2013: Make or break

This morning I was thinking about some content in a poker book I read a while ago. I'm pretty sure it was a well known book, it might have been mental game of poker though I can't recall.

The primary message was essentially that some hands play themselves, and those hands aren't where the money is made. Winning/losing KK vs AA preflop, QQ vs AK preflop, second nuts vs nuts etc aren't going to vary much from villain to villain. Most hands will end up the same way, so if you ask yourself "Would villain have lost/won as much as I did this hand, if roles were reversed?" - the answer is likely yes.

Poker players really distinguish themselves on all the other hands. The hands where you can legitimately question "would villain have lost/won as much as I did this hand?"

I think a lot of my losses come from losses where I don't think other villains would have lost as much. I 3b/5b jam A6hh, or AJ, or some lower'ish pair and get dominated (whereas I never feel like I catch people jamming this stuff into me). I'm too quick to aggro shove on flops where I'm at least going to have 30-35% equity but really I'm also very likely to mostly only have 35% equity (ie: yest got c/r on 7x8d9d and I jammed J8ss for 70bb or so. Or 3way flop K85hhh, I have AhQx - blinds donks pot into PFR, PFR flats and I raise/call off - when really OOP donker is likely quite strong here)

Dynamic Play - Source of my problem!

As I stated in other posts, I have a tendency to try new things and switch up how I play pretty often. Some stretch of sessions I have a btn/blinds 3b of around 13-14%, others I might be flatting more and have a 3b of 5-7%. Some stretch of sessions I might be raising more flops, others flatting more. Some my 4b may be 10% and others 20%.

Experimenting on a whole is good, and you learn a lot. But the major major downside is: I HAVE NOOOO CLUE HOW I'M PERCEIVED.

This is proving to be very troublesome. Am I being 4b because villain thinks my 3b is 14%, or because villain is mega strong and thinks my 3b is 5%? The ranges I should be jamming here are obv VERY different in each of these two conditions.

I'm reviewing a lot of my hands this month to see how my play has been. I went from up $7k to down $4k on the month, but I think my play has been good overall. I'm going to try and keep my style consistent for a while, to remedy this perception issue!

GTO and Frequencies

Been thinking about/ reading about Game Theory more lately and just frequencies in general.

One spot I think I lack is really using the appropriate frequencies in spots. I tend to go to extremes too often, either not triple barrel bluffing or doing it too much. I've always find it hard to figure out a way to really control frequencies.

Known:

If we bet on the river:

50% of the pot - Villain needs to call and win 25% of the time (ie: We can bluff 25% of the time)
60% of pot - We can bluff 27% of the time
70% of pot -We can bluff 29.6% of the time
80% of pot - We can bluff 30.7% of the time
90% of pot - We can bluff 32.1% of the time
100% of the pot - We can bluff 33% of the time

But how can we control this in practice, and be bluffing with the appropriate number of combos relative to value hands?

After a bit of math I've come up with:

Bluff combos = (%wecanbluff * num_value_hands)/(1-%wecanbluff)

So if we can bluff 27% of the time, this simplifies to:
Bluff combos = 0.37*numvaluehands

If we can bluff 30.7% of the time, this simplifies to:
Bluff combos = 0.44*numvaluehands

So really, the amount that will satisfy most of our betting range on the river (between 0.6-0.8 of the pot) will be:
Bluff combos = 0.4*numvaluehands

**DISCLAIMER** - I don't think content below here in this post is correct, tried fixing it in the subsequent post ***



How to put into practice?

Suppose we're on the turn with

The board is

I'm going to estimate we have 15 outs (so 15 cards on the river we'll be betting for value - 9 hearts, 3 non heart K, 3 non heart Q)
Bluff combos = 0.4*15
Bluff combos = 6 combos

Knowing we can put this into practice, the best way to do this is to decide on the turn which 6 combos you will bluff with. This will work out to picking two cards in the deck to bluff on (3 non-heart cards per selection).

In this case the cards with the most fold equity are likely any Ace and any Jack (6 non heart aces and jacks). If we decide on the turn that we will always bluff any ace and any jack, but also ONLY bluff any ace and any jack, we will be bluffing with 6 combos compared to 15 value combos (28.5% bluffs).

If we bet a little less than 70% on the river, then we are playing GTO vs his calling range. We are indifferent to villain calling or folding to our bet. This is on top of the times he incorrectly folds to our bets on an A or J river.

Common draws:

OESD = 8 value outs, need 3 bluffs
FD = 9 value outs, need about 3 bluffs (3.6 really) - so pick one card in the deck and bet all of those rivers when that card falls
FD+1 over = 12 value outs, need 4.8 bluffs
FD+gutter = 13 value outs, need 5 bluffs
FD+2 overs = 15 value outs, bet 6 combos for bluffs

I'll try to put this into practice. The key here is that you're pre-selecting your bluff cards on the turn and sticking to it. If you just randomly decide on the river, then its tough to really control frequencies.

(Important note: Playing GTO assumes that your opponent is also playing close to GTO. If villain has exploitable tendencies (ie: folds way too much or way too little), this would not be the best gameplan)

I'm starting to wonder if maybe my calculations are a bit off on the above example.

In that example on a Jh river for example, our actual number of value hands on the river should be based on our entire range, so all sets (222,333,777,888,JJJ = 15 combos, 78s 2 combos, and all flushes (A3,A5,A6,A8,A9,AT,AQ,AKhh, KQ, QThh, 89hh = 11 combos) = Total value combos of 32.

So if we have 32 value combos on a Jack of hearts river, then:
bluff combos = 32*0.4 = 11 bluff combos.

We have 17 value combos on a non heart brick, then:
bluff combos = 17*0.4 = 7 bluff combos.

Anyone have any thoughts if this seems more reasonable? I don't claim to be a GTO expert, so just trying to work through this stuff!

Originally Posted by griffey24

The primary message was essentially that some hands play themselves, and those hands aren't where the money is made. Winning/losing KK vs AA preflop, QQ vs AK preflop, second nuts vs nuts etc aren't going to vary much from villain to villain. Most hands will end up the same way, so if you ask yourself "Would villain have lost/won as much as I did this hand, if roles were reversed?" - the answer is likely yes.

Poker players really distinguish themselves on all the other hands. The hands where you can legitimately question "would villain have lost/won as much as I did this hand?"

fundamental theory of poker plus i remember some book (e-book/blog?) where some poker ego was saying that his edge was being way better at playing things like KJs than most players. I've been thinking about this heaps recently. Going to review this whole thread in early april, cos there is gold in it.

Originally Posted by griffey24

I HAVE NOOOO CLUE HOW I'M PERCEIVED.

in absence of notes and/or further info just go with the most likely answer perhaps? i.e.
vs regs with loads of volume, you're perceived as per running a report on yourself in HEM/PT
vs unknowns, you're perceived as running as per your HUD stats display that show what you've been doing at this table during this session
vs in betweens, figure out how much this session is contributing to your history via the good ol' hud double click