nut-peddling criteria

[StatsProf857]

Most sources advise that in a loose, relatively passive, full-table LO8 game, pure nut-peddling is a profitable strategy. I want to look at various types of hands (AAWx, high pair with two wheel cards, etc.) and explore what hands are actually viable given that a nut-peddler will be folding a lot of semi-promising flops (AA39 rainbow, flop is 567-suited). Pure nut-peddling is extremely restrictive and most likely unprofitable, especially with a pair or trips on the board. So, I want to develop a slightly looser "nut-peddler's river requirements" I can use to test starting hands. My approach is to look at five cards on the board, see determine what hands are possible, and then list all the pairs of cards a player could have that would qualify as "nut-peddling or something close to it". For example, if the board were 8[img]/images/graemlins/heart.gif[/img] 9[img]/images/graemlins/heart.gif[/img] J[img]/images/graemlins/heart.gif[/img] J[img]/images/graemlins/spade.gif[/img] 2[img]/images/graemlins/spade.gif[/img], my list would include 7[img]/images/graemlins/heart.gif[/img] T[img]/images/graemlins/heart.gif[/img], T[img]/images/graemlins/heart.gif[/img]Q[img]/images/graemlins/heart.gif[/img], J[img]/images/graemlins/diamond.gif[/img]J[img]/images/graemlins/club.gif[/img], J9, J8, J2, and probably 99, 88 and 22. Any hand that contains one of those pairs of cards would be a hand worth calling a river bet with.

Here's what I have for criteria. If possible, I'd like for people to critique it. Also, if work like this has been done before, I'd like to know where.

Any cards that make a straight flush qualify.

Quads on board: any AA, KK
House on board, trips high: either quads, AA, KK
House on board, pair high: either quads, AA, KK

Set on board, no overcards: quads, AA, KK
Set on board, one overcard: quads, top house, AA, KK
Set on board, two overcards: quads, top house, middle house, AA, KK
Two pair on board, top two pair: any quads or house
Two pair on board, top and bottom: any quads or house
Two pair on board, bottom two pair: any quads or house

One pair on board, no overcards: quads or any house
One pair on board, one overcard: quads or any house
One pair on board, two overcards: quads or any house
One pair on board, three overcards: quads or any house

Unpaired board, flush possible: nut flush only
Unpaired board, no flush, straight possible: nut straight only
Unpaired board, no flush, no straight: top set

For low, only the nut low.

This list as it stands is fairly repetitive. However, in the end, I expect there to be different rules for the different one-pair and two-pair cases.

Any help would be appreciated. Thank you.

StatsProf857

[Truthiness24]

Pure nut-peddling is unimaginative and nitty. It's a lame vocation undertaken primarily by old people that are waiting to die.

It isn't optimal, either, because you leave too much meat on the bone.

[StatsProf857]

I just read Frank Jerome's article "Completing From the Small Blind -- Deceptive Odds". At the end of it, he gives an example where SB is clearly not getting enough value for his 1/2-bet. I want to use these criteria to test slightly more playable hands. "How profitable is hand WXYZ in NoRaiseAha-8 given that we'll only call flop, turn, and river bets with a sufficient draw to the nuts, full house or better?"

[Buzz]

[ QUOTE ]
Most sources advise that in a loose, relatively passive, full-table LO8 game, pure nut-peddling is a profitable strategy.

[/ QUOTE ]Stats Prof. - Really? I don’t really care what specifically the sources to which you refer are, but something about that statement bothers me. I think it’s called a “glib generality.”

I’m not sure what exactly you mean by <font color="white">_</font>pure nut-peddling. I imagine it means nut-peddling to the extreme.

Any good player becomes a nut peddler when he/she has the nuts. And we all want to make the nuts. However, “nut peddler” is a derisive term.

In my experience, the high side is won more often by non-nut hands than by nut hands. I think you can easily verify that for yourself in the next two rounds of any table at which you’re seated. And if you keep track of the low winners, in all but the loosest games I think you’ll typically find that more than half of the lows are actually won by non-nut low hands.

