NLHE Theory and Practice: Week 2.

Sup Feesh.

Week 2's discussion is now underway. We're looking at pages 25-44. This section covers the following main themes:

Pot size - how you might go about manipulating the size of the pot with a strong hand in order to stack your opponent. Very important for micro games imo, more pot building less aimless slow playing = a happy winrate at micros.

While overbetting in order to inflate the pot can be really good vs some opponents in some situations (mainly vs a total station who'll passively stack of with any top pair type of crap, but the stacks are too deep and the pot too small to get it all in by just potting or underbetting each street.) I wouldn't reccomend you take his suggested line too often for value because you'll just be rediculously unbalanced vs regs and deprive yourself of any action from the weaker parts of ranges that definitely wont fold the flop for a normal size bet. You'll also discourage people from playing back at you with air or weak draws etc. So yeah, I just mean to clarify that Sklansky doesn't mean you should take this overbetting line frequently in standard spots or anything.

Implied odds - there's some good stuff in this section about how to use implied odds, especially deep, which we have already touched on a bit in last week's discussion. There's also tips on how to make sure you're cutting back your opponents implied odds; basic stuff, but essential.

So what do we think about this section?

I dont like it at all.

It seems to me, that the authors are arguing for a backwards style of NLHE, where we try to minimize our opponents expectation instead of maximizing our own. While its true that if our EV goes up, our opponents goes down, i think its easier to just think of increasing our own expectation and completety ignore that of our opponents. After all, we cant make someone fold or control our opponents bet size...however we can choose to fold more often or bet smaller or what have you with relative ease. For this reason, the concept of denying implied odds is very foreign to me from a theoretical standpoint even though the math behind it is sound.

To elaborate a bit more, the authors have an example of where we hold JJ and our opponent flips over AA and that our opponent made a mistake by letting us set mine against him. However if we flip the situation, with us now holding AA vs an exposed JJ, surely we arent hoping that JJ folds even when hes given proper odds to set mine. In fact, we dont really care so long as he puts money in the pot. Now if the board came Jxx, we can safely fold. OKAY, we arent gonna know what smaller pair he has alot...but by the same token there are some boards where villains actions will tell us exactly what hand he has and where the board is just too wet for us to want to stack off anyway. For instance...if the board came 27Jr, and our opponent suddnely played back at us, theres only a few hands he could really have. Similarly if our opponent wakes up on a T98m board, we're equally less willing to stack off against him. So my point i guess is that we can control what we do, and if we're any good at the game we should be able to narrow down our opponents range so that we dont always stack off against him when he has a pp, or we should be able to choose a bet size that gets the most out of him pre if hes only calling to set mine, or we can decide when our opponent is ahead of us, or whatnot.

Since no other discussion has started yet...thoughts on this? haha

I definitely found this section interesting though I tend to agree somewhat with JKDS. I played a session afterwards and really tried to focus on my bet sizing. It seriously slowed down my game play and I ended up trying to do a lot of incomplete math. I guess my question for some of the more successful guys is, how much math are you doing in your head during your hands or is it more of a ballparking/feel exercise where you go, well I'm valuebetting so lets make it like 5/6s of the pot cause he is calling with a lot of worse regardless of pot size. Or is it more like well he might have a flush draw which for the next card has about 19% chance of hitting so I should bet this amount which gives him worse than 4:1 to call which would be a mistake mathematically speaking.

Originally Posted by Donachello

I definitely found this section interesting though I tend to agree somewhat with JKDS. I played a session afterwards and really tried to focus on my bet sizing. It seriously slowed down my game play and I ended up trying to do a lot of incomplete math. I guess my question for some of the more successful guys is, how much math are you doing in your head during your hands or is it more of a ballparking/feel exercise where you go, well I'm valuebetting so lets make it like 5/6s of the pot cause he is calling with a lot of worse regardless of pot size. Or is it more like well he might have a flush draw which for the next card has about 19% chance of hitting so I should bet this amount which gives him worse than 4:1 to call which would be a mistake mathematically speaking.

