Would you play if there were no blinds?

DeVore

PillowTalk raises a good point here (hey, even a stopped clock tells the right time twice a day eh! )

Theoretically you should play tighter at the start as there is relatively little to fight over (just two tiny blinds compared to your stack). But take a gedanken experiment... suppose there were NO blinds at all for the first four levels.

What hands would you play? AA right.... because its the only hand you are certain you are ahead or equal with. You also expect your opponents to think this way too. So why would you take someone on with KK??
Why would anyone bother betting into a pot with no chips with anything less then AA? Would you?

In Ireland this logic is faulty because I think quite DEFINITELY people would bet into pots with no blinds. I honestly think a good few would!

Back to the actual question: Tight or loose early on...
The mistakes made on post flop streets could easily justify getting involved preflop in the hope of making back MORE over time even through you are going in behind.

I judge my table and if I think they are timid or weak players I will get involved in as many hands as possible early. Get in cheap, exploit situations, milk big freak-flops that are good for me, or get out cheap.

I think this only works where you arent going to get played yourself. IE: you want to be the "player" at the table, pulling moves and playing people off pots or trapping. A table full of these types and I clam up again and go tight (I hate it and it may be wrong but its what my gut says and its what I actually *do*).

Maybe this is just a case of contra-playing but I think specifically in Ireland the deep stack and post flop play is SO poor that it pays off to be in many hansd early on.

DeV.

Flushdraw

A gamw with no blinds would just help the all-in merchants prosper. I can imagine womeone with AK just throwing the whole lot in and Mr JJ calling him to see who wins. Myself, i'd throw a bet in with 108s, 76s and the like and try to hit a favourable flop or outplay my opponent. maybe you should run a game without blinds and see what the outcome is, just for an experiment. I'd be up for it!

Ste05

I don't think the fact that there were no blinds early would hugely impact my style. After all, early in a tourney you aren't bothered trying to take down the blinds, you are trying to develop an image for later in the tourney or trying to play smallish flops hoping to outplay weaker opponents Post-Flop, or trying to amass a big stack. And after all, the old adage of you have to give action to get action still applies. I think I'd play basically my usual style early, playing position and small pots trying to outplay weaker opponents Post flop or trying to build an image in the hopes that people will pay off my big hands when they fall.

After all if you just sit there and only play AA, KK, etc. then you have to get doubly lucky to win any pots/ money at all. Firstly you have to get a big hand(s) and secondly another player has to have an equally big (Pre-flop) hand. Alternatively our opponents can play hands that they can play perfectly against your VERY narrow range. Against these fellas we need for them to hit a flop that actually makes a strong enough hand for them to commit more chips Post Flop that doesn't beat our hand. (i.e. difficult)

Lafortezza

If there's no blinds then why would you try to accumulate chips at all? Just take some caffeine tablets, fold everything, and outlast everyone.

mewso

In recent times I find myself agreeing with the notion of playing bit looser early on, as Eoin says for sets etc. I still think that early on it's not the time to be making sohisticated moves or stealing the blinds that often unless of course you have moss growing on the 2 players to your left.
Having said all that I went to the team event and was far too conscious of playing for the team and playing tighter than I think I have ever done.

Hectorjelly

Flushdraw wrote:

A gamw with no blinds would just help the all-in merchants prosper.

have a think about what you just said

De Deraco

lol if you actually played a tourny with no blinds i can guarantee myself 2nd place ill simply buy in and not play a hand till its down to the final two!

anyway i dislike the idea of continually calling when behind when the blinds are low as there is no guarantee that when you flop a monster the player with the better hand is more likely to hit a bigger monster or the nuts.
its good to play looser earlier in a tourny but notabsurdly soo, and of course if the table is weak be agressive and loose. if the table is loose aggressive be tag. its about mixing it up.
but a tourny with no blinds is ridicolous.

Ste05

lafortezza wrote:

If there's no blinds then why would you try to accumulate chips at all? Just take some caffeine tablets and outlast everyone.

Well I thought Dev said there just weren't blinds for the first 4 levels. When the blinds do eventually come in, it'd be nice have a bigger stack then the starting...

Although if people were going mad and getting knocked out left right and center then I'd tighten up alright. But with everyone (presumably) playing tight I'd try and create an image to hopefully get my AA, KK, etc. paid off by weaker hands... But I certainly wouldn't be risking my tournament life without a huge hand...

