HoH2, Q regarding heads-up strategy from the SB

[paulish]

Harrington on Hold’em: Expert Strategy For No-Limit Tournaments, Volume II: The Endgame. Harrington & Robertie . Two Plus Two Publisihng, 2005.

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Part Twelve: Heads-up
<font color="red">Q1</font>
On page 365 and 367, the hands are grouped into ten groups, according to how well they do against a random hand. What does ”The Top 30% (55% or better to win)”?
Does it mean that the top 30% of the hands are 55% or better to win? What exactly is implied with such a statement? I checked with my poker calculator, and found that the top 30%-hands had an expectation of 61% against an average hand.
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<font color="red">Q2</font>
On page 377 basic heads-up play for the Button/SB is outlined; if the stacks are big (both players have more than 10 times the pot (SB+BB+Ante)), you should play as follows:[*] Never fold, unless the BB often re-raises, in these rare cases, you can fold the bottom 20% of the hands[*] Every top 30% hands, is a potential raising hand. You should raise two times in three with these hands, except for AA, KK and QQ. With these hands you should raise one time in three

I find this strategy a bit odd;

You will be betting from the SB way to seldom; only one time in five (19.78%), and limp the rest of the time.

It will be quite easy to put a player who raises so infrequently on hands. Should you never bluff raise from the SB?

I have mixed it up little, I wanted to bump up my actual raise frequency from 20%, up to 25%. So I’ve decided to play a couple of more hands, with the goal of a) making my play a bit more deceiving and b) taking advantage of the positional advantage slightly more often.
[*] With JJ-22 and A2s, A3o, K5s, K7o, Q8s, QTo, J9s or better I raise two times in three, and with AA, KK and QQ I raise one time in three. This is all according to Harrington[*] My personal mix up ingredient is to raise one time in three with 33-22 and all other suited cards not mentioned above. This group of hands actually is a slight dog (46,5%) against a random hand. But you will only be raising with these hands about 5% of the time from the SB

<font color="blue"> any thoughts? </font>

[Jordan Olsommer]

[ QUOTE ]

On page 365 and 367, the hands are grouped into ten groups, according to how well they do against a random hand. What does ”The Top 30% (55% or better to win)”?
Does it mean that the top 30% of the hands are 55% or better to win? What exactly is implied with such a statement? I checked with my poker calculator, and found that the top 30%-hands had an expectation of 61% against an average hand.

[/ QUOTE ]

It means that each hand in that group will win at least 55% of the time against a random hand. For example, the lowest offsuit hands in this group, A3o, K7o, and QTo will win 55.6%, 55.4%, and 57.4%, respectively, against a random hand (according to Gocee's charts). That range of hands he describes is certainly going to be better than 55% on average, because they have to be at least 55% to even be in the group, but he's not referring to the average - he means the percentage of wins each particular hand has is 55% or greater.

[Komodo]

Its a strange way of grouping hands. It would be better to say AK wins 65% against a random hand instead of telling AK wins at least 55% against a random hand, which doesnt say a thing about how strong it is.

[paulish]

ok thx, but what about <font color="red">Q2</font>? notice that, 3/4 of the times Harrington actually raises, he holds either an Ace or a King (or both).

So he raises seldom, and when he does, he most likely has an Ace or a King....not very deceptive...

[Beavis68]

[ QUOTE ]
Its a strange way of grouping hands. It would be better to say AK wins 65% against a random hand instead of telling AK wins at least 55% against a random hand, which doesnt say a thing about how strong it is.

[/ QUOTE ]

I think that covered well enough else where. He was trying to break in into simple groups.

[Beavis68]

[ QUOTE ]
ok thx, but what about <font color="red">Q2</font>? notice that, 3/4 of the times Harrington actually raises, he holds either an Ace or a King (or both).

So he raises seldom, and when he does, he most likely has an Ace or a King....not very deceptive...

[/ QUOTE ]

That is raising for value. You don't expect him to tell you to always raise with 92o do you?

Any other raises will be bluffs.

[jdl22]

he made it very clear that you should sometimes bluff in the example sections especially the Phil Ivey one.