You balance so that the opponent can't put you on an accurate range.

This presumes that the villain is capable of understanding your range, and, that you are aware that the villain is able to see your range. This is level 5.... Are you saying that all villains play at level 4? or, are you saying that we infact don't need to play one level higher than the villain?

Don't let your mental block get in your way. I've stated undeniable evidence.

Perfect I think we agree up to this point. Thank you for doing this before I go any further.

Now I agree with how you've phrased these here but let me show you why the level thinking is truly circular.

Level 4 - villain knows I know his range. This is just level 2. I know villain's range but he's changed it slightly based on the fact I know. No big deal it's just level 2 with different hands OR betting strategies.

Level 5 - I know villain knows that I know my perceived range. Great it's pretty much level 3 all over again without really having to adjust any of our thinking. Perhaps villain understands our true range more here than at level 3 but really not much different.

Level 6 - I know that villain knows that I know he knows his own range. We're back at level 2 considering villain's range.

The fact that by playing with a villain more we gather more information about how to construct our range, how to shape our betting patterns, how to contruct villain's range and how to interpret villain's betting patterns doesn't really change the fact all we really need to think about is our range, villain's range, and our perceived range. Dividing out additional information or factors that change those calculations into higher levels is arbitrary - a construct of our brains to help us group ideas.

Also as I said in my previous post in order for you to use anything beyond level 1 you will have to have played quite a few hands with villain (unless they are incredibly bad or fishy or fit a well-known player archetype) to truly understand their range. Anything 3+ and you'll be playing with a player that is so good it may take you thousands of hands to get an accurate estimation of his actual range and by then he could have totally changed his play or general poker knowledge and strategy could have changed making your thousands of hands a useless sample.

Carefully considered Edited version...

You balance so that the opponent can't put you on an accurate range. This presumes that you are aware that the villain is aware of your range. Level 3.

This move could be considered at level 5/7/9 etc as a defensive move.
It's able to exist on many levels because as a strategy it exists in the non place between levels. It makes no actual sense as an effective strategy. Instead of 'balancing' our actual range in respect of our perceived range, we would always choose to 'avoid' our perceived range with our actual hand.

If we consider how to defend against the higher levels from a level 1 or 2 perspective. It certainly seems a viable concept. Though really, if we balanced perfectly we would be a break even player against these higher level guys.

What the knowledge based players do when creating their 'game' is try to create a 'game' which can't be beaten. Then, when somebody plays differently to their 'game' they adjust their play in a preplanned manor as to make profit from the mistake.

This 'game' could be perfected if the player was capable of remembering what they should do in every scenario that could ever exist. Although, once you add the factor of villains choice to the equation, infinite scenarios could arise.

These players are only capable of perceiving the game in this manner of trusting plays. They are unable to see that the strategy only works if everybody else makes the same fundamental mistake as they do.

Resorting to trusted plays, is a useful thing to do for those of us that arn't super geniuses. Especially preflop where the future is extremely difficult to consider. Though, we should not follow this thought process involving a trusted 'game' and adjustments. This restricts us massively at the tables.

Not quite as short as I would have liked...

You are correct in the respect that all poker is clearly contained in the first three levels.

Though, not so clearly, all poker is actually contained in level 1 also. And level 2 and 4+..

-All we are doing is making sense of the level 1 mathematical calculations to make money off our actual hand.
-And, all we are doing is making sense villains range as to make money off our actual hand.
-And all we are doing is making sense of our perceived range as to make sense of the villains range as to money off our actual hand.
-And all we are doing is making sence of the villain pretend range, as to make sense of our perceived range, as to make sense of the villains range, as to make money off our actual hand.

All poker exists in all the levels.

What happens is that when you understand a new level. Your understanding of the previous level changes to make room for that level. This is why it moves in levels and why a clear understanding of all levels is essential if you wish to one day play perfect poker.

You say it's circular yet you also say something like.. 'the difference between level 2 and 4 is no big deal. All we have to reconsider is his betting patterns or playing styles'.. you skip over that this 'reconsideration' is in respect of the information we think, that he thinks, that we think, of his range... That extra variable is huge. Each level is the same in this respect.

