[MDMA]

I'm getting bored to death by this thread and have no intention of saying much more.

Punter, I don't really think you fully comprehend what I'm saying; making the "optimal" play against one TYPE of opponent (do notice the word TYPE, I'm not saying a SPECIFIC opponent; if we had a SPECIFIC opponent that would, FOR EXAMPLE, like TWP said, fold to a 150-bet because in his mind that is a value-bet, whereas a push (300) is a bluff, then you would OBVIOUSLY bet 150 w/ a bluff and push only for value, without even bothering balancing stuff; there would be no need since he's bad enough that we dont NEED to balance it until he catches on, and at that point he's not, in the same sense, a "bad" static player anymore and not as exploitable as before.)

But, against the broad majority of players, without knowing any on of these SPECIFICALLY (and provided that they are neither calling too much, nor folding too much, since if they did the "optimal" bluffing frequency wouldn't be correct since you would simply make more by bluffing less often if they call too much and vice versa), then HOW do you punish people the most here? Well, by making their mistakes as costly as possible. First of all, in the unlikely event that they would be calling both bets as often (but you don't exactly HOW often) (which ISN'T realistical against the broad majority of players just because of simple betsize and psychological reasons), then you of course should go with the bigger bet and a lower bluffing frequency (simply because knowing a lesser bluffing frequency is correct makes it easier to not make big mistakes; when a small amount of bluffing is optimal, then you'd be making a smaller mistake if you didn't bluff at all, than if you knew you should be bluffing a lot. This of course because while knowing he calls as much for both sizes, but not knowing exactly HOW often this is, you can still be sure that you should be bluffing less when making the bigger bet, and thus minimize your marginal for mistake.)

In the case that they would call the small bet more often (and of course obviously with weaker hands), then it doesnt matter if you bet big, or bet less (in which case you need to valuebet MORE hands, or bluff less often). What does change, however, is that since you'd need to valuebet MORE hands to achieve the same value, or bluff less often, you will also face the problem where you will think you are valuebetting but instead are betting into a better hand, which makes matters more difficult for you.

The key to the idea here is that basically every hand your opponent will call with here will only beat a bluff, and with betting the smaller amount, since you'd naturally need to value bet more hands to achive the same ev+, that issue will become a problem for you. If you bluff less often and still valuebet the same few hands, then you'd get paid of less (but more often), and wouldn't be able to bluff as much. Also

Obviously, if their calling frequency would be proportional to the betsizes here, then the decision won't really matter, since it doesn't matter if you're getting called twice as often for the smaller bet. You would just adjust your frequency of bluffing to that and you'd turn out with the same ev.

Theoretically it would be no difference; practically, however, this is simply never true for anyone, and also, people actually have minds. They will CHANGE their frequencies, and so would you. Of course their is always, for every specific player, a perfect betsize and a perfect bluffing frequency at which they will make the most costly mistake; problem is that we of course can never know where that line is drawn.

Then, how does going allin figure to be the best play? Well, basically because players aren't linear in the sense I explained above; they do not call half the bet twice as much, it's not as simple as that. And if that isn't the case, then you will very likely have to start valuebetting MORE hands out of your range, and, as I said above, that gets much more trickier than just using hands that will either be a good or will be a bluff, instead of trying to valuebet hands that will often be called by a better hand, which IS harder.

Also, I can almost guarantee that the vast majority of bad players are not simply thinking of proportional bets and frequencies; they are thinking of the simple size in terms of $ for a bet. Although some, as TWP said, will start to think that a $150 is a valuebet and a push is much more likely to be a bluff, and vice versa, I'm almost positive that the guys intimidated not by the bet size in proportion to the pot, but rather by the sheer size of the bet not correlated to anything else, will make the costliest error simply because they will fold so much more to that bet (maybe even hands that might have beaten hands we were SURE we were valuebeting with), and still not call proportionally twice as often for half the size of the bet, to the extent that they just might be making so big mistakes that they would fold hands we never thought they'd fold and that would actually have beaten us some of our very limited range of "value hands" if we hade bet the exact same hands but for half the price. Obviously, thats very unlikely, but just the possibility of it, and peoples tendencies to make mistakes when facing big bets in general should just tip it over ever so slightly. This basically means that against most players, you will, in most cases, have to start valuebet more hands if you go for half the price, with the added difficulty of getting called by better hands when you thought you were betting for value.

