Hoss TBF - part of Think Tank?
 

It seemed from some chat that this HossTBF character might be part of the Chen/Ankenmann/Prock/Chan? crew - which I will call the "Think Tank" for brevity from now on. If you've read Mathematics of Poker - or bought and used as firewood because you couldn't understand it like me - are keenly aware that these guys know an illegal amount of math to be playing our friendly game.

I've played with Hoss (which was a while ago) after his landfall tourney win, he seemed to be very good in the very aggressive, good hand reader type of way, but I would never have expected him to be a "mathy" player. He just seemed loaded with a lot of talent and a solid winner at the highest stakes.

Anyway, if this rumor is true, thats pretty damn scary. I guess I have no real content, other than this guy isn't on my list of people I am will ever play heads up? I figure some of you with more experience against him might have some insight.

Re: Hoss TBF - part of Think Tank?
 

It's about time we had another J_V thread in this forum.

Re: Hoss TBF - part of Think Tank?
 

Yes I know for certain that he is part of the "think tank." He's a friend of a friend and yes he is extremely intelligent/mathy. My friend who is also a high stakes player said and I quote "I think Matt (Hawrilenko, Hoss TBF) and Bill have solved shorthanded online limit holdem." It was funny because I was thinking there's just no way, but after seeing Matt's results in the last year I can't really argue.

Re: Hoss TBF - part of Think Tank?
 

anyone have stats on how these guys play shorthanded?

Re: Hoss TBF - part of Think Tank?
 

[ QUOTE ]
"I think Matt (Hawrilenko, Hoss TBF) and Bill have solved shorthanded online limit holdem."

[/ QUOTE ]

Not a high stakes player, but I have to ask, if this is true, why isn't Bill Chen playing the highest limit games available also?

Re: Hoss TBF - part of Think Tank?
 

Basically he is maniacal preflop in a shorthanded game. He will reraise a CO open from the button or a button open from the SB with damn near any two cards and then play them expertly postflop. Note I haven't played with him ever this is from a friend who is more of a regular in those stars games.

-DeathDonkey

Re: Hoss TBF - part of Think Tank?
 

well, im just wondering if they have the same statistical similiarities to my alleged ub bots. namely 48% wsd no matter how many players.

Re: Hoss TBF - part of Think Tank?
 

ive played probably as many hu hands againt hoss as i have against anyone else, hes very tough and i dont play him anymore, i generally hate sitting in any game when hes behind me, although he will 3-bet pretty much any two cards from the SB, and btw, one thing i would not call him is a good hand reader, he loves to go animal on draws when theres no shot of getting a fold, and im not sure that ive ever seen him fold a pair that has no shot of winning, but i think all that works with his style and he is definately someone i do not like playing with, especially when hes on a heater like he has been recently

but i love playing with jerrod, chen, and prock, for whatever thats worth, they all play pretty much an exact opposite style from hoss

Re: Hoss TBF - part of Think Tank?
 

Hasn't he been on a heater forever? Everytime I hear anything about the online limit scene, something like HossTBF on a heater always comes up.

Weird that they would all play different styles, but I think I agree. Hoss is way way more aggressive than the other Chen, Jerrod.

Re: Hoss TBF - part of Think Tank?
 

I didn't know he was Hawrilenko. I did know Hawrilenko worked with Jerrod and Bill.

FWIW I think Terrence is just an acquaintance rather than a 'coworker' of those guys.

I also think it makes a lot of sense in retrospect to hear that Hoss is a game theory guy, because he makes ridiculously thin call downs.

As someone else said he seems to literally never fold a pair, which is probably far closer to game theoretically correct than the seemingly more reasonable way that most people play.

I never really noticed that he was super aggro preflop... I thought he was just a bit looser (with respect to his 3-betting hands) than what I consider proper.

Oh and anyone who thinks they've literally solved sh LHE doesn't know what that means.

Re: Hoss TBF - part of Think Tank?
 

yea, if only i knew these people and theyd let me sit and watch them play, then i could have money also

Re: Hoss TBF - part of Think Tank?
 

I HATE BOTS... The UB bots Victor is referring to can be seen anytime in the 50-100 HU games. Names as follows.
-BMW750i
-Isaac168
-MaoMao88
-banana234
-ccty
there is more. UB just sent me an e-mail saying that they already did disciplinary action against the bots but yet all the bots that I proved to them are still on and playing like nothing happened. I guess I got to be a little more crazy with them and send them more then a daily e-mail and make a site that will advertise that they don’t give a flying **** if there games are corrupted. Rake is Rake I guess. I will be updating my site in the few days with the e-mails from support and the names and video's and all that great stuff.

