Professional No-Limit Hold 'em Study Group Day 1

[SMACK BOOTY]

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i lol'd. nice description.

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You can use it, but please give me my props.

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donk control > pot control unless you're betting so much that everyone routinely folds unless they have you beat.

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Wait a minute! Did you try and quietly slip in an epiphany here? Are you saying keep betting enough to keep the donks in at the risk of having them beat me with 2 pair? Well Doc, this is the essence of Sklansky bucks, and on made small hands (ie...1 pair), I've been trying to cut back on my reliance on them. With draws on the other hand, I am the Sky-buck kid...

[cubase]

Matt, another question around pot odds, implied odds and gutshots.

I don't have my book handy, but it sure seems throughout the book (and I believe there is an example in the implied odds section about a gutshot) that you are often calling with gutshots.

It seems unlikely in raised pot you would have the odds to chase a gutshot unless you and opp were very deepstacked and he would actually stack off when you hit without a *very* strong hand himself.

In an unraised pot, it seems unlikely you could build the pot fast enough to stack someone unless they had a big hand and you had enough players in pre-flop to create the appropriate SPR to actually build the flop quickly enough (without raises).

Would you talk about gutshots a little more? I tend to either c-bet with them, float with them, or re-raise with them. It seems I never feel I have the implied odds (much less pot odds) to call for a gutshot, yet, again, I see multiple examples of calling for a gutshot throughout PNL.

With small PP's we often use the 11x-25x rule for guaging whether we can call for set value (11x for tighter opps and 25x for our loosest opps). This occurs, however, in a raised pot usually and we are trying to flop the hand (not draw to it after the flop).

With the gutshot, we are drawing thin to 4 outs with 1 card to come (I can't imagine getting past the turn with a gutshot unless opp checks), so 2x rule states 8% chance or just around 11.5:1.

Perhaps I'm missing out on a lot of value by not calling with gutshots and I just don't know it. [img]/images/graemlins/smile.gif[/img]

I'm guessing there some math around hitting your gutshot and losing with it (just like flopping a set and losing to bigger sets, flushes, straights).

So I think you'd need more than 11.5:1 to account for the times you hit and lose. Also, you could hit and your opponent could have just been taking a stab at the pot, but folds to your turn bet when you hit. Now you have to hit at least twice to make up for the time you missed (minus overlay from other players).

[Matt Flynn]

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Matt, another question around pot odds, implied odds and gutshots.

I don't have my book handy, but it sure seems throughout the book (and I believe there is an example in the implied odds section about a gutshot) that you are often calling with gutshots.

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when we do this it is almost always a gutshot to the nuts, and typically without a flush draw. that gives you 4 outs to the nuts, and often a hidden hand precisely because they wouldn't think you'd call with a gutshot. so you'd need around 12 to 1 in implied odds after accounting for losing to a river card (actually a little less but we're gonna fudge to account for optimism).

should we go over some of the examples?

[Gelford]

Matt, you are awesome !!!! [img]/images/graemlins/smile.gif[/img]


I just got of a plane, and unfortunately my local postoffice [censored] up last week and mislaid my copy of your book, so that I didn't have it with me on our vacation. But will pick it up tomorrow and I'm looking forward to being a part of this [img]/images/graemlins/smile.gif[/img]

[wallenborn]

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should we go over some of the examples?

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Yes, i'd like to see that, if only to explore how you'd typically have to extract. So the example from page 16 is:


You have 6[img]/images/graemlins/spade.gif[/img]5[img]/images/graemlins/spade.gif[/img] on a Q[img]/images/graemlins/heart.gif[/img]4[img]/images/graemlins/diamond.gif[/img]2[img]/images/graemlins/club.gif[/img] flop. There is $20 in the pot, with $200 behind. Your opponent bets $10. Say you call $10 and the 3[img]/images/graemlins/club.gif[/img] comes on the turn.

So you have put in $10, and to make up for the times you whiff you need to extract $120, right? $30 are in the pot, so you need to pick up $90 more.

Assume you have postion (the example doesn't specify that, btw), then he'll see 3 to a straight on the board, and giving you credit for Ax, 66 or so, he'll probably bet out again, to charge you for the draw (he doesn't know you're already there). There's $40 in the pot, and he might bet $30. You call (you need $60 more). River is a blank. He checks, you bet half the pot ($50). He calls, and you have fallen $10 short, right?

So you need him to bet more on the turn, or call more on the river. Or a different line altogether. And you need this on average, so you'd have to account for the times he fires one barrel with AK and checkfolds the turn.