For me the majority of actual gameplay thinking is to do with what my opponents range is and how he plays it. There's obviously not time to do the calculations the authors are discussing every hand you play, because you have to estimate a range not just work out how to price out a flush draw or whatever. Learning how much equity certain hands have against you in certain spots helps your game a ton and feeds your intuitions with the ability to make in game rough estimations etc.

The more spots you get yourself into, the better a feel for ranges you develope. With practice and repitition you'll become quicker and more efficient at putting your opponent on a range that will lead to more profitable decisions. Doing these equity calculations can help your game a for sure, but being able to apply what you learn away from the action into a fast moving poker session is another skill altogether and practice is the main weapon for this imo.

i think you should keep poker math during an actual session to a minimum unless it's essential (you know exactly what a guy can have in a spot and what he does, and you have time to do some calculations) Your precious time during actual decision making moments should be used on your poker thought process, which should include putting opponent(s) on a range and working out how they will play that vs different actions by you, and consequently, what you stand to gain or lose by making these actions.

i agree with JKDS. i was going to make a post along similar lines but i didnt want to be the first poster in this thread and come out critiquing "da worldz best pokor theorist". i understood the material (probably wouldnt have if i wasnt already familiar with the theory) but i think they took some pretty convoluted lines to convey the point. i personally found the PNLH standard intro section covering pot odds, implied odds etc to be way clearer and more informative. yes i realise i am bad at poker and i've never written a book etc etc. i just dont like the method they used to convey their ideas in this particular chapter.

Fast response, I hope it makes sense:

Pot size: I still like the section. Esp if we have a very strong hand. We have to plan the betting out and if we are playing 100bb deep and we want the opps whole stack, then we have to at least plan some large bets in there to bloat the pot. Its always player depandant.
Some wont put their stack in without the immortal nuts, others will with a poor flush draw on flop etc...
If I'm playing a villain who is 22/5/.9 and I call in position w/ a low PP and the flop gives me a set but its only T high, I wont make much off of the passive player.
In another situation vs an aggro or ultra station If I raise pre w/ AK and flop is A high and I know he'll call off with just about any A then I assume he has one and bet large accordingly (near or at pot size bets). Unless he has a set i should win big (barring any flushes or straights on board)

Implied odds:
I also liked this section. I have adjusted my calling range vs nits in many situations. If a nit in UTG raises and hes playing 8/5/.5 I dont call w/ a mid/low PP hoping to set mine b/c he will only pay me off w/ AA and KK (if no Ace shows up on board) They fold too much to make set mining profitable. But if its a 8/5/6 type player then yes, I call w/ proper odds (I try for 10-1 as bare minimum but like more)

Offering implied odds is an important section as well. You see a lot of players min 3betting then playing a huge pot w/ a premium pair only to get stacked vs a set or 2 pair. If I raise w/ TJ on the BTN and the BB min 3bets and I know he only does it w/ strong hands and will bet aggro aon the flop then I am quite tempted to call. Most times Im calling 4bb to win 30+bb, thats not a bad return....
Thats why we have to offer poor odds esp when the stacks are 100+bb when we 3 bet or are charging the flop for possible FD's.

As an aside, I usually bet 3/4 to pot on the flop if I think I am ahead and am likely against a draw. They will almost always call it and it offers them poor odds. However on the turn I usually go 3/4 tops b/c I have to worry about pot comittment should they hit their draw on the river. You still need to leave the door open to get out of the hand but bet enough so that their range that is behind will call.

i guess critiquing the method or style of writing wont improve my game. i'll re-read the sections and type up my thoughts as i complete them.