Ste05

De Deraco wrote:

lol if you actually played a tourny with no blinds i can guarantee myself 2nd place ill simply buy in and not play a hand till its down to the final two!

LOL, or just buy in, go home, then collect your winnings the following day or if they're still playing sit in when everyone else is bolloxed ...

MrPillowTalk

musician wrote:

In recent times I find myself agreeing with the notion of playing bit looser early on, as Eoin says for sets etc. I still think that early on it's not the time to be making sohisticated moves or stealing the blinds that often unless of course you have moss growing on the 2 players to your left.
Having said all that I went to the team event and was far too conscious of playing for the team and playing tighter than I think I have ever done.

Its not really to steal the blinds Brian, its more about winning raised pots that are worth winning.

bohsman

If there were no blinds for the first 4 levels I would register by phone and arrive in just in time for level5

DeVore

MrPillowTalk wrote:

Its not really to steal the blinds Brian, its more about winning raised pots that are worth winning.

"jack them up, slap them down", it a dangerous enough idea but if you reckon your opponent has entered with a hand he's not willing to put a chunk (or all) of his stack on, unimproved... and you get a good read on him on the flop then it can pay off handsomely.

bohsman wrote:

If there were no blinds for the first 4 levels I would register by phone and arrive in just in time for level5

Really? After everything you've read above?
You'd be right of course but I reckon that if people are willing to enter hands with considerably less then AA.... then it would be profitable to turn up for those levels
By extension, how many time have you seen raises to 3-400 on the 25/50 blinds? How many times have you seen them called in 2 spots? Are you playing for the 75 in the middle in these cases or the 1000 in bets and calls?

DeV.

bohsman

I think getting an extra couple of hours sleep will give me a better edge late in the day when everybody else has been playing for 12+ hours and pots are actually worth picking up.

As far as PillowTalks strategy of playing most pots early in deepstack tournies, fair enough it obviously works for him, I prefer to play tight aggresive while picking up reads on players in the early levels and have found plenty of nonbelievers when I do hit a hand

Malta that boring Tom?

Gholimoli

Ok so we are playing a tourney with no blinds 4 the first 4 levels but we will have blinds after that.
To say that you should not be playing anything else rather than AA or to be surprised if other would do so is wrong IMO.
In a normal tourney that starts with low blinds compare to your stack, we are not really playing for the value of the blinds or what is already in the pot. we are playing for the value of our hand and we are trying to win much more than what is in the pot.
When I raise with AA and you call with KK your not really contending with me for the blinds but for the pot that has just been created and potentially the rest of my stack because you think your hand is worth it.
What is happening is im saying I have a hand and im willing to bet this much that its better than what you have. You have a look at your KK and say your on.
Blinds at this stage don’t come in to it.
In order to win the tourney we need to win all the chips in play some how so whether we have blinds for the first 4 levels or we don’t does not change that.
Again the reason for betting in to a pot with no chips in it is because your making a wager that you’re hoping to get accepted.
As for whether you should play tight or loos at the start really depends on so many things.
I think your table will have a lot to say abut how you should play .im generally aggressive and because I think I play better than average post flop I would like to see more flops. But that’s only good to me if I can take pots down with a single bet and don’t have ppl-chasing left/right/centre. if I have table that chases everything and call every bet then my post flops skills don’t really mean much as im bound to miss most flops so im forced to play tight.

DeVore

Gholimoli wrote:

When I raise with AA and you call with KK your not really contending with me for the blinds but for the pot that has just been created and potentially the rest of my stack because you think your hand is worth it.
What is happening is im saying I have a hand and im willing to bet this much that its better than what you have. You have a look at your KK and say your on.

Only if I'm going to make some horrible mistake later on against a K-high flop.

If you presume that then you are making a mistake (ie: taking even money against a hand that has you 7.5:1 dog if we consider just the flop) because you believe that if you hit your king I'm going to make a far bigger mistake by handing you my tank (or a good proportion of it).
This is more or less what I said at the start, which is that post flop mistakes are of such a huge size currently in Ireland that such initial (deliberate) mistakes can be correct in deep stack tournies.

I hope thats what you are saying, I cant tell though.

I think this is a very interesting question and is certainly raising some interesting answers.

DeV.

DeVore

Bohsman wrote:

Malta that boring Tom?

Its interesting enough but its hot in the afternoon and I can't sleep at night. Nearly drowned today doing diving but, um... didnt.

DeV.

