Getting the max - Whats our line?

[Honeybadger]

If you said something like: "In my experience 50NL are hugely polarised in this spot, but are rarely going to 4bet jam if we CIB. If this is the true then it makes sense to simply call the raise to maximise against his bluffs"... then fine.

But neither you nor Callum said that. You just said stuff like "call for sure", "no merits in 3betting", or "all the raise responses are tilting me", or "Callum is definitely right". It was only later on that you both started to justify your arguments by giving your population read on how 50NL regs play.

Then I got the "you are not thinking about his entire range" salvo. Coupled with "it is 2013", like I am so very out of touch (which may be true, although I am grinding online again now).

Then I got the "we know loads more about how 50NL regs play than you do" statement.

Then the "calling turn is way superior to raising based on how regs play their ranges in this spot" bit, with no real explanation... just a flat out statement of fact, as if this is definitely gospel, and with no reasoning.

I am all for discussion and disagreements about hands. But it is difficult to discuss things when people keep falling back onto the "I know more about how regs play at 50NL in 2013 than you do" line, and also when things are offered up as definitive facts rather than as areas for discussion.

Also, it's like you just ignored the points I was making in my posts. I made a case that we maximise against the depolarised parts of villain's range (straights, sets, two pair etc) by 3betting the turn - and in fact that if we do not do this then we actually make his turn raise a GOOD one vs our range, since he can then check back the river having got thin value and protection vs the hands that he beats. You have not addressed this at all.

Now maybe you are correct that villain almost never has these sort of hands in his raising range on the turn. I would tend to disagree, but that is fair enough. It is a difference of opinion, and a difference of experience.

I am seeking to maximise against the depolarised parts of his range, you are seeking to maximise against his zero equity bluffs. That is the essential difference in our suggested lines. I personally believe villain is likely to have a LOT more mid-strength hands that he is raising with than zero equity bluffs, but it is fine for you to disagree of course. I just don't like the dogmatic "I have more experience and therefore I am definitely right" type of stuff.

One thing to note is that if you are never 3betting the turn here then it makes it a GREAT spot for villain to make the 'free river showdown' play by raising the turn and then checking back the river. It gets value and protection when ahead, and also allows him to realise the equity of any semi-bluffs that he has since he always gets to see the river.

I enjoy discussing hands with you guys. But it feels like I am running into a non-constructive brick wall when I keep getting the same "we know more about how 50NL plays" line again and again.

Rant over. And I still <3 you Patrick xx

[kinboshi]

If you said something like: "In my experience 50NL are hugely polarised in this spot, but are rarely going to 4bet jam if we CIB. If this is the true then it makes sense to simply call the raise to maximise against his bluffs"... then fine.

But neither you nor Callum said that. You just said stuff like "call for sure", "no merits in 3betting", or "all the raise responses are tilting me", or "Callum is definitely right". It was only later on that you both started to justify your arguments by giving your population read on how 50NL regs play.

Then I got the "you are not thinking about his entire range" salvo. Coupled with "it is 2013", like I am so very out of touch (which may be true, although I am grinding online again now).

Then I got the "we know loads more about how 50NL regs play than you do" statement.

Then the "calling turn is way superior to raising based on how regs play their ranges in this spot" bit, with no real explanation... just a flat out statement of fact, as if this is definitely gospel, and with no reasoning.

I am all for discussion and disagreements about hands. But it is difficult to discuss things when people keep falling back onto the "I know more about how regs play at 50NL in 2013 than you do" line, and also when things are offered up as definitive facts rather than as areas for discussion.

Also, it's like you just ignored the points I was making in my posts. I made a case that we maximise against the depolarised parts of villain's range (straights, sets, two pair etc) by 3betting the turn - and in fact that if we do not do this then we actually make his turn raise a GOOD one vs our range, since he can then check back the river having got thin value and protection vs the hands that he beats. You have not addressed this at all.

Now maybe you are correct that villain almost never has these sort of hands in his raising range on the turn. I would tend to disagree, but that is fair enough. It is a difference of opinion, and a difference of experience.

I am seeking to maximise against the depolarised parts of his range, you are seeking to maximise against his zero equity bluffs. That is the essential difference in our suggested lines. I personally believe villain is likely to have a LOT more mid-strength hands that he is raising with than zero equity bluffs, but it is fine for you to disagree of course. I just don't like the dogmatic "I have more experience and therefore I am definitely right" type of stuff.

