Balancing Flop Caps

[jesse8888]

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dont forget As3s too guys - thats an easy cap as well.


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I didn't forget it...I just said "maybe" I'd cap it, and thinking about it more, you're probably right.

Kit, in general do you just go to war with any sort of draw on the flop when HU, or do you need some sort of read that the player might lay it down on the turn even if you miss?

[KitCloudkicker]

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Kit, in general do you just go to war with any sort of draw on the flop when HU

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depends on the player. i do it a ton in live shorthanded games, because live shorthanded players are like 95% weak/passive on big streets.

what do you mean by "any sort of draw?". if i had a hand like AKo i usually dont even raise the flop...

[KitCloudkicker]

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do you need some sort of read that the player might lay it down on the turn even if you miss?

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if he 3 balls me on the flop i pretty much assume he's going to showdown unless repeatedly proven otherwise.

[elindauer]

Hi James,

Very interesting post. I think that this kind of discussion will really help people to understand the game. Oddly enough, once they understand this, they'll then choose to (often) make the exact same exploitative / exploitable plays they are currently making... so what's the point?

Well, the point is, there's a big different between playing exploitively and knowing it (and why), and just thinking you are making the default play. When you are playing exploitively and know it, you'll also know when the mistake you are trying to exploit isn't there... basically, you have learned how to play against tough players, a very handy skill for moving up in limits.


ok, back to your post. I think you are generally on the right track, but want to point out a few things:

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so what we're really shooting for here is a default range against a typical player. it's a range that should have components that serve more than just one purpose.

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I don't really think this is true. Against a typical player, you may very well want to use an exploitable strategy that only includes big made hands and huge draws raised for value.

What you are really looking for is the strategy you would play if you knew your opponents knew what you were doing, and would adjust to it perfectly. THAT is the "default" play, even though you may never play that range in a real game!

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since poker is a struggle for calculated deception...

...the smallest portion of your flop capping range is going to consist of pure bluffs. it should be very small proportionately and only be done for fairly specific reasons...

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In this paragraph, you seem to bounce back and forth between trying to find the "default", game-theory-optimal hand range, and trying to find the best hand range to actually play in your game.

Start by finding the game theory optimal play. Then adjust that range to take advantage of exploitable player tendencies. In the game theory optimal solution, you will never "feel your opponent is on a draw", so this argument is moot. This is excellent practical advice, just not relevent to the conversation we should be having.

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this allows you an edge that exploits their play while also working to keep yourself from being exploited in return. these mistakes are the root of our profit in hold em.

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I think this paragraph is highly misleading. Playing an optimal range doesn't induce mistakes. In fact, your entire goal is to make your opponent indifferent to calling / folding / raising! If it doesn't matter what your opponent does, then you must be playing a 0 EV game (in fact, a losing game after you consider rake).

Now, it's true that your opponent CAN still lose to you. He could fail to raise the nuts in position on the river. Generally, these mistakes would break down to serious misjudgments about the range of cards you are playing.

Generally though, playing the "default" game will result in you and your opponents pushing the money around due to variance.

The way you make money in poker is to judiciously ignore the default play, picking a different range from the one you would play if your opponent played perfectly. You are in turn playing a game which can be exploited, but you are banking on the fact that your opponent won't realize this, and will continue to allow you to take advantage of him.

Good players do realize these things. Sometimes, even bad players figure things out. Hell, they may just go on tilt and accidentally start playing a game that exploits you. THAT is why you want to know the default play... it forces you to have a reason to deviate, and it gives you a baseline to deviate from. You can choose to deviate just a little, or a lot, depending on the strength of your read and the profit you dare to gain / risk.

good luck.
Eric

[jesse8888]

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do you need some sort of read that the player might lay it down on the turn even if you miss?

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if he 3 balls me on the flop i pretty much assume he's going to showdown unless repeatedly proven otherwise.

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That's exactly the sentence I was looking for, and it's exactly the way I proceed in most hands. Thanks. By any sort of draw, I meant basically OESD and flush draws.

[elindauer]

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in a raised pot after a bet, raise and 3bet, if we cap we are offering our opponent effective odds of 2.6-1 on a calldown.

