I am not doing this at all. It’s practically impossible to accurately range even one opponent but that doesn’t matter. Thinking about ranges is harder but still far superior even if you make many mistakes.

This isn’t about how hard it is to make decisions using range analysis in real time. It’s a criticism of your evaluation of what is or is not a mistake after the fact.

Range based thinking can even go beyond what we think our opponents strategy is. We can consider how our strategy fairs against all possible strategies villains could be employing.

Folding the best hand is not a mistake. Nor is paying off a better hand or checking to allow free cards when we have the best hand. There’s no reason to continue discussion if you don’t agree with this.

Also, you never answered my question which I am really curious to know. Do you utilize range-based thinking?

Browni, I understand what you're getting at: It's not a mistake to fold the best hand because after you ranged your opponent you decided that you weren't ahead enough of the time to make the call of his bet into the pot profitable (and vice-versa for calling and being shown better). I get that.

But looking at it from 10,000 feet away, I'm simply going to make a lotta mistakes in a 10way pot in an SPR of 2. I'm going to get 95% of my chips in ~drawing dead *a lot*; that's not a good thing. I'm going to check/fold when ahead in a huge pot at a decent clip too. I'm going to check having the best hand in a big pot giving a free card sometimes too. Will this be offset from the times I flop / make a set, and sometimes simply take down the pot on the flop with no callers? I think it will. But can we do better?

And meanwhile, how are my opponents doing regarding making mistakes? Yes, some with TP will make the same mistake. And sometimes draws might make a mistake (especially dominated ones, but nut draws will almost never be making much of a mistake if any going with their hand). But most hands will know exactly where they are and won't be making mistakes; it is very difficult for 66 to make a mistake here (in whatever sense you consider a mistake). So that's the spot we're aiming for? Getting ourselves in big pots where we'll often be making the wrong move and yet our opponents rarely will?

GcluelessNLnoobG

^

The line of argument in the last two posts is that you personally consider this to be an impossibly complicated situation to navigate without making big errors.

I contend that it is profitable for me personally, even allowing for the errors that I will make, because I am better than my opponents and have a range advantage on many flops. I’m not an expert, but I don’t need to be. I don’t need to map every variable to manage this.

You want to sell big profits for small ones, in exchange for receiving a simpler problem. That’s fine, it’s your choice. But it’s suboptimal.

We make errors in a MMW situation OOP no matter what the action looks like. By raising we are least give ourselves a chance to get a ton of money in with the guaranteed preflop range advantage and give ourselves a chance to stack someone. By limping we are effectively hoping to either cooler someone or run into an idiot.

Now if you told me “guy on my left has raised like 70% preflop” then yeah limping can be a nice exploit. There’s definitely reasons for fancy playing big hands (remember when Phil Hellmuth did it to Bob Safai on PAD; it didn’t matter if the other 4 players knew what Phil was doing, as long as Bob didn’t).

Big hands need big pots. If your opponents win big pots and you don’t, it’s really hard to overcome


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Yea, I’m aware.

Play with various values of x. Consider the possibilities of EV’s for all numbers of callers associated with all x. Include future gameplay EV’s depending on your course of action as well. Factor those in. Compare all that. (Not to mention all the other madness I won’t bother thinking about.)

No one. Is anywhere. Near. Optimal.

That’s why I said in my first post in itt...you’re asking another question. You “FEEL” good with an approach to No Limit. It keeps you in rhythm. You wanna implement optimal gameplay in full ring llsnl. Lmk when so I can stand outside the parking garage of whatever casino you play at so I can throw marshmallows on the ground before you jump off.

Open raise more hands. Your opponents suck balls and don’t know anything. They don’t know where you are let alone themselves. Of course, if from your point of view they’re playing that well against you then try check calling and see how well they do.

Absolutely agree; if this hadda limped 10ways, we're still going to make mistakes.

But our mistakes will be a lot smaller. Check/folding the best hand in a limped pot (or paying off very small bets when crushed for a street or two) are such small mistakes that overall they'll barely make that much of a difference.

Plus (thanks to not being handcuffed by immediate commitment decisions) we'll hopefully be able to make some better decisions based on cards/actions/etc. over a street or two before we decide to put in any serious money.

The vast majority of the time we're going to end up with just one pair. That ain't exactly a big hand 10ways.

GcluelessNLnoobG

No, it’s a huge mistake overall. You keep talking about the mistake magnitude of yourself, but you ignore the mistake magnitude of your opposition.

We make money in poker because the magnitude of our mistakes are lower than the magnitude of our opponents’ mistakes. There’s literally no other secret formula than this.

By playing small pot poker with monster hands because you’re scared of them getting there and stacking you, you’re decreasing their mistake magnitude. It’s like the old man who calls an open with KK and donks when the ace doesn’t come.


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How is 66 making a mistake here (apart from RIO against higher sets)? How is a non-horrendous player with 87s making a mistake here (apart from RIO against higher flush draws)?

This is very akin to the toy game (I can't recall which book it is in) regarding AK going to a flop with 87s. AK is a half decent 60/40 fave over 87s preflop when they get in lol 5% of their stacks. But when actual significant money goes in postflop, 87s is winning far more often (assuming opponents of similar skill level).

GcluelessNLnoobG

Mistakes aren't even an indicator of EV anyway. The only reason you don't make mistakes with those hands is because they're rarely in a position to make a mistake because they're usually garbage and folded easily. You could make the same argument about 72o.

