blitzing on third and long and the problem with poker forum advice

[Truthiness24]

btw, Pete, law school does suck. Get out while you can.

[Troll_Inc]

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Consider that online lots of folks are looking for the "right" answer because they are either thinking only on the 1st level, or they want to know the play to maximize EV+. There is almost always an answer (a consensus) on this level.


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I completely disagree that game theory doesn't have a place even at the low limits (especially now-a-days).

Here is just one example that I run into all the time at loose passive preflop and super tight postflop. Basically no one raises, everyone sees the flop, and you need a really good hand to proceed because any pair or two pair will call you down.

The first time you have the button, you raise full pot. It will almost always be checked around to you on the flop. Well, since you know that you better have hit the flop you check it. Then on the turn, someone who was waiting to checkraise (with a flopped top set or something) you bets pot so fast you can't believe the speed of the internet.

Well the very next hand, you raise pot and everyone calls so now you have 5 people seeing the flop. Well people know that you aren't necessarily going autobet on the flop like most do, so if they have something they will bet it.

I see this all the time at PLO25. By the time we hit the third instance often both you and they will be employing a mixed strategy, i.e. you are practising game theory. I'm quite sure all the games you medium stakes knuckleheads are playing has the same sort of situations where you actually are employing game theory, you just probably don't understand that that is what you are doing as is abundantly clear from your Hand Analyses.

[cmyr]

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I've never read a book on game theory. Can you refer me to a book or a site that would be accessible to a newbie?


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checkout 'the mathematics of poker', which just came out recently... applies game theoretical stuff specifically to poker, which is neat.

[mosta]

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.....and especially now post-legislation, where the merely good players are the new fish. Especially when as listed in reason #1, they won't get much in return, and will just be feeding free strategy to lazy datamining stat-whores who use hyper multi-tabling trawling to maximize their earn.



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"...and then I'm going to kill all the dirty whores."

[Subfallen]

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My friend and all of these forum posters are wrong. For every difficult situation against even slightly observant opponents, the "best" play is the optimal mixed strategy, not any one of the plays that it contains, no matter how much more +e.v. they may be than others.

While this may seem like a mere semantic distinction, it has very specific consequences. E.g., in the optimal mixed strategy, the most +e.v. play may not be the play you should make most often, or even often at all.

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The sentiment of your post is excellent, but the quoted text is 100% wrong. By definition, all strategic branches in an optimal mixed strategy must have the same EV. Otherwise you could improve on your supposed "optimal" strategy by replacing the lower EV branches with the higher EV branch.

You should def read The Mathematics of Poker. Chen & Ankemann actually feel that there are very few situations/hands requiring mixed strategies in poker, and that optimal play uses pure strategies almost exclusively.

Good post tho.

Edit - I think what you meant to say is that message board analysis often arrives at the best play assuming the metagame induced by overall near-optimal play. A good example of this would be HSNL telling a weak-tight SSNL nit to make a thin value bet. The nit can't imagine a worse hand calling him, so he'll disagree, and actually be right: the nit shouldn't make the "correct" play because his suboptimal overall strategy creates overriding metagme considerations.

[Truthiness24]

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Chen & Ankemann actually feel that there are very few situations/hands requiring mixed strategies in poker, and that optimal play uses pure strategies almost exclusively.

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I haven't read this, but this was exactly my point. Against a table full opponents with a clue (i.e. you), I would use all levels of game theory, and if I were to strike the right chord it would show on the bottom line. I am an inferior player to most of you, and it would take every trick in the book for me to chalk up a W against a table full of you guys.

Fortunately, that never happens. Against OPs without much of a clue (the rest of the world), I think that the "optimal" play is best 99% of the time -- until you have them trained like a drooling dog and you hit them with the okey-doke (troll's example). This occasion comes up a lot less than it would seem, and often I (and, I suspect you) shake our heads that our "move" or "play" didn't work. It didn't work becase you overestimated the thought process going on in the brain cell across the table.

Because (especially online) tables are so fluid, and because fish don't really learn like you might think they do, it seems best, like I said, not to get too clever. (Except, of course, when you do.)

To be sure, this employs game theory -- I do understand what that basically involves, even if I've never read a book about it. To tie it all together, I am saying that most circumstances in poker require a much more conservative application of game theory. Overthinking -- getting too clever -- can be costly.

[Truthiness24]

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I think what you meant to say is that message board analysis often arrives at the best play assuming the metagame induced by overall near-optimal play.

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Exactly.

[pete fabrizio]

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My friend and all of these forum posters are wrong. For every difficult situation against even slightly observant opponents, the "best" play is the optimal mixed strategy, not any one of the plays that it contains, no matter how much more +e.v. they may be than others.

While this may seem like a mere semantic distinction, it has very specific consequences. E.g., in the optimal mixed strategy, the most +e.v. play may not be the play you should make most often, or even often at all.

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The sentiment of your post is excellent, but the quoted text is 100% wrong. By definition, all strategic branches in an optimal mixed strategy must have the same EV. Otherwise you could improve on your supposed "optimal" strategy by replacing the lower EV branches with the higher EV branch.


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I think I just addressed this briefly in another post. I'm certain that your bolded text here is wrong, especially so when your opponent isn't playing game-theoretically perfect poker.

[Subfallen]

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My friend and all of these forum posters are wrong. For every difficult situation against even slightly observant opponents, the "best" play is the optimal mixed strategy, not any one of the plays that it contains, no matter how much more +e.v. they may be than others.

While this may seem like a mere semantic distinction, it has very specific consequences. E.g., in the optimal mixed strategy, the most +e.v. play may not be the play you should make most often, or even often at all.

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The sentiment of your post is excellent, but the quoted text is 100% wrong. By definition, all strategic branches in an optimal mixed strategy must have the same EV. Otherwise you could improve on your supposed "optimal" strategy by replacing the lower EV branches with the higher EV branch.


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I think I just addressed this briefly in another post. I'm certain that your bolded text here is wrong, especially so when your opponent isn't playing game-theoretically perfect poker.

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Lol, I'm certain I'm right because I'm simply giving a definition, not an opinion.

From this thread in the Special Sklansky Forum, Jerrod Ankenman says

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It's probably true that there is a little bit of blurring near the threshold hands, to prevent the opponent from exploiting cards that come on future streets. This is probably limited to just a few hands. But my opinion is that the bulk of hands throughout the tree are pure. The reason is that if a hand is mixed, then playing it both ways has to have equal equity, and I just don't think that broad swaths of hands are indifferent between two actions.

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Trust me, read Mathematics of Poker. You'll find it thoroughly enjoyable (and educational [img]/images/graemlins/tongue.gif[/img].)

[goodluck2me]

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I think what you meant to say is that message board analysis often arrives at the best play assuming the metagame induced by overall near-optimal play.

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Exactly.

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could someone elaborate as to what this means plz?