Kinda theory post: CRing flops as opposed to rerstealing pre flop

[Bond18]

Stars 100 rebuys. Blinds 100/200.
My stack 18k
Villians 10.5k.
My image is that of TAG, villain sameish, nothing specific.

Preflop: Folds to CO, CO raises to 600, button folds, SB folds, I call.

Flop: T 2 T rainbow
I check, villain bets 800, I raise to 2200.

I’ve been doing some thinking and watching trends lately. It feels that in many tournaments currently people are really going nuts aggro in any confrontations that are entirely made up of CO/button/SB/BB (as many are in tournaments.) I used to be a big restealer but I’ve slowed that down a lot lately in favor of plays like these and I think there might be some merit to it in deep stacked tournaments (the rebuys on stars, UB and bodog tournaments, tilt DS tournaments.)

1. We get to see more flops: Assuming that we are often better than most post flop this works to our advantage. There is also the advantage of the times where we hit big and extort value, as long as you believe your capable of not getting to involved.
2. The cost is only moderately higher of this play: Using this hand as the example, if villain goes to 600 pre and we resteal we’re likely going to 1800. Assuming we c/f every flop (obv not likely) that’s an extra investment of 1600. In the route I took I invested an extra 2600. While the price difference is 1000 there are going to be a number of spots in restealing where we’ll have to make a moderate sized continuation bet on the flop when we’re called pre that adds to our expected investment, though that’s much harder to put an exact number on. But lets compare that to our gain, in standard resteal, assuming we’re BB, we risk 1600 extra pre flop to pick up 900 of blinds/opponents money. With the CR line we invest 2600 extra to pick up (assuming roughly 50-75% pot cont bet) 1700.
Resteal: 1.77
CR: 1.52
3. Everyone resteals these days: At mid stakes and above the resteal is borderline expected when CO/button opens, its getting less and less respect though. This play is far less expected though and since the continuation bet is going to come 98% of the time and our opponent holding two randoms only expects to pair up 1/3rd and hit a piece of the flop maybe 40% (doesn’t mean all pairs/pieces are callable after being CR’ed) i think we have a much higher FE with this line than the resteal. Your standard opponent is much more capable of 3 betting pre than 3 betting post after his missed or only partially hit.


Thoughts on this little theory and other good spots you’d like to give to take it? Again I think this plays merit is really in the early-mid and mid levels, once the ave stack in relation to the blinds gets to low I think we’re back to standard restealing.

[Bond18]

Forgot to add, i think this play has a lot more merit on uncoordinated flops.

face X X
A X X
239
paired cards X

These are the kinds of flops to shoot back on. Calling a flop raise with 75hh and then CRing a JT8 black flop is insanity, so be selective. The texture will also reflect a little how big your CR should be, but i don't think it ever needs to exceed 3.5X since the CR announces "turn bet=coming".

[Bond18]

Hmm i forgot to post what i held in origional hand though its not terribly relevant to the concept: Kh9h

[Foucault]

This may have merit because of the current meta-game where the re-steal is so well-known, but in general I think a c/r on a dry board as in your example looks as blatantly like a steal as the pre-flop reraise all in against a LP raiser.

[Worldclass]

Check raising this kind of flop is a very strong play but you are still throwing in alot of chips out of position. If you are up against the type of player that will float this flop just to see what you are going to do on the turn, then you may be better taking it down pre-flop. If you get called, will you bet the turn?

When the stacks aren't as deep, you can check raise all-in on the flop without any worries. In this situation, I would lead at this flop.

[Foucault]

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I would lead at this flop.

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Even more blatant steal.

[Bond18]

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I would lead at this flop.

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Even more blatant steal.

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Agreed, this will get jammed a sick % of the time and you'll be the one forced to contemplate a 3 bet bluff OOP.

[RichC.]

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I would lead at this flop.

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Even more blatant steal.

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Agreed, this will get jammed a sick % of the time and you'll be the one forced to contemplate a 3 bet bluff OOP.

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Also, at least I tend to do this anyway, is that when someone leads a flop that is a paired board, they dont have it and I raise them fairly light and tend to take the pot down there. This is also fairly read dependant but in general, they dont have the trips.