[_D&L_]

I think Rufus's point is partially valid. He makes a good point that we can't treat all hands equally weighted. That is, we can infer from previous rounds the likelihood that our opponent is on a certain hand.

But that alone can't imply that we would be willing to wager infinite amounts of money on our read, unlesss our read was infinitely accurate. Such a read (or to use game theory lingo, "Baysian updating") would not occur in game theory (or the real world), because as soon as we are willing to put an infinite weight behind a read, it becomes optimal for our opponent to always play long shots, because we give him an infinite payout. In short, the mere enticement of an infinite payout should cause a rational opponent to deviate, and invalidate our read.

A good read occurs when we can deduce that an opponent would have had to pass up more valuable opportunities by playing his hand in this fashion. As soon as we are willing to throw an infinite payout behind that assumption, it turns out our opponent has not passed up any valuble opportunities - instead he's been playing for the highest payout of all - our mistaken read.

Still as i said earlier, I still believe there isn't a theoretical cap where your hole cards eliminate the possibility of your opponent holding the nuts.

In other cases, there will be a theoretical cap to bluffing. As for Admiralfluffs concern:

[ QUOTE ]


Haven't read all the responses, but I don't see how there could be a theoretical cap. If there were, than the last bet made would be exploitable.



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If we're bluffing the nuts, and our opponent is actually holding the nuts, we can't go on bluffing indefinately. That would make for a strategy with negative infinity EV. So there has to be a theoretical cap when u can't rule out the nuts being held by your opponent.

Now of course we would never stop re-raising with the nuts. And there is a point where we would stop re-raising with a bluff (that doesn't rule out the nuts). When we pass the point that we are no longer representing any bluffs, any rational opponent would fold. Still there is no harm in making this naked value raise (i say naked, because its not supported by bluffs), because our opponent cannot hold a better hand.

If there is no chance that we're holding the nuts, then best hand we can bluff is the second-nuts. If our opponent might be holding the nuts, then we would hit a theoretical cap. Eventually we would call/fold, in place of making a naked re-raise.

----_Dirty&Litigious_----