Stupidest Theory

DeadParrot

Was talking to a housemate last night
and he was going on about my BR being like monopoly money.
Have cashed out of PPP I left $200 in GJP on Saturday and have ran it up to just over $1k.
Explaining to him about staying within levels he said
'Sure why dont you play at a higher stake and win one hand increase your money much quicker'

So roll of $1k sit in at a 2/4 game (PLO or NLH) win one massive hand increasing you brby 15-30%...is it me or is this just effectively playing roulette? Obviously you have the option of picking your hand to get involved with

phantom_lord

it's just higher varience. u could win more quicker, but more likely you'll just go broke.

shoutman

Not quite playing roulette, its just taking more of a chance with your money then you need to, a few bad beats and you have just lost half your bankroll, a few nice hands and you have increased it by half....

I suppose you need to look at the Welsh kids blog, im sure someone will post the link. Basically they guy doesnt DO bankroll management and thus goes on these absolutely crazy swings.

Hitman Actual

DeadParrot wrote:

'Sure why dont you play at a higher stake and win one hand increase your money much quicker'

Risk of Ruin?

Don't bother trying to explain basic poker concepts to the average David, it's a waste of your time and energy. They just will not get it.

Ste05

IMO without BR management Poker is effectively pure gambling. {EDIT: Although sometimes you can get very favourable odds] And like all gamblers you'll undoubtedly either get lucky and make a nice score or unlucky and lose it all.

Mellor

I know a player who wanted to try and freeroll to a grans asap.
He played the daily freerolls on PPP, series of cashes got him to $15
sat into $1000 gar., second for $170,
sat down at 1/2 and ran it up to $550

And bad run along the way he would be broke, i know he only started in freerolls but playing with your roll like this is dangerous.

The higher % of your roll you play with the less of an edge you have.

redzerdrog

shoutman wrote:

Not quite playing roulette, its just taking more of a chance with your money then you need to, a few bad beats and you have just lost half your bankroll, a few nice hands and you have increased it by half....

I suppose you need to look at the Welsh kids blog, im sure someone will post the link. Basically they guy doesnt DO bankroll management and thus goes on these absolutely crazy swings.

http://88percent.blogspot.com/

LuckyLloyd

This post has been deleted.

phantom_lord

lol. he went bust in the middle of writing his blog entry? that kid's great.

hotspur

To be honest I have thought a few times about a situation whereby you only want to win the blinds on a fairly high stake table. Let's say that instead of grinding say 2/4 that instead your plan is to sit down at a 6 max 25/50 table playing your 1st hand in the cutoff, let's say you buy in for 2k. Your goal is to simply win the 1st hand, hopefully it is passed around to you and you raise it 5xbb, if it's folded you leave, go to another similar table on another network, rinse and repeat. If it's raised before you then repop it, and if you are called by a blind then fight.

Now intuitively you feel that this uber extreme hit and run cannot be viable, but I'm not exactly sure why it isn't viable. Okay there are obviously many arguments to be made about if you are good at poker then actually play it blah de blah. But as pure theory does anyone have any numbers that indicate that it is unworkable.

I suppose that you would have to work it out in greater detail including the extent to which you fight in the hand or just give it up on resistance. The problem is I have no idea what % of the time you are likely to get an optimal "folded to you on cutoff 5xBB raise" through the button and blinds at these levels.

I am interested in it though. If it worked out mathswise it would be a pretty easy living.

Gholimoli

hotspur wrote:

To be honest I have thought a few times about a situation whereby you only want to win the blinds on a fairly high stake table. Let's say that instead of grinding say 2/4 that instead your plan is to sit down at a 6 max 25/50 table playing your 1st hand in the cutoff, let's say you buy in for 2k. Your goal is to simply win the 1st hand, hopefully it is passed around to you and you raise it 5xbb, if it's folded you leave, go to another similar table on another network, rinse and repeat. If it's raised before you then repop it, and if you are called by a blind then fight.

Now intuitively you feel that this uber extreme hit and run cannot be viable, but I'm not exactly sure why it isn't viable. Okay there are obviously many arguments to be made about if you are good at poker then actually play it blah de blah. But as pure theory does anyone have any numbers that indicate that it is unworkable.

I suppose that you would have to work it out in greater detail including the extent to which you fight in the hand or just give it up on resistance. The problem is I have no idea what % of the time you are likely to get an optimal "folded to you on cutoff 5xBB raise" through the button and blinds at these levels.

I am interested in it though. If it worked out mathswise it would be a pretty easy living.

You say the goal is to win the first hand and then leave .
It’s folded to you on the button and you make it 5BB.if blinds fold then leave!
If blinds call you will fight!
What does fight mean exactly?
I think that was left vague intentionally.
Does it mean if you get called you are willing to get it all in no matter what?
Does it mean that there conditions and different actions depending on each condition on what you are going to do if you get called (which means playing post-flop poker)
Does it mean you are going to give up if you get called and try it again later?

