defending you Big Blind in a 10 or 9 seat full ring game...

I am a proven winner at Longhand and thats what I know how to play...
the big thing for me was to just realize how I should be adapting my
successful play there to be successful at SH...

I also am unsure of how to properly/correctly defend my Big Blind (in both Longhand and SH)...

I am most concerned with my thinking/thought processes/how I should be approaching the SH
games, and wow - it hit me like a ton of bricks when you guys
were saying I should be playing the SH games just the same at I would in the same Late Positions as
I would in the Longhanded games...no different. Not at all. I shouldn't even be trying to
steal with trashy hands myself, because most opponents will have widened defense ranges, so
therefore, in that type game (which is most SH games out there),
I would gain no benefit by trying to steal with "increasingly trashy" hands myself. I should, as said before, simply be attempting steals WITH THE SAME EXACT HANDS THAT I WOULD IN
A LONGHANDED GAME IN THE SAME POSITIONS OF THE HJ, CO, AND BUTTON.
This is profoundly correct thinking in my opinion, thinking in which I had not previously considered...

the 2nd adjustment I should be making (which Ed really points out in his article) is
to defend my BIG BLIND "tenaciously." And to be doing this because my opponents
(in the typical SH game that's out there) have incorrectly widened their steal range, and NOT because the
blinds are posted more often (this fact is irrelevant and should be
thought of as "the price you pay for getting to be in the advantageous late positions of the HJ, CO, and BU more often" as BArron said.
Ed also said that although you post your blinds more often, you have more "equity" in them each time...
(and, although I'm not totally sure here, I believe the REASON FOR THIS
is because of the incorrect play of the typical SH opponent (that causes you to adapt and defend more) and not because you post them
more often...Pls. correct me here if wrong...

I know that doing these 2 things will make me a significant SH winner.
I haven't put these into practice yet, I just know they'll work...

Please correct any of the above if I'm wrong - I wanted to summarize it and type it back to you guys to make sure I understand this properly...before I hit the tables and try it!
(if it works I owe you guys who responded a beer...no...a full dinner! lol)

1 more follow up question about "defending." (which, as I just learned, if your opponents are playing SH correctly and not widening their steal range in the SH game, would be the same as for SH as it is for Longhand...).

Ed mentioned to 3 bet a steal raiser with hands that have "showdown value."
What hands would these be...pretty sure they are:

1.) any pocket pair
2.) any ace
3.) anything else?

And pls. comment on what I said about the 72o...if you KNOW a player is weak post flop, and WILL fold if he misses the flop (if he has an AQ or AK/2 big cards OR if he has 10s and 2 overcards flop, etc....he's a tight wad) AND
you raise him, does it make it correct to ALWAYS take a flop against this guy?
(when he raises your Big Blind and you have not even looked at your cards?)

(once you start doing this, he should catch on and adapt, but we'll assume he wont't and is a tight-wad ABC player who "only plays HIS cards" for the purposes of answering the question...)

Thanks again,

[stoxtrader]

you are getting there. Maybe barron wants to handle this one. I will be doing some limited coaching starting in december, and need to save some of my teaching energy for that!

[DcifrThs]

[ QUOTE ]
read ed's article again. he explains this very clearly and you just missed it. His article is top notch and even mentions the bunching effect!

[/ QUOTE ]

link me... i still haven'y read it

thanks

Barron

[DcifrThs]

[ QUOTE ]
you are getting there. Maybe barron wants to handle this one. I will be doing some limited coaching starting in december, and need to save some of my teaching energy for that!

[/ QUOTE ]

you're coaching? but im not even done teaching you yet!!! [img]/images/graemlins/wink.gif[/img]

well i'll tackle ilbb's latest post when i get back from the GYM [img]/images/graemlins/smile.gif[/img] ... thats right stox, the doc said i can workout finally (but only on the eliptical machine...so i'll look like a girl till i can run again)!

-Barron

[stoxtrader]

try not to break the other ankle.

[gronmo]

http://www.notedpokerauthority.com/articles.htm

is this the site? It has some links to interesting radio interviews too.

[DcifrThs]

[ QUOTE ]
I am a proven winner at Longhand and thats what I know how to play...