87s is rarely going to make a hand on the same types of flops AA wants to put money into 10 ways. In fact the only hands that are likely to GII very good against us are pocket pairs that flopped a set. We should proceed with extreme caution on paired flops, monotone flops and 3-straight flops. AA is only losing a lot of money to 87s on boards like K87 and it still has a decent chance to suckout.

Anyway, you're still making the error of thinking about hand vs. hand. When we raise AA UTG for $15, get nine callers and the flop comes K87r, we bet $40 and get raised by MP to $120 with $300 effective, what do you think their range is? Are you continuing and why or why not?

How do they make mistakes? Well I don’t know. When you have AA and they have 66, there’s 17,296 different flop possibilities. You realize the money goes in good more often than not when you start with better hands, right? I shouldn’t have to hand waive this at someone who has played poker for years (and has FL experience) that pushing equity edges is vital to winning at poker.

You treat the situation like you either win 3 bb or he wins 100 bb. That’s just not true. At all. At any level of poker. If you’re uncomfortable with giving yourself a chance to win a big pot OOP with the top of your range, then it seems likely to me that you’re not playing flops well. Or at the very least, you think you’d be playing flops poorly, which is a good case of self awareness in your game.


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Well I mostly think it's a stoopid spot. Apparently a large part of our profit in these spots is supposed to come from TPs overvalueing. So what is it: TP overvaluing, or simply someone who's outflopped us? In a limped pot we could make small mistakes either way (folding the best hand in a meaningless small pot, or calling some small amount of chips with the worst of it to see what happens on the turn when neither of us is remotely committed). Here, we have to make our decision for commitment right away (or what, are you calling the $120 to evaluate what he's going to do for the remaining $165 into $390 = 40% PSB left). Good luck getting it right, imo.

ETA: And to go back more to ranges, which you asked about. There's almost as many 87/88/99 as there is AK/KQ. But maybe he has some K9/K8 in there, we don't really know. And maybe he flats the monsters to entice, or maybe he shoves cuz it's a huge pot and "I don't want to get sucked out on". And maybe he flats Kx cuz it's only one pear, or maybe he raises cuz pot is huge. Or maybe he's got some T9/96/65 in there and is semi-bluffing. Some of the time. And sometimes he does that, and sometimes he does something different. And this is just one guy. Now add someone else into the mix. You're just going to add all that into the real time calculator, produce X, and oh, it's EV to do this versus that?

On top of that, is a 1/3rd PSB even good sizing? It offers 4:1 odds to the world; in the times we actually have the best hand, those seem like far too good of odds to offer in an SPR 2 pot (i.e. a mistake). In a limped pot where we're not committed but have the best hand, we couldn't really care less about offering good odds; it's a small pot, it's a small mistake.

GavoidingstoopidspotsG

Depends on our read of MP and action of everyone else on the table.

Our read of MP depends on our ability as poker player to observe and note important details that allow us to make an optimal decision.

For example, if MP is GG, it's a no brainer fold.

If MP raised and 2 other players called, this is also a no brainer fold.

If MP raised, everyone else folded and we are the last action, and MP is known as a drooler, this is a no brainer call.

But if you don't know anything about MP and don't think any of other details are important, then how you play AA UTG is probably a minor issue.

I've already explained this in my AK vs 87s example above. In NL poker, getting in small percentages of your stack preflop with the best hand simply isn't the coup you think it is. Especially if you're setting up spots where the only time the vast majority of the money goes in postflop is when you don't have the best hand.

Again, not saying it's an overall -EV spot (it isn't).

GimoG

You are correct, but in a less practical sense.

Most of us simply make bigger mistakes holding AA than 66. The biggest mistake 66 can have is overestimating implied value and make bad calls before making a strong hand.

It is small relative to someone overplaying AA.

IMO, there is a strong correlation of RIO and skill level. Better players allow lower RIO and would make AA far more attractive than 66.

We can also look at it another way. Playing OOP against x number of players.

1 - 3: Low RIO

4+: High RIO

RIO is strongly correlated to effective stack, so deeper stacks = higher RIO.

Skill is also strongly correlated to RIO, so lower skill level = higher RIO.

And my guess would be most players highly overestimate their skill advantage versus their opponents in 10way SPR 2 pots when holding AA.

GcluelessskilladvantagenoobG

Furthermore to simplify things:

66 has very low RIO, because the biggest chunk of RIO with 66 is in set over set situation.

AA has very high RIO because that's just what we do in LLSNL. We don't fold AA.

Bolded is true in an absolute sense ("if x then y") but not demonstrated at all in reference to the toy game being discussed.

Care to elaborate how it is not?

What skill edge? That’s pure card edge.

PLO is a great example: it’s basically near mandatory to raise preflop with any AA if you get the SPR down to 1, because you can make that raise and jam almost any flop and no matter how “bad” you play, you’re going to show a profit as your opponent can’t effectively exploit you.

Why are you so worried about being exploited in a bloated pot? Or are you worried about being stacked? Can you actually answer versus going to platitudes?


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PLO is actually a bad example because there is almost never a spot in which any hand is a huge underdog, hence RIO is always low in comparison to NL.

The key issue is RIO.

FWIW, this discussion seems to be breaking into a very narrow set of scenarios.

This discussion isn't about which hand has the highest equity in a 9-handed all in. Such scenario does not require a discussion.

GG is worried about variance and getting stacked yes. Trust me, ive seen him post the same stuff on this forum countless years. 30k posts of precisely the same sentences and the same shyt.

Its more important to avoid variance as much as possible, and to boost that good feeling inside when logging a plus session into the tracking app.

What he is displaying all over the place is mental leaks/mental roadblocks. Simple as that.

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