Optimal Bluffing Strategy

[Acevader]

I'm looking to try and learn more about this off the back of having read through the relevant chapter in DS's TOP. I've read it through once and have done a little reading on game theory, but I'm still in the dark on the subject matter for now.

Can optimal bluffing strategy (obs) be applied to Holdem poker and particularly NL-holdem? My concern here is that if you are drawing vs a solid thinking player, applying obs might still be ineffective because of the fact the player can see which draw cards hit and didn't - a factor that contributes heavily to his reasoning process.

If it can be applied to NLHE then are there any good articles, threads, books or otherwise that fully explain how to apply it in a practical sense. Do any of you guys use it and if so in what manner (examples?)?

Assuming obs is used in NLHE it is important to identify those players that heavily lean towards calling or folding and then apply obs to the 'random and thinking' group in the middle and adjust accordingly to the extremities. That being the case what WtoSD% would generally indicate "can't be bluffed" and what would indicate "fold machine"?

I realise my questions are all over the place but I'm hoping to refine my questions and thinking in response to the progress of the thread and my learning - i.e you might say: "obs doesn't apply to holdem you dork" and that's the end of that [img]/images/graemlins/laugh.gif[/img]

Thanks in advance...

[Acevader]

....does ^^^^ mean anything to any one? [img]/images/graemlins/laugh.gif[/img]

[Mike]

In general, a player must be willing to believe you and fold their hand. Lags and calling stations generally are not good bluffing candidates.

[drzen]

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In general, a player must be willing to believe you and fold their hand. Lags and calling stations generally are not good bluffing candidates.

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I've always found LAGs to be excellent bluffing candidates, particularly if they aren't terrible. Their game is based around reading you correctly and not paying too heavily when behind, so they're relatively willing to fold to aggression, particularly if a draw has come in.

[Acevader]

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Without wishing to be rude, if you don't see that it clearly applies to holdem, and obviously so, you probably aren't going to be able to use it as a way of working out when to bluff.

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I don't think that's entirely fair - I had good reason to question the use of it in holdem. In 5 card draw if you take one card on the turn your opponent might conclude you have 2-pair, a flush draw or a straight draw. He knows nothing about whether the card dealt to you helped your hand and thus is in the dark if you bet the river.

However, in holdem lets assume at the turn Player A bets and Player B calls. The board is Js,6h,Qs,2d and Player A has AQo. The river is 2h and Player B bets (what we know to be a bluff but player A doesn't). Even if Player A knows that B uses OBS can he not deduce that all the draws have missed here (i.e. spade flush, K10, AK, 89, etc) and act accordingly. If player B would usually have been aggressive with 2p/set then surely a bet on this broken board is a bluff or blocker more often than not and OBS or not Player A will call far more often and snap that bluff off far more often?

Is that not a reasonable basis on which to question OBS in community card games or am I missing something?

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if you don't see that it clearly applies to holdem, and obviously so, you probably aren't going to be able to use it as a way of working out when to bluff.

[/ QUOTE ]

As a little aside that is pretty defeatist - there is nothing I can't/won't understand about this game. If it can be learned, I can (and hopefully will) learn it eventually [img]/images/graemlins/tongue.gif[/img]

[Shandrax]

Bluffing in Hold'em is very complicated and much different from Stud or Draw. This is because of the community board and of course because the last card comes face up!

In Stud you look at the other guys board and try to represent something that beats it. In Hold'em when you try to represent a flush, the other guy may very well have it.

[drzen]

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Without wishing to be rude, if you don't see that it clearly applies to holdem, and obviously so, you probably aren't going to be able to use it as a way of working out when to bluff.

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I don't think that's entirely fair - I had good reason to question the use of it in holdem.

[/ QUOTE ]

No, I don't think you did. Bluffing is about what information your opponent has about your hand: the "story" your action has told, and what ending, if you like, you can sell for that story. Of course draw and stud are different from holdem in the information your opponent has, but why would that mean that you cannot use an optimal bluffing strategy in holdem?

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In 5 card draw if you take one card on the turn your opponent might conclude you have 2-pair, a flush draw or a straight draw. He knows nothing about whether the card dealt to you helped your hand and thus is in the dark if you bet the river.

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This has nothing to do with the question though! Anyway, a thinking player will be aware that a single card will not help your hand all that often. And in a community game, your opponent is equally as unaware whether the river actually did help you.

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However, in holdem lets assume at the turn Player A bets and Player B calls. The board is Js,6h,Qs,2d and Player A has AQo. The river is 2h and Player B bets (what we know to be a bluff but player A doesn't). Even if Player A knows that B uses OBS can he not deduce that all the draws have missed here (i.e. spade flush, K10, AK, 89, etc) and act accordingly.

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This is a particularly bad board for a bluff. What story can you be selling here? But he doesn't know that you were drawing, does he? If player A bet and player B raised, is player A snapping it off every time? Are you in his spot?

What if the river is the Th? You were chasing the spade flush. If you raise the river, can player A call with confidence?

