Two Plus Two Newer Archives - Poker is a game of accidents

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Poker is a game of accidents

I just feel like doing a bit of poker writing, there isn't a real goal here except to flush through some of my pretty basic thoughts:

Whether facing a three-bet, river bet, flop checkraise, whatever, both players in the hand have some idea of their opponents range, and an idea of their perceived range to their opponent. The perfect situation is one where you can accurately guess your opponents range, but your opponent's perception of your range is way off. The best players are one that are strong hand readers, and are ones whose opponents always "guess" wrong.

In high stakes poker, your opponents are the same. The idea is to oscillate lines and betting frequencies so that if you are a tight player you are actually bluffing more than people expect--and if you are a loose player you actually show up with the goods more than people expect. The best players are usually described as 'murky modifier' tight/loose. Something like: "He is kinda tight usually" or "He's out of his mind loose but never when I look him up".

No one has been more successful in the history of online poker than Aba. He is excellent at making reads in big pots, and is also excellent at making people guess wrong in the big pots. He generally works around a tight image, but will speed up or slow down and make you feel uncomfortable. GoG is the same way--the best players I've ever played seem to always work from a tight image. I think in the current state of online poker, you are able to get an opponent to be further off guessing your range/frequencies starting from a tight image. Prahlad (back in his online poker prime) was the example of the opposite approach.

The beauty of high stakes poker is not only this constant deception which is required to be successful, but the fact that many people get rich by "accident". I use quotations because they are, in fact, trying to get rich, but they become successful doing something they don't understand. Imagine if I was trapped in a forest, and I was trying to make a fire. All day I hit sticks and rocks together and no spark came. Then one day as I went to get a drink, I farted and this one special plant combusted and within 10 seconds an acre of forest was burning. And from then on out, when I wanted fire, I'd just fart on this plant and say 'wow look how good i am at making fires!'

Examples of this are endless. You saw a wave of players making catastrophic preflop 'mistakes', and then overcompensating with extremely aggressive postflop moves and the overall package was very devastating. You saw waves of players reraising a ridiculous range preflop (hello me) and being rewarded when people didn't play back nearly enough or whatever. I also see stuff like a player check raising top pair against me on the flop and then calling an all in--which from a poker theory standpoint is probably a big leak--unless of course the opponent is far moving in far too liberally on the flop.

The thing is, I feel like lots of people do things well but on accident. While they think they are 'raising for information' or something, they are actually inducing a bluff from an overaggressive player who plays back too much at flop raises. Or while they think 35s is a good drawing hand and that is it reasonable to put in 15% of your chips preflop with it, they are actually applying pressure to a player that is not comfortable playing big pots with 'marginal' holdings. Etc. When the "right mistake" meets the perfect situation, a player gets rich by "accident". You get the point.

These accidents are not always accidents, of course. But big money is involved with poker, and with money comes smarts. All of these examples of successful accidents are exploitable, and the brainpower that poker attracts can solve these problems. I, moreso than many other players, am guilty of not being dynamic enough in my style. I see players playing against me very well recently--and I struggle to break free from my 10-20 party bukkake style. I challenge everyone interested in improving to look at elements in their game that are evolutionary developments of successful accidents given a certain game condition, and as to whether they still belong in your game. If you look real closely, its the subtle, slightly tricky elements that make the Aba's of the world rich. As the games get tougher, there will be less and less successful accidents.

-Jason