Two Plus Two Newer Archives  

Go Back   Two Plus Two Newer Archives > Limit Texas Hold'em > Small Stakes Shorthanded

Reply
 
Thread Tools Display Modes
  #1  
Old 08-10-2007, 04:25 PM
Bruce D Bruce D is offline
Senior Member
 
Join Date: Dec 2005
Location: frolicking in 6 max
Posts: 593
Default Fold SB/BB to steal

I am not really sure what I want to say here. It will mostly be talking out loud and just seeing what kind of discussion develops.

In several forums I have seen discussions where someone turns around and says, well you defend too much in your blinds, or you don't defend enough.

These are vague generalizations at best as far as I am concerned. I was looking at my folded BB to steal and it was quite high, around 66% (HU) and 71% with other callers and my sb was even higher.

It has always bugged me that it has always been so high, but I looked at my winrate in the blinds over several limits (6max) and over a relatively good sample size (43k) hands and my bb win rate is .15 in the red and my sb win rate is .06 in the red, both very reasonable. However, with such a high folding rate to steals, it seems odd.

I have found that it's all in context. I have felt that playing the blind 50% of the time is WAY too high. I think you just add variance and don't do anything to winrate. I would rather avoid the variance. Then I really thought about it. Wait a minute. We are not playing our BB 50% of the time when it's raised. We are defending 50% of the time. So if someone only steals 1% of the time, we are never defending because they have aces everytime and we would be committing financial suicide by defending against this raise.

Looking at def blind or folding blinds over the course of an entire sample in my opinion is incorrect. These stats, I feel should only be used in context in the short term, or with respect to each individual game you play.

If you take it for example that you feel you should def 50% of your blinds, and you call a steal, you must have a reason for it. You cannot blindly just say "I haven't been defending enough, therefore I call, or raise." Look at the context of the steal. It doesn't mean that you play 50% of all your hands from the bb. It means you play 50% of the hands against steals. It's important to recognize the difference.

This is not a new concept I am sure for most, but for the new players, it is a huge part of shorthanded games that I am sure is misunderstood.

To put it into context, lets say that you are in the BB and a tight unimaginative player on the button open raises and the sb folds. You have JTs. What is your call?

The answer is it depends. JTs will have some equity against some stealer's ranges, but we must determine what our villian is raising with. If his attemtped to steal blinds over a couple hundred hands is 10%, that means we must defend with the top 5% of the hands if we want to defend at 50%. Using poker stove we see that in general, if you have been playing really bad and haven't noted his steal ranges, you could put him generically on 88+, A9s+, KTs+, QTs+, AJo+, and KQo. In a vacuum JTs is a 35% dog to his range by the time we get to show down. The problem is, we can't showdown every hand, and we also have bad position.

I would suggest against this player, you could play the top 5% in defense in the blind, or in other words, 50% of his 10% steal range, if you care to defend 50% of the time. This would then be, 99+, AJs+, KQs, AKo.

Say you get a person that steals 45% of the time. I would then argue if you wanted to defend 50% of the time you would play the top 22.5% hands. You would likely end up defending with 66+, A3s+, K7s+, Q9s+, J9s+, T9s, A8o+. You can clearly see there is a difference in your two defense standards, and the latter will get you into trouble if you try to use it against the former villian.

Now after that is all said and done.... if we played like this, we should RAISE every one of those hands that we are playing. We have a 10-17% edge on our opponent when we defend with 50% of his steal range.

Therefore, we can probably raise with 50% of his range, and call with another 10-15% and still have an advantage over them. But this translates into a def blind of 60-65% which, seems contradictory to the doctrine pledged here.

I would like to hear more thoughts on this part.

My defend stats are so low because I think in general I play in passive games and when people are 'stealing' they aren't really stealing. They are raising premium holdings.

Don't look at your stats and say I don't defend enough. Look at who your opponents are, what your skill level is, what their skill level is. You will save yourself some heartache and you will likely have fewer tough decisions to make.
Reply With Quote
  #2  
Old 08-10-2007, 04:40 PM
maniacut maniacut is offline
Senior Member
 
Join Date: Jan 2006
Location: racetrack
Posts: 1,437
Default Re: Fold SB/BB to steal

[ QUOTE ]
Don't look at your stats and say I don't defend enough. Look at who your opponents are, what your skill level is, what their skill level is. You will save yourself some heartache and you will likely have fewer tough decisions to make.

[/ QUOTE ]
Summarizing: take an extra second to look at your hud and recognize the difference between a nitty opponent who attempts to steal 25% vs one who attempts to steal 50% and adjust accordingly.
Reply With Quote
Reply

Thread Tools
Display Modes

Posting Rules
You may not post new threads
You may not post replies
You may not post attachments
You may not edit your posts

BB code is On
Smilies are On
[IMG] code is On
HTML code is Off

Forum Jump


All times are GMT -4. The time now is 11:04 AM.


Powered by vBulletin® Version 3.8.11
Copyright ©2000 - 2024, vBulletin Solutions Inc.