Winning in Tough Hold 'em Games Study Group - Day Two

[NinaWilliams]

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If we can steal the blinds then no they shouldnt make any difference...but yeah especially at our limits I think we need to tighten up significantly if we think there is a reasonable expectation of beign called.

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I wouldnt say significantly. The quality of play of the blind players, the aggressiveness, and the rake make more of a difference than the looseness of the blinds.

[mattnxtc]

Stox makes a point I believe in his chapter on isolating/3betting lags that may have some relevance.

He talks about the trade off between showdown quality hands and the trade off that we see between hands with showdown quality and hands that rely on implied odds.

I think we could probably apply somewhat of a similar approach to stealing blinds. What do yall think?

[MicroBob]

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not that many more situations, but 33 gets counterfeited (very)slightly less, makes 1 more straight and gets set over setted (very) slightly less. Add to the times 3x makes a higher pair and you get a few trials like this.

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I'm also thinking that there are enough flops where you only have 2 overcards to your pair where obviously that can never happen with 22.

On an 842 flop, even if the opponent doesn't have a 2, you are able to proceed with more confidence because of that one undercard to your pair.
The 22 is going to be feeling those 3 overcards more even when it's as relatively uncoordinated as T63 or something.

Even moreso when you play all 5 cards out and realize that every time a 2 falls it probably helps you hand. But with 22 every one of those overcards COULD hit your opponent for all you know and there are really zero safe cards to a certain extent.

I was thinking about this some more after my previous post as I was drifitng off to sleep and I think the value of having only 2 overcards on the flop occasionally vs. 3 overcards has to be worth something in terms of being able to extract value during the hand.

[maka2184]

I think 22-33 is a fold and in certain spots even 44 because of the 3/2 structure and how liberally some people protect the blinds in those situations but I think this is situation dependent. It's not like you follow the chart or guidelines 100% as stox said in his book.

Player dependent, situation dependent, and past history or present history you've had with the players IMO is the most important. Analyzing those info and you tighten/loosen up the steal range that stox reccommends.

A lot of people mention tightening up in the games we play but does that mean you guys rarely raise the smaller suited connector stuff that stox reccommends? When you are doing this even close to majority of the time I feel like decent or even bad players catch on if you start showing down winners with these and you lose respect and the possiblity to steal blinds. Is this just me or am I just being result oriented?

Also what did you guys think about the SB vs BB steal reccommendations that Stox gave at the end of the tracker stats? I felt thse were way too loose for the games we play but are these pretty close if the games are 3/2 structure?

[Oink]

Both 22 and 33 are winners in my DB when I openraise from CO, button and SB.

The results seem to suggest that its close to neutral EV but there is sample size issues even in a big db.


I think it should be mentioned that if its -EV in a vacuum its not necessarily -EV overall. Adding all the neutral EV hands will increase the EV of your +EV hands

[NinaWilliams]

22 33 and 44 are losers for me.

[pb87]

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A lot of people mention tightening up in the games we play but does that mean you guys rarely raise the smaller suited connector stuff that stox reccommends? When you are doing this even close to majority of the time I feel like decent or even bad players catch on if you start showing down winners with these and you lose respect and the possiblity to steal blinds. Is this just me or am I just being result oriented?


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I think the thing you are missing out here is that a bad player isnt going to think twice about the fact that you raised 56s from the button/CO because a bad player LOVES suited connectors and isnt going to think you're stealing with a weak hand, he is going to wish he could get hands like 56s... and if a good player sees you showing down 56s from the button, well, he probably already knew that was in your range, right?

[TheHip41]

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If we can steal the blinds then no they shouldnt make any difference...but yeah especially at our limits I think we need to tighten up significantly if we think there is a reasonable expectation of beign called.

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yea, if the bb folds like 80% of the time, I don't even look at my cards, I just raise, if it happens to be 22, oh well.

[thorleif]

Well I got behind here. Wish I could say differently about my coursework...

Matt you should state page numbers you are covering in your initial posts. I assume this thread is for p34-69?

I'm gonna read through this section and I'll post another response. Looks like a bunch of charts again [img]/images/graemlins/confused.gif[/img]

[6471849653]

They need to play more hands or play hands like 22 better. I used to run simulation with the Turbo holdem software some five years ago, and there are also the pokerroom EV stats somewhere on their site - to get significant results even from a pokerroom is unreliable at higher limits, no to mention from stox stats.

Mainly one should be looking at the unsuited slick hands and compare them to e.g. simulations and then run simulations with pocket pairs, though one could think that A2 and 22 in stox games should give significant results sooner, and it should be connected to at least 33 that's though better.

I don't think I have seen 76s to be profitable when opening from 1B (X7s is ok though the J7s vs. equal opponents is a very micro exception, though I still rate to play it) but I can't remember, just that I have a picture that when he has those X9s hands the stox adds the 98s there too and so, down the line.