Ok, thanks for answering so quickly. I used to play NL100 in the good old days, then switched to SNG's, now starting again on NL10 I think. Cash game is just a lot more fun

I dont have the book yet, but the entire preflop section is outdated o_O? Or are you just not content with parts of it... I just dont wanna absorb the wrong information, lol

Is it helpful for micros like 5nl and 10nl.

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Matthew, how did you decide on the recommended cold calling ranges in the preflop recommended hand chart section? Something that I personally struggle with a lot when it comes to cold calling, is that the cold caller seem to be highly vulnerable to being squeezed by players that are still to act. Is the onus almost entirely on the original preflop raiser to defend vs. 3bets after one or more cold callers, and then a squeeze? Would this mean that the original raiser has to defend extremely wide vs. a squeeze to prevent the 3better from auto-profiting?

This is certainly a nice book, but it is full of typos, mistakes and miscalculations that it hurts. Since lots of conclusions are based on previous chapters, the author should use more references and make clear when stuff is just based on assumptions.

I remember the quote on p. 111 "Now let's return to the previous situation where a bet sizing of 57 percent of the pot is going to be utilized...." asking myself which previous situation? Where did he mention betsizes of 57% before? So I went through 110 pages trying to find it and failed. Stuff like that shouldn't happen.

Last but not least, the rake gets ignored, so all calculations based on potodds may look super precise, but in fact they are not.

I'd encourage others to respond to this, but my guess is there are better books out there for players playing that low (though I'm not sure which one is best).

If you want to buy the book to read later and read Part 1 now, or if you have a friend who you can borrow the book from to read Part 1 now then that might be a good idea. I think Part 1 clears up a lot of stuff a lot of stuff many players are confused about.

I still use the methodology discussed in the pre-flop section now to players design ranges (usually MSNL players, sometimes SSNL or even HSNL). For example, it's very useful to know how much money the button is on average paying to see a flop post-flop (this tells us what our EV post-flop must be with our weakest button opening hand for opening to be profitable) so that's something we check pretty often. Likewise, we'll also want to see what the SB's expected value must be post-flop after the worst 3-bet in the small blind 3-betting range is called. For both of these calculations the methodology is exactly the same as presented in the book.

That said, I think the pre-flop ranges I made (despite them being my best guess at the time and spending many hours on them) are not very good, especially with how players play now (flatting 3-bets more aggressively, which encourages us to 3-bet more high equity hands even if they do poorly against a 4-bet).

A lot of analyzing pre-flop play is coming up with a strategy which might make sense. Most players pre-flop ranges (especially when the book was being written) are super obviously exploitable, so while we can't prove what's right pre-flop we want to at least have ranges which might make sense then refine them over time.

Compared to what I used to, I now prefer to cold call less in every spot except for the big blind and 3-bet a bit more aggressively. Since we are 3-betting the opener more aggressively, it makes sense that we don't need to defend by calling as aggressively as now the opener is effectively paying more money to see a flop (since he has to fold more often pre-flop now).

With regards to facing a squeeze, I'm pretty ok with calling with a capped range so long as I'm in position (which I usually will be since I never flat in the SB vs any open anymore).

So for example, say the CO opens and we flat in the button. If our best hands are AQ/AJs/ATs/KQs/TT-88/etc, I still think we can defend a reasonable amount of time against a squeeze even if we never **WANT** to be squeezed. In other words, we'll call with a lot of hands (let's say KJs for example) where we think calling the squeeze is +EV relative to folding even if we expect to lose money overall. It's kinda similar to how I now 3-bet in the BB against a button open with many hands that hate getting 4-bet (KJo, KQo, KJs, 99, etc).

Obviously the CO will also defend against a squeeze a bunch, and unlike us the CO has some hands where he's pretty happy to see a squeeze (QQ+/AK). But just because we're never happy to call a squeeze after originally flatting in the button doesn't me we can't do it.

General game theory question.
In your book on page 100, you give the proper defending frequency as Y= 1/(X+1) where X is the bet size in terms of pot sized bets. Another Author I read(Norman Zadeh in "Winning Poker Systems" ) states one should fold all hopeless hands, and then call with 1/(X+1) of the remaining hands. His reasoning being, that if your opponent the bluffs you off a hopeless hand, he has not really gained anything. Unless there are no actual hopeless hands in your range this will clearly be a lesser frequency than the one in the book.
Lets say that on the flop, using the above equation, you should call 80% of your range. But let's just say, perhaps unrealistically, that 80% of your range compromises all reasonable hands, the remaining 20% having almost no equity. My dilemma is if you defend less that 80% of the time your opponent can profit by betting any two cards. However if you call 80% of the time you are calling with all hands that have any chance of winning. So the opponent does not really gain by bluffing. Therefore, he should never bluff. Can you clear this up for me?

