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[DukeOfDeath]

I feel like the strategic corner is the least favorite corner of the room right now, but it's MY favorite. So I thought I'd discuss another strategem. Someone tell me if it's already been discussed, but I don't recall a discussion on putting opponents on a RANGE of hands when making decisions.

Back to the "next level" poker play I think.

1. Player thinks about his/her own cards but doesn't really know the odds of making anything out of it.

2. Player realizes the value of different starting hands but still doesn't consider opponents cards much.

3. Player begins to put opponent on a hand

4. Player puts opponent on a hand RANGE


The benefit of this is, say you're up against and opponent who you know will call with any Ace and Face or any pocket pair 9s and up but that is smart enough to fold most other hands against you. So you raise with and your opponent calls. The flop comes ... You bet out with top pair top kicker and you get a call. The turn comes ... you bet again since only sets or a completely random 2 and 4 can beat you, a weaker A will likely call, and you have to punish a broadway or flush draw. Finally river comes

Well you beat nearly 96% of hands here, so you'd want to get more money in. You decide to bet again to get 3 streets of value with top 2 on a dry board. You get reraised all in. What do you do?

If you're in a tournament and super deepstacked against a player you respect: FOLD! However, if it's after the money bubble in a tourney or at a cash game where you're likely getting 2:1 or 3:1 on a call applying hand ranges would require you make the call.

If your opponent is super tight and would only make the move with AA KK or AK you need to call with anything better than 2.01:1 odds. (This seems crazy since there's not even a hand you can beat, but I can prove it's the best play to anyone who wants to know.)

However, your opponent could also have AK AQ possibly even AJ (esp. if it's in clubs) and AT is a big possibility with the move being on the river. So with all the possibilities in there, you are actually a favorite and should call.

So a player who puts opponents on hands could easily chalk it up to a set or even a straight and fold, but if you consier the full range you'll make better long run decisions.

If you don't want to laboriously work out the math there's an amazing site I found that lets you not only calculate the odds between known hands but also put in ranges of hands even down to the suit. It'll let you even see how a hand matches up against random cards from 1 to 9 opponents. It's been a really good learning tool for me:

Poker Odds Calculator - PokerCalculatorOnline.com

Hope this helps others out, and as always it's a thread, so discussion on the topic is welcomed.

[akatiger]

great thread,very helpfull.....thx 4 the link

[Pocket_Ducks]

Yeah I've used that poker odds calculator myself in the past mate, but only in hinsight to hands, just to see what the odds were

One example was rather fittingly when I held AK, I put the thread on here somewhere as it was (and still is) the biggest hand I've won on a cash ring table, nearly 50 euros

The situation was this:

Blinds were 0.10/0.20
I held AK under the gun, and I made a 3xbb raise. There was one caller on the button, and one of the blinds (bb I think) re-raised it to 1.50 (I think) and I made the call.

The flop was A,4,3 with two clubs.. I had assumed instantly that I had the best hand at this point, and so made a strong bet, thinking I was probably facing a range of hands including KK, QQ, another AK or AQ suited, perhaps clubs - I doubted anyone had 44, 33, or 25 for a straight

Anyhow, the 3 of us ended up going all-in, and we showed cards with both the turn and the river yet to come..
One guy had AQ, the other guy had 65 suited, clubs.. I was right to assume I had the best hand, but...

To win this hand, I had to avoid a 7, 2, Q and a club... The odds showed that, with 2 cards to come, and even though I had the best hand, I was not favourite to win

Guess that's poker!

kwak

[DukeOfDeath]

Originally Posted by akatiger

great thread,very helpfull.....thx 4 the link

Thanks, tigger. Hope the link helps.

Originally Posted by Pocket_Ducks

Yeah I've used that poker odds calculator myself in the past mate, but only in hinsight to hands, just to see what the odds were

Yeah most of my time spent on that site is obviously not during the hand, but I do spend a lot of "hindsight" there. It helps a lot in the future. I've found several spots where I go through my history and plug in ranges and decisions on different streets and realize I played poorly in spots. Later on I face similar decisions and play it much better.

