Hi all sorry for the short notice but I’m going to be recording an interview for the 2+2 Pokercast tonight and I’d really appreciate any suggestions you have for topics we ought to discuss. Obviously we’ve got a lot of ideas already, but I’ve never gone wrong asking you all for advice, so please let me know what would you like to hear me talk about on the pokercast?
Thanks a million!
The one topic I never see answered in any real depth is “when to take coin flips?”
The standard line is like make any ev+ play but when Phil Galfond says he plays differently depending on the field I trust him.
Phil Galfond basically said in a tough field he takes any plus ev spot but in a weaker field he wants 60%+ at least early.
Plus what about spots where you have pot odds but are only 40% or less to win. How to judge when to take those spots.
Does Phil Ivey get 12 bracelets before Phil Helmuth?
Here’s something I don’t get. Why does everyone, from amateur to pro, call AK vs QQ a “coinflip” when it’s actually 44:56? I mean, that’s a 12% spread, or in other words, the QQis winning a whopping 27% more often than the AK. Isn’t that huge and shouldn’t it be a serious consideration, rather than just going, oh well, I got it in on a coinflip?
Granted, the spread weakens somewhat with other overcard vs pair combinations, but it’s still always (I believe) in the pair’s favour.
Anyway just something that bothers me though I’m not sure if I’m missing something
Re: ‘coinflip’
I’m pretty sure that terminology is just a holdover from the older days when hot/cold equity calculations were more qualitative than quantitative. Back before more serious quantitative strat ruled the day, preflop equities, especially in MTTs, were reduced basically to four general categories: (1) Two live cards (60/40 ish), (2) Dominated hand (75/25 ish), (3) Pair vs. pair (80/20 ish), and (4) Pair vs. overcards (55/45 ish).
Calling the fourth category a “coinflip” really meant that it was a “relative coinflip”, i.e., closer to a 50/50 than the other qualitative kids of hot/cold equities.
Listening to the old timers talk about it, you’ll hear them call the pair vs. overcard “coinflip” sometimes a “six to five” or “eleven to ten”, so it’s not like they didn’t know that the pair was a favorite, but they knew that the overcards weren’t as big of a dog to the pair as you might find in the other categories.
-trends in online play; diff lines people are taking and how you’re adjusting
-what it’s like ‘living’ in your car and some stories from the road
-live poker plans for this year
-your plan for learning PLO
Thanks for the suggestions, but interview was actually last night 🙁
We did talk about some of this stuff, though!