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Articles by Steve Selbrede
Holy Grail Short-Stack GTO Opening Ranges
July 17, 2021 Poker Strategy This is the fifth in a series of articles introducing my GTO Holy Grail Algorithms. These articles are based on my newest book, Lectures on Poker, Volume 1: Small Stack Tournament Strategy. GTO open opportunities Suppose the action folds to us in the cutoff with 20 BB effective stacks. I wrote Part 3 and Part 4 as if our only options were shoving or folding, which was the way those game theory models were constructed.
Short Stack GTO Play, Pt. 4: Shoving Over Limpers
“When I’m pushed, I shove.” — James Garner This is the fourth in a series of articles introducing my GTO Holy Grail Algorithms These articles are based on my newest book, Lectures on Poker, Volume 1: Small Stack Tournament Strategy. The essence of GTO as explained by poker maverick James Garner: if you push, I shove.
Short Stack GTO Play: The Combo Power Index
April 24, 2021 Poker Strategy “The key to growth is the introduction of higher dimensions of consciousness into our awareness.” — Lao Tzu This is the second in a series of articles introducing my GTO Holy Grail Algorithms. These articles are based on my newest book, Lectures on Poker, Volume 1: Small Stack Tournament Strategy. GTO Open Shoving We finished Part 1 by developing the GTO open-shoving chart shown again in Figure 1.
Short Stack GTO Play: Open-Shoving Ranges (The Holy Grail Algorithms)
April 12, 2021 Poker Strategy “The rule is, jam tomorrow and jam yesterday, but never jam today.” Lewis Carroll This is the first in a series of articles introducing my GTO Holy Grail Algorithms. These articles are based on my newest book, Lectures on Poker, Volume 1: Small Stack Tournament Strategy. Game Theory Game theory is a very robust field of mathematics, but its real-world poker applications are usually difficult to apply.
Poker Strategy for the Rest of Us: The 2021 WSOP on a Budget
September 22, 2021 Poker Strategy “You realize how many times lightning has to strike in order for you to be sitting here?” — Mike Matusow It’s been more than a year since the live WSOP at the Rio took a hiatus, but the best tournament series in the world is returning to Las Vegas on Sept. 30 with 88 events. I can barely wait. As much as I might like to play every high-roller event on the schedule, I’m not a backed professional and have a limited bankroll.
Short Stack GTO Strategy, Part 6: Reshoving
July 25, 2021 Poker Strategy “I’m interested in locating the holy grail of the minimum means to express the most complex ideas.” Ben Nicholson This is the sixth (and last) in a series of articles introducing my GTO Holy Grail Algorithms. These articles are based on my newest book, Lectures on Poker, Volume 1: Small Stack Tournament Strategy.
Short Stack GTO Play, Part 3: The Open-Shoving Algorithm
“It used to be considered an art form to win a tournament without having to shove all your chips in the middle.” — Phil Helmuth This is the third in a series of articles introducing my GTO holy grail algorithms These articles are based on my newest book, Lectures on Poker, Volume 1: Small Stack Tournament Strategy. GTO open shoving Any player who employs a GTO tournament strategy must study and practice a great deal in order to approximate perfect performance.
Poker Strategy for the Rest of Us: What to Play at the 2020 Online WSOP
Now that we’ve been playing and practicing online poker for a while, the question presents itself: how do we cash in on all of our hard work? I suggest the 2020 WSOP Summer Online Bracelet Series. The 2020 WSOP will be unlike any other, and even simply choosing your events is a different game.
Practice Tournament Play Online, Part II
My previous article made a case for using online sites to hone our poker skills. Online NL20 can help improve our $1/$2 cash game skills, and certain online tournaments can improve our live tournament performance. In this article, I’ll discuss some methods we can use to improve our tournament poker results. Practice in online poker maybe won’t make you perfect, but no one should expect to become a winning player without it.
Practicing Tournament Skills Online
It’s been a difficult time for live poker players these last few months. I played my last tourney on March 14, just a few days before Las Vegas shut it all down. I played no poker at all during the remainder of March and into early May. By then I was just itching to play, but I don’t find online poker to be particularly interesting anymore, having played more than a million online hands before I moved to Las Vegas and switched to live poker.
