The Fine Line Between FPS and Being a Robot

[Pudge714]

Way too often on this forum, I see people advocate playing much too nitty in early levels or just flat out not thinking. Two recent hands where this really struck me were hand where darinvg raised qjs from the CO and Danny Ocean raised A5s from the CO. The consensus was that preflop was bad, others were more extreme calling preflop “not even close to marginal” . In MTTs with similar stack sizes preflop is standard, this is either because most good MTTers have big preflop leaks or more likely they can play these hands for a positive expectation at these blind levels with these stack sizes. Obviously CEV =! $EV and $EV in MTTs =! $EV in SNGs. SNGs do encourage more nitty play because you can gain equity with other people clashing. However I think it is reasonable to look at why people are regularly passing up spots +CEV spots and with all the information available why no one on the STTF has ever really looked into this.

Here is a decent example most people would advocate limping or raising AKo UTG and most would suggest that KQs is an instamuck. It doesn’t make sense to me that a hand changes one degree and it goes from a horrible fold to a horrible limp/raise, I would suggest a reason why this attitude is prevalent is because STTF has certain dogmatic practices and very few people are interested in changing that. It is also interesting that nobody is considering changing this despite the fact people are constantly complaining how tough the games are.

The most prevalent counterargument is that opening up your game may increase your ROI, but would require dropping tables and decrease your hourly. This is a fine argument for one’s individual strategy, however it is a bad argument when discussing the strategy of one isolated hand.

A more strategical argument would be stack preservation. I don’t know how to respond to this because it is really tough to prove or disprove, even if you knew the expected value of raising it would be irrelevant (unless it is neutral or negative) without knowing the standard deviation. If anyone plays like this in midlevels and has a large enough database post it, but I highly doubt anyone will. Furthermore everyone’s expectation isn’t the same CEV is dependent on several things primarily your opponents skill, how your opponents view you and your postflop skill. If raising A5s in the CO will show a negative expectation the problem might not be the preflop play, but the inability for an individual to have a positive postflop expectation.

I fully expect someone is thinking “what if you raise QJs in the CO the BB calls and the flop is 8TA with a flushdraw what do you do?” Or “If the flop is AJx and the BTN calls you are OOP with middle pair not a very good spot.”
You will get in tough spots have enough faith to play well in those spots you can’t have also I can create any doomsday scenario for any hand and you will be in a tough spot. You raise AA villain calls flop is T98hh you bet, villain winks scratches his nose and shoves for 2x pot. WHAT DO YOU DO? Bad situations happen poker is pretty easy, but it isn’t a solved game, think, hand read and determine what to do. But what about people who will peel with 50%, work with poker stove see how there preflop range fares on that flop, see how often your cbets need to work, remember them peeling with stuff like 76s is good for you they are calling with worse hands and you have position. Furthermore the worst players in tournaments are likely to blow their stack early you want to get in pots HU vs. idiots so you can get there chips. If they don’t fold don’t try to bluff them, but remember that TP is the nuts vs. them and keep betting.

People may argue raising this light will ruin your image for later stages, firstly you are still playing relatively tight, raising like 10% from the button isn’t really laggy, secondly villains are rarely observant enough and thirdly they are much more likely to think you are crazy when you are shoving every hand not because you are raising suited face cards in LP.

Tying in with this in darinvg’s QJs hand he got in a tricky postflop spot and folded midpair. I am unsure whether this fold is good or not, however when I said I might shove people argued it was too FPSY. That isn’t a good counterargument for making or not making play, instead of thinking my hand is X I am supposed to fold, think about what your opponent can have and apply that knowledge, if you think he will play better hands like that fold, but don’t fold because you are afraid of making an FPSY play. FPSY plays are correlated with bad plays, but that doesn’t mean a play is bad because it’s FPSY.

Note I am not suggesting that people start three betting EP raises with T9s or raising the CO with 86o, I am suggesting that there is a lot of equity to be gained in early levels and not trying to gain this equity will likely hurt your ROI. I am also not attempting to argue that this type of play is more important than pushbotting, but rather that it can be a good addition to solid SNG play.