Luck vs Skill (Or the lack thereof) Blind Steal fails.

[CrMenace]

SUPER GRUNCH

Pre-flop: I'm a little more selective when chosing hands to steal with, especially when I'm CO, not BU or SB. Q3o is a hand outside of the top half of hands (I understand that Q7o) is the 50% hand. That being said, your read of the villains is more important when stealing than your actual hand. So two tight blinds helps a lot. Button, is an unknown, so I'd be that less inclined to steal through him. It may be a big mistake on my part, but I really don't like stealing or defending against unknowns.

Flop: I think the c-bet is correct. With top pair, you have a good hand in a blind steal situation. You'd like to get value, and of course continue to show aggression and take the pot down right now if possible.

Turn: I'm really not sure why you slowed down here. Villain has shown any resistance so far and you still have top pair. I'd need more evidence to say that I'm beaten. Villain could have called with an FD or SD, pair worse than top pair or whatever. On a more coordinated flop, you should be more willing to fire the second bullet on the turn. If raised, now we now have a tougher situation. Getting an assumed 8:2 in this blind steal situation with top pair, I'd be inclined to call down from there.

River: Okay, so now if villain was drawing to the straight he got there. But, I think I fire one more time for value. If I'm raised, I think I can call here -- given that villain may be bluffing his lower pair or busted FD at least 10% of the time.

[Zeldark]

I've been making good on my August goal and rereading what's easily one of the top 2 books in my little 2p2 collection, Inside the Poker Mind. Ironicaly, the next section I read after the post is "Bad Plays Good Players Make." There is a segment "Trying, with garbage hands, to steal the blinds of skilled, aggressive players, or mediocre, tenacious callers." <font color="gray">That is straight from the book, but I gave credit so that shouldn't infringe, right? I claim no mastery involving plageristic technicalities.</font>

It gives examples against using hands much better than Q3o.
Yay flop.
Yeah, turn was sissing out.
If you're betting the river you're folding to a raise? Yes, yes?

[MrWookie]

[ QUOTE ]
SUPER GRUNCH

Pre-flop: I'm a little more selective when chosing hands to steal with, especially when I'm CO, not BU or SB. Q3o is a hand outside of the top half of hands (I understand that Q7o) is the 50% hand. That being said, your read of the villains is more important when stealing than your actual hand. So two tight blinds helps a lot. Button, is an unknown, so I'd be that less inclined to steal through him. It may be a big mistake on my part, but I really don't like stealing or defending against unknowns.

Flop: I think the c-bet is correct. With top pair, you have a good hand in a blind steal situation. You'd like to get value, and of course continue to show aggression and take the pot down right now if possible.

Turn: I'm really not sure why you slowed down here. Villain has shown any resistance so far and you still have top pair. I'd need more evidence to say that I'm beaten. Villain could have called with an FD or SD, pair worse than top pair or whatever. On a more coordinated flop, you should be more willing to fire the second bullet on the turn. If raised, now we now have a tougher situation. Getting an assumed 8:2 in this blind steal situation with top pair, I'd be inclined to call down from there.

River: Okay, so now if villain was drawing to the straight he got there. But, I think I fire one more time for value. If I'm raised, I think I can call here -- given that villain may be bluffing his lower pair or busted FD at least 10% of the time.

[/ QUOTE ]

Let's say button, SB, and BB will only play 10% of their hands against your PFR. How often do you successfully steal the blinds w/ this hand? What if they all play 20% of their hands?

[CrMenace]

[ QUOTE ]
Let's say button, SB, and BB will only play 10% of their hands against your PFR. How often do you successfully steal the blinds w/ this hand? What if they all play 20% of their hands?

[/ QUOTE ]

Seems like the chance that they all fold is .9*.9*.9=73% or .8*.8*.8=51% repectively.

Continuing with scenario 1, since you win .75BB when you take it down automatically, your stealing chance is worth 73%*.75BB = .45BB. Since you're risking 1BB to win that .75BB, on the face of it doesn't seem like a good bet. You'd need to win significantly more (I calculate at 1.67BB=.30BB/27%) on average when called to make this a good/breakeven idea.

