SSHE & Microlimit online preflop adjustments.

[pokernicus]

I've read in at least one thread and seen it implicitly suggested in others that the pre-flop guidelines from SSHE should be amended for online microlimit play -- especially since these games generally seem to be tighter than the loose 5-8 to a flop B&M games that motivated SSHE.

I was wondering how, if at all, the pre-flop guidelines should be changed. To initiate this discussion, let me throw out a few directions.

1 - refining the guidelines to consider what happens when you're the first to enter the pot (e.g., you might raise some more of the "calling" hands from middle or late position).

2 - in relation to the above, blind stealing can happen (maybe not too often, but occasionally) in microlimit online games, so maybe it's worth discussing some guidelines for which hands to consider stealing with.

3 - in tighter games you have to be more wary of playing drawing hands. So, should you really be playing hands like 54s when you're in the cutoff seat and no one has entered the pot yet? (in SSHE, it is suggested that one limp with 54s in late position -- but for this to be reasonable, you have to implicitly assume that others are in the pot with you when you limp so you have the right implied odds on your drawing hand -- which is basically consistent with the type of games SSHE was written for).

Apologies if this topic has been discussed ad nauseum already on this forum -- couldn't find the right search terms. If so, I would appreciate if someone posted (or PM'ed) a relevant link.

[RatFink]

Starting hand charts and pre-flop guidelines are starting points. They always come with qualifiers that you need to adjust based on the texture of the game and the players you are interacting with most frequently.

If you feel you need a variation from the starting hand charts in SSHE, you could look at King Yao's recommendations from Weighing the Odds in Hold'Em which do take into account the situational differences of limpers, raises, called raises before you act for early, middle and late positions. He doesn't cover blind play in any detail outside of his Shorthanded section, which covers not starting hand guidelines but opponent & positional situations to identify and exploit.

[Aaron W.]

The focus of SSH is postflop play. Please don't forget that simple fact.

[pokernicus]

I definitely agree that you can't really come up with universal hard/fast rules for how to play pre-flop (except for a few rare cases; e.g., you should raise/re-raise with AA). Poker is situational.

But I figured it would still be worthwhile to discuss pre-flop play more comprehensively for the case of the microlimit games you find online these days. These differ from the kinds of loose B&M games that motivated the SSHE guidelines.

These discussions don't have to result in a hard-fast starting hands chart, but could be more like guidelines (with some rationale behind the choices).

You might disagree that this is useful, or believe that this material is better covered elsewhere. If so, that's OK. We can agree to disagree and move on.

BTW, thanks for the suggestion on King Yao's book. I've been meaning to check it out, but haven't done so. I have even more reason to now.

Regarding the second reply -- please don't get me wrong. Pre-flop play is only part of the equation. I think that SSHE gives an excellent treatment of post-flop play and the advice can be used to do well in a variety of small-stakes games (whether online or in a B&M room). Nonetheless, I believe that the decision whether to enter a pot in the first place (and the manner in which you do so) is extremely important, and has a significant impact on a player's win rate.

[tiltaholic]

hi

my post isn't intented to be harsh so please don't take it that way.

the short answer is this. if it could be made into a chart, someone would have done it already. it can't be done. that's what the forums function to do.

what you are kindof suggesting is to distill ALL of the nuances of preflop poker play into a chart-like entity. it just can't be done.

[ QUOTE ]
I definitely agree that you can't really come up with universal hard/fast rules for how to play pre-flop (except for a few rare cases; e.g., you should raise/re-raise with AA). Poker is situational.

But I figured it would still be worthwhile to discuss pre-flop play more comprehensively for the case of the microlimit games you find online these days. These differ from the kinds of loose B&M games that motivated the SSHE guidelines.

These discussions don't have to result in a hard-fast starting hands chart, but could be more like guidelines (with some rationale behind the choices).

You might disagree that this is useful, or believe that this material is better covered elsewhere. If so, that's OK. We can agree to disagree and move on.

