There is no +. As someone pointed out already it only becomes circular.
Even level 4 is probably a joke as well but I could see it working.

Level 4 plays are different to level 2 plays... It's isn't circular... Level 3 plays are different to level 5 plays.

I write level 4+ because the formula is apparent at this point.. A player who can make a level 4 decision could make any level decision given enough time.

To level or not to level? Is that the question?

Have you ever heard of the story of the three blind men from India (not to be racist or anything but that's just how I heard the story)?

The gist goes like: All three men feel a different part of an elephant. One feels the leg and argues that it's a tree? Another feels the trunk and argues it is a snake. And the other feels the tail and argues that it is a rope.

The story is usually used to illustrate how many religions can be seen as different parts of the same thing and that our fallible mind can not truly process the bigger picture because we are "blind".

Same thing with poker. We can think of the game in many different ways using many different theories, some math based, some people based.

The story illustrates a debatable point. However, I would put it in a different way. In the end, which one of these blind men are willing to bet all-in (death) that their interpretation of the elephant is the correct one? And furthermore, which one would be willing to call that bet?

Food for thought...

You guys should play heads up.

Relevant: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=i6TQ7ljcsjk

OK wait, someone's theory book claimed the word level now? Why cant they come up with their own words instead of decimating my poker vocabulary?

I'm sure to get in trouble here but first of all, how does a level 2 player even know what a level 4 player is thinking? Because it's binary? Who's bright idea was that? I guess I'm level infinity because I know the difference between even and odd. Trouble is some players start counting at zero and some start counting at 1 so I only run somewhere in the middle. Damn Babylonians!

Just kidding.

Just for reference sake, my old school understanding of leveling is this:

Level 4 player knows what level 1-3 players are thinking because they've been through it all before and seen a thousand players just like them make the same ten thousand decisions before.

Lower level players can only apply concepts that are already well known to to level 4, however they are not yet familiar with all the concepts that level 4 has in his arsenal. And level 4 player knows this.

So when level 1-3 meet level 4, they can only guess at what he's thinking and some levels try to get tricky and others try to stick to the game plan, yada, yada, yada Except level 4 player can easily sort out level 1-3.

That's because, human nature takes over when facing the unknown and exhibits patterns that are extremely consistent regardless of what level their currently on. The path may be different but the consistency is still there.

So much so mentalists can create tricks on this fact with confidence. No ones going to be very impressed with someone if they only get it right 67% of the time.

So L4 just does the same kind of thing and claims he's reading your soul when each players just following path L1, L2 or L3, with each just as confident that they've completely hidden their tracks.

Level 4 just uses his now highly optimized sniper strategy for the lower level players thinking and boom!

"Works every time, when will they ever learn... oh that's right, I already know that to! [insert best evil laugh here]"

Go into any large well established poker room and play a couple years at every level and you'll see it for yourself. The most common exploitative strategy at any stakes is going to be the strategy that best exploits the best strategies used at the lower level so they can pick off the softest players e.g. those who try to move up.

This is especially true in a shrinking poker economy, though not necessarily true in an expanding one.

So what's the new definition now?

A novelty account expressly to troll & insult. Nice life man, nice life.

Interesting discussion guys.

Hypothetically is there value in taking suboptimal lines to rep a lower level understanding of the game to later take an inconsistent line and get paid light? i.e. x/c, x/c, bomb a wet flop that bricks.

Eifersuchtig, what you would be doing by bombing is;
- changing what the villains will start to think of how you use your range,
then,
- adjusting to the change which we expect the villain to make to his range.

This logic makes perfect sense and is what level 3 poker is all about.

Grabdpuba, again that was an explaination for how a knowledge based player sees the levels.

So now I'm thinking that my style must be rather rare.

Agree, there are other forms of leveling, but this is the most classic type.

Since every strategy is exploitable, it's just about finding the next exploitative strategy. This was a prime example at the Venetian several years back when certain concepts such as range balancing, bluff catching, thin value bets were all somewhat new to various degrees and merging the river being the latest.

$1/$2 game various Level 1 thinkers. Level 2 just plays ABC and lets the fish make mistakes.

Level 2 moves up to $2/$5 with a $1K cap and plays his game except, hes never bothered to balance his lines or ranges.

Level 3 LAG, goes after ABC TAG both playing deeper than TAGs accustomed to and LAG represents boards where TAG's the weakest and runs over TAG on a majority of boards or hits disguised hands and gets paid off.

Eventually LAG moves up to $5/$10 uncapped.

Small baller's familiar with LAG style and the typical weakness is that they tend to overbalance and play polarized ranges. Assigning numbers to levels isn't really important, it's just about out thinking the other players in many ways.

