cash Games

[Ryan11]

hey guys is there somewhere I can get a list of the errors in the first printing?

[ephemeral]

Yes, contact me through the KP website and I'll e-mail them to you. They're minor.

Regards,

Lee

[cero_z]

Hi Lee,

Congrats on the win. Your play with an open-ended straight and flush draw and lots of chips left to scare them with is as standard as it gets in NL poker. This is not a good example of the types of moves that BOW will make; virtually all winning NL cash players at his level would do the same thing, so it in no way sets him apart.

On that flop, the real "BOW" will push a gigantic overbet into the pot with any draw with 8+ outs, with bottom 2, and with an overpair with regularity. He will also occasionally push there with AQ, AK, 87o, 65s-backdoor flush draw, air, etc. In your hand, you could practically call an all-in bet on the flop, let alone make one. BOW makes this play with far weaker hands--that is what makes him tough to play against. It's not as if you can say, "BOW's big raise represents a hand that either has my TPTK crushed, or is about even with." You know that he is making that bet with some frequency while drawing to 3 outs, if you call. Also, he doesn't just make this play on the flop; he will overbet the river with air, the nuts, and everything in between, and his timing is excellent because of his excellent hand-reading ability.

In the hand you played, you had a win-win situation, because your draw was so monstrously big as to often be the outright favorite HU vs. any of the hands out there, and certainly be no worse than 40% against one other hand that might conceivably call. Hand-reading is unimportant--you are going to raise here every time, and if you do, your whole stack is committed due to your huge pot equity, so you obviously should put it all in.

What BOW does is rely on both the FE associated with his bets, plus the chance to get his opponents to make big calls with hands they wouldn't have, had they not seen his "insane" bluffs earlier. It's at least as much about luring big calls for him as it is about creating trepidation. Showing a straight-flush draw after his opponents fold to his huge check-raise all-in would not make anyone think he's crazy, or super-aggressive, or anything--again, it is standard.

You obviously can't sum up BOW's play in a post like this one, so my analysis is by no means complete. I'm just saying that your play, while definitely a good one, is apples to BOW's oranges. Also, you slightly glossed over the example, by ignoring the worst-case scenario: the bettor calls with his 2 pair or set, and then one of the callers likes his nut flush draw getting over 2 to 1 with a chance to triple up early in the tournament. In that spot, your equity is under 25%, which still isn't horrible, given the rarity of its occurence.

[Mason Malmuth]

Hi cero_z:

Maybe I'm missing something but if I understand this correctly according to you and Gordon against BOW you can get in cheaply and then he will frequently make a giant bet -- sometimes with a good hand, sometimes with a good draw, sometimes with a mediocre draw, and sometimes with a very weak draw. So wouldn't a simple counter strategy be to wait until you have flopped a very strong hand and then just call BOW when he makes one of his giant bets.

Notice that by playing this way if you catch BOW with one of his strong hands you're probably fifty-fifty in the long run, but if you catch BOW with any of his other hands you'll have from modest to huge equity. So it seems to me that BOW will go broke or there is more to his play than what I understand.

best wishes,
Mason

[BluffTHIS!]

Hi Mason,

Part of BOW's gameplan is the same principle upon which Brunson's NL strategy in SS is based. And that is that by stealing so many smaller pots you gain an effective freeroll when you contend as a dog equity wise in an individual hand. Added to that as cero said is being able to get paid off much bigger on monsters because so many players will adapt to his play by incorrectly giving too much action with good but non-nut hands. And BOW does not just willy nilly from what I have seen, just overbet or push to smaller pots in relation to stack sizes, but to pots that are relatively large in comparison to his and the opponent's stack sizes in question on that street.

Edit: It should also be noted that BOW's main game is shorthanded NL where there doesn't rate to be as many big hands out against him usually when he is doing his thing and you have to make a big decision with top pair and a weak kicker. When I have seen in on full tables, he plays much tighter.

[Mason Malmuth]

Hi Bluff:

First off I don't believe that Doyle's strategy works, but that's another issue.

You wrote:

[ QUOTE ]
And that is that by stealing so many smaller pots you gain an effective freeroll when you contend as a dog equity wise in an individual hand.

[/ QUOTE ]

and

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Added to that as cero said is being able to get paid off much bigger on monsters because so many players will adapt to his play by incorrectly giving too much action with good but non-nut hands.

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Isn't this contradictory? If players are giving too much action with good hands how many pots is he really stealing?

Now don't get me wrong, I'm not saying that BOW isn't successful, I'm just trying to understand it a little better.

By the way, it is clear to me that this style will be highly fluctuating. So it might be possible that while BOW was winning his long term results might begin to deteriorate, especially if the regulars do learn to adjust correctly to what he's doing. So does anyone know how BOW has done over the last six months which probably covers most of the time since Gordon actually wrote that section in his Little Green Book?

Best wishes,
Mason

[BluffTHIS!]

Mason, I don't believe those statements are contradictory at all, because his percentage of mediocre hands and bluffs versus good hands, is not going to be perfectly calibrated from a game theoretic point of view. Thus although his good hands are a minority of the ones he holds, he gets better action on them than would other players. Add to that the ones he sucks out on when his draws hit and the ones he steals outright, then he can be way ahead of the game if players play too tight against him and are willing to constantly fold their good but not great hands to his oversize bets.

But you are certainly right about his manner of play being high variance if players do adapt or he gets on a bad run which will be magnified by the way he plays. There have been some threads in the high stakes nl forums in the past months indicating he has suffered a horrendous downswing.

[Niediam]

[ QUOTE ]

So does anyone know how BOW has done over the last six months which probably covers most of the time since Gordon actually wrote that section in his Little Green Book?


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http://forumserver.twoplustwo.com/showfl...rt=all&vc=1

http://forumserver.twoplustwo.com/showfl...rt=all&vc=1

[Mason Malmuth]

Hi Bluff:

[ QUOTE ]
But you are certainly right about his manner of play being high variance if players do adapt or he gets on a bad run which will be magnified by the way he plays. There have been some threads in the high stakes nl forums in the past months indicating he has suffered a horrendous downswing.

[/ QUOTE ]

Actually, I was hinting at this. If it's correct, his method of play may not be so hot.

Now I don't know the answer, but I do have my suspicions which are that part of the reason he did well at first was that some of his opponents adjusted incorrectly to him. However, as time goes on, the adjustments to his strategy will be roughly correct and his flawed strategy, assuming he sticks with it, will cause him to lose everything. But again, I'm just speculating and could have all of this wrong.

Thanks for your interesting comments and analysis.

best wishes,
Mason

[Josh W]

[ QUOTE ]
Hi Bluff:

First off I don't believe that Doyle's strategy works, but that's another issue.

[/ QUOTE ]

LOL. I'm sitting here wondering what your reaction would be if Lee Jones said that about Dan Harrington without any reasoning behind it.

Based on how much you brag about the growth and size of twoplustwo.com and how much you think cardplayer is inferior, I'm surprised you don't show anywhere near the class that Lee Jones did. I'm surprised that you have such low standards for yourself.

Josh

p.s. I don't think you'd make such a claim without backing it up. I looked for any such evidence, but couldn't find any. My sincerest apologies if I just overlooked it.