pot-size philosophy:
basically i think here we are looking to take the line that creates the largest potsize in which our hand is still +EV vs villains range. this is why you'll often hear people check something like tptk behind on the turn after betting the flop (preferably on dry boards), because they think they have a higher expectation (ie villain calls us down with worse) when betting the flop and river rather than the flop and then the turn. us checking behind the turn often makes our in position river bet look more bluffy. i'm not saying this is a uniform rule, sure you can get three streets with tptk against a lot of guys at the micros. similarly, if a (exhaggerated example) deepstacked 8/6 preflop player who is nitty, weak-tight postflop opens UTG, we have a read on ths guy that he is able to fold strong one-pair hands postflop, and he has only showndown strong hands. we call on the button and flop a set with 22 on AT2, we probably arent going to have the best hand if we take a very aggressive line vs this guy. especially if he also is showing aggression.
consider his range for the following:
bet/3bet/call our shove on the flop
bet/call flop, lead turn/3bet shove over our raise
bet/call flop, check/call turn, check/call river
and then think of all the other possible lines. there are some lines he takes where we simply do not have him beat. most likely the first one. we are looking to take the line in which we feel the pot can get as big as possible without making villain's range so strong we basically never have the best of it. that's my take on it. obviously the example is contrived but you can apply the idea to any number of hands. how strong is your hand compared to villain's range? is the board wet/dry? what does your range look like to villain? does he even think about your range? how will he react to.... as a result of this? how will YOU react if a flush card turns on a twotone flop (and how should this inform your flop decision) with say, top two or a set? the flush turn card mightnt give villain the best hand, but it will kill your action a lot of the time when he would have been willing to call a turn bet with a worse hand. one more thing i'd like to add. just because we have a very strong hand, doesnt mean we necessarily HAVE to play a big pot. obviously it's preferable. but i've had some spots recently against pretty predictable regs where i've been betting for thin value (not sure if its called thin value, i'm betting small enough to induce a call) with the nuts because their line tells me they have a middle pair, AK high or whatever. you're not always going to know how your villains play, but if you do, dont be surprised when he folds his face-up QQ-KK on an ace high board to your set because you bet in a way that put too much heat on his hand. flame my thoughts here as deemed necessary. i need to eat now.

edit: obviously if you're pure bluffing, the story is different. you want to exploit the weakness of villain's range and get them to incorrectly fold a better hand according to the FTOP, which is quoted somewhere early in the book we're looking at now.

I think whats most important about this section (and the book as a whole) is that they dont necessarily always tell you to do things a certain way...they just want it to be in your mind at all times.
I think in the intro they make it pretty clear, they aren't writing a how to book of actions, its a book to make you aware of all things you need to consider at the table. Implied odds and pot size manipulation are crucial for us BC'ers.

I'm with Vinland on that, I feel like they repeat throughout that there are situations where certain pot sizing methods would be fruitless without explicitly naming which situations would be bad. It also allows you to tailor the ideas to the individual villain. Again the pot sizing example comes to mind as the book gives different scenarios based on different reads.

The overall message I got from the implied odds section is, "Either force your opponent to fold or trick him into a -EV call based on stack sizes and reads" That makes sense to me for the most part but I dont see how you would figure out the right bet size without calculations on hand.. other than looking at the hand after the fact and learning from mistakes.

The Pot Size Philosophy

Big pots and big bets are for big hands.

I used to have a small problem with this statement. I never quite understood it. I would see players in the IRC creating these huge pots and stacking opponents with TPTK (a not-so big hand). I would also see hands in which players would pot-control with a set (which was, in my eyes at the time, a big hand). Aren't we supposed to be winning smaller pots with the TPTK? Why aren't we inflating the pot with our set?

Well, as I continued studying poker, I learned that this statement is extremely villain dependent. There are opponents that we can three-barrel with TPTK and still be ahead of their range (since they are passive stations). On the other hand, we may see a very passive villain who has never showed any signs of aggression lead the flop out of position and choose to manipulate the size of the pot into being smaller by just calling him down instead of raising with our small set.

Here, our TPTK was a big hand against villain's three-barrel calling range while our set was a hand that we couldn't raise for value.

"Big hands" in this statement is not talking about our absolute hand strength. When judging whether or not or hand is "big," we must take board texture, villain's tendencies, stack sizes, etc. into consideration. We must factor all this into our judgment call.

I just wanted to make one more note: please plan your hands. Constantly examining stack and bet sizes is a good way to start and learn to plan your hands. I've seen many players make a bet/raise on the flop without thinking how the turn's pot and stack sizes will look like. They are caught on the turn with no idea how much to bet because they forgot to think about what the turn stacks and pot may look like and only thought "I'm going to raise 3x their flop bet."

The Pot Size Philosophy - An Example
In this section, we go over a scenario of the pot-size philosophy. You won't understand what the fuck I'm talking about if you don't read the book, so read the book.