-Crazy Mike (MrGatorade)

Re: Hoss TBF - part of Think Tank?
 

[ QUOTE ]
Hasn't he been on a heater forever? Everytime I hear anything about the online limit scene, something like HossTBF on a heater always comes up.

[/ QUOTE ]

there was a time a few months ago (like around the niagra tourney) that i was beating him fairly consistanty on UB, but recently (like ever since FT opened the 5/10s) hes just been crushing me, i think its a combination of him playing a lot better and me playing a lot worse, also shows the variance of HULHE

i think he seemed a lot easier to read and play aginst back then too, at least when he was running bad, when he runs good, he seems unstoppable, but he at least used to be capable of tilting, and it does seem like every time he 3-bets the turn on a flush draw these days he gets there

[ QUOTE ]
Weird that they would all play different styles, but I think I agree. Hoss is way way more aggressive than the other Chen, Jerrod

[/ QUOTE ]

those guys are both passive donks, i have a lot more respect for hoss than i do for them

Re: Hoss TBF - part of Think Tank?
 

mrgatorade, im not talking about those guys.

im talking about some players that play shorthanded that have an unorthodox style where they steal and resteal a lot and never fold postflop. their wsd is 48% 6way. they are the biggest winners in the game.

someone actually mentioned to me last night that maybe it was prock and his gang with a new unexploitable method. then i saw this post so i wondered if there were indeed similiarities.

Re: Hoss TBF - part of Think Tank?
 

What are some of the usernames Prock has? Last I heard he only played 40-80 on Paradise.

Re: Hoss TBF - part of Think Tank?
 

[ QUOTE ]
What are some of the usernames Prock has? Last I heard he only played 40-80 on Paradise.

[/ QUOTE ]

i believe hes quackers on stars

Re: Hoss TBF - part of Think Tank?
 

hoss must be the best limit poker player online, just going from what others say. when certain people say "so and so is very good" you have to believe it.

but wow.. hoss is just a complete wack-job preflop. how can 3 betting Kx and Qx offsuit from the small blind be correct? i guess if he plays perfectly preflop it works? i dunno but like i said i guess he's the best.

quackers? wow.. i have always thought he was bad and would love to be in a game with him. same goes for chen honestly. then again i can't win lately either so people probably love to play with me.

Re: Hoss TBF - part of Think Tank?
 

Hoss v TLK for rolls?

Also, be somewhere that I can datamine ftw...

Re: Hoss TBF - part of Think Tank?
 

[ QUOTE ]
Oh and anyone who thinks they've literally solved sh LHE doesn't know what that means.

[/ QUOTE ]

I don't know what they are trying to say, but if you could take the weakest parts of your games and take an unexploitable route (on the fly, or pre-packaged,) you would be unbeatable to the people not capable of doing this. Then you just would just tee off on your strengths against there weaknesses in the spots they arise.

I.e. Schneids plays better than me in raised pots on the low paired boards, if I could game theory - null this edge, that would be huge.

If you can come up w/ a style to play that's unexploitable in these spots on the fly, that would be as good as "solved" to me. I don't know if this is possible, I certainly wouldn't know where to start.

Re: Hoss TBF - part of Think Tank?
 

[ QUOTE ]
If you can come up w/ a style to play that's unexploitable in these spots on the fly, that would be as good as "solved" to me. I don't know if this is possible, I certainly wouldn't know where to start.

[/ QUOTE ]
Sounds like his strategy is to raise a lot and then never fold. Solved?! [img]/images/graemlins/frown.gif[/img]

Re: Hoss TBF - part of Think Tank?
 

[ QUOTE ]
[ QUOTE ]
Oh and anyone who thinks they've literally solved sh LHE doesn't know what that means.

[/ QUOTE ]

I don't know what they are trying to say, but if you could take the weakest parts of your games and take an unexploitable route (on the fly, or pre-packaged,) you would be unbeatable to the people not capable of doing this. Then you just would just tee off on your strengths against there weaknesses in the spots they arise.

I.e. Schneids plays better than me in raised pots on the low paired boards, if I could game theory - null this edge, that would be huge.

