Some time ago this analogy came to my mind that really helped crystallize some of my thoughts about poker. Nothing in here is really earth-shattering or revolutionary, but at least for me it helped think about the game better, so I thought I would share in the hopes that it might help some of you.

I think there are a lot of similarities between poker and a game of Rock/Paper/Scissors. To start of, neither game has a dominant strategy. What I mean by that, is that there is no one strategy in either game that is strictly superior to all other strategies - all strategies can be beaten by other strategies specifically designed to take advantage of the weaknesses or imbalances of the strategy someone is playing. The one exception is a perfectly balanced strategy - playing a random move in Rock/Paper/Scissors or trying for a GTO strategy in poker. This type of strategy excels in not losing, as opposed to winning - but against human opponents who aren't pursuing a similar strategy it is rarely the best approach. Additionally, both games are heavily dependent on two things: 1) processing information in order to understand your opponents' patterns and 2) psychology, or understanding the mental state of your opponent and how it's likely to influence his actions.

The reason I decided to post this in the LLNL forum is that this analogy is most helpful in weak games, which is what most 1/2 and 2/5 games are most of the time. As Harrington observed a while back, a key characteristic of a weak game is one where your opponents are pursuing a static strategy. So to put this into Rock/Paper/Scissors terms, imagine if your opponents always played 'Rock'. We all know what we would do if we thought that were the case - we would play 'Paper'. We wouldn't try for some complicated chain of logic as in 'well, he knows I think he always plays rock, so he is going to assume I am going to play 'paper', so he will adjust to that by playing 'scissors', so therefore I should preemptively adjust to that by playing 'rock'. To be sure, against a sophisticated opponent such a chain of reasoning might very well be correct. However, if all the information we had was someone playing 'Rock' 5 times in a row, we would be far better served assuming this person is playing a static strategy until we have evidence to the contrary than to assume some elaborate trap.

The way I think this applies to LLNL games is that people are playing relatively simple, static strategies. And we as a group (including myself) are probably not adjusting enough to exploit them. So if there is one take away from this post that I would leave you with is that I think we should be making far more extreme adjustments against weak players than we are likely currently making. The reason that I think we under-adjust is that a) it's not intellectually stimulating to keep throwing 'Paper' vs. a guy we always expect to throw 'Rock', even if it's the most profitable strategy and b) we convince ourselves that our opponents have to adjust the Nth time they see us do something that takes advantage of their static pattern and therefore we should deviate, but in reality that is far less likely than we believe.

To bring this to practical insights. Over the years I have played 1/2 (not recently) through 5/10 in ~ 10 different card rooms in the U.S., including both coasts and places in between, as well as several card rooms in a few countries in Asia. I found that the average tendencies of the player pools to be surprisingly similar. To pick the game I have the most hours in, 2/5 NL, here are the average tendencies that I have observed that are pretty pervasive and the obvious adjustment(s):

1. Players don't bet medium strength hands for value enough post-flop, especially on turn/river.
Adjustment #1: we should not be calling bets much with marginal made hands post-flop.
Adjustment #2: we can be calling more with implied-odds hands assuming proper stack depth.

2. People call too much with marginal made hands.
Adjustment #1: we should bet thinner for value with medium-strength hands
Adjustment #2: we should lower our bluffing frequency dramatically, and only bluff in ideal situations.

3. People don't bluff enough on turn/river
Adjustment #1: We shouldn't bluff-catch much on turn/river
Adjustment #2: Combined with point #1 above, we should be more willing to let go of strong but non-nut hands to massive aggression on later streets

The last, and very important point for weak, LLNL, games is that the value of information is far higher, and that we should require far less information to make adjustments. The reason is that tough players craft their strategies to their opponents. So if you see a tough opponent do something, you can't necessarily draw vast generalizations from that, as there are many possible explanations, such as exploiting a particular weakness of a specific opponent, balancing against a tough player, levelling an opponent based on prior history, etc. However, when you observe a weak player do something, it's very, very likely that that is part of their static strategy, and that they will continue doing this against you and everyone else. So you should be very focused on picking up info at the table, especially showdown information, and making immediate, drastic adjustments against that opponent until you learn otherwise.

