McEvoy's article "Betting The Wrong Amount..."

[gumpzilla]

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I like the bet when I flop top pair, say, T's with AT in my hand, but there is a flush draw out there. I have a solid hand, but its very vulnerable. If the flop is T-high, there is most likely a straight draw out there as well.


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This is fine, but there have to be more times that you pot it than this, otherwise it seems like a fairly substantial information leak. You can put slightly less in the pot, still protect your hand, and have more flexibility to make the same play in a wide range of circumstances while risking fewer chips, making it somewhat harder to give information.

[CardSharpCook]

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I have heard McEvoy accused of playing ABC, perhaps taking an accountant's approach. In one of his books he mentions that he won his WSOP title partly by playing tight when there was a lot of wild action at the final table.


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I happen to believe that this is how you should play any wild table. Many of you have seen the hyper-agro way that I play - trust me, that disappears at a hyper-agro table. I tighten up like a clam, knowing that when I get a hand it will likely pay-off bigtime. So I will wait. (here I go speaking in generalities again) You tend to want to do the opposite of what the table is doing. Tight table, loosen up. Loose agro table, tighen up.

Also, calling McEvoy W/T seems wrong to me. There is a segment of one of his books where he talks about Farmers vs. Foxes. Foxes being agro-good players, farmers being those wishing to protect their chip stacks. He certainly identifies foxes as being rare when the tournement starts, and plentiful when the tourney is old. (that is, foxes win tourneys.)

CSC

[Double Eagle]

I was at his table for a good while in one of the side tourneys in the Bahamas and I found him very ABC and pretty easy to put on a hand (and I have very little live tourney experience.) Maybe labeling him W/T is a little extreme as he certainly plays his big hands agressively, but I never got the feeling he was ever going to call a raise, let alone re-steal with 67s or raise someone all in with air ala MLG vs Evelyn Ng. I don't think it's just variance that has been keeping him from posting good results over the last several years....

[Scooterdoo]

Hi, Gavin. When I win my first WSOP bracelet I'll feel more comfortable saying what's on my mind about other players. That said, I have played with Tom three times in major $1.5k-3k buy-in no limit or pot limit tournaments and a) he did make plenty of less than pot sized bets, b) he definitely wasn't your typical aggressive/control the table pro -- e.g., he didn't play many hands and was fairly tight for a pro, and c) while I won't say that he was a bad player, I certainly didn't find him intimidating or overly impressive (not unimpressive, just not memorable other than his cool ring). That's not to say he isn't good, just that he didn't show anything special the 5-10 hours I've played with him.

[betgo]

It seems like the reports of McEvoy's play match the approach he advocates in his books and articles. The books don't talk much about mixing things up or bluffing.

It is pretty obvious from some recent results that winning the WSOP does not make someone a world class player. I assume McEvoy is a reaonably successful pro, but not a top player.

[2005]

McEvoy is an extremely successful writer, not necessarily a successful "pro". His book sales have very definitely supported his poker playing as of the last couple years.

Gavin

[cero_z]

Hi SoBeDude,

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I like the (pot-sized) bet when I flop top pair, say, T's with AT in my hand, but there is a flush draw out there. I have a solid hand, but its very vulnerable.

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This seems to be the standard line with TPTK or an overpair in the Party Poker $1000 NL cash games. I don't like it there, and if stacks are approximately as deep (say, early in the tourney)or shallower, I don't like it in a tourney either. I can't think of a reason why betting 70% of the pot is worse, as long as we're talking about "normal" pot and stack sizes at this juncture.

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In this spot, a pot-sized bet ruins the odds your opponents are getting to continue with hands such as flush and straight draws, but you're likely to still get action from hands like 2nd pair or top pair, worse kicker.


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I don't think it does ruin their odds to draw to 8 or 9 outs, given that if they call a pot-sized bet in a tournament, you will often be pot committed, and usually pay off the rest of your stack if their draw arrives, or be forced into a costly fold when a draw (or overcard) arrives and they bluff. Furthermore, you may get action from another TP hand, but you would still get action and sufficiently limit their slim drawing odds with a smaller flop bet. Plus, if there's any time that a good opponent will get away from TP, it's when they're faced with a flop bet large enough to commit them.

Of course, the single biggest problem with that bet is that you can't just do it when you have one good pair. You must also do it when you whiff, or when you flop big sometimes, or you'll be ridiculously readable. Given that you'll miss about 2/3 of the time with AT, and rarely hit a flop you can really like, I think betting the pot risks too much for too little, as a rule.

If you think this post is long, you should see what I started with: there were examples of scenarios with stack sizes, etc. I don't want to bog the post down any further, but we can talk specifics if you're interested.

Cero

[SoBeDude]

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I like the bet when I flop top pair, say, T's with AT in my hand, but there is a flush draw out there. I have a solid hand, but its very vulnerable. If the flop is T-high, there is most likely a straight draw out there as well.


[/ QUOTE ]

This is fine, but there have to be more times that you pot it than this, otherwise it seems like a fairly substantial information leak. You can put slightly less in the pot, still protect your hand, and have more flexibility to make the same play in a wide range of circumstances while risking fewer chips, making it somewhat harder to give information.

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What? you don't think I can bet the pot on a stone cold bluff? or with a vulnerable overpair?

-Scott

[gumpzilla]

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What? you don't think I can bet the pot on a stone cold bluff? or with a vulnerable overpair?


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Well, sure, if you do those things then that's good, but you were providing one specific instance of where you like to bet the pot. There wasn't a suggestion from that that you bet the pot in many different circumstances.

cero's post addresses this, as well as the issue of pot committing yourself, somewhat better than I have.