This is what I think (first post)

First post so feel free to flame away if you think I am a conceited ass.....

I logged onto this forum this morning today as I do most days and read 1) a post that basically said 'I hate varience why god why is this downswing happening to me?'. 2) A post about raising k5s from MP versus a limper at 3/6.

Does anybody else not see a correlation here? Sure, it maybe that in certain situations, with rock tight blinds and a limper that always folds the turn without the nuts, this could be +EV. Same for other marginal situations like raising 33 and Ax UTG or whatever else you have to do to play the 30/20 game that has been advocated as the way forward. In the hands of a great player, I concede that these cards can contribute to an increased winrate. Also, ffor the higher limits, it is probably necessary to add a bit more deceptiion to your game (I say probably; I don't play there). But at the lower limit SH games, this last point is mostly redundant, as people aren't paying attention anyway. They're not trying to read your hand. They're just hitting the call button and trying to catch a four or five outer. Sometimes they will do so, but generally they will take it to showdown where you simply have to show them a better hand and take the money. I play 3/6, but I imgine this could apply to 5/10 also: I honestly believe that the way to beat these games is to play TIGHT. 21/15 or so. Having done this for 50K hands at 1/2 2/4 and 3/6 I have never experienced a downswing bigger than 125BB, and my BB/100 is healthy. I know I have probably run good in that time, but 50K is a halfway decent sample size and I wonder if there maybe is some merit to this argument. Sure, I probably do miss out on some marginally profitable situations (which I may or may not be good enough to take advantage of post flop.) But I think that this is counterbalanced by a lack of mad swings - the resulting tilt effect of which would probably eliminate any +EV that I could expect to find there.

I suppose my main point is this: Varience seems to be such a big issue for a lot of posters here. There must be a correlation between big swings and playing marginal cards out of position. Big swings cause sub-obtimal play, self-doubt and fuzzy thinking, eroding the +EV of these marginal plays. Deception at lower limits is hardly necessary. So why put yourself through all this? If the difference between playing 27/21 and 21/15 is effectively neutral, why bother with the emotional trauma? Just play good cards, show them to the fish, and scoop the pot more often than you don't.

Cue my first 300BB downswing.

[wheelz]

Because one player raised K5 doesn't mean everyone here does. Maybe you should read more than 2 posts.

1) I have read more than two posts. I've read nearly every hand post on this forum for the past year.

2) I was using the K5 hand as an example of a marginal hand - something which anyone playing in a very loose aggressive manner must play a lot of.

3) The tone of my post was not rude or aggressive. Why make yours?

[wheelz]

I only read the first paragraph, and the start of the post suggested you were a conceited ass, so I just assumed the tone of your post was either rude or aggressive, sorry

I'm such a hypocrite, maybe I should've read more than one paragraph /images/graemlins/grin.gif

np

[ArturiusX]

I was about to flame, but then I realised your post has merit.

One thing I strongly disagree with is your tilt thing. Its when AA/KK get cracked that the tilt starts, not because my 95s played on the button missed the flop.

[kurosh]

Two things tilt me the most.

1) When I make a good read in a marginal situation and the motherfucker sucks out anyway. Example: Button open-raises, I 3-bet TT in the BB, he caps. Flop is Q62r. I bet and he raises or I CR and he 3-bets. Turn is a K, putting 2 hearts on the board. CC. River some low heart, CC. He shows A7h and I tilt.

2) Losing money that means something to me. In other words, playing when I'm underrolled.


I'm tilting like a pinball machine on a rollercoaster right now.

I agree with this - sort of. I think it would perhaps be neessary to identify two different sorts of tilt. The first sort is of the AA cracked three times in a row variety - the second is a kind of long term, insidious tilt, resulting from a continuing run of losing, causing self-doubt and sub-optimal play. In a way this second type is potentially more dangerous, as it relates to all aspects of your game. Although AA cracked is frustrating, it is also possible after calming down to shrug and say 'can't win em all'. If your whole game seems to lead to continual loss, this can be more psychologically (and financially) damaging. Haven't really thought this through, just an idea......

[Trix]

For me 30/20 isn´t the way to go either, though I may end up in that area anyway.

So far I´ve gone from 16/12 to ~24-25/16-17 and will probably go higher as I keep searching for more profitable spots to get involved and probably find more as my postflop play improve.

I´m pretty sure one can beat 5/10 for a good clip playing around 21/15, but as you get better you will find more +EV spots to get involved and both numbers will go up.
It´s not about trying to hit 30/20, it´s just about playing whenever you think you have an edge and the better you get, the more this will happen and the more you will see it and get in.

[ipp147]

Good post.

I would also agree that many of the people try to make these plays as the respected posters Nate, Schneids etc say they are +ev. For many players they are not.

I also think its hard to make the marginal plays when multi-tabling.

As you move up levels however and the shorter games often play shorter (3 or 4 handed) then you need to play these situations well, this is the other trade-off. Avoiding these marginal hands will stunt your poker growth.

[stripsqueez]

i advocate tight in low limit games more than i do it - sometimes i run into silly passive games that i can run over with some reckless pre-flop choices and wanton aggro

it should be a big part of anyones game to be able to play very tight for a long time but eventually just doing that wont be enough

and tight is boring

stripsqueez - chickenhawk

[TheCaptain]

you forgot to mention the pathetic stats posts, moving up posts, and brag posts, wait, what were we complaining about again?

