Wading In Concrete

Paul’s success at our table has continued unabated; “Passive-Tight” is the terminology used to describe this waiting and playing only premium cards style that has been so successful early this year. While this isn’t usually a winning strategy in poker circles it is the perfect answer to the 3 Amigos Loose-Aggressive. The key really is that Passive-Tight tends to win small pots played with conservative Tight-Aggressive players but when played against players who start overcommitting to see the flop or paying excessive amounts to see the turn or the river.

Let's take a quick look at Paul vs The 3 Amigos when they shouldn't be playing and Paul finally gets a hand that fits his range.

Paul Ah, Qh Excellent Hand

Mike As, 4h Mike will usually play almost any ace

Dean 7c, 4c Dean will actually call with any 2 cards that can be connected in some way

Jaimie Js, 8s Jaimie is usually up for any suited 2 cards

Blinds are 800/400 and Paul raises to 2500, We will assume that 2 of the Amigos are BB and LB.

They all call, The Pot is now 10,000 what is the expected return for all the members on a 2500 bet? The Percentages include the chance of tieing and winning half the pot

Paul is 38.7% he will win 3900 on average

Mike is 9.50% he will lose 1500 on average

Dean is 21% he will lose 400 on average

Jaimie is 31% he will win 600 on average

Typically the situation listed will result in one Amigo hitting the flop and in this case Dean and Jaimie are the threat because of the flush or straight potentials. However unless they get all 3 cards on the flop what happens when Paul hits the Queen or the Ace, he makes a huge raise and they can't afford to call because then they send good money after bad. Lets see what happens.

FLOP Qs – 3s – 5h

Jaimie gets excited to see 2 more cards, any spade.

The right move for Paul is to bet the Pot 10,000. Dean and Mike fold, and Jaimie calls.

Paul is 60.6% on average he will win 18,200 for a 10,000 bet, nice profit

Jaimie is 37.8% on average he will win 11,400 for a 10,000 bet.

The real problem for Jaimie is that win is based on either of the last 2 cards. There is a 50% chance it won't be the first and at that point Paul should raise him All In and make the flush play far too expensive.

In a nutshell this is the key to Paul's play, while he won't win all hands he plays he will be playing cards that yield a strong positive return against Loose-Aggressive players. What if they played tighter? His return would drop, but as it stands there is a lot of money going into the pot without the cards to back them up.

Sorry this was so long in coming,