Special Thread For Chen-Ankenman Mathematics of Poker

[Jerrod Ankenman]

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"DS are you jealous that people might place this book before, lets say theory of poker"

Even THEY don't do that.

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Well, M comes before T in the alphabet.

jerrod

[Divad Yksnal]

Apparently a S.A.T. needs be conducted. Math AND verbal. No time limit, as that favors those who think quick rather than well. Sklansky vs Jerrod and/or Chen. I can't fairly enter since it's a freeroll for me.


DY.

[Deorum]

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"DS are you jealous that people might place this book before, lets say theory of poker"

Even THEY don't do that.

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Well, M comes before T in the alphabet.

jerrod

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I laughed at this. Quite witty [img]/images/graemlins/smile.gif[/img]

[Divad Yksnal]

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I laughed at this. Quite witty

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Witty has become what witty never dreamed of in it's most boring moment.

[creedofhubris]

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Both Ferguson and Mathematics of Poker seem to think that an UTG minraise is often going to win the blinds.

In a full ring cash game, this is not the case.

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Well, I dunno. I don't expect anything out of my actions.

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You expect value out of your actions.

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If my opponents want to call me with weak hands and play postflop, I'm happy. The pot is somewhat bigger and I have a strong distribution and position.

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You only have position vs. the blinds; you have terrible position vs. other people coming along. I realize that your statement is in the context of blind stealing, but you're not only encouraging the blinds to come along, you're encouraging others as well.

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If they don't, I have the $75. The point of raising the minimum isn't to cause your opponents to act in one way or another - you can't control that! It's to put them to a tough theoretical decision, so that whatever way they play, I still get EV.

There are other, more exploitive ways to play. For example, if your opponents will call your jams preflop with weak hands, you should probably jam with AA and KK. But that's getting away from our style of trying to play unexploitably rather than to exploit our opponents.

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I'm primarily interested in cash games here, so bringing up jamming isn't particularly appropriate; the stacks aren't amenable to pushing preflop very often.

Still, your broader point, that a larger raise size might be a good way to exploit errors, I agree with: I think that people in general do call large bets too often preflop.

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I really don't see how minraising with 100 BBs behind is presenting the big blind with a tough decision, or how he wouldn't jump at the chance to try to bust you with just about anything, since he'd be getting big implied odds if he knew that you were minraising a tight range UTG (which is what both Ferguson and Chen & Ankenmannn recommend).

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If your range is so tight that your opponent really has sufficient odds to try to "bust you" with anything, then you should a) loosen up a little, especially toward nut-maker hands, and b) play better after the flop.

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on p. 269, you discuss a raising range in MP1. That range is {77+ AQ+ KQs AJs}. If your range UTG is 20% tighter than this, something like 99+ AQ+, then it seems worth it to take shots at that distribution with a wide range of speculative hands, hoping for a payday. Especially with position. And once the first guy comes along with his 76s, there's no way the second guy will fold his J9s, as their direct odds get better and better.

If you're minraising a significantly wider range preflop, then you run into the problem of getting repopped pre and having to fold that wider range, reducing the value of these already-marginal hands and also of all your other hands that can't stand a reraise.

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I think you are overweighting the hands where the blind flops two pair or whatever and wins a big pot versus the amount of money that the strong distribution makes from the rest of the hands. I'm perfectly content playing my UTG distributions against a random hand with stacks of 25 pots.

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Wouldn't you be happier if the random hand folded and you won the blinds?

Besides, it's not really having one opponent in the blinds that's the problem, it's the three other guys who come along as well that are the problem. Are you still happy playing a 5-way hand with 10 pot stacks, and being out of position?

I think it's higher EV for your raises to be bigger and thin the herd, leading to pots vs. fewer opponents with position on you and more blinds won uncontested.

Among other things, the auto-continuation-bet strategy which you find so profitable loses a lot of its value when faced with a throng of opponents and an unfavorable flop. So you are unable to bet some of your weaker hands, and they lose a portion of the value that autocontbet adds.

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In tourneys, where the effective stack in later rounds is a lot smaller, the BB's implied odds are, of course, much reduced, which makes this play stronger, but I'd like to see a caveat that pretty much all cash games are too loose for this advice to apply.