Small baller's range is just as wide and a bit more flexable and he has a better concept of combinatorics. Small Baller ends up picking off LAG with bluff catchers and is right far more often than wrong.

Small Baller moves up to $10/$20 very deep, LAG sees him coming and starts merging on the turn and river for thin value over bluff catchers....

Again, takingiteasy, your looking at it all from a perspective of a knowledge based player. It's very interesting to hear the detail about the groups of players that you knowledge based guys describe.

It appears as though you don't understand the levels properly. This appears to be extremely common mistake among knowledge based players.

The levels can't be understood with one or two sentences. It is a reasonably complicated calculation, and the only way to understand it is to work out how to do the calculation.

The reason knowledge guys refuse to work out the calculation is because, the 'levelling style' isn't actually a 'style' as a knowledge guy would understand a 'style'. What the range based calculation enables us to do is organise our knowledge.
To learn to do this, a knowledge based player would have to overthrow all the trust he has put into his 'game' and instead would have to place his knowledge into an organised calculation.

This 'game' that knowledge guys speak of, is infact just a knowledge based version of the levels calculation. So you already even know the calculation!. As your version of the calculation is based on knowledge, your adjustments are linear. While using an actual calculation enables you adjust your play for every single spot.

It all very clear to me now.. It's also clear that if a good knowledge based player can break through his mental blocks, and learn to make the organised calculation, then he would be a formidable player.

One of the better examples of a level play I've seen was in a $10/$20 hand.

History:
Playing $5/$10 waiting for a $10/$20 game to start and floor asks If I'd play short handed which I'm happy to hear but it's unusual so there must be a reason.

6 handed, seating is crucial, I see a couple regs hustling for position on a $20K stack clearly indicating he was feared.

I pick a seat directly opposite which is the best for staying out of his way. Fish with $4K is on my left which is too bad but taking position on him puts big stack on my left. I play $8K to cover the rest of the table which is a good price since it's a new game.

A couple hours in I hit TTP and 3bet shove the flop vs fish on a QTsXs board. He was playing nervous TAG starting around 150bb. I'm not holding the blocker FD.

Fish tanked for so long, I had trouble putting him on a hand that could be that close a decision. He finally called with AsQs and table erupted with ridicule for taking so long.

He defends saying it was a tough call, and I tried to explain with something to the effect of: "A tank that long should maybe be with A high on the river but you're hand plays itself and against anything b..". You get the idea.

Later fish takes a seat to the left of the big stack so big stack takes fishes seat to get position on me, yikes. As I had feared, he also has a mixed styles game but blends it better which is difficult to balance a complicated mix of lines. Besides he's got home court and I'm the visitor only playing in Vegas 4-6 weeks a year. I decide to play my button and see what happens.

A couple hands later, Big stack opens late position, fish pops it from the BB still sitting at 200bbs and Btn calls.

board comes bunch of dry blanks and checks through, Turn is another blank and Button has given up already without a board to work with. The river is an under card completing only a highly unlikely straight.

BB makes an indecisive value/defensive bet, playing AK face up to the entire table.

Button tanks which took me by surprise since it seemed like a terrible spot to bluff . There was no 2 pair or any thing at all that I could see in Btns raising range since he had nothing on the turn.

He had me baffled but I'm sure he was good enough to know that this was a terrible spot to bluff as well. Finally he puts in a good size raise and the entire table looks as curious as I am to see the hand.

BB takes a moment and says, "fine I call", showing AK.

BB tables bottom pair of 4s w/6 kicker.

Fish leaves, table breaks.

+1

Seriously none of this makes sense and I honestly think you are trolling at this point. How do knowledge based players not use calculations? That's the whole point of using knowledge to your advantage.

Any way here is what I think you mean when describing 'levels' please correct me if I'm wrong.

Level 1 - play the absolute strength of my hand
Level 2 - play the strength of my hand vs a range of hands I assign villain.
Level 3 - play my range of hands vs the range of hands I assign villain. I am aware of what my range looks like to villain.
Level 4 - adjust level 3 against an opponent who understands what my perceived range is and is responding well by optimizing against my range. act accordingly to exploit adjustments.
Level 4 + - rinse/repeat level 4 as more and more adjustments are made between competent villain and myself.

Those are my words how I really believe you think about it is:

Level 1 - I know my hand
Level 2 - I consider villain's hand
Level 3 - i know what villain thinks my hand looks like
Level 4 - villain knows I know what his hand looks like and adjusts
Level 5 - I know that villain knows what his hand looks like and has adjusted so i adjust
Level 6 - keep adding I know/he knows/we knows.

Like I said it is all pretty much level 3 it just involves taking nonstandard lines to add deception or shift ev in common spots.

In your first explanation of the levels.

Level 1 and 2 are perfect.

