Hi guys

For the guy in charge of the CoTW about Shorthanded play bailed on us, I took up this one on short notice (24 hours). Since I am way worse at shorthanded play than at fullring, I decided to write an article about some of the most common leaks one can have when playing at uNL. Obviously everybody has leaks and it takes a lot of hard work to plug them. But those below are amongst the more widespread and the costliest on the long run, and therefore deserve a special treatment. Furthermore threads flourishes about these frequently encountered spots, and having a CoTW will allow us to point towards it once for all.
That said they are not the most basic and the most noobish leaks one can have at uNL, but still cost a lot to semi-advanced players.
Some of the topics have been already covered in a broader fashion in the previous CoTW, and most of my developments in this thread are freely inspired by some of them.
Since I do not really have the time to go through my DB or to make up hands, I will use some hands that were extensively discussed on the forum in the last month. I took part in the most of discussions, and I am not referring to them by egocentrism, but just because it was easier and quicker.

For the same reason and as English is not my native language, I apologize in advance for all the syntactic and grammatical mistakes spread all around the thread, which may have remained in spite of Mpethy's diligent correction. Feel free to comment on the poker related stuff, since I wrote it quickly some points may remain a bit unclear.



I . Betting for information :

“Move not unless you see an advantage; use not your troops unless there is something to be gained; fight not unless the position is critical. If it is to your advantage, make a forward move; if not, stay where you are. ”
- Sun Tzu

We often come across threads stating “I am betting to see where I am at”. Well this is erroneous thinking which can cost a lot on the long run.

http://forumserver.twoplustwo.com/78...g-info-504723/

Let us go back to the basics :
There is generally two broadly accepted reason for betting and raising, which both have or will be treated in CoTW :
- Value, that is the belief that our hand is better than villain's range of hands. It does not mean that you are beating every single possible holding, it implies that generally you will be ahead of the majority of all the possible hands villain may have. Simply put it means that if you think that your hand is having a 60% equity against villain's range, then you should bet or raise, because in the long run it will make you man1es that you can rub on your t1tties.
You can narrow this range action by action by taking into account the development of the board, the reads you (must) have on villain and his stats (this is well explained in a lot of stickied and CoTW posts). Generally this pattern of betting is related to another purpose : the protection of your hand, that is to avoid pricing villain in to correctly chase cards pontentially counterfeiting your hand.

- Bluff , whose purpose is to fold out better hands than yours. Not really advised at uNL, it notwithstanding is very efficient against the right villains. But this is not the subject of this CoTW. The only thing you need to know is that folding out worse hands that are directly putting your hand to jeopardy by drawing would be a huge mistake,and would leave a lot money on the table. You need to make sure that when you are bluffing you are effectively (and credibly) doing it against a range which has you beat, because the board allows you to, and that you think villain's range will have a hard time bearing raises/bets (example : using a scare card). If you are folding out worse hands and that they are the majority of villain's range, you are then losing money (Slansky fundamental theorem). You want to take them to value town, not to allow them to jump from the train.

And the information ? Well by betting in the two (three) cases you obviously gain information incidentally. It indeed helps you narrowing villains range to a limited number of likely holdings. But it never can be the sole nor the chief purpose of betting. The main reason for this is that poker is a game of incomplete information, and that is why I am insisting on the notion of range. Generally people betting for information are the one trying to put their opponent on his accurate holdings. Well, guess what, you cannot do that. Obviously we all started doing that, because it seems natural, and also because it somehow eases the intellectual process inherent to poker. But don't be lazy about it !

Let us take an example : you have KK in the SB, and 3 bet an aggro fish raising 60% from MP. He quickly calls and flop comes A47 rainbow. Effective stacks are now 45BB, pot is 24 (your 3 bet sizing sucks by the way), you tank for a while and make it 15, villain shoves and you snap fold.
You are betting for information here. You essentially turned your hand into bluff. Nonetheless thinking in term of ranges would have saved you off all these misgivings. Had you considered that bluffy villain range was wider than Ax here, then you could have bet out and called his shove for value. Or just check called twice to let him bluff. With the pot odds you do not have to be right that frequently anyway. And your “bluff” is terrible, since he is never folding any hands who have us beat, and almost always fold hands we beat. Hence you just denied the two reasons of betting.

