Tight Poker

[tightpoker]

In the spirit of generating more discussion, I will elobrate on what I call the overbet protection play.

Situation:
It's late in a tournament and there are 4 players left. Blinds are 50/100 and you have 1,500 chips. Rest of your opponents have same or more than you. You are dealt 22 on the button and it's folded to you. Instead of raising to 300, you push all-in and blast the pot for 15x the blinds.

The Status Quo Steal:
Normally, you only bet 2.5x to 4x the big blind because that is the optimal range of making it bad for someone else to call, but also gives you room to get out of the way if you are in trouble.

In addition, for reasons of pot odds, it's also the norm to push all-in if you are at 10x BB or less, as a push from your opponent practically dictates a call on your part. Thus, the status quo play is to make a 300 raise here and get out of the way if you are stuck back, since 22 is a race vs any overcards (all) and completely dominated vs any pocket pair.

The Late Game Steal:
Most players at this time know that stealing of the blinds is an integral part of STT strategy late in the game; especially on sites like Party Poker where the blinds increase at an accelerated rate compared to most tournaments. Stealing the blinds becomes a necessity to survive, so aggression naturally increases toward the end of the game.

Sheer aggression is often punished however, so position is often used in conjunction with aggression to lower the amount of risk involved in each steal attempt. Thus, stealing from the cut-off (one before the button), button or SB (small blind) are often the most viable and safe spots to steal from. The safety simply comes from having less possible callers behind you.

The Bubble Factor:
Given the scenario listed above, with 4 players left, this is known as the 'bubble', which is the spot where the next player to bust out means that the other players place in the money. Common strategy dictates that you generally play tighter on the bubble to maximize profits, because placing in the money is more important than building a small advantage at this point in the tournament.

The counter-strategy that has thus developed, is to play very aggressive on the bubble (often as the big stack), exploiting the extra tight game conditions. Having a large stack, one is able to make risky plays and risk being called, when losing a hand still doesn't mean placing out of the money. Generally a big stack that knows what he is doing will accumulate more chips on the bubble for this reason.

The Knowledgeable Player (KP):
The knowledgeable player (someone like yourself) knows about the status quo of raising, the late game steal and often, the bubble factor. This means that when a steal is attempted on the knowledgeable player, the steal is much riskier, because this player knows what the person stealing is most likely trying to do. Using this knowledge, the KP will often lower their range of hands to call and raise with, effectively changing their strategy to adapt to game conditions.

The saving grace for the person making the steal, is that the KP will often not have the cards to play back against the stealer, even with the increased range of hands that the KP is willing to play. However, many daring KP or KP with big stacks will make a play against the stealer without good cards; forcing the stealer to drop his most likely weak hand.

So, the danger from the KP is that not only are they more willing to play more hands against a steal, but they are also willing to make direct plays to exploit your own system of taking blinds.

The Overbet Protection Play:
"You know, that I know, that I know that you know..."

The overbet play works on the principle that you know your opponent is a KP. When you are now attempting a steal, you know that you risk the chance of your opponent coming back at you, with or without a strong hand.

So, instead of betting the status quo of 3x the bet, you push all-in with the rest of your chips. Upon your play, your opponent is suddenly no longer able to make a play back against you with rags and is also forced to tighten their range of calling hands, since they are forced with a showdown confrontation if they play a hand. The loss of folding equity from the ability to pop you back, now must be replaced by the equity of a stronger hand.

The question remains however, of the commitment of too many chips over the normal status quo of 10x the BB, as it leaves no room to get away from your hand if you push. The idea is that the equity gained from handicapping your opponents' ability to make a play against you at this stage (a loss of 3x BB if played back + gain in fold equity) mitigates the additional loss of an additional 5BB should you find yourself in a dominated situation.

An example of the gain in fold equity would be pushing 55 for 15BB from UTG with opponent holding AK on the BB. Whereas normally a KP would reraise AK on the button or push, the button now has to be concerned about the overbet, as it may smell like low PP, but PP nonetheless. This can not only avoid a race situation (even though possibly beneficial as a favorite), but more than not, maximizes fold equity value for the play.

Other thoughts:
The concept of the additional gain in limiting your opponents' attack power is also the fundamental theory behind bubble strategy, large stack strategy and the theory of blind stealing. These all use the push as a method of jamming your opponents' style of play and increasing fold equity. The key, however, is realizing at which point does the increase in fold equity outweighs the risk of stack commitment into the pot. This also illustrates the nuances of attacking a small stack, given the inherent nature of their inability to fight back.

This has been a long rambling from the diary of a poker monkey.

[billy b]

Nice breakdown.

[scotty1139]

This has been a long rambling from the diary of a poker monkey.

Awesome. I hereby dub thee, "Nim Chimpsky."

[i suck at poker]

Generally I'd say that I would raise to about 325, but to mix things up here I would occassionally use the stop and go (Bet 33-50% preflop, then move all-in on the flop no matter what). I especially like using the stop and go with low pairs. If you bet, say, 600-750 ... then you could bet the flop (if he calls). Since you were planning on going all-in anyway, this forces your opponent to make a second call after seeing three cards instead of five. You may even be able to get him to fold a dreaded OVERPAIR (to your twos anyway) if scare cards hit, which is obviously your biggest threat to begin with. Usually I'd wait until the blinds were up to 75/150 with a stack of 1500, but I would consider it at this level. If your opponent pushes back, well ... you were planning on going all in anyway and you are committed at this point unless you are very familiar with your opponent, but then you wouldn't be doing this in the first place. The only question to ask yourself is "What will my opponent call 675 with that he won't call 1500 with?" to determine if it is a good option. One of the main reasons I like this option is that I lower-risk tactics for survival. I think this is much more useful in a multitable, though.