venice is like morgan freeman

Thinking aloud here...

Preface;

1) I am a big advocate of pushing very very hard when I am confident of being ahead and likely to remain ahead in a hand. E.g. AK vs KQ on a A38r board. Or even when we are not holding premo hands, e.g. KJ vs K5ss on a K3Qr board.

2) We all know the concept which has been backed up by many HH from OL play, that the least profitable position is the SB then the BB and so on. As knowledgeable players we as a result significantly tighten up our hand reqs when in the blinds, and we tend to give other players (correctly or not) more credit when they raise or are agro from the blinds. We are so careful both in our play from the blinds and versus the blinds, that we might be called "scared".

Thinking;

So we can safely assume that the blind positional disadvantage is significant when facing opponents of similar skill and even not real close in skill as 60/40 as a way to express that.

But is this still true we there is truly a big gap in skill, say 70/30 as a bottom?

So if it is true that the positional disadvantage of the blinds can be overcome and even level the advantage or even still have a significant edge... Then are we leaking a lot when we significantly change our play from the blinds?

I guess what I am wondering about said another way, is the positional disadvantage of the blinds relative to the villain(s) skill in the hand, is the resulting skill differential enough to not change our blind play and play versus the blinds?

And to further complicate things, assuming it is relative are we scared of monsters under the bed the second we are in the blinds? Ask that again and forget about any edge that may or may not exist, are we still looking for MUB the second we post a blind?

Poker is a struggle, but we all endeavor to persevere.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=csEzTwKemwY

JRB started a Br of $400 on a 2/5 he said he won $1100 today I'm hot, I have not played since sunday morning. I'm itching to play.

MUB?

Monsters Under the Bed

mpethy has written that a top player can get to BE in the blinds at his or her level. With my focus on live play, I'm not playing much on-line at the moment. Therefore, I dropped stakes considerably. At 5nl and 10nl for the limited time I play, I've gotten close to that. However, that was done mainly by 3betting players not used to it and who are playing a lot of fit or fold poker.

BE from the blinds seems close to impossible to me.

If I were BE from the blinds this year I'd be winning at 6BB/100.

i thought a few online grinders were showing in the green from SB. i remember seeing that somewhere...

So you're actually recording live stats that enable you to know how you're doing from the blinds overall, etc.? Or is this for on-line only?

blind defense is usually a pretty small part of live play anyways. It's so easy to make up the equity in other spots, and it's rare that it's folded to someone in LP who will try to steal your blind light anyways.

No, this on-line only and also at 2+ levels further down than I normally played. I don't want anyone thinking I'm able to crush the top micros (a quick look at PTR proves that).

As for blind defense. In a live game where you would lose about 4.5BB/hr if you folded every time. Cutting in half your natural loss in those position would increase your win rate by 2BB/hr. Since you'll mostly max out around 10BB/hr, improving your blind work can have a significant impact. I'll admit on-line it has a bigger effect since the max win rates over time are so much lower.

The key: Doing a lot less calling and a lot more folding.

No, no... This is not about blind defense at all. Its about how we change our play when either we are or our opponents are in the blinds, it is assumed that this situation is more relevant to raised pots but does not exclude limped pots.

which is dumber in a cash game (w/ invisable antes, ie. bad players)?
: [ ]stealing blinds?
or,[ ] protecting them??

I am not even really thinking about BE play, but actually tipping the balance well beyond BE play.

My thinking is that when we have a big skill difference we can easily overcome the positional disadvantage.

E.g. Villain is a MTT player that is L1 in all of his thinking, he will in most all situations stack off for <=100BB with top pair. This player loves to open from MP+ with Ax, Kx, Qx, Jx especially if they are suited. He will defend any of his chips in the pot when holding these same hands, i.e. he will limp call or defend his blinds with these holdings facing a raise.

We are in the BB with eff 80BB and hold KJo, it folds to the villain in highjack and he opens for 5BB.

In this situation I think we can play out of the blinds with a much higher level of skill than the villain and would expect to show a profit versus this disparity of skill every time we find ourselves in this situation regardless of position. So for example with the villain in the BB and we are in HJ we can profitably open versus this player (assuming we know the others between us) and expect some percentage of the time to stack him with a TP hand. The end result would not be influenced by position versus this player, we dominate this player in skill from all positions and any positional advantage we gain when IP is not significant compared to the skill differential.

So if the above is indeed true, then we should never significantly alter our play because one or the other of us are in a blind or even in a EP.

But if we go with the traditional line of thought that "tight is right, especially in the blinds and from EP", then we should never ever be calling or raising any player with a problem hand like KJo, i.e. we would significantly alter our play because one of us is in the blind.

So I am tossing this out there for discussion to see if there is something to this line of thought. Chime in, please.

I would like to see that if you can find it.

Again, no, no. I am not talking about stealing blinds either. I am talking how we change our play when either the hero or the villain is in the blinds.

I'm guessing protecting them is way more dumber than stealing them. Also, when we attempt to steal the blinds when it's folded to us in LP, we're not just stealing the blinds; we're setting things up on the flop where we usually have a decent advantage of stealing whatever money the idiot blind protector put in the pot preflop.

GdumbanddumbererG

thanks for clearing that up.

btw, invisable antes are when loose players feel that they are obligated to put $ in the pot every time that they have a hand that someone told them was a good hand once, regardless of the action.
JTs is a good hand. 35dd is a good hand. 76 is a good hand, ect..

why bother steal blinds, when there are invisable antes to be stolen??

I was actually going to ask the same thing in fewer words last weekend. Really, I did I did.

I have noticed a LOT of limped pots where I play 3-5 nl. I was going to ask where you cut off your completion range from the sb. Although it's nice to see a flop for 2$, I notice that you win a large pot approximately never.

Percula sounds to me like you're talking about the same thing but you're just not using the common name for it.

Regarding the KJo example, you need a lot more skill to make up for the positional disadvantage.

if you have to worry about stealing blinds, or defending them, you are in a bad game.
find better game.
*profit*

unfortunately, there is no secret formula as what to do, because each individual situation is different, with so many varying factors which all effect your decision making in finding the moist +EV play.

what i'm saying is that in a game w/ invisable antes, everyone is playing like they are in the blinds every hand, so just play the same game vs. the blinds as the field. if you're not in a game w/ invisable antes, find one, they are everywhere, TG>

in general, i geuss one can do a lot of things;
rep a weak hand out of the blinds by flatting HU w/ a monster...
give loose V a trashy range when he defends,
rep spiking a ragged flop vs. tight plyrs...ect...
use your imagination.

#Durrrr my idol pulled a super bluff with 7 2

I was so hype cards don't matter when your #Durrrr they respect his raises. He showed how to play back at a table captain. C/R on the flop, hahahahhhahahahaha, why pay for cardrunner videos when you can watch durrrr or lucky chewy for free.

somewhere in hell a snowball is partially melted.

I just figured it out, online is all a sham, everyone wants to make money off teaching poker. There is no poker secrets, 2+2 won't allow it, I love this site.