9999th Post: Beyond Basics; Playing ABCD Poker
03-02-2012
, 04:28 PM
03-02-2012
, 08:14 PM
Stealing from the Button at Live Low Stakes
When I coach online players who are having problems stealing from the button, one of the things we do is go in their database and replay some of the button steals they have done. One of the main points of the exercise is to look at their heads up display stats on the players in the blinds to see if their stealing strategy matches up well with the leaks of the players in the blinds. Online players have access to ridiculously precise information on one another's tendencies--how often you fold to a steal attempt from the small blind, the big blind, how often you resteal, how often you call, etc. In addition, there is also relevant post flop information--how often a player donks into the preflop raiser, how often he check raises, how often he folds to a c-bet.
I don't mention all of that to make you jealous of the information they have, but to point out the tendencies that we should be trying to identify when we plan our button stealing game. A successful button stealing game adapts to and exploits the precise mistakes the villains in the blinds make.
Mistake #1: Folding too much.
I seriously doubt that this is a common mistake in your game; it isn't in mine. But if you happen across the occasional player who seems to only ever play premium hands when he is out of the blinds, you can assume that he will fold too much in the blinds, too. This is your green light to steal with any two cards when he is in the blinds.
Mistake #2: Calling too much.
This is the mistake most players make, and it is why live low stakes has the reputation of being a game in which you can't steal from the button because of the lack of fold equity. To steal in live low stakes requires a change in our perception of what constitutes a steal. I have actually hinted at it several times--I wasn't intentionally hinting, it is just that I have so completely changed my perception of stealing that the terminology I use has changed to reflect my new perception. It is basically this:
At live low stakes, we do not attempt to steal the blinds--we attempt to steal the inevitable call, lol. So I have gotten out of the habit of referring to the play as stealing the blinds, and have acquired a new habit of calling it a button steal to allow for the more frequent occurrence of a caller.
In online play, most people fold their blinds often enough that you can make a profit just from the blinds you steal. In a 1/2 online game, you'd raise to $5 or $6 from the button and you'd be looking at a SB fold to steal of 91% and a BB fold to steal of 82% and you'd know that you make a long term profit just by stealing the $3 in blinds with any two cards at all. You're risking $6 to win $3, so it has to win 2/3 of the time to break even, and they are folding .91 X .82 = 74% of the time. So against those players, you would simply steal 100% of the time until it was obvious one or both had adjusted.
No way they both fold often enough in live play for us to be able to make a profit just by trying to take down the blind money. In fact, it is likely that your steal will usually be called. When I first started telling online players the following, it sort of boggled their mind, because they were used to thinking about stealing the blinds. But it is nevertheless true that the fact that most of your steal attempts will be called is a Good Thing that allows us to win more money.
The reason this is a good thing is because players at live low stakes have several post flop leaks that make them very easy to profit from when we are in position with the initiative against their ridiculously weak calling range.
Again, comparing online to live, most online players are good enough to know that it is really hard to extract a profit from calling a button stealer's raise out of the blinds. They generally did so with a fairly tight and strong range that had a massive hand strength advantage as compared to the top 60% hand the stealer usually had.
I used to tell my microstakes clients: "When your steal gets called, the guy in the blinds usually has a pretty damn good hand, and you desperately need to suck out. This is much less true at live low stakes, where people commonly call with far too wide a range.
So let's look at some of the mistakes players make postflop after having called with a weak range:
Mistake #3 Donking into the raiser.
Donking is not a mistake in and of itself. It has its place, and a pretty important one, in a well-constructed blind defense strategy. But the ways most live low stakes players donk bet are easily exploitable, and can add significantly to our bottom line.
You see people donking into the preflop raiser all the time. If I had to characterize most donk bets, i think I would group them into 3 categories:
a. Resteals when the flop misses AK. You raised, the flop comes down T62r, and the villain thinks "eh, that flop probably missed him, if I bet he has to fold."
b. I has toppest pair. Usually it is a vulnerable top pair, like AT on the T62r board above. He's not really value betting, because he expects and wants a fold, but he knows that any J, Q or K is a potential suckout, so he doesn't particularly want to see a turn. This is a spot where check/calling is usually hugely preferable to leading, so this villain is usually making a giant mistake, and usually compounds it with a bet sizing tell, because the bet here is often the size of the pot.
c. I flopped a draw. These donk bets are usually classic blocking bets, in that they are very often sized to be a smaller percentage of the pot than the other two categories.
I can't give you any magical solution to playing against these donk bets that will work every time. You'll lose a lot of your button steals. A LOT. The idea is simply to lose smaller pots than you win, and to thereby pull a small profit.
But some things I will do fairly routinely:
1. When facing a pot-sized donk bet on a dry board, I will raise or fold anything worse than TPGK or a good draw. I assume that a pot sized donk bet is top pair good kicker, so I will usually just fold. LOSE SMALL POTS. The villain gave you a chance to get away from crappy equity cheaply--take it!
