Quote:
Originally Posted by mn_trader
BAH you kids and your math ruining a good game. But seriously, I appreciate your analysis, I read it and I do find it interesting. But what these simulations do not take into account is how Bob (or anyone else) is going to adjust when you are constantly raising them. Are they going to tighten up, 4 bet a lot more thin? How are other players going to react to what we are doing?
If you raise someone every hand, they will notice. 60-70% of the time in a short game, they will notice eventually. If you let them get their pound of flesh from others and don't battle them for every pot, I "feel" (I know it is a dangerous word) that you will come out ahead in the long run.
I know the game I play (8/16 half kill at Canterbury), I would NEVER want to be a new player in the game. You see people 3, 4 bet some players with junk and fold strong hands to others. You can be up or down 3-4 racks before you even start to have an idea of what is going on.
Welcome to counter-exploitation
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Obviously Bob;s tighter opening range means that when he does open, the profitability of hands goes down drastically (like now three betting 55, A8s, etc is clear spew). But Bob reducing his opening range is a natural adjustment to our 3 betting him lighter. If he fails to adjust, our three bets become money printing against his error of raising too wide. However, if we fail to adjust, then his range becomes fine, and we get exploited by having to fold parts of our range more often.
Say T9s from the HJ 6 handed is a profitable open (all evidence in my OL history suggests that it is, and sorry, my DB isn't on this computer, but I'm sure I'm not the only one to conclude this). However, it's indisputably unprofitable against Bob's UTG (6 handed) open range:
Hand | Pot equity | Wins | Ties |
---|
AA-44, A[K-9]$o, A[K-4]$s, KJ$o, KQ$o, K[Q-8]$s, QJ$o, Q[J-9]$s, J9$s, JT$s, T9$s, 98$s, 87$s | 61.38% | 957,634,644 | 35,391,260 |
T9$s | 38.62% | 595,992,208 | 35,391,260 |
You can argue meta stuff about T9s being a good 3 bet, but from a pure equity perspective, it's spewy. So when Bob raises with the above range, the EV of T9s drops to 0 (we fold) versus a positive EV. So Bob opens 19.2% of hands and you have to fold a bunch.
But lets say that because you're three betting a bunch, Bob drops his worst hands from his range. 44, 87s, 98s, A9o, K8s, A4s. Suddenly, Bob is now opening 17% of hands. Now, the hands in your range that can raise when folded to will get to do so 83% of the time, and not 80.8%. So now we've increased the EV of the bottom X% of our range (the range of hands that can't three bet but can raise when folded to, which could be 60%-70% of hands in our opening range) because we get to play them at a 2.7% higher frequency.
By folding, we miss out on chances to make money. If Bob's aggressive play causes us to fold more often, then he is exploiting our unwillingness to three bet him light. In live games, I'll often find myself opening a similar range to what Bob posted in the OP, because my opponents are failing to three bet me appropriately (allowing me to overrealize equity).
COUNTER EXPLOITS
- So I open a range and I find someone has adjusted by 3 betting me with a much, much wider range. The solution to this is simple: tighten up. Now, he will find that his three bets are not profitable (he's losing $ by playing the hand), and if he continues to three bet it, he's spewing money to you.
- So I open a range and I find someone is cold calling me with hands that they'd normally fold to a raise from this position. It's pretty easy to determine what those hands are, since he'll be cold calling so infrequently. So if we get to a point where we're HU in a hand, he'll be so easy to play against, that I can find very exploitative adjustments.
Like maybe a "standard" three bet range against a tighter open is:
77+, A9s+, AJo+, KQs
But because we are looser than normal, he adds
55-66, A8s, ATo, KJs, QJs
However, he decides to continue to three bet the first range and cold call the second. This is 33 combos (for the record, a capping range of TT+/AKs is 34 combos). So he has the same issue as capping in that our range is defined, except it's also full of marginal crap. And marginal crap isn't doing well against our range:
Hand | Pot equity | Wins | Ties |
---|
AA-44, A[K-9]$o, A[K-4]$s, KJ$o, KQ$o, K[Q-8]$s, QJ$o, Q[J-9]$s, J9$s, JT$s, T9$s, 98$s, 87$s | 53.04% | 7,162,605,316 | 568,438,436 |
66-55, A8$s, AT$o, KJ$s, QJ$s | 46.96% | 6,309,849,048 | 568,438,436 |
So because his range is weaker than ours, we will be in position to exploit him much more easily than he'll exploit us.
Last edited by jdr0317; 02-15-2017 at 07:32 PM.