Gholimoli

DeVore wrote:

Only if I'm going to make some horrible mistake later on against a K-high flop.

If you presume that then you are making a mistake (ie: taking even money against a hand that has you 7.5:1 dog if we consider just the flop) because you believe that if you hit your king I'm going to make a far bigger mistake by handing you my tank (or a good proportion of it).
This is more or less what I said at the start, which is that post flop mistakes are of such a huge size currently in Ireland that such initial (deliberate) mistakes can be correct in deep stack tournies.

I hope thats what you are saying, I cant tell though.

I think this is a very interesting question and is certainly raising some interesting answers.

DeV.

Tom,
I don’t think you can say because the post-flop mistakes are so common and huge in Ireland then we can afford to see more flops even though it could be a theoretical mistake.
Deep stack poker is all about implied odds I think.
What makes up your implied odds at any given point is your stack, your opponent’s stack, the value of your hand against theirs, your skill set, your opponent’s skill set.
It could be correct to play 9Ts for a raise in position against one player but be incorrect to play it against another player purely because your implied odds would differ.
As for it being a mistake to play anything but AA in your hypothetical situation in my opinion its not.
Suppose for example that you raise with your AA and I call with T9.
Flops comes x x x .now I don’t have to out flop you in order to take that pot from you .all I have to do is to make you believe that by the river I have a better hand than yours.
So basically because in poker you can win in two ways: 1.having the best hand
2.being the last man standing
then I would be correct to play any hand against your AA if I think I can make you believe I have better hand even if I rally don’t.(unless ofcourse we are playing open poker).

P.S. I donno have a clue what im trying to say so let me know if you do…

RoundTower

this discussion shows why a lot of people play badly.

It makes sense that in a game like this you should wait for AA. In fact if everyone else is playing perfectly you may as well fold your AA, because you will get action only from the other AA. The worse people play, and the better you play, the more hands you can afford to play.

So people take this to silly extremes and think, my opponents are terrible I can afford to play a lot of hands. Most of you aren't as good as you think you are and should be playing less hands. I don't mean to single out anyone but look at Connie147's recent thread, he tries to justify a bad call by explaining how he can outplay his opponent postflop, in fact his opponent has 1/5 of his stack invested and probably has an overpair. The principle is correct but like any other idea in poker people overuse it when they don't understand it and it's not appropriate.

Gholimoli

RoundTower wrote:

this discussion shows why a lot of people play badly.

It makes sense that in a game like this you should wait for AA. In fact if everyone else is playing perfectly you may as well fold your AA, because you will get action only from the other AA. The worse people play, and the better you play, the more hands you can afford to play.

So people take this to silly extremes and think, my opponents are terrible I can afford to play a lot of hands. Most of you aren't as good as you think you are and should be playing less hands. I don't mean to single out anyone but look at Connie147's recent thread, he tries to justify a bad call by explaining how he can outplay his opponent postflop, in fact his opponent has 1/5 of his stack invested and probably has an overpair. The principle is correct but like any other idea in poker people overuse it when they don't understand it and it's not appropriate.

I agree with this that there are a lot of theory and principles in poker that people don’t have a firm grasp on but tend to use and over use just because they think they get it.
A very good example of this is the Semi-bluff (seems to be the new black these days) technique.
I got to a conversation recently where this dude was playing a hand in an extremely loos game. He flopped a flush draw and raised with it.
I told him he shouldn’t raise it in this spot and he said “what are you talking about ,it’s a semi bluff…”
Then I explained that you shouldn’t semi bluff as often at all in a loos game cuz you will not win the pot often enough. he still disagreed and I let it go but it just goes to show how people can make big mistakes by doing what they think is correct.

DeVore

Gholimoli wrote:

P.S. I donno have a clue what im trying to say so let me know if you do…

I am agreeing with you and you appear to be disagreeing with my agreement (with you). I dont know why...

I also appear to be agreeing with RT who may (or may not) be backdoor criticising me. I'm not sure what his own answer is, as he doesnt seem to give one.

As I said, I would agree with RT that I would probably fold AA even in a perfect game, and agree with Bohsman and not turn up for 4 levels EXCEPT that the responses in this thread at the very least show people simply dont think particularly deeply (in terms of "he thinks, so I think, so he thinks, so I should think....")

