Choose your seat (complex)

[TStoneMBD]

30/60 game and youre about to sit down.

seat 1 is the worst player at the table. not too fishy but hes sorta dumb. misses bets, is predictable etc.

seat 2 is a highly aggressive player but he is a little too loose and is a poor handreader often making bad call downs.

seat 3 plays well preflop but is passive postflop

seat 4 is 46/12/1 over 39 hands.

seat 5 is a winning player but hes tight passive. he makes some stupid chases sometimes though with flop peels and never bluffs. he likes to call down alot.


if you could sit anywhere between these players where would it be?

[Spicymoose]

Initially you would think to sit behind the worst player, but that seat isn't too good because you have a hard to play against player on your left. Furthermore, you don't make that much money blind stealing because both him and one further left defend too much (for you).

It would be nice to seat between 4 and 5, as you get to isolate a very loose player, and you get to steal 5's blinds. A bonus is that when you steal on the button, you will get to play seat 1 a ton, and make lots of money off of him. You are also opposite the agro guy, so are at a safe distance.

I like between 4-5.

I can't even find another seat that compares.

Edit: I guess my initial seat of between 1-2 is decent, but you really have to know how to use the agro guy to your left, which can be hard.

[Catt]

I read Spicymoose's response but I disagree and am going to sit between 1 and 2. Having a very aggro guy on my left isn't ideal, but if he's very aggro and a bad hand-reader to boot, it is pretty easy to adjust to him -- there are going to be lots of opportunities to have him bet our hand for us and trap other players who see the flop (like the passive post-flop guy to his left and the worst player to our right), and lots of opps to C/R him and let him make his bad calldowns. I want to act after the worst player at the table barring counter-arguments, and I think tight-passive in seat 5 is a reasonable button on our BB (though he's a winning player), so I don't think the seat 2 guy is enough of a counterargument to forego sitting on his right. Seat 4 is just about totally unknown and I haven't a clue how he plays postflop, so I can't really evaluate - call him unknown and take the best seat I can find, which I think is between 1 and 2.

[Spicymoose]

If seat 4 was after 1000 hands, would you then choose between 4-5? I am currently unsure of how many hands I need to know a player is too loose, and have posted in the Probability forum for someone to help me. I know people always throw out numbers like 50, or 100, or whatever, but at any number of hands, we can have some sort of confidence interval. I think that even though this is only 39 hands, we still know his VPIP is probably too high a good portion of the time.

I agree that seat 1-2 is good if you can know how to use it. My main problem is that a lot of our money comes from blind stealing on the button, and in this situation we will be up against relatively good blind defenders. They do have many post flop mistakes, but the agro guy is helped automatically by being in a blind stealing situation. Seat 4-5 rocks because when we have SB, we are stealing against a tighty, and when we are in the button, we are stealing against a tighty and a horrible BB.

[poker1O1]

at first I thought it was between 1 and 2, then I read the posts and thought maybe it was between 4 and 5, then, I thought some more and decided it was between 3 and 4 because you'll be able to steal so many blinds.

[Spicymoose]

[ QUOTE ]
at first I thought it was between 1 and 2, then I read the posts and thought maybe it was between 4 and 5, then, I thought some more and decided it was between 3 and 4 because you'll be able to steal so many blinds.

[/ QUOTE ]

I don't get your response. You choose 3-4 primarily (at least all that you said) because of steals. 4-5 is way better than 3-4 for steals. In 3-4 you have a what seams to be pretty loose guy (but a bit unknown) in the BB when you are SB. Yeah, you have it decent when you are button, and have a tight BB, but he knows how to play, so when he does, you won't be making all that much money. But in 4-5 you get a good SB vs BB steal and although you won't automatically steal when you are in the button, post flop you will be playing against a guy making tons of mistakes.

[climber]

without reading other responses i say between 4 and 5

Edited: yeah i gotta say that between 4 and 5 is looking more and more like clearly the best seat. You are in a good position with regard to both stealing blinds and blind steal defense. I think this seat also minimizes your difficult decisions postflop as well.

[scott8]

5 on your immediate left, obviously.

And this is not close to complex.

[Catt]

[ QUOTE ]
If seat 4 was after 1000 hands, would you then choose between 4-5?

[/ QUOTE ]

I doubt it. He'd be too loose pre- but that's not enough for me to overcome "worst player at the table." He could be very decent post-flop, his "too looseness" could be inflated by the fact that he never folds blinds in steal situations, etc. And note that while seat 5 is labeled tight-passive, he's also labeled a winner in the game, which means he's better than most you'll come across. I see no great reason to want have him on my immediate left.

[ QUOTE ]
My main problem is that a lot of our money comes from blind stealing on the button, and in this situation we will be up against relatively good blind defenders.

[/ QUOTE ]

They could be good or bad. We know aggro is a bad hand reader and over-aggro. We know the other guy is passive post-flop. We don't have a good sense of if they apply pressure correctly or react to it correctly (although both have a bit of the call-down in them). These two acting in tandem should mean that we'll be able to play pretty well post-flop when its us against the blinds.

[Spicymoose]

[ QUOTE ]
5 on your immediate left, obviously.

And this is not close to complex.

[/ QUOTE ]

I see you put tons of thought into this. Great job.

[sthief09]

you really dont like having a very aggressive player on your left

i think the seat value runs proportional to the amount of hands you are able to play. at this table, you can play the most hands with the 2 biggest donks on your right, between the 2 and 3. the guys on your right is where your money comes from.

[scott8]

[ QUOTE ]
[ QUOTE ]
5 on your immediate left, obviously.

And this is not close to complex.

[/ QUOTE ]

I see you put tons of thought into this. Great job.

[/ QUOTE ]

I know you are being sarcastic, but I have put a lot of thought into my position at any given table. Since I have already put said thought into position, such a basic setup such as the one described by OP takes little time to answer.

-Scott

[sthief09]

[ QUOTE ]
5 on your immediate left, obviously.

And this is not close to complex.

