Professional No-Limit Hold 'em Volume 1 Review Thread

[Sean Fraley]

[ QUOTE ]
just got the book yesterday and am nearly finished reading it. i must say i am happy that someone has put down in words, concretely, many things that i have been loosely, sometimes inconsistently, applying to my game.

there are a few things i wanted to ask about.

SPR and Multiway pots

first, although you do address this issue in the making adjustment section, what mathematical shortcut can you make to SPRs in multiway pots?

i'm not a math guy, but it would be nice to make a quick on-the-fly adjustment for number of players in the pot.

for example, regular SPRs divided by number of OTHER players in the pot. So if you're playing 1 player with Top Pair who plays neither tight nor loose it would be the suggested 4 or 4/1 = 4. but if it was a 3-way pot 4/2 = 2, which would change your target SPR to 2. Obviously the number 4 changes depending on the looseness of the players in the pot.

do you have a suggestion for a short-cut?

3-Bet Equity

you mentioned making bet sizes preflop to reach target SPRs and although this is great the closer you are to the button, i would think the closer you are to being UTG it gets increasingly difficult to predict how the SPR will turn out with so many people behind you.

in early position, do you not so much try to reach a target as just bet and see what the SPR is on the flop and then make the adjustments?

i find that sometimes in early position, with AA or KK it's better not to make preflop adjustments to target SPRs and instead bet EXACTLY the standard preflop raise of the table. This lowers the respect you get from your raise because they've seen that size so many times now (i play on short handed tables) and sometimes induces what i term 3-BET EQUITY. someone behind you may reraise you to which you can then 3-bet, when if you had made a large preflop raise to gun for your target SPR you would get ppl fold the hands they were going to make a move on you with.

this would be more true with an aggressive table, whichis important for 3-BET equity in general (betting standard or very small in order to induce a reraise).

Stack Size Position

you mentioned buying in short to make reaching target SPRs more easily achievable, but then you lose out on the benefits of a deep stack. one of the main points of SPRs, would you agree?, is to make simplier, those all in decisions and commitment thresholds. but i only usually find myself in those tough decisions when i'm out of position. so would it be more beneficial to find a table with short stacks to your immediate left.

so would it be best to buy in max, have shorts on your left and deeps on your right. this way you can minimize awkwardness for those on your left and manipulate awkward SPRs for the deep stacks on your right.

[/ QUOTE ]

I've been applying the SPR concepts in uNL and have found that multiway pots actually make things a bit easier. Basically, if you have a top pair type hand and are at a table where the pot is likely to be multiway I do this:

1) Figure out which players I am willing to commit with my pair if i have a single digit SPR.

2) Out of those players single out the largest stack that is smaller than yours and make a raise large enough to get a single digit SPR. You don't need to be getting it down to 4.5, you just want it 9 or lower.

This way, in the event that you wind up heads up on the flop against one of the players you accounted for you have a decent SPR to work with. In multiway pots you need to adjust the SPR down, but additional callers normally brings the SPR down into a range that you are happy with anyway. Admittedly, if a player comes in that you aren't willing to commit with your pair against some other circumstances occur that make you feel that you are not getting the best of it, that's just part of the game.

As far as 3-bet equity, do whatever is most likely to get a decent SPR. If you feel that a smaller raise will get enough callers to have a decent SPR on the flop then adjust your size based on how many callers you think that you are likely to have.

Finally, I think you have a good point about stack size. I think buying in full is the best bet, and you suggest a good way to take full advantage of position when you have it. I have no idea how often you can pull this off though.

[Matt Flynn]

Sounded Simple thank you for the extended review and taking time to respond to bread!

bread, i understand your concerns and have no cure for them, there's just no way to know what your opponents will do. at least once you hit the flop you'll know what to expect, and you can nudge things in a good direction for your hands, even if all you do is fold, limp or make a fixed raise. you may like the ideas better when we flesh out other aspects in volume 2, like using SPR postflop and perhaps more important for the mid/high-stakes online crowd playing for and against commitment vs. playing for smallball. in practice SPR alone works fantastic in loose live games, but in tougher games you need to think about more than that. we're aware, we just didn't want to shoehorn the discussion into volume 1.

matt

[Matt Flynn]

joethepro,

[ QUOTE ]

SPR and Multiway pots

first, although you do address this issue in the making adjustment section, what mathematical shortcut can you make to SPRs in multiway pots?

do you have a suggestion for a short-cut?