Also, I've encountered many many players in Ireland (I'm not singling us out, I just havent played anything like as many french players for example) who have learned the starting hands and basic strategy of hands and situations preflop, by rote. But when it comes to post flop on some scary board, they can be made to make very large mistakes, particularly when it doesnt make sense to simply ram-jam 9,600 into a pot of 800. Even that would be a huge mistake in itself!
eg: the standard tactic of raise triple the blind with AA and ram on any non-scary board, may work in a 1500 starting chip event, but wont in a 10k starting event.

Do I think I'm good enough to exploit those situations? On some tables yes (witness Cork 300 event, Nicky Power will confirm what I, uncharacteristically, did to that table) but on others no I'm not (witness the IPC where I cowered and hid on my table before blowing up).
As Gholi says, its a function of the table (and to be fair to myself, I was very clear about that in my first post).

Really what I wanted to do was to provoke a discussion around this. I didnt think I'd get as diverse a reaction though!!

DeV.

NickyOD

Hectorjelly wrote:

have a think about what you just said

lol! you got there before me this time.

Flushdraw

NickyOD wrote:

lol! you got there before me this time.

No real need to explain myself to you 2 but anyway........

All-in merchants love the 50/50 bets. they're more than willing to put all their money in with AK or 22 and will call all-in bets with either. With blinds in play, most good players will try a strategic bet that can either a) take down the blinds or b) stand up to a call and decide strategy on the flop frm there.

My point was that with or without blinds in the pot, mr all-in would still be throwing the lot in the centre as a gamble so it would become more of a lottery than ever. Although if i had of proof read my last post, i probably would have taken that line out because i'm puttin my shovel away and not diggin any further coz it was a bit of a dodgy statement...

Hectorjelly

Flushdraw wrote:

No real need to explain myself to you 2 but anyway........

All-in merchants love the 50/50 bets. they're more than willing to put all their money in with AK or 22 and will call all-in bets with either. With blinds in play, most good players will try a strategic bet that can either a) take down the blinds or b) stand up to a call and decide strategy on the flop frm there.

My point was that with or without blinds in the pot, mr all-in would still be throwing the lot in the centre as a gamble so it would become more of a lottery than ever. Although if i had of proof read my last post, i probably would have taken that line out because i'm puttin my shovel away and not diggin any further coz it was a bit of a dodgy statement...

if there are no blinds then you can afford to wait until you are sure that you have the pusher beaten. The higher the blinds in any scenario the less time you have to wait, as they will take a significent proportion of your stack.

MrPillowTalk

Heres my bash at it, I am not the best theorist (is this a word?) amongst us however this appears to me to be what you should do.

Ok if for the first 4 levels there are no blinds, then depending on how bad the other players at the table play your only bet should you make one should be all in. In theory you should just wait for AA and push all in no matter what the action to you, this way you ensure your money is going in good and depending on how bad the other players play you either get called by a worse hand or win a no contest. However considering that I am sure people play so bad that they will undoubtedly play all sorts of hands despite the fact that there are no blinds, I would play KK as well in exactly the same fashion as above. Alternatively you can just turn up at the start of level 4 but you miss out on the rare occasion when someboby will call your all in push with QQ JJ or AK because "they thought you were at it", so it would seem just not turning up is a negative ev move?

Now another point is this what if allthough the blinds dont kick in untill level 4 and we have say a 4k starting stack the blinds start at a level 4 ammount and its a fast structure i.e. after four levels of no blinds they suddenly kick in at 200/400. Now that changes things because even though blinds arent in play to enforce some kind of action you still will only have 10bbs when the clock kicks in so allthough there are no blinds in place you still need to accumulate some chips, this need will probably drive on the action so that the presence of blinds isnt really important but the threat if high blinds in the future becomes a catalyst for the action. I'm not sure what way that effects optimal strategy I assume it just completely depends on how everyone else is playing?

Does this make any sense?

Hectorjelly

MrPillowTalk wrote:

Does this make any sense?

Not to me anyway. The blinds are 0 and you think you should only play AA or KK? This seems pretty much the opposite of how a good player would play. If the blind is 0 then im seeing every flop

MrPillowTalk

Hectorjelly wrote:

Not to me anyway. The blinds are 0 and you think you should only play AA or KK? This seems pretty much the opposite of how a good player would play. If the blind is 0 then im seeing every flop

I thought that was so obvious it didnt need to be said.........

I am talking about if there is betting in the pot, but please continue to be a smartass after all your one line reposts are so insightful.

Hectorjelly

MrPillowTalk wrote:

I thought that was so obvious it didnt need to be said.........