Tldr. Maybe later. First!

umm.... there kind of is one dominant strategy for the criteria you discuss.

Bet for relatively thin value and don't bluff catch.

Sure, there is an optimal static strategy against any one specific static strategy. My point was that there is not one static strategy that is dominant in either game. As opposed to a game like chess where a strategy is good or bad in an absolute sense.

Great post. When I transitioned to live, exploiting the tendencies of bad players was likely the main reason my win rate wasn't as great as others who understood how to take advantage of these player types.

I also believe poker is essentially a really complicated game of rock/paper/scissors.

One important topic that I believe needs to be addressed is that a lot of situations in LLSNL are multi-way and the presence of more than 1 opponent can complicate what the correct decision is when deciding between rock/paper/scissors, more specifically preflop and on the flop.

Very good and thank you for taking the time to post this.

Nice post Setsy.

Lately I've been trying to get more thin value on the river in places where I think I've read the situation right. And I rarely find myself going past the flop with a mediocre hand (TPmehK included), especially in a multiway pot with multiple interested opponents.

The one thing I'd have to slightly disagree with is with regards to bluffcatching. I find bluffcatching quite profitable against a decent percentage of my opponents, most of whom are not poker noobs (whom I'd be value betting) and seem to instead be good examples of a-little-knowledge-is-a-dangerous-thing ("NL is all about aggression! He checked the turn! I can steal it on the river! Aggression is the key to NL poker!").

Gpassive,justlikeallthegoodpokerbooksrecommendG

I have to somewhat disagree that poker is a complicated RPS game. in RPS players MUST SHOWDOWN... this is not the case in poker.

Fair point. I don't think it's a perfect analog, but think that there are many relevant similarities that can provide some insight.

One of the reasons I posted this is that I suspect that many people here think that there is a 'correct way to play' in general. Whether it's because they came from online and watched videos showing a 18/15 style FR or 23/20 6-Max to be 'optimal', or because they read stuff here which makes people think that unless you are a cookie-cutter TAG that you are deviating from the 'best' strategy. I know I used to think that way at some point in my poker development. My goal was to make people see poker as a relative rather than an absolute game.

Thank you. I think almost any play when directed against specific tendencies can be best. If you observe opponents doing something (e.g. bluffing too much in certain spots) then of course you should exploit it. If anything, focusing on that kind of observation-driven adjustment was one of my points. However, and especially as the $ get large for the game you are playing, I find that people's bluffing frequencies, *on average*, to be far lower than GTO, and thus making bluff catching in those situations without reads sub-optimal.

Thanks setsy, I will show my friends this thread.

One quick question, do you ever overestimate a decent/good players skills early on in a session? For instance, if I see what seems to be a competent player play a hand nicely, I notch them up as a solid player too early, only seeing glaring leaks later to see them as a average player. How long does it normally take for you to categorize a certain player as "very good", i.e. one who we may consider at level 2 or 3, much less static and more dynamic?

+1

Thank you. 'Good' is obviously relative. Someone used to talk about the 'FUD' factor - fear, uncertainty, doubt. The more FUD factor you feel towards an opponent the more likely they are 'good' relative to your current skill-set. It could also be an information vacuum problem - you are just aren't sure of their game yet, and as you said later on the FUD factor dissipates.

One thing to think about is base-rate probabilities. If you find yourself ascribing near-superhuman abilities to a player after a small sample, you got to ask yourself - what % of the player pool in this game is truly the type of player you fear? Chances are, it's quite small if at all present, depending on where/what level you play. Remember, that a fish and an expert-level player might make the same exact play in a given situation. The difference is the 'why' - the expert knows exactly why he is doing it and will quickly adjust if the appropriate reasons present themselves, while as the bad player is just poking in the dark and the play he pulled just happened to work out that one time.

