[Poboy]

Originally Posted by Clipper

One last post to answer Poboy's question.

I checked the turn because if the board paired or another A hit, I was ph*cked. I would no longer have the best hand. When the A came on river, I knew I no longer had the best hand, and folded to a large bet, saving some cash. I had a higher EV by waiting until the river to get the chips in if board did not pair or another A hit. Not many players would understand this move because it is so counterintuitive. They think, clearly you should get your money in with the best hand. But if I did that and he drew out on me, I would have lost my stack. By taking a free card and peeking at the river card (he was planning a checkraise or a check call), I escaped with most of my stack. I would have still collected if a blank fell on river.

The board paired on the turn. Only 3 sixes and an Ace beat you. Would you check this turn with a set v. a gutshot if you knew he would call all-in? I sure as sh** wouldn't. I like getting all the money in as a big favorite.

[Poboy]

Originally Posted by yeltzen

Well, I'm done with the book, but I mostly just skimmed the last 20 or so pages. I will be interested in seeing what the consensus on the book is a few months from now. I feel No Limit Hold'em Theory and Practice is by far the stronger book. The major thing I took from Professional No Limit Hold'em is that you should have already decided you're committed before you actually commit. That has helped me a lot, because my tendency is to play it street-by-street, and I usually go for the most passive option. By committing before the money goes in, I can't out-think myself any more. I like it.

Overall, though, too much time is spent on SPR, which really is not that useful of a concept, in my opinion (as I'm sure you've gathered), and not enough time is spent on REM and general hand reading. That's the stuff that makes you a great no limit player. Knowing when and how to commit is great, and it will make you a consistent winner, but being able to put people on hands and take advantage of playing tendencies is what will make you a big consistent winner. Also, SPR straddles the fence of going against the big pot-big hand, small pot-small hand mentality. Unless you're a short stack, getting your target SPR will require building a pretty big pot preflop with hands like AK, AQ, AJ, KQ, QQ, etc. Those are decent hands, but hardly big hands. I don't really know how I feel about trying to get an SPR of 4-7 preflop with these hands. If you miss, can you really c-bet? You're going to be putting a huge amount of your stack in the pot at this point on a bluff. I much prefer keeping the pot relatively small with AQ and then c-betting a smallish amount if I miss. I like picking up these little pots. I don't want to have to risk half my stack on a c-bet.

The book is pretty cheap (like all 2+2 books), so I would recommend it to everyone, but I would advise taking the SPR section with a grain of salt. The examples they show are very, very contrived. They always work out perfectly so you can get the exact SPR you want, and the villain always wants to get all in against you. Please. The majority of the situations you'll run into are that the people in the hand have 100BB stacks, and you'll be unable to get a good SPR without playing like a dope. As long as you understand that SPR is just a general guideline for figuring out how the money is most likely to go in, the book will be helpful. If you start adjusting your preflop game based on it, I think you'll be in trouble.

Back on topic, I think the SPR section is not meant to be applied to every hand, but used to recognize opportunities early. For example, you've been kind of laggy. A TAG just stacked you and you pick up AA the next hand. Folds to the TAG who limps. Here is your chance to put in a big raise, and get that target SPR so you don't have a decision post flop. Even better, you have a chance to stack him if he flops TP and raises you. If you didn't raise big, he can pitch to your re-raise, but if you did his own raise trapped him into the pot.
Or, v. fish, you make your commitment decision on TP much easier than v. avg players. They're exactly the kind of player who'll call big raises preflop, and get all-in with a hand worse than TP.


The important idea in SPR is to notice your preflop opportunities when they arise, not to contrive to make them happen. The book makes it sound like you contrive to make it happen.

[yeltzen]

Originally Posted by Poboy

The important idea in SPR is to notice your preflop opportunities when they arise, not to contrive to make them happen. The book makes it sound like you contrive to make it happen.

I could not agree with this more, and this is a huge reason why I said a lot of players will misapply the book. They make it sound like every time you get a hand you're going to play preflop, you should eff around with your raise to get a target SPR. Really, you just play your game and look at your SPR after the preflop round is over to get an idea of how the hand is going to play out. If the SPR is really low, and you have a TPTK hand, you're going to say to yourself "okay, I should look to get committed here, and it won't be hard". If the SPR is really high, you're going to say "okay, It's going to be very hard to get committed here". That kind of stuff.

[yeltzen]

By the way, the KK hand example near the end of the book is such a joke that I immediately stopped reading after I saw it.

They set up the example by saying you've just walked into a card room and you see some players you've played with before at a $2-5 table, so you sit down. You get KK on the first hand. You go through all of this BS and find out that your target SPR is 7. So, since you can't get there with a raise, you just limp. It goes around and you get another limper and a guy who raises to $20. So it's back to you, and the authors inexplicably suggest re-raising to $50 because that will get you to an SPR of 7 if both players call. What the hell is that? Unless you're playing against complete morons, they're going to know what you're doing. This is how professionals play? I find this hard to believe.

So, of course, they oth call, you flop an overpair, and some ******* tries to get all-in with you with TPTK.

Yawn.

