What do you think of his play here?

[Gramps]

KDD is a winning player, and does some high volume, but he/she is not one of the best 215 players out there. You'll see a number of odd plays like this from time to time.

And on a side note, occasionally when 8-10 tabling I'll complete a hand like this before I realize that BB is short (like just lost a bunch of chips within the past few hands), then maybe (not necessarily here) realize that given the likely range, calling is probably correct (even though straight out pushing probably would have been a better play). Probably not the case here, but sh-t like that happens.

[Newt_Buggs]

You bring up a good point Gramps.

[curtains]

[ QUOTE ]
You bring up a good point Gramps.

[/ QUOTE ]

It's a big mistake to not automaticaly look at stack sizes once it gets folded to your SB in this spot. If you ever make any decision here without consciously realizing how many chips you and your opponent have, you are almost always making a mistake. I don't mean to be so critical but I can't imagine ever limping or raising here without knowing exactly how many chips my opponent has. You are basically not even making a poker decision if you don't know such things.

[citanul]

curtains asked me to pull this out of the original now locked thread, so i'll start it off by bumping it.

c

[curtains]

lol, I just think its crazy that anyone would even press an action button without knowing the stack size of the opponent, thats all. I honestly don't think I've made a decision from the SB in my last 2000 sit and go's without knowing how many chips the BB has.

I was just surprised that Newt and Gramps act like this is some normal explanation that would let Kiep off the hook. If you don't look at your opponents stack size how can you possibly decide whether to limp or raise and how can someone be excused for making a decision with only a fraction of the relevant information.

[Gramps]

WTF is going on? How did this split off into a separate thread?????? [img]/images/graemlins/confused.gif[/img]

Signed, confused old man

[Newt_Buggs]

meh, I was just meaning that mistakes happen, especially when 10 tabling. Although it's rare I know that I have misread a player's stack or misread the blind level. You're right, I have never done an action without looking at my opponent's stack, but over hundereds of thousands of hands sometimes my quick glance at the action has deceived me and I thought my opponent had a different # of BBs than he did. One mistake that I've committed more than once is not noticing a limper late game and making some insane push because I thought that only the blinds were left. Of course none of this is any excuse for KDD because even if his complete was an accident calling the all in is still terrible.

[Gramps]

Ummmm, for (more extreme) example, let's say it's 10/15 blinds. You have 8-10 tables running. What % of the time is knowing your opponent's stack size in the BB going to affect your PF decision? 0._% of the time, and of the time you make a "mistake," it's not going to have dire consequences.

25/50 blinds, there are definitely times when knowing the BB's stack size is going to matter, but most of the time not. Of course you should check it, but it's pretty far down on the list of things to be sure you know when you have umpteen simultaneous decisions to make (which happens from time-to-time, as you know).

Say I'm involved in two hands postflop, and there's three other tables where I have PF decisions to make of the push/fold variety. I *know/remember* my BB opponent on the 6th table where I have a simultaneous decision table is *normal* stack size, I just saw that a few hands ago when ___ happened. Q7s, sure I'll limp as the other 5 tables demanding an action require more thought on average and I want to get this Q7s PF decision out of the way quickly so I can get the other more important decisions right - table 6 is at the bottom of the (give it my attention) hierarchy. I complete my Q7s and...[censored], BB pushes and now I see he must have gotten involved within the last few hands b/c now he's short, and I should have push/folded. I fold to his push, I probably would have folded PF, so I lose 25 chips and gain a little bit of information (BB probably on aggressive side in blinds, more likelihood of him being pushbot in other spots as well - i.e. UTG with his FE in jeopardy and me in the BB - a situation likely to come up). Net loss, but very minimal indeed. That's why it was way at the bottom of the "give it my attention" hierarchy when I had all those decisions to make simultaneously.

Mistakes like these are not uncommon for me multitabling. Now, if you're talking about 50/100 blind level and up where push/fold becomes the norm, then yes (on average) it's a bigger mistake, and one where checking what BB's stack size/what type of opponent you're playing is higher up on the "give it your full attention" hierarchy.

[curtains]

Ok I dont know, but I can say that I don't think Ive ever failed to notice my opponents stack size when making a preflop decision in the SB, especially in lvl 3 (and almost always in lvl 1-2), and you know I play at least 8 tables at once. If I did find myself missing such things too often I'd have serious questions as to whether my volume was hurting my overall results.

[Gramps]

Yes, mistakes like these will hurt your ROI a bit over the long-run. If you play 150+ hours per month every month, mistakes like these aren't uncommon (i.e., you'll make a least a few of them per day over the course of 50-100 SNGs). But while your ROI may suffer a tad, you'll still make a crapload more $$ in the long-run than you would if you played less/played fewer tables/made a few less mistakes. I'm interested in the bottom line while maintaing my sanity, thus I don't sweat little things like this unless they start to happen more than infrequently. Throw in e-mail checking, internet surfing, and TV on in background a % of the time while playing (again, sanity-maintenance while playing a sh-tload of tables for a sh-tload of hours every month) and stuff like this is going to happen.

Competitiveness/striving for perfection is a double-edged sword. You definitely don't want to make a habit of being lazy, settling for medicore play, etc., but there's a part of me that almost enjoys the fact that I'm still fully capable of making mistakes (preferably small) and that's able to simply shrug it off (the smaller ones), and that's probably a big part of the reason why I've been able to crank out some serious volume for the past year and a half while enjoying what I do. If I let my perfection/competitive side dominate all the time, I'd probably have a slightly higher ROI, to go along with higher blood pressure, broken mice, less hours played, less money made, etc., etc., etc.

SNGs ain't that complicated when you break it down, and as long as I'm getting the vast majority of the important decisions correct, while enjoying this job of poker more than any other job I've had, I'm extremely happy and ain't gonna stress if a few of the more minor details weren't perfect. In 5 years when I'm semi-retired, maybe I'll go back and worry about playing perfect poker.