Gotta agree with Coolers on this. You aren't going to see me call off 25% of my stack in a sitation where I feel I am totally flop dependant. I think that would be a big mistake. As a follow up I think that your calculation stops a bit short, which may be skewing you analysis. Although you are correct in your assertion that it is a 26% probability to hit a pair on the flop, there are a lot more complexities that your calculation is leaving out. You need to factor in if that pair is TP, MP, BP, your potential hand vs. opponents (i.e. does he have a higher PP, two overs, potential drawing hands). All of those factors given proper consideration pre-flop will lead you much closer to the number that Coolers quoted and will get you very far away from the 26% figure.

— Something to be aware of when running some of these probability calculations, they tend to be highly situationally dependant to give you an answer and a lot of times there is significant assumptions that need to play into the calculations (i.e. players ranges are usually the most volitale element to the calculation and small variations can mean very different outcomes with the answers). Remember to try to look at broad spectrums of situations when you are trying to make conclusions about these sorts of things and run them against a variety of scenarios to get the best idea about the sensitivity of the answer and how stable your conclusions can be (sorry, the engineer in me is coming out there )

Understanding the context of what you are asking now helps a bit. My answer is no, I don't think bad play is a trend, I do however think that was had changed a lot of late is the need to be more careful in how you play post-flop and how hard you take people to “valuetown”. I have found that one of the best things I have done for my game is to eliminate a lot of the high variance stuff from my play. What I mean is, for situations like your QQ example, I tend to elimate the insta-jam and instead take a more low key line to attempt to avoid devistating blows from some of these events. I don't think that this is a “passive” strategy in and of itself, since i do play very aggressively with my hands. What I do think is that I play a little more conservatively with my stack to minimize my exposure to this sort of clowny play. I hope that this provides some insight for you. I know it can be insanely frustrating to get picked off by a nightmare hand, but some small adjustments and you may be able to survive them.

mesoanarchy said:

Thanks again… pretty funny Fkcoolers and Hagbard… les, that makes a lot of sense. I do know that later in tourneys I take a vastly different approach to playing big slick, QQ, and most times KK. The thought in most corners is to play QQ+ fast and hard early in MTTs, particularly micros-to-med buyin MTTs, hope some clown spazzes and calls, and hopefully take the chips and move on.

But people are calling lighter and lighter… damn, i just had a “meta-thought”… maybe they're playing according to the economic times(!) – which means desperately in may cases and most places (again, just a thought).

In any event, thanks les, that make a bunch of sense…. btw, didn't you used to play a lot of micros at UB earlier this year?… if that's you, you'll probably remember playing with “monker71.”… if it is you, what's up man?… (being a guitarist, though i'm way partial to strats, i remember seeing your name from somewhere). 

I started playing on AP about 6-8 weeks ago and have been loving it. I think i recall the screen name 🙂 Hopefully you were gentle to me 🙂 You can still find me grinding away in the micro-low buyin stuff. Still out there crushing dreams.