NH and nice pot on that AK. Any up and down straight flush draw is about a 56:44 favorite against an over pair. That's actually a perfect example of applying ranges. Heads up against a player that you know has you'd have to fold to a pot sized bet with only a pair of aces. However if you put an opponent on a range of hands including that, AA, KK, QQ, AK, AQ, any suited , and even a set of 4s or 3s, then you are actually still ahead of your opponent's range and make a call.

Again, congrats on a nice hand. It reminds me a lot of my AK hand, except for the part where you made the right decision.

[SternSwiss]

Putting players on a range, calculating outcomes with the different scenarios, comparing them and then making the most efficient overall decision is the only way to play solid poker: one that will be backed up by numbers that can be formally demonstrated as being better play than others

(which always also depends context: game format, opponent, stacks, payout, etc. as Duke very rightly mentioned in his example: best decision is very different at late stage of a qualifier which pays x winning tickets to an event - hence all or nothing- than on the bubble of the said event with a hierarchized money pay out).

Anyways, such informed decision making is one of the crucial factors that make the difference between great players and others. As I wrote in one of my strategy threads: one should mathematically project everything and choose and compare quantitatively all the scenarios (it can be more than a dozen) so as to find the one with best renatbility, it is called equity projection and is one of the crucial keys to advanced poker (but also a big one to tackle).


The problem is that it is virtually impossible to implement here with 20sec reflection time (and not much easier on other places online even with a time bank for the needy times). It is why you sometimes see players taking several minutes before making their move (well, one of the main causes, there can be others).

The only thing, in my opinion that is, that you can do for playing on OP66 is to work on examples off the clock, from books or internet sources, etc. to get a feel of this way of reasoning. Much more I think is delicate.

If you do such exercises I can only stress the importance of playing "make believe", that is really working on problems in the unfolding of time, revising your range hypotheses move after move (preflop, psotflop, on turn, on river).

If you already know the result of the hand, retrospective hypotheses will be severly biased and you won't be able to objectify and improve your thought processes.

Also, you should really "laboriously work out the math" when you study, it will really help you on the long run approximate
optimal decisions. Internet tools are handy, but it is counterproductive to rely on them too much (my 2 cents)


Thanks Duke for you excellent thread(s)

I am happy to see someone with fresh energy for this corner of the forum, which is also my favourite by far.

I wish I had more time to contribute, m8, but I can't even find time to study for myself these days, not even to play except on rare occasions...


This said detailed concrete examples, with all the math for each scenario and how they relate to decision making would be useful. If I ever find the time, I'll try to produce one, but it's likely to take a few hours (espcecially since I am quite out of practice these days), hence I can't promise anyhthing. But if anoyne else can put the time and effort in, it would be a great resource for those who would like to take it further.

[DukeOfDeath]

Originally Posted by SternSwiss

This said detailed concrete examples, with all the math for each scenario and how they relate to decision making would be useful. If I ever find the time, I'll try to produce one, but it's likely to take a few hours (espcecially since I am quite out of practice these days), hence I can't promise anyhthing. But if anoyne else can put the time and effort in, it would be a great resource for those who would like to take it further.

Thanks, Stern. Always appreciate your feedback. As to this math article, are you referring to "every mathematical approach and short cut ever", an "intro to pot odds and implied odds", an "intro to Expected Value", or just a particular hand or two (or every scenario ever) with the math worked out in more detail? I feel like there are a lot of mathematically based concepts such as EV, thin value betting, and merging your range, which could benefit a lot of players that chose to wrap their mind around it (if nothing else it makes watching TV poker so much more enjoyable b/c you start to see why they do what they do)

I agree with you on "laboriously working out the math" I always try it at least once on my own to make sure I'm doing it right (or to make sure the site is doing it right ), then with the rest of the examples just use the site so it's quicker, but there's also some math the site doesn't do. For instance it doesn't calculate the expected value of betting knowing how often you'll induce fold vs. call vs. raise and with what range of hands for each action. It's one thing to know whether you have odds to call, but knowing which move has the highest EV is a whole new can of worms. But I know most of the OP66ers here aren't into complex math so I thought I'd provide the site as a compromise between that and no math at all.

[jayccin]

Where the deer and the antolope playyyyyyyyyyyyyy

[DukeOfDeath]

Originally Posted by jayccin

Where the deer and the antolope playyyyyyyyyyyyyy

And it didn't even cost me 25000 credits.