One thing to note is that if you are never 3betting the turn here then it makes it a GREAT spot for villain to make the 'free river showdown' play by raising the turn and then checking back the river. It gets value and protection when ahead, and also allows him to realise the equity of any semi-bluffs that he has since he always gets to see the river.

I enjoy discussing hands with you guys. But it feels like I am running into a non-constructive brick wall when I keep getting the same "we know more about how 50NL plays" line again and again.

Rant over. And I still <3 you Patrick xx

Yeah, but...

[dwayne110]

Lol kinboshi....

I think Suuprim summed it up well in that there's merits in playing it both ways... to say you should 'always' call the turn here and dismiss a realistic range including one pair , 2 pair, sets, weaker flush etc that our villain will continue with is incorrect.

And this is patronising to say the least!

Please consider villians whole range when you make this statement.If he had 0 bluffs in his range then go nuts, start piling more money
But its now 2013, lets keep our range as weak as possible and his range as wide as possible.
instead of hoping he "spazzes" with the bare Ah or something equally stupid that others have mentioned in this thread

[Honeybadger]

Another thing worth noting is the incorrect perception that players at a particular limit are some sort of homogenised mass, a group of drones playing the same way in all spots at all times. I think this is both disrespectful and completely untrue. And it will have a detrimental effect on your poker development if you persist in thinking of your opponents in this way. I have seen far too many comments in both this and other threads along the lines of, "these players are just all bad, they play their hands in such and such a way" etc etc.

You know something? Every player is an actual real-life person. Just like you and me. Your opponents are not all bad, and neither are they trapped in a meme; they are actually thinking about their plays and trying their best.

And here is another secret: people do not play their hands the same way every time in identical situations. A player might choose to call in a particular spot, and if he faced the identical spot in a parallel universe he might choose to raise. The input would be identical, but the output would be different. There is a lot more randomness to any decision than we realise. Someone termed this 'the law of loose wiring'. It is a brilliant concept and is really important for understanding exactly how poker works. And it applies to you too.

I think it is completely ridiculous to dismiss out of hand the chances of villain in this hand raising straights, sets, two pair, Ahx etc hands on the turn in the hand in question. Authoritatively stating, "Oh, 50NL players just don't do that" is the wrong way of thinking about poker, a dogmatic 'painting by numbers' approach. Population reads are one thing, but massive (over-) generalisations are another. And they are a hindrance to poker development, as well as a hindrance to playing individual hands well.

In my last online session I twice saw opponents (one at 200NL and one at 400NL) make analogous plays to villain's turn raise with a non-polarised range in this hand. Both times they had the equivalent of Ahx i.e. top pair plus a turned flush draw. I am not judging whether this is good play or bad play, I am just saying that this is what a lot of players do a lot of the time. They have a 'nice hand'... so they raise.

Now obviously your experience differs from mine, but how can you know with such absolute surety that 50NL guys never (rarely) do this sort of thing? It seems so reasonable to expect a lot of players to be raising these sort of hands on the turn.

Logically, it seems pretty clear that 3betting this turn maximises against every single part of villain's range except for his zero equity bluffs. So you have to be pretty damn sure that villain's range is made up of a large chunk of these zero-equity bluffs before you sacrifice your EV against every other part of his range in order to maximise versus this one discrete part. Tbh, I'd personally be surprised if most players have many zero-equity bluffs at all when facing a turn barrel on this board... whereas you obviously think that this is what their entire non-nutted range is composed of. It seems a pretty big assumption for you to make, and I don't think it is a good one either.

Finally, villain might very occasionally 4bet bluff-jam the turn vs a small 3bet (spazz equity). And also, when you just flat his raise he will not always bluff the river. This just means that you need to be even surer of your authoritative assumption that villain only ever has (effective) nuts or air here.

[pleno1]

Another thing worth noting is the incorrect perception that players at a particular limit are some sort of homogenised mass, a group of drones playing the same way in all spots at all times. I think this is both disrespectful and completely untrue. And it will have a detrimental effect on your poker development if you persist in thinking of your opponents in this way. I have seen far too many comments in both this and other threads along the lines of, "these players are just all bad, they play their hands in such and such a way" etc etc.

But it's absolutely true, trying to play completely balanced and playing perfectly according to GTO will just be a huge leak, if you have a lot of reads on a player, ie a big sample size then of course you wouldn't treat him "the same" as you would adjust to his stats, but in general you have to make assumptions, and the correct assumption is that 50/100nl regs play v v similarly.