When I first read this a year or so ago, I remember wondering why the hell we were only considering villain's pocket aces, ace-king, and other hands. What about his other hands? I had a problem with wanting to "slowplay" my sets to not blow villain off his hand. I was scared to bet my set. I was scared to raise my set. He folds so much and it annoyed me when he simply folded to my set. I felt I was able to make more money simply playing my sets deceivingly. However, I'd always be caught at the river with a small pot and my dick in my hand.

Trying to play our set passively here is wrong for a number of reasons. I will only cover one reason for the sake of staying on topic. By checking my set here, I was basically trying to get value out of villain's random stuff that MAY bet or that MAY call me later on the turn (remember, he may not even bet or call our turn bet). However, I should have been focused on villain's pocket aces and ace-king type hands (as Sklansky told me!). Why though? This is villain's calling range. We are looking to get value from villain's aces, ace-king, flush draws, middle pairs, etc. Nothing else matters. We're not getting value (we're obviously focused on getting value) from his folding range here so don't worry about that. Assign villain a calling range and bet accordingly. EASY GAME.

I won't go into how to build this pot here. However, I do want to point something out. In this example, we are out of position trying to build a pot and hopefully stack out opponent. Sklansky points out that it will be difficult to do so without an overbet or a villain raise. Additionally, since we are out of position, we tend to check to our opponent so he can bet (and then we play accordingly). But sometimes villain checks back, we miss a street of value, and getting villain's stack becomes even MORE difficult. Manipulating the pot-size and trying to make it large is quite difficult out of position (in fact, this is an argument against set-mining out of position).

Now flip it and have us call with 55 on the button. I shouldn't have to explain why creating a large pot here is a lot easier...and I won't. This is why calling to set-mine in position is SO MUCH greater than doing so out of position.

Implied Odds
I see a lot of players complaining about Sklansky focusing on the implied odds we're GIVING our opponents rather than the implied odds that we're receiving (if I understood the complaints correctly). Maybe it's a valid complaint but I believe a lot of you guys are missing the point. This is an introduction to implied odds and he has used math to introduce it. He argues that making a bigger preflop open will cut down villain's implied odds to a point where it becomes unprofitable. If you want to relate this to something that is more talked about on FTR, we can relate this to calling a three-bet with a pocket pair looking to set mine (which a lot of bad players do). There is a point where it becomes unprofitable, especially with incomplete information. Additionally, we can punish players that like to, say, limp/call pocket pairs preflop by raising huge. We cut into their implied odds and make it less profitable for them to call. You don't HAVE to do the standard "4x+1" for preflop sizing. Play with preflop sizing...make it bigger against the fish that you know are set-mining. However, when they're limp/calling with pocket pairs, we want to make sure that we don't...

Justify Their Optimistic Calls
See what I did there? This was my favorite section this week. Imagine a scenario where we are against a player that plays his draws passively. We bet the flop and the turn to get value out of his draw. We bet-size correctly to make it a mistake for villain to call. Villain may know that he is mistakenly calling at the moment, but he may believe that he can get value from us if the river completes his flush. The flush card comes in on the river and villain leads the river. We have a set that we just CAN'T fold (ZOMG, IT'S A SET!) even though we put him on a flush draw throughout the entire hand. We talk ourselves into making the call since MAYBE he plays his [insert worse hand here] like this. Crap, he has a flush. We review this hand later, do some math, and see that his call on the turn was +EV since he was able to get a lot of money out of us on the river.

We just justified his call. This is done a lot and scenarios like the one above happen all the time. To be totally honest, this scenario is a sign of me tilting and talking myself into shitty calls. For others, this kind of scenario is a regular part of their play. We're flushing money away, we're not allowing villain to make mistakes by justifying their calls, and we're making a mistake ourself.

Remember, if we make a good flop and turn bet and the flush card comes in, folding to villain's river lead when the flush card comes in makes HIS flop and turn CALL a mistake. When he makes mistakes, we profit. By folding, we played our hand perfectly via the Fundamental Theory of Poker. BAM BAM BAM...folding has made us money.

Disclaimer: Please don't fold to every river lead you see. I am merely coming up with an example.