Thus you do not generally need the nuts to win in Omaha-8. It’s a myth, a falsehood that you do. However, I certainly am not implying you should <font color="white">_</font>draw for non-nut hands. On the contrary, in general, you should draw for the nuts, except where the nuts would be quads and straight flushes. (You usually don’t have favorable odds to draw for quads and straight flushes -too few outs. But those outs certainly add to your other outs.)

The nuts are different for different types of boards on the river. When the board has one pair, as it does over two times out of five, and when no straight flush is possible, then the nuts is quads, but nobody will have quads very often. How often depends on what the pair is and how the players play. (Someone will see the flop with a hand containing a pair of aces more often than someone will play a hand with a pair of eights).

When the board is Q[img]/images/graemlins/heart.gif[/img], J[img]/images/graemlins/club.gif[/img], T[img]/images/graemlins/diamond.gif[/img], 9[img]/images/graemlins/spade.gif[/img], 8[img]/images/graemlins/heart.gif[/img], the nuts is any ace king. From the perspective of someone on the rail, there are 16580 ways for anyone to have the nuts.

When the board is Q[img]/images/graemlins/heart.gif[/img], J[img]/images/graemlins/club.gif[/img], T[img]/images/graemlins/diamond.gif[/img], 9[img]/images/graemlins/spade.gif[/img], 9[img]/images/graemlins/heart.gif[/img], the nuts is 9[img]/images/graemlins/diamond.gif[/img], 9[img]/images/graemlins/club.gif[/img], Y, Z. From the perspective of someone on the rail, there are 990 ways for anyone to have the nuts.

Thus from the perspective of someone on the rail, it’s about 16.7 times more likely someone will have been dealt cards that would make the nuts when the board is QJT98-non-suited than when the board is QJT99-non-suited. And then AKYZ hands are more likely to be played by some players than 99YZ hands. (I suppose it might be the other way around for other players).

If you have a king high straight when the board is QJT98, you should be genuinely concerned about an opponent having an ace high straight (the nuts) - especially when that opponent is betting as though he/she has the nuts.

However, when the board is QJT99 and you have Q9YZ, you are greatly favored to have a winner, although three higher full houses are possible.

Buzz

[Buzz]

[ QUOTE ]
I just read Frank Jerome's article "Completing From the Small Blind -- Deceptive Odds". At the end of it, he gives an example where SB is clearly not getting enough value for his 1/2-bet.

[/ QUOTE ]Stats Prof. - That’s for completing from the small blind with a poor starting hand before the flop. To find your true pot odds you need to know the total cost to continue until you win or fold, not just what it costs to complete the first round bet from the small blind (assuming you are don’t go “all in”).
[ QUOTE ]
I want to use these criteria to test slightly more playable hands. "How profitable is hand WXYZ in NoRaiseAha-8 given that we'll only call flop, turn, and river bets with a sufficient draw to the nuts, full house or better?"

[/ QUOTE ]That’s just too broad a question for me to be able to answer in any way I see as useful. The profitability of any particualr hand depends on how your opponents will be playing their hands and how well the flop, then turn, then river fit with your hand as compared to your opponent’s hands.

I hate to tell you how I have proceeded because maybe on your own you can come up with a better method.

If you know the specific cards involved, you can run a series of simulations and make a comparison with other specific hands you simulate or have already simulated. Then you do some reasoning, perhaps some calculating and tabulating, perhaps some more simulations, and some more reasoning. But that's my method. Maybe you can come up with a better one.

Buzz

[Truthiness24]

It seems to me that the OP's line of thinking misses the point. Even if his question was more specific, the implication seems to be that a "playbook" can be created for optimal play against a table of fish. It can't.

If you're looking for a practical answer to your question, read up on the many point systems out there, read Boston's work, and run sims or twodimes or Wilson Turbo.