Kill Pots VS Maniacs

[johnc]

Got ran over last night facing not two but 3 Kill pots in a row vs an extremely loose and ridiculousy aggressive (add to that tricky) player, the rest of the table was full of calling stations. My gut instinct is to get out of the way but is this a weak approach maybe giving up opportunities? My typical approach is tight pf, but their calling standards were so incredibly loose - ie, J3o, K2o took pots. Any ideas about playing kill pots like these?

[Onaflag]

I'll just repeat what has been said here before: You tighten up.

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My typical approach is tight pf

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Then you should be slightly tighter than usual while it's a kill pot.

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but their calling standards were so incredibly loose

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But what? You somewhat imply that you'll drop your standards to the level of the competition or at least adjust downward. If this is true, you should stop doing this and maintain your excellent standards.

Onaflag...........

[pzhon]

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I'll just repeat what has been said here before: You tighten up.

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That is a common fallacy. When your opponents are playing very loosely, it is as though there is extra blind money. This makes more hands playable.

Take a marginal hand like KJo in early position. You muck it against tight players because you will be contesting the pot with hands that tend to be better, and may have KJo dominated. Now add in a bunch of players who play J3s and K7o. Instead of being a marginal fold, KJo becomes a winner.

You can win without playing more loosely, but you won't win as much, and it will be all the more frustrating when that AA you waited for gets cracked.

[johnc]

Funny you mentioned KJo cuz I mucked that very hand 1 off the button - just could not bring myself to calling 2 cold in a kill pot. The button was the intial raiser so there was a fair chance he'd reraise. So you're saying to play these? What would be your approach with raised pots and playing these looser hands?

[theRealMacoy]

hey john,

i play against a couple of maniacs regularly along with some real calling stations. my advice is to play better starting hands than they do; however if the table is wildly loose then you can loosen up a bit as well. When you can be aggressive and try and isolate with on or two of the maniacs (push your edge when you have it), as you know your hand is going to be much better than their start. Use check raises when you can or reraise, anything to get you isolated. If this is doesn't work to drop anyone, I find wait until the night goes on a bit and some of these calling stations get a little short stacked, then hit the aggression again. Often these players might tighten up enough to be wary of cold calling two or three bets. If you play to the river, be sure to almost always bet for value with your mediocre hands against these consistent maniacs. If you consistently play back at them they will hopefully leave you alone and not take the same kind of shots at you.

Cheers,
The Real Macoy


ps. I agree that the KJ from early position was playable, given how wild and loose your table was playing. No absolutes with starting hands, just be sure to be starting with better hands than the loose maniacs / loose passives at your table.

pss
Dr. Al in 'Inside the Poker Mind' has some excellent strategy for dealing with maniacs.

[bernie]

You tighten up. Why? Because the money you lose during these kill pots is much tougher to recoup when the limit goes back to normal. You get involved in a big hand, you can easily lose 20bbs to where in the normal game you'd lose 10. That's a big hole to dig out of. The kill pots generally aren't happening frequently enough to compensate.

One factor to playing more hands is if you're able to isolate and get it HU. Multiway? Pull in the reins. KJo into a multiway kill pot? No way. Think about the size of the bets in comparison to the typical pots you will be playing during this session.

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My gut instinct is to get out of the way but is this a weak approach maybe giving up opportunities?

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Opportunities?

Here's a little secret on kill games that many, more enamored with the kill pot itself, tend to miss. On many kill games, the advantage isn't more-so on the kill pot itself, but on the other, much more common pots, where the players are playing looser trying to get a kill pot active. That's where the bread and butter of playing kill pots is. Not in the once in a while pot that comes around sometimes not for an hour at a time. That's a bonus if you win that one.

b

[pzhon]

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You tighten up. Why? Because the money you lose during these kill pots is much tougher to recoup when the limit goes back to normal.

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That has nothing to do with EV. If you are adequately bankrolled, you should take advantage of these opportunities. KJo is a clear winner against players who will play and cold-call raises with any face card.