But it's not different. It takes me no more time to add or subtract hands from my range or villain's range than the time it takes me to construct them in the first place (which is by far the more time consuming and difficult task).

Like I said you dividing them into levels above 3 is arbitrary. It helps you to deliniate the abilities of other players but when actually playing the only skill sets you need are pretty much 1-3 and even 3 is arbitrary against a good opponent because his level 2 range construction of your range will approach closer and closer to your level 1 construction of your own range (and hopefully vice-versa).

As far as playing perfect poker no humans will ever be able to do that regardless of the levels we reach. We can play close to maximally exploitative vs exploitable opponents but we'll never be able to play perfect GTO if it is ever solved.

I concede the point about perfect poker.

Although, the first paragraph explaining how its all the the same doesn't make sense.
First, I have already explained that it is all the same, only different.

Most importantly though, you back this up by saying... 'it doesn't take any more time to add or subtract from the range, than it does to create a range' ... This is what a classic mental blocks looks like. Your mind is protecting the level which you are at, as it knows, for certain, that level 3 is all poker!! That is correct, your mind is correct. Which is why it is so difficult to accept the existence of a higher level. The mind is a wonderful thing. Please don't be angry now, but, this is what I call 'clever non-sense'. Grasping on to this sort of information one of the minds defensive manoeuvres it employs while it is rejecting the reorganisation of its knowledge.

One thing I should make clear is that, to understand the levels, as I have described, won't make you perfect at poker.
-It will remove the need to rewrite everything you know everytime you learn a new level.
-It will help you organise the masses of information that you receive training to play poker.
-It will serve as a template so that you could work out any play by yourself
- it could save you years of frustration - you'd be able to enjoy the sport poker

Advantages of using the trusted 'lines' thought process with adjustments etc.
-Non.

It's not a different style that I'm teaching. It's the correct organisation of the thoughts in the game of poker.

Why would we ever need to give ourselves an actual range? We know our cards already. Look to the classic 'theory of poker' and you will realise that the only factor which allows poker to become a game of skill is the fact that we can't see the villains cards. Therefore we have to give him a range, instead. Then we have to be aware that he is giving us a range. Etc etc. The only reason we would want to consider our own actual range is so that we could consider how a hand would have looked under a different set of circumstances. We could change any circumstance, the flop, for example, and it would be equally beneficial.

When you, justgrinding, are considering 'our actual range' you are unaware that you are actually considering the range that you give your 'game'.

This is exactly what i was thinking as I was reading this thread!! perfect.

I understand that humans have natural cognitive biases and other shortcomings but I try to conciously keep my mind open to new experiences, learning opportunities, and let knowledge and ideas freely flow in. However, I don't just let anything become a permanent part of what I consider my relevant knowledgebase. Especially when no facts or logical thought processes have been presented to substantiate the claim. You're offering 'expert advice on levels' in a community full of anaylitcal players that are far better than myself who have provided insight and guidance based on statistical and mathematical analyses (not even referring to myself here. I just come here to learn and post my thoughts so that they are challenged).

Most of them probably aren't posting in the thread because they don't think it's worth their time or they feel the topic is not relevant to the discussion of poker theory. I would say the onus is on you to prove your leveling expertise or why your level technique is better opposed to the 'knowledgebased' techniques you describe as inferior (which will be hard because I think you're suffering from major Dunning Kruger effect or are just trolling). I will check out your balancing thread to see if your position or ideas are made clear in there, though I doubt they will be.

I don't think this was an issue for the majority of people that learned the thought processes you've described in the thread.
Honestly it seems like an extra layer of confusion that adds minimal returns to your poker game.

I thought the idea was to move away from templates?

I see no reason why your system would make this true or how you could provide evidence to back this claim.

I have no idea what you mean. There are absolutely strategies that are better than other strategies and should be played 100% of the time (betting/raising the nuts when last to act on the river for example).

