Interesting Phil Ivey quote

[bills217]

"If you play a lot of poker, you realize that the better players play a lot of hands and they take chances,'' Ivey says. "The players that don't do as well are just sitting there folding every hand and not taking chances. I'm playing against the best players in the world day in and day out, so you can't just sit there and play only good hands all the time. You've got to take some chances and know when you're beat and know how to get certain advantages."

He said this in an article on espn.com where he discusses how he finds the ultra-high stakes $4k-$8k cash game at the Bellagio more fun and rewarding than tournaments.

http://sports.espn.go.com/espn/poker...amp;id=2252232

I realize he's referring to a game that's very different from the 1/2 game at Party, but still...it was a surprising quote to me. Thoughts?

The pros at 4-8k are better (or at least richer) than any player you're going to find at any normal poker table. Nobodys a donk, so natrually to survive it would seem you're going to have to drastically change your style of play and keep your opponents guessing which is what I think he's talking about.

To me it makes sense. Everytime you realize that the table is pretty equal in skill this mindset is necessary. If you're a chicken, you change table. Personally I love playing against tough opponents and find a way to first learn them and then probably beat them.
But I'm just a passing low limit newbie, what could I know?

[bernie]

[ QUOTE ]
"If you play a lot of poker, you realize that the better players play a lot of hands and they take chances,'' Ivey says. "The players that don't do as well are just sitting there folding every hand and not taking chances. I'm playing against the best players in the world day in and day out, so you can't just sit there and play only good hands all the time. You've got to take some chances and know when you're beat and know how to get certain advantages."

He said this in an article on espn.com where he discusses how he finds the ultra-high stakes $4k-$8k cash game at the Bellagio more fun and rewarding than tournaments.

http://sports.espn.go.com/espn/poker...amp;id=2252232

I realize he's referring to a game that's very different from the 1/2 game at Party, but still...it was a surprising quote to me. Thoughts?

[/ QUOTE ]

Not that suprising. I'm guessing the pool of players at that level is rather small so you're playing against many of the same players alot. Lower levels, especially online, there's a huge turnover so you don't have to worry as much about changing it up.

b

[sweetjazz]

There are two reasons why it is right to play more hands in games against tougher opponents.

1) The tighter a game, the greater the chance to take down a pot with a bet. As your folding equity increases, more hands become playable. (Note that this does not apply in a typical low limit game where players go much too far with their weaker hands.)

2) The FTOP tells us that how well we and our opponents do is based on how closely decisions mirror those that would be made if the other player's cards could be seen. The more hands we play, the harder it is for our opponent to distinguish between the possible hands we can have. This increases the likelihood we can induce our opponent to make a FTOP mistake. (Note that the opposition has to be good enough to read hands before this is applicable.)

A key thing to note in the tough games is that it can be sometimes correct to play a hand that is slightly -EV if it increases the EV of your future +EV hands enough to offset what you are giving up on that hand. Of course, that doesn't mean openraising with 72o UTG is a good idea, nor is routinely 3-betting middle position raises with small suited connectors.

[Kurn, son of Mogh]

Not surprising at all. At most levels of poker, you make the lion's share of your profit from your opponents' mistakes. At the level he plays, there aren't that many basic mistakes being made, so he has to mix it up.

[Noo Yawk]

At this level of play, hand reading skills are paid a premium. Experts simply don't worry about domination as they are more aware of their opponents style and range of hands. They also tend to play shorthanded and even at full tables you won't see too many 5 way pots.

If you try to play this way at small or middle limits before your abilities and experience catch up, you'll find yourself broke.

For the 4/8K game, the maximum buyin is what? 800K?

So a really horrible night at the table would mean a loss 3 or 4 million?

Anyone know how Phil Ivey does online? I would think a major part of being able to play that style in the big cash games is being able to read people...not as easy online.

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So a really horrible night at the table would mean a loss 3 or 4 million?

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Daniel Negreanu lost a million at one of these games in one sitting, and the other players refered to losing $1,000,000 a night for the first time as having your "cherry" broken. Crazy. Big losses like this must be pretty typical. I wonder if Moneymaker ever tried the $4k/$8k game? Somehow I doubt it.