Blind Defense - short handed.

[Wintermute]

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I agree with what Buzz and Gerg wrote. Another issue is postflop bettability. Many of these interesting EV matchups will never play out because the flop will allow an A2xx hand to bet liberally while a 5677 hand will feel great pressure to fold. If we got all-in preflop every time, then sure 5677 would be a more reasonable playing hand, but the way the game is structured it's junk because you'll have a hard time doing anything post-flop with it.

For example, A2QK rainbow could easily bet a 38J flop with two to a suit, while 5677 would take a look at that flop and get the hell out of dodge.

Yet, 2dimes tells us:

Omaha Hi/Low 8-or-better: 820 enumerated boards containing Js 8s 3h
cards scoop HIwin HIlos HItie LOwin LOlos LOtie EV
Ks Ac 2d Qh 193 325 495 0 342 72 0 0.488
7s 7c 6d 5h 213 495 325 0 225 342 0 0.512

So these 2dimes results have to be taken w/ a grain of salt.

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Yet this is also why "maniacs" like ZAPPUD and others can do better than we expect them to.

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Yes, but the jury's still out on ZAP and other like him, IMO. He's taking some huge swings lately (110 BB/100 std dev) and is a losing player after 12k hands in my database.

The problem with his style as I see it is this... it is true that often he is getting correct odds to call or whatever on the flop, as in this 5677 case. Winning in those instances makes his opponents tilt, probably the biggest factor to his success.

But when he's not getting correct odds to call with his 5677 (say the A2 is A2JK), he's crushed:

Omaha Hi/Low 8-or-better: 820 enumerated boards containing Js 8s 3h
cards scoop HIwin HIlos HItie LOwin LOlos LOtie EV
Ks Ac 2d Jh 443 644 176 0 342 72 0 0.742
7s 7c 6d 5h 46 176 644 0 225 342 0 0.258

Over time, good opponents will make him pay, I think he'll have to adjust to win long term.

But, again, the jury is definitely still out (I'm watching this guy pretty closely).

[gergery]

Completely agree. Overall I think that style is a losing one.

I’m just pointing out that it is a more successful style than one might initially think, precisely because he can be in fine shape against many hands that look like they should have him crushed.

-g

[Wintermute]

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Completely agree. Overall I think that style is a losing one.

I’m just pointing out that it is a more successful style than one might initially think, precisely because he can be in fine shape against many hands that look like they should have him crushed.

-g

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Definitely. I think the question to really mull over is whether it's possible to make this style successful. If you want to get the image/tilt benefits, you have to do this so much that I think it's probably tough to escape -EV in sum. I mean, you can't selectively decide when you're going to call off a stack with 5677 on the flop because you might be a coinflip, right? Seems like an all-or-nothing proposition, and "all" is probably not +EV.

[emptyshell]

I think it's a winning style if done correctly. I think we are really missing out on opportunities that a weighted-hand probability approach could provide. I must have missed a swath of hands WM caught, but ZAPPUD is still a big winner for the 14k hands in my database (not to say that he's implementing the strategy perfectly.)

[Wintermute]

He's getting absolutely butt-raped at the 1k/2k levels. 10 buyins at one 1k table the other night. I see a fiery implosion at the end for this guy. But who knows...