[/ QUOTE ]


GREAT! GLAD TO HAVE YA ABOARD! HOPE TO SEE MORE GREAT INSIGHT LIKE THIS SOON!!!!

[Spicymoose]

[ QUOTE ]
And note that while seat 5 is labeled tight-passive, he's also labeled a winner in the game, which means he's better than most you'll come across. I see no great reason to want have him on my immediate left.

[/ QUOTE ]

How about "He never bluffs"? We also get free cards OOP more than often which is awesome.

[ QUOTE ]
We know aggro is a bad hand reader and over-aggro. We know the other guy is passive post-flop. We don't have a good sense of if they apply pressure correctly or react to it correctly (although both have a bit of the call-down in them). These two acting in tandem should mean that we'll be able to play pretty well post-flop when its us against the blinds.

[/ QUOTE ]

I think we will probably make good money playing against the blinds from 1-2, I just think we will make more from seat 4-5. We get to play against the worst player very often when we have the button, that is great. Our blind steals from the SB are good because he is too tight, and won't be defending enough. When he does defend, it will kinda suck, because he is a good player, but even if he is good, passivity is not a good trait to have in blind steal situations.

[Spicymoose]

[ QUOTE ]
[ QUOTE ]
[ QUOTE ]
5 on your immediate left, obviously.

And this is not close to complex.

[/ QUOTE ]

I see you put tons of thought into this. Great job.

[/ QUOTE ]

I know you are being sarcastic, but I have put a lot of thought into my position at any given table. Since I have already put said thought into position, such a basic setup such as the one described by OP takes little time to answer.

-Scott

[/ QUOTE ]

I'm happy that you are so good at this. If you notice though, you have 3 decent players all vouching for different things. This might say something about the complexity of it. Maybe you could flesh out your thoughts on the matter. If not, there is no reason to even respond.

Posting blind....

Between 4 and 5.

[Catt]

[ QUOTE ]
you really dont like having a very aggressive player on your left

i think the seat value runs proportional to the amount of hands you are able to play. at this table, you can play the most hands with the 2 biggest donks on your right, between the 2 and 3. the guys on your right is where your money comes from.

[/ QUOTE ]

If they are aggressive and bad, I don't mind having them on my left, especially if there is a pssive guy or two after him. It's not ideal, but I'm not convinced that sitting after an unknown in seat 4 (the guy has a stat-read only over a measly 39 hands) with a winning player on my left is great. If seat 5 were "a slightly winning player but much too tight" then I can see wanting to be able to push him out pre- with successful iso raises -- but I am assuming that if he's a winner then he's going to recognize obvious isolations and adjust accordingly (maybe that is going too far with my assumptions).

I don't understand your point though - you want to sit after the aggro -- I think if we want to play the most hands we're going to be three-betting pretty light pre-flop, and the post-flop dynamics don't seem as potentially profitable when we see a flop with at least one other player.

[Spicymoose]

[ QUOTE ]
you really dont like having a very aggressive player on your left

i think the seat value runs proportional to the amount of hands you are able to play. at this table, you can play the most hands with the 2 biggest donks on your right, between the 2 and 3. the guys on your right is where your money comes from.

[/ QUOTE ]

Having the agressive player immediately to our right means he will be raising a lot preflop, and we won't be able to play as many hands as usual. Sure, we will be able to adjust, and loosen up a bit, but we still won't be able to play as many hands as usual. I agree it is a good seat once we see the flop, but we won't be able to play as many hands as from other postions. Furthermore, you have a good preflop player on your immediate right, which takes away from your blind money, and what looks like a loose player two to the right. This is bad because not only is he probably defending his BB closer to optimal than most, but we don't know enough about his play yet to fully take advantage of him.

[scott8]

[ QUOTE ]
[ QUOTE ]
[ QUOTE ]
[ QUOTE ]
5 on your immediate left, obviously.

And this is not close to complex.

[/ QUOTE ]

I see you put tons of thought into this. Great job.

[/ QUOTE ]

I know you are being sarcastic, but I have put a lot of thought into my position at any given table. Since I have already put said thought into position, such a basic setup such as the one described by OP takes little time to answer.

-Scott

[/ QUOTE ]

I'm happy that you are so good at this. If you notice though, you have 3 decent players all vouching for different things. This might say something about the complexity of it. Maybe you could flesh out your thoughts on the matter. If not, there is no reason to even respond.

[/ QUOTE ]

Actually, I feel this says something about your definition of decent.

[Spicymoose]

[ QUOTE ]
[ QUOTE ]
[ QUOTE ]
[ QUOTE ]
[ QUOTE ]
5 on your immediate left, obviously.

And this is not close to complex.

[/ QUOTE ]

I see you put tons of thought into this. Great job.

[/ QUOTE ]

I know you are being sarcastic, but I have put a lot of thought into my position at any given table. Since I have already put said thought into position, such a basic setup such as the one described by OP takes little time to answer.

-Scott

[/ QUOTE ]

I'm happy that you are so good at this. If you notice though, you have 3 decent players all vouching for different things. This might say something about the complexity of it. Maybe you could flesh out your thoughts on the matter. If not, there is no reason to even respond.

[/ QUOTE ]

Actually, I feel this says something about your definition of decent.

[/ QUOTE ]

Meh. I may suck, but Josh is definetly a good player, and from what I read of Catt's responses he (she?) puts a lot of thought into the game. I at least try to be good, and think about the situation, even if I am not that good.

Edit: And even if you remove me from the equation, there is still you, who are disagreeing with the other two.

[Catt]

[ QUOTE ]
Actually, I feel this says something about your definition of decent.

[/ QUOTE ]

This is basically a general discussion on seat selection based on no more than a few brief descriptions on player types, one only statisical over a miniscule sample, and others pretty vague phrases that we impregnate with our own expansive views on what those brief phrases might mean overall.

It can be a totally worthless thread or a potentially interesting thread where posters raise and discuss the pros and cons of various aspects of the "impregnated reads" (for lack of a better phrase), and posters and lurkers alike can perhaps think about aspects of seat selection that they haven't really thought of much or have given short shrift to before. You seem to be doing your damndest to make it worthless. Bravo.

