Post for david...

[goofball]

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Playing K4o out of position is hard

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I know. I've given this a lot of thought lately during the rough times. I've been looking hard at my blind play as a potential leak. I've thought about and tried to loosen up because I think i was playing way too tight. The problem I've encountered though is getting my opponent to define his hand when my hand is typically very margianl and I'm playing out of position. Having a very wide range of defending hands isn't particularly useful if we keep ending up with a marginal hand out of position heads up against the preflop aggressor.

[TimM]

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I'm usually playing in 10/20 (not so liberal as 15/30 party blinds), and I'm a very tight defender (SB steal fold at 80% and BB steal fold at 60%).

In the BB i'm a (.19) BB/hand and in the SB i'm a (.11) BB/hand. Overall, I don't think I'm suffering too much as I'm a 2.92 bb/100 player over my past 80k hands.

I'm really interested in this, as I find the "regulars" i play with in my B&M 10/20 game are way looser in their blind defense and I'm wondering if this is a leak in my game.

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DS wrote:

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B. How well do you play?
C. What are his preflop raising requirements.?
D. How well and what style does he play post flop.
E. Will it be to your advantage or disadvantage for future hands if people see that you defend your blind a lot? (It can be to your disadvantage if it disrupts a tight image that helps you get away with bluffs.)

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I see no problem playing a little differently multi-tabling online vs. a in B&M game.

For online multi-tabling in not so high limits:

B. Are you really going to be playing as well on many tables as you would in a single B&M game?

C. You may have some numbers describing his PFR%, ASB and AF, but do you really know his mix of hands and how he plays each type post-flop when he hits or misses?

D. Again, how well do you know each player when multi-tabling, especially if you don't have stats yet?

E. Players come and go alot online, and don't pay as much attention. This one is probably in favor of defending more actually - people will notice if you are constantly coughing up blinds, much more than how light you defend.

[goofball]

This is precisely the type of analiysis I've been looking for.

I think that what you are saying can be expanded to the more general following statement:

If the our opponent is predictable, calling with a huge range of hands becomes correct. It doesn't matter if it's the kind of opponent that will blindly bet every street, one that will give up after the flop or the turn if he doesn't have anything, or any other number of standard lines. One example that comes to mind is an opponent that always checks through the flop if he misses but always bets the turn and river if he keeps getting checked to. Another is an opponent who always responds the same way to a flop or turn checkraise depending on whether he has a hand.

Against an opponent who doesn't really use position well, we want to paly as many heads up hands as possible.

Of course the problem lies with the fact that most opponents are not predictable. The toughest opponents will of course sometimes bet the flop, sometimes bet the first 2 streets, and sometimes bet all 3 is a bluff. He might even play back at us with nothing if we checkraise a street, and he might check through sometimes ripping value away from us if we have a hand.

Not only is this kind of opponent the reason we might start seeing fewer flops with weak hands out of the blind, he's also the one we are much more likely to run across and predictable players are less likely to do a lot of steal raising.

[Tim H]

im no expert and i know a few hands can't be significant but I would rather play non broadway suited trash from the blinds against ep/mp raisers and i tighten up against LP raisers. Sort of reminds of how some tourney players talk of raising to steal blinds with trash - its easy to get away from.

Also its not every blind, it usually happens when A) I havent been in a hand for awhile, or B) I can accurately put them on a precise hand, and C) I am not losing at the table

2 of the biggest pots i have won were with 95s (31BB) and 72s (27 BB) against 2 opponents. In each hand one of the hands I was against was AA.

[DcifrThs]

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Actually its not so simple and I will leave it to others. Anyway suppose you have Q4 offsuit and are raised by someone with any pair, any ace or any two cards that add up to 15 or more. Something like that anyway.

Next assume that your strategy is to fold on the flop if you don't pair and check and call all the way to the river if you do. Obviously if this strategy is profitable or close to it, regardless of your opponent play, then the preflop call is correct. Assuming the preflop prerequisites specified.

Simple math shows that this simple strategy makes the preflop call right if your opponent will always bet all three rounds. You will win more than half the time it goes to the river. It is also obvious that the preflop call is right if the player always bets the flop and then always checks if he can't beat you. The tougher calculations occur if we stipulate a bet on the turn is a favorite but not a certainty too represent a better hand. Now add in that only some of the turn bluffs or semi bluffs will result in a second bluff on the river. My guess is that against a player like this a simple check call strategy to the river will lose enough to make the preflop call wrong. If so we have more work to do.

