The pretend (preflop) blinds and the real (position based) blinds

[MYNAMEIZGREG]

Dan,

Well done sir. I enjoyed it and have been thinking about that stuff a little more recently as I revamp my game again.

Now, what is this reverse implied odds? I never really got that...

[viciouspenguin]

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1) If you are playing 5/10nl with 2k stacks, you SHOULD change your opening range to 70 dollars unless you want to alter your preflop ranges so that they are "in tune' with the stack sizes.


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good post, but i disagree with this part... if stacks are 500BB at 5/10 then are you suggesting we raise to like 200 preflop?

if everyone has 200bb at 5/10, it becomes a much different game from 5/10 with 100bb... you shouldn't be trying to turn it back into a 100bb game

[kotkis]

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I think we are really only pretending to fight for the blinds in nl cash game play.

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This is just wrong imo and I'm surprised anyone would agree with you here.

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Well ive talked to a few peeps who are very good players, and despite many of them having diff styles, they all agreed that on the buton you should be cold calling more preflop and 3betting less.

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I think the general point you're making here is that people who are "chasing the invisible antes" like Sklansky put it are easily exploitable by a good player in position. While I understand your argument why calling > 3-betting, I still have to semi-disagree with you there. I've experimented with both ways and I've come to the conclusion that vs. the vast majority of the people 3-betting is just more effective, maybe because it gives your opponent one extra decision to think about where you can n+1-level him. This works as long as people are not opening up their 4-betting ranges to counter-act and deny all the free flops you'd be otherwise seeing with your steal hands. It never hurts to mix up between the two methods though.

[Fight Club]

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Dan,

Well done sir. I enjoyed it and have been thinking about that stuff a little more recently as I revamp my game again.

Now, what is this reverse implied odds? I never really got that...

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hit your hand and lose anyway, like having an under flush.

[DJ Sensei]

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Now, what is this reverse implied odds? I never really got that...

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with implied odds, the idea is that you can play a big pot when you're ahead and a small pot when you're behind. hopefully, the big pot when ahead will be more than enough to make up for the more frequent small pots when behind.

with reverse implied odds, the opposite happens. you will tend towards playing a small pot when ahead, and a big one when behind. for instance, hands like KT or A9 are generally instafolds in the blinds, because usually when you're ahead, your opponent won't want to put much in the pot. however, flopping top pair with these hands can lead to playing a big pot when behind, because you're stuck in the mystery zone and end up calling down or something, and you let your opponent control the pot to his liking.


dan b, sweet post although i'm not sure i agree with opening to 7x when stacks are deep. It seems like you're looking to simulate standard conditions of 100x deep, which is generally optimal for the style of many good players (particularly those who have moved up through the ranks of online games that are almost always that deep). However, unless your opponents are playing along as you'd like (calling/raising/folding the same way they would to a standard raise), this probably won't happen. You'll end up playing relatively bigger pots with relatively worse hands, because your opponents will tighten up their calling/raising ranges to include stronger hands.

Now obviously if this is part of your gameplan, you should probably be able to adjust better to the situation than your opponents will, because they'll be surprised by the change of pace and may take a while to adjust. But I don't know if thats necessarily a great thing. I think their short-term adjustment will tend towards weak-tight, with longer-term adjustment tending towards "ohhhh, he's playing bigger pots with smaller hands, i can take advantage of this". At least with the good players. The bad ones obviously will be own-able regardless.

I'll have to think about this some more, because you're certainly onto something conceptually there, but I'm rather inclined against abnormally large opens at this point.

[Hiltonian]

Please explain to me why you would want to raise more pf the deeper you are. That seems plain wrong to me as I don't see any specific correlation to you're stack size and the preflop raise. The size of the blinds are much more important to the amount you raise than your stack size, so unless the blinds are rising I see no reason to increase your raise amount.

[vvvQ]

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Please explain to me why you would want to raise more pf the deeper you are. That seems plain wrong to me as I don't see any specific correlation to you're stack size and the preflop raise. The size of the blinds are much more important to the amount you raise than your stack size, so unless the blinds are rising I see no reason to increase your raise amount.

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^ agree, and hi hiltonian

[jrbick]

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Please explain to me why you would want to raise more pf the deeper you are. That seems plain wrong to me as I don't see any specific correlation to you're stack size and the preflop raise. The size of the blinds are much more important to the amount you raise than your stack size, so unless the blinds are rising I see no reason to increase your raise amount.

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There's definitely a correlation to stack size and the amount you open to, however I think something missing from DB's equation is the type of player that is also deepstacked. If it's another nittish TAG at the table, then there pretty much is no point in doing so since you won't be playing many hands with him anyway. If it's someone who's a bit looser, and position on you and is going to play deepstacked poker, then you would want to adjust your opening size in order to lessen his implied odds. Otherwise, he can call you with a TON of hands if your bet is a mere 1.5% or less of his stack (in the case that you cover or you're both evenly stacked). In doing this, you also put a lot more pressure on the rest of the 100 bb stacks at the table and cause them to have to make adjustments. Don't know if you guys have noticed this but a lot of TAGish players are not very good at making good adjustments. Some inevitably will and you'll just have to watch for that, but the great thing about this is that it is more likely to induce tilt, looser play, etc etc. Obviously the bad players will also be more apt to get the money in with weaker holdings preflop, etc. Basic point is that you're going to be increasing the action and your open sort of acts as a live straddle.

If the other deep stack is a bad player then this should be a no brainer. You DEFINITELY would want to adjust the size of your open raise: isolation, action, profit.

Anyway... this is less than detailed but hopefully this gets the ball rolling. Good thread, DB.

[Unarmed]

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Please explain to me why you would want to raise more pf the deeper you are. That seems plain wrong to me as I don't see any specific correlation to you're stack size and the preflop raise. The size of the blinds are much more important to the amount you raise than your stack size, so unless the blinds are rising I see no reason to increase your raise amount.

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You sit down with 5 other people and play NLHE, all of you have 5k each. You decide the blinds should be $50. You decide the blinds should be 50 cents. Are you open raising to $175 in the former situation and $1.75 in the latter, or the same amount in both scenarios? I argued with a couple other 2+2ers about this at Fallsview, as we all started 800BB deep. I'm not sure what to think, but I def believe that as stacks get deeper, the blinds get less relevent, so it makes sense that you should stop using them as the main determinent of your pf raise size.

[Jeff W]

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You sit down with 5 other people and play NLHE, all of you have 5k each. You decide the blinds should be $50. You decide the blinds should be 50 cents. Are you open raising to $175 in the former situation and $1.75 in the latter, or the same amount in both scenarios? I argued with a couple other 2+2ers about this at Fallsview, as we all started 800BB deep. I'm not sure what to think, but I def believe that as stacks get deeper, the blinds get less relevent, so it makes sense that you should stop using them as the main determinent of your pf raise size.

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Raising to $175 with a $.50 BB is straightforwardly retarded.