Strategy Gap at 50% on Flop? (Partly a Rant)

[gmanko]

It's me again, the guy who prefers 45% on Flop/7.5BB Pots.

There seem to be a lot of other people who are good players, but their results just don't show it. They read the books, practice, post their questions in the forums, and get advice from other players.

So what is going on? Is there really a pattern mapper (I hope so, but only if someone will send it to me)? Are house bots rampant (I hope not)?

I am going to suggest that there is a "gap" in strategy between 50% and 60% of players on the flop. I have done a few dozen simulations on flop percentage vs. pot size, and in general the more players that see the flop, the bigger the average pot at the end. HOWEVER, pot size levels out at around 10BB when 50% of players see the flop, and does not increase substanially until 60% of players see the flop on average (imagine a shallow exponential curve to the third power).

It is interesting to note (but probably a coincidence) that SSHE gives separate strategies for when 3-5 players see the flop on average, and when 6-8 players see the flop on average, but no advice for in between.

What does this mean?

With a 10BB average final pot, that means with two players on the river that it is likely that the pot was around 6BB (12 SB) at sometime on the flop. That makes it profitable for hands like gutshots and ace-baby with a small pair to call.

However, in the great majority of cases you won't be one of the people in the hand in order to make that draw. A good player needs many players in the pot to call a raise with a medium suited connector, or to be sure that many callers will follow (hopefully without a raise) to limp with a small pair in early position. You don't have these assurances when the average on the flop is 50-60%, especially if there is even one other aggressive player in the game.

My point is there seems to be a point between 50%-60% on the flop where players who make preflop mistakes have odds to draw postflop, but preflop you don't have the odds to call to hit those types of draws.

Don't get me wrong, I like big pots, but when I have a strong hand or a strong draw I will be in there building it, to increase the chances that the pots I win will be around 10BB or more. But if the pots are natuarally big, then in a limit game I can't do enough raising or check-raising to protect my hand from possible draws.

I have seen things improve above 60% in practice games and the higher profits are there, but I have never seen such a real-money game, either live (at 5-10 or above) or online (at any limit, in a full ring game).

I hear people say that you just have to take your beats and get them next time. But how? I never say to myself "the next time I call 3 bets with 63s he's going to be sorry!", because I don't play those kinds of hands. Plus, as we all know the money in poker comes from other players, but it goes to other players AND THE HOUSE - even if you did get into a situation with him later on, chances are you won't get all your money back.

People also say, but your aces have huge pot equity. I wish I could find the button to cash out my pot equity, because if I could I'd be a rich man. Unfortunately, only the best hand at the end wins anything.

Or they'll tell me that I have to discount my outs. I cut down my odds with AK on a T42 2-suited flop, only to discover that some dope defended his blind with 42o and I was drawing nearly dead. When you see them listing every out on TV its usually when it's heads-up and one player is all-in. I wish my "Peek" button worked.

I say "Bull". I just played 2500 practice hands against a 35% flop table and won 2.5 BB/hr with a very low standard deviation.

I then played another 2500 practice hands against a 51% table and lost 1 SB/hr. Oh, sure there were some nice swings where I'd hit a couple monster pots pretty close together, and thought I was Phil Hellmuth and Annie Duke combined (picture Annie's head on Phil's body). But over time everything started falling apart - "if only I'd have kept that 34s in UG, I'd have flopped a full house and beat both the guy behind me who caught a straight on the turn with A2 and the player behind him who made his 8-2 flush on the river".

My goal is to do this for a living and if I can work my way up and make 2.5 BB/hr at 10/20 or 15/30 without too much of a swing in my bankroll, then that is fine with me. I don't need that kind of stress when it's time to pay the bills.

So I say keep chasing those big pots, you'll win one every once in a while. But if you ever come into a game where more than 30% but less than 50% of players see the flop (or where the average pot is more than 6 but less than 9 big blinds), I'll be there waiting for you.

[driller]

Excellent pre-flop play will make you a break even player at best. Probably a loser at the higher limits. I could beat Wilson TTH for a long time before I could beat a real game.

[MicroBob]

different tables and textures require different strategies.

I see no significant 'gap' in strategy intelligence at the 50%-60% see-flop level.

One who studies SSHE and HEFAP as well as situations that have arisen in their own game should have little trouble adjusting to most table-situations.


Also - Ed does not specifically have strategy guidelines for 3-5 players seeing the flop and 6-8 players seeing the flop.
he has 'pre-flop starting hand guidlines' that he has divided into a couple of different categories.

He addresses which hands you are more likely to want to play or not play in certain situations and a thinking player should be smart enough to make various adjustments as they are playing.


Even if they aren't making a great deal of adjustments...a table with 55% of the players seeing the flop isn't going to be very tough to beat anyway.

[dogmeat]

MicroBob is a good person to begin learning from. You also need to understand two things:

Your sample size is tiny. 2500 hands is about what a full-time online player sees in a day. So, that said, the second thing you need to understand is that there will be variance in your results. Poker is not a static game, it is a fluid game that requires constant interpretation and change to beat.