If you can come up w/ a style to play that's unexploitable in these spots on the fly, that would be as good as "solved" to me. I don't know if this is possible, I certainly wouldn't know where to start.

[/ QUOTE ]

someone who knows better feel free to correct me if i'm wrong, but even if somehow you were doing this it would be impossible to computationally verify it with current mathematics/technology.

Re: Hoss TBF - part of Think Tank?
 

[ QUOTE ]
[ QUOTE ]
Oh and anyone who thinks they've literally solved sh LHE doesn't know what that means.

[/ QUOTE ]

I don't know what they are trying to say, but if you could take the weakest parts of your games and take an unexploitable route (on the fly, or pre-packaged,) you would be unbeatable to the people not capable of doing this. Then you just would just tee off on your strengths against there weaknesses in the spots they arise.

I.e. Schneids plays better than me in raised pots on the low paired boards, if I could game theory - null this edge, that would be huge.

If you can come up w/ a style to play that's unexploitable in these spots on the fly, that would be as good as "solved" to me. I don't know if this is possible, I certainly wouldn't know where to start.

[/ QUOTE ]


It's not possible to come up with an unexploitable strategy for a part of the game (i.e. to solve part of the game) without solving the whole.

Also, though I am a little unclear on this point, it seems that there is simply no such thing as an unexploitable strategy (i.e. solution) to multiplayer poker.

There is a solution for hu lhe or any other hu game, but it is well beyond reasonably available computing power to discover it. I'm not sure if someone with access to super-duper military computers or something could solve it, but in any case that's not Bill and Jerrod.

There's a huge gap between saying they've actually solved the game and saying they have come up with good approximations of a solution.

But actually I doubt they or Hoss_THB have done even that much.

For one thing as noted they play very different styles which strongly suggests they are not working from a detailed canned strategy.

For another thing having played PLO and NL with Hoss as well as LHE, I can tell he's much more of an instinct player than the virtual bot that some people are imagining.

These game theory panics surface every year or so. I remember a couple of years ago people were claiming Neverlose was a bot because he multitabled and didn't chat. That turned out to be hilariously off the mark.

But anyway I was really just objecting to the suggestion that they have actually solved LHE, which is quite naive.

Re: Hoss TBF - part of Think Tank?
 

You really seem to want to argue and I'm not in the mood.

I know you hate me cause always 3-betting is clearly wrong.

Re: Hoss TBF - part of Think Tank?
 

[ QUOTE ]
You really seem to want to argue and I'm not in the mood.

I know you hate me cause always 3-betting is clearly wrong.

[/ QUOTE ]


I honestly don't know what you're talking about. You asked me why I objected to the statement that they had probably solved sh LHE (or whatever the statement was) and I explained, at length.

I am the last person to argue for the sake of arguing.

Edit - Maybe you don't realize that the statement I was objecting to was made by someone else in this thread.

Re: Hoss TBF - part of Think Tank?
 

[ QUOTE ]
Edit - Maybe you don't realize that the statement I was objecting to was made by someone else in this thread.


[/ QUOTE ]

Yeah, I didn't. My bad.

Re: Hoss TBF - part of Think Tank?
 

there is no way hoss_tbf knows any math. lolz

Re: Hoss TBF - part of Think Tank?
 

what landfall tourney win are you referring to?

Re: Hoss TBF - part of Think Tank?
 

[ QUOTE ]
always 3-betting is clearly wrong.

[/ QUOTE ]

I'm pretty sure the only way this is correct is if people adjust poorly to your 3-betting.

The whole "playing perfectly postflop" to me = running good. Hand reading can only take you so far IMO, especially when there are late position raises to factor in.

If every time I am in the SB you open and I 3-bet I really don't see how I can play perfectly when the flop misses me. If your range doesn't change then I am playing the flop against this huge range and have to assume you raise this and that and who knows what.

If your range tightens then my pf 3-bet gets worse and worse.

If your range loosens then my pf 3-bet gets better and better.

I don't really understand this strategy but would really like to put it all in perspective.

And FWIW Victor my WTSD is now 45.

Re: Hoss TBF - part of Think Tank?
 

[ QUOTE ]

And FWIW Victor my WTSD is now 45.

[/ QUOTE ]

And I thought I was a showdown monkey with 40-41 wtsd...

Re: Hoss TBF - part of Think Tank?
 

"And FWIW Victor my WTSD is now 45. "

is this 5-6way?

Re: Hoss TBF - part of Think Tank?
 