[TStoneMBD]

i gave this some thought and i think everyone is right. i want the 5 seat behind me. one thing i forgot to mention is that the 5 seat doesnt like to 3bet me preflop all that often. he calls alot but doesnt defend his SB much at all. i can open from the button and itll be me vs the worst player almost every time. the loose passive on my right wont take away from most of my button raises. i can also open from the CO against the guy who makes poor calldowns and the BT behind me wont 3bet me often at all.

[sthief09]

[ QUOTE ]
[ QUOTE ]
[ QUOTE ]
[ QUOTE ]
[ QUOTE ]
5 on your immediate left, obviously.

And this is not close to complex.

[/ QUOTE ]

I see you put tons of thought into this. Great job.

[/ QUOTE ]

I know you are being sarcastic, but I have put a lot of thought into my position at any given table. Since I have already put said thought into position, such a basic setup such as the one described by OP takes little time to answer.

-Scott

[/ QUOTE ]

I'm happy that you are so good at this. If you notice though, you have 3 decent players all vouching for different things. This might say something about the complexity of it. Maybe you could flesh out your thoughts on the matter. If not, there is no reason to even respond.

[/ QUOTE ]

Actually, I feel this says something about your definition of decent.

[/ QUOTE ]


right. i suck, and you are godly.

[Joe Tall]

You have to throw player 4 out, you don't have enough data. Frankly, that could be anyone one of us in such a game over 39 hands, seriously.

So, you want to be stealing the Tighty's blind and have the loose, aggro players on your right so, I'd take between 3 and 4. Seat 3 seems call station like and perdictable, don't worry about him, you can put call-station/predictable types anywhere.

[Spicymoose]

I think between 3-4 would be better if seat 4 was an unknown, rather than what we have on him.

I am still a bit caught up on these small hand sample stats. I know 39 hands is not very many at all, and it is true that anyone of us could have his stats after 39 hands, but that does not mean that they mean nothing.

The fact that he has played more than 18 of his last 39 hands in our first observations of him means he is probably a bit looser than he should be. Our read could be completely off, and he might end up being a regular, or even tight player, but I think it is better to add probabilities to his stats, rather than just call them null and void. I don't know how to properly assess this probability, but I am sure it is possible somehow.

Just from my random speculation, I would guess that there is a only a 15% chance that his VPIP is under 20, 40% chance his VPIP is between 20-35, 25% chance his VPIP is 35-45, and 15% chance his VPIP is 45-55, and 5% chance his VPIP is over 55. These are just guesses, but I think there is a decent chance he is a loose player, even after only 39 hands.

If you had a player pegged at 85 VPIP after only 20 hands, would you think that meant anything?

[TStoneMBD]

another thing is that the weaktighty in the 5 seat never folds his blinds to me. if im in the SB hell call a raise in the BB 90%+ of the time. he also defends liberally when i open from any position. hes just very passive and predictable postflop.

[Jeff W]

I don't know how to interpret seat numbers. Is seat 2 to the right of seat 1?

[Joe Tall]

[ QUOTE ]
another thing is that the weaktighty in the 5 seat never folds his blinds to me. if im in the SB hell call a raise in the BB 90%+ of the time. he also defends liberally when i open from any position. hes just very passive and predictable postflop.

[/ QUOTE ]

Then I like being on the button w/position when he is in the BB even more, don't you?

[Spicymoose]

[ QUOTE ]
[ QUOTE ]
another thing is that the weaktighty in the 5 seat never folds his blinds to me. if im in the SB hell call a raise in the BB 90%+ of the time. he also defends liberally when i open from any position. hes just very passive and predictable postflop.

[/ QUOTE ]

Then I like being on the button w/position when he is in the BB even more, don't you?

[/ QUOTE ]

I prefer being on the button w/position when we have someone who defends their blinds less, and isn't as good a player. He may be weak/tight, but TStone said he is probably a winning player, and therefore less prone to make mistakes. Also, the fact that he defends liberally is not a good thing if I am the one doing the stealing.

Edit: I realize I am advocating a position where I will be stealing against him from the SB when he is BB, but we still have great stealing potential when we are on the button.

[Joe Tall]

[ QUOTE ]
the fact that he defends liberally is not a good thing if I am the one doing the stealing.


[/ QUOTE ]

You have to explain this further because I feel 100% opposite when I have position here.

[Jeff W]

[ QUOTE ]
[ QUOTE ]
the fact that he defends liberally is not a good thing if I am the one doing the stealing.


[/ QUOTE ]
You have to explain this further because I feel 100% opposite when I have position here.

[/ QUOTE ]

Very few of your steals will show a profit >.75 BB/hand if you see the flop. If you steal the blinds, you win .75 BBs. Ergo, you want to steal the blinds unopposed as often as possible.

[sthief09]

[ QUOTE ]
I don't know how to interpret seat numbers. Is seat 2 to the right of seat 1?

[/ QUOTE ]


i think seat 2 is to the left of seat 1. from an overhead view, seat 1 is to the right of the dealer and the numbers go clockwise around the table

At a glance I'd sit between 3 and 4 so that I could hammer the tight passive player's BB and take cheap showdowns against the schmucks to my right.

[TStoneMBD]

nah joe. you want tight or bad players in the blinds when you steal. you dont want a passive player who defends liberally in the BB because defending liberally is correct against my steal range which is probably 43% ATTSB. dont tell me to tighten up either then because even the bottom range of those hands is profitable with position imo.

also, allowing the passive player who doesnt bluff to play out of the BB doesnt magnify his weakness. its a fairly good strategy to be checkcalling out of the BB against a steal raise and to not bluff much. its still unprofitable of course but id much rather have any of the other bad players in the BB.


hi jeff. seat 2 has position on seat 1, ie: seat 1 SB seat 2 BB.

[Joe Tall]

Which is it?

