5CD - Battle of the blinds

[balsamono]

I saw someone mention the Weisenberg system in another thread here. It seems like that implies raising from SB with a pair of 7s or better and limping with hands all the way down to AQ. Is that right? Where can I read about this system?

Are there other systems that I can learn about somewhere? Right now I'm raising with any hand that I want to play from the SB. Normally AK or better. Is this OK, or are there any big disadvantages with this?

[Tom Bayes]

The archive of articles by Michael Wiesenberg (including many articles on draw and lowball) is here

The so-called "Wiesenberg system" was described in his article in the August 1, 2003 issue of CardPlayer (scroll down the link to find it). It lays out a general scheme for playing online limit draw. Not all will agree with all aspects of it. Of course, blindly playing a memorized system is not good enough against good players and to become a good draw player, you need to take notes on your opponents and learn how to exploit their mistakes and tendencies.

For instance, Wiesenberg suggests raising with 77+ and limping with AQ-66 in the SB against an unknown opponent in the BB. Obviously as you play more with the BB, you will adjust your play against him. An obvious adjustment is to open-raise more liberally against a player who folds his BB too much or to limp-reraise with strong hands against players who automatically raise when someone tries to limp in.

I play mostly tournaments and I will sometimes use the early levels (when the blinds are small) to "test" the players to my left if I haven't played with them before. I want to know who will let me steal blinds if I raise, who raises aggressively from the blinds if I try to limp, and who defends with any hand no matter what.

[balsamono]

I read about his system. It seems all right. I need to make some small adjustments, but it's not very different from the way I play now. The tip about never keeping a kicker with my pair seems like sound advice. I remember one time I got a free draw in the BB. One limper and the SB both drew two cards. My AQ had no chance of winning in a showdown, but because I knew what my opponents had, I took it down with a bluff. Oh, well. Easy money. Actually I think that was play money. I've never made a really good bluff with the real stuff.

I guess I'll read more of Wiesenberg's articles tomorrow. I think I need to improve my play post-draw. It seems like I call too often when I get outdrawn, and too seldom when people are bluffing. I gotta do something about that.

oh. I have to thank you for the tips before I forget it [img]/images/graemlins/grin.gif[/img]

[mpanzer]

I think this 'system' is actually just common sense - even for the starter.

We all started playing home games, were very naïve, drew every bloody hand. Then we started drawing just any pair. Then we started drawing just good pairs. How smart we were!

Then we realised position was more important than actual hands - we stood pat with nothing, we fake-drew 2 with pairs, 1 with trips. And so on. We rocked at our home games!

Now we try to play better and wiser. We are still naïve, aren't we? But we know questions are more important than answers, at least I do.

I think Weisenberg's system just covers my first paragraph, perhaps softly touches the second.

This forum is the only place I know where the third paragraph is discussed in a daily basis.

After all 5-draw is not as widely spread as 'Other Poker Games', and I take more seriously the advices I read here - because they are written by the few actual 5-draw players - than the standard and shalow articles Weisenberg writes for a generic public. Even though I recognise they are the only ones available out there.

IMHO, of course.

[bigpooch]

First of all, you must realize that some hands have value
against a passive big blind that are EVEN WORSE than a hand
such as AQxyz from the small blind. A hand such as AJTxy is
also good enough to limp in with from the small blind if you
decide to draw three to it.

Also, some hands perform much better if you open raise than
if you limp in: e.g., a hand such as 66Xyz (where the
highest kicker X = A/K/Q) is better to open raise with than
to call with in the long run.

In addition, you can clearly open raise on some semibluffing
hands such as good flush draws where you have two or more
key cards (where an ace king or queen is a key card), so a
hand such as KQJTx is worth open raising with.

Now, this leads to other questions such as how far can you
go?

Concerning limping: I think about the worst hand you can
consider limping with from the small blind is a hand such as
ATxyz especially if the big blind is passive. The problem
with limping with KQxyz is that you don't have an ace and
because of the bunching effect, aces should be more common
than usual, so it won't be hard for the big blind to draw
to something and make AA; nevertheless, against a passive
big blind, you should call with KQxyz and draw three with
the idea that if you don't make even an ace high, you have
an opportunity to bluff, especially if you believe that the
big blind won't pay off with less than AA (if the big blind
has drawn two or more).

Concerning open raising on semibluffing hands: you should
strongly consider folding if you don't have much of a chance
of winning if you pair up on your top two cards. E.g., if
you have 87652, you may open raise from the small blind;
unfortunately, if you pair on the 8 or 7, your best course
of action is to check (especially if the big blind has drawn
three) and hope your hand is good. Thus, you want some
outside chance of winning if you pair on one of your top two
cards.

Concerning raising: do you want to play a raise or fold
approach? If so, there are some problems: a) you have to
give up limpiing with AQxyz and AJxyz which are often +EV
to play by just limping against typical opponents; b) you
will often find yourself reraised by big blinds that realize
that you are often opening with just AK, so if they are
knowledgeable, they should reraise you with any hand such as
QQKxy or better. That's okay, but then you would have to
fold your AK or worst one pair hands to a reraise.

Do you want to have an image of a reckless raiser? Then,
it seems okay to open raise with AK or better (also
selectively, some AQ hands too!), but remember you have to
consider folding to reraises some of the time against the
most predictable opponents.

Also, if you do open limp from the small blind, what do you
do versus a raise now? If you don't trap often enough, some
of your more astute opposition will blast away when they see
you open limp: now, according to game theory you are to call
at least 2/3 of the time, so you have to structure the hands
you will call or reraise with in such a way that you won't
be folding significantly more than 1/3 of the time.

Because an exploitative strategy is usually better in poker,
much depends on how the big blind will play. Most of the
time, you want to adopt the strategy you use that "fits"
your general approach, but then you should be capable of
"changing gears" when the situation arises.

[balsamono]

I'll see what he has to say. It seemed to me like he was a bit more interested in lowball, but whatever. I don't think I can be categorized as much more than a starter yet. My only achievements has been to take money from the donkeys in the 1/2 dollar limit games. I'll probably be watching the forum here for more of the 3rd paragraph on draw.

BTW: What's IMO and IMHO short for? I didn't see that explained in Wiesenberg's article on chat messages...

[Al Mirpuri]

[ QUOTE ]
BTW: What's IMO and IMHO short for? I didn't see that explained in Wiesenberg's article on chat messages...

[/ QUOTE ]

IMO= in my opinion.
IMHO= in my honest opinion.