A Few Thoughts

[cbloom]

nh

I think it's hillarious when someone bluffs and the donk calls with like pocket deuces on an AJT board. The bluffer goes off - "OMG, you're so bad, how could you call with 22 on that board". Umm, okay, he's bad, but you're even worse for bluffing agaisnt him when he's clearly a horrible caller.

[Mercman572]

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nh

I think it's hillarious when someone bluffs and the donk calls with like pocket deuces on an AJT board. The bluffer goes off - "OMG, you're so bad, how could you call with 22 on that board". Umm, okay, he's bad, but you're even worse for bluffing agaisnt him when he's clearly a horrible caller.

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Yeah see that quite a bit. I tend to make this mistake against tight players sometimes because I forget that some of them tend to get married to a hand when they finally deem it playable preflop. Tight does not necessarily mean weak/tight.

[DWarrior]

Great post, too bad I didn't read it before.

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4. Don't substitute pot odds for hand ranges. Too many times I would call a 1/4 river bet when there is no way I'm ahead of 25% of villains holdings.

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If you honestly believe this, then you have made a logical error. Your example is flawed in three ways:

One:
Villain bets 1/4 pot, you're beating 25% of his range. You're going to win 1.25 pot when ahead, lose .25 pot when behind. 1.25*.25-.25*.75=0.3125-0.1875=.125 pot, so you're getting 50% on your money on the river.

But my guess is you already know this, you just made a quick example and just didn't do the math for it.

Two:
You have to weigh the ranges according to the probabilities of each hand, so if the board is AK527 and you have AK and think your villain's range is AA, KK, AK, AQ, AJ, 55; then you might decide you're behind 3 hands, tied with 1, and beating 2 and figure you're a 3:2 dog. That's not the case though, because each hand has different number of combinations:
AA - 1 combination (1 A on board, 1 A in your hand, only 2 As in the deck)
KK - 1 (see above)
AK - 4 (2 As, 2 Ks in deck)
AQ - 8 (2 As, 4 Qs)
AJ - 8 (2 As, 4 Js)

Total: 22 hands

Suddenly, you're ahead of ~73% of villain's range and only behind ~9%. This might be where you're not comfortable.

Finally:

Your reads modify the above range as well. While there certainly are 8 combinations of AJ, the villain might not play his AJ that way all the time, so realistically he might only do it half the time, whereas he might take the same like with AA almost every time.

So again, you have to modify the range, say you're only beating him half as often as direct probabilities, now you're only beating 8 out of 16 hands (not 16 out of 22).

However, this point is very far from easily quantifiable, so you have to pretty much guess and rely on past experience. That's why even though a call might be -EV under direct probabilities, your read might make it +EV. I think this is what you're talking about, but you really did not express it that way. Also, the only way to get better with this is by gaining experience. If you're always folding and using the 100% mathematical ranges, you'll never develop your range reads. Also, most of us are risk-averse by nature, so we might always underestimate the % of times we're ahead. Others are gamblers, so they might overestimate their winning chances.

I think points 2 and 3 are examples of Bayes' Theorem, something David Sklansky talks about a lot (I believe he even refers to himself as a Bayenesian Statistician). Unfortunately, I've never heard of that theorem in formal studies (since my formal education in statistics is just Stats 101), so I'm only familiar with it from 2+2 books, forums, and articles.

Again, maybe I'm nitpicking your example, but I think it's important to keep those 3 factors in mind, as they're the ones that should dictate your decision making.

[BGnight]

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Great post, too bad I didn't read it before.

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4. Don't substitute pot odds for hand ranges. Too many times I would call a 1/4 river bet when there is no way I'm ahead of 25% of villains holdings.

[/ QUOTE ]

If you honestly believe this, then you have made a logical error. Your example is flawed in three ways:

One:
Villain bets 1/4 pot, you're beating 25% of his range. You're going to win 1.25 pot when ahead, lose .25 pot when behind. 1.25*.25-.25*.75=0.3125-0.1875=.125 pot, so you're getting 50% on your money on the river.

But my guess is you already know this, you just made a quick example and just didn't do the math for it.

Two:
You have to weigh the ranges according to the probabilities of each hand, so if the board is AK527 and you have AK and think your villain's range is AA, KK, AK, AQ, AJ, 55; then you might decide you're behind 3 hands, tied with 1, and beating 2 and figure you're a 3:2 dog. That's not the case though, because each hand has different number of combinations:
AA - 1 combination (1 A on board, 1 A in your hand, only 2 As in the deck)
KK - 1 (see above)
AK - 4 (2 As, 2 Ks in deck)
AQ - 8 (2 As, 4 Qs)
AJ - 8 (2 As, 4 Js)

Total: 22 hands

Suddenly, you're ahead of ~73% of villain's range and only behind ~9%. This might be where you're not comfortable.

Finally:

Your reads modify the above range as well. While there certainly are 8 combinations of AJ, the villain might not play his AJ that way all the time, so realistically he might only do it half the time, whereas he might take the same like with AA almost every time.

So again, you have to modify the range, say you're only beating him half as often as direct probabilities, now you're only beating 8 out of 16 hands (not 16 out of 22).

However, this point is very far from easily quantifiable, so you have to pretty much guess and rely on past experience. That's why even though a call might be -EV under direct probabilities, your read might make it +EV. I think this is what you're talking about, but you really did not express it that way. Also, the only way to get better with this is by gaining experience. If you're always folding and using the 100% mathematical ranges, you'll never develop your range reads. Also, most of us are risk-averse by nature, so we might always underestimate the % of times we're ahead. Others are gamblers, so they might overestimate their winning chances.

I think points 2 and 3 are examples of Bayes' Theorem, something David Sklansky talks about a lot (I believe he even refers to himself as a Bayenesian Statistician). Unfortunately, I've never heard of that theorem in formal studies (since my formal education in statistics is just Stats 101), so I'm only familiar with it from 2+2 books, forums, and articles.

Again, maybe I'm nitpicking your example, but I think it's important to keep those 3 factors in mind, as they're the ones that should dictate your decision making.

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My head is spinning.
If you know your beat, don't call. This is all "theoretical Sklansky/theory of poker stuff". Very few of us are making decisions based on listing every hand range and then making a mathematical probablitlies in our head w/ 30 seconds to act. It's impossible for like 95% of players out there. Math is overrated in NL. Instinct is underrated. It's just not that practical for someone w/ a nonmathematical brain (i.e. ME). It's very important, but I think it can be summarized a lot easier w/out mathematical formulas.
I appreciate your knowledge of probabilities and stats, but for someone like me this is almost useless.