I heard Phil Galfond talk about Balance in a Cash Plays interview. I have a vague idea what it is, but I was hoping someone could elaborate on the concept. Thanks

I am no expert, but I have understood balance as follows:

To be balanced, you need to deny your opponent the possibility to profitably assume your given line of action maps to certain hand strength. For example, if you bet on the river only for value (i.e. strong hands), your opponent can profitably fold every bluff catching hand to your river bets. If however you include a balanced amount of bluffs to your river bet range, folding every marginal hand makes opponent occasionally fold the best hand, so he no longer can expect to gain applying that strategy. Same idea applies to all other actions as well; for example calling too few continuation bets (i.e. calling/raising only when flop hits) gives opponent easy profit by just cbetting every flop and never investing more money without a legitimate hand.

FOR THE WIN- good answer

ok, good, now how do u go about calculating the right balance for a given situation?
Like villain c-bets 75% time after raising PF. WHat is the right balance of actions? How do u figure it out? fold 1/3 call 1/3 raise 1/3 of the time?

It's a bit more situationally dependant than this. Balance would be, if an opponent cbets, what am I going to do with various holdings? What % of the time will I raise with air? What about raising strong hands? Medium hands? Draws? What about just calling in those situations? What about strong hands on drawy boards? Etc.

Being balanced means not doing the same thing with the same hand in the same situation, over and over, as that gets exploitable. Being balanced means doing different things with the same hand, so you're not easily read.

Good definitions all, not much to add, just one of my favorite tactics to exploit unbalanced players. I find many players ALWAYS slow-play or check-raise monster flops, so if they lead out, they may have an overpair, but it's not the nuts.

balance = unexploitable play = optimal play.

If a graph was to define balance, it would look like this:

|
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|--------------------- (balance)
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|___________________


|
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|~~~~~
(............) ~~~~~~
(.............................) ~~~ (unbalanced)
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|___________________

(okay, well you can't really draw graphs in bulletin board messages)...

If you are used to see graphs.


The point being is that unbalanced is exploitable.

Or in other words:

Unbalanced:
http://www.strategy2act.com/solution.../A20343104.gif

Balanced:
http://image.tutorvista.com/content/.../v-t-graph.gif

Oh, and if my graph analogies didn't make sense to you:

Balance = balancing your ranges. Having the optimal percentage of value bets, to bluffs, to slowplays, to check-raises, so that your opponent cannot figure out your tendencies and exploit your particular weaknesses.

Perfect balance also doesn't exist, and it is mostly so your opponent can't get a good read on you.


Lastly, it is not worth balancing unless you are up against good opponents. If you can make money against your current opposition, then don't balance.

IIRC, you've said this more than one time without giving a clear meaning to your statement. So, what do you actually mean, when you say, perfect balance does not exist?

I think the point it is more that perfect balance is not desireable because exploitable opponents will not react to your behavior in a balanced way. Perfect balance is the theoretical two perfect players (or table) playing unpredictably/unexploitably against each other. In practice, such talented players have no incentive to play each other.

Well, I'm not an expert, so I'm only giving you my definition... But what I mean is that if you graphed your ranges, it could never precisely look like this:

http://image.tutorvista.com/content/.../v-t-graph.gif

When someone like Galfond talks about balance, he means to balance so you have the appropriate amount of value bets to bluffs, to slow plays, to bluff inducing checks, etc. But of course, when I was talking about balance, I meant that if you could graph "balance" it would look something like:

http://image.tutorvista.com/content/.../v-t-graph.gif

As opposed to an unbalanced range graph, which would look like this:
http://www.strategy2act.com/solution.../A20343104.gif


But it's purely theoretical!

at the NL50 tables I play this is a concept beyond 95% of the people playing.

Or I should say that an unbalanced range looks like a skewed graph, for those of you familiar with stats.

this is absurd. just because you are profitable does not mean you have nothing to gain from balance. If your opponents do not respond to you whatsoever, perhaps, but balance is almost always valuable.

You may be overcomplicating the concept. Balance simply means you take the same action with a variety of hands. Do you sometimes bluff and sometimes bet for value? that's balance. If you get the ratio right, that's better balance.

The correct ratio will shift depending on your opponents. If they never fold, you never bluff. In that case, you are not really balancing I guess. But if they rarely fold, you rarely bluff, and there you are, mixing up your strategy in a balanced way.

That's more deemed "mixing" than balancing, if you want the technically correct term.

I'm not saying that you shouldn't balance against weaker opponent's, just that it may be unnecessary to balance against weaker opponent.

balancing against weaker opponent's may cost you money, if you know the correct way to exploit their tendencies, as well.

If you balance well you will still make money against fishy players, but not as much as you would by playing exploitively against them.

Here's an analogy (I'm bored, so I've been over-thinking poker too much).

Comparing poker to the game of blackjack:

Optimal strategy (in poker) would be the same as basic strategy (in blackjack).

Exploitative strategy (in poker) would be analogous to card counting (in blackjack).

If the dealer shuffled the deck after every dealt hand, to prevent people from counting cards, that would be analogous to (the dealer) balancing the deck (or balancing their range).

So in otherwords, you balance your range to prevent others from exploiting your tendencies. This is the same as the dealer (in blackjack) shuffling the deck between each deal to prevent individuals from counting the cards.

Exploiting your opponent (in poker) is the same as card counting (in blackjack).

And poker's optimal strategy is the same as blackjack's basic strategy.

So in essence, Edward Thorpe's "how to beat the dealer" is a simplified blueprint on how to beat heads up poker 30 years after its initial publication.

And HUD's are the card counting device that most casino's banned (so if HUD's ever get banned, we will be forced to learn counting strategies in place of HUD's, what a sad day that would be ).

in sum (comparing poker (left) to blackjack (right)):

balancing = the dealer shuffling
Optimal strategy = basic strategy
exploitative strategy = card counting

Okay, done with my analogies, the end.

That post was full of fail and nothing but fail.

No, it was meant to answer how balance relates to the game of poker.

I think it is a pretty good comparison, but certainly a flawed comparison...

But you clearly have absolutely no idea what you're talking about:

This is the single stupidest analogy I've ever heard.

If this were chess, I'd be a 1950, and you'd be a 1700, imo

Explain how optimal strategy in poker even remotely resembles basic strategy in blackjack.

Or I mean if poker were chess (i.e. rated like chess).



durrr (and I'm not talking Tom Dwan), basic strategy is game theory optimal in blackjack genius.

I see your rating going down to 1650 after that one