I'm not going to go in and quote your other post as its long and we wont get anything out of it, but apologies for the initial few posts the "callum is right" could/shove have been expanded, just generally v busy so probably wanted to input somewhat.

Now maybe you are correct that villain almost never has these sort of hands in his raising range on the turn. I would tend to disagree, but that is fair enough. It is a difference of opinion, and a difference of experience.

I am seeking to maximise against the depolarised parts of his range, you are seeking to maximise against his zero equity bluffs. That is the essential difference in our suggested lines. I personally believe villain is likely to have a LOT more mid-strength hands that he is raising with than zero equity bluffs, but it is fine for you to disagree of course. I just don't like the dogmatic "I have more experience and therefore I am definitely right" type of stuff.

yeah this is the main point, and i assume somethng we will just never agree on so no point debating in the hand anymore, but "from experience" which is actually looking into 30m+ hands for a specific project as well as just railing/watching friends play I think categorizing these guys is good. If you just decide to play "perfectly gto wise" until you get a sample then its very likely that you will bleed a lot of potential money as generally regs at a certain stake play very similarly.

I guess if I told you that I get in X range vs opponent on one site with a different range to the same range vs a similarly unknown opponent on another site you wouldn't be best pleased?

[Honeybadger]

I have not talked about game theory in any of my posts ITT. So I have no idea where you get that from! You seem to be under the misperception that I only think about poker in game theory terms, and nothing could be further from the truth.

In my posts I am suggesting that 3betting is the best exploitative play vs villain's range as I perceive it to be. Nothing to do with theory, just common or garden exploitative play.

We just disagree about whether players are raising straights, sets, two pairs etc on this turn.

You would agree, I assume, that if we do give him a depolarised raising range then the best play is to 3bet? And that flatting the raise is ONLY the best play in the very specific circumstance that villain's range is heavily polarised i.e. comprised almost entirely of nutted hands or air hands?

You are pretty fond of saying something is a 'huge leak' (I remember you once told me with absolute certainty that it was a huge leak in my game that I never cold 5bet AJo from the BB). Well, I personally think that not 3betting this turn is a 'huge leak', without very strong and specific reads. It is just FPS unless you have a very clear reason, based on a read/dynamic with that particular opponent OR if you have a ridiculously accurate population read. You are making a MASSIVE adjustment from the clearly best exploitative play vs a reasonable sounding raising range - and this adjustment is only good if you are extremely certain of your general population read that most players are completely polarised when they raise the turn here. I just don't think you can be anywhere near that certain, and in fact tbh I flat out think your population read is wrong. In position things change obv, but OOP doing anything other than 3betting is a 'huge leak' IMO.

There... it sort of feels good to state things in such arbitrarily certain fashion!

Please read my last post again though, because it has some general points that go beyond the hand in question and that I think are important.

Edit: And no, I don't think there is anything wrong with having different population reads on regs at different sites, and adjusting your ranges appropriately. This is fine obviously.

[pleno1]

We just disagree about whether players are raising straights, sets, two pairs etc on this turn.

You would agree, I assume, that if we do give him a depolarised raising range then the best play is to 3bet? And that flatting the raise is ONLY the best play in the very specific circumstance that villain's range is heavily polarised i.e. comprised almost entirely of nutted hands or air hands?

Yeah and yeah.


[quote author=pleno1 link=topic=60315.msg1720620#msg1720620

yeah this is the main point, and i assume somethng we will just never agree on so no point debating in the hand anymore

[/quote]

Lets just forget about this hand altogether for a second. The main problem we have here is that we disagree on something that is v important in terms of giving advice on low stakes hands.

Population reads at 50nl are IMO super important, if this hand was at a higher stake then we would, generally, be in full agreement. Don't get me wrong, this isn't somethng I take light in any shape or form, I really, really believe in it. I currently solely hold the biggest poker seminar in the world (not a brag) for a company that I represent and I would say the advice is given mainly on population tendencies and how to play against opponents at certain stakes.


re: AJ hand, I most likely think differently now , if you could link me that would be greatly appreciated

It looks like we are having a squabbel or something stupid here, but its definitely not as far as I can see, we were actually just discussing about how important a certain factor is (population tendencies) and because we disagreed completely, it obviously means we would disagree with a lot of hands, but still probably agree on a lot more.

