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For example, what hands are +EV to bet P = 1.05? The range is {A, K, 6, 5, 4, 3, 2}. It would be worth looking at if Villain can call profitably with a T against this betting range. Note that if so, he can also call profitably with a 7.
I asked the above near the end of post #2 of this thread, and I'd like to answer it now and discuss why it's important.
We determined from question 8 that the list of hands that are +EV for Hero to bet in a vacuum when P = 1.05 are {A, K, 6, 5, 4, 3, 2}. If Villain holds a medium strength hand like a T, then his equity against our betting range is 5/7 = 71.4% since he beats 5 hands and loses. However, he only needs 1/3.05 = 32.8% equity to call.
This is a perfect example of how when we play in an exploitative manner, our opponent is able to counter by adjusting and exploiting us in return. But how much can he exploit us?
What if he holds a 4. Then our betting range becomes {A, K, 6, 5, 3, 2}, against which he has 33.3% equity. That means that he can call with a 4 (or higher), which is the vast majority of his range, and it's only correct for him to fold a 3 or 2 (though folding a 2 is obvious since it can never be the best hand).
What's important to note is that the thought process that got us the range {A, K, 6, 5, 3, 2} was that we just picked all of the hands we thought were +EV to bet in a vacuum and bet them. This is so important because this is the thought process most people reading this will have, and we're going to look at how it could be exploited so you know what to look out for in your opponents as signs that you should change your ranges up.
Note that if we wanted to play unexploitably against a hand like a T, we'd bluff an amount that would mean he would have exactly 1/3.05 = 32.8% equity, which is betting an Ace and King 100% of the time while betting a 2 about 97% of the time. It's usually good to have a decent idea of what the unexploitable strategy looks like in terms of the ranges involved in spots like this because that serves as a guide if we decide we need to make future adjustments.
So suppose that he starts calling us a bit wider than he was before. Say he goes from calling with a Jack or better to calling with an Eight or better. What sorts of adjustments should we make? The first adjustment that we saw from above is to bluff less (which is also obvious because now he's calling more). The second adjustment is to value bet more, which in this case means we can value bet a Jack or better.
Now let's take a moment to go back to the point where he's only calling with a Jack or better and we're betting a range of {A, K, 6, 5, 3, 2}. Let's say that we're afraid our strategy is too obvious and that our opponent will adjust easier. How can we change our strategy so that it's harder for him to adjust without changing the EV of our range very much?
Again, we should be thinking about value betting more or bluffing less. The value we lose by betting a Q instead of checking it in a vacuum with P = 1.05 is
(EV of checking - EV of betting)
((2/12)(0) + (10/12)(1.05)) - ((2/12)(-1) + (1/12)(2.05) + (9/12)(1.05))
(0.875) - (-2/12 + (2.05/12) + (9.45/12))
0.08333
Then you could compare that to the value we lose by checking a 6 instead of betting it in a vacuum with P = 1.05:
(EV of betting - EV of checking)
((4/12)(-1) + (8/12)(1.05)) - ((8/12)(0) + (4/12)(1.05))
(-1/3 + (8.4/12)) - (4.2/12)
0.01667
Here we see that betting a Q costs us five times as much than checking the 6, so that's something you'd need to take into consideration if you decided to play in a slightly more balanced way.
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