I think SPR, like a lot of general rules and guidelines in poker, is a surface level concept that doesn't get to the root of what's going on. Consider an analogy; the doctor who understands the human body on a systemic level: endocrine system, digestive system, circulatory system, skeletal system, etc. Compare that doctor to one who understands the human body on a cellular level: he understands every type of cell in the body, it's function, and how it interacts with other cells make the body work as a whole. The second doctor knows everything the first doctor knows, and more. So the second doctor, in some instances, will be better equipped to understand and diagnose what is going on with the patient.

Taking the analogy to SPR. The player who thinks in terms of SPR is like the first doctor. Compare him to the player who puts his opponent on a weighted range, thinks about how his opponent will bet those hands, then chooses the betting line that best exploits the opponent. The concept of SPR is already built-in to the second player's understanding of what is going on, except in a more precise way. Instead of accepting that he no longer need to consider folding his hand b/c SPR is too low, he creatively examines his options for betting the hand given his read on villain and chooses the option that figures to make the most money in the long run.

I think we should make decisions on as simple and fundamental a level as possible, which makes poker incredibly situation and villain dependent. A generalization about how strong our hand has to be with certain SPRs before folding is no longer feasible is going to "misdiagnose" the situation at times when a more fundamental understanding would not.

Can't blame a guy for promoting his book...

The problem many part time and mediocre poker players face is you can't force this type of learning. It takes talent, dedication, study away from the table, concentration, guts, understanding of statistics, fortitude, gamble, experience. And experience is not just hours of poker...of course it is time at the table and away from the table working to further your knowledge.

I already said we should cbet appropriately, and double barrel when the cards/villains line up.

But saying that we can basically take away any pot we choose by "not playing like a slot machine" because villains "won't always hit TP" is telling me that the way to beat loose/passive villains (which represent most villains) is to simply barrel them off whatever hand they have most of the time, which simply won't happen.

Double barreling should be part of your ABC poker if your game is sophisticated enough.

So you're playing ABC poker most of the time vs most opponents? That's what I've been saying the whole time.

Sure we can often double barrel LP's if they're peeling super light. That's ABC poker depending on the situation.

If Ed Miller is trying to tell us that ANY double barrels or ANY consideration of player type at all is some kind of crazy Ed Miller (TM) "non-slot machine play" is pretty ridiculous.

You just contradicted yourself. You said most of our money comes from value betting (i.e. ABC poker.) Then you say we don't have to ever make a hand to exploit villains. It's villain and table dependent.

So Ed is basically saying that anyone who asks him a question about "standard lines" doesn't understand poker and should "stop playing ABC," yet most of our money is made through ABC poker. But even then we shouldn't ask what our standard "ABC" line should be vs most villains because we'd just be a "slot machine player" who doesn't get it.

I have standard lines I take in a lot of situations. I change them based on the players, the situations, my image etc. But it's not ridiculous to ask a supposed expert something like "what's your take on donking sets into preflop raisers?"

I totally agree. Unfortunately these players are the most likely to be asking the types of questions that Ed seems (to me) to be brushing off as irrelevant.

Ed Miller is a far better player than I am, so I'm not saying I'm better or he doesn't know what he's talking about.

I am saying that extremely advanced players are unlikely to be reading Cardplayer for serious strategy advice.

I also think that very villain-specific and advanced concepts are difficult to explain/answer in a magazine article. It's not a 2+2 thread where I can spend 3 paragraphs going over my reads.

Double barreling is not ABC poker. Its one of the biggest leaks in llsnl. Why? Because abc poker is bet for value draw for cheap. Bart has tried to change that thinking(he has a video on double barrel merging, I guess its about doubling draws). Depending on flop texture for the most part you can double good turn cards with air and basically barrel loose passive's off their hands with air. Aggressive poker is not abc, in abc poker you have people limping Axs and pps oop/ip, setmining any chance they get without regard of position, that's abc poker. If you want to say I have a standard tag game and sometimes a loose aggressive game when conditions allow me to apply it. Than yes I agree. But that's not what you're saying. I don't limp oop, I don't set mine small pairs without absolute position. The base of my game is I want to be raising first in against limpers. We can't base our game around JJ+,AK,set mining and nut flush mining, that's just bad and that is what ED miller is talking about. Base your game on how people put money in the pot in llsnl then you're on your way to really exploiting the fish without making big hands.

Don't get me wrong I'm not knocking abc poker. ABC poker exploits fish when you make a big hand and they can't fold tpgk. Nothing wrong with that strategy. But the cards have to be in your favor for that to happen. If you use aggression and position your cards really don't matter. Although having cards is great along with hitting sets or TPTK with AK its just not ideal. It leads to wishful thinking and "card dead" rants.