[hachkc]

Originally Posted by yeltzen

You get KK on the first hand. You go through all of this BS and find out that your target SPR is 7. So, since you can't get there with a raise, you just limp. It goes around and you get another limper and a guy who raises to $20. So it's back to you, and the authors inexplicably suggest re-raising to $50 because that will get you to an SPR of 7 if both players call. What the hell is that? Unless you're playing against complete morons, they're going to know what you're doing. This is how professionals play? I find this hard to believe.

Even in my limited live, casino NL experience, I've seen this happen before. Just head over to the windsor casino in Canada around Xmas time and watch all the young college kids over there during the break.

[Poboy]

Originally Posted by yeltzen

By the way, the KK hand example near the end of the book is such a joke that I immediately stopped reading after I saw it.

They set up the example by saying you've just walked into a card room and you see some players you've played with before at a $2-5 table, so you sit down. You get KK on the first hand. You go through all of this BS and find out that your target SPR is 7. So, since you can't get there with a raise, you just limp. It goes around and you get another limper and a guy who raises to $20. So it's back to you, and the authors inexplicably suggest re-raising to $50 because that will get you to an SPR of 7 if both players call. What the hell is that? Unless you're playing against complete morons, they're going to know what you're doing. This is how professionals play? I find this hard to believe.

So, of course, they oth call, you flop an overpair, and some ******* tries to get all-in with you with TPTK.

Yawn.

Actually, I thought the LRRing recommendations in 100bb games was pretty good stuff. An average to tight aggr player is going to call $30 more every time. They'll get in with TP because you've made them mistakenly commit more money than they should want to. All you have to do is LRR once in while with other stuff. That shouldn't be too hard unless all the players at the table are the same type of player. then you have to toss in a bluff LRR once in a while.

[Savior17]

Originally Posted by yeltzen

By the way, the KK hand example near the end of the book is such a joke that I immediately stopped reading after I saw it.

They set up the example by saying you've just walked into a card room and you see some players you've played with before at a $2-5 table, so you sit down. You get KK on the first hand. You go through all of this BS and find out that your target SPR is 7. So, since you can't get there with a raise, you just limp. It goes around and you get another limper and a guy who raises to $20. So it's back to you, and the authors inexplicably suggest re-raising to $50 because that will get you to an SPR of 7 if both players call. What the hell is that? Unless you're playing against complete morons, they're going to know what you're doing. This is how professionals play? I find this hard to believe.

So, of course, they oth call, you flop an overpair, and some ******* tries to get all-in with you with TPTK.

Yawn.

This doesn't work at all at my home game. This has worked at the Venetian and the Borgata in lower stakes, but you can't do this everytime you get AA or KK. You have to pick out the players who will raise and call your re-raise with TT+ and AQ+. I had KK 2x and AA 2x last night online and everytime I LRR, I took the pot. But don't you hate when you do this with KK and the flop come AQx??

[Clipper]

I have been very impressed with this book. The idea of planning the hand and target SPR's is very valuable info. I think this is very, very good stuff in this book. What has dawned on me is that after reading it, like a lot of very good ideas, it is easy to convince yourself that you obviously knew that. Not so, they did a great job with laying out the ideas and examples. This is a key work in NL Holdem literature.

The concepts in planning the hand underlies what you should be doing every single hand. This really helps you understand how to play various size stacks. I have implemented many ideas in my online short-medium stack strategy. This also helps you learn how to play a big stack. For instance, with a big stack (cash or tourney) you may be better off limp-reraising to setup a favorable SPR. There is just too much risk (due to your stack size) to make a standard raise and have multiple callers - you risk going broke, or at least losing a large % of your stack with a 1 pair hand. I now understand the logic behind why the young pro's in Tunica who play with monster buy-ins of $2,000 - $4,000 for $1-2 NL games make very large initial raises ($30-40 sometimes). Even though I basically rape them early on when I buyin for $100-150 and movein with the goods after a raise, they still must play against other big stacks optimally. I can only dent their stack. They must make the competition pay to play (they are actually improving the SPR). A standard raise of 3-4x BB offers a competing big stack almost unlmited implied odds to flop a big hand against you via the favorable resulting SPR.

[Poboy]

Originally Posted by Clipper

I now understand the logic behind why the young pro's in Tunica who play with monster buy-ins of $2,000 - $4,000 for $1-2 NL games make very large initial raises ($30-40 sometimes). Even though I basically rape them early on when I buyin for $100-150 and movein with the goods after a raise, they still must play against other big stacks optimally. I can only dent their stack. They must make the competition pay to play (they are actually improving the SPR). A standard raise of 3-4x BB offers a competing big stack almost unlmited implied odds to flop a big hand against you via the favorable resulting SPR.

That big a buy in handicaps SPR because no matter what, the pot is going to be a small fraction of the stacks when the big stacks play each other. Having that big a stack helps pressure people with smaller buy ins who are forced to play for all their money. Those shorties who aren't aware of SPR trap themselves into pots they shouldn't be in.

[Clipper]

Poboy, there is no such thing as a big stack bullying a small stack. You can't bet what the opponent does not have. That is a common misconception. I welcome people who might want to lower their standards and play more hands aggressively with me because they have more chips than me. They have more chips on the table, but those extra chips are totally irrelevant.

Sticking in the big raise damages the implied odds for people who may want to flop sets, 2 pair, etc. It is all about SPR. A raise 4-5x a standard raise will shrink the SPRs, even if they are still somewhat large after the flop.