grade the level of poker thinking in this explanation

[ggbman]

Well first of all, despite being sub-obtimal, it's far from how a fish would play it. Fish [censored] love flush draws, let alone combo draws with overs. Furthermore they love the idea of folding pairs with these hands, and no realistic conception of folding equity so they fastplay these hands on the turn as well.

That aside, yeah the flop is pretty obviously medicore in my opinion. I would consider myself a very strong player on the whole, but i am sure you could find a hand i play worse than this every session. Granted i am much more apt the fess up to it, this guy might just rather justify a mediocore playing knowing full well that it's medicore than do that publically. His lack of acknowledgement of this in his analysis doesn't mean he "clearly lacks the ability to do that analysis correctly" IMO.

This all said, there is more variance in poker than most people, even many very good players who play high limits realize. There are more ways to run badly or run well than most people think. No one thinks of themselves as running well when they VB top pair on the river when their opponent misses their flush draw 6 straight hands but rivers 2nd pair good kicker every single time so they have to pay off a river bet. Your thinking that LHE has sick [censored] variance is right, your are just trying to make a conclusive example out of a pretty spotty one IMO.

[mike l.]

fair enough. your first paragraph about flush draws is the only part i would disagree with but i think that's just the big difference between aggro online fish and passive live fish coming through, a discussion weve all had on here a million times.

[Guy McSucker]

[ QUOTE ]

i was shocked that a player beating the levels this player's been beating for as long as he has didnt mention any of this level thought in his analysis.


[/ QUOTE ]

The thing about this particular hand is that, because of the hero's holding and assessment of the preflop action, hero rapidly concludes that a) he is going to the river and b) his opponent is going to the showdown.

I think once you've got those two things figured out, the game becomes a simpler one: there's no need to think about taking lines that might include getting a fold from the opponent, which are the kind of lines that would involve some higher-level thinking so that you can plausibly represent a better hand; so all you need to think about is your own equity versus the opponents range and how to maximise that. We can argue about whether he did that properly in this hand, but I think he certainly thought about how to maximise the equity of his hand versus his opponent's range.

The next level of thinking would be to try to maximise the equity of his own range versus the opponent's range, rather than his own hand versus his opponent's range. I grant you he did not mention that. But people seldom do.

[sonartec]

" The next level of thinking would be to try to maximise the equity of his own range versus the opponent's range, rather than his own hand versus his opponent's range. I grant you he did not mention that. But people seldom do."

Am i missing something here, or is this bad?

[Guy McSucker]

[ QUOTE ]
" The next level of thinking would be to try to maximise the equity of his own range versus the opponent's range, rather than his own hand versus his opponent's range. I grant you he did not mention that. But people seldom do."

Am i missing something here, or is this bad?

[/ QUOTE ]

Do you mean, is it bad to try to play your range versus his range? Or do you mean, is it bad that we don't tend to mention it?

Playing your range versus his range is the way to play unexploitable poker, i.e. the game-theory way. So no, it's not bad.

We sort of do mention this kind of thing, although not in so many words, every time we talk about "balancing", "metagame" and even just plain old bluffing. I.e. if you want to bluff successfully, your range had better include some strong hands. Someone, was it Scary_Tiger?, alluded to it above too.

My point was really just that the need for this is vastly diminished once you decide that both you and your opponent are river-committed, and that the opponent is most likely showdown-committed.

[waffle]

mike, can you give an example of an A+ thought process approaching this situation?

[mike l.]

im not going to do a whole long post on the thing mainly because i dont have time but the crux is a very strong analysis (and play) of this hand needs to include either some sort of heavy semibluffing on the flop or turn given the value of hero's hand even versus something like 88, or a very specific set of reasons why he decided not to play it this way. things like tells, how previous hands went down, tone of the game, how bb is running and playing, what bb thinks of sb's play, what bb thinks sb thinks bb thinks of sb's play, etc should come into play most of the time as well. there's more but others can keep filling in the blanks.

[dangerfish]

[ QUOTE ]
i dont really care about him at all, dont even know him, im sure he's a great guy, no reason to think otherwise. im just trying to prove a point to myself and others about limit hold em being more about luck than any of us care to think about.

[/ QUOTE ]

Any chance he didn't know you were going to post his paragraph on 2plus2 to and scrutinize every inch of it? Is it possible he gave you a very brief description of his thinking and in fact he is capable of thinking about this hand deeper but either didn't want to explain or didn't take the time? How do you rate that thinking?

[Guy McSucker]

[ QUOTE ]
im not going to do a whole long post on the thing mainly because i dont have time but the crux is a very strong analysis (and play) of this hand needs to include either some sort of heavy semibluffing on the flop or turn given the value of hero's hand even versus something like 88, or a very specific set of reasons why he decided not to play it this way. things like tells, how previous hands went down, tone of the game, how bb is running and playing, what bb thinks of sb's play, what bb thinks sb thinks bb thinks of sb's play, etc should come into play most of the time as well. there's more but others can keep filling in the blanks.

[/ QUOTE ]

Well, I don't get it. He says that BB does not fourbet much, and that his range there is pretty much pairs and AK, AQ. In a monster pot there is very little point trying to semibluff any of these hands, in the sense of trying to get them to fold. At least, that is my reading of the situation and it seems to be this player's view too. Granted he didn't say this much but it comes over pretty clearly in the analysis he does give. So he gives him a range, realises he can't win without winning the showdown, and chooses a line.

Why you expect him to analyse the hand deeper I have no idea, but I really would like to understand.

[gehrig]

[ QUOTE ]
[ QUOTE ]
im not going to do a whole long post on the thing mainly because i dont have time but the crux is a very strong analysis (and play) of this hand needs to include either some sort of heavy semibluffing on the flop or turn given the value of hero's hand even versus something like 88, or a very specific set of reasons why he decided not to play it this way. things like tells, how previous hands went down, tone of the game, how bb is running and playing, what bb thinks of sb's play, what bb thinks sb thinks bb thinks of sb's play, etc should come into play most of the time as well. there's more but others can keep filling in the blanks.

[/ QUOTE ]

Well, I don't get it. He says that BB does not fourbet much, and that his range there is pretty much pairs and AK, AQ. In a monster pot there is very little point trying to semibluff any of these hands, in the sense of trying to get them to fold. At least, that is my reading of the situation and it seems to be this player's view too. Granted he didn't say this much but it comes over pretty clearly in the analysis he does give. So he gives him a range, realises he can't win without winning the showdown, and chooses a line.

Why you expect him to analyse the hand deeper I have no idea, but I really would like to understand.

[/ QUOTE ]
i feel kind of bad that people are still writing serious responses to the troll