Poker Strategy for the Rest of Us: Recognizing Squeeze Opportunities
June 17, 2020 Poker Strategy When a loose-aggressive player opens from late position, we assume Mr. LAG could be playing a wide range of hands. We also assume a similarly wide range for Mr. Caller, typical for most low-stakes players. In fact, thinking he might have position over Mr. LAG, he might have widened his normal calling range. Sometimes three-betting with any two cards can be quite profitable — if there’s enough juice.
The C-Bet Gamble -- Follow the Math
In a recent article, I discussed calling preflop raises out of position, which is very unprofitable for the average player. This is partly the consequence of calling with a very wide range. But even when you call with a very tight range, it’s much more profitable to be the preflop raiser. To paraphrase many great mathematicians: “Better a raiser than a caller be.” A “raised flop” one with a preflop raise, is fairly common.
The Fine Art of 'Donk Betting'
April 24, 2020 Online Poker My previous article showed that calling a preflop raise in a Vegas $1/$2 game can be an expensive leak, especially when we call out of position (OOP). Nevertheless, there will be times when this occurs. For example, suppose Mr. Vegas opens to 4 BBs from middle position and is called by two villains. We are in the big blind with a small pair, so we call based on our excellent set-mining odds.
When It's OK to Call Pre-Flop Raises
One of the most expensive leaks I see in Las Vegas $1/2 no-limit hold’em cash games is calling too many pre-flop raises. Limp/folding can be unprofitable, but calling too many psre-flop raises is considerably worse — since the price to play is much higher, and Mr. Raiser has indicated significant strength. Understanding Selbrede’s “Gap Principle” (a twist on Sklansky’s Gap Concept) is crucial to recognizing the right spots for calling pre-flop raises.
Set Mining in Low Stakes Cash Games
My last article argued that limping in small stakes Vegas cash games is often our best option. One reason for this is because Vegas players rarely punish limpers, so our limps often survive. Another reason is that the average pot in Vegas is large, so our speculative odds are often excellent. In this article, I’ll discuss the benefits of set mining in small stakes Vegas cash games. Set mining: If you dig in the right spots, you’re sure to once in a while find gold.
Cash Game Strategy: In Defense of Limping
As a man with an artificial knee and an artificial hip, limping is often at the center of my thoughts. But are the pundits correct when they claim we should never limp in no-limit hold’em? “If a man neglects education, he walks lame to the end of his life.” — Plato The philosophy that you should never limp into a pot certainly isn’t set in stone. (Image: araelf/Getty) Online Limping When I first started playing NLH online, I was somewhat loose and very passive, with a 22/4 VPIP/PFR playing stat.
Heads-Up on the River, a Little GTO Could Help
In my previous article, I posited that using game theory in live, low-stakes cash games is foolish. By this I meant, we should nearly always make exploitative rather than GTO decisions when playing against weak players. Nevertheless, understanding general game theory concepts can be useful at times. What was the motivation behind a player’s river shove? Ok, we admit it, understanding a little game theory in this situation could help you with that decision.
The Folly of Game Theory in Low-Stakes Live Cash Games
We often hear poker pundits claim a particular play is the “GTO” play in this situation. For example: “Phil’s AQs is within his 6.2% GTO three-bet range here.” I find such commentary aggravating because it implies that we should be using game theory strategies in our everyday, low-stakes cash games. Indeed, there are many training sites that purport to do just that. But even if we know the correct Game Theory Optimal (GTO) play, it’s usually not the most profitable play to make.
Cash Game Strategy: Pre-flop Raising from Late Position and the Button
My previous article established that we can play a far wider range of starting hands from the later positions than we should play from early and middle positions. This is the natural consequence of the huge impact that superior position has in our profitability. Limping from late position can have you playing like a wounded puppy, but it some games, this leak can also be your best friend.
Cash Game Strategy: Late Position and Button Hand Selection
My last articles considered low-stakes cash game preflop play from early and middle positions, where the basic philosophy is to “play tight and don’t call preflop raises.” When we play this way from the first five positions on a 10-handed table, we are usually seen as a rock, which is a great image to have when we open up our game in late position (hijack and cutoff) and the button. Being in late position or on the button is a time to open up our ranges, but not a time to panic.