By bet-folding you did not accomplish anything. Since you refuse to put him on a range you are not betting for value, and you are not bluffing either because if villain folds, it means that he folded worse holdings (like a smaller PP). And you still do not know whether he has an ace or not . He may, he may not have it. But your bet-fold is EV- because you make him laydown weaker holdings (EV = 0, future EV < 0) and you lay down better holdings sometimes yourself.

All the same stuff is applicable to the raise for information obviously. In a nutshell, you pay for the information, and you are either actually :
-behind : and the information will not make you any money since you are going to fold,
-ahead : you do not make any money since villain folds.


So let us go back to the aforementioned hand implying a fellow uNLer, but just about the betting for information sense.
He minraises a donkbet for information. And folds to a min 3bet. At this point BB has 17 dollars behind and the pot is $14 big. BB flats preflop and his range is so wide when doing so. Then he donks the flop, which definitely shows some strength given his 1.0 af, but does not mean nuts at all either.
The decision we have to make here is quite simple : do we think we are ahead of his range or not. And to act accordingly. Raise folding here is not good for several reasons :
- SPR against the fish : we have an overpair with a SPR of 1.2 how could we not get it in.
- It prices MP2 in if he is drawing, giving him correct direct pot odds.
- We are not betting for value, since he is often going to either raise - and we'll fold, often the best hand - with his better hands, or just fold his bluffs. When he decides to call with his worse hands, we leave significant value on the table by making such a small bet.
- We are not betting as a bluff, since we are never making him lay down a better hand here.

Then again and for the last time we just have to think in terms of ranges and not try to put him on actual holdings. He may do this with an overpair, with a OESD + pair, with a flopped straight and a set. Giving him reasonably weighed range I came up with this in stove :


Text results appended to pokerstove.txt

1,107,810 games 0.015 secs 73,854,000 games/sec

Board: 2d 4c 5h
Dead:

equity win tie pots won pots tied
Hand 0: 40.768% 39.56% 01.21% 438273 13356.00 { JJ-22, A5s-A2s, K5s, K3s, Q5s, 75s, 65s, 63s, 53s+, 43s, A5o-A2o, K5o, K3o, 75o, 65o, 53o, 43o }
Hand 1: 59.232% 58.03% 01.21% 642825 13356.00 { QQ }


---


You may agree, you may not agree and everybody has his own opinion and perception on donk range here. But once you do figure out a range you need to draw the consequences and decide whether to fold, raise or call, given the expectation you have against this range. Your bet if you intend to fold if raised has no positive expectations. At all.

You cannot just decide afterwards that if he sticks around after your bet he must have it, it is just not true, and you are leaving a lot of money on the table doing so.



II. Calling with the intent folding to another bet :

“The art of war teaches us to rely not on the likelihood of the enemy's not coming, but on our own readiness to receive him; not on the chance of his not attacking, but rather on the fact that we have made our position unassailable.”
- Sun Tzu

http://forumserver.twoplustwo.com/78...l-fold-505392/


This situation arises a lot, typically when we are playing against set mining nits and that we have an overpair and that we are getting check raised.
In my opinion this is a common leak, which is generally due to the common saying “reevaluate turn/river” which pretty much got carved onto the minds, due to a lot of videos and posts. Obviously I am not trying here to reinvent the wheel, and reevaluating against specific opponent is good under a lot of given circumstances. It does not mean either that you should fold when you are getting raised (ldo), it just means that when all the context lead you to think that you are going to fold to another bet on the next street, and that it is highly likely that you are indeed going to face one, well just fold right know, you are burning money.

Say you are OTB with AA and a Korean nit (11/5/80% FtCB) limps in from UTG. You do what you would also do with Q9s OTB and iso raise this nit for 4.5 Bbs and he calls. Flops comes 2 6 8 monotone the nit checks to you, you make it 10 BB and the he raises you to 22BB.
You need to figure out how you stand against his range, and I let you do the job here. But if you are feel you are behind, just don't call this bet. It may be tempting to call and see what he does on the turn, but hey boy the turn won't change anything and you are going to face a bet. Come on this nit folds to Cbets almost as often as he does hit not his set. So if you decide that you are going to fold the turn whatsoever just do it know and save yourself 10BBs. Just imagine that you call 5 bets like this in average in 1000 hands with the intention of folding to another. In the best case this is on the flop and you lose 10-15 BB and it does not account for the turn -> river ones.
So let say you lose 60BBs/1000 hands, on average, it is a solid 3ptbb/100 you are losing calling bets you should not call.