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if i call T8o in bb im not c'cing any pair. im check raising a good deal of the time and if he has overs on a j8x flop he'll likely call once and fold the turn (most opponents play this way) or call down w/ ace high or lower pairs.

when i'm played back at or a scary overcard comes THEN i slowdown and check call some of the times depending on the player...

in order to do the full analysis you're recommending here, we have to look at so many things that it becomes intractable...

so i took the simplest common denominator to evaluate close decisions for now. after the thread gets deeper into it i can then look at it as your suggesting...but for now for me im not capable of running a simplifying model that will portray the scenario close enough to real world to base my play on it.

so for me, im still giving up the small (possibly) ev for those close decisions until i can see a way of looking at it that suggest differently.

-Barron

[rigoletto]

Excellent post!

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Not only is this kind of opponent the reason we might start seeing fewer flops with weak hands out of the blind, he's also the one we are much more likely to run across and predictable players are less likely to do a lot of steal raising.

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The tough opponent is the one most likely to exploit our tendency to see fewer flops against exactly him/her. This doesn't cost us much edge in a loose game, but in a tight or a short game we can't let him/her run over our blinds. There are only two ways I can think of to solve this: one is a seat or table change, the other is to play at least as imaginatively as him/her. This means vary your blind defense play a lot.

Predictable is also a relative term. Once a tough player recognizes that you defend a lot and play decent postflop, they will tone it down. There is nothing like winning a hand with K high to accomplish this. The only thing you can not do is to defend your blind less. Also, even tough players has certain patterns, the thing to really look out for is when they change gears.

[Ulysses]

I feel like Sredni needs to stop by and remind everyone about Shania.

I believe the looseness of blind defense should be largely a function of the level of action post-flop. I feel like players who have a hyper-aggressive strategy post-flop, when playing opponents who are willing to give them excessive action, gain the most from defending very loosely. The more straightforwardly your opponents think you play, the less you have to gain from defending very light, IMO.

[rigoletto]

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I feel like Sredni needs to stop by and remind everyone about Shania.

I believe the looseness of blind defense should be largely a function of the level of action post-flop. I feel like players who have a hyper-aggressive strategy post-flop, when playing opponents who are willing to give them excessive action, gain the most from defending very loosely. The more straightforwardly your opponents think you play , the less you have to gain from defending very light, IMO.

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Isn't this a double edged sword? Having this image makes restealing much more plausible!

[bobbyi]

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This sounds like the argument that unsuited 76 is better than suited 76 b/c you won't get tied to the pot with the unsuited version.

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I need to read it again. Josh is basically saying stay away from dominated hands, which sounds fine in the context.

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No, I agree with Your Mom. Josh is saying that 73o is better than K3o because with 73o, you will usually only continue with something like trips or two pair and that will definitely win money for you postflop. But with K3o, in addition to the times that you flop trips or two pair, there will also be times that you flop a pair of kings and then you will be obligated to continue, but a pair of kings here loses money overall so you do worse with K3 than 73. The idea is obviously absurd because you could theoretically just fold everytime you flopped a marginal hand with K3, just like 76s can't be worse than 76o since you could theoretically just ignore it's suitedness and have it be equivalent.

[rigoletto]

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This sounds like the argument that unsuited 76 is better than suited 76 b/c you won't get tied to the pot with the unsuited version.

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I need to read it again. Josh is basically saying stay away from dominated hands, which sounds fine in the context.

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No, I agree with Your Mom. Josh is saying that 73o is better than K3o because with 73o, you will usually only continue with something like trips or two pair and that will definitely win money for you postflop. But with K3o, in addition to the times that you flop trips or two pair, there will also be times that you flop a pair of kings and then you will be obligated to continue, but a pair of kings here loses money overall so you do worse with K3 than 73. The idea is obviously absurd because you could theoretically just fold everytime you flopped a marginal hand with K3, just like 76s can't be worse than 76o since you could theoretically just ignore it's suitedness and have it be equivalent.

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The problem is that when you flop top pair with Kings it is not a marginal hand! And you will flop top pair more often with K3 than 73. The discussion here is a bit OT since Josh is referencing multiway pots and this thread is mostly about defending against steals.