SAGE system HU. Seems good, but I have one problem with it.

[Shandrax]

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firstly, if you dont know what it is then read this: http://www.cardplayer.com/magazine/article/15250

what if the sb hasnt a clue and is only pushing very tight. O.k. so in the long run he will lose because he'll get blinded out. But surely at that particular time when he does push, your calling range in bb has to be tighter then what SAGE suggests to make it +EV. So don't you have to adjust for that, and can't always follow it religeously?

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SAGE works with R<=10 which is M<=7.5, in other words, he will blind off in 7.5 rounds.

If your opponent decides to push with nothing but aces, you should actually encourage him to do so and you may even call him if he does. Chances for him to get aces often enough are slim. Every time he folds his stack gets smaller and even if he manages to pick up aces, he might double up for a total of 2 chips.

[Unknown Soldier]

I would love it if he only pushes with AA, but I'm not going to call him!

I'm not sure you get my OP, I was just saying that the SAGE system isnt optimal for calling.

[trojanrabbit]

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I would love it if he only pushes with AA, but I'm not going to call him!

I'm not sure you get my OP, I was just saying that the SAGE system isnt optimal for calling.

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The question is really, how accurately can you predict your opponents pushing/calling range? If you have no idea what his range is, you can fall back on the optimal solution. If you blindly follow the optimal solution, you will make money no matter what he does. If he's too loose, you make money. If he's too tight, you make money. But if you do have an idea what his range is, you can deviate from optimal play in order to make more money. If you think he doesn't push as often as optimal play suggests, then you can tighten up yourself. However it leaves you open to exploitation if you are wrong. If you tighten up, you lose out if he's pushing more often than you thought.

Here's a graph from one of my Magazine articles:

This is for HU with the shorter stack = 7BB. If you are the small blind, then you look at the <font color="blue">blue</font> line and look <u>down</u> to see how often you should push depending on how often your opponent calls along the <u>left</u>. If you are the big blind, then you look at the <font color="red">red</font> line and look <u>left</u> to see how often you should call depending on how often your opponent pushes along the <u>bottom</u>. So, if you are the small blind and you think your opponent will call 30% of the time, you should push 100%. If you think he will call 60%, then you should push 57%. If you are the big blind and you think your opponent is pushing 75%, you should call 54%. If you think he’s pushing 25%, you call 19%.

The place where the two lines cross is the equilibrium point where each player is playing the optimal response to the other. Neither player can improve his expectation by trying something different.

Tysen