Post by Steve on Nov 7, 2010 21:06:51 GMT -5
pecial Guest: Shaundeeb.
I’ve been thinking about this concept quite a lot lately. At first I thought I was being results oriented, paranoid, or simply way too nity. I ended up having the same discussion with a number of players I respect, and after some debate we pretty much all came to the same conclusion; we as winning mid-high stakes tournaments players end up leveling ourselves too often.
If you’re reading this you’re likely the kind of person who seeks out information on improving your game. That means you probably read forums, books, articles, and converse about poker with other thinking players in an effort to get better. These are the best ways of getting better of course, but they due tend to cause one problem; we thinking players spend so much time around other thinking players considering thinking situations that we sometimes forget that the majority of tournaments players aren’t thinking, or more precisely, don’t think anything like we do. I’ll let Shaundeeb elaborate with the following:
“Now I would hope most of you are familiar with the levels of thinking in poker and as a
poker player, but most of you myself included make this crucial mistake over and over
again. The problem with most level 2 thinking done by mid stakes tourney regulars is
they too often when figuring out that persons range use one too close to their own and
make an error by giving the guy too much credit or too little credit. Now it's almost
always going to be a big guessing game on ranges with a random player but still try to give them less credit before giving them more.
I have made my living beating bad players, you could call me the Phil Hellmuth of
lower stakes MTT’s. I learned quickly what to do verse those types of players and made a
good profit from it. I notice a lot of times in the lower buyins I make the
mistake of thinking this is a great spot to bluff when considering the other persons
position and then assume he’s bluffing. However, he's not as good as me and therefore
probably doesn't realize what a good spot it is and most likely has what he is representing. We are
trained to be the highest level thinking players out there by discussing hands within our own
little cliques every day trying to dissect every possible outcome when if we just
studied the prior decisions you will find the spot to pounce on your opponents
mistake while conventional wisdom tends to push you towards a different
outcome/solution.
We spend most of our most important early decisions vs randoms and it's so hard to
predict the way these players will react and what they actually have but as soon as
you stop thinking what you would have in that spot you will start playing much
better. Thankfully those we play against don't have the same ranges we would have or
our edge would diminish due to that. They make huge mistakes for us.
Now most of this advice is not for your biggest buyins online but instead for those
oh so soft satellite filled Sunday lotteries as well as those 10-100 freeze outs and rebuys under $100. You will run
into so many different players and styles in one day that you can never know whose who
and what's what half the time but for the half you do know be sure you make an educated
decision based on them, not on you. I mean as a basic learning for level 2 it was a great start
to be like what would I have in this spot and to do some hand reading from the outside
looking in but now we should be getting past that stage to a more efficient way of
thinking.”
Thanks for your input Shaun, it only took me 78 hours and two seizures to turn it into understandable English. It’s a good summary of the issue at hand, so now let’s talk about application. First of all, one assumption to make is people’s ranges are tighter than you expect until proven otherwise. This is another point where being observant or using Pokertracker with PAHUD become important. I would say in most mid stakes tournaments (which I’d define at $20-$100 freeze outs and $10-$50 rebuys, and sometimes the $150’s) the break down in players is something like: 75% too tight/passive, 20% too loose/aggressive/spewy, 5% thinking professionals. This is course a very large generalization which there are many variables to consider, but not a bad break down.
Let’s look at specific instances where I think good/thinking players are giving too much to non thinking players or random players.
1. Paying off small river value bets: You get this all the time, you find yourself at the river with a medium strength hand that you’re fairly sure isn’t good. However, your opponent fires out a bet in the area of 30-50% pot. You look at his bet, figure your medium strength hand only needs to be good around 1 in 4 times or something, and call down. I know it’s gross but trust me, stop paying off these bets until you see someone bluff with them. Nobody bets this stupid little size as a bluff. Sure you only need to be good 1 in 4 for this to be profitable. In my experience though it’s considerably higher, something like 1 in 8 or maybe 10, that the player doesn’t turn up with what you think you’re getting taken to value town with. Now if you get the kind of board where a number of draws miss or you think the villain is very bad at making thin value bets you can maybe call these down, but one of the biggest leaks I see in good players is using pot odds to justify this call. I think something to consider in the future is to look for players who make these thin value bets with good but not great hands and then find spots where you can catch them doing it and blow them off it with a large raise (that’s right, turning your showdown value into a bluff, spots do exist where it can and should be done) as long as you know your opponent has a fold button.
2. Four bet jamming a wide range pre over a small 3 bet: I know sometimes players turn up with truly insane hands when they tiny or minreraise you pre. Yes I know it happens. However, if you look at the breakdown of times you get minreraised by something random/awful and the times it’s a huge hand I think you’ll find trying to come over the top of these light is a really bad idea. Bad players tiny reraise you because they aren’t aware that you’re thinking about their raise size. All they’re hoping for is that you see a tiny amount and either take a flop and fall in love or get annoyed with such a stupid sized 3 bet and come over the top. Until proven otherwise, accept random or weak players pre flop tiny and min reraises as the massive hands they often are.
