What would happen if...

Assuming having an adequate bankroll, what would happen if a player pushed all-in on the flop every time he picked up a flush draw (with the A or K) but also played his flopped top 2 pair or better the same way every time? What kind of affects would this have on the other players? Any? Just wondering.

i think aware players would just start set-hunting versus him. calling big raises b/c they know heshe would stack off when the sets come -- and be way behind 4/5 times.

So many variables. Become a weatherman. It'll be easier. You have to know the following....

What percentage of the time you push do you have a flush draw? This is based off what kind of suited cards you play, since the more you play sooted, the more often you pop the draw.

How loose are the opponents? What are their calling requirements? What kind of pots are being built preflop?

Ugh!

Phil Gordon actually talks about this in his Little Green Book. And says that this is a strategy employed by the biggest online winner (possibly Spirit Rock).

I think in most cases the pot wouldn't be big enough for anyone to fight over unless they had a set or better. So you could take a bunch of small pots but then lose some big pots. Why not play poker instead?

I agree with r8ed in that you would have a have pot won %, but only because you took down a bunch of small pots.

You may win a bunch of small pots, but I don't think it makes up for the 64% of the big pots that you lose.

I'll go into detail about Phil's book when I get home tonight and why he says this is a winning strategy.

That would be great. I can see this as a way to put a whole table on tilt, especially shorthanded.

Standard against opponents who stop calling over-bets with any piece of the board.

Winning big or losing Big over a short time scale (i'm not sure if it is possible to work out if this is +EV).

Players would probally bet more at him when he checked - but wait for a good hand to call him when he moved allin.

This is taken directly from pages 246-249 of Phil Gordon's Little Green Book. When he says BOW he's referring to the "Biggest Online Winner" the person who employs this strategy. He doesn't name this person by his real name in his book but he is talking about Spirit Rock AKA Prahlad Friedman.

"According to the branch of mathematics called game theory, his style is unbeatable...Here's the basic philosophy I've seen BOW employ:

1. Get in the pot cheaply.
2. Massively overbet with premium draws.
3. Massively overbet with the nuts of the best hand.

For those who are more mathematically inclined, I offer a very detailed analysis of BOW's play in the following pages.

----BOW'S GAME THEORY----


Consider this example:

After the flop the pot is $500.
BOW has $5,000
I have $5000 and :Ac::Kd:.
The flop comes down: :Ah:
BOW moves all in.



Now, I know that BOW will be on a draw three quarters of the time he moves all-in. In scenario number four above, I'd be crazy not to call him--he's on a gut-shot straight draw for God's sake! I have to call with A-K. But doing so costs me dearly the one quarter of the time(like in scenario number three) that BOW has a monster and I'm drawing nearly dead.
By calling every time, I have no way to win long term. BOW's strategy will, eventually, take all of my money. He'll win $1,448 every four hands we lay this way, or an average of $362 a hand.
Some other bonuses from his strategy:

- After he moves in on his opponents and they call with the best hand, BOW will often bust them with a draw, sending them into a chip-spewing suicide tilt.

-BOW will pick up a ton of chips from the pot when he doesn't get called. IT is very difficult to pick up a hand you'd like to call the $5,000 bet with. For instance, a player with J-J will be "in the lead" in almost every scenario listed above but will be very hard-pressed to call all the chips with that ace on the board. By applying maximum pressure on his opponents, BOW picks up a lot of pots that he his not entitled to win just based on the strength of his hand.

The only real negative to his strategy that I can see is that he will suffer high variance, wild swings in his bankroll. He needs a very large bankroll to paly this way. For example, if BOW moves all-in ten consecutive times witha 35% chance to win, he will miss all ten times about 1.5% of the time, a potential loss of $50,000. Given the amount of time he spends at the table, this should happen about once every few months.
The best way for me to counter BOW's strategy when I have the best hand is to get as much money as possible into the pot before the flop. Pushing even marginal advantages before the flop is vital to beating him.
Another strategy that will crush his play is to be more apt to call with a big draw than with a "made" hand. For instance, if I call his $5,000 bet with :Ks::Qs: against his four potential hands in the table above, my equity soars to more than $7,800!