That is, take it most of the time. My decision to raise here is entirely read dependent. I will raise ONLY when I am facing an opponent who I think is capable of bet/folding here with a pretty good hand. Since we are in a pot against somebody who calls too much, we're not really expecting many opportunities to bluff raise, because we're not expecting him to be able to fold.
But we can semi-bluff raise with our draws, and this is a pretty good play to reseize the initiative. After we raise, he will probably check, and we can either barrel or check back and take our free river card. As a general rule, I barrel when I pick up equity, and I check back on bricks.
2. When facing an apparent stab on a whiffed AK board, I will bluff raise almost any equity at all. I have an ace--raise. I have two overcards--raise. Sometimes I'll raise no equity at all. To do so, I need to be very confident that this is a whiffed ak donk rather than a I has toppest pair donk. Do the math on a significant raise here, and you have to be right 50 to 65% of the time just to break even on the pure bluff raise. With an overcard or two, we have back up equity to suck out sometimes if we think he was on a whiffed ak donk, but when he calls our raise we realize that it was a toppest pair donk.
3. With a weak made hand facing an apparent stab on a whiffed AK board, I will usually just call on the flop and play my hand straightforwardly for its showdown value. Because it is very hard to tell the difference between a decent player donking with air and a decent player donking with top pair, if he keeps barreling he'll eventually fold me off everything up to top pair medium-ish kicker, and maybe even better. Obviously that depends a lot on how the board runs out. If he can do that with air, well, nice hand, sir, you outplayed me. Most people can't and won't even try, so the numbers come down heavily on the side of folding when the player is typical and has no extreme tendencies.
4. There is no rule against us picking up premium hands on the button. When we do, this is the pay off for staying active in all the smaller spots. Build that pot up as fast as possible. This is the decisive battle I mentioned in my last post. The villain has you on a wide and weak range. He has more or less forgotten you're allowed to have kings here, and he'll be looking at top pair as the effective nuts. If he leads into you, raise, and you have set up the hand for stacks to go in.
Mistake #4 Playing fit or fold too much.
This is probably the most common post flop leak, and this is why there is so much money in button stealing at live low stakes. Most of the good bad players "know" that you are stealing and "know" that they are supposed to defend their blinds, but they really don't know what to do other than call and sometimes flop a hand.
The type of player I see most often calling and playing fit or fold post flop are the older guys who 100% recognize the button steal as one of those young gun internet guy plays, and who sort of resent it, and who call just hoping to flop gin against you so they can let you barrel off your stack while they teach you a lesson. They will also slow play their premium pocket pairs and flat call your steal a TON.
The 2/3 or more of the time they don't catch a hand, they'll check and then disgustedly fold to your c-bet. As long as you don't go crazy with air trying to barrel them off their check/calls, they will be a source of consistent $7 wins.
Mistake #5 Bluff catching too much.
I played one of the more ridiculous hands in my poker career recently in a button against blinds situation. I don't recall the hand 100% accurately, but I posted it in the chat thread the day it happened, so that account is probably more accurate than this one. But it was basically:
I raise to $8 on the button with JJ and get called by the BB, who is a drunk crazy guy.
Flop: 389, I think rainbow.
BB checks, I bet maybe 1/2 to 2/3, BB calls.
Turn: J
BB checks, I bet maybe $25, he calls.
River: I think it was either a Q or a 7, completing the 4 straight. I bet roughly half pot, he calls and flips over 43s.
I took him to value town a couple more times that night with stuff I would usually be checking back at some point to pot control.
You'll probably only find out that people are bluff catching way too light accidentally on a hand that you pot control at some point, and they show down something absurd like bottom or 4th pair for two streets of value. Just shrug it off and get three streets next time. And, I hope it goes without saying, if they call your c-bet, shut down completely with air.
Lets talk about ranges:
You have to design your stealing range around the guys in the blinds. Your range will be a compromise because they will usually not both be the same type of blind defender. Weight your strategy toward playing against the BB. there is more pressure on the SB to fold (as he is potentially squeezed and will have the worst position post flop), and he only has half the incentive to defend as the BB. This usually results in the SB playing tighter than the BB.
Against players that fold too much preflop: Raise any two cards
Against players that call too much and play too fit or fold: raise any two cards and then c-bet close to 100%
Against players that call and donk--you can steal with a wide range of hands that can flop either an ok top pair or a draw--so ace high, king high with a medium off suit kicker down to K8 or so, any suited king, and queens down to maybe Q7s. In addition, offsuit connectors, suited one gappers and medium suited two gappers. That's probably like a 55% or so stealing range. Small pocket pairs actually suck, lol, and they are really the bottom of your range to steal with.
Against players that bluff catch too much, you should be on a wide preflop range, the one above would be fine, but you should play it differently postflop, and not be trying to barrel him off bottom or mid pair.
Remember: On average, when you flop a hand, you will flop a crappy hand. There is no reason to go crazy. Win pots, not money. Your goal is not to win every pot. Your goal is to extract max value when you have a premium or you flop a well-concealed monster, and, in all other cases, your default strategy should be to pot control and open up the other guy's range.
