Limit play adjustments

[jfk]

The author makes the suggestion to slowplay until the flop or river. I disagree. With so many player willing to get very aggressive with increasingly marginal hands, I prefer getting as much money in on every street with big hands.

As average pots are shrinking in size, nut hands vs. near nut hands are a great opportunity to build (and win) very big pots. Slow playing them early can prove to be a mistake.

In a recent 10/20 game, I flopped a set of kings versus my opponent's flopped set of tens. Knowing that I'd jam the hand with a TPTK type hand they smooth called the flop and smooth called the turn when they hit quads. Only at the river did they reraise, eventually capping. That opponent left a whole lot of money (more than 6 BBs) on the table in a game where the average pot was about $45.

I really enjoy seeing this sort of article. There's a growing hole in the poker literature in dealing with the current evolution of the game. The author recognizes the thinking nature of his opponents and their ability to make adjustments. This article is a very welcome acknowledgment that the game has evolved away from where it was when SSHE was released.

[bernie]

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The author makes the suggestion to slowplay until the flop or river. I disagree. With so many player willing to get very aggressive with increasingly marginal hands, I prefer getting as much money in on every street with big hands.

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You may have missed the point as to why he said to do that. It was very table/opponent dependent. Primarily tables with smaller pools of players that are somewhat observant.

I don't think he was saying to do it routinely. Doing it once in awhile can actually help the action you get when you do play it faster and people are more familiar with seeing people play faster overall.

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In a recent 10/20 game, I flopped a set of kings versus my opponent's flopped set of tens. Knowing that I'd jam the hand with a TPTK type hand they smooth called the flop and smooth called the turn when they hit quads. Only at the river did they reraise, eventually capping.

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True, he did miss some bets(HU? Wasn't clear.). If it was HU, you're saying you'd cap this all the way through? If he caps this through the turn, is his range that wide that you're not putting him on quads and you're capping the river too?

b

[jfk]

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I don't think he was saying to do it routinely.

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It isn't expressly clear. My rereading of the article interprets his advice as saying to ordinarily slowplay monsters on the flop in a multiway pot.

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Doing it once in awhile can actually help the action you get when you do play it faster and people are more familiar with seeing people play faster overall.

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I look at it the other way. Slowplaying can make your opponents suspicious of your feigned weakness. Just as someone limping UTG preflop raises alarm bells when its done by a player who wouldn't normally do that.

In the other examples with more marginal holdings, the trend espoused is to play faster early. If that's correct, it seems to me the best cover play is for the field to know that you play your monsters fast too.

I understand his argument is for multiway pots, but my preference (with reasonable adjustments when profitable overcalls are probable) is to default to fast play.

Contestable hands are getting pushed hard in these games. I need to get as much in as possible with the big hands.

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In a recent 10/20 game, I flopped a set of kings versus my opponent's flopped set of tens. Knowing that I'd jam the hand with a TPTK type hand they smooth called the flop and smooth called the turn when they hit quads. Only at the river did they reraise, eventually capping.

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True, he did miss some bets(HU? Wasn't clear.). If it was HU, you're saying you'd cap this all the way through? If he caps this through the turn, is his range that wide that you're not putting him on quads and you're capping the river too?

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Yes, it was HU. I can't say for sure how hard I'd have gone. I'm having a nasty run of going against quads recently and even though quads seem to be a very probable holding for the action, the other side of my brain understands what should be the relative mathematical rarity of quads. As such I have a (costly) predilection for going to the wall with top full house. In this case I may have pulled up a bet or two shy of max payout, but this opponent missed a ton of value in not playing me hard.

[jfk]

Regarding the article, I was also curious as to what hands the author would recommend adding or folding as a player moves away from the table averages.

Assuming the table VPIP is 18/13 9as in the author's example), what specific range of hands gets deleted or added to put a player outside the average that the author hopes to avoid?

Also, why does he think that a 2/1% move is the optimal range. That seems to be a very slight adjustment.

[Peter_rus]

Hi, jfk. I provided 1 of 10...0 examples of trends. And it wasn't covered well, as it wasn't a purpose. I didn't recommend to play this way in any game. I just noted that you should more often 'distinct' from basic lines your opponents make and set up one cut example. In a game where everyone slowplay monsters it will be correct to more often play them quick, in the game where everyone plays them quick - you should slowplay them more.

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to ordinarily slowplay monsters on the flop in a multiway pot.


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I didn't mentioned multiway pots - this was concerned to HU-pots.

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Also, why does he think that a 2/1% move is the optimal range. That seems to be a very slight adjustment.


