UB now has high limit HU TD -nt-

[beset7]

You are way out of line. Anybody who has played or even extensively sweated high stakes (100/200 and up) games online knows what Bluffthis is talking about.

[Shoe]

I tend to keep playing when I think I have an edge, and stop playing when I no longer think the situation is profitable.

[schubes]

I don't play specifically TD HU, but I think this is a very relevant topic for any HU game where your EV is in some sense 'too small' with respect to your variance. Why does the aggressive hit 'n run artist seem to be such a problem?

The basic situation is that you allow the possibility of losing a large amount to one player, but you are unable to win a large amount. Since we are assuming you are beating your opponent and the rake, if you could play many sessions with the hit 'n runner, you should win a moderate amount often enough to compensate for the many small losses and the infrequent very big loss.

But because you only get to play your opponent once, the confusing nature of short term probability is evident. You need to consider playing many different hit 'n runners for EV to have much meaning. If you suffer a big loss to one player, you are never getting it back from them, and this is frustrating. But if you graph your HU results (I have done this for limit HE), you may see a typical looking random walk with upward bias. The downswings might be often lost to one player, but the upswings are not.

You might argue (and I believe BluffTHIS was in the post I'm replying to) that in a game like high-stakes TD, you can't simply keep playing different hit 'n runners, because the pool is limited. You may have +EV, but you don't have the ability to grind out the long term. I think it's clear that the problem is related to how we view gambling in the short term.

[Danielih]

[ QUOTE ]
You are way out of line. Anybody who has played or even extensively sweated high stakes (100/200 and up) games online knows what Bluffthis is talking about.

[/ QUOTE ]

Ezcheeze plays almost exclusively higher than 100200 so perhaps you are out of line. Way out of line.

[Ezcheeze]

Your premise is false.

[timprov]

The problem with these players is not that their short-stack hit-and-run strategy negates your edge -- this is clearly false -- but that it's hard to ever be sure that you do have an edge when you're only playing fifteen hands or so with a player. If the guy sitting down with 1/5 of your chips is actually a better player than you, you're in a bad spot. Probably not as bad as if he stuck around longer, although pushing his larger edge before you adjust is clearly a good idea. In fact some of these players may have an edge only until you figure out their play, in which case their strategy would be good, and indeed you ought to avoid them. This probably means your own "default" play is a long way from optimal.

These players exist at every level. Personally I adore them, even though occasionally I get creamed by one.

[Shoe]

Your looking at this completley wrong. Anytime that you have an edge over someone (a big enough edge to beat the rake), it is +EV to keep playing, no matter if the person plans to hit and run or not. In the long run, you will win more from these hit and run artists than you would lose to them. However, that does not mean you should keep playing if you are tired, on tilt, at the end of a long session and not at the top of your game anymore, find another table that would be more +EV, or other reasons like that.

Take casinos for example. People will go up to the roulette, craps, etc..., and do the same thing everyday. Sure, the casino is going to lose a large amount on occasion to someone they won't ever see again, but all the small amounts they win will more than make up for this. Why? Because they have an edge, and in the long run you cannot beat the edge.

Now, as long as you have an edge against this hit and run guy, it is worth playing as many hands against him as he is willing to play. The key here is figuring out if you actually have an edge or not. If you have an edge, keep playing. Don't overestimate your abilities or the edge you have over this "fish", and don't play beyond your bankroll and you will end up with the winnings over the long haul.

[bobman0330]

Posts like this make people dumber about poker. It's articulate, coherent, convincing, and utterly wrong.

EV is meaningful even if you play one hand. Every bit of money you make at poker is made from playing single hands. If you suffer a big loss against one opponent hitting and running, you'll make it up at some other point in your poker career. As a player, you need to just accumulate +EV spots wherever you can. If you can add 10 +EV TD hands against a hit and runner to go with your 100,000 +EV HE hands, it's good.

By artificially subdividing things, you're distorting the analysis.

[schubes]

EV is meaningfull before you play that one session.

If you can add 10 +EV TD hands against a hit and runner to go with your 100,000 +EV HE hands, it's good.

It is meaningfull after the session in the sense that if you had +EV you can consider it a "good gamble" even if you lost.

If you suffer a big loss against one opponent hitting and running, you'll make it up at some other point in your poker career.

You most certainly do not get some phantom +EV after your loss that you can redeem at some later point in your career. You would be better off if you had never suffered the loss, but you are unable to predict how much you will lose or win, only your EV (and this only in theory). But if we sieze more +EV situations than our opponent, we should eventually win. This isn't a clear and trivial statement, and it doesn't directly follow from the law of large numbers, but I don't want to confuse you more.

I'll take it as a complement that you called my post "articulate, coherent, convincing," but it shouldn't bother you so much. I'm not saying that the hit 'n running can surmount +EV, only that you have the possibility of being a large lifetime loser against one or more of the players, while its only possible to be a small winner. I think BluffTHIS was dwelling on this point in the post I first replied to. It's still a "good gamble." I'm sorry if you can't handle anything but the "hourly-rate" paradigm.

[bobman0330]

I'm assuming that whoever is playing this high stakes TD is, in general, a high stakes poker player. If that's so, fearing the hit and run is just stupid.

If someone who never played poker, but was still good at it, was considering sitting in such a game, then maybe they might be concerned about short-term luck.

If you play frequently, you're just wrong to be worried about this. Would you refuse to play in an overtight holdem game because you can only win small, but might lose big in any given hand?

I'm not trying to say that losing will be compensated by "phantom EV," but if you're playing in these games, you should have the bankroll to deal with swings. You can play in other games to win. Risk aversion has no place in the mind of a cardplayer.

Being able to think outside the box enough to challenge the hourly winrate paradigm is commendable, but don't waste your talent challenging unalterably correct statements such as "An adequately bankrolled player should never decline a +EV gamble."