I think the most popular ways to randomize IRL are to use the seconds hand of your watch, the 16 combos of suits on your cards, or even the suits on the board.

Short of taking out your phone and using an RNG or flipping a coin/spinning a chip, what are some other ways to randomize?

Bencb said randomizing in soft live games is pretty f..king stupid and i would agree

And he’s right. I’m just curious to see if there are any other useful ways to randomize.

Honestly, the way I “randomize” in love games is just by taking my opponent’s play-styles into consideration.

I mentioned this in another thread, but I had a hand the other day where UTG raised and I had TT in the LoJack. This is a mixed strategy for me: I’ll 3-bet about 75% of the time and call 25% of the time. How do I decide what to do? Well…in this hand, the UTG player was extremely aggressive (he’d 4-bet me earlier and was playing his draws for stacks), so I “randomized” that this would be one of the times I just called.

That’s pretty much all you need. If you’re in a spot that can go either way, “randomize” by using your best guess about your opponent’s play-style. If you’re 50-50 on a bluff, but you look at your opponent and he’s a drunk 25-year-old with face tattoos, “randomize” into just giving up this time, and save your bluff for the middle-aged cubicle drone in khakis and a polo.

The ways you listed are prob sufficient, at 5-10-25 I just use an rng for flop only and just do it three at a time and remember the output, against fish still just playing face up value heavy…also not using it for multi-…also river spots prob should never be RNGed at live poker (even 5-10+) just go with population reads if individual ones are unavailable ( underbluffed fold all mixes, overbluffed call accordingly with your mixes)

There is zero reason to randomize at 1/2 or 1/3. Mix it up if you play against the same 20 people every day but randomizing is for the most part pointless. If you want to do it there are many obvious options.

Yeah even at 2-5 or against weaker regs at 5-10, for example if the theory says c/r 20% and weak reg population c/r at 10Â…your mixes donÂ’t matter since your new strategy bets wayy more oftenÂ…mixes only matter if the V is able to exploit your new pure strategy.

Like if the theory has a 10 percent check back with the nuts IP on 789r ,but you bet pure, then on like a Kr, 6 runout OOP can go bombs away with Tx knowing that the best you can do is chop…how many live regs are at that point…

Interesting, can you please elaborate what you mean? “just do it three at a time and remember the output”

I believe randomizing your actions on a specific hand only makes sense when the villains are paying enough attention that they are noting what you playing and have enough history to start accurately putting you on a range. Unlike on-line, the person needs to be putting a lot of effort into writing hands to make that database. At high stakes where the player pool is very small and you are playing the same people over and over again, it makes some sense. At low stakes, the player pool is larger and most of the players don't know what a range is, let alone be able to think about putting someone on it. Absolutely not necessary.

Just in like the random.org app, you don’t even need to really remember the exact number…obviously it looks bad if you are trying to do it every hand and since it prob is of marginal usefulness just keep it on the DL if you decide to

As you are shuffling your chips stop and look at the direction the letters/numbers are pointing towards. If it’s right go with the aggressive action and if it’s left go with passive.

the only randomizing live that is valueable is preflop imo; you can't always 4bet/3bet certain combos, and you'll want some hands in the calling range or 3bet range and even then it only makes sense if there's only good regs left to act

you can use suits for that pretty easily

postflop the easiest way that doesn't require anything is to imagine one of your chips as a clock with 12oclock being 1, and then the rotation back around to 12 being 100, then as you shuffle or move chips you can use that

While as stated it’s not “necessary” at low stakes (I agree), I don’t think that means there isn’t any benefit.

Two major benefits IMO of balancing your play at live stakes:

- most have aspirations to move up. Playing balanced becomes increasingly important the higher you go.

So, why train/practice thousands of hours at low stakes and not work on skills that you will need? Doesn’t make a lot of sense.

That being said, you can adjust your frequencies to allow for optimal play at low stakes. Instead of something like a 30% frequency, make it 5 or 10%. That way you’re still making the right play for the game at hand, but you are training yourself to pay attention to spots that you’ll need for later play.

Or change what might be a large % bluff at more skilled game to very low at low limits because of calling stations. Then use the rng to pick those spots as long as it’s not going to be a complete punt. Sacrificing a small amount of EV while “training” in a live environment can be much better +EV in the long run.


- most over or under bluff or over or under 3! Live low stakes.

And everyone seems to think they can balance their play off the top of their head. Which humans are absolutely awful at. We aren’t even remotely good at keeping track of long term past actions.

Allowing the rng to make the decision for you will help alleviate that.



Obviously your frequencies will need to be adjusted for the live low stakes.

But IMO, if utilized properly and not do things line take a straight equilibrium bluffing strategy in a game full of stations…..

Then you will benefit more in the long term training yourself for more balanced play when it’s needed.

Thanks to all that provided methods to randomize. Quite helpful!