Then again I am not saying that you have to fold. For I am lacking time I am definitely making up rather way ahead / way behind examples, and in the reality the situation is gonna be far more complex. But somehow the situation in itself does not matter. When you feel that you are behind of villain's range, and that you are going to face another bet on the next street you won't call a high percentage of the time, don't call this one

So what is it with the hand of our fellow 2+2er.

The hand has been discussed, and so has been the fact that we are ahead or not. I leave that to readers evaluation, and once more it is not the matter here. What matters is that once hero decides to call a minraise on the turn, he is thinking he is ahead of villain's range. For the simple reason that the likelihood of villain firing another bet on the river in position and with this SPR is somewhere around 98%. So if we call this bet, we decide that we are ahead of villain's minraising range, and commit ourselves to call a river bet. If we decide that we are behind, we should just fold there and not put another 14BB into the pot.


III . Common mistakes about 3 betting and 4 betting : reraising tight continuation ranges.
“So in war, the way is to avoid what is strong and to strike at what is weak.
- Sun Tzu “

Ok these subjects have been discussed a lot on the forum lately, so I thought I would include a part here about it
In my opinion, most of the leaks into this realm comes from the poker “common sense” aka tournament play. Since it is widely commented and streamed on TV, 3 betting has become a standard move, and most of the mistakes we see about it comes from the tournament tenets.
The difference is that in tourneys, player are most of the time not playing nearly as deep as we do in a cash game, and that it generally becomes a preflop game, with small edges.
Let us write it once for all here The bigger the SPR, the bigger the importance of your edge .
Basically when you have value holdings but not the top of your range, you want to play in a pot which is not too big, because it will enable you to use your post flop edge, and to play against a wider range.

Please note that you are always 3betting or 4betting for value or as a bluff. It seems trivial, but with this simple idea you can understand most of the upcoming developments if you think about it.



http://forumserver.twoplustwo.com/78...pot-kk-502343/

Ok you guys, having watched a lot TV may wanna auto 4bet here.
But what is going to happen if you 4bet ?
Villain is a solid FR player, hero is an aggromonkeyswedishspewtard (just sayin'). Villain 3 bet range is tight (2.0%) but given that I suspect hero from running with a 64% ATS from HJ, let us say this range includes a tiny bit of air and Aks/AKo.

So what is going to happen if you 4 bet ?
-villain is probably gonna fold JJ/QQ and often enough AK
-villain is gonna either call or push with AA.

Mathematically put :
2.1% range
equity win tie pots won pots tied
Hand 0: 39.479% 36.97% 02.51% 79757868 5418846.00 { JJ+, AKs }
Hand 1: 60.521% 58.01% 02.51% 125154744 5418846.00 { KK }

equity win tie pots won pots tied
Hand 0: 81.946% 81.71% 00.23% 50371344 142614.00 { AA }
Hand 1: 18.054% 17.82% 00.23% 10986372 142614.00 { KK }

Basically by 4betting KK into such a tight range you are turning it into a bluff or a raise for info. And a bad one. I know KK looks sexy, and 4betting may have some really thin value depending on metagame and game flow.. But is far from optimal, principally because you allow your opponent to play perfectly. By flatting his 3 bet you can play post flop against a wider range, in position and with the edge that every 2+2er has against the field (except Tarpz, maybe).



Hence calling > 4betting > folding (lolz)

You are flatting for value here, because you are fine against his 3betting range, and that you cannot extract more preflop. Some argued that it was terrible if an ace came on the flop. Well, you are not playing poker to protect from 3 outers. You have a 70% equity against AK, and it is more than enough to decide to flat and play his wider range. It will show profit on the long run. If you are that scared of getting “sucked out”, just move down and play at stakes you will be more comfortable making +ev plays at, even though if they imply getting outdrawn sometimes.

This has other reciprocal consequences on the top and on the bottom of your range.