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While this is reasonable in practice, I think you are making a common mistake from a game theory POV.

There is nothing requiring you to bet the turn and the river. In fact, it would be a mistake to do so if you believe that your opponent is making his decision to call on the flop based on the odds he is receiving to call to the river... if you know that call flop == call to river, then why bet the turn with your weakest hands?

You would exploit this by checking behind some hands on the turn. But then he would change his strategy by factoring in better odds to get to the river and change his calling range. But that would mean that you could bet more hands on the turn, etc...

This kind of back-and-forth is a common feature of range choices that have not been optimized correctly.

A better way to think of it is, IMO, that you have to continue with enough hands to stop your opponent from bluffing his entire range. This is true on every street. It may very well be (in fact, it WILL be in a properly optimized range) that you call hands on the flop that you intend to fold to a turn bet. You call hands on the turn you intend to fold to a river bet. You do this in just the right proportion to keep your opponent from betting his entire range.

It's a lock that the hands that you call on the flop / fold on the turn will end up losing money. However, you must do this because if you don't, then you are folding too much and your opponent can bluff his entire range and make even MORE money. This is a big reason TAGs struggle as the stakes go up... they have figured out that the weakest hands are money losers, but don't understand that folding them costs even more. Then they get run over by tough, aggressive opponents.

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play that is unexploitable by our opponent means they are the ones that are put to decisions that have no right answer. when this happens the ball is in our court and so will be the money.

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This sounds good but really isn't true. It feels right to say that perfect play wins money, but in fact, it's exploitable play that wins money. The key is to give them an easy decision, and have them get it wrong.

When you play "perfectly" you make your opponents (largely) indifferent to the play they should make. But this is just another way of saying that you have made it very difficult for them to make a mistake! Almost anything they do is right. Yes, they can fail to bet / raise for value when their hand is strong vs our range, but I think the point stands... perfect play should be thought of as our mechanism for getting to break-even. Then we can play and essentially freeroll, looking for spots where we know our opponents are misplaying their range, at which point we deviate and exploit them. This could mean simply waiting for the pots we play against the 1 or 2 bad players, trying to break-even against the other 7 possibly-more-skilled-than-us players.

I hope that clears up what we're trying to do! To recap:

step 1: understand how to play if your opponent knew your strategy. This is your baseline, the play you make whenever you aren't sure what to do.

step 2: look for opponents who don't play this way.

step 3: figure out how to adjust your play from the one you found in step 1 to exploit the mistake your opponents are making.

step 4: profit.

-Eric

[elindauer]

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do you need some sort of read that the player might lay it down on the turn even if you miss?

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if he 3 balls me on the flop i pretty much assume he's going to showdown unless repeatedly proven otherwise.

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That's exactly the sentence I was looking for, and it's exactly the way I proceed in most hands. Thanks. By any sort of draw, I meant basically OESD and flush draws.

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What you are recognizing is a (very common) exploitable strategy that your opponent is (likely) playing.

You exploit this by:

- cap any hand that has +equity vs his 3-betting range. This is big hands, big draws.

- check the turn with draws that don't get there. hope for / take a free card.

Of course, your opponent can exploit this strategy in turn, but probably won't. If all your opponents play this way, then you don't need to know what the "right" capping range is. In that case, you've essentially said "James, who cares? Everyone is exploitable here, in the same way".

Really though, I think it's an excellent exercise to figure out the "correct" capping range, if only to start jumping your mind through the hoops of figuring this stuff out.

-eric

[One Outer]

I just want to say that I feel extremely lucky to have elindauer as part of the forum. Thank you.

[James.]

thanks for the feedback eric.

also, thanks for correcting some points that i left unclear or stated in error. my plan for this post was to come up with a range from a game theory POV. after that i wanted to come up with adjustments to the range based on certain player tendencies(in other words how to exploit certain mistakes made by opponents and how to adjust our range in relation to this).

since you've shown some interest, would you mind sharing your "default" capping range in this situation?

[elindauer]

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I just want to say that I feel extremely lucky to have elindauer as part of the forum. Thank you.

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You're a gentlemen and a scholar OneOuter. Thanks. [img]/images/graemlins/wink.gif[/img]