Yep, this thread is all about tilt control. More specifically, forum tilt. Some things just tilt me when I read them on 2p2, so I thought I would take this opportunity to set a few things straight. Usually when I post on 2p2 all my posts are full of imo's and prob's, because you can never be too sure about things when it comes to poker, but I have left those out this time. So just keep in mind everything I write is just my opinion, and feel free to disagree. Just don't expect me to care.

I tried to dig up real quotes from STTF using the search feature. Some of them are edited for clarity, some I might have just made up.

First off, let me say that betting for protection, in general, is a stupid reason to bet. The argument behind betting for protection tends to be based on the erroneous idea that your sole focus should be to deny draws the correct price to call. Players who are always betting for protection tend to just be doing it out of some illogical fear of being outdrawn, focusing only on the draws part of villains range rather than looking at the whole picture. Instead of blindly betting for protection you should stop to consider what the purpose of your bet is, and how you are trying to exploit villain to
maximize your EV.

There is either a million reasons why you might bet or there is only one reason, depending on how you look at it. If I was to give just one reason it would be something like "I bet/raise to manipulate the play in such a way as to maximize the EV of my hand vs villains range". We predict or make assumptions about villains tendencies, i.e. how they will play different parts of their range, and then we take the line that exploits those tendencies. Each action you take is part of a line, each street is not independent. So you can only determine the best action to take on a single street by considering that action within the context of your line.

In fact, in some situations even the above reason for betting/raising isn't quite enough. We actually want to maximize the EV of our ranges vs villains ranges. Notice I used the plural, ranges. This is because I am referring to image effects which carry on to future hands, especially long-term image effects between regs. If you have a lot of history vs another reg you should be more worried about how well you are playing your range vs them rather than worrying about how well you are playing your hand.

This is the ol "bet for information" argument which typically tends to pop up when someone posts a WA/WB (way ahead / way behind) hand such as KK on a A62r flop vs a random. Sorry, but the idea behind betting for information is simply ridiculous. You get information about villains hand range on every street regardless of whether you bet or not. In some cases you could argue that a bet may manipulate villains ranges in a particular way which leads to greater exploitation on later streets, but that is a subtle concept and separate from the standard idea of betting for information. Like I said earlier, this bet for information argument usually comes up in WA/WB spots where it is clearly bad advice, since it essentially turns a hand with considerable value into a bluff. Instead of just betting "to see where you are at" in a WA/WB spot, try thinking about whether you could use your hand as a bluff-catcher or if you may be able to get value from weaker hands by checking back the flop and betting later streets. You want to win money, not information.

This is so wrong I don't know where to begin. I mean, I could give tons of example hands and write out the details of the ICM calculations for raise-fold situations at 12 BBs to prove my point, but it doesn't seem worth it. There is so much dependence on sng wiz these days that the majority of STTFers seem to have no idea how to do even a simple ICM calculation by hand anyway. So I wouldn't want to bore you with the details of an ICM calculation for a raise-fold situation.

It's obvious that if you have 12 BBs you must shove a tighter range than if you were shoving 11 BBs, but what isn't as directly clear is that you may actually be able to 2.5x or 3x raise a wider range at 12 BBs that you would be able to shove at 11 BBs, this is because you have the option to raise-fold. However, if there is no opponent that you can correctly raise-fold vs at 12 BBs then it is unlikely you would be able profitably open-raise any wider than the range of hands that are profitable open-shoves for 12 BBs. Making a raise-fold is favored by ICM since you are avoiding an all-in confrontation, so if you are able to make a correct raise-fold you will tend to increase the equity of your hand compared to just shoving (assuming you aren't getting flat-called often).

As a simple example, lets say you have 12 BBs on the SB vs a nitty multi-tabling BB. Assume that if you 3x raise then BB will either shove or fold, but never flat-call. By raising you are risking 2.5 BBs, to gain 1.5 BBs, so for this play to be +chipEV you need BB to fold 2.5/(2.5+1.5) = 62.5 % of the time. Adding ICM into the equation will depend on the bubble factor, but in most reasonable situations you will still only need BB to fold 64%-66% of the time for this play to be profitable. So BB has to be re-shoving >34% of the time for your raise fold with 32o to be -EV. Now because we know BB is a nit, lets assume he will never flat-call vs a 2.5x raise either and repeat the calculations. This time your raise needs to work 2/(2+1.5) of the time to be +chipEV, factor in ICM we will need BB to fold something like 58%-60% of the time. So, the nitty reg in the BB who is playing 20+ tables has to shove over your 2.5x raise greater than 40% of the time to make your raise-fold with 32o -EV. Hmmmmmmm, interesting stuff...

