Optimal sizing on wet flops: texture based betting

Hey guys,

Actually got some time this month to sit down and do some serious study/work on poker. Always feels good when that happens ^^

Anyway, I was working for headsup on having predetermined bet sizes based on non-hidden hand info, such as position, previous number of raises in hand, and flop texture (obvious example is how preflop the person out of position tends to have larger raise sizes relative to the pot size than the person in position).

Anyway, I was thinking about drawy board textures quite a bit, and was wondering if anyone could offer insight, or simply participate in discussion.

Do you guys think larger or smaller bet sizing is better on wet flops, relative to dry ones?

On wet boards, there are a lot more draws, but usually the same number of made hands. I was first thinking that we would want to have a larger bet-sizing, and bet a tighter range. This is because there will be more hands in our opponents range that have equity and could call, and also because there are potentially more hands in our range that we would be semi bluffing with (also giving opponents more equity against our betting range). Because our opponents usually have more equity, it should take a larger bet to bluff them off of much of their range. Because our bet sizing is larger, our value range needs to shrink, else we will be vulnerable to raising of the opponent, who will also have many semi-bluffing hands. When I started doing this in practice, things felt a bit awkward though. I certainly wouldn't go so far as to write it off as bad or wrong, but I'm having second thoughts.

I've heard for years that if a flop is dry, there are few hands that are strong, and so betting small is a good idea. Is this just old thinking that doesn't work when people are aware of how their ranges interact with each other, and how uncoordinated hands gain equity on a dry flop?

If we keep our bluffing/semi-bluffing range fixed, we either need to have a smaller bet size and more value hands to balance, or a larger bet size and fewer value hands to balance. Pretty standard shit there. Anyway, if anyone has thoughts on the subject I'd love to hear them.

Sizing its about manipulating your balance, if your range contains too many value and too little bluffs then you have to make villians call indifferent giving him better odds and you do that by betting smaller and viceversa

Baal, thanks for your reply.

I think that whether your sizing is large or small, you are able to balance it. For example in the most basic toy game, when your range is polarized and you get to bet and your opponent decides to call or not, you can value bet by betting pot, and then to balance that you will bluff once for every 2 value hands. This makes him indifferent to calling.

We can do the same thing if we are betting 2x pot, in which case we balance by showing up with bluffs twice for every 3 times we value bet.

In this toy game, it is better to have a very large bet size if you can, which converges on you being able to show up with a bluff one time for every one time you show up with a value bet as your bet size approaches infinity.

What I was asking people about was whether they preferred having a balanced ranged with a small bet size, or a large bet size on wet flops.

On wetter board textures, I generally like to have a 3/4 pot bet size that consists of a somewhat polarized range of value hands and bluffs that have decent equity on future streets. I like to also have a check back/check call range that includes a lower tier of strong non nutted hands, medium strength type hands, lower strength hands that still have some showdown and just complete low equity/low showdown hands (that I'm either completely giving up with or might delay cbet turn/river with repping some of the aforementioned range).

All of this is obviously very opponent dependent and can change based on history & meta game but hopefully that helps

Yeah always like to hear what other people do. What about relative to your sizing on dry boards? Do you usually do 3/4th sizing on dry boards too?

On January 21 2015 22:05 HungarianGOD wrote: Yeah always like to hear what other people do. What about relative to your sizing on dry boards? Do you usually do 3/4th sizing on dry boards too?

no, on super dry boards I like a 1/2 pot bet sizing

I am offering a small sidebet that HungarianGOD won't be playing 200nl by 2035. He gives advice to established 100nl players yet fails to grasp the simplest of concept. Since the bet is so far into the future i offer to bet 3 loaves of bread. If OP takes up the challenge i will bake the bread myself.

Cariadon, even though most of what you write is hateful trash that adds no value, I'd be happy to listen to your advice and criticism if you offered it. I would like to think that there are some things you understand well and are good at, and am certainly open-minded enough to listen to and think about your points seriously.

I don't really care what stakes I am playing or what other people are playing. If I think I have value to add or value to take away from a discussion, I will participate. Much of my learning of poker has come from studying and math, not from playing and practice, so there are many holes in my knowledge. I'm not sure what 'simplest of concept' you are referring to; this particular one I posted about isn't trivial at all. And if you are still talking about the sample size thing, you were just flat mathematically wrong. Even if you were Phil Ivey or Jungleman running around making posts under your account, it would not make you correct in that case.


And btw, I concede to you that I play the lowest stakes possible online. I currently only play for play money on stars; I don't have a site that I have any money on atm. That said, I might be interested in playing a grudge match against you at the end of this year if you are so confident in my lack of skill or talent. It would be fun; a battle of those who are good at math vs those who are bad at math. Of those who know game theory and those who don't know game theory. A battle of those who try to add value with their posts, and those who run around posting thoughtless useless spite all the time. And of course, a battle of those with very little experience and those with great experience. Might be an interesting game.

I will have a go at this. I am sincere in what i say next and believe it to be the best way to answer your vaguely worded question.

As a mental exercise pick say 3 types of players e.g. TAG regular marginally winning rakeback pro, LAG regular winning at a decent rate, losing player pretty much drawing dead over a long run. What do they do differently and how does it influence their winrate over say 250 000 hands. If i were to sum up what i have read over the years, seen on poker tables of different stakes and self analysis well over a million hands it is this:

Losing player - may or may not know rules, clicking buttons with no gameplan and clueless about poker theory.
TAG - ABC of poker, neccessary foundation needed in order to be consistent and progress forward. TAG raises preflop, c-bets flop a high % of the time and plays straightforward for hand value not overcomplicating things.
(good) LAG - besides taking money from losing players is able to take money from TAG players because he understands poker concepts thoroughly and throws TAG players off by varying betsizes and frequency of betting. A good LAG is very observant and takes advantage of situations that arise less often but are more profitable (think bigger pots, deeps stacks with wider ranges for value and bluffing). He takes into consideration players positions and table dynamics.

TAGs shouldn't cbet under two thirds of the pot on flop at low limits and i'd advise betting bigger on wet flops both to protect good hands and to build a pot with equity. TAG plays most pots in position and isn't afraid of being outplayed, knowing when to fold the equity hands because other options (call, raise) are not mathematically justified.
LAG is observant and may start c-betting smaller and larger to accomplish different things depending on his opponents and their tendencies.

Visualising how a TAG & LAG player use the tools of position, agression and betsizing similar in some spots and different in others will be instrumental in leapfrogging you from playmoney to delicious ryebreadom.

The next step is up to you. Vital[Myth] and Daut have always stood out as strong players with deep understanding for poker concepts. Most greenstar posters are strong accomplished players, either winning TAG or LAG. Go over the archives, see how they play high pocket pairs, low pocket pairs, suited connectors. Breaking poker down in this manner is far more efficient than to start inventing the wheel.

The short answer is play TAG, an even better answer is play LAG. The absolute answer might be to play GTO against fish.

I take back what I said about you always making useless posts. Thank you for sharing your insight, I will definitely think about your post. I apologize for my hostility.

Taking part in discussions is welcome. It has been the status quo on LP.net not to teach players who play higher limits than yourself. Most of us are helpful, the initiation proccess may be harsh at times. If you see an interesting hand in the handhistory section, by all means, feel free to ask your question. If you do it in a way that is easy to reply to you will get value comments. Always ask yourself if what is being said makes sense. Glad i managed to summon something worth your time.

yeah look at vitalmyth whos abilities were questioned even back in 2009 or check some random outdated hands lol

bet w/e you want vs fish and datamine some strong 2014 reg who plays similar style to urs

On January 22 2015 17:16 cariadon wrote: I will have a go at this. I am sincere in what i say next and believe it to be the best way to answer your vaguely worded question. As a mental exercise pick say 3 types of players e.g. TAG regular marginally winning rakeback pro, LAG regular winning at a decent rate, losing player pretty much drawing dead over a long run. What do they do differently and how does it influence their winrate over say 250 000 hands. If i were to sum up what i have read over the years, seen on poker tables of different stakes and self analysis well over a million hands it is this: Losing player - may or may not know rules, clicking buttons with no gameplan and clueless about poker theory. TAG - ABC of poker, neccessary foundation needed in order to be consistent and progress forward. TAG raises preflop, c-bets flop a high % of the time and plays straightforward for hand value not overcomplicating things. (good) LAG - besides taking money from losing players is able to take money from TAG players because he understands poker concepts thoroughly and throws TAG players off by varying betsizes and frequency of betting. A good LAG is very observant and takes advantage of situations that arise less often but are more profitable (think bigger pots, deeps stacks with wider ranges for value and bluffing). He takes into consideration players positions and table dynamics. TAGs shouldn't cbet under two thirds of the pot on flop at low limits and i'd advise betting bigger on wet flops both to protect good hands and to build a pot with equity. TAG plays most pots in position and isn't afraid of being outplayed, knowing when to fold the equity hands because other options (call, raise) are not mathematically justified. LAG is observant and may start c-betting smaller and larger to accomplish different things depending on his opponents and their tendencies. Visualising how a TAG & LAG player use the tools of position, agression and betsizing similar in some spots and different in others will be instrumental in leapfrogging you from playmoney to delicious ryebreadom. The next step is up to you. Vital[Myth] and Daut have always stood out as strong players with deep understanding for poker concepts. Most greenstar posters are strong accomplished players, either winning TAG or LAG. Go over the archives, see how they play high pocket pairs, low pocket pairs, suited connectors. Breaking poker down in this manner is far more efficient than to start inventing the wheel. The short answer is play TAG, an even better answer is play LAG. The absolute answer might be to play GTO against fish.

lol his question in op is actually quite sophisticated (at least the first part of it, about predetermined sizing based on public information), while this reply is unsophisticated noise
awkward

On January 22 2015 19:55 dogmeat wrote: yeah look at vitalmyth whos abilities were questioned even back in 2009 or check some random outdated hands lol bet w/e you want vs fish and datamine some strong 2014 reg who plays similar style to urs

took the words out of my mouth. hungariangod i know the game of which u speak and while it can be a useful example for basic odds concepts and some simple river spots it does not model the game in general.

You cannot balance any sizing. Hand combos and scenarios are static and finite in the game. Therefore on a game theoretic level for any spot there is a solution which contains a certain set of actions at a certain frequency, and if that action is bet/raise an exact betsize amount (or betsizes in the event of various cooptimal strategies existing).