One of the main leaks in people's stealing game is that they get into a mindset that they are entitled to win every pot, and take it personally when they get played back at, leading to spewing way more than they should. Guard against this tendency.
here is an example: say you steal with K8o against a guy who calls and plays fit or fold too much. he calls out of the BB and the flop comes down Q82. He checks, you bet 2/3 and he calls. the turn is the 5, a brick. He checks.
Do we bet, or do we check back? If we put him on a range of top pair, 99-JJ, flush draws and maybe a few 8s, this is a really close decision. Because he is a fit or fold player, I would be cautious here and I would usually check back. Sure, I am giving a free card to draws, but there aren't all that many of them that aren't combo draws that still have decent equity, and my hand really is only arguably good enough to bother protecting. So this is a spot where I would be ok with checking back. If you bet it, it's probably best to check back the river, regardless of whether the flush comes in.
One of the main advantages of being in position is the ability to bloat the pot when we flop a monster. Use it.
One of the main advantages of position is the ability to pot control when we don't flop well. Use it.
Bet sizing:
Is actually pretty simple; you're looking for the bet size that gets max value. Against players that usually fold, look for the minimum bet size necessary. If they fold to $8, make the next one $7 and so forth. My default size is $7, and I vary up and down from that depending on my goal.
If they call too much and play fit or fold, bet bigger than your default.
If they call to much and bluff catch too liberally, I usually use my default, which is plenty big enough to build a nice pot, but doesn't sting too much to lose when I brick the flop and have to fire a very thin c-bet with air.
It's really just common sense. Just don't fall into the routine of using a standard $7 or whatever. It's fine to use a standard $7 against these two guys in the blinds, but your bet size should vary depending on the tendencies of the players in the blinds.
Stack sizes
I treat anybody with stacks bigger than 50bb as a standard villain, and I don't worry about changing my range based on their stack size. When a blind has a stack below 50bb, I start worrying that he will play like a short stacker, so I pay a lot of attention to how he got short stacked:
If he started with 100bbs and lost most of his stack, and is now down to 20 or 30 bb or so, he is looking for a spot to shove. In this case, you should tighten up and only raise with hands you're willing to call his shove with. That's just a poker stove exercise depending on how wide you think he will shove. If he was recently beaten in a big pot, when he shoves, he's on a much wider range than if you have seen him fold an orbit or two looking for a spot to shove, so adjust your calling range depending on how patient he has seemed since the big loss.
If he bought in short, then his range to shove will be much tighter. Whether or not he is playing a mathematical short stack strategy or whether he is just playing full stack poker with a short stack will be an important consideration. Describing steal/call ranges is way too short stack dependent; it's best done on the fly at the table with the pokerstove in your head.
Deep stacks:
I mean, you always want to be aware of when deep stacks are in play, but I don't really adjust my stealing game to account for deep stacks. the reason is simply that you're not going to get stacks in all that often anyway, so I don't worry about the hand playing deep until I see an indication that it will: he 3 bets preflop, or check/raises me post flop. Those plays are pretty rare in love low stakes, so deep stacks is usually not a major consideration most of the time we happen to have them. We'll still play small pots most of the time.
This is already way too tl;dr, and I see that I have left out a ton of stuff and glossed over stack size probably too quickly.
If there are specific questions, I'll try to answer them.
When I coach online players who are having problems stealing from the button, one of the things we do is go in their database and replay some of the button steals they have done. One of the main points of the exercise is to look at their heads up display stats on the players in the blinds to see if their stealing strategy matches up well with the leaks of the players in the blinds. Online players have access to ridiculously precise information on one another's tendencies--how often you fold to a steal attempt from the small blind, the big blind, how often you resteal, how often you call, etc. In addition, there is also relevant post flop information--how often a player donks into the preflop raiser, how often he check raises, how often he folds to a c-bet.
I don't mention all of that to make you jealous of the information they have, but to point out the tendencies that we should be trying to identify when we plan our button stealing game. A successful button stealing game adapts to and exploits the precise mistakes the villains in the blinds make.
Mistake #1: Folding too much.
I seriously doubt that this is a common mistake in your game; it isn't in mine. But if you happen across the occasional player who seems to only ever play premium hands when he is out of the blinds, you can assume that he will fold too much in the blinds, too. This is your green light to steal with any two cards when he is in the blinds.
Mistake #2: Calling too much.
This is the mistake most players make, and it is why live low stakes has the reputation of being a game in which you can't steal from the button because of the lack of fold equity. To steal in live low stakes requires a change in our perception of what constitutes a steal. I have actually hinted at it several times--I wasn't intentionally hinting, it is just that I have so completely changed my perception of stealing that the terminology I use has changed to reflect my new perception. It is basically this:
At live low stakes, we do not attempt to steal the blinds--we attempt to steal the inevitable call, lol. So I have gotten out of the habit of referring to the play as stealing the blinds, and have acquired a new habit of calling it a button steal to allow for the more frequent occurrence of a caller.
