I was looking at RFI charts percentages which are based on the hand showdown value. Depending where your at in the tournament hands often don’t make it to showdown, which made me ponder this hand I saw where it’s folded to the SB and both SB & BB had a little over 30 BB's halfway through the tournament and in the money.
The SB raised 3x and the BB calls, the flop came 246 rainbow. The SB downbet to 2.5x, and the BB calls. The turn brings a 7, and now the SB bets 7x, and the BB calls. So the pot was about 26 BB’s at that point, more than either players current stack. The river brings another 2 and it goes check, check. SB turns over K6off and the BB turns over 98suited.
I was like, wow how did this pot get so big with these hands? I think these players are playing preflop chart strategies and then guessing how to continue from there. I also think the BB was hoping to hit a pair or got shot and the SB was just hoping to outplay his opponent, maybe thinking his 6 was good. So, the SB to me was making wrong play based on his opponents tendencies (assuming had he been paying attention) at the right time, as the BB could have easily had 87, 97.
It just amazed me. When I run the numbers through the calculator, technically every street the SB was basically correct to bet and the BB was basically correct to call, odds wise that is. This sort of robotic GTO non-exploitive play I guess is the trend, but at some point ICM wise I don’t think it’s correct.
Also if you think about it, any random hand vs random hand is 50/50. So if you don’t look at your cards in the SB, and its folded to you, in the aggregate it’s technically correct to shove every time. One, it’s un-exploitive, two, because your 50/50 against a call and with the antes it makes it a plus EV play, and three, your always plus EV when the BB folds.
I tend to think at some point when people realize this, this will be the new norm, which sucks for poker. The whole point of poker is you gather information and make deductions based on that information, but when there is no guess work and these people are just following charts, they might as well be playing, craps, roulette, or black jack, in my opinion. That’s just my 2 cents.