NL Game Theory Question

[Aaron_C]

yeah, i change my comment if you have some way to know this is the only hands he will bet with... If rathar it is the higher probability of hands he is likely to play this way then the pot size is important

[PokrLikeItsProse]

Bluff a lot more on the turn if your opponent fails to push on the flop.

[AllIn3High]

"Is there anyway to beat this strategy in a NL ring game?"

Yes, find a better spot to get your money in.
Your opponent will not always have a handrange that has your crushed.

[AaronBrown]

As several posters have pointed out, you have described one hand (or four hands), game theory deals with strategies over large numbers of hands. Let me take this up one more notch in generality.

How do you beat a player calls preflop with lots of low pairs and suited connectors, then goes all in if he gets a set or good straight/flush draw on the flop?

One tactic is to bet more preflop on your strong hands other than top pairs, to make it more expensive when he doesn't hit the flop, so you can afford to fold to his all-in bets. His pairs hit only 2 times in 17, his open-ended straight flush draw only comes 1 time in 138. Also, it's a waste of money to bet post flop since he folds with a bad hand and goes all-in with a good one. Check to him.

The other tactic is to bet to keep him in pre-flop when you have top pairs. If you held AA instead of AK in your example, you destroy his small pairs and are 58% against his open-ended straight flush draw.

These will force him either to stop playing those hands this way so much, or to bluff all-in sometimes even if he doesn't hit the flop. Once either of those happen, you have to change the way you play him.

[AlanBostick]

[ QUOTE ]
You have two of the the hands slightly beaten and are crushed by two, so theoretically you have -EV to call.

[/ QUOTE ]

A[img]/images/graemlins/heart.gif[/img]K[img]/images/graemlins/diamond.gif[/img] doesn't have two hands slightly beaten. It is slightly ahead (52.2:47.8) of 8[img]/images/graemlins/spade.gif[/img]6[img]/images/graemlins/spade.gif[/img], slightly behind (43.7:56.3) 6[img]/images/graemlins/spade.gif[/img]5[img]/images/graemlins/spade.gif[/img], and massively beaten (>50:1) by the flopped sets.

In evaluating this strategy, one has to account for the preflop action when the villain has (say) T[img]/images/graemlins/club.gif[/img]9[img]/images/graemlins/club.gif[/img] or 88 as well as the actual hands.

Calling in this spot is a clear loss for our hero, but how many times will the hero win the preflop action when the villain misses completely?

Before the flop, the villain is laying something like four big blinds in order to win something like fifteen more BB, i.e. preflop implied odds of something like 4:1 Is the villain going to hit a favorable flop as much as twenty percent of the time? Somehow I don't think so.

[Wingchild]

The problem is that Hero didn't make the pre-flop bet expensive enough to chase out the suited connectors (draw hands) or the pocket pairs.

From the flop there isn't a lot the Hero can do. If he's gone all in from the flop against a pre-flop raise he is either bluffing or trying to tell you that he's got it. Your decision comes from the kind of read you've got on him. If Hero understands his betting strategy well enough to put him on one of those four hands, the only correct play to make is to lay down AK and wait for a more opportune moment.

And for the love of God, bet the preflop harder to keep bs hands from drawing out on you.