In online play, most people fold their blinds often enough that you can make a profit just from the blinds you steal. In a 1/2 online game, you'd raise to $5 or $6 from the button and you'd be looking at a SB fold to steal of 91% and a BB fold to steal of 82% and you'd know that you make a long term profit just by stealing the $3 in blinds with any two cards at all. You're risking $6 to win $3, so it has to win 2/3 of the time to break even, and they are folding .91 X .82 = 74% of the time. So against those players, you would simply steal 100% of the time until it was obvious one or both had adjusted.
No way they both fold often enough in live play for us to be able to make a profit just by trying to take down the blind money. In fact, it is likely that your steal will usually be called. When I first started telling online players the following, it sort of boggled their mind, because they were used to thinking about stealing the blinds. But it is nevertheless true that the fact that most of your steal attempts will be called is a Good Thing that allows us to win more money.
The reason this is a good thing is because players at live low stakes have several post flop leaks that make them very easy to profit from when we are in position with the initiative against their ridiculously weak calling range.
Again, comparing online to live, most online players are good enough to know that it is really hard to extract a profit from calling a button stealer's raise out of the blinds. They generally did so with a fairly tight and strong range that had a massive hand strength advantage as compared to the top 60% hand the stealer usually had.
I used to tell my microstakes clients: "When your steal gets called, the guy in the blinds usually has a pretty damn good hand, and you desperately need to suck out. This is much less true at live low stakes, where people commonly call with far too wide a range.
So let's look at some of the mistakes players make postflop after having called with a weak range:
Mistake #3 Donking into the raiser.
Donking is not a mistake in and of itself. It has its place, and a pretty important one, in a well-constructed blind defense strategy. But the ways most live low stakes players donk bet are easily exploitable, and can add significantly to our bottom line.
You see people donking into the preflop raiser all the time. If I had to characterize most donk bets, i think I would group them into 3 categories:
a. Resteals when the flop misses AK. You raised, the flop comes down T62r, and the villain thinks "eh, that flop probably missed him, if I bet he has to fold."
b. I has toppest pair. Usually it is a vulnerable top pair, like AT on the T62r board above. He's not really value betting, because he expects and wants a fold, but he knows that any J, Q or K is a potential suckout, so he doesn't particularly want to see a turn. This is a spot where check/calling is usually hugely preferable to leading, so this villain is usually making a giant mistake, and usually compounds it with a bet sizing tell, because the bet here is often the size of the pot.
c. I flopped a draw. These donk bets are usually classic blocking bets, in that they are very often sized to be a smaller percentage of the pot than the other two categories.
I can't give you any magical solution to playing against these donk bets that will work every time. You'll lose a lot of your button steals. A LOT. The idea is simply to lose smaller pots than you win, and to thereby pull a small profit.
But some things I will do fairly routinely:
1. When facing a pot-sized donk bet on a dry board, I will raise or fold anything worse than TPGK or a good draw. I assume that a pot sized donk bet is top pair good kicker, so I will usually just fold. LOSE SMALL POTS. The villain gave you a chance to get away from crappy equity cheaply--take it!
That is, take it most of the time. My decision to raise here is entirely read dependent. I will raise ONLY when I am facing an opponent who I think is capable of bet/folding here with a pretty good hand. Since we are in a pot against somebody who calls too much, we're not really expecting many opportunities to bluff raise, because we're not expecting him to be able to fold.
But we can semi-bluff raise with our draws, and this is a pretty good play to reseize the initiative. After we raise, he will probably check, and we can either barrel or check back and take our free river card. As a general rule, I barrel when I pick up equity, and I check back on bricks.
2. When facing an apparent stab on a whiffed AK board, I will bluff raise almost any equity at all. I have an ace--raise. I have two overcards--raise. Sometimes I'll raise no equity at all. To do so, I need to be very confident that this is a whiffed ak donk rather than a I has toppest pair donk. Do the math on a significant raise here, and you have to be right 50 to 65% of the time just to break even on the pure bluff raise. With an overcard or two, we have back up equity to suck out sometimes if we think he was on a whiffed ak donk, but when he calls our raise we realize that it was a toppest pair donk.
3. With a weak made hand facing an apparent stab on a whiffed AK board, I will usually just call on the flop and play my hand straightforwardly for its showdown value. Because it is very hard to tell the difference between a decent player donking with air and a decent player donking with top pair, if he keeps barreling he'll eventually fold me off everything up to top pair medium-ish kicker, and maybe even better. Obviously that depends a lot on how the board runs out. If he can do that with air, well, nice hand, sir, you outplayed me. Most people can't and won't even try, so the numbers come down heavily on the side of folding when the player is typical and has no extreme tendencies.