Originally Posted by Vinland

Implied odds:
I also liked this section. I have adjusted my calling range vs nits in many situations. If a nit in UTG raises and hes playing 8/5/.5 I dont call w/ a mid/low PP hoping to set mine b/c he will only pay me off w/ AA and KK (if no Ace shows up on board) They fold too much to make set mining profitable. But if its a 8/5/6 type player then yes, I call w/ proper odds (I try for 10-1 as bare minimum but like more)

I just wanted to make a quick point about this. I personally believe your thinking here is flawed. Please remember that our implied odds is contingent on a number of things. One of these things is villain's range. With an ubernit raising UTG, his range is extremely strong. We can safely put villain on premium hands. We can assume that he would probably bet the flop and may possibly even go all-in many of these flops with his premium holdings. With all this information, we can definitely call our pocket pairs to setmine. He will pay us off a lot since his range is so strong.

This scenario also relates to Sklansky's idea of us knowing the nature of villain's hand and being able to setmine profitably. As I explained, we know that villain has a range of only premium hands. This makes our pocket pairs that much more profitable. As a matter of fact, we can call with a wide range of speculative hands looking to bust his premium hands since his range is so small. Notice that the profitability of calling with speculative hands goes down as villain's range becomes wider and more disguised. For example, the profitability of calling with pocket pairs OTB against an UTG 26/20 is a lower than calling in position against an UTG 8/6. Since the 26/20's range is not as strong, he probably won't be paying us off as much as the 8/6 (with the premium hands in his range). In T&P, Sklansky explains why imperfect information costs us EV when making speculative calls.

Originally Posted by fatguy'06

The overall message I got from the implied odds section is, "Either force your opponent to fold or trick him into a -EV call based on stack sizes and reads" That makes sense to me for the most part but I dont see how you would figure out the right bet size without calculations on hand.. other than looking at the hand after the fact and learning from mistakes.

Meh, that's not really the message you should be getting. Basically, we don't want to offer our villain good implied odds if we know he may be calling with a speculative hand. An example I used in my previous post is the limp/caller. A lot of bad players almost always limp/call with pocket pairs. Here, we can punish them by isoraising them big to cut down on their implied odds (and to get more money in the pot when they choose to c/f the flop). As was seen, it doesn't have to be too big since these players are playing with imperfect information. We won't be paying their sets off too much and sometimes we may even stack them with a better hand. We never want to "force" our opponent to do anything since we simply can't "force" anyone to do anything.

Also, as for looking at the hand after the fact and learning from our mistakes, this should be a regular part of playing poker. Session reviews give players the chance to look at their hands after playing by using whichever hand tracker they have downloaded. We can analyze these hands, do some math, and see that some situations are common enough that we can apply our findings of THIS hand to OTHER hands that we may play. By doing these analyses, its easier to make the correct play in real-time.

Wow BooG, your input in these threads is invaluable to people getting their learn on. A big thanks for taking the time to take part.

^^ agreed.

thanks boog. i think i understood pretty well all of the theory and application of what sklansky describes in this chapter, but i found his method of the perfect/imperfect information examples a bit superfluous in explaining what is essentially "if your expected reward compensates for the immediate risk, a call has positive expectation". guess my simple nature just relates more when the info is put in layman's terms. thanks again.

boog is my hero

Awesome input BooG, I was planning on doing a big rant on this section today but you've covered so much relevant stuff there in yours that I don't even need to - Yay grinding time imo.

Just to stress one thing again because I feel it's a common mistake new players make when learning things for the first time. Please don't get so caught up in these concepts that your entire focus of play depends on cutting your opponents implied odds or playing solely against the draw portion of his range. Villains have different ranges in different spots so try to keep these concepts solidified in your head in a broader sense. Study them in HH reviews, analysis and discussion and implement them at the tables. Don't obsess over them and try to learn them from scratch at the tables, because the rest of your game will suffer.

We commonly see posts in the BC that go something like this:

Hero is in a 2 way pot with 1 villain BU vs BB. Hero holds AQo and the flop has come down Qs2h7s. Hero c-bets and villain who is a basic tagfish calls. On the 9d turn (a blank basically) hero argues "I bet pot because i wanted to proce out his draws because I'd notcied he can't fold a flush draw before the river.