In other words that is one of (if not) the ultimate points of the game in a way; to find the right betsizes within a framework of actions (strategy). To look at one's own possible hand range and frequency; to look at how that range interacts with villain's own, and then to decide how much to bet based on the balance between those ranges and combos. The point is not to decide on a betsize and then "add" combos after he fact. That would be impossible if you think about it, we as the player have no affect on combos that is a fixed aspect of the game we only select betsize i.e. with the slider.

when you hear people talking strategically about "adding hands to a range" to balance it or fill it out that is more of a mental tool to try to figure out what those fixed solutions actually are and get as close to them as possible.

poker played by humans is a pretty dynamic game but intrinsically it is not. good to remember that

I think it depends how you define balance, whether you can balance different sizings. You definitely can't play optimally with any sizing, or even close. I disagree with nothing else you have written Trax. Of course the toy game is a vastly simplified example, but it does demonstrate that there exists scenarios where you can be perfectly balanced with vastly different betsizes (though in that case, only one way of being balanced is the 'correct solution' to the game).

So all else being held constant, how does your bet sizing differ from wet to dry flops?

smaller on dry, QQ5r for example. esp in 3bet pots. sometimes in single raised pots pre you will still cbet big if deep enough just because it becomes more important to build a pot 200-250+ bb deep or whatever. Its a question i have for the computer one day is if betsize pre and on the flop continually increases with stacksize to where at for example 15,000 bb it becomes correct to raise pre to 6bb as a standard open or regularly overbet cbet flops. On the flipside everyone already minraises pre with small stacks (and bets flop as small as they can get away with).

Larger on wet. more hands to get value from, protection, more often may want to go 2street all in rather than 3barrel, etc.

and you are right in that toy game there are many balanced solutions but only afaik one optimal one. Optimal solution was selecting the largest betsize possible. all the balanced solutions made villain indifferent to calling but the largest betsize allowed us to bluff with the highest frequency yielding max ev because that is the best way to attack the money already in the pot. This betsize forces his folding frequency up to its highest point while still leaving him a breakeven call

I guess my point here is that a strategy can be balanced yet still extremely weak. You want to focus on exploiting your opponent to make money or versus better players to be unexploitable yourself. Balance is more important in the latter case but it needs to be combined with combinatorics, range estimation, and even tools like hand reading and timing tells to be worth much. I can bet 1 into 1000 on the river and still be balanced i just need to bet as a bluff extremely infrequently. Although it may be balanced this strategy obviously blows

In a 100bb SRP, the difference in EV between any reasonable sizing (30 - 100% pot) is negligible. Obviously this is assuming we're talking in GTO terms where you're betting/checking with the optimal range for that sizing and your opponent is also responding optimally.

Since that is impossible for humans and even when it is, the difference in EV is negligible, there is no point in discussing optimal bet sizing for such spots.

I think this topic has a lot more value if discussed in an exploitative context - what bet size does best vs the tendencies of the population you're currently playing against?

agree smuft. only thing is i would clarify for the new players you are talking about single raised pots. flop sizing becomes non trivial if its 3 or 4b pre.

since like smuft said its practically impossible for a human to perfectly construct a hand including betsizing with a large SPR starting all the way back at the flop, i generally just try to size my flop bet so that I can comfortably and geometrically (or whatever i am trying to do) bet 3 streets

also with gto play your opponent's strategy doesn't matter but i think you know that and assume it goes without saying that if your opponent doesn't attempt to play optimal or balanced poker them self then you are better off seeking an exploitative strategy anyways

On January 26 2015 03:02 Smuft wrote: In a 100bb SRP, the difference in EV between any reasonable sizing (30 - 100% pot) is negligible. Obviously this is assuming we're talking in GTO terms where you're betting/checking with the optimal range for that sizing and your opponent is also responding optimally. Since that is impossible for humans and even when it is, the difference in EV is negligible, there is no point in discussing optimal bet sizing for such spots. I think this topic has a lot more value if discussed in an exploitative context - what bet size does best vs the tendencies of the population you're currently playing against?

strong argument if we accept the first paragraph,

but the first paragraph seems like a strong and perhaps surprising result. Can you tell us how you came to it exactly? Remember we're talking about wet flops.

From using poker software and comparing the EV of different bet sizes, particularly GTORB turn solver. Even when you compare a strategy with multiple sizes (say 30%, 70%, and 125%) vs a strategy with a single bet size of 50%, the EV difference is negligible, which is very surprising indeed.

My opinion here is based on work that's far from exhaustive but at the very least I can say your time is wasted if you're trying to figure out GTO bet sizing in such spots. Figuring out a bet size to exploit that population as well as which hands go in which range for which sizing is much better.

On January 26 2015 20:01 Smuft wrote: From using poker software and comparing the EV of different bet sizes, particularly GTORB turn solver. Even when you compare a strategy with multiple sizes (say 30%, 70%, and 125%) vs a strategy with a single bet size of 50%, the EV difference is negligible, which is very surprising indeed.

That is interesting and surprising to hear. Would you elaborate on that a bit: how this program works, and what exactly you tested? Also was this for all flop situations or just a single raised flop?

gtorb shows ev in bb/hand, so its not negligible...

On January 26 2015 05:51 traxamillion wrote: it goes without saying that if your opponent doesn't attempt to play optimal or balanced poker them self then you are better off seeking an exploitative strategy anyways

also not true when playing someone whos capable of re-adjusting and adopting proper counter-strategy

On January 26 2015 02:33 traxamillion wrote: I guess my point here is that a strategy can be balanced yet still extremely weak.

This was EXACTLY the point of the original post.
I am able to construct close to balanced flop and turn ranges, but I have been having a lot of trouble coming up with what I feel is the correct bet sizing to use for balancing ranges given different circumstances. It seems like with the possible exception of some river spots, betsizing has become smaller at high levels of play in the last few years (just saying this from observation). For flop betting, I've been doing approximately (in pot sizes):

50% 66% 80% 100%
----------------X--------------

If preflop is just 2-bet, and the board is normal the bet would be 80% (so that's where the slider starts). For every additional bet preflop, the slider moves to the left once, and if the flop is wet, it moves to the right. So if I 4-bet pre and the flop is wet, then if I choose to bet I will c-bet 66% of the pot. For each of these different circumstances, I balance them independently and differently.

I'm certainly not claiming that's close to optimal. I have a feeling people here would think it is absurd to bet pot on the flop in any circumstance (and maybe that really is bad, I dono). I would like to make something a bit more complex in the future, like have different degrees of wetness instead of it just being binary, and having something like

50% 61% 73% 86% 100%
----------------X--------------------

I've been trying to rationalize this mathematically, but it's just way too complicated for me to wrap my head around yet. Game-theory wise I can't even make a convincing argument that one should bet larger on wet flops than dry ones. Perhaps I should try out betting MORE on dry flops instead of wet, but that seems to go against what feels correct and what everybody thinks is good.

I created some turn ranges to input into GTORB turn solver to illustrate.

Scenario:

BTN opens min, BB calls
(BTN opens 55%, BB cold calls 51%)

Flop: Th8h2d

BTN bets 50% pot, BB calls
(I have BTN betting 65% of his flop range, with a reasonably balanced check back range, and for simplicity BB only defends by calling)

Turn: Js

1 bet size of 50% pot: (EV of 4.11)
http://gtorangebuilder.com/#share_sce...4d2ecbaef47e3e2fc542c27d186/root_v=30

1 bet size of 100% pot: (EV of 4.11)
http://gtorangebuilder.com/#share_sce...691e951e288b2a5ce3da3521bd5/root_v=30

So the EV of betting 50% pot or 100% pot are identical.

What happens if we use a strategy with 2 bet sizes?

2 bet sizes of 50% pot and 125% pot: (EV of 4.12)
http://gtorangebuilder.com/#share_sce...5b595fb4a72c34858435b4267f0/root_v=30

So you gained 0.01bb/hand if you somehow manage to be able to perfectly execute a 2 sizing strategy

-

Keep in mind that this is on the turn where sizing should matter a bit more than the flop (going with the assumption that in general the more play there is left (stack depth, range width), the less bet sizing will effect EV). This seems to be true because when you play with river sizing, they effect the EV more than turn sizing, and when you play with sizing in 3 and 4 bet pots, they effect the EV more than SRPs.

very interesting indeed smuft

By the way, to address people who are saying "don't worry about it, just play exploitative to own noobs; you are probably playing very low level anyway' I certainly understand where you are coming from, but I'm not interested in that for a number of reasons.

First, it's just not the game I'm interested in learning. I love games and love poker, and I would like to learn it as high of a level as possible if I'm going to really play it. I am convinced this sort of study and thinking is what will make me the most skilled in the long run. Secondly, I actually think studying yourself and learning about doing everything you can to be unexploitable yourself is the best way to learn how to exploit something in someone else's play. If you really work at being less exploitable in some spot and finally figure out a solution, you will now be aware of an opponent that has not figured this out, and if you so choose, can then adjust your play to try to exploit them. Thirdly, I play lots of live poker and don't have money on any online poker site right now, so bad players are pretty much the only people I get to regularly play against. Nothing can be learned by trying to exploit bad players. However if you are absolutely insistent and never adjust your play based on who you are playing against or how they are playing, playing against bad players who are bad in completely different ways can actually be helpful in finding problems with how one plays. If you play the exact same way against someone who raises and 3-bets 100% preflop as you do against someone who folds 75% hands and only raises with 25% preflop, then you might discover very quickly that you are playing in a way that is exploitable. In some ways (granted not most), it might actually better to play against someone who is bad, because they do such dramatic things that no good player would do in their right mind because it's so easy to exploit, but those dramatic things can really test the system you are using. I would never find a good player who continues to raise every time they are given the option preflop, yet that is exactly way you should test your pre-flop range to see if you are folding too often.

Wow smuft, I need to check that thing out more. Thanks for showing us that. Amazing result that they EV is actually identical...