I am talking about if there is betting in the pot, but please continue to be a smartass after all your one line reposts are so insightful.

You didnt make that clear at all, in fact the way you worded it suggests very clearly that you wait for AA, and play no other hands.

edit to add, I could explain it all in one go if you wanted, but surely its better if you work it out yourself?

MrPillowTalk

Hectorjelly wrote:

You didnt make that clear at all, in fact the way you worded it suggests very clearly that you wait for AA, and play no other hands.

edit to add, I could explain it all in one go if you wanted, but surely its better if you work it out yourself?

Im hardly going to fold before the flop for no bet now am I? Did I really need to type that, surely thats about as obvious as it gets.

And as for explaining it all in one go but not doing so, well that really makes me wonder why you bothered to post on the thread at all. You dont want to explain because "its better if I work it out myself" yet you post anyway, smacks of an intellectual arrogance that is a little souring to be honest.

Hectorjelly

MrPillowTalk wrote:

Im hardly going to fold before the flop for no bet now am I? Did I really need to type that, surely thats about as obvious as it gets.

And as for explaining it all in one go but not doing so, well that really makes me wonder why you bothered to post on the thread at all. You dont want to explain because "its better if I work it out myself" yet you post anyway, smacks of an intellectual arrogance that is a little souring to be honest.

You should really go back and read what you wrote. You start off by saying that the only bet you should make is all in, and you should probably just wait for aces. This is a bit silly really, in a game with no blinds taking down a pot preflop with AA is much less valuable than normal, and your strategy seems to be designed solely with that in mind.

Roughly, your strategy should be to bet with AA whatever amount you are likely to get called, taking into consideration implied & reverse implied odds. You would play other hands for two reasons, firstly and most importantly if you felt you had a positive expectation to do so (and that means that the range of hands you play is going to depend on your opponents), and also to cover for the times that you have aces.

I posted on the thread firstly because the first poster managed to give not only the wrong answer, but directly the opposite of the truth (which usualy takes some doing), and then I didnt understand what on earth you were talking about. Whilst I would love to give my detailed thoughts on each and every topic that came up I dont have the time or patience, especially on such a deep and detailed topic. (My remark was meant at least party tongue in cheek.)

cardshark202

This thread is stupid.

DeVore

cardshark202 wrote:

This thread is stupid.

Why?

DeV.

cardshark202

I just think talk about playing with no blinds, and what you'd play and how you'd play is just a waste of time. I don't think it will stand you in good stead in any other games you play and its just plain unrealistic. It is semi-interesting I guess and there are ways you should be playing under those conditions but knowing how to play in a game with blinds is more important.

DeVore

The idea of discussing no blinds is relevant because it may make some people think more about how to play when the blinds are very low compared to stacksizes. at 25/50 with 7k+ stacks they are tending towards 0/0 relatively. Some of the posts here indicate that some people are not thinking at ALL clearly about the theory behind their plays and imho thats what this forum is most valuable for, discussing and examining the THEORY of poker (since we cant actually practise here )
I prefer that to "lol I got ourdrawn by some muppet with 73" threads personally.

DeV.

Hectorjelly

When you say no blinds do you mean that the SB and BB do not have to post a blind, but anyone wishing to enter the pot must limp for 1 bb, or do you mean that everyone is already in the hand preflop by default unless theres a raise; because theres a big difference.

DeVore

specifically I was thinking that you would have to enter the pot for 1 BB though I wasnt specific enough about that.

DeV.

Hectorjelly

DeVore wrote:

specifically I was thinking that you would have to enter the pot for 1 BB though I wasnt specific enough about that.

DeV.

Well it would be an interesting game anyway, noone would ever raise preflop first in (what would be the point?), loose players would go broke really fast and tournaments would go on for ever

ArmaniJeanss

Hectorjelly wrote:

Well it would be an interesting game anyway, noone would ever raise preflop first in (what would be the point?), loose players would go broke really fast and tournaments would go on for ever

Accurate logic for you, but ultimately flawed for a lot of players.

Its still a game in which the huge majority of players will make the mistakes which various posters have outlined. A minority of smart players will take advantage of these mistakes.
Watch any Tribeca STT at $10+ and see how often AJ goes up against 55 all-in at level1 for the sake of doubling up and 60 extra in chips.