4. There is no rule against us picking up premium hands on the button. When we do, this is the pay off for staying active in all the smaller spots. Build that pot up as fast as possible. This is the decisive battle I mentioned in my last post. The villain has you on a wide and weak range. He has more or less forgotten you're allowed to have kings here, and he'll be looking at top pair as the effective nuts. If he leads into you, raise, and you have set up the hand for stacks to go in.
Mistake #4 Playing fit or fold too much.
This is probably the most common post flop leak, and this is why there is so much money in button stealing at live low stakes. Most of the good bad players "know" that you are stealing and "know" that they are supposed to defend their blinds, but they really don't know what to do other than call and sometimes flop a hand.
The type of player I see most often calling and playing fit or fold post flop are the older guys who 100% recognize the button steal as one of those young gun internet guy plays, and who sort of resent it, and who call just hoping to flop gin against you so they can let you barrel off your stack while they teach you a lesson. They will also slow play their premium pocket pairs and flat call your steal a TON.
The 2/3 or more of the time they don't catch a hand, they'll check and then disgustedly fold to your c-bet. As long as you don't go crazy with air trying to barrel them off their check/calls, they will be a source of consistent $7 wins.
Mistake #5 Bluff catching too much.
I played one of the more ridiculous hands in my poker career recently in a button against blinds situation. I don't recall the hand 100% accurately, but I posted it in the chat thread the day it happened, so that account is probably more accurate than this one. But it was basically:
I raise to $8 on the button with JJ and get called by the BB, who is a drunk crazy guy.
Flop: 389, I think rainbow.
BB checks, I bet maybe 1/2 to 2/3, BB calls.
Turn: J
BB checks, I bet maybe $25, he calls.
River: I think it was either a Q or a 7, completing the 4 straight. I bet roughly half pot, he calls and flips over 43s.
I took him to value town a couple more times that night with stuff I would usually be checking back at some point to pot control.
You'll probably only find out that people are bluff catching way too light accidentally on a hand that you pot control at some point, and they show down something absurd like bottom or 4th pair for two streets of value. Just shrug it off and get three streets next time. And, I hope it goes without saying, if they call your c-bet, shut down completely with air.
Lets talk about ranges:
You have to design your stealing range around the guys in the blinds. Your range will be a compromise because they will usually not both be the same type of blind defender. Weight your strategy toward playing against the BB. there is more pressure on the SB to fold (as he is potentially squeezed and will have the worst position post flop), and he only has half the incentive to defend as the BB. This usually results in the SB playing tighter than the BB.
Against players that fold too much preflop: Raise any two cards Against players that call too much and play too fit or fold: raise any two cards and then c-bet close to 100% Against players that call and donk--you can steal with a wide range of hands that can flop either an ok top pair or a draw--so ace high, king high with a medium off suit kicker down to K8 or so, any suited king, and queens down to maybe Q7s. In addition, offsuit connectors, suited one gappers and medium suited two gappers. That's probably like a 55% or so stealing range. Small pocket pairs actually suck, lol, and they are really the bottom of your range to steal with. Against players that bluff catch too much, you should be on a wide preflop range, the one above would be fine, but you should play it differently postflop, and not be trying to barrel him off bottom or mid pair.Remember: On average, when you flop a hand, you will flop a crappy hand. There is no reason to go crazy. Win pots, not money. Your goal is not to win every pot. Your goal is to extract max value when you have a premium or you flop a well-concealed monster, and, in all other cases, your default strategy should be to pot control and open up the other guy's range.
One of the main leaks in people's stealing game is that they get into a mindset that they are entitled to win every pot, and take it personally when they get played back at, leading to spewing way more than they should. Guard against this tendency.
here is an example: say you steal with K8o against a guy who calls and plays fit or fold too much. he calls out of the BB and the flop comes down Q
82. He checks, you bet 2/3 and he calls. the turn is the 5, a brick. He checks.Do we bet, or do we check back? If we put him on a range of top pair, 99-JJ, flush draws and maybe a few 8s, this is a really close decision. Because he is a fit or fold player, I would be cautious here and I would usually check back. Sure, I am giving a free card to draws, but there aren't all that many of them that aren't combo draws that still have decent equity, and my hand really is only arguably good enough to bother protecting. So this is a spot where I would be ok with checking back. If you bet it, it's probably best to check back the river, regardless of whether the flush comes in.
One of the main advantages of being in position is the ability to bloat the pot when we flop a monster. Use it.
One of the main advantages of position is the ability to pot control when we don't flop well. Use it.
Bet sizing:
Is actually pretty simple; you're looking for the bet size that gets max value. Against players that usually fold, look for the minimum bet size necessary. If they fold to $8, make the next one $7 and so forth. My default size is $7, and I vary up and down from that depending on my goal.
If they call too much and play fit or fold, bet bigger than your default.
If they call to much and bluff catch too liberally, I usually use my default, which is plenty big enough to build a nice pot, but doesn't sting too much to lose when I brick the flop and have to fire a very thin c-bet with air.
