Crosspost - "Cookie Cutter disease"

[J_V]

mods: You can delete this if need be, since it's a self serving crosspost, but I'd be curious to see if some of the other posters here are having a similar problem.


I believe that there is an epidemic spreading in the ranks of mid-high level poker. I have been afflicted for many months now. Cookie Cutter poker is simply taking shortcuts in order to avoid having to make tough decision later on.

Now this is partly caused by reading too much 2+2, where we always looking for default lines and cheap gimmicks in hand analysis - only because so often we are without reads and player knowledge.

We need to remember, that they call it poker for a reason, I sometimes forget that you always have the option to actually play poker.

Here are a few quick examples. The first is from limit holdem. While cookie cutter syndrome is a problem in limit poker, it's more of an ailment than a disease.

You raise two black Queens in early position. Only the BB calls. The flop comes A94. Your opponent checks and you bet. The turn is a 4. Instead of deciding if your opponent has an Ace or not, you elect to check the turn and call a river bet and bet if checked to. You don't even consider the possibility of trying to make 2 bets when ahead and lose 0 when behind.

In no limit tournaments and cash games, the problem is more serious because you give up more EV and its more prevalent because the of the gravity of the decisions. Those afflicted tend to take sub-par lines in order to avoid having to make difficult decisions on later streets. They also might tend to tighten up preflop so that they aren't stuck trying to figure out what to do with one pair in a big pot. In doing this, they are passing up +EV situations. A good example is that when players flop hands such as a flush draw and two overs they almost always are looking to get it in on the flop, instead of calling a bet and using position to perhaps take the pot away on the turn or river from there opponent (or making their disguised hand and getting paid off). Committing themselves on the flop with a hand that is close to 50-50 if called is not necessarily bad, but other lines are often better, particularly if you are more skilled than your opponent.

Another example is making too large of raises w/ AA and KK fearing that you may actually have to fold the hand on later streets if you make a smaller raise. If you raise enough (more than 1/8) of your opponents stack, your opponent won't have odds to try to outdraw you. Why are we avoiding tough decisions? That's supposed to be fun and profitable right?

So you make the big raise and your opponent alls preflop and pushes on the flop into you. You instantly call, even though deep down you know you're clearly behind, and later, pat yourself on the back for making a +EV long run play. Where if you had thought about the flop and been able to fold, the Aces situation woulda been a gazillion times more +EV. It's embarrasing that that has been my preflop thought process with AA and KK in some hands.

Here are two examples from NL tournaments. The first I don't remember all the details, but was the hand from this year's WSOP ME. An unknown player makes a standard raise with QQ and Phil Hellmuth calls his raise either in the blind or he had limped in, either way he is out of position. The flop comes AJx and the unknown gets sizeable bets in on every street and beats Phil's J-10.

The second hand is a hand played by Michael Gracz against Shaniac at a WSOP final table this year.

Shaniac raises in EP with KJs, Michael Gracz calls the reasonable raise in the bb with A-10o. Flop 862. Check, check. Turn rag. Check, Shaniac announces all in for about 1.25x the pot, Gracz deliberates calls.

While I think both plays are debateable (though correct IMO), they show the willingness to make difficult decisions and act on them. In the QQ hand against Hellmuth it would have been easy to check the turn and call a small river bet from Phil (or more likely, check,check), or even easier to check the river behind.

In the Gracz-Shaniac hand, how many players are even calling and EP raise from a tight player with A-10o, (eventhough its probably correct - based on that particular tourney situation). It would be very easy to shy away with that hand, eventhough its probably correct to play it.

Obviously the turn call is read dependent, but are you willing to go broke with Ace high on tv at a final table in that spot. I'm pretty sure, I'd fold eventhough I'd want to call. This my friends is a very bad disease if you are looking to reach the pinnacle of the poker world.

[edge]

My last two sessions have been horrible by my standards. I majorly luckboxed the first one (ridiculous suckouts on my part) and probably made money over the two days, but I've been playing really poorly. I'm not really paying attention and browing internets on the other monitor, so I kind of fall into standard lines, many of which are suboptimal at times. I'm checking behind on the turn way too often, whether I have a hand or not, whereas when I'm playing my best, I often fire the second barrel for a specific reason or make a turn value bet. Instead of analyzing the specific situation, I'm just looking at the general situation. I think maybe I'm becoming overconfident since I've been running over the game for the past two months (albeit small sample size) and almost never had a losing session.

[NLSoldier]

Very nice post J V.

[greygoo]

you are maybe right, but I think a lot of what you mentioned has more to do with multitabling and facing a lot of unknown opponents (no solid reads). Also 100bb stacks are not that deep and when you also consider that a lot of people are playing even shorter, common decisions are probably pretty close to optimal anyway. Not that I advocate autopilot play, but when you have 4 SH tables open, playing every hand like it's the most important one is somewhat unachievable.

[creedofhubris]

Cookie cutter plays are long-run near optimal and also tend to lower your variance.