Many players correctly muck KJo UTG, so the PokerRoom statistics (https://www.pokerroom.com/games/evstats/pairStats.php) don't tell you how much it is worth when you play it. However, almost all players limp or raise with KQo UTG. Does this "easily dominated" hand do better in a tight game, or a loose game?

KQo UTG
Loose: $1-$2 +0.10 BB/hand
Tight: $10-$20 -0.12 BB/hand

The difference of 0.22 BB/hand is huge. KQo UTG does much better in loose games, even though this leads to multi-way pots where the conventional wisdom is that offsuit Broadway cards are weaker.

By the way, though the data is tainted for the reason mentioned above, KJo UTG also does better at $1-$2 (-0.01 BB/hand) than at $10-$20 (-0.19 BB/hand). That -.01 BB/hand suggests that an above average post-flop player should play KJo UTG in $1-$2 at PokerRoom.

KJo is easily dominated, but when your opponents are playing garbage, there is a much greater chance that you dominate them than that you are dominated.

[Onaflag]

So there you have it, johnc. The results are in and I think we can safely assume that the field has been narrowed down to two choices. I'm glad this has been settled. You may choose to either A) tighten up, or B) loosen up.

I hope you find this useful and incorporate it into your game. You'll find many similiar answers on these forums to improve your play.

Good luck!

Onaflag...........

[bernie]

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That has nothing to do with EV. If you are adequately bankrolled, you should take advantage of these opportunities. KJo is a clear winner against players who will play and cold-call raises with any face card.

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If you are adequately bankrolled, you should take advantage of these opportunities.

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Treating a kill pot as a normal maniac style pot is wrong.
The variance you add to the game if you add lesser hands in these situations is huge. The variance is even higher because the limit is not constant. Recoupability of lost bets is a factor in variance of a game.

I fold KJo and KQo in normal maniac games also. We already had that discussion long ago.

b

[pzhon]

You are trying to justify playing scared. Don't assume everyone is underbankrolled for the kill pots.

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I fold KJo and KQo in normal maniac games also. We already had that discussion long ago.


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I wouldn't call it a discussion. If you would like to back up your assertions with some statistics or logical arguments, I would like to see them. You didn't support your assertions then, and you haven't done so now.

I'm not the only one to say you are wrong when you tighten up in a loose game.

Mike Caro also says to loosen up: "If it were not for the rake, you should play much more liberally in very loose games. You'd just need to play, on average, less liberally than your opponents."

Ed Miller et al. say to loosen up in loose games in SSH:
/images/graemlins/diamond.gif p. 78 "Notice that we disagree with the oft-stated saying, 'Play tight when they play loose and vice versa.' "
/images/graemlins/diamond.gif p. 82 "[Loose Games/Early position/No Raise] These are the same hands for middle position in tight games."
/images/graemlins/diamond.gif p. 51 "As we said before, multiway pots usually indicate opponents playing poor, unprofitable hands (thus contributing 'extra' money to the pot). While multiway action devalues your hand relative to some of the other hands, your overall expectation may still be increased due to the extra money. The best top pair hands -- ace-ten, king-jack, and better -- tend to benefit more from the extra money than they lose from the multiway action. They actually make more money against many bad hands."

So, why do you disagree with Caro and Miller et al. about this? Why do you disagree with the huge 0.2 BB/hand improvement in PokerRoom when playing KQo or KJo UTG in a loose game versus a tight game?

[bernie]

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You are trying to justify playing scared.

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When have I ever justified playing scared? I don't believe I ever, ever mentioned that in my reasoning for any type of play.

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You didn't support your assertions then, and you haven't done so now.

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I've done so numerous times. Back then, it was against the debate for playing hands like 98s and Ax in maniac games. Hands that all's they really do is add variance to the session. Why not just link that thread?

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I'm not the only one to say you are wrong when you tighten up in a loose game

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You also had this argument back then too. This isn't just a typical loose game. I've also never said to play tight in just a loose game. There is another factor to the equation.

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So, why do you disagree with Caro and Miller et al. about this?