On January 22 2015 19:55 dogmeat wrote: yeah look at vitalmyth whos abilities were questioned even back in 2009 or check some random outdated hands lol bet w/e you want vs fish and datamine some strong 2014 reg who plays similar style to urs

Vital[Myth] was textbook TAG, i find it difficult for anyone who played him to disagree. Did he play too tight? Sure. Did he have leaks in his game? Sure. Did he play TAG and win money playing 100nl and 200nl when games were soft? Yes. I'm not talking about 2009 but rather the ~2006 Vital[Myth]

On January 23 2015 18:25 Romm3l wrote: Show nested quote + On January 22 2015 17:16 cariadon wrote: I will have a go at this. I am sincere in what i say next and believe it to be the best way to answer your vaguely worded question. As a mental exercise pick say 3 types of players e.g. TAG regular marginally winning rakeback pro, LAG regular winning at a decent rate, losing player pretty much drawing dead over a long run. What do they do differently and how does it influence their winrate over say 250 000 hands. If i were to sum up what i have read over the years, seen on poker tables of different stakes and self analysis well over a million hands it is this: Losing player - may or may not know rules, clicking buttons with no gameplan and clueless about poker theory. TAG - ABC of poker, neccessary foundation needed in order to be consistent and progress forward. TAG raises preflop, c-bets flop a high % of the time and plays straightforward for hand value not overcomplicating things. (good) LAG - besides taking money from losing players is able to take money from TAG players because he understands poker concepts thoroughly and throws TAG players off by varying betsizes and frequency of betting. A good LAG is very observant and takes advantage of situations that arise less often but are more profitable (think bigger pots, deeps stacks with wider ranges for value and bluffing). He takes into consideration players positions and table dynamics. TAGs shouldn't cbet under two thirds of the pot on flop at low limits and i'd advise betting bigger on wet flops both to protect good hands and to build a pot with equity. TAG plays most pots in position and isn't afraid of being outplayed, knowing when to fold the equity hands because other options (call, raise) are not mathematically justified. LAG is observant and may start c-betting smaller and larger to accomplish different things depending on his opponents and their tendencies. Visualising how a TAG & LAG player use the tools of position, agression and betsizing similar in some spots and different in others will be instrumental in leapfrogging you from playmoney to delicious ryebreadom. The next step is up to you. Vital[Myth] and Daut have always stood out as strong players with deep understanding for poker concepts. Most greenstar posters are strong accomplished players, either winning TAG or LAG. Go over the archives, see how they play high pocket pairs, low pocket pairs, suited connectors. Breaking poker down in this manner is far more efficient than to start inventing the wheel. The short answer is play TAG, an even better answer is play LAG. The absolute answer might be to play GTO against fish. lol his question in op is actually quite sophisticated (at least the first part of it, about predetermined sizing based on public information), while this reply is unsophisticated noise awkward

He found my post useful so you can go fuck yourself. It would wrong of me to blame you for your abrasive inquisitive manner of conduct because i am at times no better.

I applaud the way TheHungarianGOD approaches learning the game. I agree that having a sound understanding of strategy and underlying math is of utmost importance. Despite my salt i wish him the best.

Whenever the opportunity arises wiseguys start talking out of their asses. Similar to a dog chasing its tail they talk vigorously about the "unknown unknowns". A lot of fancy words that may or may not have been assembled into sentences using "random sentence generator" or even witchcraft. This is not directed at Smuft as i didn't bother to dwell on what he wrote.

The opposite of that is Baalims post, in which there is compactly packaged information that is universally true. It first went unnoticed to me but then i re-read it and thought to myself "what a good reply".

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GiPe1OiKQuk

uhh smuft dropped legit info, wwu disregard it Caradion.

How long has GTORB been out? Is that the software WCGrider and some other pros use that ppl bitch about being unfair? can you run calcs on the site fast enough to use it for ingame decisions?

Looks like very powerful stuff.

smuft i have never seen this program before (bovada player last few years havent bothered with HEM/PT or any software since HUDs don't even work) and i have a question about it. I am trying to figure it out seems like a great learning tool.

the question i have is about the very 1st link the 50% pot cbet hand. When I click over the the first node (1st 100% circle linking to one other 100% circle with a line labeled villain checks 100%) it gives some information. Part of that is the box "GTO Strategy" which I am assuming displays the proper turn strategy for the OOP player with each potential hand in his range. You can hover the mouse over each additional hand and further info is given like frequency, action, combos. When hovering over 89s it says 3/4 combos, when hovering over 89o it says 9/12 combos. When hovering over 97s it says 4/4 combos and when hovering over 98o it says 12/12 combos. This is on a 1082hh board. There is no reason to play 3/4 of the better 89 combos pre while playing 100% of the 97 combos so I am assuming those combo numbers are derived from the flop. This is further confirmed when you see that 89 makes middle pair on the flop and 97 makes an open ended straight draw.

My question is do you input those flop combos yourself or is the program calculating that for you. Can i assume from that page that GTORB is telling me on that flop oop with 89 i should be c/calling 75% and c/folding 25% while c/calling 100% of the time with 97? or are those ur assumptions

this program seems incredibly dangerous for poker; just read about it and a flop solver is coming next. Subscriptions should be like 500/month at least not 500/yr glad i play plo i guess.

flop builder example from the site owners blog; I love and hate this

http://gtorangebuilder.com/#share_b=A...m=0_as=0_bs0=0.3_p0=3c2c,AcAd_p1=KdKh

On January 27 2015 03:42 cariadon wrote: Show nested quote + On January 22 2015 19:55 dogmeat wrote: yeah look at vitalmyth whos abilities were questioned even back in 2009 or check some random outdated hands lol bet w/e you want vs fish and datamine some strong 2014 reg who plays similar style to urs Vital[Myth] was textbook TAG, i find it difficult for anyone who played him to disagree. Did he play too tight? Sure. Did he have leaks in his game? Sure. Did he play TAG and win money playing 100nl and 200nl when games were soft? Yes. I'm not talking about 2009 but rather the ~2006 Vital[Myth]

do you even play poker?

On January 26 2015 23:40 Smuft wrote: I created some turn ranges to input into GTORB turn solver to illustrate. Scenario: BTN opens min, BB calls (BTN opens 55%, BB cold calls 51%) Flop: Th8h2d BTN bets 50% pot, BB calls (I have BTN betting 65% of his flop range, with a reasonably balanced check back range, and for simplicity BB only defends by calling) Turn: Js 1 bet size of 50% pot: (EV of 4.11) http://gtorangebuilder.com/#share_sce...4d2ecbaef47e3e2fc542c27d186/root_v=30 1 bet size of 100% pot: (EV of 4.11) http://gtorangebuilder.com/#share_sce...691e951e288b2a5ce3da3521bd5/root_v=30 So the EV of betting 50% pot or 100% pot are identical. What happens if we use a strategy with 2 bet sizes? 2 bet sizes of 50% pot and 125% pot: (EV of 4.12) http://gtorangebuilder.com/#share_sce...5b595fb4a72c34858435b4267f0/root_v=30 So you gained 0.01bb/hand if you somehow manage to be able to perfectly execute a 2 sizing strategy - Keep in mind that this is on the turn where sizing should matter a bit more than the flop (going with the assumption that in general the more play there is left (stack depth, range width), the less bet sizing will effect EV). This seems to be true because when you play with river sizing, they effect the EV more than turn sizing, and when you play with sizing in 3 and 4 bet pots, they effect the EV more than SRPs.

0.01bb difference could be considered negligible but 0.1bb would be huge, is it really this close for other scenarios?

I have a similar question about the first node in the example you give Smuft with 2 flop betsizes and 4.12 ev. When you look at the GTO strategy for villain it says to c/c 9/12 QJo combos on the flop excluding specifically QhJs, QdJs, QcJs. All Js combos of QJo are excluded and i can't find a logical reason why. 10h8h2d Flop. I would assume it was just picking those combos at random but I would think at minimum when floating those QJo gutshot combos you would at least want the six combos with a heart in them for maximum backdoor flush potential. Why then is QhJs eliminated?

Such negligible ev difference the program overlooks it? I find that unlikely given how specific the analysis is but can't think of much else

On January 27 2015 05:00 traxamillion wrote: uhh smuft dropped legit info, wwu disregard it Caradion. How long has GTORB been out? Is that the software WCGrider and some other pros use that ppl bitch about being unfair? can you run calcs on the site fast enough to use it for ingame decisions? Looks like very powerful stuff.

I don't play poker anymore. Quit to pursue other interests. What he said was definitely interesting but i don't have the time to spend further educating myself on the subject.

On January 27 2015 06:27 dogmeat wrote: Show nested quote + On January 27 2015 03:42 cariadon wrote:   On January 22 2015 19:55 dogmeat wrote: yeah look at vitalmyth whos abilities were questioned even back in 2009 or check some random outdated hands lol bet w/e you want vs fish and datamine some strong 2014 reg who plays similar style to urs Vital[Myth] was textbook TAG, i find it difficult for anyone who played him to disagree. Did he play too tight? Sure. Did he have leaks in his game? Sure. Did he play TAG and win money playing 100nl and 200nl when games were soft? Yes. I'm not talking about 2009 but rather the ~2006 Vital[Myth] do you even play poker?

I used Vital[Myth] as an example of a TAG player. I played against him tons back in the day. Are you saying he is a bad example for a TAG player? Whatever personal vendetta you may have is irrelevant here. Did you even play poker back in 2005-2006? This is going nowhere and derails the thread.

On January 26 2015 23:40 Smuft wrote: I created some turn ranges to input into GTORB turn solver to illustrate. Scenario: BTN opens min, BB calls (BTN opens 55%, BB cold calls 51%) Flop: Th8h2d BTN bets 50% pot, BB calls (I have BTN betting 65% of his flop range, with a reasonably balanced check back range, and for simplicity BB only defends by calling) Turn: Js 1 bet size of 50% pot: (EV of 4.11) http://gtorangebuilder.com/#share_sce...4d2ecbaef47e3e2fc542c27d186/root_v=30 1 bet size of 100% pot: (EV of 4.11) http://gtorangebuilder.com/#share_sce...691e951e288b2a5ce3da3521bd5/root_v=30 So the EV of betting 50% pot or 100% pot are identical. What happens if we use a strategy with 2 bet sizes? 2 bet sizes of 50% pot and 125% pot: (EV of 4.12) http://gtorangebuilder.com/#share_sce...5b595fb4a72c34858435b4267f0/root_v=30 So you gained 0.01bb/hand if you somehow manage to be able to perfectly execute a 2 sizing strategy - Keep in mind that this is on the turn where sizing should matter a bit more than the flop (going with the assumption that in general the more play there is left (stack depth, range width), the less bet sizing will effect EV). This seems to be true because when you play with river sizing, they effect the EV more than turn sizing, and when you play with sizing in 3 and 4 bet pots, they effect the EV more than SRPs.

your method is wrong. you have looked at the value of a subgame starting from the turn under different betting regimes and found sizing doesnt matter from the turn. we are interested in solving for optimal flop sizing (which i suspect should be bigger on wet flops than dry). unfortunately I don't think commercially available solving software nowadays can solve from flops yet?

Apparently GTORB will be able to solve flops soon but not yet.

