Post-Flop Skills: Method for Improvement

[citanul]

Collin,

I would like to add my name to the list of people respectfully (or not) disagreeing with your post here.

Personally I have always had a problem with everyone who has made threads about what games you should play and in what style in order to improve some random part of your STT game. They make no sense to me at all for the following reason:

Why not just improve by improving at STTs? Sure, you might get more deep-stacked 9 handed practice by playing 9 handed cash, for instance, but why not just play some STTs, and when they are 9 handed and deep, consider playing well post flop?

Now that I believe I've pretty much adequately gone through "play well" let's consider playing *more* hands. Again, I believe that you can learn to play a few more hands (to your personal comfort zone) by simply playing a few hands more every once in a while during STTs. Do I think considerations like "hey every once in a while you should consider stealing at levels 1 and 2 if the blinds are known nits" should come in to play? Obviously.

Do I think that you can learn post flop play *faster* playing 9 handed or 6 handed cash or MTTs than standard STTs? Yes, clearly, since you're going to be able to have more chances to play deep than you will in a STT, and likely you'll be paying particular attention to a few cash tables instead of playing 16 STT tables.

Do I think this all adds up? No.

A whole bunch of reasons, many of which have been covered above. Let's consider a player who is a winning LAG at cash games. What do we know about tournaments? We know that losing chips is worse than winning chips. What do we know about cash game LAGs? We know they frequently put in small numbers of chips (relative to cash game stacks) preflop, and frequently win small and medium pots, and frequently lose small and medium pots, and every once in a while win or lose big pots. What happens when we compare this to a total nit? Well the total nit shows up with values, and in a STT maybe makes a continuation bet every once in a while. They tend to show up in big pots with big hands, and not lose medium pots or even smallish pots frequently. It's better to be this nit, in general, and pick your spots to pick up some extra chips. Honestly, I believe that it's more important to learn to play well post flop with the relatively small number of hands that STTers choose to play, than to learn to play the 2/3 of all hands that you might play while playing a HU STT.

A chunk of this comes down to the following:

You're playing a STT, a magic gnome comes by and says he'll offer you a gamble that pays you X chips in expectation, with some wide distribution in results (not overall stt results, but results on the gamble). For all such gambles there should exist some gamble with Y<X chips in expectation, but a narrower distribution of results, that you would prefer because the chances of losing chips is worse.

Anyway, a large part of the reason that I wanted to post here is that I personally feel if you had to recommend *one* way for STT players to improve their heads up game, I think HU STTs is the worst game you could possibly recommend. Really, honestly, I think that ring stud8 probably has more compatibility with the goal.

Alright that's enough from me right now.

citanul

[cleinen]

The biggest issue with post flop play in a SNG is you tend to run out of the proper tools by the turn and river.

[durron597]

[ QUOTE ]
[ QUOTE ]
Also, the idea of playing HU sngs to improve your postflop play is ridiculous, because the hand ranges in a HU sng are completely unrelated to the hand ranges at a full table. In a HU SnG in level 1, it's reasonable to raise K4o on the button, you opponent calls, the flop comes J74 and your opponent checks. Bet or check behind? This situation will *never* come up in level 1 in a SnG, and I will be VERY surprised if you are advocating open-raising K4o on the button level 1 in a full SnG.

[/ QUOTE ]
Hi guys Im a HU sng regular up to the $220s, theres a lot of stuff in here that I disagree with. First off hand ranges in HU sng really do apply just because their preflop range is wider doesnt mean that you cannot apply your postflop reading skills to a context where their range is smaller, in fact the situation where the preflop range is smaller it is much easier to read someones hand postflop if their preflop range is small and/or well definined.

[/ QUOTE ]

That's not true. In a HU SnG, if you call a raise with a suited connector and flop a straight flush draw with an ace on the board, obviously if you checkraise they will fold a lot of the time because they won't have an ace in their hand nearly as often as they would when they raise in early position in an SnG. The types of hand reading decisions you need to make playing HU SnGs depend on people having MUCH wider raising ranges, people being more aggressive without big hands, etc. The whole mindset of a villian in a full table SnG is totally different than one playing HU.

