The pretend (preflop) blinds and the real (position based) blinds

[Dan BRIGHT]

Ive done some thinking, not a lot, but a little bit and here are some of those thoughts. BTW This post is a little long, but if you dont wanna bother reading it or want the "short form" then ask soemone else to do a write up for you. However if you want to learn/improve then maybe try not to info handed to you on a silver platter.

In nl the blinds are fairly trivial. They are more like a guideline than anything else. If you are playing 5/10nl and everyone has 1k stacks, the game is significantly different than if everyone has 2k-3k stacks. Often when ppl get deeper, they will still open to $40 (4bb), which is actually sort of silly. In essence they are minraising in a 10/20nl (except some playing in this "deep" 5/10 game might be "underolled" for how big their game plays). The standard open isnt always standard.... like the raw monetary number might happen to be the same, but if its expressed as a % of stacks, the number does change. That phenomenom is obv a boon to some and a bane to others and their respective play styles or tendencies.



Moving along, so if the blinds are more of a guideline, then why do we follow it? Well I suspect its moer out of habit than anything else, or even just lazyness in not wanting to make constant minor adjustments based on the stack sizes around the table.

I think we are really only pretending to fight for the blinds in nl cash game play. What we are really fighting for, is edges based on a % of stack sizes. For example, if I make almost all my money on the CO and the Button, why am I folding 58s to a raise in that position? On the button and in the co you ARE paying a blind. That blind is the money, as expressed as a % of stack sizes and modified/altered based on both the relatively quality of your opponent and lastly the quality of your hands, that you give up by folding it.

Look at it this way, if someone "defends" jts in their bb vs a button open, what exactly are they defending? They are defending an extremely miniscule amount of the final pot - an amount that doesnt even matter. The equivalent of what happens in such a hand is that the blidns are really just UTG limpers, and the guy on the button raised them. Hand ranges aside for each preflop play (call in teh blinds vs limpcall utg 6max), the way the money goes in is the same (not that the money really mattered that much!).


You guys should go to pt, open up your positional stats, and look at how much money you make (and lose) from each position. You'l notice that the closer you are to the button, the more you make. The reason for that isnt b/c you have to pay a blind, its bc you have to pay an "imaginary out of position" blind that not only charges you money preflop for your initial call, but also *taxes you every single street in the amount of money that you can make*. Often times, the amount that being oop *taxes* certain hands (ie k5o) is so much higher than the hand can *earn*, that the hand actually loses money.


So now that you know that button = moneymoneymoney, what does that mean? Well ive talked to a few peeps who are very good players, and despite many of them having diff styles, they all agreed that on the buton you should be cold calling more preflop and 3betting less. Now to me this at first seemed a bit backwards, since I assumed that in position I wanted to play bigger pots.... but i was misaplying that idea. On the button I have a great deal of control of the pot size. By 3betting preflop,. I inflate the pot which ends up giving me less control postflop of the hand as its played out. You know how I mentioned when new streets come for certain hands they are *taxed* for being out of position? Well, the less they have being, the less those hands have to give - It hard to use your position to make money when the guys decision on the turn is either call a psb for his stack or fold. By 3betting preflop in position, I am effectively diminishing my positional edge (much like how ppl 3bet button raises from their small blind both for initative nd to decrease the buttons edge by giving him less room to manuver postflop.... the money goes in preflop in both cases, how it got there isnt that important once its there). Of course, if you have ever played with shortstacks, you know this b/c with them its so often you either hit it or you miss it, and you cant (and they cant) draw to it (it being the best hand in a showdown that takes place).



All of this is pretty interesting to me after I changed my preflop ranges. I run about 25/20/3.5 now, which I guess is lagtag to some, but really, its not for everyone. For the most part I stopped opening scs and friend until the CO, and added more hands (ie 58s 6ts etc) to the CO and Button. As a result, I open frequently, pretty much playing the lions share of mey hands in position. I think some tags (2p2rs) look at my stats and have all the wrong assumptions about my play. They seem to expect me to be a lot more aggressive preflop than I really am and generally play back far too much postflop in 3bet pots given my range (Whihc against many ppl, in most situations save for hu in the blinds is almost always something silly-tight like jj+ aqs+). I guess thats sort of a reminder that pokertracker stats only tell you the numbers, they dont tel you what they mean.


Anyways guys, cold-calling in position + raising flops = free money in midstakes games vs tags. enjoy

[Bakes]

Enlightening. Thank you.

[Dan BRIGHT]

A couple more things I forgot to mention or elaborate on:

1) If you are playing 5/10nl with 2k stacks, you SHOULD change your opening range to 70 dollars unless you want to alter your preflop ranges so that they are "in tune' with the stack sizes.

2) The hands that are *taxed* for being out of position rae commonly refered to as reverse implied odds hands. Some hands have worse reverse implied odds hands than others, and you can get away with playing them with deep stacks if you are a better player than your opponent, if you are in position, or if he reverse implied odds arent too severe (ie compare 78o vs q7o). One thing that imo is very very important in nl is limiting the amount of reverse implied odds hands you play. I try to play as few as possible save for times when I am taking shots at a guy in position by calling his raises to fkk with him postflop or overcaling preflop with good relative position (ie co opens button calls sb calls im in the bb with 9to I call b/c of good relative position. Compare this to absolute position which is having the button. Relative position usually deals with your position in relation to the preflop raiser or the person you expect to make the first bet on the flop. Relative position can change street to street though, while absolute position cannot).

[aejones]

I'm bumping so I can read tomorrow or sunday or whatever, keep this near the top.

[r3vbr]

wow...
this is very good.

Nice job

[tubasteve]

holla

this is sort of discussed somewhere in NLHETP i think, but you did a lot better job mr bright

[CaseS87]

Good post.
-Tagging it so I can reread at not 5 am.

[tubasteve]

Incidentally I was just discussing with NoahSD earlier how I 3-bet hands like AQ and TT less then some other hands like 89s or A7s from the blinds vs tags/good lags that raise with position.

I feel like 3-betting turns these mid-high strength hands into bluffs too often, and actually is lower EV than just calling (factoring in shania also).

I'm not really sure how relevant this is to the OP but it's a little mini-ephiphany I had about preflop situations today. Does this make sense to anyone?

[untouchable]

"Now to me this at first seemed a bit backwards, since I assumed that in position I wanted to play bigger pots.... but i was misaplying that idea. On the button I have a great deal of control of the pot size. By 3betting preflop,. I inflate the pot which ends up giving me less control postflop of the hand as its played out."

This had been bugging me for a while. I also thought 3-betting in position should be profitable [edit: it's still profitable with many hands i think though], with position and all. But if you 3-bet you either take a small pot preflop or play a big pot postflop, with only a limited number of possible lines to take because stacks are small compared to potsize, and you miss the flop most of the time, especially with marginal hands.

Also, after thinking about the importance of position and reverse implied odds/dominated hands, I started wondering why anyone would play such hands in EP. I mean like A4s, ATo, KJo, KTs, etc. UTG. In late position these are great hands, but I doubt they are profitable UTG.

[Clayton]

dan ur an idiot filled with cheesecake

just kidding nice post