The Mersenneary e book
Hi
I got a question / comment for Mers. I've been studying your e book after recently starting to play hypers. First of all, I would like to thank you for writing the book, which I have found extremely helpful, having previously played mainly cash games. And if I ever make it to the high stakes hyper games I will happily ship you a buy in in recognition of the part your book would have played in helping me get there.
The comment or question I got regarding your book is this: When you talk about specific population tendencies in the book, eg to quote you "Unknown opponents are far more likely to be recreational players, and we should shade our expectations accordingly. I believe unknown screennames generally open for a raise less often than known players, probably somewhere between 50-65% of hands, limping some others", are you not referring to population tendencies in the games that you play, ie high stakes games?
As far as I remember whenever you specify ranges of unknown opponents, which of course you base on population tendencies, you don't specify which stakes they apply to. Isn't there a very significant difference between population tendencies at the $200 level than at the $15 level?
Being new to hypers, I've been playing the $15 hypers on Stars for the past few weeks. So far my experience has been that the population tendencies at the $15 level are different than the population tendencies in your ebook, mainly people are much tighter. Coming back to the example I cited. At the $15 level I don't expect an unknown player to raise 50 - 65% of hands. A lot of the regs in those games play very nitty and raise as little as 40 %. Plus you have tons of fish who just love to limp.
If what I'm saying is true, that the population tendencies in your book are based on high stakes games you have played, maybe you should mention that somewhere in the beginning of the book. Keep in mind that a lot of the people reading the book are probably newbies to hypers who are starting out at the micro or low stakes.
I'm pretty clear that every range I give in the book isn't meant to be a recommendation, but rather an example used to help make points about how to think about the game and expectation based decisions. I do give some more firm readless recommendations, but those tend to be more clear-cut. As you allude to, "play this range" is a silly way to think about poker because of the differences in your opponents, and the point is to learn how to adapt given the various inferences you've made about population tendencies, some of which you can make before the first hand is even played.
All that said, I actually don't think there's a massive difference between high stakes and low stakes in a lot of readless decisions, particularly calling 3-bet shoves. If anything, it's possible that you should be calling wider at low stakes because there are a higher percentage of villains who are making boneheaded (or flippant) plays. I certainly think minraise/folding K9o readless for 12bb is terrible and a significant leak. One problem is that people who fold too much take much longer to get the information needed to realize they need to start calling more, e.g. if you always fold to triple barrels on dry ace high boards except on the few occasions you have better than a pair, it may take you a long time to figure out that good regs are doing this with a high frequency. I look back to my most recent video and being unsure about KJo for 20bb - I suspect part of that lack of confidence leading me to minraise/fold was having a very tight minraise/calling range which made it take longer for me to get evidence that I was being a nit.
Thanks for the response Mers.
I take your point that your book isn't about what to do in certain spots but rather how to analyse those spots and make the best play based on all the available information. However, I think there is the temptation to simply lift parts of the book, eg the 12 bb small blind cheatsheet, and base your decisions entirely on what the chart says. I've definitely been guilty of that.
As for calling 3bet shoves at the low stakes. You're right that people spazz shove junk for no reason. A few days ago I had a look at my HEM to see what range of hands people 3bet shoved with between 8 and 12 bbs. I did come across the J2o, the T6o, etc ... but the vast majority of the time people were 3betting a fairly narrow value range: pocket pairs, Ax, Kx and a few Qx and Jx.
I'd have thought that one of the differences btw high stakes and low stakes games is that your average opponent say at the $200 level is gonna be raising the button far more frequently than at the $15 level. As you move up don't the regs become more aggro and there are fewer fish limping a lot on the button. Because of this a low stakes player shouldn't be attacking button raises as frequently by either shoving wide for value or say bluff shoving J4s, knowing they have tons of fold equity. Doesn't that mean that people 3bet a tighter range at the low stakes than at the higher stakes?
Btw are there any midstakes regs ($30 or $60 level on Stars) who agree with the above?
I just think if you are new to hypers and you are playing low stakes then dont blindly follow all the specific recommendations in the book. eg: mers recommends min raise / calling K7o+ on 12 BBs when readless. From my experience at the low stakes thats probably a leak, cause the average $15 player isnt 3bet shoving wide enough. I'd be more inclined to min raise / call something like KTo+. But maybe I'm just being too much of a nit.