CaliNaughti
05-20-2009, 02:29 PM
This article was written by Adaon here on our forum. I am publishing it here for every one to read, because I think we can all learn from this.Thank you Gene for allowing me to print this hre for everyone to read.
Cali
How To Play Your Nemesis
For a moment, imagine yourself as a general on the field of battle. Your enemy is on the other side and the entire war comes down to this one campaign. Your numbers and weapons are similar and the battle is about to be engaged. Welcome to the poker table.
You see it's the same, instead of soldiers you command and deploy your chips. Instead of guns you have your hole cards and any ability you have to read your opponent and calculate math. Your battle tactics are the strategies you employ, and victory goes to the one left with the chips at the end of the battle.
Who will win this combat? While sometimes a fluke mudslide, or a lucky shot will determine the course of the battle, generally the one with the best tactics will win. Now imagine that your intelligence unit comes through in a big way, and intercepts all of the enemy's battle tactics. Knowing what they will do, you can easily devise a counter strategy that will crush them. Unless they employ different tactics, victory will be yours.
Can you believe this happens millions of times over in the world of poker? Yet instead of devising a counter strategy, people complain about the awful tactics of their enemy and don't change their approach at all! They would rather pitch a hissy fit like a 4 year old then actually do something about it.
I used to face this one player all the time. Let's just call him GoAway (because I always wished he would). GoAway was a very bad player, who won way more often then he ever should. Yet when you looked at who was loosing all the chips to GoAway, it was the same handful of players every time. You see, while GoAway made an enormous number of mistakes, bad preflop raises and calls, and exactly the wrong plays on the flop; people would get so frustrated at GoAway, they would overplay their top pair hands. Then even though GoAway played every other part of the hand wrong, he came out a net winner because on the flop, he won more money then all his other mistakes combined ever added up to.
Some people even went so far as to confuse GoAway for being a good player, when in reality it was just them playing bad against him! Even good, winning players were giving up chips to GoAway, because their normal strategy gave them an edge, but in fact it was the worst thing to do! How does that happen? Because while their normal strategy might be say a 3-5% advantage, they were sacrificing a 20+% advantage!
GoAway was the type of player to get under your skin. Sometimes normally good players would start to tilt again him, going from an advantage to an underdog because they overplayed any old made-hand against him. That my friends is just a sorry sight to see from an analyst's perspective. The man is offering up his chips on a silver platter, I'd like to take them personally.
So you agree with me to this point, when we have information about how our opponent is playing, we should use it to our advantage. Then the question is what do we do with that? Well I already told you what not to do, which is overplay just any made hand against them. People confuse bad play for bluffing all the time. While it can certainly include that, it usually means something else altogether: chasing too much! Your normal bets offer him bad pot odds to continue in the hand, but he does anyways, and then by the river your bet is offering him double or triple the odds he had on the flop. All of the sudden a mistake became a sure path to success! But it wasn't his tactics that won, it was yours that lost.
Instead, any time I'm in a pot against GoAway, I want the pot size to be small. If he isn't going to fold his big blind to a 3x raise, why not just call him instead? If he won't fold that 4 flush on the flop to ½ pot bet, why not check my top pair instead and avoid being trapped by a set? I keep the pots smaller, winning less against GoAway, but consider what else happened: he doesn't win as many chips!
Let's do a simple routine example. Blinds are 25/50, and both of you have 1,500 in chips. It's folded to you on the button and you have a hand you want to play (cards do not matter here). You know he won't fold if you make 120-200 to go. Why take the risk of making it 250 instead of just calling? Do you really want to flip coins for your chips? The good player limps against GoAway, the bad player makes is 150 to go. The small blind folds, and GoAway checks or calls.
Good player pot: 125
Bad player pot: 325.
On the flop, you have top pair, or maybe an over pair 2 draw cards are out there. You bet about half the pot and GoAway calls.