You can push your edges if you have a good read, but the cookie cutter play is the one to make with no reads, which happens a lot on the internet.

[JFB37]

Nice post. Let me add one other thing that has been bugging me about the forum lately. I think that most (certainly not all) but a significant proportion of the posts/threads here promote weak tight play. The reason is that far more hands are posted where Hero lost than when Hero won. There are two reasons for this, I think: (1) people don't have so many questions about hands they won and (2) there is a bit of a "look at me" quality to posting a big hand that you won.

Here's the problem: everyone knows this. So, when hands get posted people naturally start looking for the monsters under the bed and post about how it's an "easy fold" and how hero should "only call if you don't like money."

Poker isn't that way. Lots of plays work, and are very profitable, that aren't the standard thing to do. That's why they work. For example, last night, I put in my whole stack on a bluff on the river when the flush card hit (it was painfully obvious Villain had hit a set on the flop). I did it because I knew that my opponent has an over inflated view of himself and would very likely lay it down patting himself on the back for his read. That is, in fact, what happened.

I actually think hands like this are interesting and learning how to make plays like this are an important skill. It took me a long time to learn how to do stuff like this. However, if I posted the hand I have no doubt I would quickly be told how much I suck.

[cero_z]

Hi JV,

I appreciate your attempt to add some depth to these discussions, but there's a problem with everything you say here. The problem is that if we started doing it your way, the answer to most every post would be, "play poker," or "it depends". This forum is useful mostly for determining the "card strategy", absent a good physical/psychological read.

Also, your advice to "decide if he has an Ace or not" is not good. That either/or thinking is what allows people to succeed with post-oak bluffs and get huge value-overbets paid off. What you should be doing in poker is assigning a likelihood to each of your opponent's possible holdings, and then picking the line that does best against that RANGE, while considering the pot, effective, implied, etc. odds. This is very different from deciding if he "has it or not". Now, sometimes you're positive your opponent has a certain hand, or doesn't have the hand he's representing, etc. In that case, you do the same thing; it's just that his range is very narrow, due to your strong read. In any case, I love your limit posts, and hope you get involved in this forum as a regular poster.

[fsuplayer]

QQ checked the flop vs hellmuth, then bet the turn and river.

[ QUOTE ]
I put in my whole stack on a bluff on the river when the flush card hit (it was painfully obvious Villain had hit a set on the flop). I did it because I knew that my opponent has an over inflated view of himself and would very likely lay it down patting himself on the back for his read. That is, in fact, what happened.


[/ QUOTE ]

This is bad logic. Today I bluffed $5 into a $50 pot and lost. Later I bluffed $25 into a $30 pot and won. Did I make 0, 1 or 2 good decisions? Johndoe would probably say 1 good and 1 bad. John2+2 would say "i dont know tell me more".

Lets say I had a 1 in 5 chance of picking up the $50 pot with my bluff. Johndoe would get to say "i told you so" 4 out of 5 times. But John2+2 would make an average of $6 each time he made this sort of bet ((1x50 - 4x5)/5).
When you put your whole stack in for the pot, just because you won that time, doesnt mean it was the right decision. If your hand looks like my $25 bluff into a $30 pot, but I only have a 1 in 4 chance of winning then its still -EV, regardless of the result. You would actually lose $11 on average ((1x30-3x25)/4). But when you win you would still go to 2+2 forums and say "i told you so".


[ QUOTE ]
Hi JV,

I appreciate your attempt to add some depth to these discussions, but there's a problem with everything you say here. The problem is that if we started doing it your way, the answer to most every post would be, "play poker," or "it depends". This forum is useful mostly for determining the "card strategy", absent a good physical/psychological read.

Also, your advice to "decide if he has an Ace or not" is not good. That either/or thinking is what allows people to succeed with post-oak bluffs and get huge value-overbets paid off. What you should be doing in poker is assigning a likelihood to each of your opponent's possible holdings, and then picking the line that does best against that RANGE, while considering the pot, effective, implied, etc. odds. This is very different from deciding if he "has it or not". Now, sometimes you're positive your opponent has a certain hand, or doesn't have the hand he's representing, etc. In that case, you do the same thing; it's just that his range is very narrow, due to your strong read. In any case, I love your limit posts, and hope you get involved in this forum as a regular poster.

[/ QUOTE ]

My thoughts exactly. Casual winning players often critisize my "paying people off" by saying "I knew he had that". Meanwhile everyone watching the hand "knew it" too. But they "knew" so-and-so had it serveral times and were wrong. Figuring out what peoples exact cards are is just Hollywood. Like cero said, our goal is to make the bets decision given the range of hands they could have. Our goal is also not to rackup "i told you so"s.

"Play poker" is a good suggestion for live games or anyone "playing poker". But the majority of people on here are multitablers. Multitabling is "playing poker" the way playing Madden is "playing football".

[AZK]

While this is true in a lot of cases, Cookie cutter poker IS optimal when you are playing online, 100xBB stacks, mid limits, several tables, with opponents who have glaring holes in their play.