playing the situation not the cards you hold to improe ur game

Found this for you guys, playing the situation has helped me understand and win micro HE, hope it gives you a hand up.
:thumbsup

I have probably said the Greg Raymer quote "play the situation, not the cards" more than anyone on this board. It is an incredibly correct phrase, but one that I think a lot of people don't quite get, or at least interpret in an idadequate way. When you are playing a situation, it means you are analyzing a situation from an EV perspective, which in many instances is independent of your or your opponents cards. This means sometimes pushing any 2 is +EV, or on a satellite, folding any 2 is +EV. This is all pretty simple stuff, and I don't doubt that most everyone gets this. There are some spots however, that are pretty glaring spots for common errors.

When you are stealing because you have a good hand.

A common and very costly -ev mistake I think I used to make, was stealing because I had a suited connector, or a small pair in a very dangerous spot. Take this example. You are in middle position late in a tournament, with pocket 4s. Say you have 16 big blinds, and everyone behind you is very aggressive and smart, they all have around 13-30 bbs. In this situation, there is a very small chance you will be seeing a flop, chances are they will 1) fold or 2) push. Thus, when you raise, if you are raising with the intention of folding to a push, your hand is irellevent. And in a spot like this, chances are that raising into a lot aggressive players is -cEV. To make it even more simple, if any of them are playing aggressive you can expect them to be shoving 55+, KQ, AT, etc. This is a pretty bad spot for you to be "stealing" then right? With 12-20 bbs, in general you should be playing more snug. Yet, tons of people will raise hands in this spot, especially suited connectors or pocket pairs because somehow they think they are magically of a greater value than raising 23o.

Note, I am not advocating folding in these spots necessarily, but chances are if its cEV+ to raise 44 in a spot like I described, then it's also +cEV with 32o or any 2. But if you are not playing a hand for it's value, you need to recongize that. If you are in a spot where the value of your hand is only of miniscule importance, then don't make a steal if your hand is 98s because it's pretty, or 55 because you have a pair! If you are raising in that spot, the factors leading to that decision generally should be because of the situation as a whole, not your cards.

The point is, as with anything in poker, you need to analyze where your EV is coming from in any spot. For example, say you get some ideal resteal spot, where the button will open raise 100% of the time, but only call a push with his top 5% of hands. Naturally if you have 15 bbs or whatever it's easy to shove with any 2. Your EV here clearly comes your folding equity, not your cards at all. This is a random simple hypothetical, but the point is still relevent. Far too often if you are not paying attention to the essence of a situation, you won't look in the right place for where your edge is coming from.

This is not just the case with shortstacked tournament play, it's a pretty fundamental part of poker, and NL in general. A few weeks back Nath made a post where he raised A8o utg like midway through the 55k. and people were critisizing him for it. The problem I have with that hand, was not simply raising junk utg, but the fact that it was A8o. Once again, this is a spot where I think if you determine it is +EV to raise A8 in that spot, it isn't because you have A8 (which is better than 54o but not by much...), it's because the table texture, and stack sizes were right for it. If that's the case, raising 74o here as well would likely be +EV, as you really aren't playing the A8 as raise because your hand is good or deceptive. It is not a hand like 56s which if you are deep can be powerful, or 22, it is an absolute trash hand which happens to have an ace in it. So if you are making a suspect play, especially in a preflop situation like that, make sure it isn't because you are fooled into thinking about your hands value when in reality your hand's value (when it is worse than a certain cutoff point where it is +EV for value) is irellevent in itself.

After preflop

Furthermore, the concept is fairly applicable for NL in general, and specifically turn or river play. The value of your hand is so relative and transitive in differing situations. A little while ago, I made a post in HSNL regarding what I thought could have been a tricky spot with top two pair. 4 handed 10/25 game on UB, effective stacks 5000. I open utg to 85 with KQs, a very bad player repops to 260 from a blind, and I call with position. Flop is KQJ 2 tone. Villain bets 585 (pot) immediatly, and I call, not wanting to inflate the pot yet. Turn is a total blank, 2x, and he instantly bets the pot again, 1700 or so. He has about 2500 left, so for all purposes he has basically comitted himself to the pot. The reality is against a bad player, this is a pretty easy push because he could easily be overplaying AA or AK. But, considering how fast he has played his hand, let's say for a moment that he was a very solid, tight player. This is a very ugly spot, because even though we have TOP TWO😡 hand values are relative. A very good player is very unlikely to have a worse hand here, AA and AK would be pretty terrible pot bets on those subsequent streets. So the reality is he has to either 1) be on a stone bluff (which is very unlikely on a board of this texture) or 2) have a worse 2 pair-- which again is very unlikely, because he has to have repopped me with KJ or QJ, (but if he is repopping me with those, he is also doing so with T9 and AT some of the time, right?). In a game as aggressive as the UB 10/25 though, you simply have to push in this spot, especially because the bad players tend to be super over aggro idiots. But if you consider all the facts, if this spot was

Great read and very in-depth :thumbsup

Great post....I have also started to re-think my poker actions...The great poker quote, "IT DEPENDS..." is all too true

The best example of how well this can work is when Annette Oberstad won a $4 buy-in 180 player online tournament without ever looking at her cards. Ok, she peeked once (and lost that hand) but other than that, she never even looked and bet based on the players' tendencies and their betting patterns, position, stack size, etc. She literally "played the players", not her cards, and won it. I feel it was one of the most remarkable achievements ever accomplished in poker, especially considering she was 15 years old! :thumbsup

Is this really real??

Online gaming usually have lots of fish doing insane bets and calls... I cant believe in the 15 year old girl history.

Is this really real??

Online gaming usually have lots of fish doing insane bets and calls... I cant believe in the 15 year old girl history.

Ok.. I've googled it.... wow, she really did it.

Ok.. I've googled it.... wow, she really did it.

That's amazing 😡😡!

Seems anytime I make a move on a pot, the other person always has "it" no matter how safe the board looks.