BTW, thanks for the suggestion on King Yao's book. I've been meaning to check it out, but haven't done so. I have even more reason to now.

Regarding the second reply -- please don't get me wrong. Pre-flop play is only part of the equation. I think that SSHE gives an excellent treatment of post-flop play and the advice can be used to do well in a variety of small-stakes games (whether online or in a B&M room). Nonetheless, I believe that the decision whether to enter a pot in the first place (and the manner in which you do so) is extremely important, and has a significant impact on a player's win rate.

[/ QUOTE ]

All of this has been covered ad nauseum, if you care to search for various posts and articles. There's no point in distinguishing between 'loose B&M games' and 'the microlimit games you find online these days'; each present different situational opportunities depending on the game's unique characteristics. As mentioned, PF charts are nothing more than a starting guideline. The concepts presented in SSHE are valid in any game, IMO.

Also, read this. (http://archiveserver.twoplustwo.com/showflat.php?Cat=&Board=&Number=495010&page=&view= &sb=5&o=&fpart=)

As a sidenote, I can think of situations where limping aces would be correct. Again, it's situational.

[pokernicus]

Thanks for posting the link. Certainly any more relevant links are highly appreciated.

I tried searching under terms like "preflop strategy" and "preflop guidelines" among others for anything over the last two years. I came across a few excellent general strategy posts (especially the ones written by Ed Miller), and of course a lot more posts of the form "I had KK in middle position, and lost to someone playing 84o when he caught an 8 on the turn and a 4 on the river, where did I go wrong..."

Perhaps what I'm suggesting is a very tall order. Definitely the SSHE starting hand charts can't capture all the nuances of pre-flop play - but were meant as a starting point for the kinds of conditions you _often_ find in a small-stakes B&M game.

I still believe that the typical conditions you might find in small stakes B&M differ from those that you find in a microlimits online game. And as a result, there are some different factors you have to keep in mind when determining if and how to enter a pot.

For example, I would say that you are more likely to be the first person to enter the pot in most microlimits game from say late position, than you might be in most small-stakes B&M games. Of course, you can always come up with examples of small stakes B&M games where only 2 people usually see that flop, and come up with online games where 8 people see the flop -- though I believe these are the exceptions rather than the norm. As a result, from late position, you should be more wary of being the first to limp in with drawing hands like 54s that do better in large multi-way pots.

Maybe what would be worth compiling is a list of factors you ought to be considering when making a decision about whether to (and how to) enter a pot pre-flop beyond what might be captured in a basic chart. For example, a typical pre-flop chart only considers your current position, whether the pot has been re/raised, and in some cases how many others are in the pot with you (and of course what your hole cards are /images/graemlins/smile.gif).

Other things you might want to consider are the kinds of players who've entered before you (e.g., if you believe they are weak enough that you can outplay them after the flop, you might consider calling with weaker holdings). The kinds of players who still have to act (e.g., if you expect someone to raise after you, you might consider folding some of the more marginal hands, but if you expect a fair number of people to call a large portion of the time, you may want to play some more drawing hands), etc. I suppose it's a tall order to consider all possible criteria one can come up with, but it certainly seems feasible to at least come up with a short list of the factors that tend to be more important beyond those captured in a starting-hands chart.

BTW, I realize that the AA example in my previous post might not have been the best one -- e.g., if you think it's highly likely that someone will raise after you, then it might be worth trying to pull off a limp re-raise. Or, if you only expect one person besides you to see a flop, you can consider limping because your opponent might be less likely to put you on Aces, etc., and you have a chance at a bigger pot, etc.

I suppose that one can come up with such nuances for every hand in every position, which could be too broad a topic to discuss in one thread. But familiarity with those nuances do make a difference. My hope was that any resulting discussions from this thread would help people better understand those nuances.

[Aaron W.]

[ QUOTE ]
Maybe what would be worth compiling is a list of factors you ought to be considering when making a decision about whether to (and how to) enter a pot pre-flop beyond what might be captured in a basic chart. For example, a typical pre-flop chart only considers your current position, whether the pot has been re/raised, and in some cases how many others are in the pot with you (and of course what your hole cards are /images/graemlins/smile.gif).

