Interesting concept in HoH 2 - opinions?

[bjsaust]

Working my way through this book, came accross a concept which makes mathematical sense, but seems counter-intuitive to me.

For those with the book, this is Example 1 in the Assessing Position portion of Part 10 Multiple Inflection points (pg 223 in my book).

Hero has a good hand, but not great (pocket 8s in this example). Hero is UTG with an M of 10. Most other players are much the same except one player in MP with an M of 15 and both blinds are shortstacked (4 and 5 M respectively).

Hero would like to play this hand against either or both blinds, but doesnt want action from anyone else. What does he do?

One of the considerations is, if he raises and someone pushes over, what does he do? The higher the raise, the more likely he'll isolate the blinds, but the better pot odds he gets if someone pushes over. Harrington comes to the conclusion that he's best off making a larger bet, so that if he's pushed over he has an easy mathematical decision to make to call because of good pot odds. This is a hand he doesnt actually want to play AI against anyone else though (just the blinds).

It seems strange to me, to bet such that a future decision will be easy, even though the decision you'll make wont be the one you'd like to make at the beginning of the hand.

Thoughts?

[badgers]

Superb post

I've been thinking about situations like this for a while. I completely agree with you that you should be planning immediate move to make your future decisions MORE PROFITABLE, not easier.

I haven't got my HOH with me, but I vaguely remember the hand. Basically, if you look at the second part of the hand on it's own (after the reraise I think), the call is easy due to pot odds. However, a smaller bet would have made it possible to make a good fold, hence making us more money when we are able to get out of situations (AI preflop in this example) that we didn't want to get into at the beginning of the hand.

A good example of this is players changing standard raises from 3-2.5xBB as you get later in a Sng. This enables them to fold with marginal hands preflop instead of being priced into call with a hand they would have wanted to go AIPF with at the beginning of the hand.

[taipan168]

Will take a look at the book tonight and post once I've read the hand.

[taipan168]

This is the hand in question:

Single table online tournament, blinds 50/100, 8 handed

UTG (Hero) t1500
UTG+1 t1300
MP1 t2300
MP2 t1500
CO t1200
Button t1250
SB t400
BB t550

Hero is UTG with 8 8.

Hero ????

This is a tough spot, but I would probably just standard raise 250-300. This lets us get away from the hand if a tight (non shortstacked) player re-raises us. I agree with badgers, we should be making decisions here to maximise our EV rather than making subsequent decisions easier.

[givememyleg]

I don't see why you would raise more.. if you make it 250 or 300 and sb or bb pushes, you still call anyway...

[rubixstreub]

I don't see why you would raise more.. if you make it 250 or 300 and sb or bb pushes, you still call anyway...

We're not worried about the blinds pushing, we're worried about one of the stacks between us and the blinds raising. As I understand it Harrington is advocating a larger raise in the unlikely event someone reraises there's enough dead money in the pot to warrant a call/push, where as a stand 3BB raise would make the fold the better move? We welcome stacking off with the blinds given their chip size. Do I understand this correctly?

The only thing I worry about is that a large raise, 4xBB+, from UTG is so transparent as a middle PP- at least that's the way the nubs at my stakes play it.

[givememyleg]

I don't see why you would raise more.. if you make it 250 or 300 and sb or bb pushes, you still call anyway...

We're not worried about the blinds pushing, we're worried about one of the stacks between us and the blinds raising. As I understand it Harrington is advocating a larger raise in the unlikely event someone reraises there's enough dead money in the pot to warrant a call/push, where as a stand 3BB raise would make the fold the better move? We welcome stacking off with the blinds given their chip size. Do I understand this correctly?

The only thing I worry about is that a large raise, 4xBB+, from UTG is so transparent as a middle PP- at least that's the way the nubs at my stakes play it.

Hmm. Ok so, even if we raise larger with 88, say to 500, we should be stacking off with 88? I guess I can understand what he is saying, but should we be gambling with all our chips with 88 here?