It's really just common sense. Just don't fall into the routine of using a standard $7 or whatever. It's fine to use a standard $7 against these two guys in the blinds, but your bet size should vary depending on the tendencies of the players in the blinds.
Stack sizes
I treat anybody with stacks bigger than 50bb as a standard villain, and I don't worry about changing my range based on their stack size. When a blind has a stack below 50bb, I start worrying that he will play like a short stacker, so I pay a lot of attention to how he got short stacked:
If he started with 100bbs and lost most of his stack, and is now down to 20 or 30 bb or so, he is looking for a spot to shove. In this case, you should tighten up and only raise with hands you're willing to call his shove with. That's just a poker stove exercise depending on how wide you think he will shove. If he was recently beaten in a big pot, when he shoves, he's on a much wider range than if you have seen him fold an orbit or two looking for a spot to shove, so adjust your calling range depending on how patient he has seemed since the big loss.
If he bought in short, then his range to shove will be much tighter. Whether or not he is playing a mathematical short stack strategy or whether he is just playing full stack poker with a short stack will be an important consideration. Describing steal/call ranges is way too short stack dependent; it's best done on the fly at the table with the pokerstove in your head.
Deep stacks:
I mean, you always want to be aware of when deep stacks are in play, but I don't really adjust my stealing game to account for deep stacks. the reason is simply that you're not going to get stacks in all that often anyway, so I don't worry about the hand playing deep until I see an indication that it will: he 3 bets preflop, or check/raises me post flop. Those plays are pretty rare in love low stakes, so deep stacks is usually not a major consideration most of the time we happen to have them. We'll still play small pots most of the time.
This is already way too tl;dr, and I see that I have left out a ton of stuff and glossed over stack size probably too quickly.
If there are specific questions, I'll try to answer them.
Last edited by mpethybridge; 03-02-2012 at 08:26 PM.
03-02-2012
, 08:37 PM
Yeah, I have a question.
Why are you telling my opponents about this??? 
(EDIT: Obviously meant as a compliment; I think most of this thread is gold.)
Quote:
In fact, it is likely that your steal will usually be called. When I first started telling online players the following, it sort of boggled their mind, because they were used to thinking about stealing the blinds. But it is nevertheless true that the fact that most of your steal attempts will be called is a Good Thing that allows us to win more money.
The reason this is a good thing is because players at live low stakes have several post flop leaks that make them very easy to profit from when we are in position with the initiative against their ridiculously weak calling range.
The reason this is a good thing is because players at live low stakes have several post flop leaks that make them very easy to profit from when we are in position with the initiative against their ridiculously weak calling range.
(EDIT: Obviously meant as a compliment; I think most of this thread is gold.)
03-02-2012
, 08:41 PM
Man that is the most contradicting post ever in low stakes. I have a rule never steal because the rake is small.
Now I have to account for how the blinds react to a raise. This is something I never due. Thanks mpethy, your analysis is way over the top. Your improving my game and you don't even know it.
I have been waiting for this post, its been well worth the wait. I didn't think I was not paying attention to everything. Now I realize I was missing something.
Thanks and happy anniversary. This post means a lot to me. With your online background you have been very helpful to this sub-forum.
I can only remember 2 hands I did a button steal this year.
First one.
Hero has A8o, folded to me in the button, I raise 15 so blinds can call,
Flop Q76. Reg donks into me I fold.
Second hand this year stealing.
Everyone folds I have A 2 I raise to 15, 2 callers in the blinds.
Flop 983 one club, I decide to delay cbet vs 2 fairly tight opponents.
Turn J
I catch a club draw ott, tight player leads, I call.
River K
Tight player leads, I raise 3x he calls with QJ.
Thanks for giving me good information to think about.
Have a good night.
Now I have to account for how the blinds react to a raise. This is something I never due. Thanks mpethy, your analysis is way over the top. Your improving my game and you don't even know it.
I have been waiting for this post, its been well worth the wait. I didn't think I was not paying attention to everything. Now I realize I was missing something.
Thanks and happy anniversary. This post means a lot to me. With your online background you have been very helpful to this sub-forum.
I can only remember 2 hands I did a button steal this year.
First one.
Hero has A8o, folded to me in the button, I raise 15 so blinds can call,
Flop Q76. Reg donks into me I fold.
Second hand this year stealing.
Everyone folds I have A
2 I raise to 15, 2 callers in the blinds.Flop 983 one club, I decide to delay cbet vs 2 fairly tight opponents.
Turn J
I catch a club draw ott, tight player leads, I call.
River K
Tight player leads, I raise 3x he calls with QJ.
Thanks for giving me good information to think about.
Have a good night.
Last edited by PokahBlows; 03-02-2012 at 09:02 PM.
03-02-2012
, 08:54 PM
03-03-2012
, 12:53 PM
Quote:
You have a winning image; deal with it:
A few weeks ago, a guy my age sat down at the table two seats to my left. I said “hi,” and then went back to watching the game. I didn't play any hands for the next 10 or so. I was just sitting there sipping coffee, watching. After an orbit or an orbit and a half of folding, the guy turns to me and says, “so, how long have you been playing for a living?” I said, “uh, live, only a few months. But I haven't played a hand since you sat—how could you have known?” He said, “it's obvious—you are just sitting there, but you look like you are in charge.”