[MyssGuy]

[ QUOTE ]
One thing I strongly disagree with is your tilt thing. Its when AA/KK get cracked that the tilt starts, not because my 95s played on the button missed the flop.

[/ QUOTE ]

Why these two hands, AA and 95s?!?!?! My AA being cracked by the 95s is what actually started my TILT yesterday!! Begin 300bb downswing (I'm half way there).....

[kiddo]

[ QUOTE ]
) When I make a good read in a marginal situation and the motherfucker sucks out anyway.

[/ QUOTE ]

Yep, specially when I do this read against a good aggressive player that tries to move me of my hand. I call his turnattack with almost nothing putting him on excatly the hand he got and he hits river.

So I havn't read all the Posts, but you suggest that me being aggressive on a TPGK Flop where I know that my opponent has called ace-high I just fold because I know he will river his ace?
Because that is what happens. It is not about taking YOUR ace-high to showdown, but to select the correct "marginal hands" to go for showdown and not because you are seeing 30% flops you have to go to showdown all those times.

[ QUOTE ]
So I havn't read all the Posts, but you suggest that me being aggressive on a TPGK Flop where I know that my opponent has called ace-high I just fold because I know he will river his ace?
Because that is what happens. It is not about taking YOUR ace-high to showdown, but to select the correct "marginal hands" to go for showdown and not because you are seeing 30% flops you have to go to showdown all those times.

[/ QUOTE ]

I'm not suggesting this at all. The opposite. Play your good hands aggressively and don't worry about being rivered, because obviously you take the money in the end. My point is that marginal hands which may be long term winners if plyed correctly have a kind of 'meta-quality' that may detracted from their potential +EV. I'm saying that it is these hands that increase variance, and cause a type of secondary tilt syndrome, potentially making them -EV. Basically if your experiencing a lot of 150+BB swings, you either have to have supreme self confidence, or your game will suffer. Playing a less variance-prone style, I'm suggesting, although perhaps missing out on some immediate +EV situations, compensates for this by dimishing the psychological impact of big swings that can turn potentially winning situations into losers.

[Monty Cantsin]

"... I should like to say what style is. It belongs to people of whom you normally say, 'They have no style.' This is not a signifying structure nor a reflected organization, nor a spontaneous inspiration, nor an orchestration, nor a little piece of music. It is an assemblage, an assemblage of enunciation. A style is managing to stammer in one's own language. It is difficult, because there has to be a need for such stammering. Not being a stammerer in one's speech, but being a stammerer of language itself. Being like a foreigner in one's own language. Constructing a line of flight. The most striking examples for me are Kafka, Beckett, Gherasim Luca and Godard...

You can always object that we are choosing favourable examples, Kafka the Czech Jew writing in German, the Irish Beckett writing English and French, Luca, of Romanian origin, and even the Swiss Godard. And so? This is not the problem for any of them. We must be bilingual even in a single language, we must have a minor language inside our own language, we must create a minor use of our own language. Multilingualism is not merely the property of several systems each of which would be homogeneous in itself; it is primarily the line of flight or of variation which affects each system by stopping it from being homogeneous. Not speaking like an Irishman or a Romanian in a language other than one's own, but on the contrary speaking in one's own language like a foreigner. Proust says: 'Great literature is written in a sort of foreign language. To each sentence we attach a meaning, or at any rate a mental image, which is often a mistranslation. But in great literature all our mistranslations result in beauty.' This is the good way to read: all mistranslations are good -- always provided that they do not consist in interpretations, but relate to the use of the book, that they multiply its use, that they create yet another language insides its language. 'Great literature is written in a sort of foreign language...' That is the definition of style...."

- Gilles Deleuze

/mc

[wackjob]

A good player is changing his game from LAG to TAG as needs be. A good player realizes that playing for a certain set of stats is a bit silly. When the table is full of maniacs, you are playing super tight & super aggressive. When you are playing a bunch of TAGs & rocks, you are playing a quite LAG style & the pots you are losing you are more than making up for with steals.

Saying that playing K5 is bad or good is pointless. In some situations it is +EV in others, it is not. Relating variance to the tightness of your starting hands is insane as well.

The main reason people complain about variance, IMO, is that they are not the great SH players they think they are, and they are not BR'd for the type of play they encounter as they move up levels.

[TheCaptain]

[ QUOTE ]
In some situations it is +EV in others, it is not. Relating variance to the tightness of your starting hands is insane as well.

[/ QUOTE ]

Exactly. Standard Deviation is pretty similar between different styles. Someone's BB / 100 is the key to determine how many whiny downswing posts we are going to get out of them.

[Emmitt2222]

Just thought I should point out that you are incredibly lucky that you have never had a downswing over 125BB's because even good players with solid winrates have 300BB+ downswings. I have been playing tight [22/16] and I just had a 250BB downswing. If you play long enough it willl happen to you. 50k hands is not as big a sample size as you think, trust me. I think you are biased because you play tight and have gotten lucky with no bad downswings, but there is some merit to your post. Other people have addressed everything else.

[luckyharr]

Just want to point out that I play 30/20 and don't open 33 or Ax under the gun nor K5s from MP. I'd open with K5s from the button, maybe the CO if the button is tight.