Exploitability

[stevepa]

I meant to post something about this in aejones' thread, but I kind of forgot about it and the subject probably deserves it's own thread, so...

First of all, I think a lot of people simply don't understand what the term means (if you do, skip this paragraph). If a play is exploitable, it essentially means that someone could play a way (i.e. have a calling/raising/folding range) such that your play (i.e. your betting/calling/checking/etc. range) is unprofitable. So an unexploitable play is one for which whatever strategy your opponent uses, you are guaranteed to make a profit. The easiest examples of these are always from hu play, so for example: pushing 10 big blinds with any two cards heads up is obviously exploitable and any decent player would quickly realize how to make your shoves -EV. You can use sngpt to figure out exactly what the unexploitable pushing range is (it's pretty damn wide but not any two). Now that certainly doesn't mean that's what your pushing range should be. In fact, unless you're heads up with another person who's pushing/calling unexploitably, you most certainly should not use the unexploitable range. Doing so costs you substantial money. Your average small-mid stakes (probably high stakes too but I don't know) pushes way too few hands and calls way too few hands. So to adjust to that, you should be pushing more than the unexploitable range and calling less. The unexploitable range guarantees you a profit, but by adjusting your ranges to your opponents you can increase your profit.

So obviously, the goal when playing poker is not to play unexploitably but to play the most profitably. In some cases they're the same (when you're playing opponents who adjust as well or better than you). In most cases they most certainly aren't. In fact, watch timex or ansky or someone like that play a tournament and you'll see a lot of exploitable play, particularly in restealing. That's because people are horrible at adjusting to it. Playing with an unexploitable restealing strategy is basically burning money because you pass on so many spots where you could have profitably restolen. They make money by exploiting others' mistakes, but in doing so play in an exploitable manner.

But it's also not just tournament players who play exploitably, watch some high stakes cash games. The best players are opening and 3 betting super wide because other people just don't adjust well to it (they don't 4bet nearly enough and don't play well in reraised pots). I know I'm repeating myself a lot but the key is that UNEXPLOITABLE DOES NOT EQUAL GOOD.

Anyways, basically all I'm trying to say is that this idea of unexploitable play is largely useless when you're better than most people in the game. You're much better off adjusting to changing game conditions and opponents play because THAT'S WHAT MAKES YOU BETTER THAN THEM.

And to kind of directly reply to one thing aejones said in his thread:

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It seems to me like all tournament players know that other tournament players are doing exploitable things, and they exploit them but that continue to to exploitable things themselves, wtf???

[/ QUOTE ]

Playing exploitably is how you make the most money against opponents who are worse than you. You adjust better than them and make better decisions than them. Many of your decisions are super exploitable but it doesn't matter if your opponents aren't good enough to exploit them. Think about this: You sit in a 2/4NL game and the two players on your left are pretty big nits. What is your opening range on the button? If they 3-bet, what range do you call? What range do you 4-bet? If your play in that spot isn't ridiculously exploitable, then you're playing really badly.

I have more to say about this, but can't really put it into words at the moment, so I'll stop here for now.

Steve

[MLG]

Steve,
did you just take a game theory class or something? nice post.

[Evenkeal]

Winner.

[registrar]

Nice post Steve

How does this all of the above relate to this:


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That's a ridiculous comment. If small blinds will all of a sudden make crazy plays because you put in 30 or 35 thousand rater than 25they are heavily exploitable. The bottom line is that you must bet an amount that won't be flat called.

[/ QUOTE ]


http://forumserver.twoplustwo.com/sh...page=&vc=1


This has bothered me for weeks but I couldn't put why into words.

[Foucault]

[ QUOTE ]
Nice post Steve

How does this all of the above relate to this:


[ QUOTE ]
That's a ridiculous comment. If small blinds will all of a sudden make crazy plays because you put in 30 or 35 thousand rater than 25they are heavily exploitable. The bottom line is that you must bet an amount that won't be flat called.

[/ QUOTE ]


http://forumserver.twoplustwo.com/sh...page=&vc=1


This has bothered me for weeks but I couldn't put why into words.

