A-small agaisnt a button raiser.

[J.R.]

Nate's blind steal sims

[MAxx]

I call w/ Axo out of the BB to almost all steal raisers. If I catch a weak ace, I may show the weak ace line. If i catch a six and feel like its time to cr flop.... i will.

If I dont catch anything, and the flop contains a bunch of face cards with no ace... I will likely check/fold flop.

If the flop is low, but doesnt hit... I will occasionally c/r the flop anyway... especially if I have a gutshot or something else going on. This is player dependant though.

These are a few situations, and sometimes it is more cloudy. I think experience/player reads will just have to do there.

[naphand]

Nate's blind stealing SIMs produce top-end results that can be derived from mathematical probabilities (i.e. calculating the % chance of a win against 2 opponents - such as stealing OTB). Most of the hands Nate lists are clear favourites mathematically. In fact, most of the list is identical. Certainly the agreement is good for all pairs, Aces, Kings and Queens. The differences appear at the bottom end when dealing with suited and offsuit connectors, which mathematically begin to struggle to win more than their fair share (78s, 86s, 98o etc.). It is these hands Nate has run SIMs saying they are profitable, but mathematically they are underdogs. This is where your research should be concentrated, as these kinds of hands are very dependent on the extra equity available from taking the blinds with no flop. If blinds fold 20% then your equity will increase correspondingly, though it is dependent on what they fold, a hand like 72o in the SB folding to your steal when folded add some equity to your hand (72o has 20.4% equity in a 3-way pot, so when this is folded you and your opponent get a share of this equity and your 86s, for example, increases from 32.0% to 46.5%. If the SB folds his 72o you get 46.5% of an SB, which is enough to overcome your slight mathematical disadvantage to the BB. You still have position of course, which further adds to your advantage. If the BB folds his 72o and you are HU with the SB then your share of the folded equity is greater, even though your mathematical position is identical. So it matters who folds and what, although in just about any case, getting a blind to fold puts you in a profitable position with all but the worst hands.

The borderline hands that Nate's SIMs showed as profitable will require very good post-flop skills, predictable opponent/s or a high steal success rate. It is difficult to assess the accuracy of TTHE SIMs without knowing more about how the program works and the conditions of the simulated game. The mathematical model also suffers from a lack of post-flop/opponent modelling, in that there is no post-flop model, only raw probability of a win. But for pre-flop strategy the simple mathematical model is correct, the decision to play on after the flop depends on your post-flop game and not your PF equity.

[rory]

You could try folding it preflop.

[popniklas]

I'm folding here if the X is 7 or smaller, reraise if it's T or higher. Not sure about A9, A8 and waek suited aces.

[Guido]

I agree with what kiddo and MAxx said and not with rory.

According to my database I lose about 0.35 with A2o-A6o against a steal raise and it's HU. So it seems a call to me. I only call these when I think it's a real steal and he seems to raise a lot. Most of the time these players keep pushing on the flop and turn.

Thanks,

Guido

[stigmata]

Not sure this is entirely relevant (but it is related).

The pokerroom stats show that A[2-6] are unprofitable out of position in a 2 handed game, whereas A[3-6] are profitable on the button.

Obviously this is HU play rather than blind stealing, and stats representing an "average" player. However it does clearly demark A7 as the borderline for out of position aces when heads-up.

However, they are pretty damn marginal, suggesting they should be played with reasonable post-flop skills........?

[maxpowers21]

[ QUOTE ]
We need more info on these sims you ran. Which 1/3 and 1/2 of hands did you run? Sims like this also don't account for postlfop play. Many players are willing to hand you bet after bet if you hit the flop in steal situations. Only having a 48% equity edge preflop is more than enough if you play fit or fold and manage to pick up some bets postflop.

Nate ran a bunch of blind stealing sims a while back on some software that did crude postflop sims, I'd do a search for those or see if anybody bookmarked them.

[/ QUOTE ]

Text results appended to pokerstove.txt

11,362,849,344 games 33.088 secs 343,413,000 games/sec

Board:
Dead:

Hand 1: 49.6307 % [ 00.46 00.03 ] { AA-22, AKs-A2s, KQs-K2s, QJs-Q8s, JTs-J8s, T9s-T8s, 98s-97s, 87s, AKo-A2o, KQo-K2o, QJo-Q8o, JTo-J8o, T9o-T8o, 98o }

Hand 2: 50.3693 % [ 00.47 00.03 ] { A6o }

Here's a new sim i put the button raiser to have any Ax and Kx, and 2 cards 8 or higher, any pair, plus 78s, 97s, not sure the exact % make up of these hands but i would guess it's close to 40%

This is just showdown %.

These numbers really don't mean anything in themselves as to whether the hands are +EV out of position agaisnt a solid opponet button raiser.

But, these rusults would lead me to beleive I want to showdown my A-high a decent amount of the times against a laggy button raiser who will frequent a blind steal from the button, if i flop well, basically paired up or paired board. These will simply win more from aggresive laggy bluffers and still have a good showdown % on these flops so that a check call-mode will show profit, IMO.

I also aggree with maxx about beign very wary of paint heavy flops with A-high

I ran another sim, same as above, but with similar flop textures,

when a JQxo flops x=2-5, A6o has 38%-ish equity, not very good if you want to showdown from the flop

KQxo fop, x=2-5, A6o has only 30-31%ish equity!!!!!

JTxo flop, 37%ish
QTxo, 38%
KTxo, 29%-30%
79J, 34%
89J, 32%

etc..

Granted, the k hands will vastly diminsh your equity % because i configured the button raiser to raise with any Kx but not any Qx or Jx hand

IMO, the sim basically shows that you want to hit and see a showdown or you want to check fold quite a bit, especially on piant heavy flops.

[Wynton]

[ QUOTE ]

The borderline hands that Nate's SIMs showed as profitable will require very good post-flop skills, predictable opponent/s or a high steal success rate.

[/ QUOTE ]

In another thread today (which has been roundly ignored), I noted that some people (I think in that Nate thread) suggest defending with virtually any 2 cards, or at least with a very broad range. My question concerned the assumptions about the play post-flop, defending so liberally.

To be more specific, if Nate's sims show it is profitable to defend with 97s, does that assume that the player will fold immediately unless the flop connects, and does it assume that the player will go to a showdown just so long as he ends up with at least one pair?