[cwar]

[ QUOTE ]
it's an obvious raise in a cash game, but that was my point, it's not a cash game, it's an STT, and you're not nearly as far ahead of his range as you think you are...

[/ QUOTE ]
Well you didnt give a position or a read so Im not sure its relevant as your being general about his range. If his range is so tight why are you calling in a HU pot in the first place? I dont think anyone advocated doing something like this this is just what you came up with when you thought about 'outplaying postflop'. Generally if you are calling a raise with 76s its because villain is very bad and plays very poorly postflop giving you good implied odds (obviously you need correct stacks sizes as well) so unless this is true I dont think your example is pertinent because calling the initial raise preflop is incorrect.

[durron597]

[ QUOTE ]
because calling the initial raise preflop is incorrect.

[/ QUOTE ]

that was my whole point

[ymu]

[ QUOTE ]
[ QUOTE ]
we call a raise to 120 at 20/40 with 7 [img]/images/graemlins/diamond.gif[/img] 6 [img]/images/graemlins/diamond.gif[/img] on the button.
The bottom line is that there is no room in SnGs to try to "outplay postflop" early and try to build a stack. What if the flop had come A [img]/images/graemlins/diamond.gif[/img] 8 [img]/images/graemlins/heart.gif[/img] 5 [img]/images/graemlins/diamond.gif[/img]. The original raiser bets and we do what. Raise?

[/ QUOTE ]
Obvious raise, your crushing his range Im not sure why you are so worried about worst case scenarios (you didnt give positions lets assume its not UTG) it seems like your thinking is pretty skewed here, why are you worried about flipping with AK-AJ when thats the upper part of his range? Think about the whole hand range and you are way ahead. I think a lot of your arguments actually kind of prove Collin's point that a lot of STT'ers may have some major leaks in their postflop game.

[/ QUOTE ]
Early on in an SnG it's unlikely you'll get any chips from a decent opponent on this flop unless he has at least a strong A - it's a coinflip at best - but early on in an SnG you shouldn't be flipping coins. You need a bigger edge than that for the "flip to be neutral EV let alone +EV. (Loads of threads around which discuss how big that edge needs to be).

There are definitely legitimate variations in style in the early levels, but you can't approach the levels of aggression you would employ HU or in a cash game - it hurts you more often then it helps you.

Getting shortstacked early is best avoided if possible because you enter push/fold mode whilst the rest of the table is mostly deep by comparison which reduces your FE substantially.

[cwar]

I think your making some overall assumptions Im merely advocating you have to read villain and make the correct adjustments preflop and postflop, you seem to be advocating never doing this beyond a certain scope of agression and I think thats wrong, read his preflop range make the correct adjustments for the relative value of the chips if its +EV after that its +EV you shouldnt worry that 'losing chips' is bad and stuff like that.

[cwar]

Collin was talking about postflop skills so if you dont think those are important to STT (I have no idea how important they are or not) thats a fine point to make but Collin is very correct in saying playing HU sng will improve your postflop play immensely and the situations that you deal with and skills that you learn are VERY applicable to full ring and 6-handed postflop scenarios

[ymu]

[ QUOTE ]
I think your making some overall assumptions Im merely advocating you have to read villain and make the correct adjustments preflop and postflop, you seem to be advocating never doing this beyond a certain scope of agression and I think thats wrong, read his preflop range make the correct adjustments for the relative value of the chips if its +EV after that its +EV you shouldnt worry that 'losing chips' is bad and stuff like that.

[/ QUOTE ]
Well exactly - but what do you mean by +EV? cEV or $EV? Losing substantial (c-bet sized) chunks of chips early in an STT is very -$EV, so you don't tend to chuck them in as easily as you would in an MTT or a cash game - or in a HU STT.

[BradleyT]

[ QUOTE ]
That would be a profitable situation.

[/ QUOTE ]

FYP