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.

[soon2bepro]

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Did none work? Did all work for a while, then reverse? Were you unable to determine the cause of losses? Were you able to determine the cause of losses, but not come up with a strategy to reverse them?

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I did try some alternative strategies which in theory shouldn't work (not for too long though), but they didn't seem to do any good. I did find flaws in my game, some of which I corrected, and some of which I'm working on. There are probably many to go still. But overall I am confident that I'm playing winning poker in this particular site and stakes. I can't really say how much I should be winning, but somethere in the range of 2 - 12 big blinds/100. If I had to say why I think I lost so much, I'd say it was just bad luck. But as you say, the statistics are a strong evidence. How strong? That's what I want to find out. (not just for this particular case, it's something I'd like to know regardless of my situation)

[Phone Booth]

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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.

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Assuming your description of the villain is correct, do you believe the way you were playing was optimal? If not, how should you have played instead?

[soon2bepro]

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Assuming your description of the villain is correct, do you believe the way you were playing was optimal? If not, how should you have played instead?

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The guy wasn't always calling down with K high or bottom pair, but he did that pretty often. And he called down with many other mediocre hands on a regular basis. He also bluffed way too much. I'm not sure I can easily explain all there was to this guy. Neither do I pretend to know it all about him. But I saw huge mistakes and I wanted to exploit them the best I could.

I think it was close to optimal. Maybe I shouldn't have been raising hands like A2o, but I'm not sure.

I'm pretty sure with time you can develop a perfect strategy to face this kind of opponent, but I think mine was pretty close to it. I don't know if I can make it much better without putting a lot of time into it, though. What do you think?

[Phone Booth]

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Assuming your description of the villain is correct, do you believe the way you were playing was optimal? If not, how should you have played instead?

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The guy wasn't always calling down with K high or bottom pair, but he did that pretty often. And he called down with many other mediocre hands on a regular basis. He also bluffed way too much. I'm not sure I can easily explain all there was to this guy. Neither do I pretend to know it all about him. But I saw huge mistakes and I wanted to exploit them the best I could.

I think it was close to optimal. Maybe I shouldn't have been raising hands like A2o, but I'm not sure.

I'm pretty sure with time you can develop a perfect strategy to face this kind of opponent, but I think mine was pretty close to it. I don't know if I can make it much better without putting a lot of time into it, though. What do you think?

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Let's think of it this way. Ignore what the villain was doing. Just consider how you played in that particular session. What would've been the best way to counter how you played? Now, how does that compare to what the villain was doing?

[soon2bepro]

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Just consider how you played in that particular session. What would've been the best way to counter how you played? Now, how does that compare to what the villain was doing?

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The best way to counter my play would be to re raise a lot pre flop, and do a lot of limp/rr with good hands. Almost never limp a drawing hand if I was yet to speak. And if you saw the villain and me limp in front of you, raise the top 50%+ hands for value.

You wouldn't give me respect for my bets or raises if the paystation was still in the hand, especially PF.

Then again, I would've adapted to this player, but this is irrelevant here.

So, how does this contrast with what the paystation was doing? He virtually never raised pre flop (when he did, it was open min raise or similar). He limped 92%+ hands so as to open himself to my raises, and then to make it worse call any sized raise I made with virtually all those hands. And then he called down after the flop like I was a total maniac, which I wasn't once the flop came, especially if we were the only two in the hand. When I checked it down, which I only did when I didn't have a pair, he'd usually make a min bet into a pot that was usually around 20 big blinds large, so as to give me huge odds to draw on him (especially since he would pay me if I got a pair later in the hand), though he also checked about 25% of the hands, and very ocassionally made a relevant bet, say pot sized. But he did this more often without position.

[Phone Booth]

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You wouldn't give me respect for my bets or raises if the paystation was still in the hand, especially PF.


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Which isn't too far from what the paystation was doing. The correct way to play against your style from his perspective is to c/c light flop and turn and make a huge bet/raise on the river sometimes for value, sometimes as a bluff. What you've done is to make his style more correct.

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So, how does this contrast with what the paystation was doing? He virtually never raised pre flop (when he did, it was open min raise or similar). He limped 92%+ hands so as to open himself to my raises, and then to make it worse call any sized raise I made with virtually all those hands. And then he called down after the flop like I was a total maniac, which I wasn't once the flop came, especially if we were the only two in the hand.


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Overbetting with any pair and betting with middle-pair good-kicker all the way to the river isn't playing like a maniac? Note that if he folds some of his worst hands some of the time on the flop and the turn, which you implied that he does, your bet is NOT for value by the river. Also percentage of the time that you're ahead does not equal your equity. In other words, you can be ahead of two-thirds of his range and still be a dog against the same range (and should be common with something like bottom pair). Which is something that a lot of mediocre players don't realize when they open up their betting range against calling stations. Betting a mediocre hand with no fold equity is very often a mistake.