In Level 3 your explanation starts to become confused. It doesn't account for the level 1 aspects of level 3.

Then your level 4 starts off talking about level 3. From this point on this section of your assessment makes no real sense to me.

In your second explanation, you have written the first 3 perfectly.

Level 4 should have started with. 'I know......'

For Level 5 you have just written level 4 again.


This pattern that you recognise does continue from level 4 onward. However, the plays do not simply switch back and forth. There are other factors to consider.

Sure it does. Level 1 you can substitute range for hand. It works somewhat the same but it's a merger between levels 1 and 2 where we begin to understand ranges. Or if you like substitute hand for range in level 3 and it works the same.

That's bc labeling this level thing is pretty arbitrary beyond 3.

Fair enough. Like I said before it becomes somewhat arbitrary how you group levels after 3.

Ok so let's make sure I get this straight and we'll have a real discussion on agreed upon terms. I'm going to go to 6 levels. Feel free to help me out further if you'd like:

Level 1 - I know my hand
Level 2 - I consider villain's hand
Level 3 - I know what my hand looks like to villain
Level 4 - I know that villain knows that I'm aware of his hand and that villain has adjusted his play accordingly so I adjust my play accordingly
Level 5 - I know that villain knows I have adjusted my play based on his adjustments to me being aware of his hand and I know villain is adjusting accordingly.
Level 6 - I know that villain knows I am aware of his adjustments to my adjustments as the result of villain adjusting to me being aware of his range.

If that is not accurate, please clarify what 5+ is so we can have a discussion.

Level 1 - I know my actual hand
Level 2 - I know villain's range
Level 3 - I know what my perceived range looks like to the villain
Level 4 - I know that villain knows that I know his range
Level 5 - I know that villain knows I know my perceived range.
Level 6 - I know that villain knows I know that he knows his own range.

Knowing is worth nothing without the adjustments. So we consider them together, it is simply easier to write it out as I have above.

Again you seem to become confused when speaking of level 4... I thought the levels were circular before I realised how level 4 actually works.

[QUOTE=TakenItEasy;44417288]OK wait, someone's theory book claimed the word level now? Why cant they come up with their own words instead of decimating my poker vocabulary?
Quote)

Lol this is actually you guys decimating our vocabulary. There are just so many of you! Have you never noticed that your understanding of the levels makes no real sense. Many of you seem to think its circular for a start. Well, to me, who learnt only the levels from the very start, it all makes perfect sense. Each level brings a whole new understanding of the game. This is why they call it levels.

Fundamentally you couldn't understand the level properly or you would turn into a range based player. It isn't a different style or something new, it is simply the organising of our thoughts.

This actually means that you guys don't need to learn anything new. All you have to do is accept that your thought process could be incorrect and try to understand the one which I have posted... It's only a couple of messages long.

It's a real problem for me sat here now, knowing that I can teach almost all of you something which will be enlightening and massively improve your game. I can teach it in a very short time and for free. Yet, you are all incapable of overthrowing your knowledge... How am I to coach? I'm not a shrink. I'm a poker player...

Interestingly. New players will easily be able to understand the logic. In which case I could take on new players but then, these guys will want to train for pennies. While I'm actually capable of teaching almost the entire poker world something enlightening and revolutionary, why would I want to stick to just teaching new players.

The term level is holding you back Yadoula, you just need to know if they'll call or fold, doesn't matter what level they're on.

How could you know if they would call or fold without knowing what they are on in some respect?

By observing how they play. You can just see what they tend to do, you don't need to theoretically be thinking about what they're thinking about you, just see how they play. Call it shallow but it seems to work well for me.

Not that sometimes going into the upper levels say 6 or 7 is bad, but there has to be a season for the reason so to speak. Sometimes your opponent isn't on any level, sometimes he's on level 8 or 9. For example say a player is on tilt he's often technically on level 0 because there can be many reasons for his decisions, sometimes none at all. Point being say he wants to beat you out of a pot, he may or may not be thinking on level 1, 2, 3, 4, that doesn't really matter, what trumps leveling here is that he wants to bluff you, so you just call him down. The levels in this situation don't matter.

You say, you can see what they do, see what they do with what?

Most of that makes perfect sense..

Let me explain some evidence that may well get you past this..

I presume all of you balance your range every hand, well, I just realised that balance is a level 5 play. Do you think that you are always up against level 4 players? Or are you simply seeing the game wrong.


I am working on an article right now to explain this common mistake in poker theory. I actually think that the world of poker is looking at the game wrong which is how they're able to make these fundamental miscalculations.

It's actually this thread that has lead me to my clear understanding, so, if I can get this published I thank you all.

I generally balance based on the opponent. I don't need to assign a number to it though.