Cash Games: Preflop Raising from Early and Middle Positions
My previous article established that our playable hand ranges from early and middle positions in a Vegas $1/$2 game should be about 12% and 15%. We can quibble about which combos to include in these ranges, but my choices were based on the hands I think play best in a very loose and passive Vegas game. This is depicted as the shaded region of Figure 1. You should make your own choices depending on the specific game you are playing.
Cash Game Strategy: Early Position
My last article emphasized the importance of the position game and how we should play about 10% of our online early position hands and about 13% from middle position. We can widen these ranges somewhat for Vegas $1/$2 games, perhaps to 11% and 14%, since these Vegas games are less aggressive and have larger winning pots. But we shouldn’t go crazy here, such as playing 20% from EP, since we would have serious positional disadvantages.
Finding Inspiration (and Strategy) in 'Poker Songs'
September 11, 2019 Steve Selbrede I had been researching an article about poker songs when I heard about Martin Harris' excellent new book, Poker & Pop Culture in which appears a chapter entitled "Poker in Music." I abandoned my article for a while, then I realized there is another approach to the subject. Instead of talking about the history of poker in music, I can talk about how music can inspire how we play poker.
Cash Game Strategy for the Rest of Us: Playing the Position Game
My last article established that Vegas $1/$2 players are far too loose. But these players have an even more serious leak than playing too many hands; they play them without considering their table position. Center is a very tough position to play.” – Kareem Abdul Jabbar Position Awareness We can define position awareness as a simple ratio, PAW = VPIP(LP) / VPIP(EP). VPIP (Voluntarily Put money In the Pot) is the percentage of hands we choose to fund.
Thoughts About the Tournament Bell Curve
September 04, 2019 Steve Selbrede I had a driving question when I began researching Tournament Poker for the Rest of Us — is it better to play a tight game or a loose game when we have a deep stack? For years I had been following a relatively tight strategy, waiting for strong hands to play until my stack got short. Many pundits recommend this "cash game" approach, but others swear by a looser, "chip-up or go home" strategy.
Cash Game Strategy for the Rest of Us: How Tight is Really Right?
One of the key leaks made by Vegas low-stakes cash game players is that they play far too many hands. They play about 70% more hands than the average online player (37% vs. 22%), and even those online players are too loose. Let’s try to determine how many hands we should actually play.
Weighing Different Deal-Making Methods at a Final Table
August 27, 2019 Steve Selbrede I was playing on the final table at a recent Las Vegas tournament when someone asked "Should we chop?" The question led to a heated discussion. The small stack said "only if it's an equal chop." The large stack said "only if it's a chip-chop." I said "only if it's an ICM chop." Further discussion made it clear: many players don't really know the differences between these different methods of chopping the final table prize pool.
Don't Blow Your Tournament Bubble
August 21, 2019 Steve Selbrede One of our most important tournament strategies is how to play when we are "near" the bubble with a short stack. I discuss this topic in detail in Chapter 11.4 of my new book, Tournament Poker for the Rest of Us. The lesson is clear: folding our way to a min-cash is nearly always more profitable than risking our cash. Blowing Bubbles Suppose we begin Day 2 of a World Series of Poker event with a 15-big blind stack.
Cash Games: Getting Loose and Sticky in Las Vegas
It is relatively easy to find playing stats for online poker. We can monitor our own stats by using software such as PokerTracker or Hold’em Manager. We can even purchase hand histories and import them into our database program, as I did for my book The Statistics of Poker. Figure 1. Key stats comparing low-stakes no-limit hold’em as it’s played online and in Las Vegas.
Variance Can Be Our Friend
I began my research for my book Tournament Poker for the Rest of Us with a single driving question: what is the best style for playing tournament poker? I had been playing “Harrington” style poker for years, a style based on the Harrington on Hold’em series of tournament poker books. This is basically a tight and aggressive style when our stacks are at least moderately deep. Then it transitions to a “shove-fold” style once our stacks falls below 10 BBs or so.
The 2019 WSOP on a Budget: Slower Structures in Low Buy-in NLHE Events
June 19, 2019 Steve Selbrede Many of us love the large fields and huge prize pools that the World Series of Poker offers. There is nothing like it on the planet. But most of us must consider two additional factors when choosing which events to play: quality and cost. Tournament Quality Chapter 3 of my new book Tournament Poker for the Rest of Us discusses tournament quality. The simplest metric for comparing tournament quality is what I refer to as the true "Blind-Off Time" or BOT.