I'm not sure how you can teach someone to 'correctly' organize their own thoughts. You can show them how you approach a problem, but they will organize information in a distinct way that may or may not be similar to the way in which you approach the problem.

Understanding your own actual range at various points in the hand can help making decisions much easier when you are absent other information. Investing time in constructing your own range also gives you the opportunity to research how others may be constructing their ranges which gives you furthrr insight into player archetypes. If you have not conciously satdown and made a decision about what hands are actually in your range I can guarantee you you are miles behind even some microstakes players in terms of current poker knowledge (I will concede this doesn't necessarily mean you are a worse player than they are based on other skills).

To paraphrase isn't the classic theory of poker to make villain make mistakes? I maximize the mistakes my opponent makes with perfect information about his range/hand not less information.

Understanding your own range is crucial and is perhaps one of the largest skill gaps between players. Just as an example, if I find myself in a profitable bluffing opportunity but I never have hands to value bet to make my bluffs credible, then I'm throwing money away to my opponent. I might as well give him my money. Contructing ranges away from the table would allow me to bring in the correct ratio of valuebets/bluffs to go from throwing my money away to hopefully a +EV scenario.

Nope. I'm not talking about what my range looks like to villain. I'm talking about what I know to actually be in my range at that point in the hand.

Yadoula8 might be on level 11 or 12 given you guys can't see his actual "range" in terms of why he's posting. He has a pretty good perceived range going, and it's enjoyable.

That's the only conclusion I can draw from his posts so far but judging by his posts in other forums...

yadulas range is pretty obvious. he is betting a busted gutshot of a theory and hope someone will buy coaching lessons.

OK, again, if you have substantive discussion to add, that's fine. Just popping in to criticize is not.

why? yadula is not listening to arguments but repeating the same thing allover again.

i told him some posts in the beginning that his theory of levels is not total crap but pretty much useless as a metatheory of poker and cant be used in any practical hand.

Then there's nothing else for you to say.

Leveling is similar to equilibration, and after certain level (with normal and not drastic adjustments), two good players who are both using good "leveling" logic will fall into equilibrium play and from there it would be unimportant if you think on level n or level n+1 because they are the same.

Also if you try to use "level logic" on more advanced games, lets say Yadula plays vs. himself, you got a really big problem here. In other words, as Yadula is capable of changing levels of thinking you cannot know on which level Yadula operates and therefore you don't have information. Using educated guesses becomes so noisy that can't guarantee positive value.

So your theory is based on players that aren't capable to change levels and that you can estimate their level of thinking which is true for robotic regs and fishes, but the catch is we all know how to play them.

If you have a systematic and correct approach (not based on feel) to estimate on which level a good player (who is capable of switching levels) thinks it could give you more credibility in this thread.

Well it's more valuable for you to find out whether the player is playing by this system of ranges or whether he's playing using a series of lines.

It's actually quite easy to recognise this. You guys have given everyone names already..,

The lags are usually players who play the range game in some respect.

The players who's stats are 21\17\9 are your usually your knowledge based players.

There is a crossover too which makes it even more complicated.


Now to recognise which level the range based villain is at... As standard we play at level 3 say. We presume all the villains are level 2. Then, when he shows up with hands we don't expect, we can usually say that he's level 3 and then we can play at 4.. It's more than this though, it's a feeling in your bones. Remember we are applying ranges to all guys in all situations, the second someone starts adjusting those ranges who notice the change. You can literally sense the adjustment. As I think, I think it's easy to recognise because we sense losing our control... Otherwise though we would just recognise a level 3 play... Once you recognise that he's not level 2 then it's simply a battle of how high can you go.

These guys usually don't even know that they play the range game though, so usually they have holes in there knowledge and can be abused this way.


The lines based players usually play at level 2 without noticing so it's easy to beat these guys. They play formulaic and are slow to adjust. They usually avoid us. If you think you might be one of these, do you often find yourself getting angry with good players as they show up with strange hands? This is you getting abused by a higher level player... Although, from 400 you start to recognise players who play with trusted lines but also play at level 3. These players are much much more tricky, they can often play at any level, they leave traps in their range and can adjust much faster than the standard levels players... It is quite easy to play them once you learn level 4. Though really, we have to work out each player and his 'traps'/style individually.