[ QUOTE ]
you dont want a passive player who defends liberally in the BB because defending liberally is correct against my steal range which is probably 43% ATTSB

[/ QUOTE ]

or

[ QUOTE ]
even the bottom range of those hands is profitable with position imo.


[/ QUOTE ]

????

The more he folds the larger the range of hands you can play profitably. For example, if you're in a 1/2 SB structure and you had an opponent who would fold the BB 51% of the time you could raise any two cards profitably. If he's calling 90% of the time suddenly J5s starts to look like a real loser.

[TStoneMBD]

lol wtf joe. it seems that youre implying that its incorrect for me to raise because its correct for him to defend.

it is very often correct for me to raise and at the same time be correct for him to defend.

you do understand right?

[Joe Tall]

[ QUOTE ]
lol wtf joe

[/ QUOTE ]

Can you have a civil discussion? Ever?

[ QUOTE ]
it seems that youre implying that its incorrect for me to raise because its correct for him to defend.

[/ QUOTE ]

I'm not.

[ QUOTE ]
it is very often correct for me to raise and at the same time be correct for him to defend.

[/ QUOTE ]

I know.

You tell me you don't want him in the BB when you are on the button and then tell me that your steal range is still profitable here:

[ QUOTE ]
you dont want a passive player who defends liberally in the BB because defending liberally is correct against my steal range which is probably 43% ATTSB. dont tell me to tighten up either then because even the bottom range of those hands is profitable with position imo.

[/ QUOTE ]

Why wouldn't you want to be in position with a profitable range of hands? You seem to be contradicting yourself.

[Joe Tall]

You have the button in what seems to be a perfect situation a loose blind defending, passive, predictable player. Never 3-bets, you have position, easy to get away from, you'll outplay him all day long.

I don't really want to get in the middle of whatever internet spat is going on here, but I do want to point out that most of the value in any blind steal attempt comes from the times that your opponents actually fold.

[ QUOTE ]
You have the button in what seems to be a perfect situation a loose blind defending, passive, predictable player. Never 3-bets, you have position, easy to get away from, you'll outplay him all day long.

[/ QUOTE ]
Joe,

Think about all the hands you raise on the button. Now, when both blinds fold, think of the hands you would be pissed off about because you only won the blinds.

Any hands worse than those, you want the blinds folding. When they happen not to fold, you want at least a little something to back it up.

Coincidentally, the hands you would be pissed over taking the blinds with are also the hands in PT that show an overall profit of 0.75bb/hand or more.

[Victor]

blind stealing post (http://forumserver.twoplustwo.com/showthreaded.php?Cat=0&Number=4072473)

[sy_or_bust]

hope I'm not intruding, but I think that analysis is too simple. there are tons of calling station players who defend super-liberally but play so predictably that it's OK to take the worst of it sometimes when you have position because you'll earn more postflop when you shouldn't.

if your opponent plays a basic strategy like fit (call) or fold on the flop, or always peels the flop with semi-trash and folds the turn UI, you end up playing many hands heads-up vs. a super-predictable opponent. you won't always have the best of it, but you will always know where you are, and your initiative will automatically win most pots postflop.

[Victor]

are you saying you want your opponent to call when you open with, say, j10s bc you will make more than .75bb post flop?

what is the worst hand that you would open with that you want him to call?

[w_alloy]

[ QUOTE ]
Which is it?

[ QUOTE ]
you dont want a passive player who defends liberally in the BB because defending liberally is correct against my steal range which is probably 43% ATTSB

[/ QUOTE ]

or

[ QUOTE ]
even the bottom range of those hands is profitable with position imo.


[/ QUOTE ]

????

[/ QUOTE ]

It is not only possible but very likely that both of these statements are true (not an either or as you suggest). The bottom of our stealing range is much more profitable against someone who plays tight from the blind.

[kiddo]

[ QUOTE ]
are you saying you want your opponent to call when you open with, say, j10s bc you will make more than .75bb post flop?

what is the worst hand that you would open with that you want him to call?

[/ QUOTE ]

This is not the correct way to look at it.

Lets say we got 2 different players in BB.

We got a loose, passive, predictable player in BB. He defends 90% and play passive and bad postflop.

We got a tighter player that folds to much preflop, lets say he defends with 45% against a stealraise from us. This guy is a little better then the other player postflop. Specially he wins more from us when he is ahead.


We can now say that:

1) Both the loose and the tight BB will defend with 45% best hands. We will then lose more against the tight one.

2) The other 45% the tight player will just fold and loose 0.5BB. The loose player will still call (with his worst 45% of hands) and will have a worse handrange the we have. He will be passive and not bet enough when he is ahead. And he will be loose, calling 2 much when behind. And he is out of position.

3) Since the loose one is defending with 90% of his hands it will profitable for us to come in with all those 90% plus a little more since we are better postflop and got position (we dont have to raise each time). But normally it will not be profitable to stealraise with any2 against tight one (of course it depends on how tight he is, but if we start to raise more beacuse he folds 2 much we also have to understand that we will have a worse handrange those times he calls us).
There will normally be a number of hands that win us money against a really loose player, hands that we cant play against the tight player.

So, when we want to know how we want to play in the blind we got three questions:

A) How big is the difference postflop between the tight and the loose when they got same hand from start?

B) How big is the difference between the tight one losing 0.5BB when he folds and the loose player calling our raise with the worst half of his hands?

C) How much will we win on those hands that we couldnt come in with against tight player?

So, its not like we have to win more then Big Blinds post (0.5BB) each time we are called by the loose player. We just have to win more then 0.5BB minus what we gained in (A) and minus what we gained in (C).

Joe Tall says that we would prefer the loose one. I think he normally is right. We want loose-passive players in every position, also in the blinds.

[Spicymoose]

I still think we want tight players in the blinds. Whenever we are playing poker, we want our villain to maximize his mistakes, and folding the BB against a raise is usually a mistakes (that is, if the player is tight, and not defending enough). Lets take a typical hand...

We raise 99 on the button and SB folds. Our mystery villain has K5s.