That being said, I would play more balanced/defensively against a player I suspected to be good. I would also err towards going to showdown against him in close spots in order that I can get showdown info on him and place him on the appropriate level. Essentially, I want to know if he is playing his card strength, my card strength or his own perceived card strength. If it's the latter, then I will get a bit worried, but if it's one of the first two then I usually got the tools in the tool-chest to adjust appropriately.

good post. Above was a nice succinct summary.

same here. I still struggle with doing something I perceive as being super exploitable.

this stood out to me. great post, ty

Thank you. I still struggle with 'exploitable' play as well. I have to keep reminding myself that being exploitABLE is not the same as being exploited.

I will give an example. When I was learning to play online, years ago, many beginning players including myself had a pretty high flop c-bet % followed by a very low turn c-bet %. This was a stereotypical 'one-and-done' approach. I watched many videos and read many things that convinced me that that was a leak, in the context of the games I was playing. By thinking about the game, and learning from various sites I was able to construct a good barreling strategy while lowering my flop c-bet % to take into account player type, image, board texture, etc. The result was a 'good looking set of stats', at least from the lens of what instructional videos suggested were 'ideal' stats for those games, maybe something like 60-65% flop c-bet and ~ 50% turn c-bet. Then translating this to live games where a lot of opponents are station-y, I was a bit confused. On the one hand I know a lot of these guys have a weak range. And I know they peel my flop c-bets light on a bunch of boards. On the other hand, the stubborn bastards are refusing to fold those marginal hands to my turn barrels, even on 'good scare cards' =). So I was confronted with this unpleasant situation, where what I previously thought was 'optimal strategy' was essentially playing into my opponents greatest strength - calling down. I think there are two ways to fix this. I either really got to go full bore and triple-barrel cards I previously wouldn't have tripled for big money to really get them off their ranges, or I had to really lower my flop c-bet frequency and mostly only bet turn for value. So for a while, I struggled because intellectually I understood that approach #2 was optimal *against these specific players* but it somehow felt weak-tight/unbalanced/exploitable.

What really helped me though is thinking through the concept of Reciprocality. I realized that a) the calling stations won't be exploiting me if I lower my flop c-bet frequency to only primo textures and only double-barrel for value b) I will be getting a positive reciprocality as they will be paying me off in spots where I will easily get away from paying them off c) I can widen my value-betting range in these spots to further increase my positive Reciprocality d) since these spots occur frequently and since these guys don't have any positive reciprocalities on me, this alone is sufficient for me to crush them. Sure, not as much fun as taking a clever c/r turn, crai river line, but against the static strategies these guys are playing it was optimal =).

Anyway, this ended up being longer than I intended, but I did want to respond as I feel like there are still times when my FPS gets the better of me in spots where intellectually I know that a simple, boring counter-strategy vs. my opponents' static strategies is going to crush.

Nice (albeit imperfect) analogy Setsy.

The only point of your bolded three I am unsure of is that "people" don't bluff enough on the turn/river. Obviously this is variable but I feel that people love to bluff. In fact, I think that bad players bluff more than good players. They feel that bluffing is the fun/daring aspect of poker and the aspect that is associated with the largest cojones. 2+2ers will c-bet bluff, semibluff with perceived fold equity, squeeze, and occasionally outright bluff later streets if the "story" fits and they are facing an opponent who can actually fold. Bad players bluff nonsensically. I see river bluffs often with busted draws for eg. Bluff-raising is much less common.

One aspect of my game I would like to improve is calling down light on the river (i.e., getting bluffed less often). I would like to see more threads/concepts on "hero calling" if you will.

Great thread and great replies from the op. Thank you for this.