3. Calling short stack open shoves too wide: Very many unknown players still aren’t aware of how wide they can profitably shove on a short stack. Lots of guys will keep folding well past a 10 BB stack waiting for something semi decent. This is a leak I used to have on an enormous scale, I guess I figured it was one of those things everyone was on to or it was simply obvious. That’s just not the case. Even though shoving ranges have gotten wider an absolute ton of the past two years there are still so many players out there who have no idea about +cEV shoves, pokerstove, SNG power tools or anything like that. As I said in a previous entry one of the most key things I note people on is their shoving ranges. Those kind of notes can come in massively handy late in a tournament.
4. Assuming nobody in their right might would make a massive overshove with a big hand: This one is not as prominent as the others since there are plenty of players who go for small bets with big hands and huge shoves with drawing hands. However, there are a ton of players who when they risk a very large amount of chips are never doing so without what they perceive as a huge hand. One good way to tell if a player is the type to do this is watch how they play a draw. If you see a player play a draw passively then you get in a spot where he pulls a huge overshove on you, odds are he’s got what he’s representing. Especially deep in tournaments where players are anxious about blowing a large stack or a chance at a big score you have to accept that many players will tighten up and take less chances with their whole stack.
Next I want to address an issue that comes up whenever I discuss this kind of thing with smart players. Doesn’t giving people credit for a hand all the time make you an equally exploitable nit? I don’t think so. The only players good enough to exploit your tendencies are thinking players. If you’re a regular tournament player you need to make it your business to know who the thinking players are. That means glancing through 2+2 and P5’s and OPR’ing your opponents on the table when possible. Bad, non thinking players aren’t capable of adjusting to the point that they can exploit my tendencies, or certainly not to a degree that I can’t see it coming. When I play a hand against someone I know to be thinking and who knows I know they’re thinking, I throw all of these assumptions out the window and attempt to play my hand in a manner that aims for deception instead of manipulation.
Who knows though, perhaps after having this article put up I’m going to have to make large adjustments when people start abusing me with 1/3rd pot bluffs and tiny 3 betting me all day. I doubt it though. There are just too many bad players, and we all need to accept that.
I’ve been thinking about this concept quite a lot lately. At first I thought I was being results oriented, paranoid, or simply way too nity. I ended up having the same discussion with a number of players I respect, and after some debate we pretty much all came to the same conclusion; we as winning mid-high stakes tournaments players end up leveling ourselves too often.
If you’re reading this you’re likely the kind of person who seeks out information on improving your game. That means you probably read forums, books, articles, and converse about poker with other thinking players in an effort to get better. These are the best ways of getting better of course, but they due tend to cause one problem; we thinking players spend so much time around other thinking players considering thinking situations that we sometimes forget that the majority of tournaments players aren’t thinking, or more precisely, don’t think anything like we do. I’ll let Shaundeeb elaborate with the following:
“Now I would hope most of you are familiar with the levels of thinking in poker and as a
poker player, but most of you myself included make this crucial mistake over and over
again. The problem with most level 2 thinking done by mid stakes tourney regulars is
they too often when figuring out that persons range use one too close to their own and
make an error by giving the guy too much credit or too little credit. Now it's almost
always going to be a big guessing game on ranges with a random player but still try to give them less credit before giving them more.
I have made my living beating bad players, you could call me the Phil Hellmuth of
lower stakes MTT’s. I learned quickly what to do verse those types of players and made a
good profit from it. I notice a lot of times in the lower buyins I make the
mistake of thinking this is a great spot to bluff when considering the other persons
position and then assume he’s bluffing. However, he's not as good as me and therefore
probably doesn't realize what a good spot it is and most likely has what he is representing. We are
trained to be the highest level thinking players out there by discussing hands within our own
little cliques every day trying to dissect every possible outcome when if we just
studied the prior decisions you will find the spot to pounce on your opponents
mistake while conventional wisdom tends to push you towards a different
outcome/solution.
We spend most of our most important early decisions vs randoms and it's so hard to
predict the way these players will react and what they actually have but as soon as
you stop thinking what you would have in that spot you will start playing much
better. Thankfully those we play against don't have the same ranges we would have or
our edge would diminish due to that. They make huge mistakes for us.
