High Stakes Strategy Poker Forums

http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v367/2hats/raiseonceisivey.jpg

That picture link above sourced in the 2+2 Who is RaiseOnce Thread is what I would like to discuss in this thread.

To say that these stats are very unusual is an understatement. Also, I can understand a small 1000 hand sample anomaly here and there, but 20,000 hands combined of this strategy is very strange. FTP Phil Ivey and Stars RaiseOnce being the same player or not is of no concern in this thread either.

I would like this thread to discuss how these stats could possibly be a successful strategy.

70%+ VPIP in the blinds only. Crushing the games. How is this possible?

One thing I have thought about is that perhaps the perception of a player playing OOP has a stronger range than the typical player, thus playing aggressive postflop will garner respect. Also, since your range is in fact in reality very wide you can hit a variety of flops which your opponent will be unlikely to believe that you actually did hit.

Furthermore, for the players who are actually observant and know you are playing a very wide blind range, you can again rep a wide variety of hands, play aggressive, and Villains just have to either close their eyes and hope their strong overpair holds up or sigh and muck. Added to this is that most people often fold to three barrels with even the strongest starting hands because so many boards run out badly for AA, KK, QQ, and AK. Using fine judgement as to when to three barrel bluff and three barrel for value is obviously a skill that needs to be learned in order for this to apply.

Moreover, less observant players with HUDs will simply look at overall VPIP/PFR, see around 28/25 and play standard vs you, assuming tightness from the blinds and loose from late position.

Finally, as you are never playing from UTG-BTN you lose $0, so if you can successfully protect your blinds then anything you win is pure profit.

That being said, I don't really know how this could apply in practice. Let's try to solve it.

lol this is HU! WTF, serious misread there..

no wonder I couldn't understand this strategy, because its for a game that has different rules

I was going to say, what game are we talking about here, Interesting stuff on 2+2 though

lol I saw that and was like isn't this HU?

FWIW, if I remember correctly, Ivey had an insane blind defense number.