My latest poker strategy article, What Are You Afraid Of?, is now appearing in the July 2011 edition of the 2+2 Magazine. The article uses a single hand to look at a larger point about game theory and exploitability:
Being “underrepresented” or “too weak” are not bad things in and of themselves. And before acting on feelings like these, you should articulate exactly how they could end up costing money. In other words, what would your opponent need to do to take advantage of this “mistake” that you are considering?
I’m always curious to know what you think, so please read the full article and leave me a comment!
I do not like your opening statement which contains following sentence “dealing objectively with the nagging fear”
My comment will be about dealing subjectively with the nagging fear in described situation.
Part I
You described situation in four-handed online no-limt hold ’em game.I do not have experience in four-handed.
I believe your logic and conclusion are still valid for HU 2-4 game where ranges,bluffing frequency and absolute value of two pair are quiet different.
Once I am able to box my opponent as loose -passive in HU 2-4$ game it is easy “meta-fold” for me.
I do not care about GTO here at all.My very subjective perception tells me two things:
1.Easy meta-fold means my assumption that 2-4$ game could be treated as combat between two competing strategies: my pre-rationalized strategy vs his static loose-passive one.
2.The described line of betting reflects standard line how loose-passive profile make profit $$$ with value vs my profile.
Part II
Let’s say I spaz-called and I discovered his bluff.
His actual river bluff indicate that my observation about his profile is not valid.
And this is OK.Pokers observations are not objective observations.They are not just generalizations.
They are very subjective projections too where your ego and experience play forte key.
Now I tried to make notes about his bluff What is a correct and the most useful observation?
a) I have “Big” ego and I conclude:
Fu.. fried fish. -He tilted.His tilt reseted his profile.
b).I have “small” ego and I conclude:
Bluff-expert -who perfectly understand the fundamental concept for bluffing:
Bluff only whether your opponent thinks you would not be bluffing.
The concept which really embrace all factors such as:his image(loose-passive),my image,his range,my range,etc.
Because my big ego and 2-4$ or lower I chose a) 100% when make notes and this is winning proposition for me.
When I tried to play bigger games I realize that such logic and observation is losing proposition.
I will choose b) expert bluffer for my notes.
I will change my perception of the game too where predefined strategy and static profile are hindrance.
I have no idea WTF you said here.
That’s cool, thanks for your comment.
English is not my forte skill.
Don’t worry, your mind will be relieved when you disassociate from it.
I for one don’t read all comments here but I do read yours. Unusual writing style but it’s worth getting used to it since you have original insights.
Thanks.
I feel my style is not only matter of my English but my ethnic background.
When I read unabomber manifesto I “knew” he is not American because of his style.I was confident he is from Eastern Europe.
I was wrong.
But FBI was on target.Couple days after manifesto they were able to construct his ethnic profile- highly educated American with emigrant parents from Eastern Europe.
Good article and well written as usual.
IMO Hero should b/f turn, still tons of value from QJ JT KT AQ, and a loose-passive player is never c/r bluffing turn.
Plus, betting turn means we can b/f a hand toward the bottom of our value range, instead of folding river w/ a hand that is now toward the top of our range 🙂
This article reminded me Phil Galfond’s “quick decide fold or call?” and his answer was to raise.
How often does a 2/4 4 handed player not bet/re-raise the flop with top pair/top kicker?
I am also curious if you bet the turn, and villain leads the river do you auto-fold?
Anyways I really liked the “idea” of different degrees of certainty needed for action in different spots.
This is one of those spots where I probably say something like “I think you might be bluffing or value betting worse but I will let you have it!”. I am sure a leak I need to work on 🙂
“Being “underrepresented” or “too weak” are not bad things in and of themselves. And before acting on feelings like these, you should articulate exactly how they could end up costing money. In other words, what would your opponent need to do to take advantage of this “mistake” that you are considering?”
Being “underrepresented” or “too weak” could cost you a ton of money.
And funny thing is that your opponent does not do anything to exploit you.
In our case “underrepresentaion” could stimulate his value betting worse hand than our holding.
His river bet + board +his profile will skew our read.
And funny thing is that your opponent does not HAVE TO do anything to exploit you.
This is my point. Being underrepresented COULD cost you a lot of money, but only if your opponent plays in a certain way. If he isn’t playing in that way, then the fact that you are “underrepresented” isn’t costing you anything.
You’re right that I’m not using the term “exploit” quite right. A villain playing a non-exploitive GTO strategy would profit from Hero’s very tight river calling range, and a Villain who knew about Hero’s strategy could craft an even more exploitable counter-strategy. In this case, Hero’s fold is a good way of exploiting a Villain whose bluffing range is probably not nearly as wide as it should be.
I think what Andy is getting at is that against players into whom you can “bet for information” you should indeed bet/raise for information instead of underrepresenting your hand by checking/calling for pot control. If you do the latter you may end up in a situation where he bets and you know it’s meant as a value bet but not whether you beat him.
In the example at hand there is also value in checking the turn, however, since you could river a full house and stack him if he has a flush.
(I assume this is exactly what you mean when, in the article, you say: “But against a loose and passive player, I think you can make a case for betting, but a check has its advantages as well”.)
Very good article, by the way, as usual.
NOT 100% CORRECT but 99% Zoltz.The turn bet is NOT OPTIONAL for me.
It is mandatory because I am executing straightforward exploit strategy against static loose- passiver profile.”Underrepresenting” breaks a pillar of my strategy.
After turn bet I am on river in auto-fold mode.
Without turn bet I feel “exploited” when folding on river.
The pillar:I repeat myself once more I do not expect from static loose-passive to be an expert-bluffer but a fried-fish at most.
Andrew -Einstein said: “A perfection of means and a confusion of aims, seems to be our main problem.” and I do not pretend to know what he meant.
I may be wrong (I’m a novice) but as I read yet another great piece from Andrew I thought of something I think is similar from Small Stakes No Limit Holdem by Miller, Mehta, and Flynn. GTO play in a general sense depends on a rational or GTO knowledgeable player. When your opponent does not fit this description, you should not worry about deviating from GTO play. I think Andrew’s article is a great real life example of this quote from Miller, Mehta, and Flynn.
“For you game theory purists, when we say generic optimal strategy here, we
mean a strategy that is robust against a broad range of opponents of varying skill.
The best strategy against this range accounts for the middling and bad players, or
“bounded-rationally players” in game theory terms. A Nash equilibrium against
near-perfect players (or those with unlimited computational ability) may not work
well against such opponents. Game theorists have not offered much practical advice
in these situations without resorting to empirical work, assessing what does well in
real world play. It is in this sense that a robust strategy is “generically optimal.” If
your opponents aren’t generic—perhaps they are much better or worse than a
typical range of opponents—then the generic optimal strategy may not work
particularly well, and some adjustments may be needed.”
Good article, and I agree with its conclusion, but I have a question nevertheless:
You state that: “Game theoretically optimal (GTO) play would require Hero to call with nearly 70 percent of his range.”
I assume you arrive at this number by calculating that Hero has to call 60 into a pot of then 76+60+60. So Hero should call if his hand has more than 60/196=30.6% equity versus villain’s range. But I do not understand how this implies that Hero should call with 1-30%=70% of his range.
Looking at it from Villain’s prespective, Villain risks 60 to win 76. He therefore needs at least 60/(76+60)=44% fold equity to make his bluffs profitable. But I do not see how this directly causes a specific optimal calling frequency for Hero either.
If you could explain this to me, that would be great!
Cheers!