Thoughts on PNL?

[Sunny Mehta]

thanks everyone for the great discussion in this thread....Sean and Bobbo, thanks for the great clarifications....

things are a bit hectic for me right now, but I wanted to paste one post (and my reply) from the Review thread in the Books forum that I thought y'all might dig....

poster Sounded Simple wrote:


"I have a question regarding how to avoid being exploited when using SPR by setminers.

Pre-flop
- You are on the button with 100BB.
- BB is a setminer (although this is unknown to you since you have only played 20 hands) and also has 100BB
- You have AA and would like an SPR of <10 so you raise to 6bb (assume this is online so you cant easily raise more)
- SB folds and BB calls so there is 13BB and your stack is 94BB.
- Your SPR is 7.2 and you decide to commit provided no obvious draws come in.

Post Flop -
- The flop comes Jh 6d 3c, you decide to commit and set about getting the money in the middle
- BB checks, you bet the pot, BB calls, Pot = 39bb, stacks are now 81bb
- Turn and river are safe and it all goes in on the river.
- BB shows 66 for a set.

So how do we prevent "unknown" setminers from exploiting us when we use SPR for 1 pair hands?
We are giving them the two pieces of information they need
(a) We most likely will have TP on the flop.
(b) We WILL stack off with it.

Some of my initial thoughts are -
- Raise even more pre-flop (say 10bb) to deny them odds to hit their set.
(Problem with this is you wont get any action at all from these guys or even anyone else online)

- Dont commit with TP against these guys, steal pots with all sorts of hands (including trash) and get out if they look like they want to get the stacks in.
(Problem here is that you need a solid read on them that they will only stack off with a set or better - that takes time but if they know you use SPR then they have a read on you pretty quick)

- Mix it up against them. Similar to their last point just vary the raises and steal lots.
(Again the problem is that we need the read!)


So to summarise my question.
SPR is intended to simplify decisions for us against unknowns. How do we stop it from simplifying decisions for the unknowns against us?

BTW - This is not a criticism of the concept, Im just trying to get this right."



I replied:


"Hi Sounded Simple,

Thank you for the well organized post.

First off, poker is a game of gathering information, and if by "unknown" you are trying to imply that you have very little to no information about your opponent, your decision making is inherently going to be more difficult and less accurate than if you know even some tendencies of your opponent. SPR and REM can help, but remember that integral parts of both equations involve knowing things about your opponents' ranges and tendencies.

Secondly, you go on to mention playing against a "setminer." Perhaps if your regular game features a decent amount of these, that immensely helps make him less unknown. Even just knowing that he's a setminer tells you some important things about his range and tendencies. You know that he's probably very tight preflop and also fairly tight-passive postflop.

Start with your preflop raise. When you raise to 6bb, what range do you expect to get called by? How much of that range includes worse hands on this flop? Can he have KK or QQ or AJ or even TT? Or will he never stack off with those hands? It would be very hard for me to believe that he'd never commit with a hand worse than AA, but if indeed it is true, you simply need to realize that your target SPR against this player is very small with one pair hands.

Since you are well above your target SPR, even with a pfr to 6bb, you should play more carefully postflop and perhaps try and exercise pot control. To actually get your target SPR against this player heads up, you might have to raise to an obscene amount pf, which is simply not practical. However, that doesn't mean that raising to an amount that doesn't achieve your target SPR is unprofitable.

Remember ranges!

You are not going to always have AA when you raise to 6bb, and he is not always going to have 66 and flop a set. What will he do with hands like KQ when you raise to 6bb? If he'll call then you get his stack when he flops top pair. If he'll fold pf, then you can rob him blind by making a 6bb raise with a very wide range of hands. What if he calls pf but then check-folds everytime he doesn't have a set or strong top pair or overpair? You can rob him blind by raising to 6bb preflop and then betting the flop a high percentage of the time. The combined steal equity as well as pot equity that you have in this situation makes it highly positive EV.

You also don't have to raise to 6bb. If he'll fold the same range preflop, you can get away with making a smaller raise so that you keep the same pf steal equity but can manage the pot easier postflop. But if he'll call more liberally preflop but check/fold a lot postflop, then you actually make more by stealing when you raise to 6bb.

This is just a start on how to tackle these types of situations. Now that we have laid out the groundwork for how we negotiate these "equations" - (by using REM and SPR!) - we will have much more to say in future volumes on adjusting to specific situations and filling in the specific "variables".


Thanks for reading,

Sunny
"

[atmstuck]

Hello Sunny, since you replied to this thread promptly, I have a few question to ask if you are still around. My previous comments seem to be criticizing, however, I just feel that you guys don't really put enough information into this book for us readers. The best thing I like about Sklansky's books is that he knows how to put things in brief, while stating every key point precisely. I am not saying that you don't write a good book, but it might take you 3 books to express your understanding of poker. I will definitely buy Volume II if there is one. All I can say right now is Volume I is definitely not a completed book, and advanced players can't really profit much on this. It's a good read for beginners, no doubt

[tubasteve]

when SSNL regulars start open raising to 6bb and crap like that, no one with half a clue is going to let them get away with it, pure and simple. i dont really know how else to put it. since we almost all play like 99% of our hands online, the book isnt very applicable.


another thing i dislike is the triskaidekaphobia stuff, because youre basically saying that 100bb deep we shouldn't be raising to 3.5bb preflop because our SPR will be 13. that seems kinda stupid, because you can't just open to $6 every time or you won't get any action unless youre behind or on one end or the other of a cooler. when youre playing live this is a lot better since raise sizing is a little less standard and no one will realize what youre doing.