The Fine Line Between FPS and Being a Robot

[Pudge714]

Way too often on this forum, I see people advocate playing much too nitty in early levels or just flat out not thinking. Two recent hands where this really struck me were hand where darinvg raised qjs from the CO and Danny Ocean raised A5s from the CO. The consensus was that preflop was bad, others were more extreme calling preflop “not even close to marginal” . In MTTs with similar stack sizes preflop is standard, this is either because most good MTTers have big preflop leaks or more likely they can play these hands for a positive expectation at these blind levels with these stack sizes. Obviously CEV =! $EV and $EV in MTTs =! $EV in SNGs. SNGs do encourage more nitty play because you can gain equity with other people clashing. However I think it is reasonable to look at why people are regularly passing up spots +CEV spots and with all the information available why no one on the STTF has ever really looked into this.

Here is a decent example most people would advocate limping or raising AKo UTG and most would suggest that KQs is an instamuck. It doesn’t make sense to me that a hand changes one degree and it goes from a horrible fold to a horrible limp/raise, I would suggest a reason why this attitude is prevalent is because STTF has certain dogmatic practices and very few people are interested in changing that. It is also interesting that nobody is considering changing this despite the fact people are constantly complaining how tough the games are.

The most prevalent counterargument is that opening up your game may increase your ROI, but would require dropping tables and decrease your hourly. This is a fine argument for one’s individual strategy, however it is a bad argument when discussing the strategy of one isolated hand.

A more strategical argument would be stack preservation. I don’t know how to respond to this because it is really tough to prove or disprove, even if you knew the expected value of raising it would be irrelevant (unless it is neutral or negative) without knowing the standard deviation. If anyone plays like this in midlevels and has a large enough database post it, but I highly doubt anyone will. Furthermore everyone’s expectation isn’t the same CEV is dependent on several things primarily your opponents skill, how your opponents view you and your postflop skill. If raising A5s in the CO will show a negative expectation the problem might not be the preflop play, but the inability for an individual to have a positive postflop expectation.

I fully expect someone is thinking “what if you raise QJs in the CO the BB calls and the flop is 8TA with a flushdraw what do you do?” Or “If the flop is AJx and the BTN calls you are OOP with middle pair not a very good spot.”
You will get in tough spots have enough faith to play well in those spots you can’t have also I can create any doomsday scenario for any hand and you will be in a tough spot. You raise AA villain calls flop is T98hh you bet, villain winks scratches his nose and shoves for 2x pot. WHAT DO YOU DO? Bad situations happen poker is pretty easy, but it isn’t a solved game, think, hand read and determine what to do. But what about people who will peel with 50%, work with poker stove see how there preflop range fares on that flop, see how often your cbets need to work, remember them peeling with stuff like 76s is good for you they are calling with worse hands and you have position. Furthermore the worst players in tournaments are likely to blow their stack early you want to get in pots HU vs. idiots so you can get there chips. If they don’t fold don’t try to bluff them, but remember that TP is the nuts vs. them and keep betting.

People may argue raising this light will ruin your image for later stages, firstly you are still playing relatively tight, raising like 10% from the button isn’t really laggy, secondly villains are rarely observant enough and thirdly they are much more likely to think you are crazy when you are shoving every hand not because you are raising suited face cards in LP.

Tying in with this in darinvg’s QJs hand he got in a tricky postflop spot and folded midpair. I am unsure whether this fold is good or not, however when I said I might shove people argued it was too FPSY. That isn’t a good counterargument for making or not making play, instead of thinking my hand is X I am supposed to fold, think about what your opponent can have and apply that knowledge, if you think he will play better hands like that fold, but don’t fold because you are afraid of making an FPSY play. FPSY plays are correlated with bad plays, but that doesn’t mean a play is bad because it’s FPSY.

Note I am not suggesting that people start three betting EP raises with T9s or raising the CO with 86o, I am suggesting that there is a lot of equity to be gained in early levels and not trying to gain this equity will likely hurt your ROI. I am also not attempting to argue that this type of play is more important than pushbotting, but rather that it can be a good addition to solid SNG play.

[RexWoo]

tl; but did read;

I think everybody see your point. On my (small experienced) everytime I did open my low blind games vs unknown it backfired. The main reason is that most bad player are ok to play a big pot with a crappy hand and I'm not, most to my disadvantage.

I also disagree that there is "lot of equity to be gained in early levels" but there is probably a small one, as everywhere.

I don't understand exactly if you made a theory post (= it should work) or a practical one (= I've done it, it works), also.

[FUJItheFISH]

pudge

players usually stay away from playing early when multitabling because when they play early pots they play it all the same.

they always play ak to the felt. they cbet 100% of the time for near pot etc etc.