Cash Game Strategy: Understanding Variance
Poker players often describe the word “variance” as something like “I got screwed by that river card.” To them, it only means a change in their luck, usually for the worse. But variance has a mathematical description with two main causes: 1) the poker gods, and 2) our playing style. Figure 1. The distribution of 100-hand sessions for Mr. Liberty. The vertical axis is the profit for each session.
Tournament Strategy at the WSOP: Predicting the Bubble
Last week, I presented my “Cash First – Win Later” tournament philosophy. I showed a graph that makes it clear that our finishing place is only weakly correlated to how many chips we cash with. One key to making money at the WSOP is keeping your eye on the bubble. (Image: YouTube/Jake and Ty) I also showed how a large number of players blew their bubble even though they had plenty of chips to achieve a guaranteed cash. And this included only those players I was able to track.
Cash First, Win Later
Many pundits claim that our tournament strategy should be designed to maximize our chances to win the tournament. Don’t you believe it! Taking big risks early in a tournament in order to build a stack big enough to go deep might be a reasonable strategy for the superstar pro, but it’s not the best strategy for the rest of us. Instead, our primary goal can be simply stated as: Cash first — win later. Figure 1. Finishing place vs. Day 2 starting stack size for the 2018 WSOP Seniors event.
How to Get Max Value from a $10K WSOP Bankroll
My previous article pointed out that this year’s WSOP has the best structures yet. I introduced the Blind-Off Time (BOT) and Medium Utility Hands (HM) metrics, which are useful for comparing the quality of various tournaments. Essentially, high BOT and HM equate to slower structures, which gives a skilled player greater opportunity to overcome bad luck. If you have your tournaments to choose, certain WSOP events provide better odds of giving a good payback.
Tournament Poker for the Rest of Us
May 09, 2019 Steve Selbrede Some of you may wonder why I have not written many columns recently. The answer: I have been researching and writing my new book, Tournament Poker for the Rest of Us. …For the Rest of Us My cash game strategy columns and books are aimed at skilled players without superstar abilities, and the same is true for my new tournament book.
Best WSOP Ever? Tournament Quality Metrics Explain Why it Should Be
Those who regularly play in the World Series of Poker in Las Vegas have probably noticed that the “quality” of the series has improved significantly over the years. The 2019 series promises be even better. The “quality” of a tournament for skilled players comes down to Blind-Off Time and Hands with Medium Chip Utility, which has a lot to do with how quickly dealers can dole out hands.
Poker Strategy for the Rest of Us: Beating the Vegas Jackpot Drop
My last article made it clear that a typical $4 or $5 rake makes it very difficult to beat small-stakes no-limit hold’em in Las Vegas. Indeed, a standard $4 rake in a $1/$2 game costs the average player about $10/hour. The promise of a big payday can be enticing in games with jackpot drops, but they also hurt your chances of coming out a winner in the end. (Image: WABC Houston) But rake is not the only “poker tax” we must overcome if we want to be a winning player.
Poker Strategy for the Rest of Us: Help! The Rake Is Killing Me
Editor’s Note: CardsChat News is proud to introduce strategy articles by Steve Selbrede, author of the newly released “Tournament Poker for the Rest of Us.” At CardsChat, we aim to serve the World’s #1 Player Community and know our readers are always looking to improve their game. So meet Steve, and enjoy. I regularly give poker talks at the Wednesday Poker Discussion Group, held every Wednesday at 3 PM in Ricardo’s restaurant in Las Vegas.
The Impact of Rake in Low-Stakes Cash Games
February 06, 2019 Steve Selbrede Many players have strong opinions about the impact rake has on our no-limit hold'em earn rate. Since actual data is the best way to answer such a question, I gathered hand histories from Las Vegas $1/$2 and $2/$5 no-limit hold'em cash games. Overall, I analyzed nearly a thousand hands taken from four Las Vegas cardrooms at various times of the day and on various days of the week.
