Strategy with Kristy: Quinn Sivage Discusses Using Stats Preflop
Quinn Sivage is an online and live grinder known for his skills in using statistics to his advantage. The latest guest on the Strategy with Kristy podcast, Sivage discusses using statistics for optimal preflop strategy in six-max no-limit hold'em games.
Here is a snippet from the interview:
The idea of cold four-betting has been around for a while now, but a lot of regs [regular players] still haven’t added this to their game. If you see that the button is stealing over 50 percent, and the small blind is re-stealing at a frequency of 12 to 14 percent, that’s a really great spot to put in a really small, cold four-bet. It’s just an insanely powerful play that a lot of people don’t do enough.
I know that Andrew Seidman, or Balugawhale, in your first podcast, talks about how when people are polarized, they have either really strong hands or really weak hands, and often they’ll have weak hands because in hold’em it’s hard to make strong hands. I think that’s true except some people don’t ever four-bet weak hands.
They’re not polarized if they are only cold four-betting the very top of the range. If you look at that stat, and it says only 2 or 3 percent, I’m going to guess that it’s only pocket jacks or better, and ace-king. That makes up two or three percent right there. That tells me that this player is only four-betting for value, and that’s a mistake.
When you cold four-bet, you can make it nice and small. You can make it like 22 big blinds, so you’re risking like 21 big blinds to win like 19. Half the time, you need to get a fold there. If you’re going to four-bet there with tens or better and ace-king, then to balance that out, you can actually put in ace-three suited up to ace-six suited, every single king-queen, every single ace-queen as a bluff. I chose those hands just because they have good blockers. That’s actually a good way to balance your range and will get your four-bet stat up to 6 percent.
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