A few weeks before that, a drunk guy sat down at my table two seats to my right. I played a couple of pots in that time, nothing significant. Around the end of his third orbit at the table, the drunk and the guy to my right got into a conversation about keeping track of other players' actions after the drunk called a player's winning hand. The guy to my immediate right says something like, “well, this is $1/$2, you don't have to worry about people being able to do that.” The drunk guy says, “wrong. That guy on your left can tell you every action every player at the table has made in the last orbit.” He looks at me and says “right?” I denied it, but the drunk just laughed and said, “yeah, ok, I shouldn't have blown your cover. Sorry.”
Not bragging, there is a lesson here it took me these two dramatic episodes to learn: Almost everybody at your table has you pegged as a winning player. They see you riffling chips. They see you expertly cut out that $50 bet. They see your card cap and how you have a routine for looking at your cards in turn, capping them if you're going to play, and then making your bet. They can even tell just by looking at you whether you seem comfortable at the table. I get asked out of the blue 3 times a week, minimum, whether I am a local (this is the clever way that vacationers try to trap you into admitting you're a pro
), or outright whether I'm a pro player. (Do what you want, I won't lie about it).
Your job is to adjust correctly to it. As I said, I won't lie about what I do for a living, so it is fairly common for me to be playing a session where my end of the table knows that I coach and play for a living. It increases my fold equity dramatically, and against most players, it narrows their ranges against me to make a bet. Every now and then, someone will want to make a play on me because they want to outplay the pro—I even had one guy whip out the Rounder's quote: “Ha! Look at that. I got ****. I bluffed the big ringer.”
A few weeks ago, a guy my age sat down at the table two seats to my left. I said “hi,” and then went back to watching the game. I didn't play any hands for the next 10 or so. I was just sitting there sipping coffee, watching. After an orbit or an orbit and a half of folding, the guy turns to me and says, “so, how long have you been playing for a living?” I said, “uh, live, only a few months. But I haven't played a hand since you sat—how could you have known?” He said, “it's obvious—you are just sitting there, but you look like you are in charge.”
A few weeks before that, a drunk guy sat down at my table two seats to my right. I played a couple of pots in that time, nothing significant. Around the end of his third orbit at the table, the drunk and the guy to my right got into a conversation about keeping track of other players' actions after the drunk called a player's winning hand. The guy to my immediate right says something like, “well, this is $1/$2, you don't have to worry about people being able to do that.” The drunk guy says, “wrong. That guy on your left can tell you every action every player at the table has made in the last orbit.” He looks at me and says “right?” I denied it, but the drunk just laughed and said, “yeah, ok, I shouldn't have blown your cover. Sorry.”
Not bragging, there is a lesson here it took me these two dramatic episodes to learn: Almost everybody at your table has you pegged as a winning player. They see you riffling chips. They see you expertly cut out that $50 bet. They see your card cap and how you have a routine for looking at your cards in turn, capping them if you're going to play, and then making your bet. They can even tell just by looking at you whether you seem comfortable at the table. I get asked out of the blue 3 times a week, minimum, whether I am a local (this is the clever way that vacationers try to trap you into admitting you're a pro
), or outright whether I'm a pro player. (Do what you want, I won't lie about it).Your job is to adjust correctly to it. As I said, I won't lie about what I do for a living, so it is fairly common for me to be playing a session where my end of the table knows that I coach and play for a living. It increases my fold equity dramatically, and against most players, it narrows their ranges against me to make a bet. Every now and then, someone will want to make a play on me because they want to outplay the pro—I even had one guy whip out the Rounder's quote: “Ha! Look at that. I got ****. I bluffed the big ringer.”
03-03-2012
, 08:05 PM
Quote:
Love the post, good writing style; a balance between appealing to the interest of the reader and providing information.
The first bit you wrote has something else to it as well. Table talk is so drastically important, it's unbelievable. I see guys wearing headphones and not engaging anybody in conversation, and that is fine, especially on tables where ABC auto-pilot is all it really calls for anyway. But, it's unbelievable how much information you truly learn just from listening to people speak. They give away their game plan, how they look at poker, why they bet, what they think of you (which is especially important), they will go easier on you if they like you, too. Depending how intuitive you are, you can assimilate so much indirect information from people. We do it anyways by people's appearances, but appearances can be deceiving, where I believe mannerisms and ways of speaking are more indicative of playing style.
Here's a few good recent(ish) examples of this working.
Drunken friday night, bought a guy a beer, we're talking back and fourth, and he looks at me and says "You're a great player, aren't you? I'm fairly new to the game and just do it for fun, but you always seem to know how much to bet. I just bet based on how good my hand is!" Now, obviously this could be a reverse psyche out, but that's where the character of him comes in to play. He was unbelievable honest at the table, always saying "I'll show if you fold" or "I had you" and turning up the nuts, and he bought me a drink as well. Anyways, this lead me to a hand I got in with the guy.