Even if the game gets to a stage where everyone remaining understands the logic of the blind situation, then ego will take over - PlayerAs belief in his ability to outplay PlayerB will lead to a pre-flop raise which will ultmately lead to a result.
Tournaments would definitely be longer, but not forever.
AJs.
(All IMO, in possibly the least realistic thread ever !!)

Gholimoli

Hectorjelly wrote:

When you say no blinds do you mean that the SB and BB do not have to post a blind, but anyone wishing to enter the pot must limp for 1 bb, or do you mean that everyone is already in the hand preflop by default unless theres a raise; because theres a big difference.

I disagree that no one would raise pre-flop.
If you have AA for example you would raise it up for the same reasons that you would raise it when there are blinds involved.
As I said before you’re not raising to take the blinds but your raising to build the pot.
Also prob will call you the same range of hands (same type of players) that would get called with if they were blinds involved.
You hardly want to let some one see the flop with TT for 1xBB when you can get them to pay 3xBB for it.
Again because the objective here is to get all the chips in play then I think the action will still be there.
I mean we all get involved in early stages of a tourney when the blinds are very small (effectively a very close to zero compare to our stack) with hands that we think has potential so what is the difference here and why do you think there is no point in raising preflop?

DeVore

To those who say this is "unrealistic"...

WELL DUUUH!

Look up the phrase "gedanken experiment..." as used in the OP.

DeV.

Hectorjelly

Gholimoli wrote:

I disagree that no one would raise pre-flop.
If you have AA for example you would raise it up for the same reasons that you would raise it when there are blinds involved.
As I said before you’re not raising to take the blinds but your raising to build the pot.
Also prob will call you the same range of hands (same type of players) that would get called with if they were blinds involved.
You hardly want to let some one see the flop with TT for 1xBB when you can get them to pay 3xBB for it.
Again because the objective here is to get all the chips in play then I think the action will still be there.
I mean we all get involved in early stages of a tourney when the blinds are very small (effectively a very close to zero compare to our stack) with hands that we think has potential so what is the difference here and why do you think there is no point in raising preflop?

If you were at a table where people will call your raises with easily dominated hands and then paid you off with second best hands in an effort to protect a pot that doesnt exist then that would be fine, but I think even poor players would realise that they should play much tighter.

RoundTower

here are two threads on 2+2 that deal with this kind of thing, both were started by Sklansky and both get him mocked quite a bit. But I think he has a good point here, it is something like what I was trying to say above, even if he expresses it poorly.

here and here

cardshark202

DeVore wrote:

The idea of discussing no blinds is relevant because it may make some people think more about how to play when the blinds are very low compared to stacksizes. at 25/50 with 7k+ stacks they are tending towards 0/0 relatively. Some of the posts here indicate that some people are not thinking at ALL clearly about the theory behind their plays and imho thats what this forum is most valuable for, discussing and examining the THEORY of poker (since we cant actually practise here )
I prefer that to "lol I got ourdrawn by some muppet with 73" threads personally.

DeV.

I guess I was just annoyed about how a thread that had potential to be interesting was developing into a 'discussion' about a game where you could limp for 0.

Gholimoli

Hectorjelly wrote:

If you were at a table where people will call your raises with easily dominated hands and then paid you off with second best hands in an effort to protect a pot that doesnt exist then that would be fine, but I think even poor players would realise that they should play much tighter.

i dont get this at all.
why is there no pot to protect?
once you raise then there is a pot.
if your saying your not going to raise pre flop with AA then i think thats bad becuase if you dont your just letting others in for free.
again would you not raise with AA in 25/50 blinds when you have 15K stack.
i think you would and the reason is not to take in the 75 in the pot but your hoping some 1 will call your raise with a lesser hand.
obviously that some1 does not know you have AA or they would fold but they have a hand which based on their expriance they see as playable .
for example maybe QQ.
i dont see how taking the blinds away will have an impact on this.

RoundTower

the point is that if your opponents play well, you will be playing very tight, so there won't be any value in your opponent calling you with QQ. The worse your opponents are relative to you the more hands you can play, if they are really bad you can probably open any 2 cards from any position.

Hectorjelly

Gholimoli wrote:

i dont get this at all.
why is there no pot to protect?
once you raise then there is a pot.
if your saying your not going to raise pre flop with AA then i think thats bad becuase if you dont your just letting others in for free.
again would you not raise with AA in 25/50 blinds when you have 15K stack.
i think you would and the reason is not to take in the 75 in the pot but your hoping some 1 will call your raise with a lesser hand.
obviously that some1 does not know you have AA or they would fold but they have a hand which based on their expriance they see as playable .
for example maybe QQ.
i dont see how taking the blinds away will have an impact on this.

