Monthly Conceptualization: Slightly Ahead/Slightly Behind Spots
Intro: Why You're Reading This Post
A spot where regulars (including myself) get confused very very frequently are spots where there are a ton of cards that might hit the turn/river that will drastically change our equity or villain's perceived equity. That's confusing, so I'll give you two recent examples from the BC:
http://www.flopturnriver.com/pokerfo...ts-191144.html
http://www.flopturnriver.com/pokerfo...ml#post2098770
Two different hands and two different answers for whether or not we want to see a turn that will drastically improve/reduce our equity. Well, which is it? Do we to get the money in fast before the turn gets ugly and our equity is dropped, or do we want to keep the pot small then take advantage of the knowledge of what turn might come and decide what to do with the remaining money?
The Concept
I think the problem is that we're using the wrong terminology and the wrong concepts here. I am going to propose a much more streamlined way of thinking about these spots that uses language that I think will be less self-contradictory:
Will the information of knowing which turn/river will hit be of more value to Hero, or will it be of more value to Villain?
The above in bold is the schnazzier wording of it, but I actually think more specifically, we're saying, "Will the information of knowing what the turn/river is be of more use to how Hero plays his specific hand versus Villain's overall range, or will it be of more use to how Villain plays his overall range to our specific hand? I think this clarification is important for this concept.
The idea is very basic: If Villain will better be able to use the information of the turn/river card to play his range better against your hand, then we want to reduce the amount of money that's left behind. If Hero will be better able to use the information to play OUR hand against HIS range better, then we want to leave more money behind (and then exploit with that remaining money, ldo).
If you'd like to see this suspiciously simple concept in action, then skip to the examples, but I'm going to sketch out the concepts most relevant to this one a bit.
The Factors: What Should You Consider When Applying this Concept
POSITIONAL ADVANTAGE: This is simple. When you have the last say on what to do on each street, then you can check back cards that are bad for you, you can bet cards that are good for you, you can make better guesses at how much a certain card hurt/help Villain based on whether he checked, c/r'ed, donked, cbet, etc, then Villain will be able to determine about use simply based on whether we check or bet. Initiative probably plays a bit into this, too, but it's not as important as the other factors listed.
SKILL ADVANTAGE: Droolers who don't put Hero on ranges, don't much consider relative hand strength (and so are trying to get their TP in regardless of how coordinated the board comes), etc. are going to get less value out of knowing what turns come. They're stacking off ranges (most especially) just don't adapt to the card as well and they're not going to change the value of their draw enough based on whether they have one card left to hit or two, and so on and so forth. Meanwhile, Hero should be able to get a ton more value out of this information. Even predictable nits are less likely to exploit their positional advantages by forcing us off the best hand when a blank/scare card hit or by getting us to call worse, so we feel a little bit better about leaving money behind against these players, even when they're in position. Against top notch players who are going to as often as possible put us in tough spots with disguised ranges and who probably have a decent idea of which cards help/hurt us, etc, it's obviously not good to leave a ton of money behind.
HOW MUCH WILL WE CHANGE WHAT WE DO ONCE WE FIND TURN/RIVER vs. HOW MUCH WILL VILLAIN CHANGE WHAT HE DOES ONCE THEY FIND OUT WHAT IT IS: This is a big factor in pretty much every hand listed as an example. In Hand 1, we're stacking off regardless. Meanwhile, Villain is more likely to get away from worse hands once the board goes 4-straighted/3-flushed or the board pairs. In other words, when Villain is playing elastically and is properly adjusting to the cards that improve/hurt our equity (he's stacking off lighter when our equity goes down and getting away from his hand when our equity goes up). In Hand 2, we're getting away from our hand when a T/Q/spade hits, yet villain's still going to have an equally difficult time getting away from his AsAx or his QT or his QQ when they don't improve to the nuts, so we ensure that we get the money in when our hand is further ahead of his hand, yet villain is doomed to put more money in regardless.
This isn't to imply that we should always get rid of the money left behind every time we're stacking off regardless of what turn/river hits. Hand 5 is an example of this. We're stacking off with our set regardless of whether we bet on the flop or the turn, but the turn can help us because it makes Villain play his hand differently in a way that we can exploit. This is because this is not a slightly ahead/slightly behind (SA/SB) situation; villain only perceives it that way. We're trying to get money in while villain thinks he has a chance because, guess what, LOL HE HAS NO CHANCE AT ALL SONNNNNN!!!!
In other words, this isn't as simple as saying “Well I'm gonna put all the money in regardless of what happens, so I might as well get it in now.” If villain's going to play differently depending on what cards come, we have to decide whether that's to his advantage or to ours. If it's to his, then leave as little money left behind as you can; if the advantage is to you, leave lots of money behind so you can exploit that advantage.
HAVING A DISGUISED HAND: Early on I clarified that we're talking about whether the information will make Villain's range play better against our hand, and we're not as concerned that it will make him play better in general. If Villain is Tom Dwan, and he never puts us on 53o, however we have somehow arrived at a K42r flop with 53o, then the turn is more likely to MISINFORM our opponent about how much it helped/hurt us than it is to INFORM us (even though Villain has the skill advantage!). The more your range is faceup, and your hand falls smack dab in the middle of that range, the more Villain will be able to gauge what turns hurt/help us and so the more we will get exploited with the more money left behind.
Stack Depth/SPR/etc.: Notice that I keep talking about “leaving money behind” versus “leaving less money behind.” The more money that's left behind, the more that the person with all of the previously listed advantages will be able to exploit the other guy. Without a ton of money left behind, the less this whole conversation matters (but it's still always important). If there's a MASSIVE SPR, then this becomes crucial and even more factors come into play, like likelihood to make the nuts and all that fun stuff.
_____________________________
That's the concept in a nutshell. I will be posting 6 hand examples to go along with this, and hopefully you guys will be able to feel comfortable in this thought process by the time you work through the thread.