This is likely a mistake vs this guys calling range because the majotiy of his range on the turn consists of weak/medium pairs that can't stand too much action. Also, there really aren't very many flush draws on this board that he has when he flats out the bb. Therefore, instead of obsessing about cutting back his implied odds as much as possible, we should be trying to work out how we can get the most value from his entire range while still making it a mistake for him to call on the rare occassions he does hold a draw. A psb will likely fold out 88 66 87s etc etc and these hands make up a large chunk of his range.

So yeah betting smaller is probably better for these reasons even though he wont fold a flush draw to a psb, because he simply doesn't have a fd that often and we can still cause him to make a mistake with one for a smaller bet that serves other purposes better (gets more value mainly.)

Just an example to illustrate the important point of not getting obsessed with these concepts so that the rest of your game suffers. They are very important, but study then away from the tables and implement them as part of a good balacned game, not an obsession to do what Sklansky says at all times.

I hate to be the guy that goes, "But Sklansky says.." but I feel like im getting clashing advice.

Carroters, in your example you say to bet smaller to try and keep villain in with weak/medium pairs. The way I read pg 22-23 is in a general sense the more you put in the pot while in a position where you have the upper hand the better because even if hes only likely to call on the fd, the EV will be greater.

Originally Posted by fatguy'06

I hate to be the guy that goes, "But Sklansky says.." but I feel like im getting clashing advice.

Carroters, in your example you say to bet smaller to try and keep villain in with weak/medium pairs. The way I read pg 22-23 is in a general sense the more you put in the pot while in a position where you have the upper hand the better because even if hes only likely to call on the fd, the EV will be greater.

The EV wont be greater if he's only likely to call with a flush draw because the proportions of weak/medium pairs and marginals hands in his range far outweighs the amount of fds. Say his range contains 30% fds and Qs which he's calling the psb with and 70% maringal hands that will mostly only call a smaller bet say $6 (some might still fold to this size so I'll factor this in.)

If we bet $10 into $10 our expected value of the bet will be $10 30% of the time so $3.

Now say we bet $6 and assume he calls this with most of the marginal hands bar the very worst and he still calls with all the Qs and draws. Now our expected value is $6 80% of the time which is $4.80 (6/100 * 80)

So you can see that if he plays his range in this way, which I feel is often a reasonable assumption in this spot, then betting less is clearly better overall for our expected value.

My example differs from Sklansky's greatly in that in my spot we're not trying to build a huge pot vs the flush draws because they don't call the next street anyway, or if they do it's because they've improved to a better hand. Therefore, we can maximise value by betting the turn to make sure we get the large chunk of his range (the marginals hands) to call. In Sklansky's example we're maximising our value with a huge hand vs the likely big hands in villains range since the rest is probably folding anyway most of the time. These two situations are very different and should not be confused.

This is exactly what I'm saying about not taking everything said in the book as an absolute unbreakable maxim and applying it to situations you don't fully understand. Try to think through your opponent's range and logically deduce what makes sense and what doesn't. There are no rules in poker, almost every situation is unique in some way.

The author is bacially just saying that we shouldn't slowplay a big hand in order to try to gain 1/maybe 2 potential but not even certain streets of value from weak hands when there are big hands that we can build a huge pot with in our opponents range. In my example, these flush draws aren't a hand we're trying to stack in a massive pot because they only put a ton of money in on the river when they improve, therefore we can look to maximise value vs villains range as a whole and make the bet that garuntees the most money in the long run.

Hope that makes sense.

Originally Posted by fatguy'06

I hate to be the guy that goes, "But Sklansky says.." but I feel like im getting clashing advice.

Carroters, in your example you say to bet smaller to try and keep villain in with weak/medium pairs. The way I read pg 22-23 is in a general sense the more you put in the pot while in a position where you have the upper hand the better because even if hes only likely to call on the fd, the EV will be greater.

Dude, no worries about being that guy. I'm sure there are other players that feel as if they're getting "clashing advice." You're just the only one with enough balls to say it. This is the way the thread should proceed...even if you're REMOTELY unsure of something, ask.

