TTH Sim Results: wild game strategy

Those of you who have followed my posts know that one of the games I regularly play is quite wild: many bets before the flop, many times capped and very loose with nearly everyone seeing the flop and many staying to the end. The room spreads 3-6 to 5-10, some nights with a kill. 3 raise max, 10% up to $4 rake plus $1 jackpot drop.


Rules are normal except that straddles are permissible from any seat, and an "all-in straddle" is also allowed and seen at least once a night, sometimes more often (someone can straddle all their chips in any seat except the blinds). When the game is wild there's a straddle more often than not, but the double and quadruple straddles are rare. Yes, the chips fly and racks are filled/emptied quite quickly.


I have been lucky enough to be posting a .5 to 1BB/hr winning rate, and I feel that this is a decent score considering my inexperience (under 200 hours so far) and the fact that I play LL with a rather steep rake. Anyhow, I have found that when the game gets really wild (which it does at least one night a week), my standard strategies are leaving me frustrated and confused. After much consternation I buried myself again in my books and TTH only to find that the wild games still have much variance. To that end, I decided tonight to run some computer simulations and explore these interesting games further.


Well, I must recant my earlier theory that big suited connectors and drawing hands such as any wired pair are best - S&M were of course correct all along. I have run 2 sims to about 1,000,000 hands each with the table set to play as close as possible as my local game described above. After playing many hands in the table I set up on TTH I can say that the table is a pretty accurate representation of what I have experienced in those live wild games - it's almost errie how closely the sim plays to my local game!


Anyway, on to the more interesting results that I have obtained so far. But first, the parameters:

- Turbo Texas Holdem v4.0

- a 4-8 game

- no kill pots

- 3 raise max

- checkraise is allowed

- blinds of 2 and 4

- fixed limit game

- 10% to $4 max drop, plus $1 jackpot

- tip $1 per hand won

- my guy played "by the book" with no adjustments to a wild game; he plays the basic advisor strategy so far (will try different strategies for him next such as tightening up before the flop)

- my guy was the only "solid" player, but seat 6 had a decent player thrown in to keep it honest

- no straddles can be used in TTH, unfortunately, but have asked Bob Wilson to include in a future version which he said may happen (Bob is really cool by the way)

- 9 players sat at table all the time

- assume 30 hands per hour

- no jackpots were included in totals


The money findings (all expressed over time):

- everyone except my guy and seat #6 lost, and lost steadily (duh)

- must have put a decent player in seat #6, as he won 1/2 of what I did

- my guy won 1.4BB/hr ... $11.01/hr to be exact

- 65% saw the flop

- average pot was $96

- a little under 3 players saw the river on average

- 2 players on average showed down (my experience is that it's more like 3, but I also play at a 10-player table. May have to loosen the sim up even more.)


The interesting card findings:

- hands that won the most for my guy were not necessarily the same as those that won the most money, but rankings were very close

- for example, JJ won somewhat less often than AKs but JJ won more $ per hand (makes sense)

- wired pair 33 won more $ per hand than 44-77 (very interesting: in fact it won more than 3x as much per hand compared to 44, and almost half again more than 66 per hand)


The winners and the numbers (average $ won per hand rankings for my guy):

AA = 33.94

KK = 25.53

QQ = 17.90

JJ = 13.21

AKs = 10.29

AQs = 8.35

TT = 8.24

AKo = 7.20

AJs = 5.52

AQo = 5.30

ATs = 5.15

99 = 4.83

KQs = 4.63

KJs = 3.85

88 = 3.57

JTs = 3.19

QTs = 3.06

KTs = 3.06

KQo = 2.55

QJs = 2.55

KJo = 2.18

AJo = 2.09

JTo = 2.06

.

.

.

52s = 0.01

A7s = -(0.02)

...and the rest were all losers, in fact my guy played about 50 more unique starting hands than were listed here and all fell under the "loser" category. These 50+ losers do not include the total trash hands such as 72o in which he never invested; the losers were actually hands playable in normal games but apparently not this game. See below for some examples.


Consistent $ losers my guy played (invested in) included surprising hands such as:

A9o

K9s

J9s

55

98s

A2o

22

76o


Clearly, the "advisor strategy" assumes the other players are playing somewhat well and as a result plays too many hands in these wild games.


Hope y'all enjoyed the research - I know I did!

I believe S&M recommend giving more weight to pocket pairs and less weight to small suited connectors in these type of games -- I'd double check as my memory is not always the best.


You might want to retry the sim and not play the smaller suited connectors, and not play pocket pairs under TT (maybe JJ) if they don't catch a set on the flop (I believe another S&M recommendation).


Thanks for the post Gomez -- and thanks for the spreadsheet as well.

