Question for David Sklansky or other probability/poker theory experts

[soon2bepro]

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Most people think they are adapting but that doesn't mean they are adapting correctly. Most of what I hear from poker players in terms of how they tend to adjust in different games is just completely wrong, for instance.

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Say, I was playing against a total pay station last night. 6 handed game. His numbers after about 300 hands were 92/1.2/1.86, though his real post flop aggression factor was more like 0.03, since almost every bet he made was a min 1 blind bet, no matter the size of the pot. He rarely bet large and didn't particularly do it with his made hands, in fact he did it more with bluffs than made hands. He had no concept of pot odds, he just looked at how large the bet was regardless of the size of the pot. Especially PF. And he had a very wrong idea of what a winning hand was. He was calling large river bets with K high or bottom pair.

I saw other players at the table weren't adapting. 3 of them were playing very TAG, and for most of the time the other one was a very loose-passive guy who was pretty bad.

So I adapted by playing 52/38/1 (real agg factor was more like 4.5). I was limping in with a lot of crap hands like 95o from the button and any 2 from the SB. If I had any A, any two J or higher, KT, or any pair, I would raise to somewhere between 5 and 14 big blinds, knowing the pay station would call no matter what I raised. I also made several plays to try and get the pot heads up with him. Once I managed it, If I got any pair I would overbet the flop, then if I had anything better than mid pair with a decent kicker, I'd keep betting until showdown, though usually smaller (he wouldn't call "big" amounts so easily). If I didn't flop a pair I would check it and call if the odds were good enough (which they almost always were). Until I did hit a pair, then started betting. A lot of times I'd bet ace high for value on the flop, too.

Hand after hand I kept confirming my play was correct, only hand after hand I kept getting sucked out. He would call 1.5 times the pot with an inside straight and get it. Or call 2 times the pot at flop with a bad overcard, then call again a 3/4 pot bet at turn, and get it by the river. Etc, etc, etc. Of course I would win many pots, but he kept sucking out on me in most of them.

Overall, I played about 350 hands against the guy, and ended up about 150 blinds negative versus him. Meanwhile he ended up losing about 800 blinds. The funny part is that I still came up even as I won some money from the other players at the table, even though one would expect quite the opposite with my strategy.