Using Your Holdem Manager for Ultimate Domination, Cont.

In a previous post, I had outlined a plan on how you can sift through your HEM database to gain crushing information on your opponents.  I had offered some specific numbers on Kaysmash, and now I will show you how we can use this information against him with StoxEV.  Here is what we do:

If we assume that he is raising 2.5x 44% of the time, his range is approximately 22+, A2o+, A2s+, K9o+, K2s+, Q9o+, Q8s+, J9o+, J8s+, 76o+, 54s+, 86o+, 64s+.  This does not need to be exact, as he will be folding out the weakest part of this range virtually* every time.  The important thing is getting his raising frequency correct, which we have already determined.

Now we must figure out his calling frequency of 56% (since he is folding 44%).  This not quite exact either, but still easy to figure out, particularly when reviewing my hand histories to find specific examples of hands he has called with.  In so doing, we get a calling range of 22+, A5o+,  A2s+, KTo+, K9s+, QJo+, QTs+, JTs.  This is an admittedly broad calling range, but in so doing, he prevents getting heavily exploited by shortstackers.

By factoring in the stakes of $2/4, rake and dead money from the blinds and then running the simulation 5000k times with a 20BB stack, here is what we end up with:

Voila!  The highlighted hands are the profitable reshoving range and the number below is the exact amount in $ that we can expect to profit per trial, on average.  Depending on the stack size, we can begin to shove more or less hands, but now his calling frequency will also be affected as well.  However, if we were to deduct just 3BB from the effective stack (this will not likely change his default calling range), the grid now appears as thus:

Amazing!  Now the next time you hear someone complain about a shortstacker having a mathematical advantage you will have a true understanding of what they are talking about.

For those of you who are interested in this incredible piece of software, please contact me and I can get you a $35 discount. 

*Even good players sometimes get frustrated and go on tilt and will call with a ridiculous hand like 97s.  For players who do this consistently, you now must fold your "non-showdown" hands such as low off-suit broadways and middle suited connectors.

The Law of Unintended Consequences

We see this everywhere. A smoking ban in bars leads to more drunk driving deaths when people drive further to get to bar that has heated outdoor smoking areas. Obama's "Cash for Clunkers" program hurts the Demolition Derby sport by causing a drought of old vehicles that now going straight to the junkyard. Why should we care? Because all players who are upset by the short stack epidemic are witnessing this happening right now. The culprit? A powerful new generation of poker software that we all love and enjoy.

Many people have suggested that we raise the minimum buy in. I would like to point out, though, that the minimum buy in has always been 20BB pretty much across the board. Yet if you peel the layers back a little further, you will see that there only exists a short stack swarm at sites where the newer highly advanced HUD's are not only rampant, but encouraged. After all, the 20BB minimum buy in exists at the Cake Poker network as well, yet there are very few short stackers who exist there and none of them are particularly dangerous...because of the site wide ban on this software.

The highly detailed HUD's available through HEM and PT3 et al. paved the way for short stackers who can now slice through you with razor thin margins because of a huge list of very specific stats that can track your patterns of play from every single position at the table and can feed this information into advanced simulators on their free time like StoxEV that can measure their expected value down to the PENNY. Even if a player has never logged any hands against you, they can still purchase hand histories by the million and have a complete profile against you as soon as they wake up at noon.

So is this new generation of software aids the true danger to the game? I would wager a "yes" here. Even Kyle "Cottonseed" Hendon made a remark in one of his videos on Stox Poker that the HEM HUD is so good that it is almost like cheating. While the lines have blurred tremendously since their inception, it is certainly quickly reaching that point. Had you explained to an old time pro back in 1999 what people were doing now to the game they almost certainly would have called it such.