I think we're defining ABC/Slot machine poker differently. I think there's 2 possible definitions.

1) Playing only off your hand and trying to stack donks
2) Having a standard line you take in most spots vs most opponents

I think you and Ed are criticizing #1, which I totally get. We can't become big winning LLSNL players just trying to setmine and stack donks (although you sometimes can at 1/2 or 1/3 if they're that bad). There's nothing wrong with having a standard line you take in most common spots, and then deviating when you have information about villain tendencies, villain's tilt level, images, stack sizes etc.

I'm trying to argue that #2 is our bread and butter. For instance, we're usually going to bet/bet/bet our TPTK or overpair hands vs fish unless we have some reason not to. To me that's our ABC/slot machine poker.

I get that Ed wants to make people aware of important information that factors in hands, but it's a Cardplayer column. It's not like people crushing 5/10 are going to read Cardplayer for hardcore strategy advice. It's not really possible to give detailed reads on villains in a quick strategy question email. So he should expect most people writing in are going to ask him about common situations in LLSNL games against common, predictable fish.

And IMO, we beat those common predictable fish by taking standard lines that might be super exploitable but that fish will never exploit because they have no idea. That's ABC to me.

I get what you are saying. But just because you play lag/tag doesn't mean you don't take standard lines. The key difference in a tag/lag vs ABC tag is that a tag/lag will take the same lines with air otf/ott/otr.

River play is a totally different beast imo. I play that street far different from the flop and the turn. DGAF said something that change my thinking on river play. He said and I'm paraphrasing from Bart Hanson "I'm not in the business of triple barrel bluffing, but when I do I make it look like a value bet". Even though he is midstakes player I still used that in my game. So I might take the b/b/b line with air but very seldom. A lot of factors have to be in place though too many to name.

My point is a ABC TAG style will never do something like that. Like Mpethy says going beyond ABC Tag and playing ABCD poker.

Without considering his stack and how it relates to the size of the pot -- because that's what SPR is?

Another way of looking at it is:

All other things being equal if your have a 100 dollar stack and the pot is a 100 how would you play if differently if you have a 200 stack and the pot is 200?

If you play them the same you care about SPR and not stacksizes and pot sizes. If you play them differently, why?

Something Ed Miller states(likely restating from previous authors) that hits the nail on the head...

A player that learns to bluff at near the correct frequency is by definition a dangerous player.

I'm breaking my response into two parts, first part is my response to the article.

1. I read the article, and it is something of a "EM-lite" article. I mean, he charges for access to his blog, and sells his books, so I understand that.

2. In the days when my "strategy" was to wait for big hands and trick players into paying me off, I thought in slot machine terms. 8.5 to hit a set, avoid draws, and pump money into the pot. Unfortunately, I did'nt factor in how likely other players were to pay me off, and I lost out on so much value. I think that's what EM's trying to get accross here.

3. If you read EM's arguement (not in the article) that Poker can hypothetically be reduced to a highly complex math problem, but that you need to factor in a huge amount of psycology, this article makes a lot more sense. Thankfully, I hav'nt met a computer that can predict if "35 year old shaved head in a polo shirt can lay down X, but raise with Y". If they ever figure that one out, we'll all be off to another game, at least until Skynet takes over.

For the posters who argue that you can't bluff out poor players, you're right, you can't. I play 95%+ of my hours at a casino that has had an absurdly high BBJ for most of the last 7 months, and I regularly get 5 callers to a 10x PFR (at least on the weekends). Usually, villians are effectively pot committed on the turn.

The thing to remember is that (assuming a capped rake) you're also getting "pot odds" here. Yes, you'll miss 2/3 of the time, and some portion of that 1/3 of the time you'll be up against something better. On average, the little postflop play you do get is going to be a heck of a lot better than all of the villians. When you miss, you fold. If you're not sure, bet, and you'll find out. As EM is fond of pointing out, it's hard to make a hand that can stand up to 3 streets of betting.

If you have your villians read right (which is not always easy), you'll value-bet the weak ones, and fold to the strong ones. The hardest part is figuring out who you can knock out, even when you don't have the hand.

Bad players are not unbluffable. Unbluffable players are unbluffable. It almost seems like by your definition weaktight nits are not poor players. That only means that your standard is pretty low.

Sol Reader,

My mistake, I was typing while eating. What I should have said was "you'll value bet the villians with weak hands and fold to the villians who won't fold strong hands". There was more there the first time I typed it, but I rewrote it.