A Multiple Semi-Bluff Opportunity in a Las Vegas $1/$2 Game
An interesting hand analysis was presented by Bob Bohme at a recent Wednesday Poker Discussion Group meeting in Las Vegas. He made extensive use of Flopzilla to determine whether or not a semi-bluff shove on the turn was the strongest play. Bob's analysis was well done, but it occurred to me that our analysis might be different depending on what assumptions we make for the villain's range at different points in the hand.
Implied Value in Live $1/$2 No-Limit Hold'em Games
My previous article, "Preflop Raising in Live $1/$2 No-Limit Hold'em Cash Games," I explained how we can estimate what I call the "momentary expected value" (MEV) of our preflop decisions. Conventional poker advice is to make the highest MEV play available. But this is not the full story. MEV is our expected profit for the hand when it is checked down the rest of the way. This is true because we use showdown equity to calculate our MEV. But we know that few hands actually proceed this way.
Preflop Raising in Live $1/$2 No-Limit Hold'em Cash Games
Preflop raising decisions can be very complex. What stakes are we playing? Is it a live game or online? How strong is our hand? Which limpers will call? Will we be in position postflop? Sometimes our decision is obvious: "I have aces, so I'm going to raise for value here." Sometimes it's subjective: "I think I can force the limper to fold here." But we should also consider what a mathematical analysis of preflop raising can teach us. When is a raise our most profitable action for the moment?
Understanding Why We Are Betting; or, Poker Pundits Can Be Wrong
I recently read a hand history analysis by a well-known poker pro with which I emphatically disagreed. Such disagreements aren't unusual since there are often multiple ways to perceive a poker problem. But it struck me how easy it is simply to accept whatever advice we happen to read — especially from a poker pundit, and even more especially when it contains common poker clichés. Instead, the key to poker improvement is to look at all poker advice critically, including my own.
Should We Balance Our Play in Low-Stakes Live No-Limit Hold'em?
The Wednesday Poker Discussion Group is held every week in Ricardo's restaurant in Las Vegas. We recently discussed a hand history where an excellent player said, "If I am going to three-bet with or here, I should also three-bet with my -offsuit in order to balance my overall play." I often hear similar comments at WPDG, on television poker broadcasts, and on the poker forums. This is one of my many poker pet peeves.
Donk Betting in Small-Stakes Live No-Limit Hold'em
We have called a preflop raise but are out of position to the raiser. Conventional advice is to check to the raiser and let him continuation bet with his entire range. If instead we bet into the raiser, we are making a "donk bet." It sounds like a derogatory term, and it's meant to be.
Do You Have 'Jack-O-Phobia'? Playing Pocket Jacks in Live NL Hold'em
Pocket jacks hold a special place of disdain for many live $1/$2 players in Las Vegas. I often hear them say something like "I hate jacks!" yet I rarely hear the same thing about pocket queens or tens. "Jack-O-Phobia" seems to be a real phenomenon in the lowest stakes games. From where does this dislike of pocket jacks come? Let's look a little more closely at some of the math involved with this starting hand and consider how that math should help us play the hand.
Five Weak Reasons to Bet (and One Weak Reason Not To)
In my previous columns I strongly state that there are only two fundamental reasons to bet — for value or as a bluff. Yet there are many other reasons experts often cite as reasons to bet. Today I will show why these are not primary reasons to bet. Indeed, they can often lead us astray. A reminder — we're focusing primarily on low-stakes live cash games such as are played in Las Vegas (defined as "Donkey Poker" in an earlier column).
Maximizing Expectation When Betting as a Bluff
I have made the claim that there are only two fundamental reasons to bet: Both reasons boil down to the simple requirement that we should always make our highest expected value (EV) play. We don't always need the best hand in order to win the pot. We can sometimes win with an inferior hand if our opponent will fold too often to a bet. The sloppy meme for bluffing is "we need better hands to fold." But it's not nearly that simple, and often simply wrong.
Maximizing Expectation When Betting For Value
The most basic question in poker is "Should I fold, check, call or bet?" The answer is quite simple: You should always make the highest EV play! Expected Value (EV) is the average amount of money we expect to win as a result of an action. We must consider not only the immediate result of our action, but how it cascades during the remainder of the hand. We can imagine an EV , EV , EV , EV and so forth. Our goal is not necessarily to end the hand now, before anything bad can happen.
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