Im kind of thinking maybe ive missed something in your post cuz the above is really basic and obvious.

shoutman

I'd say it would involve changing your sn on a weekly if not daily basis if this was to happen, and at the highest stakes I would presume the player base isnt all that big....
Obviously they would account for people taking shots at the game or what not, although it is a interesting idea I cant see it being viable. if you raise X5 and are called and as you say will have to fight out the rest of the hand, do you play it as normal or do you just fold unless you hit something good.

DeadParrot

hotspur wrote:

To be honest I have thought a few times about a situation whereby you only want to win the blinds on a fairly high stake table. Let's say that instead of grinding say 2/4 that instead your plan is to sit down at a 6 max 25/50 table playing your 1st hand in the cutoff, let's say you buy in for 2k. Your goal is to simply win the 1st hand, hopefully it is passed around to you and you raise it 5xbb, if it's folded you leave, go to another similar table on another network, rinse and repeat. If it's raised before you then repop it, and if you are called by a blind then fight.

Now intuitively you feel that this uber extreme hit and run cannot be viable, but I'm not exactly sure why it isn't viable. Okay there are obviously many arguments to be made about if you are good at poker then actually play it blah de blah. But as pure theory does anyone have any numbers that indicate that it is unworkable.

I suppose that you would have to work it out in greater detail including the extent to which you fight in the hand or just give it up on resistance. The problem is I have no idea what % of the time you are likely to get an optimal "folded to you on cutoff 5xBB raise" through the button and blinds at these levels.

I am interested in it though. If it worked out mathswise it would be a pretty easy living.

This was basically the jist of his case.
It has a limited shelf life though. You would have to assume that 25/50 players would recognise this and peg him. It would be the first and last time if could work.
However the idea of risking 5xbb to win 1.5bb is surely -EV

sikes

hotspur wrote:

I am interested in it though. If it worked out mathswise it would be a pretty easy living.

Im not really following.

We sit down in the BB and let the button pass us. We then try to win back the blinds we lost and leave?

DeadParrot

nah he means sitting in the CO and posting from there


*what a waste of my 1000th post*

sikes

ah right. I now follow.

hotspur

DeadParrot wrote:

However the idea of risking 5xbb to win 1.5bb is surely -EV

Why? Unless you have worked out the % chance of getting your raise through you don't have figures for the the variables to calculate EV.

Let's assume you don't randomly sit down at any table, but have all the higher stakes tables on all the networks in front of you and you spend some time to pick the tightest blinds. Then you are merely making a play that you would if you had been sitting at that table anyway. If it was a good idea when you're in the middle of a session to steal then it's a good idea when you just sit down.

To Gholi, I'm not sure about the post flop situation. It could be that, having picked on some tighter blinds, passing to counter aggression when you haven't got a hand yourself (or connect with the flop if they call then raise the flop) might be a better line overall if it only happened a certain small % of the time. An alternative is to play the hand as an aggressive player postflop, you are likely to have position in the hand too.

I did intentionally leave it vague as I'm unsure which would be best in the long run if we could put some numbers on it. The problem is that those numbers can probably only coming from experimentation.

I'm not saying that I think this would work, but I'm saying that I'm not sure it wouldn't. Risking on average $250 to make $75 for 20 seconds of work may be better than risking $100 to grind $75 over ~2 hours, not including scouting. But I have no figures for the percentage of the time on average that on a 6 max 25/50 table a 5xBB raise from the CO gets through. I think if it got through 80% of the time then you would make money if you lost the $250 *every single time* it didn't. But you won't lose every single time it didn't. The post flop numbers aren't a matter of maths probabilty they are a matter of statistics which we don't have a priori.

RoundTower

So you pay for 7 hands but you only play one? Why not also play the rest of your free hands till the BB comes round, if you get AA open push and otherwise fold.

dvdfan

With a bit of datamining of tables and find yourself at a table with weak blinds it maybe dooable but as others said its shelflife under that sn may be short. Also what happens if theres 2 limpers and/or a raiser before you?

phantom_lord

why not just short stack.

hotspur

To RT:
Obviously you play out the remaining hands, I meant leave before the BB.

DVD, 2 limpers is great because then you really jack it up, if they are limping then they are not calling what you are gonna make it most of the time. As for the raiser issue that's less obvious, but on balance a nice hefty reraise is in order.

Phantom, what do you mean shortstack. Of course the point of this is not to play poker, it is to steal 1 hand of blinds. If you're gonna buy in short and play properly that's a whole different kettle of fish. We are actually buying in short at $2k on a 25/50 table. If you mean buy in at the min and open push then that seems less good, but I doubt you mean that. The point is to try to make $75 in 20 seconds, then repeat elsewhere. If things go according to plan no poker skill is required, but of course it won't always and there will be a postflop to play sometimes.

The shelflife and username is not much of an issue as it's a practical difficulty which can be got around, the question is still is it theoretically feasible. I mean if it worked then usernames would be solved, but the again if it worked then it would become a phenomenon and ruin the game at those levels. Oh the day when half the players sit down with the intention of just stealing the blinds once.