Now, if BB is a tighty, he will fold, and we pick up .75 BB.

If BB is a loose guy, he will call. Although we have him crushed, we now have a roughly 2.2 BB pot (depending on the blind structure, and rake structure of course), but only have 67% equity! That means that if he is seeing the showdown, he has just taken .73 BB of the total pot, and since an initial 1 BB of the pot is our own money, we only have gained .47 BB of the pot so far . Now, obvciously we will be winning the pot more often than him, so he will be giving up some of his preflop equity, but since he is loose, he is way more likely to see a showdown, and realize his equity.

So if he goes to showdown 50% of the time here, we take .36 BB of his preflop equity. But we have to remember that we don't always go to showdown. If we fold somewhere along the away 20% of the time, he is taking away .3 BB of our 1.47 "owned" BBs. Although I used the number .47 early, that number was showing our profit so far, but 1.47 is our equity. So these two effects mean that instead our instant .47 BB equity from preflop, we now have .47-.3+36 or .53 BB.

We still need to make up .22 BB from his postflop mistakes, remembering that any mistake we make has to be made up again. I don't think we can make up this difference, and therefore we were happy to have him fold outright.


This was a single hand, and so obviously the picture is different overall. I just think that with many hands our villains hold, we make far more by them folding, than by them talking away our instant profit, and having to make it up later in the hand. I used this hand because this is one where it seems we have huge equity, and want him to call, but in fact I think we don't. Perhaps my numbers were too far off though, so in fact we do want him to call. /images/graemlins/confused.gif

Anyway, I think in summary, we either want a tight blind, or if the blind isn't tight, at least have him be a ridiculously bad player who will make as many mistakes as possible postflop.

I think you are right. The only times we want him to call are when we have him dominated. 99 vs 76, 77 vs 55 or 77 vs 76. AK vs KQ is profitable for him to call since he has 25% equity and needs 22%. Ofc this slight difference we could probably make up post flop but I am very happy taking the blinds if his equity is above 30%.

[ QUOTE ]
We raise 99 on the button

[/ QUOTE ]
Why use such a strong hand as an example? Use an average stealing hand for a 35% ASB player. I think KJo is pretty close to average.

If we raise on the button and SB folds, the ONLY hands that are incorrect for the BB to call with are lower (dominated) king and jack hands. Every other hand has the proper odds to call.

Now, let's look at postflop mistakes.....

If our "reasonable" villain is just bad postflop, he will make mistakes, but those mistakes will be marginal . It's not like he'll go 4 bets on every street with an UI 72o or fold top set on the river after putting in lots of bets. He's reasonable. His mistakes will be pennies.

As far as my statement in the last post, or victor's link showing a similar statement, we are both generalizing for all blind situations. If Joe wants to bring up a specific example based on Tstone's table layout, that's fine, but I wouldn't be so fast to sacrifice the dollars we make in front of us for the pennies we make behind us.

[kiddo]

Did you - or others answering to this post - read my post? Or why do u post it as an answer to my post?

You wrote:

[ QUOTE ]
Whenever we are playing poker, we want our villain to maximize his mistakes, and folding the BB against a raise is usually a mistakes (that is, if the player is tight, and not defending enough). Lets take a typical hand...

[/ QUOTE ]

And I wrote:

[ QUOTE ]
So, its not like we have to win more then Big Blinds post (0.5BB) each time we are called by the loose player. We just have to win more then 0.5BB minus what we gained in (A) and minus what we gained in (C).

[/ QUOTE ]

In what way was I wrong?

I dont know how to say this simple enough but: Even if we most of them time would prefer that BB folded instead of called when we are stealraising from button we could still prefer a player that called to much instead of a player calling 2 little, even if the misstake of calling to much was smaller then the misstake of calling to little. Its not like we are playing showdownpoker with a specific hand. We are talking about headsup against different players. This is what I discussed in my post.

[rory]

How often do players fold their blinds to steal raises really? Bad players play bad because they play too many hands so they almost never fold their blinds. Most 'tight' players find all kinds of reasons to defend their big blind, especially in 6-max games, especially against a chronic stealer. 2+2ers are blind defenders and are aggressive about it to boot. I am widely known for being a big blind folder and I only fold my big blind to a steal raise about 55% of the time. So where are all these people handing over their .75 BB to you coming from? I wonder how often you are actually stealing the blinds as opposed to winning the pot somehow after the flop.

In a heads up match the best kind of player to play against is someone who folds too much preflop. 3-way, the game is different because you have to play tighter on the button due to the presence of the small blind. You can't raise 90% of your hands because two people have to not have a legit hand for you to play. So you have to tighten up. Since you have to tighten up, the big blind can tighten up against your steal range so you lose some of your advantage against the tight players. As your steal range moves away from 100% you should more and more care about the big blinds postflop play than their preflop tightness because as you move away from 100% they are correct to play more tight.

[Spicymoose]

Sorry, although my original post was a reply to yours, it was really just a general trying to support my point. It is difficult for me to argue specifically against what you say, because this situation is far more complicated than any of us are giving it credit for.

I will try to respond directly to you soon, but for now I still don´t have a good enough grasp on it myself.

Another thing to think about...

Taking the example of a tight player who calls top 45%, and loose player who calls the top 90%. Against the loose player, for the hands between 45-70, we lose out on the instant folds, and are instead forced to play against hands that we don´t have all that much edge against. Once we reach the 70-90 hands, we probably start to make back the equity that we lost by him not folding, but only barely.

Another benefit about playing against the tight player is that when we do see a flop, we have a much better idea of his range, so are able to play better postflop with our superior hand reading. Against the loose player, he could have literally anything, so it will be hard to figure out where we stand. Obviously we will have some idea, but it will be harder.

In the 45% of hands that both players are playing, I would rather be up against the tight player because:

A) he is tight, so we may win the flop immediately more often
B) his hand range is better defined, so we will know how to play better


Sorry for just posting out random things, but I need to think about this more before I fully try to refute you or come up with a full argument for wanting the tight player.