Full Tilt Poker $0.25/$0.50 No Limit Hold'em - 9 players
The Official 2+2 Hand Converter Powered By DeucesCracked.com

MP2: $11.15
Hero (CO): $50.00
BTN: $37.50
SB: $50.00
BB: $40.90
UTG: $19.75
UTG+1: $61.20
UTG+2: $55.10
MP1: $57.90

Pre Flop: ($0.75) Hero is CO with A A
5 folds, Hero raises to $1.75, 1 fold, SB raises to $6.50, 1 fold, Hero calls $4.75

Flop: ($13.50) 9 3 7 (2 players)
SB bets $10.25, Hero raises to $24, SB raises to $43.50 all in, Hero calls $19.50 all in

Turn: ($100.50) J (2 players - 2 are all in)

River: ($100.50) 4 (2 players - 2 are all in)




Villain is a good reg, 3betting a relatively wide range (3.7%) against my steals, because he knows that my range is quite weak in this instance. He is quite weak postflop. What would 4betting accomplish here : just fold out of his bluffs and most of his perceived value range. By flatting we allow him to do huge mistakes postflop. Obviously it is way easier here, because once the flop comes I am sure he has an overpair and we are getting in anyway, so I do it asap to avoid scare cards. We were getting in anyway preflop too, but just with the top of his range (that he actually has here). In other circumstances I would pickup some cbets or just get him to stack off lighter. His 3 bet is standard, and I may or may not 4bet it, depending on villain (I.e had he a 1.3% 3bet over 6k hands). Here flatting is better, but I may as well 4bet sometimes, to balance my 4bet range when I have to 4bet someone light a lot (more than 3 times lifetime).



Full Tilt Poker $0.25/$0.50 No Limit Hold'em - 9 players
The Official 2+2 Hand Converter Powered By DeucesCracked.com

UTG+2: $48.45
MP1: $61.25
MP2: $70.30
Hero (CO): $67.20
BTN: $23.20
SB: $50.00
BB: $100.00
UTG: $80.60
UTG+1: $133.25

Pre Flop: ($0.75) Hero is CO with T K
5 folds, Hero raises to $1.50, 1 fold, SB raises to $5, 1 fold, Hero raises to $14.50, 1 fold




Same situation against a 6% 3bet reg. I have one blocker and a half-decent hand if called. But I am definitely doing it as a bluff, since I am gonna fold to a shove. No regrets, then. His range is really wide here, and I want to fold the bottom of it (80%), and get some respect for my steals. No need to do this with QQ/KK or any hand which has value against his range.
Keep also in mind that past a certain level you need to balance your 3bet and 4bet ranges agaist regs. You cannot just 4bet bluff and flat 3bets for value. Or you are going to be exploited. But against the vast majority of the field you can get away with quite unbalanced ranges, imo, and it is not the topic anyway.

This hand made a huge debate arose around 3betting TT here from the blinds against a supposedly wide range.
Let try to do it simply (I advise you to read the thread anyway).
31% is a really wide range

Text results appended to pokerstove.txt

3,749,945,760 games 0.005 secs 749,989,152,000 games/sec

Board:
Dead:

equity win tie pots won pots tied
Hand 0: 64.042% 63.61% 00.43% 2385250668 16273110.00 { TT }
Hand 1: 35.958% 35.52% 00.43% 1332148872 16273110.00 { 55+, A2s+, K5s+, Q7s+, J8s+, T8s+, 98s, A5o+, K9o+, Q9o+, J9o+, T9o }

Yes we are going to be out of position, and yes in donkaments, players 3bet TT like if it was christmas. I know. That said, villain seems bad (23/11) and we are going to play against a wide range with a low SPR.
Then again, TT is the bottom of imfromsweden 3betting for value range. If villain calls, he is gonna do it with the top of his PFR/3bet calling range (the continuation range), and we are going to have to play out of position against a good range and in a larger pot. Villain is gonna fold the bottom of his PFR range, which we crush. And Villain is gonna 4bet the top range (or a balanced range if he is really good, but I somewhat doubt it) and we are going to fold, so we essentially turn a hand with a really decent equity against his PFR wide range into a bluff which cannot face a 4bet.
So we would be better off 3betting random holdings to make him fold.
Ok you are going to pickup his raise a lot of times with TT, but against such a wide range you are going to get way more postflop a lot of times (and we are not essentially setmining here). Besides if he calls the pot is gonna be bigger, and we are going to have a hard time to figure out villain range (and its gonna be costlier too). If he 4bets we are insta-mucking, and that sucks balls. 3Betting has some value (it may be close since we don't really know his continuation range), but flatting has way more, if you decide not to be lazy and to play some poker postflop. I am repeating myself a lot, but the bigger the SPR, the more important the edge postflop. And the wider the range, the less interest 3bet/folding above average value hands, because it essentially turns your hand into a bluff whereas it plays quite well postflop even out of position.
The same reasoning apply to all these “good value” hands, facing a raise and probably a narrow continuation range (I.e against a high Ft3bet % or a low PFR%). On the button 3betting TT or JJ from a tight utg raise has no value, and QQ is debatable (depends whether there are callers or not). Because by flatting you can play against a wider range than villain's continuation range, in a smaller pot, in position, and just be a beast post flop, because that is what you do.


