[Blarg]

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Kind of hate to respond cause it sounds like I'm coming off as one of the best, which I'm far from that, but.

I believe it is just the nature of the game. The blind structure, chip counts, etc., kind of dictates that on average, sometime in 40 hands or so (the first four levels at party) you will get a hand that you want to play. With the blinds being too low to push, you will make more standard raises that will get called more often by less experienced players, which by it's own nature will put you in a position to lose all your chips. That answers for when you have a real hand. Now add to that that the blinds are large enough to start trying position steals with junk, and you compound the issue. I think it's just the nature of the beast.

So a summary would be " You put your chips at risk more with the least folding equity at the 25/50, 50/100 level than at any other time with the possible exception of the bubble."

Is this a leak? Yea. Can you do anything about it? I don't know.
Later,
Rick

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I think your remarks are zeroed in on the problem well.

In games where at level 4 and 5 you still have 6 or 7 people, which I see happen a fair amount, the blinds are worth stealing, but poor players do not behave the way they do on more typical games around the bubble. That is, when there are 4 or 5 people left instead, even poor players tend to realize they should be careful, because they're close to the money.

Poor players basically want to play a lot of hands, and think they somehow own or deserve their blinds. They get peeved and want to "show YOU" when you try to steal blinds, even if they have garbage.

Even though the blinds are the same size, with more players still around, poor players revert to their natural state. Not defending with good cards or when the time is right and the risk is truly balanced with the reward -- defending with anything and everything and for emotional reasons. So both your outright steals and your legitimate good hands get called a lot more in levels 4, 5, and 6 when there are a lot of players still remaining.

Yet, it's time to start stealing blinds or playing your hands harder, or the blinds will eat you alive, and any chip lead you had will become more and more trivial as it becomes who's in the blind or has just one extra hand folded to him on the BB that's doing well or poorly, not the guy who won a hand or two earlier.

So you have to be active, and on a crowded table, your fold equity is very low even though the blinds and bets have become big enough that they should keep the smarter players in line. You'll get called by a lot of bad players often regardless of your stack size,, bet size, table image, your position, and the stack size and position and actual cards of the guys calling you.

A table that's somewhat crowded at these levels produces lots of times you'll bust out around 6th place, because poor players love to play their cards, and they aren't feeling pressured enough yet not to. The blinds don't give them a clue, stack sizes don't, nothing does...only seeing just a few players left does.

So you're going to be forced to steal at a time when there are plenty of people willing to call with garbage, and that will either make you a lot of money or bust you out. Your folding equity should rise in proportion to the size of the blinds, but it doesn't.