Stealing hands from SB

[Thomas Luice]

In the Winning In Tough Hold'em Games on page 69 Stox has given a "default" opening range in SB that doesn't involve pocket pair 22.

But on the page 90 the following hands: 22+, A7o+, K8o+, Q9o+, J9o+, A3s+, K9s+, Q8s+ and J9s+ are recommended to raise when playing against an aggresive opponent that over defends his BB.

I don't understand the following 2 points:

1. If 22 is not good enough for open raise against an unknown oppenent, why is it good for a over-defend-BB oppenent?

2. Why should I raise unsuited K8 while only call suited K8?

[sharpie]

Typo?

Some of those hands seem counterintuitive to me. Raise A3s+ but A7o+, how much does flush value matter heads up? Then he has J9s+ and J9o+, so apparently flush value doesn't matter? [img]/images/graemlins/confused.gif[/img]

[CardSharpCook]

stox sux.

[stoxtrader]

the two sections are DERIVED from different methodology, thus yield somewhat different results.

please understand the "default" is suggested from emperical evidence and the recommended range you give second is generally what I use. The discrepancy for not raising some suited hands and for raising the equivelent or worse offsuit hands is easy - some hands play better/different post flop, so just because a specific hand has more equity does not mean it has to be raised, only PLAYED.

open raising in this situation is NOT a pure linear equity calc. you have postflop concerns, implied odds and limp re-raise balancing issues.

as far as I know, there is nothing written anywhere else that comes close to this level of specificity.

specific to point 1 - as mentioned above you are comparing somewhat apples to oranges. open raising 22 in our statistical analysis for three players over 1MM hands I believe showed a loss greater than the -.25 you would yield by folding. This suggests a fold. This seems counterintuitive to us and could certainly be explained somewhat by variance in the statistical analysis, thus it is in our suggested open raising standards listed later in the book for specific situations.

2. K9s vs K8o again this makes sense to me for balancing purposes and post flop considerations but I cannot say it is decidedly better - this stuff gets very very difficult to find exact cutoff points.

[stoxtrader]

[ QUOTE ]
Typo?

Some of those hands seem counterintuitive to me. Raise A3s+ but A7o+, how much does flush value matter heads up? Then he has J9s+ and J9o+, so apparently flush value doesn't matter? [img]/images/graemlins/confused.gif[/img]

[/ QUOTE ]

two things -

it makes perfect sense to me that Ace-high flush value heads-up would matter more than other flush values because you have the additional value of semi-bluffing with ace high and winning the pot unimproved heads-up. you will sometimes win a bloated pot with a naked ace high when your flush draw does not get there.

when you get to Jx, J8s is probably pretty close, but yes, you are going to be semibluffing on boards where you can get punished and have no showdown value, so it does stand to reason that they would be more equal if not equal.

[ProfessorBen]

None of that is to mention when your Ax flush goes tons of bets on the big streets over a K, Q and your stated J high flush.

[Thomas Luice]

Hi stox,
Thank you very much for your explain. I understand your stuff much more clearly now.
I have just one more question in this chapter:
In the section "Blind vs. blind" you suggest that against aggresive opponent that over defends his big blind (folds to an open raise from the small blind <10% of the time) I should play about 80% of my hands (fold approximately 20%). It is obviously more than the default range derived from emperical evidence in the former section (about 54% to 60%).

What is the reason for more hands to be played against an over-defend-player?

Thanks once again.

regards
Thomas

[stoxtrader]

you'll need to refer to specific pages so I can read what you are interpreting.

[Thomas Luice]

In the first paragraph on page 69 the "default" opening range is about 61% of the hands.

On the page 90 in the second paragraph you say When playing againgst an aggressive opponent that over defends his big blind ... it's our opinion you can fold approximately 20 percent of your hands. It means that you recommend playing about 80% of the hands and about 20% more than "default" opening range.

[stoxtrader]

page 69 does not say how many hands to play, only how many to RAISE. it is also not to be taken as we say this is CORRECT to play this way, it is to be interpreted as "this is what our data analysis yields."

page 90 says how many to fold, NOT how many to raise/call. they are not contradictory, though neither can be used as a blueprint, nor are they intended to be.