Anywho, let's tackle this "clashing" advice. In the book, Sklansky describes a situation where we are deciding between a $50 bet, a $150 bet, or a $450 bet. I wish I knew the scenario but I don't have the few pages before this. However, I don't so I'll just make an ass out of you and me. There is a pretty large difference between the $150 and $450 bet. I'm almost sure the $450 bet is to represent some kind overbet shove that doesn't get called much. He chose arbitrary (did I use that word correctly?) percentages to convey his point. There are times where a large shove on the river is more profitable than a medium-sized bet on this same river.

Let's dissect Carroters' example where we have a BC poster trying to get value from villain's flush draws. What flush draws does villain ACTUALLY have? A lot of players don't call much with their suited connectors from the blinds since these are meh hands to play OOP. However, we'll throw some in villain's range for the sake of analysis. Also, we don't know if we hold the As, but I just want everyone to notice that if we did, villain's "drawing" range would be cut down greatly. However, since we don't know this, we'll throw some AsXs hands that villain may call from the blinds. So we'll assume those call a pot-size bet as well as his queens. As for calling a half-pot sized bet, we'll say hands like {JJ-TT, 88, 87s} plus the draws and his queens. He folds the 66-55 that he may have called the turn with. By the time we get to the turn, villain's range may be something like this {JJ-TT, 88, 66-55, KQ+, 87s, AsJs, AsTs, KsTs, JsTs, 9s8s}. That's 52 combinations if I counted correctly. The queens and draws make up 19 combinations of that 52 so...

...if we let the pot be 'n', villain will call our n-sized bet 19/52 percent of the time. Our EV will be something like .365n.

The stuff he calls to a half-pot sized bet will make up like 40 of 52 combinations so...

...if we let the pot be 'n', villain will call our .5n-sized bet 40/52 percent of the time. Our EV will be something like .384n.

Now there's a lot of variables to this. What if villain will call bet in between half and pot with the same 40 combinations? Betting more than half-pot but more than pot will see our EV go up. What if villain is a station that calls all 40 combinations to a pot-size bet? Betting pot sees our EV go up.

I want everybody to notice that if we held the As, that would cut two more combinations from his "drawing" range and make a pot-sized bet even worse (I was generous with his spades to begin with).

A major difference between Carroters' example and that of Sklansky's is the bet-size. Here, we are looking at a half-pot size bet and a pot-size bet. Sklansky analyzed an overbet shove that was three-times bigger than his medium-sized bet and half as likely to be called. You can see how that would call a higher EV for the overbet shove.

I didn't write this up to prove Carroters correct. I actually kind of wrote this up to have you guys see the kind of analysis you should be doing after a session. Carroters didn't instinctively know that a smaller bet-size on this type of turn will show a bigger EV. He did his homework and analyzed spots like this. He analyzed villain's range and saw that a half-pot sized bet (or bigger) may cater better to villain's range at the moment. He did the kind of analysis I ran through many times after a session. This type of situation comes up a lot and if you analyze them correctly, you'll know what to do next time such a situation comes up. You should all be taking advantage of your HEM or PT3 and doing the same.

Disclaimer: Please don't dissect my range and say "I think villain would have continued with this, that, and the other thing." You'll simply be put on my shit list with the likes of Surviva, Dranger, Carroters, and Kiwi and I will ignore you forever. You're missing the point if you feel like nitpicking my range.

Double Disclaimer: He probably raises his sets, so no.

Note: I notice a lot of the time when reading the BC that players will bet largely against a draw because they actually want that draw to fold. That couldn't be more wrong. We want to gain value from his draws. We want villain to call with his draws. Sure he sometimes hits his draw, but remember he usually won't. Also, when he hits his draw, we can make his previous calla mistake by making sure we DON'T JUSTIFY HIS OPTIMISTIC CALLS.

Originally Posted by BooG690

Note: I notice a lot of the time when reading the BC that players will bet largely against a draw because they actually want that draw to fold. That couldn't be more wrong. We want to gain value from his draws. We want villain to call with his draws.

This! If I hear anyone say this in one of these threads at any point, Ima put you on my hate list right up next to the likes of BooG the balloon-dog making clown.