Players that learn a very rigid structure (especially for post-flop play) may do well at the lower limits, but will not be able to beat medium or upper limit games (and players). Good luck.

Dogmeat [img]/images/graemlins/spade.gif[/img]

[gmanko]

Over the course of my entire time online though I still am much more comfortable (and successful) when the table averages 40-50% on the flop, and the average pot is about 7.5 BB, so I think my style lends itself well to that type of game. I win about 6-8% of pots, and I like to be the most aggressive person at my table.

Once more than 50% of people see the flop, though, and pots get bigger than 10BB, I find myself being shut out of a lot of pots that I would have won had I played like a fish (eg calling a raise cold with 78s), and my decent hands on the flop (such as top pair) don't hold up often enough against 4 or 5 opponents drawing at you. In this type of game I win only about 3-4% of the pots.

I think my problem is I have trouble choosing between the "tight" and "loose" preflop strategies recommended in SSHE at this point, since it is on the transition. With a 55% flop percentage you will never see exactly five and one-half players on the flop, it will either be 5 or 6, and sometimes 4 or 7, and rarely 3 or 8. And in early to early-mid position it is hard to tell how many other players are going to enter (especially online), since you must act first. If you choose wrong either way you will end up kicking yourself if you floded a big hand with many limpers, or if you played a very marginal hand and were forced to fold to the preflop raiser when you didnt catch.

I also don't like between 50 and 60% on the flop because with 5 opponents top pair with a poor kicker becomes a dog, just when you will be playing more Axs, and wheel straights and flushes don't come along very often.

Above 60% consistently I agree that you can play any pair from any position, Axs in any position, and even call a raise with some pretty longshot hands if there are enough other players in there with you. But I have never seen such a game : (...

Looking back at my PT database the overall average for all hands that I have played or observed is 35% (all Party low limit). Since they don't post flop percentages it is possible that games over 60% are quite rare indeed. Maybe the "good games" that everyone recalls are actually in the 40-50% range, and if you take a beating at the upper edge of that range you could just shrug it off.

But I hear about so many people saying that they sat down into what they thought was a juicy game but "People were just giving their money away, just not to me" that I don't think it's a coincidence.

I think I'm on to something, I believe there is a point where a good player will not have the odds to call preflop to the same kinds of draws thar the fish who play poorly suck out on you with postflop. The fish don't end up winning either, though - eventually the rake takes it all.

I have a grand just waiting to be put into action, but I don't want to blow it chasing after the big score. I'd rather win a $60 pot than lose an $80 one, so I'll just stick to my type of game and the best part is... no one can stop me!

[pudley4]

[ QUOTE ]
I think my problem is I have trouble choosing between the "tight" and "loose" preflop strategies recommended in SSHE at this point, since it is on the transition. With a 55% flop percentage you will never see exactly five and one-half players on the flop, it will either be 5 or 6, and sometimes 4 or 7, and rarely 3 or 8. And in early to early-mid position it is hard to tell how many other players are going to enter (especially online), since you must act first. If you choose wrong either way you will end up kicking yourself if you floded a big hand with many limpers, or if you played a very marginal hand and were forced to fold to the preflop raiser when you didnt catch.


[/ QUOTE ]

Wrong, wrong, wrong.

The difference between 5 and 6 players in a hand is very small. If you play a hand that "should" have 6 opponents, but you only get 5, the difference in EV is very very small.

The EV of a marginal hand isn't like a cliff - very flat and unprofitable for 3,4,5 players, but then a huge spike up for 6. If it's profitable against 6 players, it's going to be pretty close against 5 players too (it may be profitable, it may be unprofitable - either way it's a close decision). It's similar to when Ed talks about playing marginal hands in late position - if J9s is a definite play, and J8s is probably a play, then even if J7s is wrong, it can't be all that bad.

I would be willing to guess that 1) Your sample size is not even close to sufficient to back up your claims, and 2) your postflop mistakes vastly outweigh your preflop mistakes, and contribute to the majority of your problems.

PS I'm pretty sure Ed didn't have the player ranges overlap because it would have caused more confusion - imagine if he had posted guidelines for 3-6 players and 6-9 players; how many posts there would be like this: "Well, I had exactly 6 opponents, so do I use the tight guidelines or the loose guidelines for hand xx?"

[gmanko]

I wasn't in this hand but it is a nice example, party low-limit. UG limps, MEP raises, CO re-raises, button cold-calls, UG cold calls, MEP caps, everyone calls.

Flop is K84 rainbow. UG bets, MEP raises, CO calls, button folds, UG calls.

Turn is a blank, UG checks, MEP bets, fold to UG who calls.
River is a 5, UG checks, MEP bets, UG raises, MEP calls.

MEP has AKs as expected, thinking to see KQs and a huge pot coming his way. UG turns over K5o (Its true!) and chortles audibly, getting odds to call from the flop on (I'm not sure how he did that, but I heard him).

Oh, well, in a few months it won't matter anyway. I'll be playing $15-30 and I won't have to worry about 50% average flops.