Now most of this advice is not for your biggest buyins online but instead for those
oh so soft satellite filled Sunday lotteries as well as those 10-100 freeze outs and rebuys under $100. You will run
into so many different players and styles in one day that you can never know whose who
and what's what half the time but for the half you do know be sure you make an educated
decision based on them, not on you. I mean as a basic learning for level 2 it was a great start
to be like what would I have in this spot and to do some hand reading from the outside
looking in but now we should be getting past that stage to a more efficient way of
thinking.”
Thanks for your input Shaun, it only took me 78 hours and two seizures to turn it into understandable English. It’s a good summary of the issue at hand, so now let’s talk about application. First of all, one assumption to make is people’s ranges are tighter than you expect until proven otherwise. This is another point where being observant or using Pokertracker with PAHUD become important. I would say in most mid stakes tournaments (which I’d define at $20-$100 freeze outs and $10-$50 rebuys, and sometimes the $150’s) the break down in players is something like: 75% too tight/passive, 20% too loose/aggressive/spewy, 5% thinking professionals. This is course a very large generalization which there are many variables to consider, but not a bad break down.
Let’s look at specific instances where I think good/thinking players are giving too much to non thinking players or random players.
1. Paying off small river value bets: You get this all the time, you find yourself at the river with a medium strength hand that you’re fairly sure isn’t good. However, your opponent fires out a bet in the area of 30-50% pot. You look at his bet, figure your medium strength hand only needs to be good around 1 in 4 times or something, and call down. I know it’s gross but trust me, stop paying off these bets until you see someone bluff with them. Nobody bets this stupid little size as a bluff. Sure you only need to be good 1 in 4 for this to be profitable. In my experience though it’s considerably higher, something like 1 in 8 or maybe 10, that the player doesn’t turn up with what you think you’re getting taken to value town with. Now if you get the kind of board where a number of draws miss or you think the villain is very bad at making thin value bets you can maybe call these down, but one of the biggest leaks I see in good players is using pot odds to justify this call. I think something to consider in the future is to look for players who make these thin value bets with good but not great hands and then find spots where you can catch them doing it and blow them off it with a large raise (that’s right, turning your showdown value into a bluff, spots do exist where it can and should be done) as long as you know your opponent has a fold button.
2. Four bet jamming a wide range pre over a small 3 bet: I know sometimes players turn up with truly insane hands when they tiny or minreraise you pre. Yes I know it happens. However, if you look at the breakdown of times you get minreraised by something random/awful and the times it’s a huge hand I think you’ll find trying to come over the top of these light is a really bad idea. Bad players tiny reraise you because they aren’t aware that you’re thinking about their raise size. All they’re hoping for is that you see a tiny amount and either take a flop and fall in love or get annoyed with such a stupid sized 3 bet and come over the top. Until proven otherwise, accept random or weak players pre flop tiny and min reraises as the massive hands they often are.
3. Calling short stack open shoves too wide: Very many unknown players still aren’t aware of how wide they can profitably shove on a short stack. Lots of guys will keep folding well past a 10 BB stack waiting for something semi decent. This is a leak I used to have on an enormous scale, I guess I figured it was one of those things everyone was on to or it was simply obvious. That’s just not the case. Even though shoving ranges have gotten wider an absolute ton of the past two years there are still so many players out there who have no idea about +cEV shoves, pokerstove, SNG power tools or anything like that. As I said in a previous entry one of the most key things I note people on is their shoving ranges. Those kind of notes can come in massively handy late in a tournament.
4. Assuming nobody in their right might would make a massive overshove with a big hand: This one is not as prominent as the others since there are plenty of players who go for small bets with big hands and huge shoves with drawing hands. However, there are a ton of players who when they risk a very large amount of chips are never doing so without what they perceive as a huge hand. One good way to tell if a player is the type to do this is watch how they play a draw. If you see a player play a draw passively then you get in a spot where he pulls a huge overshove on you, odds are he’s got what he’s representing. Especially deep in tournaments where players are anxious about blowing a large stack or a chance at a big score you have to accept that many players will tighten up and take less chances with their whole stack.
Next I want to address an issue that comes up whenever I discuss this kind of thing with smart players. Doesn’t giving people credit for a hand all the time make you an equally exploitable nit? I don’t think so. The only players good enough to exploit your tendencies are thinking players. If you’re a regular tournament player you need to make it your business to know who the thinking players are. That means glancing through 2+2 and P5’s and OPR’ing your opponents on the table when possible. Bad, non thinking players aren’t capable of adjusting to the point that they can exploit my tendencies, or certainly not to a degree that I can’t see it coming. When I play a hand against someone I know to be thinking and who knows I know they’re thinking, I throw all of these assumptions out the window and attempt to play my hand in a manner that aims for deception instead of manipulation.
Who knows though, perhaps after having this article put up I’m going to have to make large adjustments when people start abusing me with 1/3rd pot bluffs and tiny 3 betting me all day. I doubt it though. There are just too many bad players, and we all need to accept that.