What?

Obviously position is important, which allows you to play more hands even if you know you're behind their range. But to think it's enough of an advantage to play 95% of hands 3 handed is crazy. And to think you can play the same % of hands profitably against good blinds vs a fish in the blinds is also crazy.

Do you realize that even at highstakes games HU at least 80% of the buttons are being raised?

And I mean both players are 4903284093280x better as anyone you have played so far.

Yet they still play it profitable.

And hint, I am not talking about raising 58o and making money even on the button.

You're not forced to open for pot 3-handed.

You actually get a better price on your steal if you size your raise properly, so I'd play as many hands 3 handed as I would HU against one of those opponents.

^ Yeah that's what I was thinking. And SB is not going to attack you with too high a frequency if BB is good enough to adjust.

punter,
I have no idea why people hate on your scientific approach. This is an interesting question.

people,
if you don't can't offer any meaningful insight, please dont clutter the thread with your predictable "I open 90% on the button... beat high stakes... I'm a feel player... lol at your analytical approach" etc replies which may or may not be true. BUT THEY ARE IRRELEVANT TO PUNTER'S QUESTION.

[x]if you don't can't offer any meaningful insight, please dont clutter the thread


lol

I didn't mention opening for pot anywhere. If you want to open minraise or 2.5 raise, you can do that HU or 3-handed just the same. Whatever your raise size, you get a better price HU because you already have a sb posted.



Punter, I am interested in your arguments.

In theory, say the blinds were better than the btn to the point where the positional advantage was completely negated, and in this scenario the sb would win 1/3 of the pots, the bb would win 1/3 of the pots and the btn would win 1/3 of the pots... in if this were the case the btn would be worth $5/hand b/c there's $15 that are being put into the pot each hand and the btn is winning 1/3 of the pots while never having to post the blinds, so that's .25ptbb/100 (not including rake).

Would the btn not be making .25ptbb/100 plus however much his positional advantage is? You seem to have this much more clearly thought out than I do but I think it's pretty interesting so I thought I'd give it a shot...

lol

I've never really looked to see exactly what percentage I open on the btn, I don't play that much hu anyway, but perhaps you should open up pokerstove and see what 80% of the hands really represents. 80% does include 85o. 95% which was the original number you threw out includes everything except 82o 72o 62o 52o 42o and 32o.

And for the record I play hsnl, and at one point or another I've played against just about every hsnl and nosebleed regular (not hu tho), so I'm not sure who these ppl who are 4903284093280x better than anyone I've ever faced.

And back to op, I'm not sure that trying to quanitify the btn's advantage is all that realistic or helpful, as games/players/dynamics change so much from one situation to another.

The point is that 58o and stuff doesn't make any money but because you open hands like 58o your big hands make way more money than if you wouldn't because you range is wider and villain has to call you down lighter.

You know how easy it is to play against players who open 50% of their buttons compared to players who open 100% of their buttons because you cannot put them on a certain range?

There hasn't been a standardized discovery of some optimal strategy for this situation, so your speculation is based on the assumption of some equilibrium point established between the SB BB and button to make the game EV-neutral. If we move the equilibrium point then the winrate of the button will change. At this point, I don't think anyone knows the answer and if they do they sure aren't sharing.

As to your empirical approach, it seems hard to quantify because the strategies and ability of the blinds are never constant in midstakes games.

I can use other techniques to estiamte upper/lower bounds for button winrate in equilibrium strategy without estimating actual equilibrium. I will elaborate soon on that. I am just too sleepy right now.

I disagree with both of your paragraphs and agree with everything mreed has said so far.

I know all about widening and balancing your range, and I never said you should only be opening 50%. I simply said that if the blinds are competent, 95% is way too much. And also that you should be able to open more hands profitably on the btn vs a donk, than you can if the blinds are decent.

Fwiw in a small sample, I open ~70% from btn hu. I have no clue if this is standard. It wouldn't surprise me if it's a little on the tight side. Most of that is from starting 6max tables vs mostly tough 5/10 and 10/20 regs. I think that number could vary quite a bit depending on who the other guy is/how good he is, what my image is like, dynamic, if he's playing back alot, if he's tilting, etc, etc.

The only way I could think of quantifying would be to simply filter your hands to 3 handed, and compare your own winrate on btn vs your winrates in blinds.

I agree with m_reed and Eddi. You're MY BOYS

A little of topic, but this thread has rambled so.....

In Blackjack, the player has all the tactical advantages, can double down, split 8s, gets paid extra for blackjack and yet the only way player has a chance to beat the house is by counting cards. And then the advantage is small. The only advantage the dealer has is that he has the button every single hand. The button is a huge advantage.

Yeah yeah different game. Still.......

Post your proof sir.


LL

op,

I agree

I have read your blog and also downloaded your program a couple of months ago, never made it work though. But i really liked your blogposts. I am eagerly anticipating the development of this thread. I really don't have too much to add though.

I've also thought about something similar as to what optimal stacksizes would be for the button here and where btn should have the biggest theoretical edge, im not really sure it's as deep as possible, but what do i know.

value of button isn't really when everyone is at 100bb, its when stacks fly around and you get to control how big or small a pot gets played when everyone is deeep

i certainly agree, but somewhere in betwen say dunno 40bb i think button should have a somewhat also good edge, compared to 100bb since 3betting from the blinds becomes less lucrative. I could certainly be thinking about this the wrong way though. But this really isnt the discussion, and hopefully punter will respond soon :-)

Hahahahaa what the **** are you on??????

Do you play HU at all?

Can you "define" a 50% range at all? "OMG 722 flop I can totally check raise this nit"???

Also why are you posting about HU in a thread specifically about 3-handed play?

I think I just explain stuff very bad when I post here because I think if I read it I would understand it but if someone else reads it he obviously doesn't because I cut out important aspects I know myself =(

What you do on flops like 722 depends way too much on the player and history and stuff that would take easily one page to write down here.

Am I wrong if I assume that 3handed play is really similar to HU?

What I basically mean is that you adjust way better to someone who opens 50% of his buttons in HU than someone who opens 100% of his buttons. We assume that both of them adjust to my 3bets the same way. If someone opens 100% of his buttons but always folds to 3bets or never 4bets it's a different story.

It's really difficult to play against a good player who opens 100% of his buttons and can be tricky and not spewy at all.


I am not sure if we can compare this discussion to overall player types. In 6max, is a good LAG more difficult to play than a NIT?

i have to agree with mreed here.