Thanks for all your help so far in generating this list. Now that I’ve got a revised version of it, let me try to explain a bit more about what I’m going for here.
I believe that a bet or raise should always have an objective (or objectives), and that you should know your objective(s) before betting. This is crucial both to decide whether to bet at all and to size your bets appropriately. In theory, one ought to be able to write an equation for the value of a bet as a function of some combination of factors on this list.
For example, if I make a pot-sized shove with As Qd on an Qh Ts 5s flop in a heads up pot, I believe the value of that bet would be equal to
Value + Protection + Deception
Some of these can be calculated more precisely than others. For Value, I can make an educated guess about how often he will call with worse hands and what my equity is against that calling range. Likewise I can determine how much equity his folding range has. Deception is much less precise, since we are talking about the extent to which shoving AQ here increases the profitablity of a shove with a hand like AJ in some similar future situation.
Does that make sense? What do you think of the current list? The two new additions are at the end, though I’ve revised some of the definitions as well.
1. Value– To get called or raised by worse hands (I believe this would include betting to induce a raise)
2. Bluff– To fold out better hands
3. Protection– To fold out worse hands that have some equity in the pot
4. Information– To make decisions easier on future streets
5. Deception– To increase the profitability of future bets in similar situations
6. Barreling– To set up a bluff at a later opportunity
7. Isolation– To get the pot heads up with a particular player
8. Position– To drive out players who will have position on you later in the hand
9. Blocking– To prevent an opponent from betting or raising now or on a future street (I believe this would include enabling yourself to take a free card or showdown)
10. Image– To encourage opponents to misunderestimate your skill or playing style in later hands
11. Pot Sweetening- To build the pot and increase the stakes in situations where you anticipate making better decisions than your opponents on future streets
12. Secrecy- To avoid having to show your hand at showdown
I’m not 100% sure about Secrecy. I feel like it’s getting at something similar to Image and may not warrant its own category.
Likewise I’m starting to wonder if Isolation isn’t too similar to position. In both cases you are trying to increase your implied odds on future streets by preventing other players from getting in your way. Does anyone else see what I’m getting at there?
Your comments were great last time, please keep them coming!
I approve of you usage of misunderestimate.
> I’m not 100% sure about Secrecy. I feel like it’s getting at something similar to Image and may not warrant its own category.
I agree that Secrecy is just a subset of Image. You don’t want people to know what cards you just played that way only because you don’t want that image.
> Likewise I’m starting to wonder if Isolation isn’t too similar to position. In both cases you are trying to increase your implied odds on future streets by preventing other players from getting in your way. Does anyone else see what I’m getting at there?
They’re similar, but you may want to isolate against a weaker player with or without position. (Against a too-tight player, you may even be totally happy to be out of position so you can bluff him out before he’s committed more chips.)
The list looks very good now, although arranging them into related or connected categories (e.g., Bluffing with Barreling) would help.
For balancing/metagame (this is similar or identical to #5).
To earn rakeback/become a SuperNova Elite/earn Truly Free Poker training points/increase one’s fame (i.e., to earn value off the game not in the game).
“be able write an equation for the value of a bet as a function of some combination of factors”
In my opinion you should conseptualize the factors as vectors rather than scalars.
I will say such exercise help you simplify your equation.
Example:
In some situations I conceptualize protection and deception as vectors with opposite direction and unknown lengths.
By the above definitions isolation and position are different.
If a fish limps MP and we raise OTB, we are isolating the pot heads up with this opponent. We have the BTN, so we are not forcing out players who have position on us.
This is ‘isolation’ not ‘position’
Oh yes certainly they are distinct as written. I’m just wondering whether they ought to be written that way- if they aren’t actually the same thing: improving your implied odds by folding out competition. So this would be counting not the immediate equity that you gain in the pot (that’s bluffing and protection) but rather the implied equity that you gain by improving your position and/or isolating a weak player.
There’s going to be a lot of overlap. Don’t make yourself crazy.
“8. Position- To drive out players who will have position on you later in the hand”
AND
8. Position- To force players to play a lot of hands out of position.
Example
In case of HUNL when I bet in position I usually do not try to drive player out.
I force player to play out of position.
I think your addition might fit the “pot sweetening” category. At least it is some combination of value betting, setting up a multi-barrel bluff, and pot sweetening.
I think the list is prolix and needlessly trivial. I wouldn’t bust his balls for his use of misunderestimate though; his name is Foucault so we can be pretty sure he’s brilliant.
I’m afraid I wasn’t smart enough not to have to google “prolix”. I hoped it was obvious that “misunderestimate” was deliberate.
I didn’t read the post, I was just responding to someone’s comment. Now that I have read it, I don’t detect any irony in your usage, but whatev. Was Horkheimer too unwieldy?
Perhaps you should not spend so much time on arcane words like “prolix” and revisit the definition of “approve”. There didn’t need to be explicit irony in the usage since it was a simple (and funny) random gag.
But how would we know he’s smarter than us if he didn’t use “prolix” and mention Horkheimer in the same post?
You need to spend more time reading New York Times book reviews.
On second thought, maybe not.
Heh, I don’t actually read the NYT book review, but I do listen to their weekly podcast!
Is that any good? I’d like to add some more podcasts to my workout playlists.
I enjoy it. I’ve read a few books that I heard about on there, but they also tend to talk about news and trends in the publishing industry, which is kind of interesting. As you’d expect, they’re pretty snooty towards the folks who top the bestseller lists (Grisham, King, etc.).
I’m not persuaded and never have been that #12 is a legitimate reason to bet/raise, let alone worthy of its own category. If it must be retained, I’d lump it in with #10 (which I’m not crazy about either, but I long ago gave up trying to persuade people that you’re way better off playing against the image you have rather than trying to create one you don’t have.)
I’m also for keeping position and isolation distinct. If you want the list to apply to any type of poker and not just NLHE, then I think you definitely have to put position-improvement bets/raises in their own category.