[MrWookie]

1. Fine job busting out the math.

2. You're not really losing 1 full BB if you are either called or 3bet on your steal. You might end up w/ the best hand at showdown or fold your opponents along the way. You might also get pwned in a QQ vs Q3 rout on a Q33 board. Unfortunately, having to actually play poker postflop makes calculating how much you expect to win or lose if you are indeed forced to play poker a tall order. However, this calculation is still a good thing to bear in mind. The probability that you steal the blinds, even if everyone is tight, decreases exponentially with the number of players behind you. Q3o is too loose in my opinion, even in the situation described.

[Zeldark]

[ QUOTE ]
[ QUOTE ]
Let's say button, SB, and BB will only play 10% of their hands against your PFR. How often do you successfully steal the blinds w/ this hand? What if they all play 20% of their hands?

[/ QUOTE ]

Seems like the chance that they all fold is .9*.9*.9=73% or .8*.8*.8=51% repectively.

Continuing with scenario 1, since you win .75BB when you take it down automatically, your stealing chance is worth 73%*.75BB = .45BB. Since you're risking 1BB to win that .75BB, on the face of it doesn't seem like a good bet. You'd need to win significantly more (I calculate at 1.67BB=.30BB/27%) on average when called to make this a good/breakeven idea.

[/ QUOTE ]
I agree with the fold percentages, but the value for the fold is worded oddly for me. We are risking 1 BB to win .75 yes, so for steal value alone we need it folded 57.1% of the time. This means that if they averaged calling 10% of the time, the steal would be profitable. If they called 20% of the time, it would not.

Purely math based, the cutoff of 3 people involved to make the steal profitable is 19% averaged amongst them.

Edit: Since I was there and remember their (lowish) VIPs, I do confirm that Q3o was too loose. [img]/images/graemlins/smirk.gif[/img]

[MrWookie]

Even against "tight" blinds, I'd actually expect the button to play 20% of his hands or so, SB to play 15-20%, and BB to play about 30%. They'd have to be ubernits for me to really think about playing this.

[Nick D]

Here goes my first super grunch.

PF: Nasty..terrible. Raising with this hand even to steal is not correct. You have marginal high card strength but are susceptible to domination as you have the second weakest kicker. You also have no other potential to make a flush or a straight. If it was a Q3 s00ted, MAAAAAYBE, but that would be a huge stretch for me...I'd only consider it if my image at the table was a tight aggressive and people really respected my raises.

Flop: Your bet is not bad. You have top pair but you are very susceptible to being drawn out on. You got one fold on the deal, so that is nice, considering BB may have been holding a K (which may not be the case with the draws available). Checking here would cause you to give a free card unless you thought the button was going to bet. Giving a free card here is not particularly desirable with the straight and flush draws on board. However, you could have check/called the flop and check/raised the turn when a blank fell.

Turn: You should have fired again. Why did you stop betting? The deuce could not have helped villain. You either still have the best hand or you're still behind, but a bet does two things: 1, it builds the pot if you have the best hand. 2, it gives you information..if he's calling, he may be weak.. if he raises, you may be beaten already. Checking here is too weak if you ask me.

River: the king, as played, is a fold for me. I don't have stats on the player, so I'm assuming more often than not that he's not bluffing at this point. Until I see him showdown cards with bluffs at both the turn and river, I'm not calling here. He probably had a J all along, possibly a K. He may have been betting his flush draw and firing to take the pot on the end when it didn't come, but like I said, you can't be sure until you see his cards. If the King DIDN'T come (as well as no diamond and no J or 8) I'd probably bet here after I've bumped the turn (which is what I recommend above). After a turn bet or a check/raise, a non-scary card river is a bet/call. Here, it is a check/fold.

Nick

[MrWookie]

What would you do on the river if you had bet the turn?

[Nick D]

The river is a bet/fold here IMO after a barrel on the turn. BU has shown no aggression to suggest we're far behind. If the turn was raised behind us, it'd be a check/fold. How'm I doin'?