Some thoughts on Scary Tiger vs DeathDonkey

[DrSavage]

I've decided to put this in a separate thread since it's not rly related to HULA itself but rather strategy.

Having taken a month off poker and not having anything better to do I've watched ST vs DD HULA video .

Preflop:
Tiger was much tighter preflop, going as far as folding preflop some cards with pretty pictures on them. Donkey was folding barely anything at all. Also Tiger was playing "conventional" strategy of reraising a certain top% of his hand out of position, while Donkey reraised out of position never, choosing instead to check/reraise every flop with hands like weak aces, some kings etc.

After flop:
Most of the time Donkey was taking the initiative with any sort of connection between his cards and the board and sometimes going multiple bets on big bet streets with just a draw. Tiger seemed to be happy with DD donking off his chips and was taking the passive line of check/calling with hands like bottom pair and A or K high. Both of them tried to get anything at all of value to showdown, sometimes giving free cards on late streets. Most of the value raises seemed to go in on turn for both of them and river play has been extremely honest , I felt that DD in particular has been wasting a lot of the momentum he has built up on earlier streets by giving up on river bluffs and letting Tiger show down his Q-J high hands for free (a lot of them winning). My feeling was that this precisely has been the reason for ST's victory as I didn't feel that either player has consistently outlucked another. I think that in order for Donkey's strategy to work (or work better) he needed to tone down his flop/turn aggression a bit and raise his river aggression significantly.
Also I wanted to see how Donkey's strategy would pay him off in terms of having Tiger fold a better hand. Here are some stats which may be incorrect since I took them by hand from the video, but likely not much.

In 350 or so hands played:
Scary Tiger has folded the best hand total of 31 times (by best hand I mean literally the best 5 card hand at the moment, w/o regard for draws, pot equity etc) . Of those:
17 times Tiger has managed to fold the best hand preflop. Can't really fault him for most of it, as most of these have been of "fold 72 to DD's 65" kind.
12 times Tiger folded the best hand in pots less than 4 BB. Most of these have been J-T high hands folded on non-welcome flops.
1 time Tiger has folded a hand in a pot over 4 BB, after a bluff gone wrong.
1 time Tiger folded the best hand (KQ high) in a monster 10 BB pot which involved semibluff raise/semibluff reraise on the turn. That hand probably shouldn't have happened as Tiger has been taking KQ unimproved to showdown all day long and easily could've done it here.

DeathDonkey folded the best hand amazing 9 times, 2 of them preflop, 6 times in pots less than 4BB and once in an over 4 BB pot.

Even though Donkey had ST fold in much more pots, I'm not sure if that was worth it as the price he paid was pretty big and all of the pots he won as the result have been very small. Even considering the one huge pot, it was the only time it has worked out of around 4-6 attempts (sorry, don't have the actual number) that involved bluffing with multiple bets on a big steret. I also feel like Donkey should've been going to SD less as Tiger hasn't been bluffing the entire match pretty much at all, but on the other hand he wasn't getting a whole lot of opportunities to fold being constantly stuck in the aggressor role.

Assuming both Tiger and Donkey have watched the video with both hole cards showing I'm wondering what adjustments they would've made to each other if they were to play for the second time.

[Scary_Tiger]

Is it bad I didn't realize DD never 3-bet pf?

[HOWMANY]

I'm watching it right now and so far I really like how DD is playing, I'm pretty certain he is a favorite here, as Tiger seems to be playing about as ABC as is possible. The only thing I don't like about DD's play is some of his flop c/r on paired boards that are just begging to get called down.

ST has folded a couple hands I'd play pf, but that's not a big deal. A couple times he's checked when I'd bet (89 572 flop he 3bets DD c/r, I'd follow through on turn here almost always the way DD is playing)

[Victor]

"I'm pretty certain he is a favorite here, as Tiger seems to be playing about as ABC as is possible."

right bc we all winning is about being as tricky as possible.

[HOWMANY]

In like 30 mins so far he hasn't c/r bluff a single flop. It's not like he needs to 39bet bluff every street every hand but it's gonna be hard to beat a sneaky player long term by playing straightforward. I think he's playing really well, I just think DD is the favorite.

[DeathDonkey]

This is fantastic commentary that I'll take to heart. I already know after speaking to Entity after my match I needed to follow through on the river in a couple spots and failed to. I was happy with the style I was playing for the first hour, felt comfortable that I was going to win using that style, however Scary Tiger adjusted and ran hot at the same time (he swung 75 bb up in 45 hands) and I did not make enough re-adjustments. He played extremely well except for a period of time when I felt he was on tilt and playing more weak tight than normal (it helps I ran good during this time period but that's standard in a HU match).

I did reraise preflop but rarely with hands like Ax, preferring to CR the flop (as is obvious from watching the video). Man I just gave away my entire play with this video, I'll need to play preflop differently in my next match for sure.

I am not a very experienced HU player - I didn't deserve to be the #2 overall draft pick but my reputation may have preceded me. I feel like I am an ok player and I have a unique style but against good players my style is more "annoying" than "crushing". I do very well against bad players who are easy to tilt with this relentless flop aggression style.

That said, I thought I played very well for most of this match, better than I normally play. My reads were extremely accurate, but my actions for those reads were not the best (for instance I put Scary Tiger on a 9 on this one hand where I checkraise bluffed the river, which he had, but he called my raise. I should have realized he wouldn't bet/fold that hand and not tried the play, but my read was dead on the execution was just poor). The last hand I played where I bet every street with KQ high then check/crying called the river when he made his gutshot was a similar hand where I felt like he had worse broadway gutshot cards or the like every time. I definitely thought we both played very well and that if I am a dog to him it's not by much - that said there isn't much good reason for me to ever play him again so this isn't a challenge or anything.

-DeathDonkey

[Entity]

[ QUOTE ]
In like 30 mins so far he hasn't c/r bluff a single flop. It's not like he needs to 39bet bluff every street every hand but it's gonna be hard to beat a sneaky player long term by playing straightforward. I think he's playing really well, I just think DD is the favorite.

[/ QUOTE ]

With the way that DD was playing, I think that it's actually probably slightly counterproductive to ramp up your flop checkraising frequency, even though checkraising air is going to be a play that needs to be in your arsenal in pretty much all HU games.

Rob

[Victor]

[ QUOTE ]
[ QUOTE ]
In like 30 mins so far he hasn't c/r bluff a single flop. It's not like he needs to 39bet bluff every street every hand but it's gonna be hard to beat a sneaky player long term by playing straightforward. I think he's playing really well, I just think DD is the favorite.

[/ QUOTE ]

With the way that DD was playing, I think that it's actually probably slightly counterproductive to ramp up your flop checkraising frequency, even though checkraising air is going to be a play that needs to be in your arsenal in pretty much all HU games.

Rob

[/ QUOTE ]

considering dd 3bet a aj10 flop with k3 and bet the turn....

[dcb777]

some of us left on the sidelines could def. win heads up in these matches.

[DrSavage]

[ QUOTE ]

considering dd 3bet a aj10 flop with k3 and bet the turn....

[/ QUOTE ]

With the best hand though, which makes it valuetown.