Tommy Angelo Articles, PF Decisions

[DavidC]

I occassionally read stuff, though not as often as I should:

http://www.tommyangelo.com/ <font color="white"> ........</font> http://www.tommyangelo.com/articles.html

I enjoy reading these articles, and there's stuff worthy of reading in there, but you have to sift a bit.

Anyways, there's a few things he talks about:

1) http://www.tommyangelo.com/articles/...ottle_this.htm

[ QUOTE ]
[after taking a series of bad beats tommy says he] folded the next few hands preflop, but not just any hands. They were exactly those hands readers fret over, the ones that I don't think are all that bad, except for when, and especially when, I've lost some big pots, because that is the time to establish internal combustion control for the session, before it slips away

[/ QUOTE ]

He's talking about a 20/40 B&amp;M game here, fyi.

I was going to cross-post this in psych and theory (and not post it here at all), but I'd prefer to discuss it here:

---

Harman and/or Brunson, as well as someone who recently wrote an article in the 2p2 internet magazine, says that you're more likely to lose more and win less when you've already been losing in a session.

Tommy talks about keeping his emotions in check, and calming down a bit here. The other three that I've mentioned talk about opponents being more likely to call you and take shots at you, and your judgement being more likely to be impaired.

So I'm curious about what you guys think of folding marginal PF hands (even on the plus side of marginal) when you've recently lost a monster pot and you're concerned about table image / your own stability. Basically at a moment where you could be at the onset of tilt, but you're not totally out of control yet.

And 2) http://www.tommyangelo.com/articles/..._play_ever.htm

This got me thinking...

Which of these two plays is the worst:

A) Raising UTG with 72o in a game where everyone is loose and wild PF but really tough and tight (knowledgable of odds, etc.) post-flop,

or

B) folding aces preflop in a loose passive game when you're in the bb and everyone limped to you at a full table.

You should not be making EV calcs to do this, or folding aces will win by default (folding = zero EV). Rather, feel free to take a guess at the opportunity cost of each mistake.

--Dave.

[adsman]

An interesting point that I've learnt from reading Tommys articles is that if you're thinking that you're on the onset of tilt then you already are on tilt. Tilt doesn't have to be huge and out of control. Often it's the subtle tilt that really blows a session for you. For that reason I like Tommys idea here. His philosophy is to always play your best tilt-free game. I think that having control over your emotions is always more important than what your table image might be. You can manipulate your table image. You can't manipulate or control tilt.

On your other point I think that raising UTG with 72o at that table is the worst play. You're going to pay a lot to see the flop with a terrible hand, and if you do flop something you're up against players who are going to punish every mistake that you make and aren't going to make any mistakes themselves.

[Paxosmotic]

Folding aces is the worse play, period.

[Guruman]

lets measure the diffrences to find out.

I rase 72o utg in game 1.

ten players see a capped flop, and I contributed 4sb into this 40 sb pot.

my equity vs 9 other random hands is pretty low, but I'll automatically have odds to chase almost until the river. It's a negative EV move pf, but it can't be for more than 4 sb, since thats all I put in.

On my other table everyone limps and I openfold AA in the bb.

In this case I miss out on my share of not just the 10sb in the pot now, but the additional 10 that I could have gotten in by raising here.

Is my equity in a 20sb pot with AA greater than my deficit in a 40sb pot with 72o?

pokerstove tells me that headsup AA is 88 to 11 vs 72o. It cant handle adding in all of the other random hands though.

[SlantNGo]

Folding the Aces is easily the worst play... giving up way too much of an edge.

[bozlax]

Ok, I'm taking this a step further. I ran 'stove, pitting 72o against a single random hand and AA against a single random hand. I'm amazed to discover that 72o has 35% equity against a random hand! AA, otoh, has 85% equity.

So, using your numbers, folding AA is going to cost you 17SB, playing 72o is potentially going to earn you 14SB, so folding AA is the bigger mistake.

[Weatherhead03]

Open folding the best PF hand is the biggest mistake anytime. Period.

[Brain]

[ QUOTE ]
Ok, I'm taking this a step further. I ran 'stove, pitting 72o against a single random hand and AA against a single random hand. I'm amazed to discover that 72o has 35% equity against a random hand! AA, otoh, has 85% equity.

So, using your numbers, folding AA is going to cost you 17SB, playing 72o is potentially going to earn you 14SB, so folding AA is the bigger mistake.

[/ QUOTE ]

But in this example, we're not playing AA vs. 1 random hand. We're playing it against 9 random hands. Don't we have to take this into account? I ran it vs. 9 random hands and got 30.5% equity for our AA.

[bozlax]

[ QUOTE ]
[ QUOTE ]
Ok, I'm taking this a step further. I ran 'stove, pitting 72o against a single random hand and AA against a single random hand. I'm amazed to discover that 72o has 35% equity against a random hand! AA, otoh, has 85% equity.

So, using your numbers, folding AA is going to cost you 17SB, playing 72o is potentially going to earn you 14SB, so folding AA is the bigger mistake.

[/ QUOTE ]

But in this example, we're not playing AA vs. 1 random hand. We're playing it against 9 random hands. Don't we have to take this into account? I ran it vs. 9 random hands and got 30.5% equity for our AA.

[/ QUOTE ]

I figure that our equity will be comparatively the same as long as it's run against the same number of random hands. I don't want to wait for 'stove to crank out the results for 72o vs. 9 random hands...it might never finish.

[flair1239]

If you are prone to tilt, then the AA hand is going to mess with you more than the 72 hand.

Because no matter how much you tell your self about how AA only wins 30% of the time against 9 random hands, you expect to win all the time.

I think that was the point of your question. Losing the AA hand will effect you well after that hand is over. While the 72 hand is just a mistake for that hand.

That said if you are that prone to tilting, poker is not your game. So the AA fold is the worse play by far.