[/ QUOTE ]

God that pissed me off so much. Sklansky was responding to a question of mine when he said that. I didn't bother arguing cuz I knew he wasn't even going to read the thread and it would just get buried in that huge thread anyway.

In order to exploit something like that, you would have to know the person was doing it and get an opportunity to take advantage in the future. Since DS said he would fold to the all in and assume that guy had some absurd range like TT+ or AQ+, he would generally not see the hand showdown, and even if he suspected that SB was pulling a fast one, he doesn't seem like the sort to make the big call there with like AJ or something the next time around.

But more importantly, THERE IS NOT LIKELY TO BE A NEXT TIME AROUND. Even if SB shoves, Kathy wakes up with KK and calls, DS folds, and he finds out that SB had 74o, how is he going to exploit that? Wait until the next time he is on the button with AA against the same SB and a similarly stacked BB and make the same raise?

And even if that same situation recurred next orbit, is SB likely to pull the same thing again whether or not he had to show down his hand this time around?

Sorry for the rant. Ironically, DS was responding to me requoting my question and asking why he always selectively responded to only the weakest arguments against him and ignored this objection that multiple people were making. His response was to dismiss it out of hand instead of ignoring it.

[stevepa]

[ QUOTE ]
Nice post Steve

How does this all of the above relate to this:


[ QUOTE ]
That's a ridiculous comment. If small blinds will all of a sudden make crazy plays because you put in 30 or 35 thousand rater than 25they are heavily exploitable. The bottom line is that you must bet an amount that won't be flat called.

[/ QUOTE ]


http://forumserver.twoplustwo.com/sh...page=&vc=1


This has bothered me for weeks but I couldn't put why into words.

[/ QUOTE ]

Registrar, I don't really like that comment by Sklansky. I agree with his conclusion that we should raise bigger than normal, as long as sb isn't very good. If the sb is good enough to identify what our raise represents AND good enough to act on it by reraising super wide, it doesn't really matter that his play is exploitable because it's very very good in this spot (because we're not calling). I really think if that's the case, we should just be folding the 22 on the button (and obviously raising big with hands we're calling/4betting with).

More simply, if sb shoves any two over a 5bb open (and we don't know that) his play is extremely exploitable but probably very good in that spot. If sb is not good, then our exploitable 4-5x raise with 22 on the button is clearly good, even though it's exploitable. It's up to us to determine how the sb is playing and adjust accordingly. How well we do that determines how good we are at poker.

edit: MLG, no but I'd like to. [img]/images/graemlins/smile.gif[/img] Or if someone has a book recommendation, I'll take that too.

foucault, you're clearly right and therefore you>sklansky. Also, write more trip reports and ridiculously long posts, they're very very enjoyable to read.

Steve

[Plus1Plus1]

Excellent post- I nominate it for the Anthology.

Questions: You promote exploitable play on the basis of reads, and using your opponent's tendencies to profit from them despite making exploitable plays. Is there an advantage to play in this way without good reads on the table?

Also, the examples you give for playing profitably focus on making more moves with wider ranges against aggressive, or bad opponents. Is this far and away the most common leak for playing unexploitably, or can you think of others?

Thanks,
Sean

[jlocdog]

I think the point of this post is to further the point that poker is not played in a vaccum and thus what may be exploitable in one instance is what is unexploitable in another instance. This concept is constantly prevelant from hand to hand and is changing even against the same opponent within the same session. The player who continues to make adjustments is the player who appears the most exploitable with their play yet are really not exploitable at all.
This could very well make no sense at all. If that is the case please it wouldn't be the first time.

[Exitonly]

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w that certainly doesn't mean that's what your pushing range should be. In fact, unless you're heads up with another person who's pushing/calling unexploitably, you most certainly should not use the unexploitable range.

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... if your opponent is playing unexploitably, how is there a 'more profitable' strategy for you

[THEOSU]

ray,

if your calling range is X, then pushing Y is unexploitably profitable against that range. however, if you change your calling range to Z, Y is no longer unexploitably profitable.

Steve,

nice post. you're pretty smart at this poker thingie.