Stealing in O8 Tourneys as compared to NL

[gergery]

There has been some discussion of stealing in O8 tourneys, so I thought I’d throw out a few ideas and see what y’all thought. I’m looking for feedback/other input here.

-- As always in poker, you make money when your opponents make mistakes. So what are the mistakes people make during the mid-late stages in tourneys (the steal-period)?

-- Mistake #1. In tourneys during the middle-stage “stealing zone” time, you are usually up vs. just 1 sometimes 2 other players, whereas in a cash game you are often multiway. So hand value should be based on “shorthanded value” not “multiway value”. So something like 3477 that is an easy fold multiway is good heads up, while A234 which is great multiway is merely average heads up.

-- Mistake #2. If everyone folds to your steal, obviously it doesn’t matter what your cards were. It’s only when you’re caught that it matters. So you want hands that play well vs. the range of hands someone will catch you with – which are usually the A2/-A4 type hands. So something like 34JTds might be a better stealing hand than A49Qr because it is more “live”.

-- Mistake #3. Hands run much closer together in value head-to-head in O8 than in holdem. So if you just look at your equity on that one hand, it becomes more correct to call with “marginal” hands as blinds get bigger. Essentially, you don’t face the problem in O8 of being up against a monster, because there are no monsters hands preflop in O8. So you should defend more liberally than you would in holdem. Don’t go crazy – you still need to play tight to raisers, -- but you should call more often.

Then there are some implications from these mistakes.

First, a thought on game theory and equilibriums. In holdem, Let’s say Player A steals with a range of hands, say any Ace, ay pair, any K. Player B figures this out, and looks at the weighted probabilities and says, those blinds are pretty big, my hand is not much of a dog, he’s stealing with a lot of hands, so I’ll call with any pair, any ace, any K, any suited connector. And maybe that range of hands is about 40% of all hands dealt. Then Player A figures out B’s strategy, and says, if he’ll call with 40%, that’s a lot, so I need a decent hand to be a favorite, so I’ll tighten up.

Then B sees that and adjusts by saying, if he now has a better hand, then I’m more of an underdog with my weaker hands, so I now need to tighten up. This iterative process continues until you get a Nash equilibrium, where against each player has an optimal strategy to use against an opponent who is playing optimally. In fact, some people like Eastbay have tried to calculate this on the SNG forum.

Using some back of the envelop calculations just like that, and some data that [url=http://home.earthlink.net/~craighowald/data/matchup2.html] shows how a given hand will matchup to a range of hands [url], you can work out that head to head in level 5 in a holdem SNG, you should push with about the best 68% of your hands, and call with about the best 28% of your hands. Against opponents who are playing optimally.

So what does that have to do with anything?

Implications from mistakes:
1) If hands run closer together in value in O8, then any given hand you have will be less of a favorite over a given range of opponents hands. So an opponent playing optimally should be more willing to call your steal. Which means you should tighten up more. Which means they’ll tighten up more. Which means you can loosen up some. Etc. This should reach equilibrium when you are stealing considerably less than in HE, and your opponent is calling more. The fundamental driver of the equilibrium on that hand is your equity for a given hand vs. a range of hands, and the size of the blinds.

2) But you don’t play against opponents who play optimally – they make mistakes. So if they will play too many hands, then you should call more. And if they play too few, you should steal more. Not too earth-shattering a conclusion, except that in O8, not calling is a relatively bigger mistake since your hand is rarely a dog. Which is why paying attention to who is too tight becomes relatively more important as compared to the cards in your hand – when you compare this to holdem.

3) You also don’t evaluate things solely on one hand. You should pass up small EV edges if bigger EV edges are just around the corner (at least once you are in the middle-later stages of the tourney, and don’t take this idea too far). So if have a weak hand that is getting good odds, you could still want to fold it knowing the next hand you’ll get will be significantly better. But the size of your edge is less, so as blinds get bigger this gets less and less correct.

4) As a result, folding equity, which is critical in any form of poker, becomes even more critical in O8. Because most hands run close in value you get relatively little value from hand equity, so if you can generate good fold equity by targeting tight players, then your hand picks up a lot of relative value vs. HE. And most players in O8 seem to think they need the nuts to win. So aggressiveness should be relatively more important, if you can get it to work.

Conclusion
1) Steal with hands that play better head to head.
2) Steal more frequently in general, until they start calling a lot.
3) Steal against the tight opponents, avoid looser ones
4) Be willing to defend more liberally.
5) Target opponents who don’t adjust hand value to multi-way

Not sure how earth-shattering this all is, but I was thinking about it after my tourney the other day so I thought I’d throw it up.

-- Greg