I'm stuck here guys.

A random number of things really "clicked" lately, and I'm really just seeking confirmation and discussion on these things. I'll try to put this the best I can, but a lot of it still seems fairly abstract to me in ways that are hard to describe, but here we go.

I posted a hand in the FR forum where I 3-bet a 37/10's raise from the SB with AQs (villain was three seats off of the button). The rest of the hand isn't so important, but in the discussion I noted that the wider our 3-betting range, the more value our big pairs [and AK] hold since people will pay them more money per hand on average.

A few weeks/months ago I remember reading an interview or some other post on ISF's blog (I think) where someone was talking about "blending" value-betting ranges and bluffs post-flop. The idea was like sometimes when you're value-betting you're not even sure if you're ahead of his range or not so you're not sure if you're really value-betting or bluffing. I sort of understood whatever example was given, but I didn't understand the concept. Then the AQs thread above happened and I woke up in the middle of the night two nights ago thinking about the following:

When we widen our range in any spot, our range is strengthened in terms of EV because the best hands we hold will yield more value as our opponents adjust. This applies to our big pairs gaining value when we 3-bet preflop more, and this applies to situations where we don't know if we're ahead or not but we bet when it's close anyway.

I'm pretty sure that this is an instance of second-level thinking. We do something based on what we think our opponent thinks we have. Since the only other general thing I really understood about second-level thinking had to do with ISF's theorem, I went back and read over that like six times and now I'm just like holy crap because it seemed so much clearer this time.

So consider any situation where our apparent range is ahead of our opponent's range. ISF's theorem tells us we should bluff and semibluff more often, but it seems very closely related to what's going on when we 3-bet a wider range than before or when we "blend" our value-betting and bluffing ranges. I'm just not exactly sure how yet.

I'm trying to transcend these individual applications and figure out what concept is at work, and I'm having a hard time. The Shania explains quite a bit of it in a more general sense, but I feel like there's something in between that I'm missing. Like if these applications are on one level, and like four levels up there is the Shania, I'm missing everything on the three levels between and like half of the three levels before.

i'm not sure i can even attempt to help here because i dont see a question in here. more like a thought process that got stuck...like writer's block?

if you are having trouble with the "blending" of value-betting and bluffing, i think you hit it on the head. in a closer situation, like AQs, we may both miss, but may both still think we are WA/WB, therefore, our "bluff" may take the pot, but we may run into someone better or messing with us? either way, if we fire, we open the door to firing when we hit and being thought of as "full of shit?" thereby, paying off our better hands. at least, thats how i understand it.

to me, your "concept issue" here seems like you are caught on a branch of Shania's tree somewhere on the same branch that ISF's theorem kicks in?

Shania makes perfect sense, when applied to 3betting, imo. its really just a matter of how wide do you want to go, and how wide are you considering "premiums" that will get paid under the principle? it doesnt do a lot of good to open up as far as 57s, if you dont open up what you call a "premium," too.

Thats the point of ISF theorem, though.

I think I will hit you up on AIM. Your having some of the issues I seem to be having, in that there seems to be no question you can ask to figure out that next step.

This is something to think about.

the "point of equilibrium" to which you refer is the "fulcrum" in the Shania post, yes?

and, no, we cant ever solve for the exact "fulcrum." obviously, that will vary from table to table, and hand to hand...which i think you also said.

i have never been less than thoroughly confused here, and was only trying to foster some conversation so i can "lurk" this one a bit. so, i'll shut up now.

carry on, wayward son(s).

On your random other point, Do you see whats happening? More hands you can bet for value the more money you make, and the more you can bluff.

On another point, you seem to completely disregard that you just said that we should vbet a hand that is losing to a bunch of hands. Do you really do this?

Play around with this latter. For example, most ranges look more like this.

L
L
L
L
B
B
B
B
B
B
.
.
.
L
L
L

But what if we know opp has midpair or worse on something like a KK443 board? Then his range is better documented like this.

L
L
L
x
x
x
x
x
x...
B
B
B
L
L
L

Where x represents hand we would raise (or call, whatever we did) preflop. What is something we can do here to take advantage of this situation?

Last part your not getting. I'm trying to tell you that strength of your hand isn't relative to situation. No one actually says this, but they sure as hell play like it. If we simply view a situation as "this is our percieved range or range and this is our opponents range so whats the optimal betting/sizing/folding here?" We should also look at it as "How could I move around my ranges to put more hands in a spot where there is the maximum possible value for that hand/range?"

This is what im talking about if you still don't get it.

... Hmm weird looked for an article where I talk about this, I thought I did but apparently I didn't. I'll do that next week. See if you get it and ill answer this more on next friday.

Spoon and ISF talking really cool shit I barely comprehend. Nirvana.

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I'm stuck here guys.