TOP: Fundamental Theorem discussion.

[dd323]

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I also find it funny that the first time I've seen this part of TOP dismissed so easily is on the SSNL board.

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I didnt want to be the first to say it, but, yeah.

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Are people really dismissing it in this thread?


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Note in my next post, my trepidation to even mention it. Also, it wasn't that they were questioning it, its that as someone who is pretty new to poker (like me), I first think, "ok I'm probably missing something" before jumping to I think the FTOP is missing something. I would have phrased it as "How does this justify bluffing? I can't see it." Maybe thats just me.

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In general, the FTOP is a good rule to start from. I'm just saying that there are times when our opponents are SO bad that seeing our cards would not help them on a particular play.


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This is certainly true in some situations, but I think even against the biggest donk, you would be in pretty bad shape if they could see your cards and they couldn't see theirs.

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Let me raise a different, but related thought: preflop reraises. In considering the FTOP, I've concluded that I need to either reraise preflop MORE often or LESS often. Currently, I only make this play 1% of the time or so. Usually, my reraise means I've got AA-JJ, and sometimes I'll even smooth-call with those. Occasionally, I'll reraise with a weaker hand if the original raiser has a wide range and I know he is capable of folding, either to this bet or a continuation bet. Unfortunately, I don't pull that trigger often enough. As a result, my preflop reraises reveal a tremendous amount about my hands, which allows my opponents to play much closer to the FTOP optimum.

How should I mix up my preflop reraise play in order to encourage my opponents to make more FTOP mistakes? What sorts of hands should I preflop reraise? What sorts of table conditions are important? What sorts of issues should I consider?

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I think this is a very good point, and I think most of us are pretty guilty of this. I think in Super System, Doyle recommends playing AK like AA-KK mostly as a randomizing agent in these cases. If your opponent is the weak-tight, I like re-raising with suited connectors too. Remember, its expensive, but you only need to get caught once for people not to trust your re-raises (and maybe not even once if you show your hand when they lay down).

[RussianBear]

How does Doyle recommend playing AK like AA-KK? He advises to open raise with it in EP but to open limp with AA-KK in order to reraise. He will always get his money in preflop with AA-KK if given the opportunity, such is not the case with AK. In MP, if someone had brought it in he'd just call with AK, whereas he'd raise with AA or KK.
In fact, in discussing how to play Ak on page 474 of Super System (page 585 in SSII) when there are three to a straight or flush, etc. "You might have noticed that this is quite different from the way I'd play two Aces or two Kings." I'll let you read on.

[dd323]

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How does Doyle recommend playing AK like AA-KK? He advises to open raise with it in EP but to open limp with AA-KK in order to reraise. He will always get his money in preflop with AA-KK if given the opportunity, such is not the case with AK. In MP, if someone had brought it in he'd just call with AK, whereas he'd raise with AA or KK.
In fact, in discussing how to play Ak on page 474 of Super System (page 585 in SSII) when there are three to a straight or flush, etc. "You might have noticed that this is quite different from the way I'd play two Aces or two Kings." I'll let you read on.

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Come on, the discussion was regarding pre-flop re-raising, not post flop play.

[Manta]

Hi y’all,
I’m new here, and have benefited tremendously from 2+2, so I’ll try to contribute something here by trying to explain the way I think about FTOP. My perspective is heavily influenced by the scarring too much math studies have caused. To me, it is a game-theoretical/mathematical statement that is true under the assumptions that it includes.

I'll give a post-flop example.

So: assume that we know mine and my opponent’s cards. We also know the three flop cards.

Now we can write down all my possible plays with some kind of code, for example b1 if I bet, f if I fold r3 if I raise $3, etc. If I'm second we can write Or3-c to mean that if my opponent raises $3 I will call. Because we have finite stacks this can be done (although the list will be very long).

We can do this for all combinations of turn and river cards (45*44=1980 combinations). The list will be huge, but it can still be done.

We then do the same for my opponent, and then create a HUGE table with my actions as the headings of the rows, and his as the headings of the columns. The last step is to fill in how much I won or lost in all the cells in the table. Now we have a complete description of everything that can happen in this game.

At this point a theorem from Game Theory* says that there is a row that is my optimal play against all of my opponent's columns (both his moves and the turn and river cards). He also has an optimal column.

FTOP's way of saying this is that if I play according to my optimal column and my opponent doesn't, I will gain more than I would have if he did.

That's all that it says to me. It can definitely be applied to a number of situations and extended like in TOP, but FTOP itself doesn’t say more than that.

For example, it doesn't talk about what to do if my opponent doesn't play optimally: in this situation there might be plays that increase my outcome more than if I had been playing optimally.

Neither does it directly say anything about what to do when we don’t know the opponents cards, since that isn’t included in the assumptions. However, it definitely has useful implications for thinking about that situation.

Also note that if everyone plays optimally (in this sense), the only one who will win in the long run is the rake.

That's my interpretation. I apologize for the length, but hope this at least helps somebody.

* Discovered by Nash, the guy from A Beautiful Mind.