A bluff 400NL

[Jamougha]

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

[snip 2200 words]



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ROTFLMAO

[TheWorstPlayer]

He also said he's not one of the top posters here and that he may likely be wrong about many of the things he's saying. So basically he said a lot of things that were completely wrong. But nothing about poker.

[Big_Jim]

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

...Short novel on levels of thinking...

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[img]/images/graemlins/smile.gif[/img]

Nice post.

[punter11235]

MDMA thanks for taking the time to write that post. Basically I understand your approach. I have two points to add :
-Its never correct to "bluff a little less" or "bluff a little" more its in general correct to always bluff or never bluff if we can say sth about strategy our opponent is using (in particular hand) and if we cant determine if our opponent is too loose or too tight we still can always bluff or always value bet .. the only situation which require any kind of randomizing (or "balancing") is against opponent who is good at reading our mind.
-therefore I think "balancing your play" should be done as bluffing if our opponent may start to think we are too tight and not bluffing if our opponent may start to think we are too loose (or whatever other reasons he can have to bluff more or bluff less). Of course we preferably should be making biggest bets possible because the mistakes after those bets will be in general (not alwayas) the biggest.
-I agree with you that in general bigger bets are better in those situations (they are better even if perfect opponents play each other)
-Actually adjective as "too tight " or "too loose" might be misleading. Its entirely possible that its often correct for somebody to fold to our bluff mroe then 50% of the time because river card is such that now our range is ahead of his hand then we should bluff even against perfect opponent (and we should always bluff not just sometimes). What I am saying and believing in is that we should always try to determine if he will fold enough or call enough and then go with our assesment. We should never do stuff just for matter of balancing itself.

Well I of course I can be wrong as Iam nowhere near being good at this game. I would love to see somebody pointing mistakes in my thinking.
It seems that we have a nice little thread now [img]/images/graemlins/wink.gif[/img]

[MDMA]

Yeah of course if we can always determine whether someone is calling more or less than 50% of the time (with a potsized bet, of course, otherwise a different frequency is of interest), then clearly always bluffing/never bluffing is obviously easy to determine just for the pure value of the bluff/not bluffing; what we aren't taking into consideration is the added value when you get called for value in the same spot, and that is why we cannot differentiate the plays, or well we can, but it won't do us much good most of the time. The pure ev- or ev+ of bluffing is simply not interesting if you are not taking into account the added value you get of all your valuebets in the same situation. I mean, sure, regardless of our valuebets we can determine that if they are folding more than 50% of the time, then simply bluffing is ev+ and the valuebets are simply an added bonus regardless of your ratio for them (the ratio of course being 100% and this is in fact irrelevant since the bet itself, regardless of handvalue, is ev+ in itself), whereas if the fact is that he is calling >50% then the ratio of bluffing should obviously be 0%.

I understand what you are meaning, and it's just a simple misunderstanding caused by me not explaining exactly what I meant; e.g, that we don't know a fixed frequency calling frequency for our opponent, or rather we make an assessment whether he is calling "a lot" or "not very often" (compared to ourselves or some other reference point of use), but we are still uncertain as to whether he's calling enough, or not often enough as to whether a bluff in itself would always be correct, or never be correct. And, because of us not knowing whether he crosses that "line", we need the whole value of the play, including the value of our valuebets, since they allow us to be a bit wrong in our assessments, and give him more reasonably wide frequency ranges. A lot of times, however, we can be fairly sure someone IS folding too much or not enough, and in those cases, then what you are saying is definately correct.

Also, most importantly, by bluffing less/more I wasn't really discussing one specific situation (since as you say for every one isolated event, balanced or not, there is always a correct decision in always or never bluffing, but given our limited information that decision is nearly always obscured for us and often marginal enough that the value of our valuebets is what tips it over to either side.) I was rather discussing the situations as a whole against the whole range of players, where bluffing less or more would correlate to their average frequencies as a whole, where every one specific player always has a "definate answer", whereas against the whole range one could express oneself in terms of bluffing more or less often.

You are of course correct in your second point; it is very often so that he should be folding more than 50% of the time because our whole range is ahead of his, and that we in this particular scenario should be bluffing 100% as you correctly state; that is, however, not really because we are in fact bluffing one time or another; it is rather because we, on balance, simply has a better hand then he does enough times that calling simply isn't profitable for him, regardless of our actual holding in the specific hand.

In the end, I think the thread turned out fine as well, and I think you made some really good points which made me think as well, thank you for that.

I still want to carve out FeltBelts heart with a spoon, but at least all of us other writers in the thread made an interesting read together.

[FeltBelt]

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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.

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So let me get this straight. You have to write this novel to refute my position, and it's clear from what you've said that it is STILL a close argument with valid points to be made on both sides.

Your position is essentially that metagame reasons impel one to make the all in here because of the magnification of the mistakes (of both kinds, calling and folding) that the larger bet will engender and because of future hand considerations against not just this player but others.

My position has been that in this hand against this player there is an optimal play. I believe his range for calling the all in and folding is so similar to his range for calling and folding to a $150 bet that the extra risk of the all in (about $150 more) doesn't make the play +EV, even when metagame considerations are factored in (primarily because of the transiency of most opponents at this limit, and their lack of response at a metagame level to such plays).

Once I said this, you decided to write some short, unhelpful posts deriding me and essentially telling me I know nothing about poker. You continued to do it in this little mini essay, because I guess you just can't help yourself. But the one thing that is crystal clear from this thread is that there are good arguments to be made on both sides, and that the decision is, in fact, likely a close one. So instead of telling me I'm garbage and assuming because I have 50 posts that I just picked up poker a few days ago, you could have taken the time to explain your position clearly and in detail. Instead, you decided that telling me I was crap was the way to go, and assumed I was some arrogant prick who wouldn't (or couldn't) see the logic in your ideas. I can and do see it, even if I disagree with its application at these stakes.

If you'd given me something to work with from the beginning, we could have had a productive exchange. As it is, I think you've got some anger issues you need to work out, I think you need to write clearer and more detailed posts when you're trying to get across a complex idea, and I think the practice of telling other posters they don't know anything about the game is totally counterproductive. Notice that at no point did I ever assert that you were an idiot or that you knew nothing about poker--I told you I thought your posts were rubbish, and until this one, they were. And you, in turn, think I am an arrogant newbie know-it-all who doesn't understand NL poker and makes a point of being an ass about it on message boards. Unfortunately for me, that couldn't be farther from the truth, but this thread has, I think, brought out the worst in both of us.

I look forward to reading your posts in the future, as you've obviously got something to contribute to my growth as a player. I just hope they're focused on bringing out your knowledge instead of belittling that of those reading and responding to you.

[LegallyBlind]

Lurkerinox,

quite a response you got for your first thread, eh?

[ahnuld]

go live in the vacum you pretend everything about this hand occurs in feltbelt.

[zeero3]

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...was me explaining how MoronBelt reasoned

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He doesn't agree so he's a moron? Credibility out the window???

[bent96]

I say what I think about this hand after I read all the other posts. So call me in a month or two.

Seriously this thread is gold!