Background: I have been beating LHE for 7 years at a high rate:

I beat every level of micro stakes lhe on stars, up to $1-$2

6k hrs of live 20-40 at $40/HR.

750 hrs of live 40-80 at approximately $60/HR.

I achieved the above results by relying heavily on a GTO approach. Specifically I have been using an approach best explained by Phil Newell in The Intelligent Poker Player, and I have extensively studied the 0-1 toy games from Mathematics of Poker. This GTO strategy relies heavily on reading my own hand, which emphasises where I am in my own distribution, rather than what my opponents distribution looks like. Using this approach, for example, I will always bet OTR with the very bottom of my distribution. No matter what my opponents distribution looks like.

Going forward I would like to learn to beat 7cs. I have a few hundred hrs of live 20-40 stud hi, with dismal results (I know the sample size is too small, but my win rate is about -2.5BB/HR.)

My question:
In 7CS, due to the greater information available, it seems that game theory must take a back seat.

How do the best 7cs players incorporate knowledge of the 0-1 poker toy games from Mathematics of Poker into their 7cs game? Do you just have to play distribution vs distribution, and regard balance as secondary?

Thank you.

Kind of over my head, but I have been beating 20 40 stud hi for years now. The kind of information that I believe may be up your alley is Konstantine Othmers book on stud hi. Check it out. I have read newell's book and def take it to the LHE games. The difference is the folded dead cards in stud hi. Hope this helps

I would think we could use blockers somewhat to determine our bluffing, no? I.e., if we catch the top % of cards that improve our opponents range on the river, we bluff those times since it makes it less likely we are bluffing into the nuts.

I ordered the book (out of print). Thanks.

I'd like to take a stab at this although stud hi is not one of my stronger games:

There are quite a few game theory ideas in LHE and I think some apply more to stud than others. The one you mentioned is where you bluff with the bottom of the range. I assume you are talking about a river bluff where your choice is checking or betting since this is really the only time where I think the bottom of your range makes the most sense as a bluff in LHE.

I think this does not apply as much in stud because I think the relative strength of your board is more important than the absolute strength of your hand. For example, in LHE, maybe you decide you are going to bluff a particular river with all your hands up to 8 high and check your 9 highs and 10 highs. In reality, it probably would make very little difference if you decided to bet your 9s and Ts and check your 8s and 7s instead since both groups of hands are extremely unlikely to win the pot at showdown. As LHE players, we pick the bottom 20% (or whatever) mostly because this is the easiest way to make sure you are bluffing with the correct frequency when you miss. I mean in theory, the strategy of betting 7s and 8s should be slightly stronger than the strategy of betting 9s and Ts but the times it would make an actual difference (e.g. when the opponent has 9 high and decides to check back) are very rare.

In stud, there is an extra piece of the puzzle because we have a board and our opponent has a board. Whether we have a 9 high pai gow or a Q high pai gow makes a very small difference to our showdown value (similar to LHE). But the strength of our board relative to our opponent's board makes a huge difference as to how often our bluff will be successful. So I think the best strategy is to figure out how often we want to bluff and then bluff in those spots where our board has the most relative strength, not when our hand has the least absolute strength.

Edit: Of course, you still don't generally want to be bluffing with hands that have showdown value. I'm talking more about picking which hands to bluff out of the group of hands that has basically no showdown value. And I also agree with the others that blockers and dead cards are also important when evaluating your opponent's range (and deciding what frequency to bluff with).

I think the problem with this from a GT prospective is that not ever bluffing on weak boards is exploitable. We can be exploited by our opponents bet/folding to a river raise when our board looks very weak (which is probably a valid real world play against many opponents), because we will always have trips+ in that spot.

I do agree we should be bluffing at a higher frequency with coordinated boards because we are going to have many more combos of value hands. I think we would have to construct a bluffing strategy based on the number of live outs our opponent would perceive us to have going into the river.

Yes you're right and my analysis was flawed. So I guess the same concept probably does apply as far as bluffing the button of your range. But with a weak board maybe we bluff the bottom 5% while with a strong board maybe we bluff with 20%.

One other difference I guess it's a situation where our 7 card hand can't even beat our opponents 4 card board. In that situation I'd think you have to rely solely on dead cards/blockers when figuring out which hands to bluff.

Just drink, have fun, and get that 0,1 toy game out of your mind

Profit, imo

Just off the top of my head, the amount of game theory you employ will depend on the stakes you are playing.

At the lower levels, it will be mainly a case of learning to use the information provided by all the boards to evaluate hand strengths.

As you get to higher levels, where players will be more advanced and play will have a greater tendency to be heads up, the action will be primarily "board vs. board" and down cards will play a diminished role. So whereas a hold 'em player may be considering his down cards to, say, balance his range, a stud player would have to balance his actions correlated to his opponent's board strengths as they relate to his own board.

I'd recommend running some sims on PPT and evaluate how boards and dead cards affect hand strengths, then go back to MoP and determine your action frequencies.

If you have access to online poker, I would recommend playing some razz first. It's a simpler game and GT calculations are a lot easier. Then take what you learn from razz and find ways to apply to stud high. Stud High is the hardest of the stud games, but it also has the weakest players.

So does this mean that you cannot get the book?

I bought a used copy on Amazon. There were other copies available, but I believe it's out of print.

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Fwiw that book is fine and I have read and re-read it, but it does not talk about what you are asking about at all. It goes over distributions a bit but the game Stud Hi is so non-linear that you can't come up with off the table proper distributions for the millions of different scenarios.

I do like your question tho and it's something I have thought about a lot. I would say the easiest place to apply LHE style Game Theory is on 7th street.

I have to run now but will add to the thread a bit more later if I can come up with anything worthwhile

Not trying to be condescending but the typical 20/40 lineups would have been considered fishy by 2003 standards.

You might quite simply be overthinking things

Thank you for this.

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Given the number of variables the public cards add and their interrelation (what visible cards mean depends strongly on what your hand is), GTO strategy may only be applicable to HU Third street situations, which already have very good conventional expert practices.

Despite that, Third is the street where exploitation is most profitable. Later streets offer increasingly better odds to continue, so errors made or forced on Third compound, and equity denied to an opponent saves the most, considering the many bets yet to go in the pot.

If GTO play is to fold x number of high doors, raise y and flat z, but opponent's principle mistake is to fold too often, GTO loses money relative to exploitation despite being profitable and unexploitable itself.

Later streets often have a clear correct play unrelated to frequencies of action based on pot size, known cards and absolute hand strength. There are spots where it doesn't matter whether you have 20 or 40 percent equity vs a range, you should always call, never fold and never raise. Doing anything else can only cost you money, so the GTO solution for this spot is the same as the folk wisdom solution.

There is certainly merit in pursuing a GTO approach to HU play, if only to calibrate the things about an opponent that will be exploitable, but the decisions become increasingly complex and situational after Third.

Is the 7 card stud book by othmers worth reading?

It's fine as an introduction. The Chip Reese section of SS is more concise and just as substantial, maybe more, and for in-depth treatment, 7CSFAP is much better.

Thanks. I ordered the othmers book for like $5 online so I guess it's worth it.

Othmer's book gave me a SOUND starting strategy to beat any low to semi mid stakes game. Combined with an exploitative strategy, you are well on your way to beating the mid to lower high games. Anyone else have some book suggestions for stud hi that really gets into the big game strategy.

East Coast/West Coast?

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