[/ QUOTE ]

Maybe my memory is wrong, but isn't the essentially what the preflop chapter of SSH does? And I don't mean staring at the chart provided, but I mean actually *READING* the chapter.

[pokernicus]

I think the actual pre-flop chapter in SSHE is well written and it would be a bad idea to rely purely on the hand chart without looking at the actual chapter preceding it.

The chapter does suggest some factors, but I think there are many others that are not considered. Returning to my example about small suited connectors. SSHE suggests that you play these for one bet from late position. It doesn't suggest that you ever fold small suited connectors if you are the first person to enter a pot from late position -- but I can imagine situations where folding is the most sensible play. (One can, of course, try to infer this from the statement that small connectors are speculative hands, and that such hands prefer big pots - but that might be a bit of a leap for some people). This is one example that I can think of, but there are possibly others that I can't think of because I may not yet have the experience to realize it. I don't view this ommission as a bug, but rather as a feature. In SSHE, the clear assumption is that you're playing a sufficiently loose game that it's unlikely that someone in late position will be the first one entering the pot. In that case, it doesn't make sense to qualify the advice on small suited connectors in this way.

Please don't get me wrong. I think SSHE is a great book. I've read and re-read it and referred to it often. It's because I invested time to study books like SSHE (and ToP, HPFAP, HoHv1&2, and several others) and partipated in the 2+2 forums, that I've managed to consistently perform well in both limit and no-limit hold'em cash games and tournaments from the get go. Of course, I still make "textbook" mistakes.

Like pretty much all of us here, I'm always striving to improve my play. Part of that involves trying to figure out the subtleties/nuances/etc. that aren't explicitly covered in these texts. Clearly SSHE can't possibly tell the whole story. It's confined to a few hundred pages, and has to distill the salient features. I was hoping that this thread could be used to flesh out some of that story. But, perhaps I'm wrong about this. If so, I'm happy to drop the topic or try to find some more narrowly defined situation that might better lend itself to discussion.

[Aaron W.]

[ QUOTE ]
The chapter does suggest some factors, but I think there are many others that are not considered. Returning to my example about small suited connectors. SSHE suggests that you play these for one bet from late position. It doesn't suggest that you ever fold small suited connectors if you are the first person to enter a pot from late position -- but I can imagine situations where folding is the most sensible play. (One can, of course, try to infer this from the statement that small connectors are speculative hands, and that such hands prefer big pots - but that might be a bit of a leap for some people).

[/ QUOTE ]

If the leap of "speculative hands prefer big pots" to "not being the first into the pot in late position" is a big one, then the person in question probably has not started thinking beyond the two cards in front him. With such a player, no amount of textbook reading will ever be sufficient, as the subtleties from hand to hand, table to table, and situation to situation are too numerous to put into any reasonably sized book.

I think this statement from the Preface of "Theory of Poker" is the *MOST* crucial one for all microlimit players to understand.

[ QUOTE ]
Beginning poker players sometimse ask, "What do you do in this particular situation?" There is really no correct answer to that question because it's the wrong question...
The right question is: "What do yo uconsider in this particular situation before determining what to do?

[/ QUOTE ]

In 5 lines, you can outline the basic things to consider when entering a pot preflop:

1) What type of hand do I have?
2) How many players are in the pot?
3) How many players are left to act?
4) Is my hand approrpriate for the situation given by 2 and 3?
5) Are there any specific reads which affect my decision?

Number 5 is the wildcard, as this one begins to lead into the questions of blind stealing, isolation raises, and so forth. But you can't get a good answer to question 5 if you can't answer questions 1-4 first. To beat microlimit games, all you need are questions 1-4. Question 5 comes in later, after you've wrapped your mind around the much more difficult question of postflop play (because your postflop skill affects your preflop decision).

[ QUOTE ]
I was hoping that this thread could be used to flesh out some of that story. But, perhaps I'm wrong about this.