[kiddo]

[ QUOTE ]
Against the loose player, for the hands between 45-70, we lose out on the instant folds, and are instead forced to play against hands that we don´t have all that much edge against.

[/ QUOTE ]

100% agree.

[ QUOTE ]
Another benefit about playing against the tight player is that when we do see a flop, we have a much better idea of his range, so are able to play better postflop with our superior hand reading.

[/ QUOTE ]

Yes, we never know what a loose-passive player got so handreading is worthless, but we also know his average hand is pretty worthless and that he calls to much and this normally wins us more $ then we lose not knowing what he got.

And I agree, this is really complicated.

[climber]

good points rory. I sat between 4 and 5 cause I relished the idea of stealign this guys blinds. But you are right in a real-world scenario not many people jsut give us their blinds every time...

where would you sit at this table as described?

[DrSavage]

I'm at the table already, in seat 1 /images/graemlins/frown.gif

[Fabian]

[ QUOTE ]
Which is it?

[ QUOTE ]
you dont want a passive player who defends liberally in the BB because defending liberally is correct against my steal range which is probably 43% ATTSB

[/ QUOTE ]

or

[ QUOTE ]
even the bottom range of those hands is profitable with position imo.


[/ QUOTE ]

????

[/ QUOTE ]

Hi Joe,

It's both. Many hands that a 43% ASB will steal with will show a profit > 0 big bets but < 0.75 big bets if the person in the big blind defends. Similarly, many hands that the person in the big blind defends with will show a loss of < 0.5 big bets, meaning we (the button stealer) prefer he folds those hands, but even if he calls we make more than 0 big bets.

[TStoneMBD]

hi kiddo. great post.

for those that are confused about what kiddo is trying to say i think i can sum it up well:

against a bad player you have postflop implied odds because of your skill advantage. its hard to quantify your advantage so the only way to do so is to use experience to just.


also, i want to clarify the players here because there is some confusion.

even though the 5 seat is tight passive and doesnt bluff, he is still fairly hard to play against. hes not a fishy idiot. its hard for me to explain why hes fairly hard to play against since my description of him is so juicy: predictable and passive. that said i still have an advantage over him in position postflop but its not as much as you guys are making it out to be i dont think.

i also never meant to imply that there are players at the table that will fold their blinds to my steal raises. some players are more likely to fold with higher frequency than others but they are all going to defend pretty liberally.

[rory]

We should sit between 3-4. The guy in seat 5 is going to feel like he got drunk in the bar and wound up knifed, robbed, violated and left for dead by the dumpster in the back alley at the end of the session. Tight passive guy who never bluffs in the big blind when we are the button? He will talk about the session in therapy. And seat 2's ultra aggression when he is the button and I am the big blind doesn't scare me really, just have to figure out where he is going to dump the chips, on the flop or on the turn.

[ QUOTE ]
We should sit between 3-4. The guy in seat 5 is going to feel like he got drunk in the bar and wound up knifed, robbed, violated and left for dead by the dumpster in the back alley at the end of the session. Tight passive guy who never bluffs in the big blind when we are the button? He will talk about the session in therapy. And seat 2's ultra aggression when he is the button and I am the big blind doesn't scare me really, just have to figure out where he is going to dump the chips, on the flop or on the turn.

[/ QUOTE ]
Tstone gave us a table with a terrible player, an aggro-LAG and a likely 42 VPIP.

And you're eyeballing the tight-passive guy for his chips??

[Wynton]

I am heartened that my quick choice -- between 4 and 5 -- is supported by at least a few here (at least before those players were described further by OP). To me, the most important considerations are: player 2 is very agg, and player 4 is very loose passive. I really hate being to the right of a VLP.

[Victor]

clearly we would prefer to play against the loose retarded player over the decent player.

however, my point was that the best opponent is one who folds too much in the bb.

[Wynton]

Earlier, I commented about how I hate having the LP player to my right. But it so happened that I was just playing at a table with a VERY LP diretly to my right, and there was one clear benefit:

Everytime I was in the BB, this guy always limped. And because the rest of the table was not aggressive and willing to raise, I always got to see the flop.

On the other hand, maybe this just means that the entire table was passive enough to make up for any disadvantage of the LP being to my right.

A loose-passive is a lot different than a tight-passive. You ALWAYS want a loose-passive on your right. Tight-passives go on the left.

[ddubois]

[ QUOTE ]
The fact that he has played more than 18 of his last 39 hands in our first observations of him means he is probably a bit looser than he should be. Our read could be completely off, and he might end up being a regular, or even tight player, but I think it is better to add probabilities to his stats, rather than just call them null and void. I don't know how to properly assess this probability, but I am sure it is possible somehow.

Just from my random speculation, I would guess that there is a only a 15% chance that his VPIP is under 20, 40% chance his VPIP is between 20-35, 25% chance his VPIP is 35-45, and 15% chance his VPIP is 45-55, and 5% chance his VPIP is over 55. These are just guesses, but I think there is a decent chance he is a loose player, even after only 39 hands.

If you had a player pegged at 85 VPIP after only 20 hands, would you think that meant anything?

[/ QUOTE ]

http://archiveserver.twoplustwo.com/show...e=0#Post2852240 (http://archiveserver.twoplustwo.com/showflat.php?Cat=0&Number=2852240&an=0&page=0#Post 2852240)

I calculate 90% confidence is true VPIP is between 31 and 60.

[Wynton]

[ QUOTE ]
A loose-passive is a lot different than a tight-passive. You ALWAYS want a loose-passive on your right. Tight-passives go on the left.

[/ QUOTE ]

Actually, I misspoke. I meant I hate having the LP on my left, except that it was working out ok at that particular table.

[Joe Tall]

[ QUOTE ]
A loose-passive is a lot different than a tight-passive. You ALWAYS want a loose-passive on your right. Tight-passives go on the left.


[/ QUOTE ]

Passive players, loose or tight, can go anywhere. What they do is call because that's just what they like to do, call. It's aggressives that we want such position. Tight on our left and loose on our right.

