Deep Stacked Play - Part 5

I really love me some deep stacked play...and lately I have been making a concerted effort to play these tables exclusively in an effort to cut down my variance.

Speaking of variance...I've thought a bit about this topic and as far as poker goes, I think there are actually three types of variance. All in variance, prefrop card variance, postfrop card variance. The first is obviously the only one that can be controlled...as long as you are never all in, you can not be affected by this type of "luck." As far as the other two, you obviously can not control the cards you are dealt or board. Some people will invevitably get dealt better hands over the short term or wind up hitting more than their share of flushes and sets. My solution to this...play more hands :) While over the short term your winnings can be greatly affected by preflop and postflop variance...given a large sample (100k+), these two types of variance should converge towards an equilibrium amongst the player pool.

Enough theory stuff (generally I leave that to Bruechips as he has a much better grasp/understanding of it and does a better job explaining it), onto a relatively interesting hand that involved a bit of meta game in a deep 5/10. Check it out...

Action packed prefrop action huh? I know Bruechips thinks this type of play is pretty standard for me...the 5b min bluff is not exactly something I have comfortably worked into my repoirtoire, ROR. Let me try to explain a bit of my thought process...

I was fortunate enough to get the seat to the left of the fish who was generating all the action at the table...and chose to 3b him IP. Now when the blind comes over the top of me for a hefty raise...and in the midst of multitabling, I hoover my mouse over the fold button and suddenly freeze. I think to myself..."I may have the best hand here" - ROR, just kidding.

First off, the blind is a decent player and we have tanlged a bit in the past...but this is the first pot we are squaring off in for the sesh. I really began to think there was a chance that he was 4b'ing me light cold from the blinds since I knew the donk was opening light from LP and I would 3b light from the CO. It's a great spot to do it and Slanksky says it best when he stated "figured out what yer opponent wants you to do and disapoint them." Well he was trying to disapoint me, so I mulled over redisapointing (is that a word) him a la the old 5b bruff, ROR. Two other reasons I felt it was a good spot were a) we were deep and I could comfortably fold to a 6b and b) his raise sizing seemed a bit largish...almost as if he didn't want me in the pot.

After I drop the min 5b bomb on him and he calls and x's to me, he's folding EVERYTHING in his 5b calling range but pocket 5's (I guess AK and KK could be a piece of this range, but he'd prolly go with KK pre). I really could not have asked for a better flop (without hitting my hand)...so here's to me and my postfrop card variance. Cheers FT RNG!

-BRACKCHIPS

Relating to the first part of the post, another kind of variance would be strategic uncertainty. That is, if players are randomizing over different actions sometimes, then sometimes you'll get "lucky" in the sense that either you or your opponent will make a play that works out for you, and other times you'll get "unlucky" and make a play that's wrong ex post. For example in a situation like this one, Andrew is randomizing over check/calling and check/folding, while the villain is randomizing over shoving and checking behind. Andrew gets "lucky" when he check/calls or check/folds and the villain checks behind, very "lucky" when he check/calls and the villain shoves, and "unlucky" when he check/folds and the villain shoves.

Like the other kinds of luck, this one evens out over a large sample size. That's pretty much the definition of luck, is that it's random over all the players and doesn't favor one player over another in any systematic way.

As for the hand review part of the post, PWND!

-BRUECHIPS