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When I checked it down, which I only did when I didn't have a pair, he'd usually make a min bet into a pot that was usually around 20 big blinds large, so as to give me huge odds to draw on him (especially since he would pay me if I got a pair later in the hand), though he also checked about 25% of the hands, and very ocassionally made a relevant bet, say pot sized. But he did this more often without position.

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Btw, the basic way to play again the "paystation" as described is to keep the pot small until the river if you have a good hand that can be outdrawn and make a large bet there if you're quite a bit ahead of his calling range. Unless your hand is unlikely to be outdrawn, in which case you can start growing the pot earlier. If your opponent is consistently paying you off on the river and cares more about the absolute bet size than pot odds, growing the pot earlier in the hand only allows him to make correct decisions on later streets by accident. And that's not to mention the donation to whoever else on the table that was able to adjust to the two of you correctly.

Btw, I occasionally play like that "paystation" when I suspect that the table may adjust for the worse. It's unbelievable how absurdly you can play and still win, when you're up against players that overvalue one pair (and this is true in nearly any high-hand poker variant).

[soon2bepro]

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You wouldn't give me respect for my bets or raises if the paystation was still in the hand, especially PF.


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Which isn't too far from what the paystation was doing.

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Ok, this is stupid. The correct play against my playstyle would be to rr or limp/rr hands like ATo and 99 even if I made a 14bb raise PF. The villain was limp/calling this raise with hands as bad as T2o and 93o.


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The correct way to play against your style from his perspective is to c/c light flop and turn and make a huge bet/raise on the river sometimes for value, sometimes as a bluff. What you've done is to make his style more correct.


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Only his calls on the flop were like, flop was KT4, 20bb pot, I bet 27bb, he calls with 82. Where is the sense in that? I'm not making that bet without at least a T, and he's calling with virtually every hand. He's not going to bluff later on either. He never made any bets bigger than 10 or 15bb, regardless of the size of the pot.



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Btw, the basic way to play again the "paystation" as described is to keep the pot small until the river if you have a good hand that can be outdrawn and make a large bet there if you're quite a bit ahead of his calling range. Unless your hand is unlikely to be outdrawn, in which case you can start growing the pot earlier. If your opponent is consistently paying you off on the river and cares more about the absolute bet size than pot odds, growing the pot earlier in the hand only allows him to make correct decisions on later streets by accident.

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Why not take a bet where you're winning? He won't bet large in later streets no matter what. My play may be a little more swingy, but it has higher EV.

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And that's not to mention the donation to whoever else on the table that was able to adjust to the two of you correctly.

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There was none. And I wasn't playing like this in 3 way pots after the flop...

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Btw, I occasionally play like that "paystation" when I suspect that the table may adjust for the worse.

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There is no way you can play winning poker by playing like he did. Did I mention he lost 800bb in 350 hands? (and that does count that he took roughly 150bb from me). He was having good beats too.

[filsteal]

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Theoretically a downswing can last 6 months, but it is highly unlikely that a winrate goes from 4BB/100 to -3BB/100 for any longer period of time even a couple of weeks is very long time if you play 4-500 hands a day and given that you have a great edge on your typical opponent.

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How unlikely?

And how do I tell if that's what's really going on or not?

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You're much more likely to die in the next month or so than it is that you've been bplaying winning poker. Unless the a priori probability that you're a winning player is exceptionally high. What constitutes winning poker depends on what your opponents are doing as much it depends on your own strategy, so it's possible that the same strategy you've been using has gone from +EV to -EV.

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Eh, not quite, but close I'd say. Typical standard deviation for 100 hands is around 50 BB/100. So even for 100k hands, the standard error of your winrate will be in the ballpark of 1.5 BB/100. A "true" breakeven player will run at -3 BB/100 or worse over 100k hands about 1/40 of the time. A "true" +1.5 BB/100 player will run at -3 BB/100 or worse over 100k hands less than 1/500 of the time. So while it's not impossible that you've been playing SLIGHTLY winning poker, it's pretty close to impossible that you "should've" been anything resembling a big winner over this time.

[soon2bepro]

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Eh, not quite, but close I'd say. Typical standard deviation for 100 hands is around 50 BB/100. So even for 100k hands, the standard error of your winrate will be in the ballpark of 1.5 BB/100. A "true" breakeven player will run at -3 BB/100 or worse over 100k hands about 1/40 of the time. A "true" +1.5 BB/100 player will run at -3 BB/100 or worse over 100k hands less than 1/500 of the time. So while it's not impossible that you've been playing SLIGHTLY winning poker, it's pretty close to impossible that you "should've" been anything resembling a big winner over this time.

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Thanks, that was really helpful.

Can you describe your calculations?