Anyone know if GTORB runs calcs fast enough to use them Ingame

On January 27 2015 04:12 cariadon wrote: Show nested quote + On January 23 2015 18:25 Romm3l wrote:   On January 22 2015 17:16 cariadon wrote: I will have a go at this. I am sincere in what i say next and believe it to be the best way to answer your vaguely worded question. As a mental exercise pick say 3 types of players e.g. TAG regular marginally winning rakeback pro, LAG regular winning at a decent rate, losing player pretty much drawing dead over a long run. What do they do differently and how does it influence their winrate over say 250 000 hands. If i were to sum up what i have read over the years, seen on poker tables of different stakes and self analysis well over a million hands it is this: Losing player - may or may not know rules, clicking buttons with no gameplan and clueless about poker theory. TAG - ABC of poker, neccessary foundation needed in order to be consistent and progress forward. TAG raises preflop, c-bets flop a high % of the time and plays straightforward for hand value not overcomplicating things. (good) LAG - besides taking money from losing players is able to take money from TAG players because he understands poker concepts thoroughly and throws TAG players off by varying betsizes and frequency of betting. A good LAG is very observant and takes advantage of situations that arise less often but are more profitable (think bigger pots, deeps stacks with wider ranges for value and bluffing). He takes into consideration players positions and table dynamics. TAGs shouldn't cbet under two thirds of the pot on flop at low limits and i'd advise betting bigger on wet flops both to protect good hands and to build a pot with equity. TAG plays most pots in position and isn't afraid of being outplayed, knowing when to fold the equity hands because other options (call, raise) are not mathematically justified. LAG is observant and may start c-betting smaller and larger to accomplish different things depending on his opponents and their tendencies. Visualising how a TAG & LAG player use the tools of position, agression and betsizing similar in some spots and different in others will be instrumental in leapfrogging you from playmoney to delicious ryebreadom. The next step is up to you. Vital[Myth] and Daut have always stood out as strong players with deep understanding for poker concepts. Most greenstar posters are strong accomplished players, either winning TAG or LAG. Go over the archives, see how they play high pocket pairs, low pocket pairs, suited connectors. Breaking poker down in this manner is far more efficient than to start inventing the wheel. The short answer is play TAG, an even better answer is play LAG. The absolute answer might be to play GTO against fish. lol his question in op is actually quite sophisticated (at least the first part of it, about predetermined sizing based on public information), while this reply is unsophisticated noise awkward He found my post useful so you can go fuck yourself. It would wrong of me to blame you for your abrasive inquisitive manner of conduct because i am at times no better. I applaud the way TheHungarianGOD approaches learning the game. I agree that having a sound understanding of strategy and underlying math is of utmost importance. Despite my salt i wish him the best. Whenever the opportunity arises wiseguys start talking out of their asses. Similar to a dog chasing its tail they talk vigorously about the "unknown unknowns". A lot of fancy words that may or may not have been assembled into sentences using "random sentence generator" or even witchcraft. This is not directed at Smuft as i didn't bother to dwell on what he wrote. The opposite of that is Baalims post, in which there is compactly packaged information that is universally true. It first went unnoticed to me but then i re-read it and thought to myself "what a good reply". http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GiPe1OiKQuk

if he found your post useful that's because he doesn't know any better and can't tell the difference between signal and your noise (or was being polite since you made an effort). part of productive discussion is pointing out and eliminating the unproductive, incorrect, misleading and noise.

On January 21 2015 21:03 Baalim wrote: Sizing its about manipulating your balance, if your range contains too many value and too little bluffs then you have to make villians call indifferent giving him better odds and you do that by betting smaller and viceversa

true for river halfstreet games or allin bets. much less so for flop strategy since you can't value turn nodes and there are other strategic considerations like setting up favourable SPR situations in future streets or betting smaller to diminish the effectiveness of crai in 3b pots, for example.

On January 27 2015 14:33 Romm3l wrote: Show nested quote + On January 27 2015 04:12 cariadon wrote:   On January 23 2015 18:25 Romm3l wrote:   On January 22 2015 17:16 cariadon wrote: I will have a go at this. I am sincere in what i say next and believe it to be the best way to answer your vaguely worded question. As a mental exercise pick say 3 types of players e.g. TAG regular marginally winning rakeback pro, LAG regular winning at a decent rate, losing player pretty much drawing dead over a long run. What do they do differently and how does it influence their winrate over say 250 000 hands. If i were to sum up what i have read over the years, seen on poker tables of different stakes and self analysis well over a million hands it is this: Losing player - may or may not know rules, clicking buttons with no gameplan and clueless about poker theory. TAG - ABC of poker, neccessary foundation needed in order to be consistent and progress forward. TAG raises preflop, c-bets flop a high % of the time and plays straightforward for hand value not overcomplicating things. (good) LAG - besides taking money from losing players is able to take money from TAG players because he understands poker concepts thoroughly and throws TAG players off by varying betsizes and frequency of betting. A good LAG is very observant and takes advantage of situations that arise less often but are more profitable (think bigger pots, deeps stacks with wider ranges for value and bluffing). He takes into consideration players positions and table dynamics. TAGs shouldn't cbet under two thirds of the pot on flop at low limits and i'd advise betting bigger on wet flops both to protect good hands and to build a pot with equity. TAG plays most pots in position and isn't afraid of being outplayed, knowing when to fold the equity hands because other options (call, raise) are not mathematically justified. LAG is observant and may start c-betting smaller and larger to accomplish different things depending on his opponents and their tendencies. Visualising how a TAG & LAG player use the tools of position, agression and betsizing similar in some spots and different in others will be instrumental in leapfrogging you from playmoney to delicious ryebreadom. The next step is up to you. Vital[Myth] and Daut have always stood out as strong players with deep understanding for poker concepts. Most greenstar posters are strong accomplished players, either winning TAG or LAG. Go over the archives, see how they play high pocket pairs, low pocket pairs, suited connectors. Breaking poker down in this manner is far more efficient than to start inventing the wheel. The short answer is play TAG, an even better answer is play LAG. The absolute answer might be to play GTO against fish. lol his question in op is actually quite sophisticated (at least the first part of it, about predetermined sizing based on public information), while this reply is unsophisticated noise awkward He found my post useful so you can go fuck yourself. It would wrong of me to blame you for your abrasive inquisitive manner of conduct because i am at times no better. I applaud the way TheHungarianGOD approaches learning the game. I agree that having a sound understanding of strategy and underlying math is of utmost importance. Despite my salt i wish him the best. Whenever the opportunity arises wiseguys start talking out of their asses. Similar to a dog chasing its tail they talk vigorously about the "unknown unknowns". A lot of fancy words that may or may not have been assembled into sentences using "random sentence generator" or even witchcraft. This is not directed at Smuft as i didn't bother to dwell on what he wrote. The opposite of that is Baalims post, in which there is compactly packaged information that is universally true. It first went unnoticed to me but then i re-read it and thought to myself "what a good reply". http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GiPe1OiKQuk if he found your post useful that's because he doesn't know any better and can't tell the difference between signal and your noise (or was being polite since you made an effort). part of productive discussion is pointing out and eliminating the unproductive, incorrect, misleading and noise.

hold on there buddy ! lets get to 25nl before solving poker, okay?

On January 27 2015 08:25 cariadon wrote: Show nested quote + On January 27 2015 06:27 dogmeat wrote:   On January 27 2015 03:42 cariadon wrote:   On January 22 2015 19:55 dogmeat wrote: yeah look at vitalmyth whos abilities were questioned even back in 2009 or check some random outdated hands lol bet w/e you want vs fish and datamine some strong 2014 reg who plays similar style to urs Vital[Myth] was textbook TAG, i find it difficult for anyone who played him to disagree. Did he play too tight? Sure. Did he have leaks in his game? Sure. Did he play TAG and win money playing 100nl and 200nl when games were soft? Yes. I'm not talking about 2009 but rather the ~2006 Vital[Myth] do you even play poker? I used Vital[Myth] as an example of a TAG player. I played against him tons back in the day. Are you saying he is a bad example for a TAG player? Whatever personal vendetta you may have is irrelevant here. Did you even play poker back in 2005-2006? This is going nowhere and derails the thread.

what vendetta are you talking about? i only know you as a guy whos trolling hand history section

anyway why do you have to flood this thread with your nonsense and vague, meaningless categorizations like 'tag' and baseless statements like 'tag should never bet less than xxxx'? you dont even play poker anymore, nobody cares about your 2006 wisdom, just gtfo, your post are 99% bs and i m being generous here

On January 27 2015 13:37 traxamillion wrote: Apparently GTORB will be able to solve flops soon but not yet. Anyone know if GTORB runs calcs fast enough to use them Ingame

it takes 1-3mins for turn cals, flop cals will take hours

On January 27 2015 14:50 Romm3l wrote: betting smaller to diminish the effectiveness of crai in 3b pots, for example.

assuming you are playing gto you dont care about such things

On January 27 2015 18:04 dogmeat wrote: Show nested quote + On January 27 2015 14:50 Romm3l wrote: betting smaller to diminish the effectiveness of crai in 3b pots, for example. assuming you are playing gto you dont care about such things

so you expect that a gto bot calling a 3b in position with small flop SPR (say 4) could have a standard bet size of fullpot if opponent checks when it decides to bet because 'it doesn't care'?

one does not bet small on the flop im 3b pot b/c he worries about effectiveness of c/r's but b/c theory suggests betting equal fractions of the pot on all streets is the best strategy w/ polarized range

On January 27 2015 18:43 dogmeat wrote: one does not bet small on the flop im 3b pot b/c he worries about effectiveness of c/r's but b/c theory suggests betting equal fractions of the pot on all streets is the best strategy w/ polarized range

I don't understand why that has to be the case. Also I'm not sure of the concept of being polarized across 3 streets. As the board changes, your hand strength will change, even if someone was polarized on the flop, by the time they get to the river they might not be anymore. If you would explain this to me more I'd really appreciate it.

Also were you suggesting that theory suggests sizing bets such that by the time you get to the last street of betting equal fractions, you are allin on the river? That part of it would make sense to me (although I still don't grasp this being polarized through all 3 streets idea)

maybe he doesn't necessarily mean polarized as in a nuts or air range. He is talking about vbetting vs someone who is calling down with a bluffcatcher in a general sense. When you are bluffcatching it doesn't necessarily matter (it may affect your strategy but you are ahead of his bluffs and behind his vbets just the same) if your opponent is merged or polarized (kinda harder to bluffcatch vs a merged range simply because it usually has more value hands and is less easily defined but this isn't about that) because really any bet you call you are going to be behind if it is value and ahead of it is a bluff. Doesn't matter to you when holding mid pair at showdown whether ur opponent has top pair or top set you lose just the same to both.

So in this general situation where hero is barreling away at villain bluffcatching that we find ourselves in every 3rd or 4th hand it is generally optimal to use proportional betting. That ratio leads to max indifference in the player calling down. so like 3/4s pot for 3 streets or whatever stacksizes and SpR dictates.

This is a huge generalization obviously.

reminds me of the Golden Mean found all over nature that magical ratio, have any of you ever learned about that?

On January 27 2015 18:43 dogmeat wrote: one does not bet small on the flop im 3b pot b/c he worries about effectiveness of c/r's but b/c theory suggests betting equal fractions of the pot on all streets is the best strategy w/ polarized range

that's an interesting result as well and i'd love to hear where you got it from.

however your argument is circular and empty: you are saying 'x is suboptimal not for a reason y, but because z is optimal and x is not z' which simplifies to 'x is suboptimal because it is not optimal' - no shit.

remember optimal strategy is defined as the strategy that minimises the expectation of a perfectly adapting opponent. try to think why minbet, and why 4x pot shove are each suboptimal betsizes in our spot (4x spr, ip on flop, villain checks). why does overbet shoving, or betting min make life easier for our opponent and fail to minimise his expectation? once you arrive at better answers to these questions than 'it is suboptimal because it is suboptimal', think again about why fullpot might not be optimal and consider again my argument that the crai option becomes too good (he gets good odds on it, and it forces you to bluff cb/fold less often and miss profitable spots, for example).