[/ QUOTE ]

there's the first possible error in logic. how many hands? what win rate? what limit? lets say for instance that you have 100,000 hands at 1 bb/100 with a st.dev of 15bb/100 and you want the 95% confidence interval of your win rate its between 1.9297bb/100 and .0703bb/100.

now if you only have 50,000 hands its between 2.3148bb/100 and -.31478.

similarly, if you have 100k hands at 1bb/100 and your st.dev/100 (found in poker tracker under the sessions tab click "more detail") is 17.5bb/100 then your winrate is between 2.0846bb/100 and -.08464bb/100. this means that YOU CAN STILL BE A LOSING PLAYER EVEN THOUGH YOU'VE WON AT 1BB/100 FOR 100,000 HANDS!

so if you dont want to disclose it to the forum you can PM me your info and i can calculate your range or you do it yoruself and i'l tell you how.

the point is that you are NOT a proven winner. period. im not a proven winner (its just extremely unlikely my wr is negative-i.e. i need to turn my confidence interval up to .999999 for it to be negative meaning i want to be 99.9999% sure of my win rate range. and even then its a MASSIVE range)

[ QUOTE ]

the big thing for me was to just realize how I should be adapting my
successful play there to be successful at SH...

I also am unsure of how to properly/correctly defend my Big Blind (in both Longhand and SH)...

I am most concerned with my thinking/thought processes/how I should be approaching the SH
games, and wow - it hit me like a ton of bricks when you guys
were saying I should be playing the SH games just the same at I would in the same Late Positions as
I would in the Longhanded games...no different. Not at all.

[/ QUOTE ]

you are still thinking to strictly. you SHOULD play different IF YOUR OPPONENTS play different. poker is a game of exploitation of mistakes. you first need to recognize the mistakes your opponents make and then capitalize on them. if they raise too much, you defend more frequently taking the larger odds.

[ QUOTE ]

I shouldn't even be trying to
steal with trashy hands myself, because most opponents will have widened defense ranges, so
therefore, in that type game (which is most SH games out there),
I would gain no benefit by trying to steal with "increasingly trashy" hands myself. I should, as said before, simply be attempting steals WITH THE SAME EXACT HANDS THAT I WOULD IN
A LONGHANDED GAME IN THE SAME POSITIONS OF THE HJ, CO, AND BUTTON.

[/ QUOTE ]

unless yoru opponents are very bad or very good. if they are very bad you want to play more hands (just not the ones you mentioned...72o is just horrible. period.) because you will make more correct decision vs. the bad players (players who do far far far to much of one action and far far far to little of another). similarly, against VERY GOOD players, you need to show that you can gamble so that they cannot put you on a narrow range. i like small suited connectors for this purpose (for some reason 74s seems to work well [img]/images/graemlins/wink.gif[/img] ... but mostly 54s is as low as you should go) because that adds just enough variability to make it hard to tell what i have because i play almost all those hands very aggressively. but you also have to know when to put on the brakes and check behind a flop, or turn. or take a free river showdown, etc. etc.

point is you should look at what your opponents do and create a strategy to exploit them AND THEN BE CONSTANTLY WARY OF YOUR OPPONENTS' REACTION TO YOUR CHANGE. you must be willing to adjust quickly.

[ QUOTE ]

This is profoundly correct thinking in my opinion, thinking in which I had not previously considered...

the 2nd adjustment I should be making (which Ed really points out in his article) is
to defend my BIG BLIND "tenaciously." And to be doing this because my opponents
(in the typical SH game that's out there) have incorrectly widened their steal range, and NOT because the
blinds are posted more often (this fact is irrelevant and should be
thought of as "the price you pay for getting to be in the advantageous late positions of the HJ, CO, and BU more often" as BArron said.
Ed also said that although you post your blinds more often, you have more "equity" in them each time...
(and, although I'm not totally sure here, I believe the REASON FOR THIS
is because of the incorrect play of the typical SH opponent (that causes you to adapt and defend more) and not because you post them
more often...Pls. correct me here if wrong...

