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#11
09-29-2007, 06:55 PM
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Re: Never stone cold bluff
[ QUOTE ]
[ QUOTE ] [ QUOTE ] If you never stone cold bluffed (flop play), what is the best that poker player can expect to be? [/ QUOTE ] That question makes me nervous. Yes, there is a place for bluffing for bluffing's sake, if for no reason that a game theory move to mix up your game. [/ QUOTE ] Is that more important than money? Mixing up your game is overrated. Many people do this when it hurts them. Mix up your game if doing this means you win more money. If your goal is to make money, don't do it for the sake of mixing up your game. My primary goal at the poker table is to make money. That sometimes means bluffing, particularly against opponents who seem bluffable, and who seem to give me too much credit. [ QUOTE ] But game theory talks about randomizing bluffs, so that you might not even know when you're going to do it. [/ QUOTE ] This is a very misleading way of putting it. When there is hidden information, the game theoretic solutions usually involve bluffing based on the hidden information you have. For example, you generally should bluff on the river with hands with the least showdown value, not all of the hands that would be bluffing after you bet. If there is a chance that your opponent will call with a draw, then give up when it misses, then you might prefer bluffing on the turn with hands that are better than the draws. If your opponent deviates from optimal play by folding too often, it may be right to bluff 100% of the time with many hands. If your opponent deviates from optimal play by calling too much, it may be right to bluff 0% of the time. [/ QUOTE ] (Edited to add notetaking comment) I agree with 90% of what you said. But there is a case for randomizing for it's own sake, when other players have seen you enough that they are starting to get reads. I think a good example would be a online 5TT. By the time you're down to about 18 players, most of them have seen you before. And presumably, some of the players left are good enough to get some reads (or if someone plays enough he already has a note on you!) One of the game theory ways to randomize your bluffs is by using key cards, for example, pick 3 or 4 key cards, and when you get one, that's the bluff signal. You can't be predictable, because you don't know when you'll get those cards. Harrington advocates the same kind of randomization of calls and raises. He suggests raising with aces 80% of the time and calling 20% of the time, so that even when you call, they can't know whether you have aces or not. He uses the second hand of his watch (how quaint) and calls if it's between 48 and 60 seconds. So no, I wouldn't randomize mindlessly, but I've been experimenting, and in the right situation, it can work. 
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#12
09-29-2007, 07:12 PM
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Re: Never stone cold bluff
[ QUOTE ]
I agree with 90% of what you said. But there is a case for randomizing for it's own sake, when other players have seen you enough that they are starting to get reads. I think a good example would be a online 5TT. By the time you're down to about 18 players, most of them have seen you before. And presumably, some of the players left are good enough to get some reads (or if someone plays enough he already has a note on you!) One of the game theory ways to randomize your bluffs is by using key cards, for example, pick 3 or 4 key cards, and when you get one, that's the bluff signal. You can't be predictable, because you don't know when you'll get those cards. Harrington advocates the same kind of randomization of calls and raises. He suggests raising with aces 80% of the time and calling 20% of the time, so that even when you call, they can't know whether you have aces or not. He uses the second hand of his watch (how quaint) and calls if it's between 48 and 60 seconds. So no, I wouldn't randomize mindlessly, but I've been experimenting, and in the right situation, it can work. [/ QUOTE ] Wow, I really think you are way off base. You can't randomize your bluffs. For bluffs to be effective and proftitable, you need to time them really well. This means picking the right spot and picking the right opponent. This is actually the opposite of randomizing. Mixing up your play by occasionally deviating from what you normally do (e.g. limping when you would normally raise) is completely different from looking at your watch and deciding this is the time to bluff.
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#13
09-29-2007, 07:44 PM
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Re: Never stone cold bluff
[ QUOTE ]
Mixing up your game is overrated. Many people do this when it hurts them. Mix up your game if doing this means you win more money. If your goal is to make money, don't do it for the sake of mixing up your game. [/ QUOTE ] It's more misused than overrated. In hold'em in some situations you just can't bluff profitably. Your story doesn't make sense. A strong player will figure it out and call because he knows you're bluffing.
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#14
09-29-2007, 10:32 PM
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Re: Never stone cold bluff
[ QUOTE ]
Mixing up your play by occasionally deviating from what you normally do (e.g. limping when you would normally raise) is completely different from looking at your watch and deciding this is the time to bluff. [/ QUOTE ] take notes people, b/c that is a subtle distinction that many beginners seem to be unable to make. edit: actually, it's not even that subtle.