This thread is a train wreck.

If you're reading through this thread and trying to learn something about poker by reading people's posts - look away, you're wasting your time.

On January 28 2015 12:06 Smuft wrote: This thread is a train wreck. If you're reading through this thread and trying to learn something about poker by reading people's posts - look away, you're wasting your time.

yes.. but this applies to ur posts too unfortunately. im trying to make some sense of it by challenging the bad posts. if you think anything i've said is incorrect i'd love to hear it too.

On January 27 2015 11:49 Romm3l wrote: Show nested quote + On January 26 2015 23:40 Smuft wrote: I created some turn ranges to input into GTORB turn solver to illustrate. Scenario: BTN opens min, BB calls (BTN opens 55%, BB cold calls 51%) Flop: Th8h2d BTN bets 50% pot, BB calls (I have BTN betting 65% of his flop range, with a reasonably balanced check back range, and for simplicity BB only defends by calling) Turn: Js 1 bet size of 50% pot: (EV of 4.11) http://gtorangebuilder.com/#share_sce...4d2ecbaef47e3e2fc542c27d186/root_v=30 1 bet size of 100% pot: (EV of 4.11) http://gtorangebuilder.com/#share_sce...691e951e288b2a5ce3da3521bd5/root_v=30 So the EV of betting 50% pot or 100% pot are identical. What happens if we use a strategy with 2 bet sizes? 2 bet sizes of 50% pot and 125% pot: (EV of 4.12) http://gtorangebuilder.com/#share_sce...5b595fb4a72c34858435b4267f0/root_v=30 So you gained 0.01bb/hand if you somehow manage to be able to perfectly execute a 2 sizing strategy - Keep in mind that this is on the turn where sizing should matter a bit more than the flop (going with the assumption that in general the more play there is left (stack depth, range width), the less bet sizing will effect EV). This seems to be true because when you play with river sizing, they effect the EV more than turn sizing, and when you play with sizing in 3 and 4 bet pots, they effect the EV more than SRPs. your method is wrong. you have looked at the value of a subgame starting from the turn under different betting regimes and found sizing doesnt matter from the turn. we are interested in solving for optimal flop sizing (which i suspect should be bigger on wet flops than dry). unfortunately I don't think commercially available solving software nowadays can solve from flops yet?

Maybe you didn't read the bolded part carefully enough before commenting. Given the complexity of the language used in some of your posts I'd expect you to read more carefully before commenting. (not everyone has studied advanced logic or read the signal and the noise)

In any case, I could have been much more clear so here it goes again:

Quick recap:

1. I suggest in some of my previous posts that the EV difference between any reasonable cbet size on the flop in a SRP is negligible

2. I used the GTORB Turn solver to show that EV of different betting sizes on the turn are negligible (I only showed 1 scenario but of the 50 or scenarios I've looked at, I've never seen a significant EV difference)

3. In the bolded above I show my reasoning for why I think that if the EV of different bet sizes on the turn is negligible then the EV of different bet sizes on the flop is even more negligible

To restate the bolded:

General assumption: The more streets there are left to act, the deeper the stacks, and the wider the ranges, the less bet sizing has an effect on EV

I came to this assumption because I have observed the EV of different bet sizes effect the river more than the turn, 4 bet pots more than 3 bet pots, and 3 bet pots more than SRPs.

Given these observations, it would be very strange for a 3/4 pot bet on the flop vs a 1/2 pot bet on the flop to suddenly yield a significant difference in EV.

Ehh this thread is more useful than most and only because you made some people aware of that GTORB program.

On January 28 2015 12:02 Romm3l wrote: Show nested quote + On January 27 2015 18:43 dogmeat wrote: one does not bet small on the flop im 3b pot b/c he worries about effectiveness of c/r's but b/c theory suggests betting equal fractions of the pot on all streets is the best strategy w/ polarized range that's an interesting result as well and i'd love to hear where you got it from. however your argument is circular and empty: you are saying 'x is suboptimal not for a reason y, but because z is optimal and x is not z' which simplifies to 'x is suboptimal because it is not optimal' - no shit. remember optimal strategy is defined as the strategy that minimises the expectation of a perfectly adapting opponent. try to think why minbet, and why 4x pot shove are each suboptimal betsizes in our spot (4x spr, ip on flop, villain checks). why does overbet shoving, or betting min make life easier for our opponent and fail to minimise his expectation? once you arrive at better answers to these questions than 'it is suboptimal because it is suboptimal', think again about why fullpot might not be optimal and consider again my argument that the crai option becomes too good (he gets good odds on it, and it forces you to bluff cb/fold less often and miss profitable spots, for example).

mathematics of poker by bill chen

anyway optimal strategy maximases your ev
and your argument is completely invalid, you can have balanced PSB range in your example, but its not gto b/c gto play maximases your ev, which is achieved by betting equal fractions of the pot over 3 streets (which allows highest bluff:value ratio), c/r is not an issue at all

you should always bet potato tree because Harry Potter magic and everyone is wrong

edit: anyone heard of the new poker program called "Fgators" ? it does the opposite of GTO and will revolutionise poker

On January 28 2015 16:20 traxamillion wrote: Ehh this thread is more useful than most and only because you made some people aware of that GTORB program.

Agreed, this alone made this thread very valuable for me. Also, though there are obviously differences of opinion and confusion, I've liked the other stuff people have written too.

On January 28 2015 17:23 dogmeat wrote: Show nested quote + On January 28 2015 12:02 Romm3l wrote:   On January 27 2015 18:43 dogmeat wrote: one does not bet small on the flop im 3b pot b/c he worries about effectiveness of c/r's but b/c theory suggests betting equal fractions of the pot on all streets is the best strategy w/ polarized range that's an interesting result as well and i'd love to hear where you got it from. however your argument is circular and empty: you are saying 'x is suboptimal not for a reason y, but because z is optimal and x is not z' which simplifies to 'x is suboptimal because it is not optimal' - no shit. remember optimal strategy is defined as the strategy that minimises the expectation of a perfectly adapting opponent. try to think why minbet, and why 4x pot shove are each suboptimal betsizes in our spot (4x spr, ip on flop, villain checks). why does overbet shoving, or betting min make life easier for our opponent and fail to minimise his expectation? once you arrive at better answers to these questions than 'it is suboptimal because it is suboptimal', think again about why fullpot might not be optimal and consider again my argument that the crai option becomes too good (he gets good odds on it, and it forces you to bluff cb/fold less often and miss profitable spots, for example). mathematics of poker by bill chen anyway optimal strategy maximases your ev and your argument is completely invalid, you can have balanced PSB range in your example, but its not gto b/c gto play maximases your ev, which is achieved by betting equal fractions of the pot over 3 streets (which allows highest bluff:value ratio), c/r is not an issue at all

I think what Romm3l is trying to say is your argument is "this play is the best because it is" instead of giving some solid reasoning. I have to agree with him. Your posts are often just random statements which is too bad because you probably have some decent reasoning / thoughts for how you came up with your ideas and could benefit yourself and others if you voiced them.

This wouldn't be so bad if your random statement was at least a correct random statement but it's not. I will try my best to explain below.

On January 27 2015 18:43 dogmeat wrote: one does not bet small on the flop im 3b pot b/c he worries about effectiveness of c/r's but b/c theory suggests betting equal fractions of the pot on all streets is the best strategy w/ polarized range

The theory you're referring to from "Mathematics of Poker" is illustrated in toy games that are somewhat similar to NLH but in the end are not the same at all.
The board canges in NLH but it does not change in the toy games used in MOP where geometric betting (betting equal fraction of the pot on all streets) is proven to be best for the polarized range.

The author suggests that geometric bet sizing should be used in some situations in NLH but he does not prove it. It's just his 2006 opinion. It was a very advanced opinion for it's time but poker has been much more deeply studied and analyzed now.

I have my own ideas for why I think this opinion is out-dated and mostly wrong but it's not organized and way beyond the scope of a simple forum post so I'll give you a much cheaper but probably more credible argument:

Look at the best NLH players in the highest stakes games today, the standard cbet size on most flop textures in 3b pots is 1/3 pot. This is 9 years after MOP was written and most of these guys have read it, expanded on it, read more about game theory and done intense quantitative analysis on the game. Many of them will play stakes up to 200/400 against pretty much anyone in the world.

Why aren't they betting equal fractions of the pot in 3b pots?

On January 27 2015 18:43 dogmeat wrote: anyway optimal strategy maximases your ev and your argument is completely invalid, you can have balanced PSB range in your example, but its not gto b/c gto play maximases your ev, which is achieved by betting equal fractions of the pot over 3 streets (which allows highest bluff:value ratio), c/r is not an issue at all

The bolded is also not true. The bigger the bet size, the more bluffs you can have so the bet size which allows the highest bluff:value ratio is a bet size of allin.

Smuft you are saying that in your experiments the size of the bet didnt make a big difference in EV but Im assuming it would make a big difference in your range (bluffing and value frequencies) to remain balanced.

On January 28 2015 22:15 Smuft wrote: Why aren't they betting equal fractions of the pot in 3b pots?

Sometimes they are

For example when stacks sizes are appropriate and the board is static enough like a monotone flop or a 3s3c3dXX board

As far as flop betsize decreasing over time in 3bet pots, just basic strategy says you don't have to bet as much on flop to get it in by riv as in single raise pots so those big pot cbets started disappearing. Small Cbet makes for a cheaper bluff that has to work less frequently.

Also structuring betting like this that promotes calls early then folds on the river by leaving as large a bluff size as possible on the end to maintain the highest bluff ratio.

Sometimes people think this is bad because they would prefer to bet more on the turn for example so they can win more when they bluff on the river. Only problem is that now villain has a much better price on his call too so you can't bluff at and win that pot as often.