And does player B *never* slowplay a set? Is there no chance at all that he has filled on the river? Maybe he called the preflop raise with 62s.

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If player B would usually have been aggressive with 2p/set then surely a bet on this broken board is a bluff or blocker more often than not and OBS or not Player A will call far more often and snap that bluff off far more often?

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The point is that if you are bluffing optimally, you are indifferent to his calling or folding. You need to reread the chapter, because this is not a question of what kind of information your opponent has. It's simply that when you see the turn, you are saying "I will bet with every hand in which I make my draw on the river and enough others to bluff optimally". Or you might say to yourself, I don't think this is developing into a board I can bluff on, so I won't be bluffing at all.

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Is that not a reasonable basis on which to question OBS in community card games or am I missing something?

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What have you actually just discussed? You have shown that the information your opponent has in draw is different from what he has in holdem. Well yes. So that means you bluff differently in the two games. Yes, true. So in draw you can sell more stories more easily. Yes, also true. And you've picked a board on which a bluff would be difficult to sell. Yes, true again.

But does that mean that you cannot use OBS in holdem? No, it doesn't.

It's going to be much more useful to think of spots in which you don't want to be predictable but are not sure how often to bluff. Say you have AK in a game of limit holdem. You raise PF, only the BB calls. You whiff the flop and bet. You don't help on the turn and bet again. There are no draws on the board, so you're pretty sure your opponent has a pair of some sort, and he knows that no river card will complete a draw for you.

What do you do on the river? If you hit your A or K, you'll be betting again. But you'd like to bet some other amount of the time in the hope that your opponent will lay down his bottom pair.

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[ QUOTE ]
if you don't see that it clearly applies to holdem, and obviously so, you probably aren't going to be able to use it as a way of working out when to bluff.

[/ QUOTE ]

As a little aside that is pretty defeatist - there is nothing I can't/won't understand about this game. If it can be learned, I can (and hopefully will) learn it eventually [img]/images/graemlins/tongue.gif[/img]

[/ QUOTE ]

Well, I don't use it but I do try to bluff at roughly the right frequency. It's a lot easier at limit, where if the pot's heads up, you're not talking about a lot of bluff cards. In the situation I gave, you might say "I'll bet any A or K, and any red T too".

[drzen]

[ QUOTE ]
I'm looking to try and learn more about this off the back of having read through the relevant chapter in DS's TOP. I've read it through once and have done a little reading on game theory, but I'm still in the dark on the subject matter for now.

Can optimal bluffing strategy (obs) be applied to Holdem poker and particularly NL-holdem?

[/ QUOTE ]

Yes, I think it can. It seems easier to apply to limit holdem.

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My concern here is that if you are drawing vs a solid thinking player, applying obs might still be ineffective because of the fact the player can see which draw cards hit and didn't - a factor that contributes heavily to his reasoning process.

[/ QUOTE ]

This would only be true if he knew what you were drawing to!

The point of an optimal bluffing strategy is that he can't "reason" which of your bets are bluffs and which are for value.

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If it can be applied to NLHE then are there any good articles, threads, books or otherwise that fully explain how to apply it in a practical sense. Do any of you guys use it and if so in what manner (examples?)?

[/ QUOTE ]

I think that in principle you could apply the strategy in TOP.

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Assuming obs is used in NLHE it is important to identify those players that heavily lean towards calling or folding and then apply obs to the 'random and thinking' group in the middle and adjust accordingly to the extremities.

[/ QUOTE ]

The point of an optimal bluffing strategy is that it doesn't matter whether the other player thinks, calls at random or whatever. He cannot exploit your bets regardless what he does.

You seem to be asking a different question though, something like "how can I work out how often I should bluff?" As TOP notes, your best approach would be to adapt to the player. An optimal strategy is probably best against an average player, bluffing a bit more better against a tight player and a bit less better against a loose one.

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That being the case what WtoSD% would generally indicate "can't be bluffed" and what would indicate "fold machine"?

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This would not be the right statistic to draw conclusions from. You need to know how often they win money at showdown and how often they fold, not how often they go there.

I wouldn't use PT stats anyway. I think you're much better off observing the player at showdown. Watch what cards they show and ask yourself whether you felt, given the odds on offer and previous action, their call was reasonable. This is regardless whether they won. You can also learn by observing someone fold on a dry board. These things seem to me to be much more helpful than stats, because they're quite hard to interpret. Mind you, seeing how often a player folded on the river might be useful.

[ QUOTE ]
I realise my questions are all over the place but I'm hoping to refine my questions and thinking in response to the progress of the thread and my learning - i.e you might say: "obs doesn't apply to holdem you dork" and that's the end of that [img]/images/graemlins/laugh.gif[/img]

[/ QUOTE ]

Without wishing to be rude, if you don't see that it clearly applies to holdem, and obviously so, you probably aren't going to be able to use it as a way of working out when to bluff. Other approaches might suit you better.