[Joe Tall]

[ QUOTE ]
Joe Tall says that we would prefer the loose one. I think he normally is right. We want loose-passive players in every position, also in the blinds.

[/ QUOTE ]

I /images/graemlins/heart.gif kiddo.

[Joe Tall]

[ QUOTE ]

It's both. Many hands that a 43% ASB will steal with will show a profit > 0 big bets but < 0.75 big bets if the person in the big blind defends. Similarly, many hands that the person in the big blind defends with will show a loss of < 0.5 big bets, meaning we (the button stealer) prefer he folds those hands, but even if he calls we make more than 0 big bets.

[/ QUOTE ]

What's this .75BB over and over? We can't think of it as SB+BB = .75, as positional advantage, postflop skill and implied odds blow this number out of estimation.

It's not both. You either have a profitable situtaion or you don't. I like the profitable situation I have defined in this thread and I'm trying to point it out.

[Entity]

[ QUOTE ]
We should sit between 3-4. The guy in seat 5 is going to feel like he got drunk in the bar and wound up knifed, robbed, violated and left for dead by the dumpster in the back alley at the end of the session. Tight passive guy who never bluffs in the big blind when we are the button? He will talk about the session in therapy. And seat 2's ultra aggression when he is the button and I am the big blind doesn't scare me really, just have to figure out where he is going to dump the chips, on the flop or on the turn.

[/ QUOTE ]

I like your plan but I also really /images/graemlins/heart.gif having a tight passive guy in the SB when I raise and a loose passive guy who misses bets in the BB. So I take between 4-5 and feel very happy there.

Rob

[Victor]

[ QUOTE ]
We can't think of it as SB+BB = .75, as positional advantage, postflop skill and implied odds blow this number out of estimation.

[/ QUOTE ]

hi joe, are you saying that position and skill will allow us to make greater than .75 bb with most hands if the poor playing defender call?

i totally disagree unless the defender is extremely bad. and i mean, mind boggling like worst player eva bad. a loose passive player that will call pf with any 2 hands and all to the river with low pair is NOT bad enough imo.

[ QUOTE ]
[ QUOTE ]
A loose-passive is a lot different than a tight-passive. You ALWAYS want a loose-passive on your right. Tight-passives go on the left.


[/ QUOTE ]

Passive players, loose or tight, can go anywhere. What they do is call because that's just what they like to do, call. It's aggressives that we want such position. Tight on our left and loose on our right.

[/ QUOTE ]
I disagree.

Let's say you have one of each type; Tight-passive, tight-aggressive, loose-passive and loose-aggressive. It matters very much where the passives go. Who wants the LAG or TAG isolating the LPP? No One. You want tight people on your left and loose people on your right....bottom line.

Ideally, you also want someone passive on your left (so you don't keep getting punished on your raises) but you don't want the loose guy there because other players will be iso-raising him instead of you. You also don't want a LAG on your left because even though he's loose, you won't have position on him often enough to capitalize and your hands will be very difficult to play.

That being said, optimal table arrangement for the 5 players (including us) listed above would be as follows:

Seat 1 - LAG
Seat 2 - LP
Seat 3 - US
Seat 4 - TP
Seat 5 - TAG

This table layout is not my opinion. It's an irrefutable truth...as the money in a poker game always flows clockwise.

[TStoneMBD]

i dont buy it our house. money doesnt flow clockwise in these games. it flows reverse clockwise imo. i know this goes against traditional logic and theory but the money i make comes from blind steal situations, not from raising limpers in these aggressive games.

Oh my. Unless you really like controversy and getting flamed by lots of people, delete that post.

[B Dids]

[ QUOTE ]
30/60 game and youre about to sit down.

seat 1 is the worst player at the table. not too fishy but hes sorta dumb. misses bets, is predictable etc.

seat 2 is a highly aggressive player but he is a little too loose and is a poor handreader often making bad call downs.

seat 3 plays well preflop but is passive postflop

seat 4 is 46/12/1 over 39 hands.

seat 5 is a winning player but hes tight passive. he makes some stupid chases sometimes though with flop peels and never bluffs. he likes to call down alot.


if you could sit anywhere between these players where would it be?

[/ QUOTE ]

A few thoughts:

One of the things I haven't seen talked about in this thread is something Bob T mentioned a while back about First Right of Isolation. If we sit anywhere but between 1 and 2, we're giving that up on the worst player on the table.

If we sit between 2 and 3 we've got that on the two worst players on the table. Simply from a "having position on bad players" prespective, that seems like the best.

If you're sitting there, you're stealing against a passive player and a virtual but likely too loose unknown. This seems like a decent spot.

[DeathDonkey]

Agreed, I make all my money isolating fishes. Blind steals work both ways and I have to steal enough to get back what they steal from me. Isolating fishes there is no recourse.

-DeathDonkey

[Joe Tall]

[ QUOTE ]
i dont buy it our house. money doesnt flow clockwise in these games. it flows reverse clockwise imo. i know this goes against traditional logic and theory but the money i make comes from blind steal situations, not from raising limpers in these aggressive games.

[/ QUOTE ]

It flows clockwise has for years and will for years to come. Seems like you are trying re-invent the wheel in this thread.

[Joe Tall]

[ QUOTE ]
You want tight people on your left and loose people on your right....bottom line.


[/ QUOTE ]

Oh we don't disagree all that much but the importance of where the aggressives go outweighs the passives. We can't always have perfect situations and the passive can be spread out as a wise man once said to me, "don't worry about the callers, worry about the betters/raisers."

[ QUOTE ]
[ QUOTE ]
You want tight people on your left and loose people on your right....bottom line.


[/ QUOTE ]

Oh we don't disagree all that much but the importance of where the aggressives go outweighs the passives. We can't always have per situations and the passive can be spread out as a wise man once said to me, "don't worry about the callers, worry about the betters/raisers."