[/ QUOTE ]


problem here is you can have such a wide range of opponents. if forced to answer i'd say use SPR for two opponents (three seeing the flop) and cut a fourth for each one after. so if 3-handed target SPR is 4 would go to 3 for 4-handed, then lop another fourth to 2.25 for 5-handed, etc. that may err on the conservative side a bit. but no way would i rec that in a book b/c it's so opponent and situation dependent. take it with a grain of salt.


[ QUOTE ]

3-Bet Equity

you mentioned making bet sizes preflop to reach target SPRs and although this is great the closer you are to the button, i would think the closer you are to being UTG it gets increasingly difficult to predict how the SPR will turn out with so many people behind you.

in early position, do you not so much try to reach a target as just bet and see what the SPR is on the flop and then make the adjustments?

i find that sometimes in early position, with AA or KK it's better not to make preflop adjustments to target SPRs and instead bet EXACTLY the standard preflop raise of the table. This lowers the respect you get from your raise because they've seen that size so many times now (i play on short handed tables) and sometimes induces what i term 3-BET EQUITY. someone behind you may reraise you to which you can then 3-bet, when if you had made a large preflop raise to gun for your target SPR you would get ppl fold the hands they were going to make a move on you with.

[/ QUOTE ]

hah nice. seriously, i agree, and it took me a long time to figure that out. this gets to when to use "nonexplotative" or "game theoretic" strategies, of which making a fixed preflop raise size has become online gospel. exposing your range hurts you more when you're out of position, especially if you play fewer hands anyway OOP as everyone should. imo, the farther you get from the button, the more nonexplotaitive you should get. the ramifications are significant for high-stakes games: many have moved to fixed preflop raises without sufficiently analyzing the difference in value and cost of using those strategies on button vs. utg, again in my opinion. here's a simple test: if you monkey around with your preflop raise sizes on the button, can your opponent figure you out? if not, next question is what can you gain by varying your play?

so utg is the first place i would use nonexplotaitive fixed raise size. next question is can your hand ranges stand a dichotomous strategy utg of limping or raising to Xbb. (you're allowed to randomize.)

a lot of people say no. imo some are overestimating the skills of their opponents, but there you go.

this stuff is really the fun part of analyzing poker for me. i wish we had volumes 2 (and maybe 3 and 4) done so we could explore this more in print.


[ QUOTE ]

Stack Size Position

you mentioned buying in short to make reaching target SPRs more easily achievable, but then you lose out on the benefits of a deep stack. one of the main points of SPRs, would you agree?, is to make simplier, those all in decisions and commitment thresholds. but i only usually find myself in those tough decisions when i'm out of position. so would it be more beneficial to find a table with short stacks to your immediate left.

so would it be best to buy in max, have shorts on your left and deeps on your right. this way you can minimize awkwardness for those on your left and manipulate awkward SPRs for the deep stacks on your right.

[/ QUOTE ]

hadn't thought of that. very cool idea. have you thought much about how that interacts with loose vs. tight vs. wild vs. raises preflop a lot - all the other seat selection issues? interesting.

matt

p.s. Sean thanks for the comments on joe's post.

[Oct0puz]

I have a question about Suited connectors and SPR.

Lets say I'm playing online 6-max 100bb stacks. CO limps and I'm on the button with 78s and I raise to 4bb, blinds fold and CO calls. SPR is 10.5 which is a pretty good number for my hand if my plan is to steal alot when I miss.

This is how I would play this hand almost always. But when I'm up against very loose players who seldom folds it feels like I'm burning money. I hit the flop very seldom and my opponent wont fold to my c-bets. Is it better to limp behind and aim for a SPR above 20?

[joethepro]

from what i understand, a medium SPR is good for a drawing hand only if you think you have good fold/steal equity. (1 or 2 players, tight or weak).

but as you have stated, this person is unlikely to give up preflop or flop, so it's better if you have a very high SPR and take advantage of the implied odds. this situation is even more beneficial b/c you have position.