As a general note, just note that 3betting or 4betting are not automatic, they are very situational. We read everyday people saying “you have AK, 3bet”, “you have KK, 4 bet”. This is wrong thinking. 3 betting AK on an early position raiser is broadly arguable and very flow and villain dependent, just as 4 betting KK is. You need to take all the parameters into account and to come up with villain's range, the perception he has of your range (if any), the consequence that raising would have upon both of them. More generally you need to have a plan for the rest of the hand and for the next move. You may decide to 4bet AK, but then folding to a shove would be terrible. Just do it with 72o, or A3 for the blocker then. And so forth.


A general conclusion :

“Military tactics are like unto water; for water in its natural course runs away from high places and hastens downwards... Water shapes its course according to the nature of the ground over which it flows; the soldier works out his victory in relation to the foe whom he is facing. Therefore, just as water retains no constant shape, so in warfare there are no constant conditions. He who can modify his tactics in relation to his opponent and thereby succeed in winning, may be called a heaven-born captain.”
- Sun Tzu

Basically I would say that all these mistakes, principally when it comes to betting for info and 3betting/4betting without a plan, come down to the same cause : the laziness or the fear to play post-flop and to assign consistent ranges to your opponents. I have been there, and done that, a lot. And by reading this forum, books and watching videos I gradually started emancipating from this tenets which tend to make you do plays based on the simple absolute value of your hand. That is right KK is a good hand, and so is TT. That is right KK on A45 in a 3betted pot is sometimes counterfeited. Nonetheless you should go beyond this basic thinking and have a plan. You need to always think in term of ranges, and previous CoTW will help you when doing so. While it is more comfortable to make automatic plays, you are leaving a lot of value on the table, and this is not what you fancy do when you play poker.

Just a quick shout out to all the guys who helped with me with this task (Mpethy, Toedder), to all the others I talk strat with (imfromsweden, tao jones) sometimes and to all the posters whose posts and CoTW taught me so much about uNL (I played NL2 3 month and a half ago..). I would have liked to go to more in depth about some stuff, but I did my best in the time I had, and I am sure the discussions that will ensue will be complementing this post a lot.

And for your patience, a nice track illustrating this post (mods don't worry its 100% legal)

Cheers,

JLB.


http://www.deezer.com/track/22369

bill frist.

nice save.

Nice pick JL.

Will need to read closely I think.

Common leak for the common micro player is bet sizing.

Excellent post; will comb through this. Thanks for helping the newbs move up!

Very nice

As far as shorthanded play goes, it is a subject worth looking into. Yeah, it's easy enough to read the 6max stickies, but the thing about a shorthanded FR table is generally the people there are really bad at shorthanded play--I mean, even worse than they are at a full table--and it can really be exploited, especially by starting tables

Betting/raising for information is a limit tactic that will get you killed at no-limit

Haven't read it yet but your english is much better than most native speakers

I like this a lot, it addresses the reasons behind betting very well. Well done on such short notice

Excellent CotW, section III was something I'd been thinking about a lot lately and this will be immeasurably helpful.

You did this in 24 hours in a language that's not your native tongue?

Wow. Thank you.

Read through most of it, disagree with some things but overall great post to get people thinking about their game.

"hero is an aggromonkeyswedishspewtard (just sayin'). Villain 3 bet range is tight (2.0%) but given that I suspect hero from running with a 64% ATS"

lol

thx for the great post

Care to elaborate on what you disagree with and why? The whole point of the CotW series is to get us talking about pokers, and I'm interested to hear your thoughts

Very nice. I do the call raise, reevaluate later street thing sometimes, and never really thought of it as a leak, but it makes sense that it would be. In most cases, very few turns/rivers help my hand and against a regular/standard villain I'm not being bluffed on the turn, so I should just save the extra money.

NH, sir.

Great post, and considering the amount of time given and working in another language, outstanding.

The TT example is bothering me. I need to do some stove work and will come back later.