[/ QUOTE ]
Well, as an extreme example, take a table with you, 4 LPPs and one TAG. You don't want the TAG on your right, ever. You want him on your left even though he's the one with the most aggression. What's he gonna do, isolate YOU?? Clearly that's not the most profitable thing for him, no?

You want to be the one doing the isolating of the fish. What good is it to have LPPs at the table if you never get to play most of your hands because the TAGs and LAGs keep forcing you to play for 2 or 3?

HAHA...

Just sat down to play. 2nd hand I get 87o in the SB. Two loose limpers and TAG raises OTB so I can't complete.

Flop is T96r.

Beauty.

[Joe Tall]

[ QUOTE ]
TAG raises OTB so I can't complete.


[/ QUOTE ]

Unclick autopost.

[sublime]

i dont buy it our house. money doesnt flow clockwise in these games

we are talking about hold em poker, right? /images/graemlins/smile.gif

[B Dids]

Joe, Sublime, other smart people: Am I missing something with my FROI idea here?

[ QUOTE ]
we are talking about hold em poker, right? /images/graemlins/smile.gif

[/ QUOTE ]
If I remember correctly......

In the card game UNO, there's a "reverse" card that makes the action go the other way.

[DMBFan23]

[ QUOTE ]
[ QUOTE ]
are you saying you want your opponent to call when you open with, say, j10s bc you will make more than .75bb post flop?

what is the worst hand that you would open with that you want him to call?

[/ QUOTE ]

This is not the correct way to look at it.

Lets say we got 2 different players in BB.

We got a loose, passive, predictable player in BB. He defends 90% and play passive and bad postflop.

We got a tighter player that folds to much preflop, lets say he defends with 45% against a stealraise from us. This guy is a little better then the other player postflop. Specially he wins more from us when he is ahead.


We can now say that:

1) Both the loose and the tight BB will defend with 45% best hands. We will then lose more against the tight one.

2) The other 45% the tight player will just fold and loose 0.5BB. The loose player will still call (with his worst 45% of hands) and will have a worse handrange the we have. He will be passive and not bet enough when he is ahead. And he will be loose, calling 2 much when behind. And he is out of position.

3) Since the loose one is defending with 90% of his hands it will profitable for us to come in with all those 90% plus a little more since we are better postflop and got position (we dont have to raise each time). But normally it will not be profitable to stealraise with any2 against tight one (of course it depends on how tight he is, but if we start to raise more beacuse he folds 2 much we also have to understand that we will have a worse handrange those times he calls us).
There will normally be a number of hands that win us money against a really loose player, hands that we cant play against the tight player.

So, when we want to know how we want to play in the blind we got three questions:

A) How big is the difference postflop between the tight and the loose when they got same hand from start?

B) How big is the difference between the tight one losing 0.5BB when he folds and the loose player calling our raise with the worst half of his hands?

C) How much will we win on those hands that we couldnt come in with against tight player?

So, its not like we have to win more then Big Blinds post (0.5BB) each time we are called by the loose player. We just have to win more then 0.5BB minus what we gained in (A) and minus what we gained in (C).

Joe Tall says that we would prefer the loose one. I think he normally is right. We want loose-passive players in every position, also in the blinds.

[/ QUOTE ]

Kiddo,

this is a great post. do you even agree for the times we are in MP3, for example, and end up with the button on the flop against tight players when we would have been coldcalled by loose players?

[Fabian]

[ QUOTE ]
[ QUOTE ]

It's both. Many hands that a 43% ASB will steal with will show a profit > 0 big bets but < 0.75 big bets if the person in the big blind defends. Similarly, many hands that the person in the big blind defends with will show a loss of < 0.5 big bets, meaning we (the button stealer) prefer he folds those hands, but even if he calls we make more than 0 big bets.

[/ QUOTE ]

What's this .75BB over and over? We can't think of it as SB+BB = .75, as positional advantage, postflop skill and implied odds blow this number out of estimation.

It's not both. You either have a profitable situtaion or you don't. I like the profitable situation I have defined in this thread and I'm trying to point it out.

[/ QUOTE ]

Unless I'm misunderstanding you, you're saying that the button raiser will make more than 0.75 big bets with most of his stealing hands when the player in the big blind calls. I suggest reading the thread someone (I think Victor) linked to earlier in this thread.

Also, here are two examples of profitable situations:

You raise on the button with hand X. The small blind folds, and the big blind folds with hand Y. Button wins 0.75 big bets, the big blind loses 0.5 big bets, and the small blind loses 0.25 big bets.

You raise on the button with hand X. The small blind folds, and the big blind calls with hand Y. Button wins 0.41 big bets, the big blind loses 0.16 big bets, and the small blind loses 0.25 big bets.

Edit: Here is the link (http://forumserver.twoplustwo.com/showflat.php?Cat=0&Number=4066171&an=&page=&vc=1).

[Joe Tall]

[ QUOTE ]
Joe, Sublime, other smart people: Am I missing something with my FROI idea here?


[/ QUOTE ]

Dids,

I dont' even fcking know what's going on here anymore. We have a weak-tight player who defends 90%+ of his big blind that check-calls the whole way, that you don't want to be on the button when he is in the big blind as your hand range is profitable with position and the money moves counter-clockwise in this game.

I think that sums it up but we could be in for more, I dunno.

[B Dids]

I'm even more confused that I was before. I'll try and restate my questions.

It seems like the two worst players on the table are in seats 1 and 2. If I sit in seat 3, I can isolate them with greater frequency.

You suggested the 4 seat, thus giving up FROI on the two bad players, why?

[Wynton]

Allow me to clarify all the confusion with one profound observation:

(clearing my throat)

There is no single correct answer. (Tada!) Actually, what I mean is that we do not necessarily have the same skills for taking advantages of the same players. Perhaps some of us are better at exploiting the weak/tighties than the loose/passives. Now I suppose some of you naysayers will protest that we should be able to beat all these types, and indeed we should, but that doesn't mean we don't have individualized strengths.

And isn't that what makes this wacky poker world so beautiful........ (cue violins)