Quote:
Originally Posted by Abbaddabba
GTO strategy with infinitely deep stacks is basically not play a hand in early position.
I believe this is wrong, seems like many people just want to agree with ZJ because it is ZJ here.
I don't have a reference handy, but I'm pretty sure that in [0,1] toy games (both discrete and continuous) with NL betting over multiple streets, and infinite stacks, involve a lot of hands that get played. Now, holdem has blockers and it has draws, but I'd imagine that it is similar. One way to imagine it is this: as the OOP player, choose any range (mixed or otherwise) you want. The BTN will have 100%. You will start play with no preflop street -- play starts with a new flop being dealt. Which player would you rather be, infinite bets deep? If you think the OOP player has the advantage, then there is obviously merit to play preflop.
Now, in the discussion of playing AA vs more hands preflop, it is true that bluffcatching is a fast way to get owned on postflop. But basically the hingepoint is "can you have the nuts?" Obviously if it goes 5 bets preflop (say,) and you are dumb so you can only have AA+, with infinite stacks you are going to get owned postflop.
But when you have a more carefully crafted [read: GTO] range, it keeps your opponent in check, by limiting the amount of pressure he can put on you, since a certain % of the time you will have the nuts on almost all boards. That is, when you 5bet pre, you have AA a lot, but you also can have other hands that make the nuts. This is a mixed strategy.. you have AA, but also sometimes other hands -- other pairs, big suited cards, etc. Some of the time you get AQs you will fold, but a very small amount of the time you will play the flop. Same with a ton of other hands. So when the flop comes K32 or 887 or whatever, your in reasonable shape.
Additionally, say your opponent has a blocker to the nuts, eg. say the board is a 3 flush unpaired board, and they have the ace of spades only. On the river, they can still only balance naked ace bluffs with made hands in about a 1:1 ratio -- if they bluffed more than half the time, you could bluffcatch the Kx flush.
Both the fact that one must be valuebetting to bluffing in a better than 50% ratio on the river (the ratio gets smaller for the turn and flop because of the threat of betting, but it is still a ratio), as well as the fact that the OOP player can still have the nuts, keeps the betting heavily limited; both because the BTN player could risk too much and just get shown the nuts -- and more subtly, because the OOP player can checkraise bluff, discouraging extra-large bet sizes.
Last edited by Alex Wice; 01-25-2010 at 12:03 PM.