PBP: Renton Theorem zohmygod

[Renton]

I've been struggling a lot with my game lately, and poohbah has come around. I was planning on making a theory post, but now im kinda unconfident in my game, so im probably just going to ramble about some things I've been learning recently.

Poker is a very complicated game. However, if you understand the basics of odds calculation, equity vs common ranges, and common player tendencies, it can be a lot simpler than one would think. When faced with any decision, you have to choose between calling, folding, or betting/raising (and what size). Generally theres an undisputable optimal play, though its accepted among good players that you should mix it up a little bit. Here's the most groundbreaking theorem in all of deepstacked big bet poker:


When making a decision preflop, on the flop, or on the turn, and theres a significant amount of money behind, choose the decision that has the greatest potential to put you in a good spot on later streets.

This foolproof theorem is the explanation of almost every commonly accepted decision we make. Since its pretty nebulous, lets try to explain it some.

What is a good spot?

To me a good spot is a situation where we can profitably play a wide range of hands. Thats about as simple as I can put it. More accurately though, its a relative term. I general equate "putting yourself in a good spot" to "putting yourself in the best possible spot." There are situations in poker where its hard not to put yourself in a bad spot, so you just choose to put yourself in the least bad spot [img]/images/graemlins/smile.gif[/img].

Any situation where you are on a very narrow range is a bad spot, even if you have the nuts. Here for example:

Example 1: 200nl 9 handed, games are standard pokerstars nitty: You openlimp AA in second position, and a good aggro player raises in late position. It folds to you and you reraise to pot.

Even though you have the nuts, you have not put yourself in a good spot. Here's why:

You are on a very narrow range. Even if you occasionally mix it up and limp-reraise with 22 and a suited connector from time to time, KK+ still makes a very large amount of your range. Even if you limpreraise a really wide range, likely your PERCEIVED range will be very strong, and this is very bad for getting value with AA.

Using the fool proof Renton Theorem to analyse this hand, we'll start with the decision whether to open limp or raise. RT says that raising is better, since it allows us to get three streets of value with a wide perceived range after the flop.

Suppose we limp, limping AA should be in every players arsenal. Once we are closing the action hu, is reraising better or is calling better? RT says to call, because we'd limpcall with any pair, and limpcalling wiht a deceptive hand like this would put us in some great spots postflop.

Example 2: same game as 1, tight player in second position opens for 7, donk in MP coldcalls, we overcall in the sb with 66. The flop is 268 with two to a suit. We are first to act.

What is the best play? I think at this point its common knowledge that this is a standard lead. Why? Because we'd do it with a very wide range of hands in this spot, including sets, draws, 99-JJ, and total air. In our overall gameplan here, leading the flop is a good play with a lot of hands. Checkraising is basically terrible because the flop checks through a lot, resulting in a bad spot, and also the nit will bet, we'll raise, and that will also result in a crappy spot because he'll fold an overpair if he's any good.

Notice that in all of this that im basically completely ignoring our equity in the pot, and our need to maximize eV THIS STREET. An example would be if you flatcall a late position raise out of the blinds with 33 and the flop comes down K74r. 33 is probably 60% vs villains range, but if he's any good we can't c/c his continuation bet. Surely the optimal play would be to see a turn since we probably have the best hand, but in actuality we are put in so many "bad spots" on later streets that this is a c/f.

Basically about 90+% of situations where we are put in a tough spot and have a very narrow perceived range can be avoided altogether with well planned and executed play on earlier streets, and this is an extremely big part of playing fundamentally good poker.