Good player pot: 250
Bad player pot: 550
Stop there, imagine that GoAway has a 30% chance of winning at this point. His expectation in the first hand is about $70, close to break even, his expectation in the second pot is $150, close to break even. So far, you haven't really accomplished anything by betting more. The turn card his the draw and you check, he of course bets. You are now confused, frustrated, and not sure where you are at in the hand. If you fold to this bet, you sent him $110 chips as a good player, vs $310. If you played right, you could have saved more money not raising preflop. If you were wrong, your mistake is 3 times larger!
Now change it, a blank hits the turn and you decided to again bet when he checks to you and again he calls.
Good player pot: 400
Bad player pot: 1000
The river card hits a draw and he bets out ¾ of the pot(or all in). With top pair, you are either facing a $100 bet to your 1300 in chips, or a $850 bet to your $850 in chips.
End possible results:
You call and win. He has 1200 or 0 in chips.
You call and loose: He has 1800 or 3000 in chips.
You fold: he has 1700, or 2000 in chips.
You can see now that your folding a marginal hand on the river has a difference of 6 big blinds in this simple scenario. That doesn't sound important to you because you have a chance to take him out? Imagine each big blind is $1,000,000 in cash. So playing this hand wrong is a $6,000,000 mistake. It doesn't sound like such a small mistake now, does it?
You could even go better by giving him a free card on the flop and checking your marginal hand. He makes his draw the same amount of the time, maybe bluffs your more, but when you only have 1 big blind invested in the hand, what do you care about getting bluffed off that? When he does the same thing to me and I don't have a marginal hand, I'll more then make up the value I missed out on because now he is the one giving me chips when he is in the marginal situation!
Let's look at that quickly:
I limp preflop with TJs.
GoAway checks in the big blind.
Pot size: 125.
Flop Js 4h 2h.
GoAway checks out of position, and I check my marginal hand.
Pot size: 125.
Turn is: 1)a brick, 2)a draw card, 3)hits my hand.
GoAway bets since I showed weakness.
1)I call my marginal hand, that is better then his range so a correct math play.
2)I call, not sure if the draw hit him so not investing much when I'm wrong.
3)I can call to see if he will bet in to me again on the river, or raise him because my hand isn't marginal anymore!
Pot size 1)250, 2)250, 3)250/750
River is: 1)a brick, 2)a draw card, 3)hits my hand.
GoAway bets because I'm weak, or he hit.
1)I call with my marginal hand, picking off his bluff some of the time, and paying off his oddball 2 pair or set some of the time. It runs too close for too small a pot to be a gain/loss. So in a marginal situation, my risk was low.
2)I fold, I have 2bb invested in this hand and have to win at least 1/3 of the time to make money. Not worth it, and the mistake of folding is tiny.
3)I raise when I can beat a draw, maybe getting paid off big when his 2 pair looses to my top 2 pair. I call when I can't beat a draw, loosing when he made it that 15% of the time, taking it down when he didn't. If he checked I'll probably bet if he doesn't have a history of check raising, and just checking if he does.
So the final analysis on my change of tactics:
When I beat GoAway in marginal situations I win less money.
When I loose to GoAway in marginal situations, I loose less.
When I beat GoAway because my hand hit, I probably beat him for more.
GoAway bets against me less because I never seem to fold against him, or bet, so he'll take the draw for free.
Under none of these situations does GoAway get MORE chips from me then he otherwise would have! He could make a flush and only have 1700 in chips to show for it. I got more chances to suckout when I was actually behind.
Because I changed my way of playing against GoAway to deal with his style, I went from a small advantage against him to a big one. Imagine that the whole tables plays him like this, not putting in a lot of chips when they can't beat him. Now instead of building up a big stack early when he runs lucky, GoAway finds himself on a short stack once the blinds start creeping up!
What happens in most tournaments is sad, people play big pots with marginal hands against GoAway, and then I have to put up with the idiot who gets a big chip advantage. If no one wants to pay him off though and waits him out, GoAway's style will quickly cause him to go broke. What a difference just a little bit of planning makes.