...only play AA-QQ and AK-AQs, and throw in JJ-TT if you want some wicked variance. This is from memory, but I've read that section many times. (Heck, I've read the whole book many times.)


This advice applies to wild games with lots of folks coming in for a cap before the flop, and heavy pressure from loose players on the flop and beyond. Sounds like the wild game I sometimes play in to me.


Anyhow, my results seem to confirm these findings.


As for running the sim again with only playing such starters I can predict the outcome, but that was not the point ... I simply wanted to see what playing a "normal" strategy in a wild game would net and also analyze how the various starting hands fare over the long haul. Furthermore, I could probably really increase the $ winning rate by not only having my guy play these super-premium hands, but also only holding onto them when they get a good piece of the flop or the flop seems to completely miss everybody.


I will run some more sims soon and post the results, but for now I think I have my answer: we were all wrong with regard to hands such as suited connectors, AXs and pocket pairs being decent and possibly preferable starters. You need to play only the best hands (AA-QQ and AK-AQs, possibly JJ-TT) and you've got the mortal nuts if ya can wait for these. Go any lower down the list and you can pick up a little profit if you play very well, but variance goes through the roof.

Nice post.


Seems that T is the cutoff point. That is, suited (AKQJ)T wins, but with 9 loses.


Regarding playing only AA-QQ, and AKs, AQs. Do you play this way? This seems certainly correct, but very boring. If I did the math right, you'd be playing about 1 in 44 hands.

"Regarding playing only AA-QQ, and AKs, AQs. Do you play this way? This seems certainly correct, but very boring."


Well, I had not played that way in the past in these very wild games. In fact, I looked for stuff like suited connectors, medium wired pairs and AXs. Heck, I even muddled around with hands like KJo saying to myself "these guys are playing junk like 75o so I gotta have the best of it here." When I played those hands I found that my bankroll went through horrendous swings, and it seems as if the hard numbers confirm this. Oops.


As for it being a boring way to play - I agree, and may resign myself to using these games to practice stuff like reading tells, reading hands and computing odds.


However, the fact that my computer player took down 1.4BB/hr in this LL game with a big rake, playing far less than optimal strategy tells me that I need to stomach the boredom when I find myself sitting in such a game - it's a winner if you are a geological specimen (rock). I'll be interested to see how much I can increase the $ win rate by adjusting the strategy, and if it goes up by much then the boredom will simply have to be endured instead of moving to a different game when it gets wild.

"...only play AA-QQ and AK-AQs, and throw in JJ-TT if you want some wicked variance. This is from memory, but I've read that section many times. (Heck, I've read the whole book many times.)"


I believe that's for a game where only three or four players are in every hand but it is getting capped a lot. You are discribing a game where it is getting caped a lot with many players in everyhand. Now all pairs become playable since you are getting correct odds to flop your set immediately.

Mason,


What about nut flush draws such as Ax? Given your comment below about A9s in "$3/6 session Hand #1", this game and that game seem similar.. is your advice the same?

Mr Gomez,

Sounds as if we're looking as similar things. If I can get more precise data from Fishy Whale, I'll see what I come up with.


I suspected that A9s might be profitable in the $3-6 game, and your calculations (while small profit) seem to support my guess.. but we'll see what the data says as well...

I would checkout Izmet Fekali's page on some of this.

http://izmet.desetka.si/

I consistently raise in passive games with several people in when I hold Ax suited. I assume it would also be good to hold onto these in wild games as long as many people see the flop. Am I wrong here? Should I not do that in the first place? Of course after that it's usually fit or fold time. The payoff when you hit can be huge.

Did you not read the detailed numbers in the first post towards the end?


AXs is a loser when it's constantly capped before the flop (i.e. wild game), but it's your money so whatever...

Well, it's a poor opener in the wild game *I* play in because it's capped preflop with nearly everyone coming in, and possible a straddle as well (very expensive to see the flop, as in 5 small bets). However, by the turn and river you may have only a few players left and the action cools down ... hence, poor implied odds.


If you're getting capped preflop *and* capped on later streets with plenty of players, then AXs becomes much more valuable to chase.


The middle ground would be the sim I ran, which showed AXs to still be a loser. Interesting.

I did indeed read the data. I can deffinately understand the worse implied odds if everyone drops after the flop. The games I usually play in are almost never wild, getting the worst only when one of the few regular maniacs happens to be sitting and even then, betting is usually only capped by me if by anyone.

22/AXs/XTs/AQ are Abdul's recommendations when it's likely to become a capped family pot. And I (also) think from every position, as it doesn't matter that much with so many players in and a capped pot.


I have seen turbo often say A7s is not good enough, but A8s is. It seems it plays those top pairs too far/badly. With about any lineup I like to compare: 22 = A2s, A8s = 88. One should do e.g. longer sims if one wants the truth about smaller pairs.