On January 28 2015 22:17 Smuft wrote: Show nested quote + On January 27 2015 18:43 dogmeat wrote: anyway optimal strategy maximases your ev and your argument is completely invalid, you can have balanced PSB range in your example, but its not gto b/c gto play maximases your ev, which is achieved by betting equal fractions of the pot over 3 streets (which allows highest bluff:value ratio), c/r is not an issue at all The bolded is also not true. The bigger the bet size, the more bluffs you can have so the bet size which allows the highest bluff:value ratio is a bet size of allin.

it is true for limited stack sizes like 3b pots w/ 100bbs pf,
also funny you say that when you previously stated betsizes doesnt matter lol, we are talking about multiple streets here, thats why ur experiment was retarded, did you at least try to compute ev for some rivers? i feel like you have no idea what you are talking about

as for your previous post: this concept is demonstrated for perfectly polarized range, but also applies to polarized range w/ bluffs having x% equity and valuehands having y%, bluff:value ratio decreases but concept is still valid

On January 28 2015 13:31 Smuft wrote: Show nested quote + On January 27 2015 11:49 Romm3l wrote:   On January 26 2015 23:40 Smuft wrote: I created some turn ranges to input into GTORB turn solver to illustrate. Scenario: BTN opens min, BB calls (BTN opens 55%, BB cold calls 51%) Flop: Th8h2d BTN bets 50% pot, BB calls (I have BTN betting 65% of his flop range, with a reasonably balanced check back range, and for simplicity BB only defends by calling) Turn: Js 1 bet size of 50% pot: (EV of 4.11) http://gtorangebuilder.com/#share_sce...4d2ecbaef47e3e2fc542c27d186/root_v=30 1 bet size of 100% pot: (EV of 4.11) http://gtorangebuilder.com/#share_sce...691e951e288b2a5ce3da3521bd5/root_v=30 So the EV of betting 50% pot or 100% pot are identical. What happens if we use a strategy with 2 bet sizes? 2 bet sizes of 50% pot and 125% pot: (EV of 4.12) http://gtorangebuilder.com/#share_sce...5b595fb4a72c34858435b4267f0/root_v=30 So you gained 0.01bb/hand if you somehow manage to be able to perfectly execute a 2 sizing strategy - Keep in mind that this is on the turn where sizing should matter a bit more than the flop (going with the assumption that in general the more play there is left (stack depth, range width), the less bet sizing will effect EV). This seems to be true because when you play with river sizing, they effect the EV more than turn sizing, and when you play with sizing in 3 and 4 bet pots, they effect the EV more than SRPs. your method is wrong. you have looked at the value of a subgame starting from the turn under different betting regimes and found sizing doesnt matter from the turn. we are interested in solving for optimal flop sizing (which i suspect should be bigger on wet flops than dry). unfortunately I don't think commercially available solving software nowadays can solve from flops yet? Maybe you didn't read the bolded part carefully enough before commenting. Given the complexity of the language used in some of your posts I'd expect you to read more carefully before commenting. (not everyone has studied advanced logic or read the signal and the noise) In any case, I could have been much more clear so here it goes again: Quick recap: 1. I suggest in some of my previous posts that the EV difference between any reasonable cbet size on the flop in a SRP is negligible 2. I used the GTORB Turn solver to show that EV of different betting sizes on the turn are negligible (I only showed 1 scenario but of the 50 or scenarios I've looked at, I've never seen a significant EV difference) 3. In the bolded above I show my reasoning for why I think that if the EV of different bet sizes on the turn is negligible then the EV of different bet sizes on the flop is even more negligible To restate the bolded: General assumption: The more streets there are left to act, the deeper the stacks, and the wider the ranges, the less bet sizing has an effect on EV I came to this assumption because I have observed the EV of different bet sizes effect the river more than the turn, 4 bet pots more than 3 bet pots, and 3 bet pots more than SRPs. Given these observations, it would be very strange for a 3/4 pot bet on the flop vs a 1/2 pot bet on the flop to suddenly yield a significant difference in EV.

my sincere apologies, i totally missed that part of the post out of carelessness. now it's a much more interesting argument and i have to think about it some more to try and test if it makes sense, and thanks for explaining it better

On January 28 2015 17:23 dogmeat wrote: Show nested quote + On January 28 2015 12:02 Romm3l wrote:   On January 27 2015 18:43 dogmeat wrote: one does not bet small on the flop im 3b pot b/c he worries about effectiveness of c/r's but b/c theory suggests betting equal fractions of the pot on all streets is the best strategy w/ polarized range that's an interesting result as well and i'd love to hear where you got it from. however your argument is circular and empty: you are saying 'x is suboptimal not for a reason y, but because z is optimal and x is not z' which simplifies to 'x is suboptimal because it is not optimal' - no shit. remember optimal strategy is defined as the strategy that minimises the expectation of a perfectly adapting opponent. try to think why minbet, and why 4x pot shove are each suboptimal betsizes in our spot (4x spr, ip on flop, villain checks). why does overbet shoving, or betting min make life easier for our opponent and fail to minimise his expectation? once you arrive at better answers to these questions than 'it is suboptimal because it is suboptimal', think again about why fullpot might not be optimal and consider again my argument that the crai option becomes too good (he gets good odds on it, and it forces you to bluff cb/fold less often and miss profitable spots, for example). mathematics of poker by bill chen anyway optimal strategy maximases your ev and your argument is completely invalid, you can have balanced PSB range in your example, but its not gto b/c gto play maximases your ev, which is achieved by betting equal fractions of the pot over 3 streets (which allows highest bluff:value ratio), c/r is not an issue at all

yes perfectly balanced play with the wrong betsize fails to minimise a perfect opponent's EV. im not disagreeing or arguing otherwise. im just trying to get you to think about why that is. why can perfectly balanced play with a fullpot, min or overshove betsize not do as well? (again, think of a better answer than "because it can't", or "because bill chen said so" )

On January 28 2015 17:23 dogmeat wrote: Show nested quote + On January 28 2015 12:02 Romm3l wrote:   On January 27 2015 18:43 dogmeat wrote: one does not bet small on the flop im 3b pot b/c he worries about effectiveness of c/r's but b/c theory suggests betting equal fractions of the pot on all streets is the best strategy w/ polarized range that's an interesting result as well and i'd love to hear where you got it from. however your argument is circular and empty: you are saying 'x is suboptimal not for a reason y, but because z is optimal and x is not z' which simplifies to 'x is suboptimal because it is not optimal' - no shit. remember optimal strategy is defined as the strategy that minimises the expectation of a perfectly adapting opponent. try to think why minbet, and why 4x pot shove are each suboptimal betsizes in our spot (4x spr, ip on flop, villain checks). why does overbet shoving, or betting min make life easier for our opponent and fail to minimise his expectation? once you arrive at better answers to these questions than 'it is suboptimal because it is suboptimal', think again about why fullpot might not be optimal and consider again my argument that the crai option becomes too good (he gets good odds on it, and it forces you to bluff cb/fold less often and miss profitable spots, for example). mathematics of poker by bill chen anyway optimal strategy maximases your ev and your argument is completely invalid, you can have balanced PSB range in your example, but its not gto b/c gto play maximases your ev, which is achieved by betting equal fractions of the pot over 3 streets (which allows highest bluff:value ratio), c/r is not an issue at all

read it once more, let it sink
and again, why the fck are you talking about 'minimising expectation'?

because minimising a perfectly exploitive opponent's expectation is the strict definition of optimal play. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Minimax

why does that size allow highest bluff:value ratio? why do you have to bluff less if betting fullpot or shove?

On January 29 2015 17:02 Romm3l wrote: because minimising a perfectly exploitive opponent's expectation is the strict definition of optimal play. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Minimax why does that size allow highest bluff:value ratio? why do you have to bluff less if betting fullpot or shove?

its almost as if you wrote 'why 1+1 = 2?'... just math tbh

i know you are trolling but to be a little constructive i made this excel file for you, mr 'i m too cool to bother with math and i want other ppl to do my homeworks'

https://drive.google.com/file/d/0BxjknvTZAZQyekhpdDI3UldVNW8/view?usp=sharing

dogmeat, you have had some interesting points but it's so hard to understand what you are trying to say. Can you put some more effort into your posts? Try reading them when you're done and ask "could some random noob following this thread have a chance to understand what I'm trying to say?"

hehe this conversation is going in circles: r0mm31 said 'ppl bet small to diminish flop c/rs" and now hes just trolling

On January 29 2015 07:26 dogmeat wrote: Show nested quote + On January 28 2015 22:17 Smuft wrote:   On January 27 2015 18:43 dogmeat wrote: anyway optimal strategy maximases your ev and your argument is completely invalid, you can have balanced PSB range in your example, but its not gto b/c gto play maximases your ev, which is achieved by betting equal fractions of the pot over 3 streets (which allows highest bluff:value ratio), c/r is not an issue at all The bolded is also not true. The bigger the bet size, the more bluffs you can have so the bet size which allows the highest bluff:value ratio is a bet size of allin. it is true for limited stack sizes like 3b pots w/ 100bbs pf,

Let's see if we can agree on this:

1. Sizing that allows highest bluff:value ratio for any 1 street is all in
2. Sizing that allows highest bluff:value ratio for 2 street+ is geometric (equal fractions of pot)

also funny you say that when you previously stated betsizes doesnt matter lol,

I did not say this. I said "The EV difference of any reasonable bet size on the flop in an SRP is negligible". I also said that bet sizing effects EV more in 3b pots and probably more in spots with narrower ranges.

To clarify a bit further, I think that bet sizing matters a lot. It's just useless to try and find some GTO bet size for SRPs on the flop and probably the turn and instead spend your time finding a bet size you feel exploits the current populations tendencies

as for your previous post: this concept is demonstrated for perfectly polarized range, but also applies to polarized range w/ bluffs having x% equity and valuehands having y%, bluff:value ratio decreases but concept is still valid

The bluff:value ratio INCREASES under these conditions. Think about it:

We are usually betting more bluffs than value hands right?

With perfectly polarized ranges (value equity 100%, bluff equity 0%), the type of hand we're betting most (bluffs) have 0% equity.

With a just polarized range (generally, value equity 70-80%, bluff equity 20-30%), our bluffs have gained the same amount of equity our value hands have lost but we bet more bluffs so the overall equity of our strategy is higher and we can bet a higher bluff:value ratio.

Ironically the spreadsheet you just linked can prove this. Go to the "value" and "bluff" portion and adjust the equities, start at 100/0, then change to 80/20, then 70/30, etc. You will see that the more equity our bluffs have the higher value:bluff ratio you can bet.