Written by: Adaon
Cali
How To Play Your Nemesis
For a moment, imagine yourself as a general on the field of battle. Your enemy is on the other side and the entire war comes down to this one campaign. Your numbers and weapons are similar and the battle is about to be engaged. Welcome to the poker table.
You see it's the same, instead of soldiers you command and deploy your chips. Instead of guns you have your hole cards and any ability you have to read your opponent and calculate math. Your battle tactics are the strategies you employ, and victory goes to the one left with the chips at the end of the battle.
Who will win this combat? While sometimes a fluke mudslide, or a lucky shot will determine the course of the battle, generally the one with the best tactics will win. Now imagine that your intelligence unit comes through in a big way, and intercepts all of the enemy's battle tactics. Knowing what they will do, you can easily devise a counter strategy that will crush them. Unless they employ different tactics, victory will be yours.
Can you believe this happens millions of times over in the world of poker? Yet instead of devising a counter strategy, people complain about the awful tactics of their enemy and don't change their approach at all! They would rather pitch a hissy fit like a 4 year old then actually do something about it.
I used to face this one player all the time. Let's just call him GoAway (because I always wished he would). GoAway was a very bad player, who won way more often then he ever should. Yet when you looked at who was loosing all the chips to GoAway, it was the same handful of players every time. You see, while GoAway made an enormous number of mistakes, bad preflop raises and calls, and exactly the wrong plays on the flop; people would get so frustrated at GoAway, they would overplay their top pair hands. Then even though GoAway played every other part of the hand wrong, he came out a net winner because on the flop, he won more money then all his other mistakes combined ever added up to.
Some people even went so far as to confuse GoAway for being a good player, when in reality it was just them playing bad against him! Even good, winning players were giving up chips to GoAway, because their normal strategy gave them an edge, but in fact it was the worst thing to do! How does that happen? Because while their normal strategy might be say a 3-5% advantage, they were sacrificing a 20+% advantage!
GoAway was the type of player to get under your skin. Sometimes normally good players would start to tilt again him, going from an advantage to an underdog because they overplayed any old made-hand against him. That my friends is just a sorry sight to see from an analyst's perspective. The man is offering up his chips on a silver platter, I'd like to take them personally.
So you agree with me to this point, when we have information about how our opponent is playing, we should use it to our advantage. Then the question is what do we do with that? Well I already told you what not to do, which is overplay just any made hand against them. People confuse bad play for bluffing all the time. While it can certainly include that, it usually means something else altogether: chasing too much! Your normal bets offer him bad pot odds to continue in the hand, but he does anyways, and then by the river your bet is offering him double or triple the odds he had on the flop. All of the sudden a mistake became a sure path to success! But it wasn't his tactics that won, it was yours that lost.
Instead, any time I'm in a pot against GoAway, I want the pot size to be small. If he isn't going to fold his big blind to a 3x raise, why not just call him instead? If he won't fold that 4 flush on the flop to ½ pot bet, why not check my top pair instead and avoid being trapped by a set? I keep the pots smaller, winning less against GoAway, but consider what else happened: he doesn't win as many chips!
Let's do a simple routine example. Blinds are 25/50, and both of you have 1,500 in chips. It's folded to you on the button and you have a hand you want to play (cards do not matter here). You know he won't fold if you make 120-200 to go. Why take the risk of making it 250 instead of just calling? Do you really want to flip coins for your chips? The good player limps against GoAway, the bad player makes is 150 to go. The small blind folds, and GoAway checks or calls.
Good player pot: 125
Bad player pot: 325.
On the flop, you have top pair, or maybe an over pair 2 draw cards are out there. You bet about half the pot and GoAway calls.
