Thanks for your feedback, Henry. I'm sorry this video didn't meet your expectations.

Haha that summed up that spot perfectly.

Thanks Zenful!, I appreciate the insightful question. I'm not sure I'll be able to compete with Daniel's prose. Daniel is right about the Big Blind being the gatekeeper, but the preflop raiser gets hurt more when he opens looser or smaller.

The idea is that when a player opens looser or smaller, he forces the blinds to defend more by calling. This moves the equilibrium into a game with higher rake as every call generates rake where every fold wouldn't. The preflop raiser loses in these situations because at the tighter equilibrium those hands would be just be folded by BB.

For example the BB would lose -1 Big Blind to preflop raiser with Q8o by folding. Now at equilibrium the Big Blind loses -.9 Big Blinds to preflop raiser and both players pay 5% rake to the house. The Big Blind strategy has improved in value so he certainly didn't eat the rake with the strategy change.

In fact with a little math we see that its preflop raiser's strategy value that fell more precipitously. He was winning 1 bb here when I have Q8o, now he is winning .75 bb. He gets hurt more in this high rake environment by over raising or raising smaller.

Thanks Zenfish

Whoops!

Hey Zenful! I really did appreciate your question. I'm sorry for the typo that's what I get for responding half-asleep. It's been corrected.

No offense taken Tyler, thanks for such a comprehensive response. Was not expecting such a next level response, you're a credit to this site. My understanding of the effects of high rake environments has improved dramatically, and so has my results so if you're ever in the UK you are owed a beer and a cheeky nandos (google this)!

That's really interesting, quite a significant change from 1bb to .75bb. This means in high rake games we need to be really perceptive of regs who are defending their bb wide as this could cost a lot over a decent sample.

So in effect does this mean in high rake environments there is an effective trade off between the effect that Daniel mentioned, and the one you've discussed above?

I'll take you up on that offer the next time I'm across the Atlantic :).

My argument is really extension of Daniel's thoughts. In ICM play, a loose call can penalize the raiser as much as it penalizes the caller. Think about the scenario where a a tournament gives out a 1000 tournament packages in prizes and there are 1001 players left including several who will be all in the next hand. I jam AA expecting all rational players to fold, but am called by 72o. Now my chance of winning a package fell from 9999 : 1 to 6:1. A major change in EV. Even though my opponent took 9999: 1 to 1 : 6, we both lose in this scenario.

It's is the same with rake. Both players can lose even when either player makes the mistake.

Folding all day and not worrying about it. Even with low squeeze percentages, I'm going to be forced to fold preflop 20% of the time. (.95^4 = .81) and my hand only has 50% equity against his range. Its very difficult for me to make money against non maniacs.

Would you call 2,5x, 2,66x?

No, I'm folding even against a minraise here (it's playable from the SB and marginal on the button against the minraise)

Thank you for answering.
One more question im interested about the same spot but in live high stakes cash game where rake is only 1/3 of bb would we then call vs a raise from a good regular with std online range, considering there are very few bit weaker players behind?
KQo?

Thank you!

No, still wouldn't. Logically this can't be profitable (unless openers range is way wider or the players behind are absolutely terrible).

In squeeze or headsup situation assuming no rake:

We call 2.5x and see a flop 80% of the time with 6.5bb pot.
Assuming we win 50% of the pot on average, we'd return 3.25x, 80% of the time and lose 2.5x 20% of the time. This comes out to a net loss of .4 big blinds per hand.

We'd need to win 60% of the pot on average before it would be 0 EV assuming blinds+ only squeezed or folded.

That leaves the 3-way situations

Situation: rational play from players behind:

This means they only play profitable hands. Where does their profitable come from? Either the preflop raise or us. So we can't possibly be more profitable in this situation.

Situation: Bad players behind

They need to make gigantic mistakes postflop. Here's AJo equity against a 14% range and 3- 50% Ranges. A breakeven hand would have 20% equity. 21.75% wins us 2.71 big blinds or .271 big blinds when this happens.

Again, this is rakeless. I guess if you have a 100% shover or something you could call but in even relatively extreme scenarios this hand is negative.

Board: Empty
Range 1: 99-22,ATs-A2s,KJs-K5s,QJs-Q7s,JTs-J7s,T9s-T7s,98s-97s,87s-85s,76s-75s,65s-64s,54s-53s,43s-42s,32s,AQo-A2o,KQo-K8o,QJo-Q9o,JTo-J8o,T9o-T8o,98o-97o,87o-86o,76o-75o,65o-64o,54o
Range 2: AA-22,AKs-A9s,KQs-KTs,QJs-QTs,JTs,AKo-ATo,KQo-KJo
Range 3: AJo

Equity 1: 17.36% Win 1: 16.39% Tie 1: 2.19%
Equity 2: 26.02% Win 2: 24.75% Tie 2: 2.81%
Equity 3: 21.75% Win 3: 19.83% Tie 3: 4.16%
Equity 4: 17.47% Win 4: 16.51% Tie 4: 2.16%
Equity 5: 17.41% Win 5: 16.41% Tie 5: 2.24%

It's going to mean less money for people who make money hunting recreational players. Overall though I think its an okay change because ideally we want people who play poker, not people who hunt fish. It makes for longer and more sustainable games.

@3-bet range sizing should be smaller and more linear. Things like AJo play better as 3-bets now that losing to big top pairs cost less.

@showing hand being less likely to bluff - probably folding most of my bluffcatchers this is really reliable tell.

@guy getting coolered maybe slightly more likely to call the alphath hand against him. This read is way less reliable

@25s Yes that'd be a good strategy on this board texture. Its very hard for ax to be beat, so people tend to under bluff. This doesn't matter for ax because we have 90% equity, but for Kx it makes it an easy river fold.

Obvious bad player tells:
too many opens
weird large open sizings/bet sizings
cold-calling 3-bets (reliable b/c reg range to call 3-bet is so small)
obvious weird hands shown down (say Q4o from UTG)

For the sort of reggish recs, we aren't going to get strong tells. We'll just beat them from playing more profitable hands than they do preflop and not making as many mistakes post.

For sure but we can't be certain he doesn't overvalue bet, so the top end bluff catchers still have a little value. Like KQ on a KT763 board.

Thanks Ray, I appreciate the kind words!
Yes, it would be highly applicable to heavily raked live environment. You can find many resources on the idea that many hands are worth around zero EV, (Stox Poker Limit Hold'em Book comes to mind), so the higher the rake the more we need to fold our limps. 6$ drop 1/2 is definitely high rake.