Standup Game Stategy
I play a game where you lose 3bb to each player if you lose the nit game. That is 24bb. Essentially this turns the game into a splash pot or a sit and go. I think I can play like every hand has an ante of 2-24 bb.
Does anyone know how much I can VPIP? How wide can I open limp? How wide can I defend to a steal?
I notice in GTO that even 72 is only losing by .5bb or so in many situations. Wouldn't that mean that I can start limping this hand with the extra "dead" money?
Thanks
3 Replies
I play a game where you lose 3bb to each player if you lose the nit game. That is 24bb. Essentially this turns the game into a splash pot or a sit and go. I think I can play like every hand has an ante of 2-24 bb.
My (very basic) understanding is that this kind of game theoretically plays normal when everyone is standing, but then moves further away as more people sit.
I notice in GTO that even 72 is only losing by .5bb or so in many situations. Wouldn't that mean that I can start limping this hand with the extra "dead" money?
I assume this is HU GTO, also assuming you play close to GTO post flop.
The other problem is that if you are one of two people standing then everyone else at the table knows that, so knows you are super wide because you will be "trying to win a pot and sit down".
You are on the right track. There are so many moving parts so you're not going to be able to 100% replicate the game dynamics by treating ir like a big ante game. But you can make some rough approximations.
At the start of the standup game with 9 players standing, if you win the first hand, you win an additional 3bb locked up since this will be paid to you at the end of the game. If you lose the hand, then it is likely you have a 1/8 chance to pay 24 bb, so the EV of that is -3bb, but you still have a 7/8 chance to win 3bb, so the EV offset of your chance of winning is +2.625bb. So overall, your net EV if you lose the first hand is -.375. Now you take the difference in EV of winning first hand which is 3bb and the EV of losing which is -.375bb and you see that there is a 3.375bb swing difference in winning vs losing. This 3.375bb swing is basically an ante in the pot. Long story short with a 3.375bb anye you get to open and call any open raise much wider than normal, and your open raise should be larger in theory.
You can make the same calculatation for how many players are left in the game at any point. There is some nuance when only some of the players left in the hand are still standing vs not standing.
You can get holdem resources calculator to solve preflop with antes and straddles (including double straddle and btn straddle). I recommend doing this if you are playing a lot of standup. I have done this for my games. It gets difficult when you allow for limps and limping behind because of the amount of computing power needed, but you can probably at least get decent solves for 6 max. What starts to happen as more players sit is that limping strategies become GTO. A limping only strategy from the cutoff and earlier is likely likely going to be higher V than raise only strategy. With 5 people standing LJ (if standing) gets to limp as wid as something like K2o. The amount you stand to win by calling 1bb is crazy. But that part of your range needs protection from the strong part of your range, and limp reraising/ limp jamming, even with low pocket pairs and good A high, K high type hands starts becoming a strong play, especially vs players who iso too wide because they are trying to sit.
That said, you basically end up changing your 5/10 100-200bb game into a 40/80 game 12-25bb effective. It's a high variance, short stacked shove-fest that people are not usually bankrolled for. I have trauma from shoving AJ pre so many times for thousands of dollars. I once shoved A7o for 7k when the payout was going to be 1k for the loser. I have spent more time than most people working on standup game strategy and while I like the strategy and I do think I am good at standup game, I kind of hate it. But people do play it very poorly, and you have to play it to play some juicy bigger games, so there is definitely opportunity in learning to play it well. On the other hand, I have left very juicy games that I felt I was rolled for when standup game was not on just because standup game was going to be on. And not just on, but on frequently. I have seen these games break both pro and rec bankrolls.
Good luck.
You are on the right track. There are so many moving parts so you're not going to be able to 100% replicate the game dynamics by treating ir like a big ante game. But you can make some rough approximations.
At the start of the standup game with 9 players standing, if you win the first hand, you win an additional 3bb locked up since this will be paid to you at the end of the game. If you lose the hand, then it is likely you have a 1/8 chance to pay 24 bb, so the EV of that is -3bb, but you stil
This is a good post and SUG has me thinking a lot, Trying to move up, and getting games like SUG thrown at me has definitely ****ed me up. I agree that limping is extremely valuable in SUG, especially once a few guys stand up. People dont seem to realize that L/RR is very strong and dont stop raising over the limpers either, and also dont raise big enough (i see 5-7x an dit should probably be much larger).
I feel like people play SUG for way too many BBs, like the payout should be 1 BB per person max, but probably even less than that.