Good player pot: 250
Bad player pot: 550
Stop there, imagine that GoAway has a 30% chance of winning at this point. His expectation in the first hand is about $70, close to break even, his expectation in the second pot is $150, close to break even. So far, you haven't really accomplished anything by betting more. The turn card his the draw and you check, he of course bets. You are now confused, frustrated, and not sure where you are at in the hand. If you fold to this bet, you sent him $110 chips as a good player, vs $310. If you played right, you could have saved more money not raising preflop. If you were wrong, your mistake is 3 times larger!
Now change it, a blank hits the turn and you decided to again bet when he checks to you and again he calls.
Good player pot: 400
Bad player pot: 1000
The river card hits a draw and he bets out ¾ of the pot(or all in). With top pair, you are either facing a $100 bet to your 1300 in chips, or a $850 bet to your $850 in chips.
End possible results:
You call and win. He has 1200 or 0 in chips.
You call and loose: He has 1800 or 3000 in chips.
You fold: he has 1700, or 2000 in chips.
You can see now that your folding a marginal hand on the river has a difference of 6 big blinds in this simple scenario. That doesn't sound important to you because you have a chance to take him out? Imagine each big blind is $1,000,000 in cash. So playing this hand wrong is a $6,000,000 mistake. It doesn't sound like such a small mistake now, does it?
You could even go better by giving him a free card on the flop and checking your marginal hand. He makes his draw the same amount of the time, maybe bluffs your more, but when you only have 1 big blind invested in the hand, what do you care about getting bluffed off that? When he does the same thing to me and I don't have a marginal hand, I'll more then make up the value I missed out on because now he is the one giving me chips when he is in the marginal situation!
Let's look at that quickly:
I limp preflop with TJs.
GoAway checks in the big blind.
Pot size: 125.
Flop Js 4h 2h.
GoAway checks out of position, and I check my marginal hand.
Pot size: 125.
Turn is: 1)a brick, 2)a draw card, 3)hits my hand.
GoAway bets since I showed weakness.
1)I call my marginal hand, that is better then his range so a correct math play.
2)I call, not sure if the draw hit him so not investing much when I'm wrong.
3)I can call to see if he will bet in to me again on the river, or raise him because my hand isn't marginal anymore!
Pot size 1)250, 2)250, 3)250/750
River is: 1)a brick, 2)a draw card, 3)hits my hand.
GoAway bets because I'm weak, or he hit.
1)I call with my marginal hand, picking off his bluff some of the time, and paying off his oddball 2 pair or set some of the time. It runs too close for too small a pot to be a gain/loss. So in a marginal situation, my risk was low.
2)I fold, I have 2bb invested in this hand and have to win at least 1/3 of the time to make money. Not worth it, and the mistake of folding is tiny.
3)I raise when I can beat a draw, maybe getting paid off big when his 2 pair looses to my top 2 pair. I call when I can't beat a draw, loosing when he made it that 15% of the time, taking it down when he didn't. If he checked I'll probably bet if he doesn't have a history of check raising, and just checking if he does.
So the final analysis on my change of tactics:
When I beat GoAway in marginal situations I win less money.
When I loose to GoAway in marginal situations, I loose less.
When I beat GoAway because my hand hit, I probably beat him for more.
GoAway bets against me less because I never seem to fold against him, or bet, so he'll take the draw for free.
Under none of these situations does GoAway get MORE chips from me then he otherwise would have! He could make a flush and only have 1700 in chips to show for it. I got more chances to suckout when I was actually behind.
Because I changed my way of playing against GoAway to deal with his style, I went from a small advantage against him to a big one. Imagine that the whole tables plays him like this, not putting in a lot of chips when they can't beat him. Now instead of building up a big stack early when he runs lucky, GoAway finds himself on a short stack once the blinds start creeping up!
What happens in most tournaments is sad, people play big pots with marginal hands against GoAway, and then I have to put up with the idiot who gets a big chip advantage. If no one wants to pay him off though and waits him out, GoAway's style will quickly cause him to go broke. What a difference just a little bit of planning makes.
Written by: Adaon