[/ QUOTE ]

There's an entire archive of posts which have been trying to flesh out various aspects of the story, and there's lots of information about preflop play. But I really think you're just asking the wrong question.

[pokernicus]

[ QUOTE ]
If the leap of "speculative hands prefer big pots" to "not being the first into the pot in late position" is a big one, then the person in question probably has not started thinking beyond the two cards in front him. With such a player, no amount of textbook reading will ever be sufficient, as the subtleties from hand to hand, table to table, and situation to situation are too numerous to put into any reasonably sized book.

[/ QUOTE ]

Agreed. I picked this example because it was one I could think of. There may be other more subtle examples that I can't think of -- but of course, if I could think of them, I wouldn't have started this whole thread in the first place. /images/graemlins/smile.gif

[ QUOTE ]

I think this statement from the Preface of "Theory of Poker" is the *MOST* crucial one for all microlimit players to understand.

Beginning poker players sometimse ask, "What do you do in this particular situation?" There is really no correct answer to that question because it's the wrong question...
The right question is: "What do yo uconsider in this particular situation before determining what to do?

[/ QUOTE ]

Absolutely. As I wrote in one of my previous posts:

[ QUOTE ]
Maybe what would be worth compiling is a list of factors you ought to be considering when making a decision about whether to (and how to) enter a pot pre-flop beyond what might be captured in a basic chart. For example, a typical pre-flop chart only considers your current position, whether the pot has been re/raised, and in some cases how many others are in the pot with you (and of course what your hole cards are ).


[/ QUOTE ]

I very much had the preface of ToP in mind when I phrased the question this way.

[ QUOTE ]

In 5 lines, you can outline the basic things to consider when entering a pot preflop:

1) What type of hand do I have?
2) How many players are in the pot?
3) How many players are left to act?
4) Is my hand approrpriate for the situation given by 2 and 3?
5) Are there any specific reads which affect my decision?

Number 5 is the wildcard, as this one begins to lead into the questions of blind stealing, isolation raises, and so forth. But you can't get a good answer to question 5 if you can't answer questions 1-4 first. To beat microlimit games, all you need are questions 1-4. Question 5 comes in later, after you've wrapped your mind around the much more difficult question of postflop play (because your postflop skill affects your preflop decision).


[/ QUOTE ]

Those questions are right on the mark for what any player worth his salt should be asking. I'm merely suggesting that you perhaps you can refine that list; i.e., if you refer to the first list as 'first-level' questions, what would be good 'second-level' questions.

For example, there is the question of how much it costs me right now to enter this pot (or better yet, how much is it likely to cost me to enter this pot -- e.g., how likely is there to be a raise behind -- which is definitely related to your question #5).

Along these lines, one could start to think of how #5 might affect the decision. For example, if UTG is fishy and raises pre-flop with a lot of weak hands, and tends to become very passive post flop, I might consider playing more marginal holdings in a pot s/he were involved with than if UTG were TAG and very tricky.

It's likely that this suggestion on my part of a second-level list of questions is not very good. The number of second-level questions may already grow exponentially But at the same time, I haven't given sufficient though to whether that's the case.

Since I can't come up with a good example of such second-level questions based on poker, maybe I can give an analogy based on chess. To make a decision in chess, you have to consider the relative merits of the position on the board. One simple high-level approximation would be to figure out who has more material (and giving proper weighting to that material). In many common situations (especially for a beginning player), that will be good enough to assess who is doing better (granted the highest-level question one could ask is whether the opponents king is check-mated, but most chess players don't constantly ask themselves that at each position...). A series of lower-level questions might be: Does my opponent have any specific threats on the very next move? What is the mobility of my pieces (e.g., do I have a bad bishop or hemmed in knight)? How is my pawn structure (e.g., do I have any isolated pawns)? Who has the initiative? Do I have any weak squares? Are any of my pieces vulnerable to capture (e.g., a hemmed in knight, a trapped queen, an isolated pawn on an open file)? Is my King vulnerable to checkmate? And the list goes on...

