Given the lengthy nature of my last CoTW, I thought I'd try to make this a bit more concise and open to contribution/discussion. Also, I will add to this as the week progresses (I've just been going through a ton with school and home life).

Short-stacks: There will be a whole CoTW dealing with short stacks. If you're itching to read something...

http://forumserver.twoplustwo.com/78...-stacks-17011/

OMG goodness.


Medium stacks: I find this to be the biggest problem because the SPR's that we achieve from making a standard raise are usually pretty awkward. Let's say we're up against a 60BB stack. We open AK for 4BB from EP, BTN calls and the blinds fold. The pot is 9.5BB and the effective stacks are 56BB leaving an SPR of about 6. This is a bit high for committing immediately and unless we knew that villain was really loose passive, we really couldn't prevent getting into this spot. (FWIW, if villain is really loose passive, I don't mind getting in here IF we get in by him calling bets..if he raises I may fold depending on villain). However let's look at


SPOT #1

UTG+1 limps (35BB loose passive)
Hero (155BB cuz we're pimp) holds 76s OTB

It's really tempting to raise here since....well..it's our job to isolate these fools who limp in with weak holdings. However, I really don't like that here. Aside from the fact that villain is calling pre a ton, we're not really going to have a lot of maneuvering room postflop since we'll have an SPR of 3 (assuming we raise to 5BB). Most of the time, either we're going to miss, or we're going to hit 2nd or 3rd pair and be in a weird spot where we don't know if we're betting for value or not and if we hit a piece and cbet 2/3 pot on the flop, the turn pot will match our stack. Will we be good 1/3 of the time? We really don't know...and we don't really have the leverage to find out. As such, I think calling pre will be much better. Our hand has value and we shouldn't have too much trouble getting paid off if we hit.

(Note, you can also minraise pre, which I like in this spot, simply because it makes getting stacks in easier when we do hit)

Note that calling or minraising are going to be really good here, but won't be that good if we're 100 deep. In that case, a normal raise would be better since we'd still have some maneuvering room and it'd still be easy-ish to get stacks in if we hit nice-nice.

SPOT#2


MP1 (loose aggro wacko with 35BB) raises to 4BB

Hero sits in the BB with AK. What's our plang? Given the stack depth, I am thinking about 3betting to 13 and shoving ANY flop. Why? Because if we 3bet to 13 and villain calls, the pot with be 26.5 BB and there will only be 22BB effective stacks. If villain never folds to the flop shove and ALWAYS has us beat our shove becomes slightly -EV. However, we will get some fold equity from shoving, and if we are called (and are beat), we will likely have 4-8 outs. However, I tend not to think about those times too often, because we will also (sometimes) get called by AQ/AJ that missed and win outright with AK. Overall, I think that setting up an SPR of 1 with AK/AQ and just shoving the flop is +EV overall (not to mention that it makes us look a bit nutty to other peoples at the table). I'll also say that I like this move a lot more OOP, mostly because we're not put into a spot where we get shoved on and have to fold.

I will probably write moar later. I am debating writing about playing deep, but I really don't have enough experience playing deep to write anything I'd be satisfied with. I also think that playing deep deserves its own CoTW (and it's not one I want to do).


Again, this first post feels light so I'll be up for answering any questions pertaining to stack-size adjustment. TY

1st

tl;dr ibl

Paying attention to SPR when you're going in against one ore more midstackers is really important. I'd especially like to see some enlightenment on how different stack sizes interact and influence your decision making... i.e., when a guy with 100BB opens and you have a decent calling hand, how do things change if there's a super-aggro guy with 30BB sitting behind you, or an uberstation with 60BB, or etc. You run into these kinds of situations all the time at the tables

Also we should take this opportunity to write a post explaining that stack sizes are the primary (close to 'only') difference between 5NL and 10NL, so we can start posting a link to this thread and locking the 3 'what's the difference between 5NL and 10NL???' threads that get started per week

Let's play some deep stack.....oh shucks.

Good posts. What I find from 60BB stacks is that card strength matters. We should be looking to abuse them with higher cards preflop and exploiting there tendencies, and playing less speculative hands such as SC's against them. Commitment decisions should be based on what type of players they are. If they chase draws too much, then charge them max for calling a flop bet and make them make bad folds and no IO for when they do hit.

If they are the fit or fold types, keep the pot small, and this starts with your preflop raises. Don't commit with out TPTK+.

Really good questions Zeth. In spots like the first situation I probably reduce my call frequency quite a bit and opt more to either 3b or fold (depending on the PFR's tendencies of course...this is a spot that comes up a lot also when you're in the SB vs a BTN stealer and a BB shortstacker and haven't left the table yet LOL).

