NLHE Theory and Practice: Week 2.

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.