So how do we levels guys work out the villains... In exactly the same way as you lines guys. A series of recognition and adjustments... The mistake is simply in the organisation of the 'lines' players thoughts. You don't apply the rules of the game to the game directly infront of them.. They create this false 'game' and this causes LAG, not loose agro, lag like on an internet connection.

if you try to gather any information out of the walls of text yadula is posting, by crossing out all the sentences with no actual content you end up by 3% and these sentences even contradict each other

Sorry.









P.S.

The "********'s" represent text that I deleted from the quote. The # of *'s has no significance.

^^ Until you see a higher level play it is impossible to be certain that the villain is at a higher level... I have always felt that my instincts were a good guide to being able to guess who is ahead of the other in respect of the levels they are playing at... Although, as soon as we start to see the higher level plays we can be certain that we need to take our thought process to the next level.

hahaha all of you donks are probably not above level 3!

http://www.pokertube.com/videos/wors...--katja-thater

she is over 9000!

just thought it may be interesting to place this little fun fact here.

Apparently there is a limit on how deep humans can go with the type of reasoning that we call leveling in poker.

For instance, "I wonder what my Wife thinks about how my brother feels about my mom's opinion of my thoughts on my fiance's Dad?"

SEVEN

Well, now that I'm trying and failing to recall the source of this info better put the "fact" portion in quotes. Maybe I heard it on Waking Up with Sam Harris, the podcast?? The Joe Rogan Experience??

Dead Serious though, there seems to be a limit to the "levels" humans can think on and it just happens to be the seemingly arbitrary number seven. It was some kind of cognitive scientist I'm pretty sure.

I know it struck me as very peculiar and I tried to go beyond that seventh level and it did sorta seem to get away from me beyond about that seventh level.

There is a quote from Albert Einstein, when he was asked "You have been called the most intelligent man on the planet, what do you think about that?" He was quoted as having said, "I don't think I'm any smarter than anyone else, I think I am just able to stay with a problem longer." I'm sure most people assumed he was referring to an amount of time, but that doesn't really make much sense to me. Could Einstein have honestly thought or expected people to believe he thought his talent could be reproduced by anyone with some good old fashioned "stick to it-ness"?

I wonder if you'll agree with me that
I think
he thought
we would think
he was thinking about the way that
he thinks deeper and can stay with a problem for more levels in his mind before he started to lose his clarity

but maybe not, maybe he was just being humble?

If he said that he was being humble. It is that simple. Leveling in poker is obsolete anyway.

Wow I was impressive when I joined these forums! And since I made this thread I've spent three years developing my understanding of the Levels for this book! I literally have spent thousands of hours working on it. My understanding of them has grown so much...

Here's how I see the Levels now

Level One - Contains our physical self within the game... Our cards, our chips, our seat. This Level includes all the maths which tells us how strong we are

Level Two - Our perception of the villain... We weigh up his strength against ours, to see if we will make any money from a specific play (value)

Level Three - Our perception of the villains perception of us. We are able to manipulate the opponents understanding of our strength for both value and for folds

Level Four - Sounds way more complicated than it is. We basically realise that the opponent may be deceiving us

Level Infinity - GTO

Sound mate!

You might be interested to know that there isn't really any point in the poker Levels after 5. At level 5 both we and the opponent are both aware that we are both capable of decieving one another, and so there is no further advatange to be gained from Level 6.

Everyone's been thinking about these Levels all wrong. They are looking at one individual situation and considering how the Levels would work in that spot. But there are trillions of situations in poker. This is the wrong way to look at the Levels.

'Levelling' isnt really a thing if you understand the Levels properly.

And hey Donovan, that Einstein quote is genius! It's basically just meditation that he described, and you can learn anything by meditating.

Level 2. Albert had to say something for the public to "understand" and smile.
Standard nice empty answer in all but everyone must feel they have just touched something genious.