This question is pretty much irrelevant, instead you should be asking, "is this strategy likely to be exploited?". Most good plays in poker are exploitable, because a strategy that maximally exploits your opponents mistakes will naturally tend to be open to exploitation itself. All that really matters is whether or not your strategy actually will be exploited. If you have reason to believe your strategy is likely to be exploited, then make adjustments. Don't just assume that you will always be exploited.

No, it doesn't.

Sng wiz is a great program, but in the end it's just a fancy calculator. You put numbers in, it gives you numbers back. So don't say stuff like "I don't agree with wiz here", or "is sng wiz wrong here?". The program works fine for what it is intended to do, don't blame the program if you put stupid ranges into it. Sng wiz has a few limitations, and so does the ICM model. If you don't like those limitations, then feel free to do the calculations by hand. If you don't like ICM, then feel free to derive your own equity model.

If you aren't manually adjusting the ranges in wiz then you are doing it wrong. This includes every blue underlined number under the "Analysis Details" section. Adjust the overcall ranges, and adjust the ranges for the action after you fold. If you don't do this stuff you will be developing huge leaks.

The variance of a play is irrelevant in sngs. Whichever decision maximizes your EV is the one that you should take.

This is because variance in sngs is largely determined by the payout structure, your finish distribution has only a small effect in comparison. Also, poker players tend to think of "variance" in terms of the likelihood of a downswing occurring, rather than thinking about it in the strictly mathematical sense (as a measure of the deviation from the mean). A high ROI is by far the most important factor to reduce the likelihood of a downswing and each +EV decision you make contributes to your ROI. It follows logically that you should be most concerned about simply making +EV decisions if you want to have consistent results.

As an example, lets say you are playing a 9-man $10+1 sngs (you have a 10% ROI) and at the start of every sng you are offered an opportunity to double up in the 1st hand with a 55% chance of winning. Lets say that your ROI will stay exactly the same, regardless of whether you take this flip or not, so taking the flip is exactly breakeven, how much will taking the flip increase your variance? I'll spare you the details of the math. The answer is that your standard deviation for the sng will increase from something like 1.33 buy-ins per game to 1.37 buy-ins per game. Over 1000 games if you always take this flip, you will have a 5% greater (than the original 42%) chance of having a 30-buyin downswing, and a 3% greater (than the original 15%) chance of having a 40-buyin downswing.

Now lets say taking the flip is worth +0.10 % TRUE EV, so if we take it each sng it will increase our ROI by around 0.8%. This time, over 1000 games, you will have a 0.25% greater chance of having a 30-buyin downswing, but a 0.25% reduced chance of having a 40-buyin downswing. So even a very small amount of +EV is enough to actually reduce your chance of having large downswings.

While this may be true for certain players at certain stakes in games with a certain structure, it is not true in general. Finish distribution is determined as much by the structure of the tournament and the level of competition as it is by the way you play. There is no ideal finish distribution that is applicable to every buy-in and every structure.

A good players finish distribution will be the result of the way they play, but you can't mimic that success simply by aiming to achieve the same finish distribution. You can get some information by analyzing your own finish distribution, but the information is often hard to interpret and you will often come to the wrong conclusions. So although you may be able to identify a few possible leaks by comparing your finish distribution with that of a strong winning player at the same level, it will be much easier to identify those leaks by simply posting/discussing hands, etc.

Here is one of the wrong conclusions I was talking about. Your proportion of 1st place finishes compared to 2nd place finishes will rarely indicate how well you are playing heads up. Instead what it gives you information about is your average chip count, a low percentage of 1st places will tend to indicate you are starting the HU with a lower chip average count than your opponent.

If you want to see how well you are doing HU, filter your hands in your database and look at how many BBs you are winning/losing on average per hand.

Firstly, STTFers don't talk in terms of "M", we talk in terms of number of big blinds. If there are antes I sometimes use the number of "effective big blinds", which is essentially "M" multiplied by 1.5. That way you can think about it as if 2/3rds of the antes are part of the "effective BB" and 1/3rd of the antes are part of the "effective SB".

Secondly, what you have just said is one of the most insanely idiotic things I have ever heard. At no point in your rambling, incoherent response were you even close to anything that could be considered a rational thought. Everyone in this room is now dumber for having listened to it. I award you no points, and may God have mercy on your soul.

But seriously, there are a lot of ways that you can end up with a short stack. If someone posts a hand where they have 2-3 BBs, you can't just say "well I'm never in that position because I would have pushed 2 hands ago, blah blah blah" and then refuse to even consider the hand in question. And to say that the best sng players rarely have 2-3 BBs is equally ridiculous. Sure good players tend to shove to preserve FE at some point, but in higher stake games especially, the blinds get quite large due to less players donking off early in the sng, so it is actually more likely you will end up with a short stack at some point.