Folds to me in the cut-off with 67 and I raise to $10. He is the only caller in the BB. Flop comes 454, he checks and I check back. The turn is the 6 and he bets out $5 into the $20 pot, I raise him to $25 and he says "I had a feeling that would happen... Oh well, I call." The river comes a Q and he pauses and checks, and I go for thin value for $35. He says "Man, I had a feeling you would bet the river, I guess you know I only have A-high don't you? Ehh, you're a nice guy, I'll pay you off." and sure enough, he turns up AK. I bought him a drink after that pot, and we continued the friendly chat.
The next hand we get involved in together is a 3-way pot where it was raised preflop by the third player in the hand, I do not remember the exact preflop action, but post-flop I was OTB with 78 and the flop was KJ3r. It was checked around and I elected to check. The turn was a 7 and it was checked around again, and I decided to check it back after deliberating a while. The river was an 8, and it got checked around to me again. I bet of course, and it folds to the nice drunken guy who c/raises huge. The line makes no sense, but knowing this guy is a) an amateur, b) seemingly bets based on the strength of his hand, and c) is being extra friendly with me leaves me to believe I'm beat. I said "I'm probably going to fold." and before I even released my hand he turns up his hand and says "You should, I have it!" and turns up K8.
Both of these hands are a direct result of me listening to things, engaging in friendly banter, and basing close decisions based on "character tells". If I had been sitting there with my ipod in, this dynamic would not exist, I would not have learned the things I did about his playing style or what he thought of me. That's probably about $100 made just by listening. And there are hundreds of examples of this, this is just the one that came to my mind.
This leads into another point that I'll probably get into later because this is already getting tl;dr, but that's about not underestimating low stakes opponents (like you touched on Mpethy). I think that's one of the biggest misconceptions we have as the top percentile of players in the live low stakes pool.
The first bit you wrote has something else to it as well. Table talk is so drastically important, it's unbelievable. I see guys wearing headphones and not engaging anybody in conversation, and that is fine, especially on tables where ABC auto-pilot is all it really calls for anyway. But, it's unbelievable how much information you truly learn just from listening to people speak. They give away their game plan, how they look at poker, why they bet, what they think of you (which is especially important), they will go easier on you if they like you, too. Depending how intuitive you are, you can assimilate so much indirect information from people. We do it anyways by people's appearances, but appearances can be deceiving, where I believe mannerisms and ways of speaking are more indicative of playing style.
Here's a few good recent(ish) examples of this working.
Drunken friday night, bought a guy a beer, we're talking back and fourth, and he looks at me and says "You're a great player, aren't you? I'm fairly new to the game and just do it for fun, but you always seem to know how much to bet. I just bet based on how good my hand is!" Now, obviously this could be a reverse psyche out, but that's where the character of him comes in to play. He was unbelievable honest at the table, always saying "I'll show if you fold" or "I had you" and turning up the nuts, and he bought me a drink as well. Anyways, this lead me to a hand I got in with the guy.
Folds to me in the cut-off with 6
7 and I raise to $10. He is the only caller in the BB. Flop comes 454, he checks and I check back. The turn is the 6 and he bets out $5 into the $20 pot, I raise him to $25 and he says "I had a feeling that would happen... Oh well, I call." The river comes a Q and he pauses and checks, and I go for thin value for $35. He says "Man, I had a feeling you would bet the river, I guess you know I only have A-high don't you? Ehh, you're a nice guy, I'll pay you off." and sure enough, he turns up AK. I bought him a drink after that pot, and we continued the friendly chat. The next hand we get involved in together is a 3-way pot where it was raised preflop by the third player in the hand, I do not remember the exact preflop action, but post-flop I was OTB with 7
8 and the flop was KJ3r. It was checked around and I elected to check. The turn was a 7 and it was checked around again, and I decided to check it back after deliberating a while. The river was an 8, and it got checked around to me again. I bet of course, and it folds to the nice drunken guy who c/raises huge. The line makes no sense, but knowing this guy is a) an amateur, b) seemingly bets based on the strength of his hand, and c) is being extra friendly with me leaves me to believe I'm beat. I said "I'm probably going to fold." and before I even released my hand he turns up his hand and says "You should, I have it!" and turns up K8. Both of these hands are a direct result of me listening to things, engaging in friendly banter, and basing close decisions based on "character tells". If I had been sitting there with my ipod in, this dynamic would not exist, I would not have learned the things I did about his playing style or what he thought of me. That's probably about $100 made just by listening. And there are hundreds of examples of this, this is just the one that came to my mind.
This leads into another point that I'll probably get into later because this is already getting tl;dr, but that's about not underestimating low stakes opponents (like you touched on Mpethy). I think that's one of the biggest misconceptions we have as the top percentile of players in the live low stakes pool.