Also, as described above, the smaller percentage you need to bluff (in most games), the lesser your marginal of error likely becomes. This put together with reality, e.g people changing their frequncies, will make you realize that if people would call both bets equally often, then you'd need to up your bluffing frequency should you decide to value bet the same hands as with the big bet, and, at least for me, that constitutes a possibility for a larger mistake simply because bluffing less is more simple than when theory calls for me to make much more bluffs and when I've might miscalcuated his calling range.

This last two paragraphs aren't entirely theoretically correct since if games we're instead ultratight in general, then bluffing just a little bit to less might cost as much, this of course because in an ultratight game, most of your value wouldn't be coming from your valuebets, but from your bluffs.

Instead, I said this knowing that bad players are just generally making bad calls more often than bad folds.

You made some good points punter, but you are falling into the trap of "infinite levels of thinking", one can go on and on and always be one step ahead of your opposition/outplay him, but at what point will you go ahead one step further while he may not, resulting in that your "brilliant" play against the next level of thinking instead becomes wrong. Your "if they realize that we change again and if they realize that we change again and again and so on and so forth" illustrates this perfectly. If one were to discuss poker like that, every hand would turn out to be that of samoleus KK; that was one example were, even if felt right to him, it's still going to be to go one step to far. I know you defended yourself against this argument by saying that you have to be better at realizing when to change than your opponent, but I'm not only speaking of playing against a player THAT much worse, but also against the slightly worse of two brilliant players; it's hard to distungish at which level you should "end up" before it gets unrealistical to go further. Generally, that point is quite early in the "levels of thinking".

You are, however, in fact right that between two perfect players, the optimal play between these players will constantly shift due to both of them adapting to every action taken by the other, and thus, the perfect play will change after every action. E.g, they will shift their frequencies constantly to find what they believe is the "optimal" frequency against the opponent at the point of the next decision.

Well, theoretically that isn't true either, just because of guys like John Nash and game theory, a "perfect" strategy that wouldn't need mixing up and/or changing of frequencies regardless of what you opponent did to try to counter it, but although we can accept that is exists, it's basically impossible for us, at this point, to understand HOW it would look like, with all factors coming into play in poker.

People have to understand that general tendencies, and the general metagame of a current level, of players are also very important to your decisions. You have to think about what a lot of other players somewhat like you have done against your one particular opponent, what the popular plays currently are etc (that is what metagame is all about), and adjust to that as well. That is why you just cannot disregard everything and believe you can find a perfect play against this opponent WITHOUT taking balancing and stuff like that into consideration; it's not just balancing against this specific player, it's balancing against ALL players that resemble him, and how they would react in this spot, and how they have reacted at players of your skill before.

I can very well agree with a bluff being bad, if the general concensus is that people like this one call too much at these levels, like TWP said. If that is the case, then bluffing is bad, and you should STILL push your aces and kings; balancing isn't an issue at that point, and it is in no way contradictory. You use their most basic mistake against them at the most primitive level of all. They call too much, you bet it all with good hands, and you NEVER bluff. As soon as they start changing, that's a whole new area, but at that point, their arent as fundamentally flawed as they were when you made your initial decision, and at this point, the metagame has surely changed as well.

A lot of guys made some good points here, for example, punters observations wasn't bad all, just a bit oversimplified/non-realistic in some ways, but they are still definately pertinent to the situation/problem at hand, and I recommend that people read them. I am in no way perfect and might very well be wrong regarding a lot of things here. The only person I felt did not contribute at all is "FeltBelt", who also happens to be the sole reason I'm even writing all of this.

A guy coming in with 50 posts feeling like he knows all there is to know about poker after reading about potodds, feeling that everyone else is just stupid and doesn't understand [censored] and definately makes this known to all of "lost souls" who needs enlightenment is just sad. There is a reason most people who starts to post have been lurking for a while. They simply KNOW that a lot of guys knows more than they do, and accordingly, they read up before the go about acting like Mr KnowItAll and just makes fools out of themselves.

I am in no way near the best poster at this forum, and there are probably a lot of concepts the best guys here would never wan't to explain on an open board, things I probably have no idea of, at least not yet. I'm just trying to actually contribute with what I can, and when I get that kind of [censored] from people that are so clearly clueless to anyone but themselves, I just feel like giving up posting altogether.

Now, I'm done with this thread, and this text might very well be FULL of irregularities, faults and non-logical deductions, but frankly, I dont care. Do what you will with it, I haven't corrected it and I don't intend to. I am, as I've stated before, not native american/english, and english has never been my first language, hence a lot of what I wrote will most likely be misinterpreted just because of my limited knowledge of the english language.

Heh, kind of ironic; I started out saying "..and have no intention of saying much more". I guess I was wrong. Now, however, I am done.

That is all.