Link to interesting High-stakes pot regarding blind play

[flair1239]

Link (http://forumserver.twoplustwo.com/showflat.php?Cat=&Number=2433068&page=0&view=colla psed&sb=5&o=14&fpart=1&vc=1)

[thejameser]

interesting. thanks. i fall into the "probably do not defend enough" category. i am working on it though.

[chief444]

Very interesting. I think (as usual) Nate made a good point about there maybe being a large range that is close to breakeven. I could see that being true. I'd prefer to play anything close to breakeven though in these situation for reasons stated elsewhere in that thread...that is to try to keep people from stealing. This is a very good topic. I'm anxious for sure to get a more adequate sample size in my own data to start looking at this in more detail.

[flair1239]

[ QUOTE ]
that is to try to keep people from stealing.

[/ QUOTE ]

Do you think that we (being 2/4-5/10 players), realise any meta-game benefit from being a loose defender though. I am not arguing the point on the higher levels, but I see some important differences.

1. There are more passive players at our levles so a raise from a steal position is more likely to be a legitimate raising hand, then it would be from a good aggressive player.

2. Even at 5/10 our player pools are so large, that I really don't think too many people are taking notice of our defending standards/frequency. So we don't get to benefit from the "meta-game" considerations.

That said I am intrigued by the concept of playing suited junk, it would help satisfy my inner donkey.

[chief444]

I think the meta game benefits are minimal at best for party games where the pool of players is huge and generally unobservant. This is probably true at 15/30 as well. However, if you defend a few times with marginal hands that are ~0EV anyway and just one time per night or so someone passes up a steal attempt to let you either win the blinds with no flop or see the flop for free when you would have folded then it's worth it. I think players definitely notice in blind situations. I'll raise with very marginal hands against a SB who tends to just complete and hope to see a free flop. I'll 3-bet very liberally against a SB who tries to steal a couple of times. It's not that unusual for me to notice people just folding more often after this. Sometimes I'm sure it's coincidence. Sometimes I'm sure it's not.

I think people notice more in short handed games if for no other reason just because the situations occur more often. But also better players in short handed games pay more attention to this and are more likely to consider PT/PE blind stats.

You're playing 5/10 full aren't you? I think it definitely applies there. For one thing there aren't as many 5/10 full games. A lot of them have somewhat observant opponents. And they're generally somewhat weak/tight from what I've seen.