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#15
09-30-2007, 03:32 AM
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Re: Never stone cold bluff
When playing exploitative poker (ie, you're exploiting your opponent), bluffing is supposed to be a profitable play in isolation. You pick up a weakness in your opponent's range for a given board which suggests you have sufficient fold equity to bluff. Therefore, you would stone-cold bluff.
When playing optimal poker (unexploitable), bluffing is supposed to be profitable as part of a balanced betting strategy (rather than profitable in isolation), to balance the times we are value betting. In this case, the only time you would stone cold bluff is on the river, to balance river value bets. On the flop and turn, semi-bluffing dominates a stone cold bluff, where a semi-bluff can mean something as weak as a backdoor flush/straight draw.
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#16
10-03-2007, 06:38 PM
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Re: Never stone cold bluff
[ QUOTE ]
[ QUOTE ] Mixing up your play by occasionally deviating from what you normally do (e.g. limping when you would normally raise) is completely different from looking at your watch and deciding this is the time to bluff. [/ QUOTE ] take notes people, b/c that is a subtle distinction that many beginners seem to be unable to make. edit: actually, it's not even that subtle. [/ QUOTE ] It is possible that I misunderstood, and I don't have the book (I borrowed it from the library), but I think that I read about randomizing bluffs in Mathematics of Poker. If I understood correctly (and a lot of the book was over my head, even though I have five college math courses under my belt), given the level of this particular book, I assume that this was only applicable to very advanced play. So it doesn't really apply to me as a micro player at this point. However, I can envision a player of Dan Harrington's caliber (which is where I read about mixing up raises and calls with big pairs) ocasionally using a game theory bluff to keep a pro with great reading skills from figure out his bluffing patters. Just my thought on the whole thing, and if I misread that section of Mathematics of Poker, or even got that as the wrong source, by all means straighten me out.
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#17
10-03-2007, 09:51 PM
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Re: Never stone cold bluff
[ QUOTE ]
Just my thought on the whole thing, and if I misread that section of Mathematics of Poker, or even got that as the wrong source, by all means straighten me out. [/ QUOTE ] The OP is wrong. If you don't ever make a stone cold bluff, why should your opponent ever call you?
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#18
10-03-2007, 11:20 PM
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Re: Never stone cold bluff
[ QUOTE ]
[ QUOTE ] Just my thought on the whole thing, and if I misread that section of Mathematics of Poker, or even got that as the wrong source, by all means straighten me out. [/ QUOTE ] The OP is wrong. If you don't ever make a stone cold bluff, why should your opponent ever call you? [/ QUOTE ] Well in fairness, the OP was talking about on the flop. Semi-bluffing (even if a backdoor draw) is sufficient to balance your value bets on the flop, and in fact is superior to a stone cold bluff because you have some chance to improve if called. Note that it is superior when using bluffs as balance to your value bets (ensuring they get called). If you are bluffing to exploit a weakness in your opponent's range for a given flop, you don't want to wait until you have weak backdoor draw to take advantage of it with a bluff.
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#20
10-04-2007, 01:39 PM
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Re: Never stone cold bluff
[ QUOTE ]
[ QUOTE ] [ QUOTE ] Just my thought on the whole thing, and if I misread that section of Mathematics of Poker, or even got that as the wrong source, by all means straighten me out. [/ QUOTE ] The OP is wrong. If you don't ever make a stone cold bluff, why should your opponent ever call you? [/ QUOTE ] Well in fairness, the OP was talking about on the flop. Semi-bluffing (even if a backdoor draw) is sufficient to balance your value bets on the flop, and in fact is superior to a stone cold bluff because you have some chance to improve if called. Note that it is superior when using bluffs as balance to your value bets (ensuring they get called). If you are bluffing to exploit a weakness in your opponent's range for a given flop, you don't want to wait until you have weak backdoor draw to take advantage of it with a bluff. [/ QUOTE ] This is all DS' fault. Making misleading titles that's different from the OP thread. I can't remember what's written in the OP's thread weeks later. But do know what's in the title. That's said there's strong evidence in a head's up pot that it is right for the original raiser to make a continuation bet 100% of the time.
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