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Im not disagreeing at all. Neither of them are talking about kill pots or maniac games. Why don't you find out their opinions on those before you quote them out of the context we are talking about here. You seem to see games as just either loose or tight. There is a little more to them than that. There is a big diffence between a loose aggressive game, and a loose passive game.

Again, Im not going to redo a thread done months ago just to get to the same conclusion. Post a link to it and save us both some time.

b

[bernie]

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P.85

If the pot has been raised and reraised in front of you, you must play extremely tightly, even if you do not respect the raisers. Against typical opponents play only AA-QQ and AKs. You may add JJ-TT and AK against looser raisers. If more than about thirty percent of all hands are raised and rerasied before the flop (indicating that the raises and reraises are very loose), you may also play 99, AQs-ATs, KQs-KJs, and AQ. If you play very well in large pots, you can loosen up slightly more still, but stick to the suited hands with high-card strength. Even if your opponents are extremely loose and crazy, you cannot play speculative hands profitably if you must pay three or more bets to see the flop.
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I actually advocate a little looser than this in these types of games. As I had stated in that previous thread. So you're accusation of saying I recommend playing tighter than what is recommended is false.


Any other Miller quotes you'd like to throw out?

b

[JonLines]

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Many players correctly muck KJo UTG, so the PokerRoom statistics (https://www.pokerroom.com/games/evstats/pairStats.php) don't tell you how much it is worth when you play it. However, almost all players limp or raise with KQo UTG. Does this "easily dominated" hand do better in a tight game, or a loose game?

KQo UTG
Loose: $1-$2 +0.10 BB/hand
Tight: $10-$20 -0.12 BB/hand

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Nice link pzhon, really interesting stats on pokerroom!

[jedi]

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You are trying to justify playing scared.

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When have I ever justified playing scared? I don't believe I ever, ever mentioned that in my reasoning for any type of play.


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You tighten up. Why? Because the money you lose during these kill pots is much tougher to recoup when the limit goes back to normal. You get involved in a big hand, you can easily lose 20bbs to where in the normal game you'd lose 10. That's a big hole to dig out of.

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It's implied.

[johnc]

Miller makes this point many times throughout his book which is exactly why I could not see +EV in cold calling my KJo even from one off the button. Even suited the call isn't going to make alot of sense, this maniac was definately very aggressive but he wasn't a total idiot. Combine that with the two callers in front and the blinds who were very loose anyone of which played Ax - not a situation I found myself ahead in, domination being my primary concern. On the other hand, playing hands like higher suited connectors, medium pocket pairs are for sure profitable if you can see the flop cheaply but that was never the case. Getting looser in these raised kill pots does not appear to be the best approach IMO, but...

[bernie]

At most, I would play a kill pot the same way as the regular pot. It took me awhile to get to that point though I still play tighter. I would not loosen up just because the betting rounds are now bigger. I tend to play tighter because I don't like to add that much variance in my session during those pots. Though I find these games to be much more profitable than typical games even tightened up a bit in the kill pots.

However, that doesn't mean that when a kill pot is raised and opponets get real loose and wild that you loosen up in these spots. You play them like maniac games in which, you tighten up.

Saying that most are bankrolled for playing kill games is unlikely. Most are barely bankrolled for their current limit if at all. Just browse the forum for proof of that. Just as saying anyone who is normally used to the normal limit will easily be used to the psychological swings when they blow 20 bigbets in a hand, then blow 15 in another won't be affected by the big hit. Those are the guys I have in mind when I recommend how to play kill pots.

Not the fully bankrolled, hardened to the game player.

b

[MrGrob]

I simply view a kill pot as a hand at the next higher limit where someone has just come in and posted in some random position. If I have a read on him, great, but I see no differece between these two situations. The ONLY difference that I ever see a kill game create, is when you are a leg-up...then you tighen-up your starting hands.

I have seen kills cause a table to freak-out, but once you know how they are going to freak (either everyone must now call, raise, or run like hell), just play the hand as that type of table with a random poster.

I used to think the kill changed the game...it doesn't really, it just changes the players...and once you know how they change, it is the same game at the next level.

My 2 cents.

EDIT: Yes, I know the blinds are not the same, but this view has worked for me....