Clearly no book can teach someone to consider all these questions, and you'd probably run out of time trying to answer all of them. Good chess players can automatically filter out the irrelevant questions and consider the handful that are the most important. I suspect that good poker players can also filter out the myriad of factors involved in making a decision, and focus on the few that matter most.

But some factors are more important than others. For example, what's my opponents threat? (Or in a related sense, are any of my pieces vulnerable to capture?) If you teach someone to just ask that one more question, they are likely to make better decisions. Believe it or not, as obvious as that question might seem, many people (even very strong players) fail to ask it sometimes.

Beyond a basic list of questions for poker (and to be more narrow in scope, for pre-flop play in microlimits hold'em), I am sure there are many others. Of those other questions, I'm interested in trying to figure some good second-level questions to ask. Perhaps the exercise is too complicated, but I am sure that even thinking about it will, in the long run, make me a better player.

[ QUOTE ]
There's an entire archive of posts which have been trying to flesh out various aspects of the story, and there's lots of information about preflop play. But I really think you're just asking the wrong question.

[/ QUOTE ]

I'm sure there are some really great threads out there. Someone already pointed me to one -- and I'm sure there are others. If you can think of a thread that's worth reading, and have a link (or can suggest non-obvious search terms that might lead to a hit; e.g., "Ed Miller exploiting reads preflop...") please let me know.

I did try the search function, but it didn't turn up much -- or rather it turned up way too much that wasn't quite relevant.

[Aaron W.]

[ QUOTE ]
Those questions are right on the mark for what any player worth his salt should be asking. I'm merely suggesting that you perhaps you can refine that list; i.e., if you refer to the first list as 'first-level' questions, what would be good 'second-level' questions.

[/ QUOTE ]

Before I get into this some more, I want to re-emphasize something: Postflop play is many many times more important than preflop play. There's a reason that the preflop chapter is only some 50 pages out of the 300 pages of text. As long as you have the solid preflop fundamentals ('first-level' questions), it doesn't really matter what you do. A long time ago, there were some very long, heavily argued debates about raising AJo and KQo in early position. But in truth, they were arguing about differences which were probably on the order of .1 SB. When you reach postflop plays, you're talking about plays that vary by as much as 2-3 SB on the flop, and 1-2 BB on the turn and river. Those preflop differences are essentially negligible as there are too many factors which affect the end result.

To the best of my understanding, all of the 'second-level' questions come down to your ability to assess the other players and your ability relative to theirs.

For example, suppose there is a limper and you've got KTs in middle position. What sorts of lines of reasoning can you follow? Of course, you start with the basics.

1) What type of hand do I have? KTs is a two-way hand. It has high card strength if it's a short-handed pot, plus it has mulit-way strength with the flush possibilities (there's a little straight action there, but it's weaker because of the larger gap).
2) How many players are in the pot? Just one.
3) How many players are left to act? Three plus the blinds.
4) Is my hand appropriate for the situation given by 2 and 3? The hand is definitely worth playing in this spot.

Now the thinking goes to 'level two'. (This is longer and more methodical than what I would usually do, but this is really for illustrative purposes.)

5) Are there any specific reads which affect my decision?

Who is the limper? He's a relatively tight player preflop. Since he limped in early position, I know he has a decent hand. He knows how to raise preflop, so it's probably not a premium hand. His postflop game is pretty straight-forward, leaning towards the weak-tight side.

Who are the players left to act? They all seem loose preflop. I could probably get two limpers if I limp, but if I raise, I may get one or zero. They seem generally passive and I haven't seen anything special out of them postflop.

What about the blinds? They seem pretty average. Neither of them has done anything note-worthy yet.

Do I want to raise or call? If I raise, I can probably keep this pot 3-4 handed. I also expect to have the button a lot. Limping would cause the pot to be 5-6 handed. That gives me pot-pumping opportunities if I flop a draw.