[Scotty_12]

There is a huge difference between Darinvgs hand and Dannyoceans hand. We are talking $6.5 and $225. At the $6.5s I would estimate you might see people having wider reraising / 'restealing' raises and that makes it spew when you have to fold to the reraise.

I think alot of the advice given on this forum are to people playing the low buyins and they need a leak free TAG game with good postflop ability before they can loosen their PF standards.

8TA is a reasonable flop for QJ btw [img]/images/graemlins/smile.gif[/img]

I dont think raising light ruins your image for future stages, vs observant opponents it might increase the action you get - but what % of opponents are really observant, and of these - which ones will we see again? (At the higher levels, the % increases to both questions obv.) I will also add that I think doing it with position is the most important thing to keep in mind

I will come back to this thread later for hopefully stimulating discussion

[lacky]

god dammit, i just wrote a really long reply that disapeard. i hate typing, but ill try to summerize anyway.

I always played sng's with a much more open, gambling style early. stealing from the nits and playing big pots with the lagdonkdorks that would pay off light. You weren't around then, but you may have seen reference to my playing weird. I played em pretty much the same as I play mtt's, or looser.

so, my opinions are from playing 1000's of sng's in the way your talking about.

The style works very well (higher than normal roi's) as long as you have lagdonkdorks at the table. Just stealing small pots from the nits isnt enough to make it worth the chips you bleed when the steals dont work out. you also need those double ups. the nits will rarely double you up early, as they wont risk chips when behind. easy to steal small pots from, but no big ones. the laggy poor players are where the double ups come from, and to have a meaningful advantage at the bubble you need lots of chips. In the early bubble if you have a larger than average stack you cant play hands as easily (too many chips to shove profitably, and a normal raise is vulnerable to resteals from smaller stacks) amd you still cant priftably call the short stack shoves, so the stacks tend to equalize some during this stage. a 300 chips advantage at this point is essentailly meaningless, but a 2000 chip advantage isnt.

in the old 10 hand per round regulars (turbo's hadn't been invented yet) the style worked very well up to 55's. after that the really poor players i would take advantage off start disapearing. You cant steal enough chips from a table full of nit's to make the risk worth the chips acuired. at 109's my roi dropped off sharply, at 215's I'm sure ima lifetime loser.

also, playing this way is highly read dependent. you have to know who the nits are, and you have to know who is playing like a dork. alot of the dorks are occational players, so to know they are playing bad early enough to take advantage of it you have to see it.

I could play this style well 8 tabling, but beyond that you really do start to lose the feel for the different players. hud's help, but not enough to play 20 tables at a time. remeber, when we first started all this, 3 tables was all you were allowed to play.

so, yes, playing a looser style does work, as long as there are people willing to payoff when you hit a hand. The style works much better in mtt's though, and even better in deepstack cash games. the main reason I think most people move up and out of sng's is the better at postflop poker you get,the better off you are playing where you can use it best. In high stake sng nitty tables (at least then) it's very hard to play a loose style and accumulate enough extra chips to offset the risk involved.

[donkraft]

Very interesting discussion. My own take on the matter is much like lacky, and I think failing to exploit bad players early is giving up a lot of $EV.

The tradeoff is basicly: How much $EV do we gain by doubling up early vs. not - and how often do we lose all the $EV when we get stacked trying to double up early.


Knowing the results of these two queries, would be helpful:

Query 1 - Doubling up early:

What is my ROI on SNG's, where I at some point have double the starting-chips at some time during levels 1-2-3?

Query 2 - NOT doubling up early:

What is my ROI on SNG's, where I at NO point have double the starting-chips at some time during levels 1-2-3?


Also knowing how often we get stacked trying to double up early with less that premium hands would be nice, but is much harder to get an accurate number for.

I'll try to get the good people over at the pokertracker Postgres forum to help with the query.

[Buckk Dich]

In moshman's book he explains why doubling up early and taking risks doesn't work.

The reason is that doubling up early does not double your tournement equity.

He gave an example of two other guys in your sng being all in, one eliminated, and one doubling up. And he stated that in the long run BOTH lose from the situation, compared to the player that avoided the all in.

[Scotty_12]

[ QUOTE ]
In moshman's book

[/ QUOTE ]

No.

[Scotty_12]

[ QUOTE ]
The reason is that doubling up early does not double your tournement equity.

He gave an example of two other guys in your sng being all in, one eliminated, and one doubling up. And he stated that in the long run BOTH lose from the situation, compared to the player that avoided the all in.

[/ QUOTE ]

So if I have AA and my opponent has KK or AK, we get it aipf, and I beat the odds and actually hold - I lose from this in the long run?

This is a rhetorical question, please dont answer this and ruin what could be a good thread started by pudge. I couldnt resist though

[Insty]

[ QUOTE ]
The reason is that doubling up early does not double your tournement equity.


[/ QUOTE ]

It does increase your tournament equity though.