As long as I have a better draw three out of four times when I call, and have a few outs those times he is ahead, I should be able to beat him. Of course, if BOW identifies the fact that I'm employing this strategy against him, he's very likely to change gears and start moving all-in with only the better hands. Ah, poker is a wonderful game.

While BOW's strategy crushes cash games, it's too volatile to work in tournaments. Survival is the primary concern when there are no rebuys allowed. To his immense credit, BOW does not employ this strategy in tournaments, where he is able to change gears and play a more tournament-savvy style of poker.

Crazy stuff.

Someone else who plays this way is Dustin Dirksen of FT (he plays on stars as well, but he's more well known at FT)

Wow - thanks. I think this would backfire against calling stations since a large part of this working is getting people to fold a good percentage of the time. Next time I get on a tight table, I'm going to try this.

I am experimenting with this style for last week and have had some mixed results. It will effect whole table in a very titly way but I am sure there is a nice balance that can be made using this strategy for a short periods of time.

So basically the person using this strategy needs to have a much larger bankroll and be AI with hands that aren't usually drawing dead or close to it when called (such as TPTK), and they need to probably be heads up against tight opponents correct?

Let me know if I did this wrong but PokerStove said this...

Flop: Ac 7d Td

Player 1's possible hands: (Sets, 2 pairs, TPTK, and OESFD)
AA,TT,77,AKs,ATs,A7s,T7s,9d8d,AKo,ATo,A7o,T7o

Player 2's possible hands: (Sets, Top 2, and all suited A's, connectors [54 & up], and 1 gappers [75 & up]) AA,TT,77,AdKd,AdQd,AdJd,ATs,Ad9d,Ad8d,Ad6d,Ad5d,Ad 4d,Ad3d,Ad2d,KdQd,KdJd,QdJd,Jd9d,9d8d,
8d6d,6d5d,5d4d,ATo

Player 1's equity = 45.381%
Player 2's equity = 54.619%

If Player 1 doesn't call with TPTK then...

Player 1's equity = 47.068%
Player 2's equity = 52.932%

This surprised me. This plus all the pots won from the tight player folding and the tilt factor makes this alot better looking than I originally thought.

You're more likely to get T8o than 77, same goes for any two off-suit, different rank cards... Unless I'm totally out of my mind.



That, and you can look at the flop odds sticky to see how often you flop a set vs how often you get a flush or straight draw.

I think I just lost respect for Phil Gordon.

This strat could work pretty well on a tight table until the people on the other end figure you out. It also depends a lot on position, what if someone makes a decent bet in front of you? The situation gets complicated depending on stack size and their willingness to backup their bet with a call.

The reason poker is so cool, is that there is no perfect system! You play against people. Even if your system is +EV, it's still a system, someone will still figure it out, and you're still losing some profits because your system doesn't tell you to take advantage of some specific situation.

Ya playing this way would definitely make it obvious when you're on TPTK or a straight draw, which makes you somewhat predictable which is always -EV. I guess a bet in front of you would have to look like a continuation bet to still push with all of those hands.

Originally Posted by dev

This strat could work pretty well on a tight table until the people on the other end figure you out. It also depends a lot on position, what if someone makes a decent bet in front of you?

What's not made so clear in the example is that most of the time the BOW are playing either heads up or very short handed tables where there is much more isolation involved than say at a .25/NL table.

*sigh*

play pokah

Very interesting strat.. I also came across it in Phils book, Phil really doesnt go into it in enough depth. I immediatly searched google for poker+BOW - theres some discussion at 2+2.

It would be fun to employ this strat but would require a humongus br, balls and probly induce too much emotion and heartache for myself.

I tried this strategy in a live game Friday night. Villain called with bottom pair and straight draw... gambling it up just like me (I had 10 outs)... lol. It worked, but I'm never trying that shit again.

Originally Posted by BankItPayette

I tried this strategy in a live game Friday night. Villain called with bottom pair and straight draw... gambling it up just like me (I had 10 outs)... lol. It worked, but I'm never trying that shit again.

Lol. I don't think this is supposed to be used against other "gamblers." I'd be scared too. Depending on how long you would play live, I think this strat works better online since there are so many more hands and chances to move all-in and re-load. Anyways it'll be forever til I have enough to try it out. Glad you won the hand.