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That's true about the tournaments, of course. But even in cash games, I don't agree with the caveat you suggest. When I (not that often, admittedly) play $25-$50 NL online I raise the minimum from early position and it seems effective. It's pretty hard to flop a hand good enough to beat an UTG raiser and have his hand be good enough to put a lot of money in the pot but not beat you.

jerrod

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You might get value from the minraise by being thought a donkey and given unwarranted action.

That aside, I would expect you to have positive results with the minraising at 25/50 because your hand distribution is so strong and because you are a good player.

However, whether the minraising is +EV is not really the issue at hand; it's whether there's an even higher +EV way to play.

I suspect that there is, and that your results would be better with bigger raises.

[gull]

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Both Ferguson and Mathematics of Poker seem to think that an UTG minraise is often going to win the blinds.

In a full ring cash game, this is not the case.

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Well, I dunno. I don't expect anything out of my actions.

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You expect value out of your actions.

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Are you kidding? Of course you want value. His point is that you shouldn't try to "force" your opponents to do anything. You should make plays that put your opponents in lose-lose situations. If someone in the blinds call, he's out of position against a premium hand. If he folds, he loses his share of the pot. By limiting the size of your raise, you're doing this with the minimum possible investment. I.e., maximizing value.

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If my opponents want to call me with weak hands and play postflop, I'm happy. The pot is somewhat bigger and I have a strong distribution and position.

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You only have position vs. the blinds; you have terrible position vs. other people coming along. I realize that your statement is in the context of blind stealing, but you're not only encouraging the blinds to come along, you're encouraging others as well.

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Changing the size of your raise affects the blinds most. A non-posting player will get 1.75:1 if you raise to 2xbb, and he'll get 1.5:1 if you raise to 3xbb. This is a small difference.

The big blind, on the other hand, gets 3.5:1 against a minraise and gets 2.25:1 against a 3xbb raise. This is a very big difference.

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If they don't, I have the $75. The point of raising the minimum isn't to cause your opponents to act in one way or another - you can't control that! It's to put them to a tough theoretical decision, so that whatever way they play, I still get EV.

There are other, more exploitive ways to play. For example, if your opponents will call your jams preflop with weak hands, you should probably jam with AA and KK. But that's getting away from our style of trying to play unexploitably rather than to exploit our opponents.

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I'm primarily interested in cash games here, so bringing up jamming isn't particularly appropriate; the stacks aren't amenable to pushing preflop very often.

Still, your broader point, that a larger raise size might be a good way to exploit errors, I agree with: I think that people in general do call large bets too often preflop.

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Exploiting errors is your main goal. If your opponents suck postflop, you may want to make small raises to induce bad calls and win more postflop. If you opponents call giant raises preflop then you may want to push with any strong hand.

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I really don't see how minraising with 100 BBs behind is presenting the big blind with a tough decision, or how he wouldn't jump at the chance to try to bust you with just about anything, since he'd be getting big implied odds if he knew that you were minraising a tight range UTG (which is what both Ferguson and Chen & Ankenmannn recommend).

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If your range is so tight that your opponent really has sufficient odds to try to "bust you" with anything, then you should a) loosen up a little, especially toward nut-maker hands, and b) play better after the flop.

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on p. 269, you discuss a raising range in MP1. That range is {77+ AQ+ KQs AJs}. If your range UTG is 20% tighter than this, something like 99+ AQ+, then it seems worth it to take shots at that distribution with a wide range of speculative hands, hoping for a payday. Especially with position. And once the first guy comes along with his 76s, there's no way the second guy will fold his J9s, as their direct odds get better and better.

If you're minraising a significantly wider range preflop, then you run into the problem of getting repopped pre and having to fold that wider range, reducing the value of these already-marginal hands and also of all your other hands that can't stand a reraise.


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If you're commonly folding preflop to repops, it seems logical to make smaller raises so you lose less. Anyway, 12/68 of the time you'll have QQ+, so I think the concerns about repops are being overstated.