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2/1% is huge difference in poker. ATs is better than ATo only a bit above 2% in terms of winning probability but it's quite a big difference between them. The reason why it's not like 5% or more is because differences like this are easily notable and are easy and quickly adapt to.

[jfk]

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Also, why does he think that a 2/1% move is the optimal range. That seems to be a very slight adjustment.


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2/1% is huge difference in poker. ATs is better than ATo only a bit above 2% in terms of winning probability but it's quite a big difference between them. The reason why it's not like 5% or more is because differences like this are easily notable and are easy and quickly adapt to.

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Peter,

Thanks for the reply.

No one would dispute the suited vs. offsuit value difference, but the playability of such holdings seems to be appreciably wider than 2%. As a player who typically plays tighter than the table mean, my VPIP for a hand like ATs is about 16% higher than ATo. I have a 17.5% higher VPIP with KQs vs. KQo.

What I'm trying to understand is why you feel a 2% adjustment up or down is the optimal number and how a player would go about making that adjustment.

To my way of thinking 2% is such a subtle difference that it would be hard to practically apply it in play. It would be hard to make a conscious decision to either add or subtract a 2/1 formula in a player's preflop game. Other factors and considerations, like adjusting to specific opponents would carry greater weight in determining preflop decisions.

I'd like to know the mechanics and specifics of how you've made these adjustments in play. What hands increase in playability with a 2/1 increase against the table average and what hands start to get dropped out if going under the average. It seems that you'd be cold calling raises a little more often. What hands are candidates and why?

I can understand how you've identified winning trends by looking at your data (and it is quite a valuable lesson if true), but the application seems prickly.

For example, adjustments I've started to make in these games where VPIPs are south of 20% and preflop raisers can be expected to both continuation bet and represent strength at least through the turn round is to no longer call from the BB with a small pair when HU.

While I understand that this is a mathematical error in a vacuum, I find that the playability of these hands in these games make them too hard to play correctly. Though they clearly aren't 3 1/2 to 1 dogs to an MP raiser's range, that MP raiser can be expected to play both pairs and overcards similarly enough that the playability of small pocket pairs shrinks. HU, the price isn't there for set value.

Your article is quite useful as there hasn't yet been a lot out about the current state of online limit hold 'em. SSHE is dead for online limit and it looks like a new genre of books is waiting on deck to discuss the changes. Online mid-limit games are appreciably tighter, more aggressive and populated by more highly skilled players than is being assumed in the current literature.

Yours is one of the first articles to address adjustments and many readers would have interest in reading and discussing your expanded thoughts.

(Lastly, I don't think I followed the first couple of sentences of your reply in this thread as well as I'd like.)

[Peter_rus]

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I'd like to know the mechanics and specifics of how you've made these adjustments in play. What hands increase in playability with a 2/1 increase against the table average and what hands start to get dropped out if going under the average. It seems that you'd be cold calling raises a little more often. What hands are candidates and why?

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I'll provide 1 example which moves me from 17/12 zone at 100/200 to 18.5/13.5. I added hands for raise first in - around 10%-15% comparing to my default play in each position. For e.g. in UTG i raised around 10% of hands, i changed this to 11.5. In the button i raised 35% of hands after adding more hands i start raise around 41%. These changes moved my overall statistics from 17/12 to 18.5/13.5 area for full tables.

Added hands list example:

UTG:55,66,QJs,JTs
...
MP2:22,33,44,55,Q9s,J8s,J9s,JTs,T9s,98s,87s
...
etc.

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(Lastly, I don't think I followed the first couple of sentences of your reply in this thread as well as I'd like.)

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Sorry for poor English. I think i should hire a tutor:-(

I was trying to say that trend-discuss in article is the only _ONE_ example. Games are changing and you should always examine how overall meta-game is changing.

Remember this default line how to play crap ace OOP advised on 2+2 2 years ago? check-call, check-call, bet... Now it's quite hard to find a player against whom such line will be good.

[vmacosta]

Peter Rus,
I just wanted to jump in and say your article in the magazine was extremely good and is making me a better player already.

I'm worried that you gave up too much though...

[Peter_rus]

Thank you.

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I'm worried that you gave up too much though...

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Good players come to this anyway. There is a plenty of knowledge around us, but some of us still cannot win. Poker at higher levels isn't only about knowledge. Knowing everything about airplanes still don't teach us how to drive them good.

[jfk]

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...your article in the magazine was extremely good and is making me a better player already.

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Would you mind sharing what you've applied and in what way it has made you better?

There's a lot of high quality material in the February mag. If some of these thoughts were in other forums the discussion would be vigorous. Its a shame that the discussion here isn't doing justice to the quality of the submissions.

This isn't a criticism directed at vmacosta, just a general observation that this sub-forum seems underutilized.