randomisers

[sh58]

i was reading a post earlier about limping UTG in full ring game cash games. giant buddha said this

'You can also raise some of your small/medium pairs for deception. I just raise em when they're both black, and limp/reraise AA and KK when they're both black, sometimes AK of spades.'

that got me to thinking whether anyone uses a more complex system like this to randomise their play.

obviously there is a problem with there being 4 equally occuring suits, but you may be able to get around that by using combinations of suits. (ie. i will do certain thing if my cards are 1 club and 1 heart)

a simple example: often people want to limp or raise UTG with SCs every now and again to mix it up, ala harrington.
so if you wanted to do this 25% of time, you just choose a suit. maybe 12.5% you could choose a suit and ignore the first and third occurences.

this system should be hard to dicipher for even very observant opponents, as they don't see a difference between suits at all. and if they noticed, you could easily switch suits.

it would work like the 2nd hand of a clock but without you needing a watch (i don't have one) and you could make it as simple or complex as you liked.

thoughts?

[sayuncle]

Second hand of watch is what i use. If you have to play with your chips like me (you know, the chip shuffle thing), get all one color and add one of a different color. Base randomness on the placement of that one chip. (only works in live games, natch).

These aren't 'systems' but they're handy.

[Gonso]

You can base it on your hole cards from the previous hand.

[NMcNasty]

I think its ridiculous. Its fancy play syndrome at its worst. Whether you raise or not with suited connectors should be based on factors like how laggy the table is behind you or how many hands you have raised recently. The color of your cards shouldn't be an influencing factor.

[alanbrown]

Not at all. If you don't randomize your play somewhat you'll get picked off by good players. The problem is that people are naturally terrible at generating random numbers so having an external source of random data is a great help. This has nothing to do with FPS.

[NMcNasty]

I call it FPS because people perceive their opponents as poker wizards capable of both determining the exact hand range someone is raising with and then being good enough to exploit that knowledge. It would take thousands of hands to tell exactly how frequently a player is raising suited connectors.

Most of your opponents have set hand ranges that they just play the same way over and over. Your range should be whatever is best against their specific ranges, and you should only change your range when you feel they are about to change theirs. Randomizing your play is like conceding that your opponents have better reading ability than you do. Your fear that your opponents will exploit you becomes greater than your confidence that you are exploiting them.

[Bang584]

I agree and disagree.

I agree that randomizing will probably not be the maximum +EV strategy against easily exploitable players. You should use your judgement against these players to squeeze out as much profit as possible.

I disagree that randomizing my play is like conceding that my opponents have superior reading ability. They may be better at reading hands than I am at concealing them, but that's a different story.

Mixing up your play becomes more important when you play the same players over and over again. They'll start to become aware of your tendencies, so you need to throw some doubt in there from time to time. When mixing up your play, you can use your judgement... or randomization. Whichever works best for you.

[alanbrown]

I also think that randomizing is much more important in live games. People will come up with a story to explain your action and you can either try to exploit that or you can step out of that game by randomizing.

[Gonso]

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I agree that randomizing will probably not be the maximum +EV strategy against easily exploitable players. You should use your judgement against these players to squeeze out as much profit as possible.

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I agree with that.

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Mixing up your play becomes more important when you play the same players over and over again.

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This also, although I'd just add that very good players can pick up on your tendencies pretty quickly.

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It would take thousands of hands to tell exactly how frequently a player is raising suited connectors.

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Possibly, but they don't need to know how frequently for your randomizing to be effective. The first time you showdown with 76s after raising from UTG+1, you establish to observant players that 'some percent of the time', you are capable of raising with marginal (or even weak) hands OOP. They now know that a raise from EP doesn't necessarily mean you have a strong hand. For a while you might get mistaken for a donk that will overplay any suited cards without regard for position. (They'll figure it out before too long, but bad players might not). You're introducing, through your mixed play, ways for your opponents to make mistakes. Or as another poster mentioned, some doubt.

[ QUOTE ]
Most of your opponents have set hand ranges that they just play the same way over and over. Your range should be whatever is best against their specific ranges, and you should only change your range when you feel they are about to change theirs. Randomizing your play is like conceding that your opponents have better reading ability than you do. Your fear that your opponents will exploit you becomes greater than your confidence that you are exploiting them.

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I certainly disagree with the first sentence. Good players don't play the same hand ranges the same way over and over again at all, unless they're playing low-limits where ABC is the order of the day. Stronger players (in strong games) do mix it up very well. Figuring out their exact range is problematic... you estimated that it would take thousands of hands to establish the frequency of an opponent raising with suited connectors, so it should take at least that long to establish their specific ranges overall. You just don't have that kind of time, much less a means to adjust for them changing gears.

I also don't agree that randomizing is conceding that an opponent reads better. It could merely mean I think he's skilled and reads well, and I have to take some precautions against him. A player doens't have to be better than you to be dangerous, but if they're good you will need to expend more effort and chips to deceive them effectively. Modestly skilled opponents are cheap to beat, and don't require all of the hassle.