[ QUOTE ]
[ QUOTE ]

And FWIW Victor my WTSD is now 45.

[/ QUOTE ]

And I thought I was a showdown monkey with 40-41 wtsd...

[/ QUOTE ]

tbh i wouldn't even know anything changed if i didn't have PT. it's really weird.

Re: Hoss TBF - part of Think Tank?
 

I have 6000 hands vs Hoss and he has gone to showdown almost 46% of the time and won 51% at showdown.

I go to showdown 41.5% of the time and struggle to crack 50%.

Re: Hoss TBF - part of Think Tank?
 

[ QUOTE ]
"And FWIW Victor my WTSD is now 45. "

is this 5-6way?

[/ QUOTE ]

I'm sure there is some 2-4 handed in there but >90% is 5-6 handed

my WTSD HU is lower

Re: Hoss TBF - part of Think Tank?
 

[ QUOTE ]
I have 6000 hands vs Hoss and he has gone to showdown almost 46% of the time and won 51% at showdown.


[/ QUOTE ]


Yea, I can easily tell from that statistic that he is running nuclear hot. He should be winning in the range of 46-49% at best depending on post-flop skill, information on opponents, etc. Simply put though, he is hot hot hot.

Re: Hoss TBF - part of Think Tank?
 

WTSD also includes hands where you bet and someone folds right? So is he just less aggro and gets c/r'd less or checks behind more?

Re: Hoss TBF - part of Think Tank?
 

[ QUOTE ]
[ QUOTE ]
I have 6000 hands vs Hoss and he has gone to showdown almost 46% of the time and won 51% at showdown.


[/ QUOTE ]


Yea, I can easily tell from that statistic that he is running nuclear hot. He should be winning in the range of 46-49% at best depending on post-flop skill, information on opponents, etc. Simply put though, he is hot hot hot.

[/ QUOTE ]


Are you saying that because he also has a high WTSD? I had WTSD 41% and W$@SD 55%. Of course I was also a 25/19 so I wasn't in as many pots which could make a difference or maybe I was just running hot also.

Edit: If I go a bit further back in my db I get WTSD 40%, W$@SD 54% or if I include a lot lower stakes I'm only 39% and 44%.

Re: Hoss TBF - part of Think Tank?
 

[ QUOTE ]
I HATE BOTS... The UB bots Victor is referring to can be seen anytime in the 50-100 HU games. Names as follows.
-BMW750i
-Isaac168
-MaoMao88
-banana234
-ccty

[/ QUOTE ]

wow what the hell these are confirmed bots? i suspected they were bots because i thought they were all retarded, and they just kinda sit there forever and have autopost on waiting for people to sit.. i dno i dont play a lot of HU limit, but im up 15kish between these 3 in the little ive played. i dont see how they can be very profitable.. i also feel like they have a programmed random computation to 4 bet with whatever hand they raised with like 1/10 times. ive seen all 3 of these guys 4 bet me with weirdass hands like T6o and stuff. i dno if this is normal for min bet holdem.

Re: Hoss TBF - part of Think Tank?
 

[ QUOTE ]
I have 6000 hands vs Hoss and he has gone to showdown almost 46% of the time and won 51% at showdown.

I go to showdown 41.5% of the time and struggle to crack 50%.

[/ QUOTE ]


Either:

1. He's making a lot of big laydowns, which from my experience I find hard to believe.

or...

2. He's running well.


One other thing to add to this, someone sent me a datamine from the UB 2006 limit games.

Hoss was the biggest winner on an individual account (+675k).

However he also had one of the largest samples (69k hands).

However however, his BB per 100 was quite strong for someone who plays a lot of tough games, especially if the datamine includes heads up tables (not sure if it does). His BB per 100 was 1.8.

Also FWIW I think Joe Cassidy and Thomas Keller might have won more over their multiple accounts.

Re: Hoss TBF - part of Think Tank?
 

Hoss is the guy with folded BB to steal around 15% right ?? If my memory is good this guy is a real station in the BB and SB is that correct ? I don't know how he can be such a huge winner with such stats...

Re: Hoss TBF - part of Think Tank?
 

The guy is phenomenal at weighting estimated hand ranges of opponents against the board textures and consequently he takes down a lot of pots when both people have nothing, and he also makes a lot of very good call downs (which also sometimes look stupid). I think that is where the mathematics of his game comes from. IMO he's one of the best.