[LimpinAintEZ]

this is what we are getting at - HOH theory said that it was best to make a bigger raise so in the event we get re-raised, we have an easier call given the odds...the question OP asks is does this make sense to anyone else?

i love HOH, but that theory doesn't make any sense to me - a standard raise seems sensible here, and we shouldn't be pushing extra chips in there with this hand...we want the blinds or a call from the blind short stack(s) - not more action or a justifiable all in - we aren't even close to in trouble yet - we are tied for 2nd in chips with the "big stack" only have 800 more....

which zone is 10 again? Red? or Orange?

[PapalRage]

What about the possibility that Harrington intended the larger raise to discourage action from the other 'healthy' stacks. I dont have the book but it would seem that the only legit reason an experienced player like harrington would raise larger than normally would to reduce the incentive for the big stacks to push over our bet. If the other players also see that we are closer to being priced in, they may be less willing to throw their chips in with a good but not great hand (99, AQ). Betting differently with different strength hands is not usually a good strategy, but i think Harrington wouldn't raise that way just to force himself all-in if someone raises. Thoughts?

[Random_Hero]

Is it possible that as Harrington is a predominantly MTT player, he's taking what he would do in an MTT and applying it to this SnG example? (Just a thought)

One of the considerations is, if he raises and someone pushes over, what does he do? The higher the raise, the more likely he'll isolate the blinds, but the better pot odds he gets if someone pushes over. Harrington comes to the conclusion that he's best off making a larger bet, so that if he's pushed over he has an easy mathematical decision to make to call because of good pot odds. This is a hand he doesnt actually want to play AI against anyone else though (just the blinds).

I think this is the way he would play it in an MTT as your constantly trying to accumulate chips as opposed to trying to preserve your stack as you do in SnG's and at an M of 10 I'm sure this would be the correct move in an MTT but not an SNG.

Thoughts?

(another fine thread )

[badgers]

What about the possibility that Harrington intended the larger raise to discourage action from the other 'healthy' stacks. I dont have the book but it would seem that the only legit reason an experienced player like harrington would raise larger than normally would to reduce the incentive for the big stacks to push over our bet. If the other players also see that we are closer to being priced in, they may be less willing to throw their chips in with a good but not great hand (99, AQ). Betting differently with different strength hands is not usually a good strategy, but i think Harrington wouldn't raise that way just to force himself all-in if someone raises. Thoughts?

You mean making it so that there isn't enough FE for a big stack to push over our raise with a marginal holding. That kind of makes sense, but then we might as well just be open shoving if we're aren't going to fold and want to maximise FE, and 15BBs UTG w/ 88 is a bad bad shove.

[bjsaust]

Paraphrasing from the book:

Raise 400 Big raise gives the best chance of chasing out the players in pos 2-6 and isolating blinds, but the raise is 1/4 of your chips and leaves you with compelling odds for calling an all-in bet from one of the bigger stacks....You'll be getting attractive odds to call, but you're not delighted about putting your tourney up from grabs on 88.

Raise 300 A normal raise has a good chance of eliminating players with weak hands, but now you have more choice when confronted by an AI reraise. Stuff about why its a marginal call if so and you'd fold your hand against all but the loosest players.

Raise 250 The smallest raise thats more than the min. Odds are bad if reraised AI so you'd only call against the loosest players.

CallLooks passive, but easy to get away from, and hopefully it gets folded to blinds who push AI.

Fold Not a silly choice and you'd fold smaller pairs. If you think every other option has drawbacks, this isnt so bad.


Conclusion Raise 400. If we steal the pot or end up AI against one of the blinds we're happy. "If reraised AI, I've made my future decision making easier by getting the biggest possible pot odds. If I make one of the smaller raises ($300 or even $250), I've complicated my subsequent decision making. With my style, thats a no-no. Keep it simple."

Its that last quote that confuses me. If we dont want to get AI against a bigger stack, then although say a 250 bet is a complicated decision mathematically if pushed over, the fact we dont want to play it AI against a sizable stack should make it an easy decision, and therefore I'd lean that way.