*** B:V ratio will decrease when you are betting so small that your range has few bluffs but this is rare.

it was typo on my part, i actually ahve it in my older excel file

anyway i agree with you on 1. and even 2. (is betting equal fractions called geometrical?)

i will toy w/ gtorb tomorrow and try to add equities for rivers of each turn nod. i was checking out some draw heavy paired boards today and got 0.5pb > .66 > .75

btw i think you cant cbet flop 65% of timr if that results in only cbetting turn 35% or something % like in ur example

wow what's happening, liquidpoker actually has a good poker theory thread

dogmeat and smuft 2015 mod status imo

On January 29 2015 18:17 dogmeat wrote: i know you are trolling but to be a little constructive i made this excel file for you, mr 'i m too cool to bother with math and i want other ppl to do my homeworks' https://drive.google.com/file/d/0BxjknvTZAZQyekhpdDI3UldVNW8/view?usp=sharing

i am not trolling. im here for enjoyable discussion only, and think it would be worthwhile for its own sake if i can understand theory a little better, and/or help others to understand better by questioning their ideas. "doing my homework" has no value to me as i don't play poker.

thanks for the constructive contribution, but im not sure how you can use a simple toygame that doesn't allow c/r or any sort of branching in the gametree to make your argument? ofcourse ev of c/r isn't a relevant factor in a toygame that doesn't allow c/r (and nor would it ever get played by a K in AKQ game which is effectively what your toygame is).

on a sidenote this toygame becomes particularly worthless for lower flop spr situations as in my example because geometric sizing calls for such small bets that the difference between perfect polarisation and typical wa/wb in real poker becomes significant given the odds your bets offer

On February 01 2015 19:31 Romm3l wrote: on a sidenote this toygame becomes particularly worthless for lower flop spr situations as in my example because geometric sizing calls for such small bets that the difference between perfect polarisation and typical wa/wb in real poker becomes significant given the odds your bets offer

it fits well for 100bb 3bet pots, you rarely play 3streets of betting in 4b pots and i couldnt care less about shortstacking faggots

On February 01 2015 19:31 Romm3l wrote: [QUOTE]On January 29 2015 18:17 dogmeat wrote: thanks for the constructive contribution, but im not sure how you can use a simple toygame that doesn't allow c/r or any sort of branching in the gametree to make your argument? ofcourse ev of c/r isn't a relevant factor in a toygame that doesn't allow c/r (and nor would it ever get played by a K in AKQ game which is effectively what your toygame is).

whats average flop c/r % as pf 3bettor?

On February 01 2015 20:55 dogmeat wrote: Show nested quote + On February 01 2015 19:31 Romm3l wrote: on a sidenote this toygame becomes particularly worthless for lower flop spr situations as in my example because geometric sizing calls for such small bets that the difference between perfect polarisation and typical wa/wb in real poker becomes significant given the odds your bets offer it fits well for 100bb 3bet pots, you rarely play 3streets of betting in 4b pots and i couldnt care less about shortstacking faggots

good for you but not relevant vs the argument i was making

Show nested quote + On February 01 2015 19:31 Romm3l wrote: [QUOTE]On January 29 2015 18:17 dogmeat wrote: thanks for the constructive contribution, but im not sure how you can use a simple toygame that doesn't allow c/r or any sort of branching in the gametree to make your argument? ofcourse ev of c/r isn't a relevant factor in a toygame that doesn't allow c/r (and nor would it ever get played by a K in AKQ game which is effectively what your toygame is). whats average flop c/r % as pf 3bettor?

i dont know, you tell me. check turn% as well, while you're at it. and check flop% vs shortstacks too, unless you couldnt care less about how to play against presumably a nontrivial % of your opponents.

On January 29 2015 21:24 dogmeat wrote: hehe this conversation is going in circles: r0mm31 said 'ppl bet small to diminish flop c/rs" and now hes just trolling

well no, i used it as one example of a possible consideration in some situations that is different from achieving call vs fold indifference, in reply to another poster who thought sizing was all about call vs fold indifference only. not close to the same as saying its the only possible reason to bet small.

you clearly know a lot of good stuff that can contribute, would be good if youcan interact in a more constructive way

so help me ouy here, whatbetsizing do you suggest and why?

btw there are almost no shortstackers at ps nl200+

fml typed out some long shit and deleted it on accident

A GTO poker strategy is one in which the maximally exploitative counterstrategy can gain no edge and is breakeven.

And I was gonna say it seems to me like you guys are doing a lot of arguing without necessarily disagreeing

On February 03 2015 02:59 traxamillion wrote: And I was gonna say it seems to me like you guys are doing a lot of arguing without necessarily disagreeing

there is a need to establish who has the bigger potato
or who's dad is taller

It has something to do with stacksize, position, implied odds, polarity, and range strength. The rest I havent figured out yet.

The trouble with trying to figure out GTO sizing is that it doesn't account for the future. In real life, you account for stacksize / implied odds, but GTO freezes situations in a vacuum.

So the logic becomes broken, between the two.

On February 03 2015 10:25 Minsk wrote: The trouble with trying to figure out GTO sizing is that it doesn't account for the future. In real life, you account for stacksize / implied odds, but GTO freezes situations in a vacuum. So the logic becomes broken, between the two.

If you are saying that GTO doesn't change the way it plays future hands to adjust to opponents' play, that is true.
If however you are making the claim that a GTO strategy doesn't account for future streets in the same hand, that is incorrect. It in fact perfectly accounts for all past events in the hand and all possible future events in the hand.

Ah, you're right.
Actually helped me out a lot.

Then I guess the question becomes,
How do we alter sizing and frequency if there are many bad (next street) situations for our range?
How do we alter sizing and frequency if there are many good (next street) situations for our range?

Yeah, things get complex really fast. Three things I think we have to think about (would like to discuss the 3rd with people):

How do future cards affect our range compared to our opponents range?

How do future cards affect our individual hand compared to our opponents range? (For example if our range in a given spot is extremely ace heavy, but in a specific hand we don't have an ace but instead have a gutshot and a backdoor flush draw, future aces are good for our range but bad for our hand, so future aces are perfect cards to bluff).

How much information do we have about where our specific hand is at? I think even when you have a hand that has quite a bit of equity against your opponent's range, you can be in trouble because it's very hard know where you are at in the hand, and it's very easy to put money in behind or get blown off of the best hand. This is why a straight flush draw is usually more valuable against a good opponent than top pair bad kicker. You know almost exactly where you are at, and can play the hand very well. This information has inherent value, and must be very valuable to someone trying to play a GTO style. We often define a 'mistake' as putting more chips than warranted given the equity one has in a specific spot, or folding when one has the equity to make a call or raise a better choice. That said, there will be many times where a GTO strategy will be forced to do these things as well, so I believe that thinking about them as 'mistakes' is the wrong way to approach it. It is just one of the weaknesses of having a type of hand where it's hard to tell where you are at, and should be taken into account when you are constructing your decision tree.

to all the noobs, just read Smuft's replies, he's 100% correct on everything as far as I can tell.

On February 03 2015 11:04 HungarianGOD wrote: Show nested quote + On February 03 2015 10:25 Minsk wrote: The trouble with trying to figure out GTO sizing is that it doesn't account for the future. In real life, you account for stacksize / implied odds, but GTO freezes situations in a vacuum. So the logic becomes broken, between the two. If you are saying that GTO doesn't change the way it plays future hands to adjust to opponents' play, that is true. If however you are making the claim that a GTO strategy doesn't account for future streets in the same hand, that is incorrect. It in fact perfectly accounts for all past events in the hand and all possible future events in the hand.

this

I dont understand how GTORangeBuilder claims to have a GTO solution to turn and river play if you can change bet sizes within it.

Wouldn't a true GTO solution only have one betsize that cant be altered?

If its letting you tinker with different bet sizing tree's, its not a GTO solution. The GTO solution only has one bet sizing tree.

I think you are correct in saying that. Hypothetically, there can be more than one decision tree that is GTO, but there doesn't necessarily have to be (and I'm pretty sure in No-Limit holdem we don't know enough to be certain). We certainly can't just arbitrarily pick a bet size and construct a 'GTO' solution using it, that is complete nonsense.

I think the sizing of bets is one of the things that make NL-holdem so complicated, and despite its name, this GTO site isn't actually giving you something truly GTO. I think what it is doing is taking inputs you give it (such as bet-sizing and handranges), constructing a mixed strategy that is unexploitable and balanced with the assumption that all preset inputs are fixed, then calculating the expected value of the scenario. But coming up with an unexploitable line is much easier than coming up with THE unexploitable line that is GTO, which this program doesn't come close to doing. Thankfully we are still a long time away from that for holdem games with any decent stack depth.

On February 04 2015 18:35 Minsk wrote: I dont understand how GTORangeBuilder claims to have a GTO solution to turn and river play if you can change bet sizes within it. Wouldn't a true GTO solution only have one betsize that cant be altered?

you dont change betsizes or anything in the gtorb answer; you just set up the variables before the turn and it spits out the turn and river tree for you to study. two of those variables are preflop and flop betsizing.

Also there may be multiple cooptimal solutions to HUNLHE we aren't sure yet

No, theres only one optimal solution, for sure. It's when you can make no more adjustments, so its a singularity by definition. It's like the concept of the enlightned one, there is only one enlightened one.

It's like there can be multiple blackholes, but they are never even and one always eats the other one. If you look at GTO, it would be like the biggest blackhole that exists, GTO is not all blackholes.

I don't believe this can be it since the process of reaching GTO is made by adjustments, until you cannot adjust anymore. It's like you cannot know GTO until you know GTO -1 move, and nobody knows that.


So the question is what is this software doing? It seems to pick a range, then find a Nash Equilibrium that breaks even with that range?

On February 04 2015 23:27 Minsk wrote: No, theres only one optimal solution, for sure.

That's 100% bs. There are tons of examples of games with multiple nash equilibria, and I don't think we know enough about hold'em to say for sure there is only one solution.

We know for a fact there is more than one solution.

Example:
Board is 3333A in holdem. Both players automatically have the nuts. As long as neither one of them folds, either player could bet 5, 10, 20, or even zero bb against the other (checking the nuts), and they won't be able to improve their expectation against the other.

On February 07 2015 06:07 NMcNasty wrote: We know for a fact there is more than one solution. Example: Board is 3333A in holdem. Both players automatically have the nuts. As long as neither one of them folds, either player could bet 5, 10, 20, or even zero bb against the other (checking the nuts), and they won't be able to improve their expectation against the other.

I think when most people here are talking about hold'em solutions we're only considering non-trivial information sets.