The limper's hand is probably about equal in strength on average to my hand. Sometimes I'll have him dominated when he has QT/JT and sometimes I'll be dominated by KJ/KQ. However, I know that his play is straight-forward enough that I can probably tell on the flop whether he has a pair. This is even more true if I raise.

If I limp, I'm in middle position with some loose/bad players acting after me. My pot-pumping won't be as effective here because I won't likely be able to trap them for two or more bets. I'll bet, and they'll just call. This is unfavorable. But they will also call down with second and third pair if I flop top pair. That's good. I can probably also get away from losing hands if I get raised on the turn because I haven't seen anything fancy out of them.

Decision: Both spots are good. I think the heads up situation is a little better, so I'll raise.

As I said, usually, I don't think this all through. I look at my hand, see the weak limper, and try to decide if I can get heads up with him. If I think I can, I raise. If not, I limp. This tendency has much to do with the fact that I expect that I'm a much better postflop player than the limper. If I had any reason to believe that he was a strong player, I would limp.

Not all decisions require adjustment. AA will always get raised (*ALWAYS*); 72o always gets mucked. Sometimes hands require very little extra information (T9s vs many limpers is a limp) sometimes you need to think a little more (T9s with one loose MP limper and I'm in the cutoff...).

This whole line of reasoning, however, falls under the simple premise set for in the training wheels post:

[ QUOTE ]
The goal of preflop play is to maximize your time spent playing after the flop against weak players and weak hands and minimize it against strong players and strong hands.

[/ QUOTE ]

All I want to do is put myself in a position to win. With the KTs example, if I can beat the guy heads up and I can probably get heads up, then I'll try to get heads up with him. If I can't, I won't.

Making lists of all the possible considerations is a waste of time. You should definitely take the time to think about what might be on such a list (imagine all sorts of playing styles for you villains, and think about what aspects of their game you can exploit and how it could be done). As it turns out, it's all very straight-forward. Play short-handed hands short-handed and play multi-way hands in multi-way pots. Strong hands do better against aggressive players than weak hands. Speculative hands like free cards, so they like passive players. (Edit: Let me also add that you want to play postflop more often against bad players than good players, regardless of their playing style.) It's all what you would expect it to be if you just spent a few minutes thinking about it.

Now that you've read this, go study your postflop game. It's many many times more important than preflop play.

[Baloosh]

Post of the month.

Excellent content all around.

[Felipe]

[ QUOTE ]
hi

my post isn't intented to be harsh so please don't take it that way.

the short answer is this. if it could be made into a chart, someone would have done it already. it can't be done. that's what the forums function to do.

what you are kindof suggesting is to distill ALL of the nuances of preflop poker play into a chart-like entity. it just can't be done.

[/ QUOTE ]

Here's (http://www.geocities.com/wencer/OhGeeTee_SSH_Chart.xls) your chart. A SSH preflop strategy guide (for the super novice intro beginner type) Credit goes to OhGeeTee at 2+2. Thanks OhGeeTee.

Nothing can take the place of reason. And no chart can top SSH. These are guidelines.

[ QUOTE ]
Returning to my example about small suited connectors. SSHE suggests that you play these for one bet from late position. It doesn't suggest that you ever fold small suited connectors if you are the first person to enter a pot from late position

[/ QUOTE ]
This is simply incorrect. From page 53:

"Against few opponents weak speculative hands like 6/images/graemlins/heart.gif 5/images/graemlins/heart.gif and J/images/graemlins/diamond.gif 8/images/graemlins/diamond.gif may not make enough when they get lucky to make up for all the preflop and flop bets lost when they miss."

That's pretty clearly explained, IMO.

I think as you get more acquainted with the text (through re-readings) you'll be amazed at how much "omitted" stuff is actually in there. I still am.

[FlopMe]

Great post. Thanks for typing all that up and the thought you put into it.

[pokernicus]

Aaron, your post was simply excellent. I feel like I am a better poker player for having read it. Thank you! I really appreciate the time you took to write it (and the other posts in this thread), and also the manner in which you chose to do so.