Kill Phil Experiment (this is long - sorry)

[MAYHEM45]

I think what you are looking for is called ICM. It stands for Independent Chip Modeling.

[Kurn]

That's it. Thanks.

[Zybomb]

So this Kill Phil theory, is very similiar to the tournament strategy in David Sklansky's Tournament Poker, that he gave to the player who didn't know much about how to play right??

[Talking Poker]

I haven't read ity yet, but I think it's the same idea, only much more comples, taking into account obviously important issues like stack size and position. As I recall, Sklansky's system was "Push with these hands. Fold the rest."

[bdawg31]

Yes, they took his strategy and expanded upon it - they credit him in the book. They create their Kill Phil Beginner - which is basically Skalansky's simple system - and i think they added KK early on (with the AA) due to looser players since the boom of poker (skalansky wrote his system before the poker boom i believe).

Then they take it steps further. They take position into account, your stack size (relaive to the cost per round). That is still mechanical. Then they talk about ways to tweak it so you are playing some poker.

Its a fairly easy read. If anything - for a good player to read this book might be helpful to just understand the power of aggression.

I was just curious to see how it worked. And i wanted to incorporate super-aggression into my middle game. I just tried it in a MTT. I played normal early on - built my usual small gain. Then mid-way i went into the system. I got 10s on the BB. There was a raise from late position so system says push - and i did. The guy raising was playing like a maniac - so i felt good. He called with A10 and caught the Ace naturally. I would have been curious to see how things progressed if that held up. I will try some more.

[bdawg31]

sorry if this is boring to most - but i am a boring person.

Anyway, i wont bore you with the notes - most flow the same. I ended up in 3rd in this one. So after 5 tries - i have 0 wins, 1 2nd and 1 3rd. Even money minus the $5 buy in fees. And one of those losses i screwed up the system late - so who knows how that would have turned out.

[Zybomb]

bdawg have you read The Poker Tournament Theory by Arnold Synder?

Im half way through the book, but it brings up a lot of tournament positional plays (to learn them, he even advised playing your hands blind for a few low buy in tournaments) then he incorperates your cards, and then your stack size. So far a very interesting read.

The basic principle was that

Preflop:

Positions 1-5: Fold
Position 6: If folded to you raise if not fold
Position 7: If folded to you raise if not fold
Position 8: If folded to you raise. If the pot is limped, then limp. Call any standard (3-4x BB) raise. Fold to large raises
SB: Fold unless folded around to you
BB: Check if limp pot, fold to all raise, if only the SB limps in raise

The key is to be likely last to act postflop in every circumstance.

Postflop goes as follows

If you are checked to bet.
If they bet, fold

If they check call and check the turn, bet again (sometimes all in)
If they check and raise then fold

He noted that this was for typical "fast" tournaments and not slow paced ones or cash games. He challenged you could likely get further in some tournaments playing this way than normally. After mastering the positional game, he then adds in the cards to the mix , as well as chip stacks. Interesting read thusfar

[Talking Poker]

That is interesting..... I kind of like the idea of playing blind (at least preflop), in some sort of sick way.

[bdawg31]

That does sound intersting - another good display of the power of position/aggression.

I am finding this interesting to do. If anything else - it is showing me how strong aggression can be. I won my first Sit N Go last night - i am not going to post each attempt individually - i wil post updates now and then if i keep doing this.

I had to adjust the HU strategy - which is to go all-in every hand. The problem being that (at least at UB) when we got HU - the blinds are pretty low compared to the stack sizes. So, me pushing every hand was not really putting pressure on the other guy - he could just sit and wait. So, when the blinds were 100/200 - i would raise to 1kish each time i was on the button (well 9 out of 10 times) and i woudl re-raise when he limped about 50% of the time. He would pop me once or twice and i would fold my garbage. I finally 'trapped' him with JJ - he pushed with A10 and somehow the JJ held up.