I assure you, I do not believe that WT Nits are "not poor players". Far from it.

The concept of SPR is used to do more than just get players thinking about stack to pot ratio. It is used as a guideline for how strong our hand needs to be before getting all-in is no longer a mistake. With an SPR of X going to the flop, we can safely get all-in with Y hand or better and if we're beat it's just a cooler.

If we're thinking about what range of hands our opponent has, what betting lines we could take, and how our opponent will play the different hands in his range against those betting lines, then we are already taking into account current and future effective stack size relative to the pot plus we figure out how to bet our hand optimally. Thus, we are able to make a decision that will never be worse than someone basing their decision on SPR guidelines and has the possibility of being better in unique cases where the guidelines fail.

I get the SPR on the flop thing. Edit: I misread the post earlier.

But past the flop I think SPR is pretty irrelevant. And even on the flop, I'm not thinking of SPR all the time because fish aren't usually thinking in terms of SPR. If I have a hand like AA, I want action. So I'm willing to set up "bad" SPR's according to Ed etc because I want the action. I don't need to get a certain SPR just to get it in easily.

I think the SPR concept itself is "slot machine poker."

when limp pots and PFR'd pots all go multiway 3-8 people, i'd love to know how i'm supposed to play poker. even if i correctly identify 2 or 3 players in the hand who i COULD bluff, there are OTHER people in there too. i cannot bluff them all at once. at least one of them hit a hand or draw to call me with. not to mention shortstacks who i'd be committing to the hand with at times if i bet the flop significantly.

Play ABC TAG and raise as much as they will call preflop with value hands

exactlyyyyyy

I actually think that maybe we agree but we're just talking about different things.

I guess I take exception with labeling ABC poker "slot machine poker" like it's something stupid fish play.

Everyone should at least be able to play ABC poker, because if you can't be like somewhat breakeven straight up it's highly unlikely you'll be a big winner playing totally unorthodox. It's also important when we're tilting, or tired, or off our game to at least be able to fall back on ABC poker. For new players, ABC poker is really the first thing you should learn.

So even if we consider ABC poker "trying to hit a hand and stack fish," I think it does a disservice to learning players to call it "slot machine poker" like they should try to avoid playing it as fast as possible.

You and me maybe get the distinction and we get why taking in all that other information and adjusting is so important, but then again I don't think that you and me don't need to be told not to play ABC anyway.

I'm not saying I don't play ABC poker. But after reads, table dynamics and I have plans on how I want to attack certain players at the table I adjust to TAG/LAG depending on the opponent.

But my ABC poker is still positionally aware, don't have minor leaks like limping pairs, sc's and trying to flop gin by set mining and flush mining without regards of ranges and absolute position.

I'm still raising 90% of my hands. If not 100%. It just depends on a lot of factors and what hands I get otb.

I would argue that the majority of poker players have serious holes in their ABC poker games. I do a little bit of coaching and I'm constantly surprised at the hands players think are ok to call a raise w OOP or even IP.

Poker reminds me of martial arts. When people take martial arts they are in such a hurry to get to the cool stuff like wheel kicks and roundhouses and jump kicks. Similarly they want to rush through the boring ABC stuff like basic punches and kicks and blocks. They can't wait to get to the five point palm exploding heart technique ...

The reality is that in a real fight, it is he who is master of the basics that will prevail. Same in poker. So many players can't wait to 3-bet bluff or steal or float that oftentimes their ABC foundation is both lacking and flawed...

Just look at most 2p2 posts. Someone posts some situation w a garbage hand and they often preface their post w "yeah, I know you are going to tell me to fold pre so let's skip past that... Now tell me what should I do on this turn..."

Anyways, my point being, most players don't have a fully developed or solid ABC game. ABC poker is both underrated and we take it for granted that we are good at it when truth be told, that isn't always the case

TBH, most people still can't calculate pot odds and still don't know the number of outs.

Care to elaborate on the Bold. My first question was does he mean bet sizing or hand strength more than the other, or both.
I ask cause I consider you to have an extremly tested and tried and successful understanding of what rec fish/donks will and will not call. So I am very interested to see any elaboration on such an understanding.


Thanks

If I had to guess I'd say he's not coming out of hiding to answer.

There is actually a long debate whether the person you quoted actually understand any of what rec fish/donks will do, let alone firm understanding.

Although most fish think alike, there are still subcategories of how fish behave. Some are calling fish, some are aggrofish, and some are simply ABC fish.

Your biggest problem is that LLSNL games are slow and sample size is very limited, and because of lack of sample size, it can be rather high variance to put some of the fish into proper subcategories.