On February 07 2015 06:07 NMcNasty wrote: We know for a fact there is more than one solution. Example: Board is 3333A in holdem. Both players automatically have the nuts. As long as neither one of them folds, either player could bet 5, 10, 20, or even zero bb against the other (checking the nuts), and they won't be able to improve their expectation against the other.

without rake that is true, with rake, the only play is check


edit, except if rake is already maxed at higher stakes

On January 28 2015 22:15 Smuft wrote: Show nested quote + On January 28 2015 17:23 dogmeat wrote:   On January 28 2015 12:02 Romm3l wrote:   On January 27 2015 18:43 dogmeat wrote: one does not bet small on the flop im 3b pot b/c he worries about effectiveness of c/r's but b/c theory suggests betting equal fractions of the pot on all streets is the best strategy w/ polarized range that's an interesting result as well and i'd love to hear where you got it from. however your argument is circular and empty: you are saying 'x is suboptimal not for a reason y, but because z is optimal and x is not z' which simplifies to 'x is suboptimal because it is not optimal' - no shit. remember optimal strategy is defined as the strategy that minimises the expectation of a perfectly adapting opponent. try to think why minbet, and why 4x pot shove are each suboptimal betsizes in our spot (4x spr, ip on flop, villain checks). why does overbet shoving, or betting min make life easier for our opponent and fail to minimise his expectation? once you arrive at better answers to these questions than 'it is suboptimal because it is suboptimal', think again about why fullpot might not be optimal and consider again my argument that the crai option becomes too good (he gets good odds on it, and it forces you to bluff cb/fold less often and miss profitable spots, for example). mathematics of poker by bill chen anyway optimal strategy maximases your ev and your argument is completely invalid, you can have balanced PSB range in your example, but its not gto b/c gto play maximases your ev, which is achieved by betting equal fractions of the pot over 3 streets (which allows highest bluff:value ratio), c/r is not an issue at all I think what Romm3l is trying to say is your argument is "this play is the best because it is" instead of giving some solid reasoning. I have to agree with him. Your posts are often just random statements which is too bad because you probably have some decent reasoning / thoughts for how you came up with your ideas and could benefit yourself and others if you voiced them. This wouldn't be so bad if your random statement was at least a correct random statement but it's not. I will try my best to explain below.   On January 27 2015 18:43 dogmeat wrote: one does not bet small on the flop im 3b pot b/c he worries about effectiveness of c/r's but b/c theory suggests betting equal fractions of the pot on all streets is the best strategy w/ polarized range The theory you're referring to from "Mathematics of Poker" is illustrated in toy games that are somewhat similar to NLH but in the end are not the same at all. The board canges in NLH but it does not change in the toy games used in MOP where geometric betting (betting equal fraction of the pot on all streets) is proven to be best for the polarized range. The author suggests that geometric bet sizing should be used in some situations in NLH but he does not prove it. It's just his 2006 opinion. It was a very advanced opinion for it's time but poker has been much more deeply studied and analyzed now. I have my own ideas for why I think this opinion is out-dated and mostly wrong but it's not organized and way beyond the scope of a simple forum post so I'll give you a much cheaper but probably more credible argument: Look at the best NLH players in the highest stakes games today, the standard cbet size on most flop textures in 3b pots is 1/3 pot. This is 9 years after MOP was written and most of these guys have read it, expanded on it, read more about game theory and done intense quantitative analysis on the game. Many of them will play stakes up to 200/400 against pretty much anyone in the world. Why aren't they betting equal fractions of the pot in 3b pots?

Your statements about bet sizing in 3bet pots used by the very best HS players online is incorrect. There is only 1 person who has done this at the very highest stakes: Sauce. And his is not 1/3, it varies from 35-74%; closer to 100bb is 35-40% but can still be as high as 71% near 100bb

Thanks for the rest of the discussion.

edit I am talking about HU

edit Looking at 3+ people, my statement stands except for Kanu

edit Kanu is the only HS person who consistently uses 1/3 in HU/3+ with the least consideration for board texture.

On February 07 2015 16:25 Highcard wrote: Show nested quote + On January 28 2015 22:15 Smuft wrote:   On January 28 2015 17:23 dogmeat wrote:   On January 28 2015 12:02 Romm3l wrote:   On January 27 2015 18:43 dogmeat wrote: one does not bet small on the flop im 3b pot b/c he worries about effectiveness of c/r's but b/c theory suggests betting equal fractions of the pot on all streets is the best strategy w/ polarized range that's an interesting result as well and i'd love to hear where you got it from. however your argument is circular and empty: you are saying 'x is suboptimal not for a reason y, but because z is optimal and x is not z' which simplifies to 'x is suboptimal because it is not optimal' - no shit. remember optimal strategy is defined as the strategy that minimises the expectation of a perfectly adapting opponent. try to think why minbet, and why 4x pot shove are each suboptimal betsizes in our spot (4x spr, ip on flop, villain checks). why does overbet shoving, or betting min make life easier for our opponent and fail to minimise his expectation? once you arrive at better answers to these questions than 'it is suboptimal because it is suboptimal', think again about why fullpot might not be optimal and consider again my argument that the crai option becomes too good (he gets good odds on it, and it forces you to bluff cb/fold less often and miss profitable spots, for example). mathematics of poker by bill chen anyway optimal strategy maximases your ev and your argument is completely invalid, you can have balanced PSB range in your example, but its not gto b/c gto play maximases your ev, which is achieved by betting equal fractions of the pot over 3 streets (which allows highest bluff:value ratio), c/r is not an issue at all I think what Romm3l is trying to say is your argument is "this play is the best because it is" instead of giving some solid reasoning. I have to agree with him. Your posts are often just random statements which is too bad because you probably have some decent reasoning / thoughts for how you came up with your ideas and could benefit yourself and others if you voiced them. This wouldn't be so bad if your random statement was at least a correct random statement but it's not. I will try my best to explain below.   On January 27 2015 18:43 dogmeat wrote: one does not bet small on the flop im 3b pot b/c he worries about effectiveness of c/r's but b/c theory suggests betting equal fractions of the pot on all streets is the best strategy w/ polarized range The theory you're referring to from "Mathematics of Poker" is illustrated in toy games that are somewhat similar to NLH but in the end are not the same at all. The board canges in NLH but it does not change in the toy games used in MOP where geometric betting (betting equal fraction of the pot on all streets) is proven to be best for the polarized range. The author suggests that geometric bet sizing should be used in some situations in NLH but he does not prove it. It's just his 2006 opinion. It was a very advanced opinion for it's time but poker has been much more deeply studied and analyzed now. I have my own ideas for why I think this opinion is out-dated and mostly wrong but it's not organized and way beyond the scope of a simple forum post so I'll give you a much cheaper but probably more credible argument: Look at the best NLH players in the highest stakes games today, the standard cbet size on most flop textures in 3b pots is 1/3 pot. This is 9 years after MOP was written and most of these guys have read it, expanded on it, read more about game theory and done intense quantitative analysis on the game. Many of them will play stakes up to 200/400 against pretty much anyone in the world. Why aren't they betting equal fractions of the pot in 3b pots? Your statements about bet sizing in 3bet pots used by the very best HS players online is incorrect. There is only 1 person who has done this at the very highest stakes: Sauce. And his is not 1/3, it varies from 35-74%; closer to 100bb is 35-40% but can still be as high as 71% near 100bb Thanks for the rest of the discussion. edit I am talking about HU edit Looking at 3+ people, my statement stands except for Kanu edit Kanu is the only HS person who consistently uses 1/3 in HU/3+ with the least consideration for board texture.

Okay thanks for correcting me - looks like you have a healthy amount of data on HSNL to draw from and I do not so I'll take your word for it.

I monitored the HSNL threads on 2+2 late last year and it seemed like every 3b pot was being bet at 1/3 for a couple of months; guess it was just a phase the metagame went through because obviously that's not the case anymore.

It still seems a lot of 3b pot cbets are <50% pot though, can you comment anymore on 3b pot cbet sizes of either specific players or general HSNL population?

I did not look at the other HS people like forhaley, baron, etc but I assume ike/sauce/wcg/jungle have better data than those guys when 3betting out of position.

edit quick look at others with same results

I don't have much info on the games at the very end of 2014 for 6max if some people decided to randomly start 1/3

Most players it varies by board texture and stack sizes, but the stack size correlation is weaker than board textures. It takes 200bb+ to see more consistent sizings, similar to none 3b pots. I won't type out a bunch of sizing here for players, generally, it averages around 50%, 45-55%, but can be 63%, 66%, 68%, 71%, 74% and some textures 29%-32%

The 6max HS pros seems to stick closer to a single bet size and closer to 50%, sometimes ike sticks with 66% other times it varies widely. Kanu was stuck on 33%

looking at King10, his avg is 50% (feb 2015)

There is only one solution to the 3333A example. It's to check, both because betting could cause rake, and because betting wastes extra energy. The simplest and most direct and most optimal solution, that cannot be countered is to check.

Considering betting is wasting energy, as you have to decide how much to bet then.

Rake messes everything up.

One weird spot is when the board is A3333 or something similar in a $1 pot on the river hu, but in a 6max game at 50NL (so rake is capped at $3). In that case, calling a shove ($50) from your opponent is -EV since what you're paying in rake is greater than your share of the pot. So if the first player in shoves, and the second player folds, we are actually are at a Nash equilibrium since neither player can singularly improve their expectation.

On February 07 2015 21:13 Minsk wrote: There is only one solution to the 3333A example. It's to check, both because betting could cause rake, and because betting wastes extra energy. The simplest and most direct and most optimal solution, that cannot be countered is to check. Considering betting is wasting energy, as you have to decide how much to bet then.

The concept of 'wasted energy' isn't really something that we worry about when talking about game theory. Also, I would say the opposite of this is true, assuming further betting doesn't increase rake (either it's capped or players are just playing at home with no rake or something). If you go all in, the exact same outcome happens if your opponent plays correctly, but by betting you give opponent the chance to make a mistake. So jamming dominates checking (because of the one in 10^16 times your opponent accidentally folds)

GTO strategy doesn't think like that.

It's opposite, its like fuckery, GTO wants the least ammount of fuckery, because its only concerned with beating a perfect opponent, it never thinks the 10^16 times they fold.

If we compare it to a computer program, if we don't check now we have to write code for the ammount to bet, which is more code, and our opponent now has to write code for what to do against a bet. Both of these are completely null in EV terms, but its slowing both of us down from theoretical perfection. This slowdown or mistake from our two programs does not matter against each other, but it brings both of our programs rating down against everyone else. It's fuckery, were fucking around with each other forcing each other to write that extra little peice, does nothing against each other loses a little bit of edge to everyone else.

On February 09 2015 02:06 Minsk wrote: GTO strategy doesn't think like that. It's opposite, its like fuckery, GTO wants the least ammount of fuckery, because its only concerned with beating a perfect opponent, it never thinks the 10^16 times they fold.

That is entirely incorrect

GTO is the perfect solution of ranges/bet sizes/pot sizes. If player A plays GTO and player B counter by playing anything except GTO, player A crushes player B. The further from GTO player B goes, the more Player A wins.

If Player A knows the GTO play and knows player B will not counter with the correct GTO play, then Player A can make a Maximally exploitative play based on what Player B is actually doing. The maximally exploitative play is more profitable than GTO only because player B is so far from GTO. But any mistake by Player A deviating from GTO incorrectly can be exceptionally negative EV.

I did pot wet boards when i was strong, or check fold when i was weak.
dont do it like me because see where I am now lol

.

there are more than one GTO strategies with different sizing, stating that there is only 1 possible nash equilibrium is simply false.

Also after talking with Kanu it seemed to me that he is extremely GTO oriented, so its a player I would watch if I were interested in GTO sizing