In the 2/5 games I play in there are plenty small/mid sized bluffs. As in someone calling twice with a FD and then betting when checked to OTR. However, in my experience ~100bb+ bluffs are very rare. Obviously any player-specific reads trump observations about general tendencies, but with that being said let's hypothetically say the following occurs:

- stacks $500
- 2/5 Random opens in HJ for $20, you call OTB and take a flop HU.
- Flop is KhQh2s. Pot is $45, villain bets $40, we call
- Turn is 7d, pot is $125, villain bets $105, we call
- River is 3s, pot is $335 villain shoves for $335
- We need to be good 1/3rd of the time to call
- My argument is absent additional info the % of times villain bets for thin value + % of time villain is bluffing is far less than 1/3rd and so we can safely fold hands less than KQ (we could debate AK but that's not the point of my example)
- On the other hand, in tougher games against tough opponents who will bluff a lot more in this spot, calling vs. folding a hand like KJ here becomes a close/tough choice. Here it's a trivial fold. Enjoy LLNL

Solid OP, though the RPS analogy falls apart at deeper levels of scrutiny that goes beyond simple metagame concepts. The TLDR version of the thesis is essentially a recreation of a somewhat nuanced poker concept, that exploitative play is always exploitable, and conversely, that exploitable play is always exploitative.

So when a fish calls too much, they are actually employing a good strategy against certain types of player, particularly those who bluff too much. What makes them a fish isn't specifically that they call too much, but that they are bad at recognizing what type of player they're up against and adjusting appropriately (bad at the metagame), as well as the fact that they're generally bad at the game itself, in that they have a poor understanding of how various actions tend to mean various things on various board textures, actions, etc.

This primarily is useful against bad players who have unyielding tendencies, which make them predictable and thus hugely exploitable. It's why solid ABC poker does far better against a fish than hyper-aggro poker, and why hyper-aggro poker does better against a nit than solid ABC poker does.

It's also useful in multiway pots where one villain is a good player and one villain is a specific kind of bad player. If you know that the good player is correctly adjusting to the bad player, that basically puts a level-1 cap on any of their plays and specifically pigeonholes them into a predictable hole, and means that for as long as their actions are constrained by the bad player's presence in the pot, the good player can be effectively treated as pretty much another bad player.

The practical application of this is often what I call "bluff insurance." Villain A (good player) bets into Villain B (calling station) and you in a spot where, in an ordinary 3-way pot against two good players, he might often bluff. You hold a bluffcatcher and are last to act. Even if Villain B folds, you know that he's likely not bluffing because you'd have to be an idiot to bluff Villain B and Villain A is not an idiot. So you should never call with your bluffcatcher in this spot because Villain B's presence has effectively instituted a level-one cap on the thinking in the hand until he exits (after he does so, however, it may be useful to work in bluffraises in spots like this, because you can presume that Villain A will be value betting thin here and that more often than usual his hand will not be able to handle a raise).

You can also get into fun spots where you simultaneously bluff one player and value-bet another, though that's rare and most people who search for that spot are prioritizing pretty plays over strong plays, a form of FPS.

In any case, I am pretty constantly advising some people that I've taught poker to that they're over-thinking spots and that the best way to handle your average low-stakes fish is to play poker that they themselves could chew to pieces. It seems unsophisticated, but poker is a game where the wrong kind of sophisticated can be disastrous and the right kind of unsophisticated can be optimal, at least where the metagame is concerned.

Despite starting off with a bunch of big words, it was a good post! I was really thinking about the quoted line as I was reading your preceding paragraphs, I'm really glad you included it.

These spots don't come along that often, but they occur and can be largely profitable, and man do you feel sexy when you execute them well.

Unrelated but I once made a post using RPS analogy.

http://forumserver.twoplustwo.com/sh...6&postcount=69

I feel like you're oversimplifying it a lot saying something like "neither game has a dominant strategy."

I mean I get what you mean but I don't know if I'd phrase what you're saying like that.

What you're saying is that poker is a game of frequencies, and PRS is one of the most basic ways to discuss frequencies.

Good post, thank you. I agree that what makes bad players bad is not their specific frequencies but their inability to adjust to information. Which is why it's sometimes amusing hearing some nit call someone a fish for calling too much, while they themselves are just as static in their strategy and are being exploited for folding too much. The game isn't about loose or tight or aggressive or passive - it's about figuring out your opponents' patterns better/faster than they figure out yours.

a good reread