Poker Articles

About a year ago, I was playing in a tourney on UB, somewhere near the final table bubble.  I was the small blind and had pocket sevens.  It folded to the button and he raised 3x.  I reraised big and he folded, showing JJ.  I remember he typed something like, “I’ve lost too many times with that hand.”  Assume this same player is a member of pocketfives or another poker forum site, reads CardPlayer or Bluff, and/or has watched a lot of NLHE tournaments on TV recently.  Do you think he folds JJ there today?

Yes, there are still weak-tight players around, but the density of weak-tights and scared, half-dead money seems to me to be way down.  It seems like everyone knows about restealing.  Everyone knows about small stack play.  Most people know about bubble dynamics.  In other words, a lot of the low hanging fruit is gone – it’s been picked, peeled, eaten, and digested. 

If that’s right, if there are far fewer weak-tight players and there’s much more aggression and counterpunching, does that mean it’s time to tighten up?  I am not sure if becoming a true “tighty” is the answer, and I know I would not enjoy playing significantly tighter.  So I am not going to the tight side, no sir.  But there are some adjustments I have been trying to make that will counter the greater sophistication and courage of the average player, especially as I get deeper into these MTTs.  As with any suggestions/advice, these require the usual caveat: DEPENDS DEPENDS DEPENDS.  But if we assume you are deep in a good size buy-in MTT with a talented field that includes many knowledgeable and tough players, some of these concepts should work better than they used to in the days of weak-tight fields:

(1) Slightly more discriminating shortstack play.  One of the drawbacks to the greater sophistication level of players is that far more of them know that good players don’t want to get too short and will push with air in many spots and with marginal cheese in many others.  Probably my biggest leak is pushing hands like 44 or A8o from mediocre position when my stack is below average but not desperate.

I still play very aggressively when I am short, but you have to assume you are going to get looked up more than you used to.  So I try to be a bit more of a “cockroach” these days, especially when there are tough players with chips behind me.  Be especially cautious with Ace-X.  I wrote “ACE-RAG SUCKS” in permanent ink on my computer stand thingee like two years ago; I just refreshed the ink, because it’s even more true these days.

(2) Don’t overdo the re-steal.  There are some successful players who almost never re-steal, but my guess is that most of the top players use restealing with some regularity.  It’s out there, it’s been talked about in detail, analyzed in posts/strings on pocketfives, discussed in articles, etc.  Consequently, the overall appetite for calling or playing back at a suspected re-stealer is higher.  So I have throttled back on re-stealing.  That being said, if you sense weakness or know the stealer to be overly tight, timid, or a “creeper” (I made that up as a term for someone looking to creep up the pay scale as opposed to someone playing to win), by all means put the wood to him (or her – hello there annette, 46s, and all the other women out there).

(3) Give more consideration to the “re-re-steal.” One of the riskiest moves you can make and one that is oh-so-satisfying (like a Snickers) when it works is the “re-re-steal.”  This play is like handling cobras.  Conditions have to be right, and you certainly don’t want to try it very often.  But if you are up against a player who is capable of playing back at you when he suspects a steal, and the stacks are deep enough that your reraise will have credibility, re-re-stealing may make sense.  If our assumption in #2 above is correct – that re-stealing is a bit overdone these days – then re-re-stealing should be more profitable than it used to be.  Here’s a fairly extreme example (because my fold equity was very thin) from a rebuy on Stars that I played recently:

PokerStars Game #9970421106: Tournament #50007972 $20+$2 Hold'em No Limit - Level VIII (200/400) - 2007/05/17 - 22:58:17 (ET)
Table '50007972 45' 9-max Seat #6 is the button
Seat 1: SilentSupra (5370 in chips)
Seat 2: maq2000 (25674 in chips)
Seat 3: santosg (9850 in chips)
Seat 4: jayjayme (10145 in chips)
Seat 5: NestOfSalt (9510 in chips)
Seat 6: 6BLUFFMANIAC (11825 in chips)
Seat 8: Hpboy10 (13544 in chips)
Seat 9: VILLAIN (13801 in chips)
SilentSupra: posts the ante 25
maq2000: posts the ante 25
santosg: posts the ante 25
jayjayme: posts the ante 25
NestOfSalt : posts the ante 25
6BLUFFMANIAC: posts the ante 25
Hpboy10: posts the ante 25
VILLAIN: posts the ante 25
Hpboy10: posts small blind 200
VILLAIN: posts big blind 400

Holecards:
Dealt to NestOfSalt [AT]
daveLux is connected
FOLD SilentSupra
FOLD maq2000
FOLD santosg
FOLD jayjayme
RAISE NestOfSalt , 785 to 1185
FOLD 6BLUFFMANIAC
FOLD Hpboy10
RAISE VILLAIN, 2415 to 3600
RAISE NestOfSalt , 5885 to 9485 and is all-in
FOLD VILLAIN
NestOfSalt collected 7600 from pot
NestOfSalt : doesn't show hand

This isn’t the best example ever, but I happened to have the hand history (it’s actually an interesting example because restealing in this spot was very marginal – I doubt it would have worked if I had even a few hundred less.  So this hand might represent or at least approach the outer boundary of the play).  Ideally, the stacks would be deeper, but this hand illustrates the concept.  My opponent was getting around 2 to 1 to call, but he probably assumed he was up against a monster (and he may have had air).  In this particular case, my play was based mostly on gut instinct (*Blink*); something about the way he played it (timing, amount, etc.) felt “off.”  In general, the best time to try this play would be when (a) you are up against someone you know to be very aggressive; and (b) both stacks are deep enough that he can fold and still have plenty to work with – he won’t feel pot committed.

All of this ties in to earlier articles by me and even more so by Rizen and others about how important flexibility and observation are.  The competition is so brutal that any edge, any information you pick up can make all of the difference.  To fully capitalize on your informational edge, you have to have the full arsenal of moves and countermoves at your disposal.  But again, be extremely selective with major set plays like the re-re-steal. 

Fancy Play Syndrome is a bigger risk than the risk of missing out on the occasional re-steal or “re-re-steal” opportunity.