While this may hold some truth at lower stake games, as the stakes get higher and your win rate decreases most players will find that to maximize their hourly rate they have to start concentrating more and playing less tables than their maximum.

Teaching yourself how to play 20+ tables at once is a great skill to have. And yes, there is quite a low ceiling on the $/hr you can make playing sngs. But if you want to be beating higher stakes for a decent win rate then you have to play less tables, table select, concentrate more, get better reads, and constantly work on improving your game. The players trying to 20-30 table high stakes are the ones playing for rakeback or going busto.

The only problem with starting at the micros is that you have to be willing to play for $2/hr or whatever. But if you don't have the patience to build a roll from scratch and really work on improving your game, then you wont have the patience to be grinding sngs for a living anyway.

ICM works the same at every level and the donks play very similar at every level. There seems to be a big misconception that the games are radically different at higher buy-ins, but the only thing different is the distribution of the player pool, there are less donks, more regs, and a handful very good regs. If you see some dude make a ridiculous play in a $300 sng, it's not because there is some crazy 5th level thinking meta-game going on, it's because they suck at poker. Even the regs at every level make big mistakes, I myself make big mistakes. No one plays perfectly, everyone makes mistakes.

When someone posts a hand and describes a player as a "random", you should interpret that as a donk, regardless of the buy-in. Describing a villain as a "random" will usually also imply that the villain is unlikely to be a regular, because if OP plays a lot they will recognize most/all the regular players at their level.

Just start with the assumption that everyone sucks at poker until proven otherwise and you wont be far off.

Ok, so I couldn't find a good quote for this one. But I see this sort of mentality a lot, where someone uses the argument, "If I was villain I would...blah blah blah, therefore hero should play accordingly like this". The thing is, no one thinks exactly the same as you, a lot of players simply are not thinking at all, they just look at their cards and play them if they look pretty enough. Even in reg vs reg spots this is a bad way to think, because all regs have different leaks (including yourself), some regs don't have a clue about ICM, you can't just make generalizations about how your opponent will think. Instead you should base your decisions on the hud stats + reads you have available.

lol.

1ST!
Great post man. Congrats on your milestone. Let me tell you, I could relate at least to a couple of points you made which means I still have a lot more work to do
Always enjoy your contributions, just as much as I enjoyed playing you in that friendly game we had around xmas.

Cheers!

Nice read.

insta-bookmarked it. This will save me a lot of time and nerves when i'm about to forum tilt next time

About betting for protection:
It should never be the sole purpose for betting, but it can be an additional benefit one might welcome in certain spots.

Interesting points. Great post.

Awesome.

tl;dr atm... but I have subscribed to the post and will read the rest of it tomorrow...

Very happy you have returned to the forum Ones, nothing but good stuff.

-Hiway

Really good post, made me think about some stuff.

Haven't read it all, but it looks great. I know you just came back to posting in STTf not too long ago and I'll say that you're posts are always extremely insightful and interesting. Thanks for contributing to the forums

I read this and my first reaction was 'Huh? B.S." Then I filtered my database. BB/hand 0.00 and about 1.3 chips won per hand played

solid post, maybe a bit long but worth to read.

Awesome 2K post !
You get the honor of being placed in my "interesting threads" bookmarkfolder.

Congrats on 2k - Excellent post as always...

Great post Foldy, lots of good stuff put together.

I'd love to see some more discussion/calculation on that 12bb r/f topic, I'd especially like to know whether your calculations/experience show that it might be profitable also vs player who might flat PF (or who are expected to do that pretty often).

Great thread! Lot of wisdom in here.

I do have some questions/thought about your piece on variance

If you ROI stays exactly the same the flip is ofcourse not -$EV, but I can't imagine your ROI doesn't go down when you finish last in 45% of all your games. Isn't the risk you take bigger then the (moderate) advantage you get by doubling up?
Let's assume a good player has a ITM% 30-35%.
If your example would be valid, he would have to place ITM 54-63% of the times he doubles up in the first hand. I don't think doubling up gives you that kind of advantage later in the game.


I'm sure you didn't pull those numbers out of your ass but I'd like to see the maths behind it (or the general idea).

For the record: I read your OP, I realise this is the kind of stupid **** that makes you tilt, unleash your tilt-fury by explaining plx

Great post, thank you. One thing I can say about 2p2 is that most players use good grammar and understand the english language. A lot more than I can say about some other forums. That doesn't have a lot to do with the point of the post, rather that I found this to be very well written.

I have said it before and I will say it again you are deffo one of the most valuable posters on sttf! great post as always and I agree with vlado would love to see more discussion and mathson the 12bb raise fold scenario.

thanks for a great read!