As always I agree with 95% of the stuff in your posts and don't think its close that you are best theorist in pha. By "theorist" I just mean in terms of your quality of posts rather than your thinking of the game as I know your recent posts haven't spoke about "theory" Guess thats why you made the advent calendar and I didn't.

xx

[Honeybadger]

I don't consider us to be having a squabble at all Patrick. Just a disagreement on a hand, as well as a discussion about certain general poker concepts. Disagreements and discussions are good!

Only thing that I was a 'bit strong' about was regarding some of the ways you and Callum post (especially the 'please think about his entire range' and the 'no reason to raise' with no further comments etc), and, by extension, some of the attitudes that you seem to have about your opponents ('they are all bad', 'they all do things in this way' etc etc). I stand by what I said and think it is a 'huge leak' of yours lol But apart from that, I enjoy debating hands with you. And I enjoy it because we often seem to disagree on them!

BTW, I have no problem at all with using population reads versus unknown regs. This is better than simply playing GTO obviously. However, I just disagree with your population read. But we have already agreed to disagree on this, so let's leave it at that!

Only thing I will say is that you had better be pretty damn sure of your population read in this spot! Because, as you have agreed, your suggested line ONLY works if this read is extremely accurate. It is a very substantial departure from the logically best exploitative play vs any range other than the one you are certain that villain has. And thus you are risking losing a LOT of value if your read is not highly accurate.

For giggles, here is the thread where you told me it is a leak not to cold 5bet AJo:

http://blondepoker.com/forum/index.php?topic=58952.0

Over and out now, got to go and play some poker

[SuuPRlim]

wow I'm such a nit.

[JustinSayne]

I guess if I told you that I get in X range vs opponent on one site with a different range to the same range vs a similarly unknown opponent on another site you wouldn't be best pleased?

Such a huge statement that is infact 100% justified

[JustinSayne]

Only thing that I was a 'bit strong' about was regarding some of the ways you and Callum post (especially the 'please think about his entire range' and the 'no reason to raise' with no further comments etc), and, by extension, some of the attitudes that you seem to have about your opponents ('they are all bad', 'they all do things in this way' etc etc). I stand by what I said and think it is a 'huge leak' of yours lol But apart from that, I enjoy debating hands with you. And I enjoy it because we often seem to disagree on them!

Hard for me to say this without coming off as a prick. So please take it at face value.

Normally short/quick answers like this are because the spot (in my eyes) is simple, or the point I am trying to make is simple. It should not require any elaboration. The same way we type "50p" when a guy posts a obvious cooler.

Same sort of applies for the generic reads we apply to players. I imagine if you took the population of 50nl and analysed them, you would find a hell of a lot of very strong trends in how they play certain parts of their range and so on.

For example, vs I would say 70%+ of 50nl regs, we can use extremely face up "thin value" sizing on rivers when a flush completes and we are holding <Flush without fear of them turning weak bluff catchers into a bluff. They simply dont do it often enough and much perfer the middle button in these situations. There are literally hundreds of these examples you can throw around.

Admittedly they certainly wont always be right, but they will be more so than they will be wrong.

[Honeybadger]

I get what you are saying Callum. But the thing is... in the hand in question what you were recommending was anything but an obvious 'standard line' which required little explanation. On the contrary, your recommendation was a serious deviation from the most logical best play and was only justifiable based on a very specific population read, and a rather non-standard (and certainly not 'obviously true') read at that! Without this specific read your recommended line would be pure FPS. And thus it is absolutely not the sort of recommendation you can just give as a pithy one-liner.

The other issue is to do with the tone you chose to use in your posts. All this 'the raise responses are tilting me' and 'something equally stupid that others have said' is just disrespectful. And I personally didn't like it when (for the second time on PHA) you gave me the 'please think about villain's entire range' line. It's such an easy and glib comment to make, and it could actually make a less confident poster doubt themselves and feel like they don't have the right to disagree with you because you are thinking oh so much more deeply than them. Obviously I did not think that - I was somewhere between amused and annoyed that you said this to me. I may be an old git, but I DO think about opponents ranges... who knows, maybe at least as deeply as you do!

I just re-read the above paragraph and I realise it sounds a bit harsh. I am not going to go back and edit it to make it a bit softer because I am on my iPhone and because I am sure you will understand that it is meant in good spirit and with no malice or bad feeling intended.

[SuuPRlim]

I think i'd call btw.