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I think you are overweighting the hands where the blind flops two pair or whatever and wins a big pot versus the amount of money that the strong distribution makes from the rest of the hands. I'm perfectly content playing my UTG distributions against a random hand with stacks of 25 pots.

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Wouldn't you be happier if the random hand folded and you won the blinds?

Besides, it's not really having one opponent in the blinds that's the problem, it's the three other guys who come along as well that are the problem. Are you still happy playing a 5-way hand with 10 pot stacks, and being out of position?

I think it's higher EV for your raises to be bigger and thin the herd, leading to pots vs. fewer opponents with position on you and more blinds won uncontested.

Among other things, the auto-continuation-bet strategy which you find so profitable loses a lot of its value when faced with a throng of opponents and an unfavorable flop. So you are unable to bet some of your weaker hands, and they lose a portion of the value that autocontbet adds.

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No, playing a pot in position with a premium hand is the best situation you can get into. I think you're overestimating the chances of junk hands beating premium hands. 45s will only hit better than a pair like 5% of the time. And when your opponent finally hits a flop, hopefully you'll be a good enough player to lay down your aces and not lose a 100bb stack with a single pair.

"Thinning the herd" with premium hands is stupid. I'm always happy when I raise with KK and people call. Visibility is certainly a problem with big pocket pairs. Regardless, you're offering about the same odds to callers (1.5:1 versus 1.75:1). Are there really that many hands that fold getting 1.5:1 but call getting 1.75:1?

[curious123]

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on p. 269, you discuss a raising range in MP1. That range is {77+ AQ+ KQs AJs}. If your range UTG is 20% tighter than this, something like 99+ AQ+, then it seems worth it to take shots at that distribution with a wide range of speculative hands, hoping for a payday.

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A payday of how much though? Re-read the relevant section creed.

[PokerGOAT]

Hi everyone. I like the book so far, I have encountered some errata, or at least I think it's wrong.

On page 41 as someone earlier mentioned, the fourth column heading should be P(not B).

On page 81, in calculating <X, $x>, the "<X> from outcome" coefficient for the last term should be (500) and it is (400) on the first two lines and then changes magically to (500), so it eventually makes sense I think. Later on that page the <X, $100> value for the second part of the function should be $95.45 and not $94.45.

Am I making any mistakes? Sorry about the knitpicking, I will have some more substantial comments for sure.

[jogsxyz]

Jam or fold table in chapter 12.

These jam numbers are higher than those of other tables which has been posted on the internet.

Single table tournament. Final two. 50 big blinds each.
Table says jam with KTo. Book says this is closer to optimal than any other strategy. Is this correct? When the final two are competing with fewer than 50BBs, if both are playing optimally there will be no post flop play.

Another question. Final four in a STT. All have about equal stacks. 15 to 20 BBs.
CO and button folds. You are small blind. Do you play based on the jam or fold table?

[Jerrod Ankenman]

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Jam or fold table in chapter 12.

These jam numbers are higher than those of other tables which has been posted on the internet.

Single table tournament. Final two. 50 big blinds each.
Table says jam with KTo. Book says this is closer to optimal than any other strategy. Is this correct? When the final two are competing with fewer than 50BBs, if both are playing optimally there will be no post flop play.

Another question. Final four in a STT. All have about equal stacks. 15 to 20 BBs.
CO and button folds. You are small blind. Do you play based on the jam or fold table?

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The KTo thing is a known issue - that hand is very strange at stacks above thirty - it's mixed at almost every stack from 30-50 and is 100% at some stacks above that, so we just marked it JAM. The jam or fold tables are a simplification of the real thing - every stack has its own tables, but it's unwieldy to carry around tables for every stack size. In combining the tables to make "a number" there are a few hands that may be off.

Anyway, the jam or fold table isn't a good strategy when the stacks are deep! We play jam or fold when the stacks are 10-11 blinds or less. Other than that, raise smaller amounts. Stacks above that size are included for completeness but not as a recommendation for actual play.

In multiway play where it's folded around to the small blind and the stacks are appropriate, I generally do play jam or fold in cash games. In tournaments you might want to be a little looser to jam and a tighter to call because of the "chicken" effect.

jerrod