Musings of Learning Player Part 2 (Long Strat Type)

[QTip]

I’ve only been playing NL now for about 3 months, so I simply classify the following as the musings of a learning NL player. Like many others here, I come from the limit world where many Jedis have not experienced the full power of the force.

I’m planning on putting my thoughts down in posts as I learn and site differences between limit and nl. I do have some decent experience now as I’ve played from NL10 to NL400 over 156k hands. However, in no way do I consider these things to be held by the reader as accurate. I’d just like to post my thoughts to get discussion going.

Here was my first post about limit thinking in NL play.

http://forumserver.twoplustwo.com/showfl...ue#Post11827832

In this post, I’d like to talk about the all in thinking. I think it was Ed Miller that said NL would be better named as stack limit since you can’t bet the farm like on TV and so forth. Anyway, what I’d like to talk about here is what I’d call stack thinking or rather all-in or nothing thinking.

It seems that a lot of us seem to think that in this game we’re either planning on getting all in or folding about every hand. I blame this on a couple things. The first would be sngs…as this is about all they are. I was amazed when I was in the sng world for a while, how few of the actually good sngers really even understood “poker”. The didn’t know how to count outs, odds, etc. Just played great PF and used the Nash thereom well. That’s all they need. The second thing I blame this on is the poker sites 100 buy in cap. We tend to get in a lot of hands where we only have an effective stack of 80x or less, and it’s very easy to get all in with this effective stack. Even if you’re quite sure you’re beaten, by the time you figure it out, you’re pot committed.

However, the more I play longer sessions and end up doubling up with others that have done the same, the more I realize how different this game is with these larger stack sizes and how the smaller stack sizes have impacted our thinking. When’s the last time you thought “how do I get HALF my stack in here?” I guess what I’m getting at it here is the idea of “cautious play”. I think we need to think more about this esp. as we move up in stakes. I end up finding myself 150bb deep against another good tag. The fact is, if I get all-in with him, I’m probably either a huge favorite, huge dog (both from things like set over set) or about even. Most of the time I don’t even look to play with them, I’m after the poor players. There’s no need for me to be a hero. I think of the Rounder’s line “we’re not playing with each other, but we’re not really playing against each other either.” I find this to be my thinking when I’m playing these bigger tables now. Don’t get me wrong, I don’t mind a tangle with another tag, but I’m going to have a very serious hand when I get real busy with them. However, those are pretty rare, and what I’m talking about right now is all those hands in between there where we have a decent hand, but nothing to write home about and want to get to showdown while still getting the value we deserve…just playing some postflop poker. The luxury of the no-brain 80x stack isn’t around and now you need to consider more things like:

1. His range.
2. What he thinks your range is.
3. How to get him to make mistakes.
4. How to not open yourself up to brutal stack threatening raises.
5. How to deliver brutal stack threatening raises
6. etc.

I think we suffer in this area. I’ve been posting hands where people feel I’ve been pretty passive. The reason I’ve been posting them is because I think they fall in this category of decent, showdown wanting, value needing, but all-in dog type of hands.

That’s about it for now…not much meat here, but perhaps it will get some conversation going to help me refine my thinking.

Thx,

QTip

[Fiasco]

im totally with you. Ive been reading advice here and it all seems to be centered around, a jam or fold mentality. THeres no caution, no pot control (other than an effort to get it all in) and most of the focus seems to be on charging draws.

Glad to see someone else thinking along the same lines, I too would like to see some discussion of this but dont have too much to contribute myself right now.



Except that I think that a 1/3 effective stack commitment threshhold is silly a lot of the time. If youve got any sort of skills as an exploitive player and hand reader I think that you shouldnt be bound by this rule. But I could be wrong about this, its something I struggle with.

[diebitter]

Well, this is a lot down to there are multitablers here, so smallball poker tends to not something to focus on. There is absolutely nothing wrong, and indeed many, many things right, about developing a smallball game. This is mostly around knowing when to apply maximum aggression on the flop, when to ease off or apply even more on the turn, and then when and when not to push it in on the river.

Not sure where I'm going with this, other than it just seems right to make these points.

[QTip]

[ QUOTE ]
Not sure where I'm going with this, other than it just seems right to make these points.

[/ QUOTE ]

Man, you hit it right on there.

[five4suited]

I'm finding that Valuetown is a nice place to visit regularly even though it's not limit anymore, particularly with the types of hands you've so nicely described.

[MrBump]

The good SNG'ers understand poker, it is just that optimum SNG play is essentially a shortstack strategy due to the shallow stacks and quickly rising blinds. For example, you can't cold call small PP's for set value or SC's and "see a flop" in these games. It just isn't +EV like it is in a fullstack cash game.

[Mr_Donktastic]

I'm not sure I'm following you completely.

Yes if you have a big stack, are in a pot with a good player, and have a medium strength hand, I agree that a cautious approach to get to showdown is often best.

I used to try to get to showdown way too much but lately I've been looser with my stack, sometimes even turning perfectly good showdown hands into bluffs. The theory would be that the value you get is typically the same (you won't get any more $ out of them anyway) however the fact that you are raising alot and playing aggressively should get you more $$$ in the long run. And the best people to do this against are the TAGs that are also looking for "a very serious hand" to get committed with.

Of course every once in a while you shoot yourself in the foot doing this but if you are careful in picking your spots it shouldn't be a big deal.