[joethepro]

sean - thanks for the neat trick on how to deal with multiway pots. i'm gonna see how well that works.

matt -

[ QUOTE ]
problem here is you can have such a wide range of opponents. if forced to answer i'd say use SPR for two opponents (three seeing the flop) and cut a fourth for each one after. so if 3-handed target SPR is 4 would go to 3 for 4-handed, then lop another fourth to 2.25 for 5-handed, etc. that may err on the conservative side a bit. but no way would i rec that in a book b/c it's so opponent and situation dependent. take it with a grain of salt.

[/ QUOTE ]


Multiway pots are, indeed, hard because as you said, you’ll have such a wide range of opponents. The one thing I noticed in your suggestion was that by subtracting a fourth for each new player into the pot, adding more people has a diminishing effect on the SPR. First you subtract 1, then .75 and so on.

Does this mean each additional player has less of an impact on the target SPRs?

Target SPRs rely on you gathering perfect (your hand) and imperfect information (player tendencies and range of hands) But as you add more and more players, the range of hands of players gets increasingly difficult to narrow as each consecutive player is getting better and better odds and pretty soon, any two cards can be played. This means as you increase more players your target SPR is getting more hazy and you should be getting increasingly more conservative, thereby subtracting equal if not greater amounts from the SPR.

What do you think?

[ QUOTE ]
hadn't thought of that. very cool idea. have you thought much about how that interacts with loose vs. tight vs. wild vs. raises preflop a lot - all the other seat selection issues? interesting.

[/ QUOTE ]

I hadn’t thought of that!

Or maybe it’s because I don’t want to think about it, b/c it’ll make my brain burst because of the complexity.

I am going to give it a think soon however.

Thank you for the reply. It’s pretty amazing to be able to ask questions to the authors of a book and get quick thoughtful responses.

[Matt Flynn]

[ QUOTE ]
I have a question about Suited connectors and SPR.

Lets say I'm playing online 6-max 100bb stacks. CO limps and I'm on the button with 78s and I raise to 4bb, blinds fold and CO calls. SPR is 10.5 which is a pretty good number for my hand if my plan is to steal alot when I miss.

This is how I would play this hand almost always. But when I'm up against very loose players who seldom folds it feels like I'm burning money. I hit the flop very seldom and my opponent wont fold to my c-bets. Is it better to limp behind and aim for a SPR above 20?

[/ QUOTE ]


yes, better to limp than raise if you cannot steal, and sometimes better to fold.

[H.S. Wannabee]

Matt, Sunny and Ed.

Great book guys thanks a lot. Yet another 2plus2 publication that pays for itself, excellent job and looking forward to vol 2...so get on with it!!!

Special thanks to Mike at profesional.poker.com for getting a copy shipped to the UK for me, only took 5 or 6 days.

Credit where credit's due, good work all round.

[Matt Flynn]

[ QUOTE ]

Does this mean each additional player has less of an impact on the target SPRs?

Target SPRs rely on you gathering perfect (your hand) and imperfect information (player tendencies and range of hands) But as you add more and more players, the range of hands of players gets increasingly difficult to narrow as each consecutive player is getting better and better odds and pretty soon, any two cards can be played. This means as you increase more players your target SPR is getting more hazy and you should be getting increasingly more conservative, thereby subtracting equal if not greater amounts from the SPR.

What do you think?

[/ QUOTE ]


it gets more fuzzy with each extra player. no way around that because as you point out the collective opposing range gets huge.

however you do it, the target SPR should not go to zero even against nine opponents. you're always willing to put some fraction in when you hit.

games where six people see the flop for a big raise are hugely profitable anyway. if you're looking to flop a pair and think you have the best hand preflop, you probably want to make a bigger raise to narrow the field (assuming the stacks aren't really deep).

[bread]

Matt,

Thank you for the reply. I am glad to see you point out that there is much more needed to handle all the other unknowns I mentioned and that what is in Volume 1 is not enough for bigger and tougher games. None of the posters here realize either.

I look forward to reading volume 2 when it comes out (publication date?).