[Matt Flynn]

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You have 6[img]/images/graemlins/spade.gif[/img]5[img]/images/graemlins/spade.gif[/img] on a Q[img]/images/graemlins/heart.gif[/img]4[img]/images/graemlins/diamond.gif[/img]2[img]/images/graemlins/club.gif[/img] flop. There is $20 in the pot, with $200 behind. Your opponent bets $10. Say you call $10 and the 3[img]/images/graemlins/club.gif[/img] comes on the turn.

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ah got it, your point is clear to me now. we just use that as an example of how implied odds != pot odds, why implied odds are important, and that implied odds can be negative. we don't say to call based on your implied odds there. i do see your point though: stating that explicitly at the end of the example would've been more clear.

actually you _would_ call there, not for implied odds alone but because you can also steal that pot with a semibluff on the turn a reasonable amount of the time. that's beyond that chapter's scope though.

[Matt Flynn]

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I had a weird hand that happened versus some tag.

The flop came 998r, I bet he check/called OOP. Turn came a T, he check/minraised me.

I hold ATo. Assume that I somehow know magically that he is bluffing a very large portion of the time here. With ~PSB remaining is it better to push or fold? Also I do not know whether he bluff pushes the river often or only pushes with a better hand, but at the time I assumed he would bluff more often than check.

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as always a question of how do you maximize. if you are ahead you should push, unless he's very bluff-happy and will push most rivers with hands that would fold to your pot-sized all-in (in which weird case you call and then call any river bet).

[tautomer]

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The issue I have is that the +EV is almost misleading here. You are not actually profiting! If you ran this through a computer simulation for x million hands, you would lose money in the long run even though you are +EV.

And that is confusing! And perhaps I'm missing something else here, because I'm looking for balance. If I'm +EV than presumably my villian should be -EV, no? I haven't done the math yet, but if I'm winning 5/12P then he must be taking down the other 7/12P.

So we are both +EV but I'm losing $$$.

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Your example is also a little contrived, though. First of all, if you knew that your opponent was going to fold 65% of the time, obviously betting 2/3 of the pot is not optimal (you're betting more than your chances of winning). If you were in this situation, you would need to bet less and find the "sweet spot". Constantly betting 2/3 of the pot when you're only going to win 65% of the time is horrible.

In most games, you will win with a c-bet more often than 65% of the time (if you're paying attention to what your opponents do), and you will also sometimes win even when it gets called.

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The example is contrived (as mentioned in OP) to focus on the math and my curiosity confusion around being +EV but losing money. It is not about strategy, optimal lines, or anything else. You could even remove poker from the example and turn it into a ball throwing contest.

The post is really about understanding EV more fully.

It would appear that for EV to be completely EV for an entire line, you must determine you investment equity and ensure that your EV is above that.

In my example, I've invested 6/12P pre-flop. I need to earn > 1/2P in order to break even on my investment.

If it were 3-way (and assume the 3rd player's strategy is to always fold on the flop), then i need to earn 4/12P to break even. So 3-way given the silly assumptions and rules, I would be +EV for the hand as well as the street.

The key here is that a lot of books/posts tout you need to win X% of the time to break-even on some play. In the above math it would appear we are profiting, when in actuality we are losing money by making this play.

So the math tells us the wrong story and we could conclude the wrong things by seeing a +$EV result in our math.

So really, my EV calculation here is about this and only this street.

If I want to calculate EV for the entire line (am I profiting over the entire line), I seem to need to be able to aggregate my EV results somehow to find out whether I'm *truly* winning or losing money. What is the "correct" way to aggregate EV results to find out if you are truly +EV/-EV for a given line. Using my contrived example, how would we properly (meaning, mathematically) deduce that I'm losing money?

Hopefully I'm providing more clarity. This is NOT about strategy. This is about understanding EV calcs fully.

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Your example is set up to lose money, not much more to it than that. I suggest playing a different opponent who folds 67% of the time because this one is better than you.

[Sunny Mehta]

hey guys,

I'm getting to this thread a bit late (my car had tire issues lol), but it looks like Matty's got everything under control. Great questions and discussion so far on what are two of the more basic chapters in the book. Can't wait to do this on the more complex material. If someone wants to PM me info on the appropriate mIRC channel that y'all hang out on, I'll try and set up a Q&A there as well sometime.

-S

[boardertj]

Sunny what is this mIRC channel that you speak of? I have the slightest clue to what that is.