[/ QUOTE ]

thats interesting that ed said you have more equity in your blinds...i honestly dont know to what he's referring. i guess i need to read that article. usually during an analysis you hold variables constant and then alter them slightly and see the results (or theorize on the expected results). so if the players skill and hand selection is held constant and the # of players goes from 10 to 5, your equity in the blinds should be the same /time you post your blind. i may be wrong but i can't see it right now.

[ QUOTE ]

I know that doing these 2 things will make me a significant SH winner.

[/ QUOTE ]

this is the most incorrect thing you've said. and its not even remotely close. preflop strategy will in most games SH make you a small winner IF THAT. if you play mediocre postflop the best you can hope for is to be a small winner but likely will be a decent sized loser. if you play preflop perfectly (which i dont even do), AND play postflop decent, you'll probably be a small winner. what makes you a BIG winner is playing postflop excellently and preflop anywhere from OK to perfect. you are likely right now anywhere from big loser to small winner.

[ QUOTE ]

I haven't put these into practice yet, I just know they'll work...

[/ QUOTE ]

that remains to be seen.

[ QUOTE ]

Please correct any of the above if I'm wrong - I wanted to summarize it and type it back to you guys to make sure I understand this properly...before I hit the tables and try it!

[/ QUOTE ]

if i were you id start at .5/1.00 or some low limit where you can really see very obvious mistakes made and be sure you can adjust to those mistakes quickly.

[ QUOTE ]

(if it works I owe you guys who responded a beer...no...a full dinner! lol)

[/ QUOTE ]

you'll owe me much much much much more than that if it works (read: if you execute concepts correctly and accurately, dont tilt and put in the hours) [img]/images/graemlins/wink.gif[/img]

[ QUOTE ]

1 more follow up question about "defending." (which, as I just learned, if your opponents are playing SH correctly and not widening their steal range in the SH game, would be the same as for SH as it is for Longhand...).

[/ QUOTE ]

if opponents do not change their defending requirements and their defending requirements are correct, you should not change your (presumably correct) stealing requirements.

[ QUOTE ]

Ed mentioned to 3 bet a steal raiser with hands that have "showdown value."
What hands would these be...pretty sure they are:

1.) any pocket pair
2.) any ace
3.) anything else?

[/ QUOTE ]

far far far to general a statement. showdown value could include kings as well if your opponent is too loose...but youmay not often be going to the SD.

[ QUOTE ]

And pls. comment on what I said about the 72o...if you KNOW a player is weak post flop, and WILL fold if he misses the flop (if he has an AQ or AK/2 big cards OR if he has 10s and 2 overcards flop, etc....he's a tight wad) AND
you raise him, does it make it correct to ALWAYS take a flop against this guy?(when he raises your Big Blind and you have not even looked at your cards?)

(once you start doing this, he should catch on and adapt, but we'll assume he wont't and is a tight-wad ABC player who "only plays HIS cards" for the purposes of answering the question...)



[/ QUOTE ]

absolutely not. too many ANDs and IFs.


[ QUOTE ]

Thanks again,

[/ QUOTE ]

whew, that was a lot of work, but my foot (stox, its been located as my fibial sesamoid bone under the ball of my foot) feels good so i feel good so...

...you are welcome...but im expecting a large check from you in the future.

-Barron

[stoxtrader]

great response barron.

one point - you have additional equity in the BB shorthanded for the simple reason the hands against you are on average worse. put simply, there is a much better chance someone has AA 10 handed than 6 handed. However, your equity in the situation of a CO raise vs you HU, should be the same, regardless of how many are at the table, assuming CO standards are constant.

you should also find that winrates in the blinds are directly correlated to number of players at the table, with the extreme example being heads-up vs 10 handed.

[DMBFan23]

just to add to that, In Ed's article he points out that opponents sometimes DO behave differently, due to the fallacy of the 'blinds coming around faster, so you have to play more hands'. so it could be correct to defend more in a shorthanded game versus a raise from the same position because your opponents overadjust to the shorthanded-ness.

not sure if someone has mentioned that aspect yet but it was in ed's article IIRC (haven't read it in a while) so I thought that was interesting.

[nykenny]

THIS THREAD HAS TO BE THE BEST I HAVE READ FOR A LONG TIME. VERY GOOD JOB DcifrThs and ilovebadteats... and the others.

- Kenny