I guess I should just keep this stuff in mind when analyzing my sessions and not make such broad assumptions.

if you arnt going to justify their 'optimistic calls', its not hard to get value out of the rest of a loose villains range anyway is it? i mean even a half pot bet at each street doesn't give them direct odds to draw.

halfpot bet of .50 into 1.00 gives them 3:1 to call, when they need about 4:1 for a FD.

is this correct?

Yup that's right mbiz. Often when you're against a station though you can bet much more than this and amplify their mistake even more, provided betting more doesn't fold out too much of their weak made hand calling range. Most of the time at micros it wont, because so many passive stations will just call pot sized bets (or more) without too much thought.

can anyone explain to me the maths calculations on page 38 and 39?
specifically, where those numbers come from, and how to go about solving the equation. if it's all too hard to explain to a mathsfish over an internet forum, no problems.

I'm assuming it's the 0.22 = (1/44)([10*3 + 9*1]/4) that you're confused about.

He's basically calculating villain's equity with his range of {JJ, AcKc}. He does this by hand. Since there are three combinations of jacks, he counts this three times, and since there is one combination of AcKc, he counts this once. For ease of writing here, we'll say he has jacks three times and AKcc once. When villain has jacks, he has 10/44 equity or 23%. Since he has this three times, we'll multiply this by three and get 30/44 or 68.18%. Now, with AKcc, he has nine outs giving him 9/44 equity or 20%. He has this once so we only count it once. We add 9/44 to 30/44 to get 39/44 or we can add the 20% to 68.18% and get 88.18%. Now remember that this is an average so we must divide by the total number of samples so we divide by four (three pairs jacks + one AKcc). We now have villain's equity (22% or 9.75/44).

Luckily for us, it's 2010 and we don't have to do calculations like this. We have PokerStove to calculate our (and villain's) equity. Here is the same exact hand, PokerStove style:

---
176 games 0.005 secs 35,200 games/sec

Board: Jc 7c 3s 4d
Dead:

equity win tie pots won pots tied
Hand 0: 77.841% 77.84% 00.00% 137 0.00 { 6d5d }
Hand 1: 22.159% 22.16% 00.00% 39 0.00 { JJ, AcKc }


---

We can replace the 4d on the turn with the 4c and we get the 42% that Sklansky provided us in his second calculation:

---
176 games 0.005 secs 35,200 games/sec

Board: Jc 7c 3s 4c
Dead:

equity win tie pots won pots tied
Hand 0: 57.955% 57.95% 00.00% 102 0.00 { 6d5d }
Hand 1: 42.045% 42.05% 00.00% 74 0.00 { JJ, AcKc }


---

Now, his third calculation is a simple average of the four possible outcomes (4c/d/s/h turn). I'll make it simple and skip the fractions. We'll go straight to the percentages we calculated before of 22% and 42%. We count 22% three times since that was villain's equity when we landed a 4d/s/h and we count 42% once since that was villain's equity for the one 4c. 22% + 22% + 22% + 42% = 108%. 108% divided by the four outcomes (remember, this is how we compute averages) is 27%; just as seen in the book.

I know it sucks for me to do math in words, but that's really the only way I can do so in a forum. If you're still curious, sign onto IRC and I'll have no problem showing you this Math via Teamviewer and Paint or something.

Extra note: I just noticed that it may be the 1/44 that confuses a lot of people here. Remember, this can easily be distributed and read as [(10/44)(3) + (9/44)(1)]/4. Sklansky decided here to factor out the 1/44 for ease of writing.

ahh i understand now. gracias amigo

im just going through these now, soz for lateness...

isnt sklansky incorrect on p25 when he says 125:15 = 7.33:1?

I have it as 8.33:1, but im prob wrong somewhere

umm, I see nothing on page 25 other than talking about pot size

Originally Posted by fatguy'06

umm, I see nothing on page 25 other than talking about pot size

Uploaded with ImageShack.us

Your bootlegged copy is inferior. In the real book (pg 33-34) he gives the correct reduction of 125-15 going to 8.33 to 1, and in comparing with what is written in that pdf he changed what followed to fit.

K thanks.
I have the other pdf anyway.