If we've got a stationy 60BBer (which is obviously much better than a 30BBer) I'll probably still call the same amount unless I feel I don't have enough IO vs the station (given my hand strength) AND the PFR is aware enough to know that my actions are gonna be much more straight-forward given the donklord behind me. Most opponents aren't considering how players behind you are affecting your decisions, but those that are will probably give you credit for having a strong holding when you start giving action with a station behind.

while i agree with the general sentiment here, i think that speculative hands are fine to play vs these players, just not to raise against these players, as outlined in OP example 1.

unless, of course, i have misunderstood your post, i am not so hot at teh reading comprehension sometimes , also i think that you play quite a bit higher than me, so probably in your games there are more players behind you capable of exploiting you if you were to overlimp?

i think i have to look into this a bit more, i tend to autopilot these spots a bit much i think. what sort of spots did you have in mind when you mention making them make bad folds?

um, if they are fit-or-fold, wouldn't we be better making the preflop raises as large as we could, while both not making it so large they don't call preflop, and retaining our FE postflop?

----------------------------

more generally, this thread contains some discussion of stack size adjustments also

I like this plan but I also will bet small on A/K dry flops to induce silliness.
Its a great idea in general to try to work the size of the pot in general against these guys, I think this move can be made with a good range of hands. Even with something like 77 I might make it extra big to set up a psb on the flop then let them deal with it when I shove.

The whole of this thread should be centred around this one bolded statement. It is the key.

i must be having an even-dumber-than-usual day today, because this is the second post from a respected poster ITT that i find myself disagreeing with.

with 77 we're very often going to see overcards on the flop, so our plan has us putting in 2/3 of our effective stack when we're going to get called by stuff that beats us (TP, overpairs, better UI pp's) but not called by much that we beat (some worse UI pp's can maaaybe call, also maaaybe some overcards) so i'm struggling to see the benefits of this play

making a pair on the flop is hard......now ducy.

In spot #2 what about if we are BTN or CO, do we still 3bet to 13 and shove if villain checks or bets like 1/2 pot?

Do we call if he shoves on the flop and we miss? Call a shove if we hit obv...

Or do we just check behind hoping to improve on the turn if villain checks flop?

Haven't read up on the whole SPR stuff, still waiting on the PNLHE book which I ordered from the Stars store a while back...come on Stars, where is my book when I need it?!?!

about 1/3 of time when villain has unpaired hole cards iirc?

my point is that the times he doesn't have a pair on the flop, well, without going stovetastic, on average i'd imagine we will have a nice equity advantage, no? so why do we want to maximise the %age of the time we will fold him out?

if he's as much of a lunatic as OP's description says, why is pushing better than just covering the board with our hands and blindly check/calling? surely that will keep his range at its widest, and if we think he's aggresive, we can probably count on him to bet those hands that we beat, that would have called our push anyway, hence we're not losing much if anything on that part of his range?

one of the nice things about doing this (think it might be called a go-and-go in MTT circles?) with AK is that even when you miss, you have overcards, and therefore your equity is, if not great, not AS bad even when you get called by a pair.

but with 77, if you get called and are behind, your equity will be fairly horrific, since you have less chance of drawing out.

of course, there is still the chance of getting called by worse pairs to account for. but, if we were to assume we are getting called by ANY pair on the flop, and that villain is as likely to have a 2 in his hand as an ace, well even then, since there are 8 card ranks above a 7, and only 5 ranks below a 7, when we get called by any pair, we must be a dog to that whole range, no? (and that's before we think about villain's equity from stuff like 5-out draws to his sidecard or trips.)

and if villain is a) more likely to have high cards in his hand, and b) even just somewhat less likely to call our push with bottom pair deuces than with TP aces,
well then it seems to me our equity when called is even worse.

First up, never be afraid to question anyone. Especially when they don't back up a statement with the math (like I didn't )
Doesn't matter who they are or where they play or what other people think - if you don't understand or disagree then shout out and debate.

I'm relying mostly on these guys limp/folding or limp/call/folding. Yes, when called we are mostly in bad shape but I expect to get a decent amount of folds to make up for that.
I ran this through pokerrazor once and it came up quite +EV plus I find it works a decent amount of the time.

I should have put in a caveat that horror boards like TJQss I would just c/f most of the time.

your encouragement is honestly appreciated

i had read the situation in OP as villain raising, whereas your description has him limping, i'd imagine this would have an effect on the %age of his range he'd see flop with/call on flop with, what do you think?

oh and thanks for the mention of pokerazor, had forgotten about that software, looks good, time to download and get noodling

Yes, 3-betting mid pairs against a tight range is bad and you might as well burn money if they have a tight range and have small-mid stack. (*note this does not apply against a short stack with a wide LP range)

One example might be where a bad lag or fishy with 30bb opens the button, here I might take any hand with good hot/cold equity and do this. Likewise if a 33/1 limps with 20bb I can also do this.
The important thing is to get as much dead money in pre-flop while still having a bet scary enough left that will fold out enough of his range - so you can add a bb or two if needed to your raise size.