I think its going to be much more profitable to try and intice other people into the hand by limping. If someone has QQ then they will probably raise it anyway. The problem is when you raise most of the time noone will call you. There just arent that many bighand there will be no blinds to protect, plus less money in to fight over. Take your fav move a resteal, its now become less rewarding and so will be done less.

Gholimoli

RoundTower wrote:

the point is that if your opponents play well, you will be playing very tight, so there won't be any value in your opponent calling you with QQ. The worse your opponents are relative to you the more hands you can play, if they are really bad you can probably open any 2 cards from any position.

say you are in game with 10K starting stack.
blinds are 25/50
some1 who you think is a good player opens the pot with 200 raise and you are next to act and have QQ .
would you fold this?
if your answer is yes then fine but if your answer is no are you telling me that the extra 75 in the pot will have an impact on your decision here?

cardshark202

Gholimoli wrote:

say you are in game with 10K starting stack.
blinds are 25/50
some1 who you think is a good player opens the pot with 200 raise and you are next to act and have QQ .
would you fold this?
if your answer is yes then fine but if your answer is no are you telling me that the extra 75 in the pot will have an impact on your decision here?

It should do. And dramatically so. You will have 2 other players with money in the pot and you will be calling 200 to win 275 rather than 200 to win 200. 75 is like 35% of 200 which is quite a lot. Plus your implied odds are altered significantly.

Gholimoli

Hectorjelly wrote:

I think its going to be much more profitable to try and intice other people into the hand by limping. If someone has QQ then they will probably raise it anyway. The problem is when you raise most of the time noone will call you. There just arent that many bighand there will be no blinds to protect, plus less money in to fight over. Take your fav move a resteal, its now become less rewarding and so will be done less.

The thing is when the blinds are low at the start there is not much to fight for anyway and the blinds are not worth protecting and moves likes restealing don’t happen that much at all.
Yet it’s still correct to raise with good hands in the HOPE of building the pot.
And this is what I think will not change if you take that small amount from the blinds away.
For example in a normal tourney say we are deep stacked.
We open raise with AK.
Now everything you said still applies yet we will get a call here from a wide range of hands.
Unless its wrong to open raise in the above scenario with AK then I cant see how it can be wrong in the no blinds scenario .

RoundTower

the extra 75 has an impact because it affects HIS range. He won't be opening with TT here, so I shouldn't call with QQ.

Also for this to be correct all the players have to be playing well, or most of them playing well and the others playing OK. If there are some very bad players at the table, he might open TT because he can get action from worse hands. In fact it might be correct to open any 2 cards if his opponents are bad enough. Obviously if he is playing this loose then you shouldn't fold your QQ.

This is how the antes/blinds drive the action, once the first player tries to pick up the blinds suddenly there is money in there for everyone to play for. Bad players have the same effect on the game as the blinds, they put extra money in and you have to compete for it.

Gholimoli

cardshark202 wrote:

It should do. And dramatically so. You will have 2 other players with money in the pot and you will be calling 200 to win 275 rather than 200 to win 200. 75 is like 35% of 200 which is quite a lot. Plus your implied odds are altered significantly.

your implied odds are not altered significantly at all when your talking about another 10K.
75 is a very insignificant portion of the 10K.
so in first case you implied odds are
200 to win 10K or 50/1
in the second case its 200 to win 10075 or 50.3/1 now i would hardly call that significant change !

Gholimoli

RoundTower wrote:

the extra 75 has an impact because it affects HIS range. He won't be opening with TT here, so I shouldn't call with QQ.

Also for this to be correct all the players have to be playing well, or most of them playing well and the others playing OK. If there are some very bad players at the table, he might open TT because he can get action from worse hands. In fact it might be correct to open any 2 cards if his opponents are bad enough. Obviously if he is playing this loose then you shouldn't fold your QQ.

This is how the antes/blinds drive the action, once the first player tries to pick up the blinds suddenly there is money in there for everyone to play for. Bad players have the same effect on the game as the blinds, they put extra money in and you have to compete for it.

then we are talking about the impact of bad players v good players on the game and not the blinds.
suppose your playing your standard game in dublin with your standard mix.
then i dont think the lack of blinds should have a significant impact.