Have you put up anything regarding the changes you would make to pages 81-86?

Thanks.

Edit: Somehow missed post #732..lol. Still, it would be cool to see something of updated tables for those pages.

Also, I saw Snowie's preflop ranges and wondered how people felt about those. I've not done much work in this area yet.

I think he's wrong based only on what you're saying (I haven't read his book and don't know if I'm misunderstanding something). I just google searched the book and it's also almost 40 years old so it might be better to go with books which are a bit more modern as poker is understood a lot better now than it was 40 years ago.

EDIT: To be clear I'm not trying to bash old books, just saying the game is developing very quickly so a lot of advice becomes outdated pretty quickly. When he wrote this book maybe that was a good rule of thumb that helped him and his readers beat live games.

I don't think he's wrong. Eg. if your opponent can either jam or check the river, then you call so that he is indifferent between checking and jamming but NOT so that his jams have EV=0. Those two may be the same but are not necessarily so.

If even his worst hands have some nonzero equity when checked then his EV of bluff jamming should be >0 because his EV of checking is >0. So folding all hands that can't beat his bluffs and then calling 2/3 of your remaining hands would be correct strategy in this case (assuming a PSB behind.)

edit: In many cases it may be true that for an opponent checking with his weakest hands has EV zero, but I think the previous author's result is correct and more general, whereas the result that we call so that bluffing has EV=0 is a simplified case using one assumption which works perfectly in nuts/air vs bluffcatcher, but not necessarily in all other situations.

Thank you for response, I was genuinely puzzled. In thinking it over later though the only hands which would have absolutely 0 EV on the flop might be something like 6 or 7 high with no draws against an EP raise in say a 9 handed game. This would probably be a tiny % of you range anyway.
As to the book it was on draw poker, but I thought that game theory would be invariant among poker forms.

BTW your book was ground breaking IMO even though quite difficult (for me anyway).

Did anyone find where the 57% on p. 111 came from yet?

It came from the formula he uses to bet equal proportions of pot on each street to bet all-in on the river. So he raises villain's cbet .57 pot on the flop then continues betting .57 pot on the turn and river.

First of all, the book is very insightful and well written. I'd recommend it to anyone who is trying to improve their game.

I have some questions about applying the value-to-bluff ratio formula. In the flop play section where you prove that playing out of position with a marginal hand is troublesome, you apply the value-to-bluff ratio formula to find out the ratio of valuebets-to-bluffs that the player in position should have. Because the equity of both his "value-bets" and "bluffs" are high (approximately 88% and 28%), the value-to-bluff ratio should only be 0,105.

If we put ourselves in the shoes of the player in position, we open ourselves up to check-raises. If we want to remain unexploitable, we are forced to defend 50% of our betting range, and 3bet and float with a lot of gutshots/overcards etc.

But what happens when the effective stack sizes are shallow? Assume they are exactly the amount with which the stacks will get in with three bets (flop, turn, river), on which the value-to-bluff formula is based. According to the value-to-bluff formula, we should still have a value-to-bluff ratio of 0,105. But since we are forced to felt a weak range because our range contains so many bluffs and stacks are shallow, we give villain the incentive to widen his flop check/raising range dramatically, to the point where villain will check/raise the flop and stack off with TPGK+.

So basically, my question is : Does our optimal value-to-bluff ratio deviate from the formula when the SPR decreases?

Still can't find it. Do you have the page?

It's introduced on page 91

To be clear, optimal play will usually involve betting hands on the flop that aren't clear "value bets" or "bluffs" as well. A model is really just useful to help us understand concepts rather than play help us play absolutely perfectly (which is completely impossible for all practical purposes).

That said, with less stack depth you need a greater portion of your betting range to be stronger hands. So if you have lots of stack depth and are betting on the flop you can be bluffing a lot (and will thus have to call your opponent's raises with weaker hands as you already mentioned), whereas if stacks are shall you should be bluffing less and when your opponent raises you won't have to call as many weak hands (as a smaller % of the hands in your range will be weak to begin with).

Let me know if it's clear now.

I'm a bit confused by your post (but again I've never read the previously mentioned book), but I thought we were discussing defending against bets in all spots (such as on the flop).

FWIW, I've seen players actually advocate folding all of their "very weak" hands on the flop and then only defend like 60% of their remaining hands. I believe they were misapplying a concept they read somewhere else or confused about something, as this quickly resulted in them folding way too much and their ranges being way too strong.

I probably should have pointed this out before but this is not true. Even pure air hands (0% equity) often can often make +EV bets, provided they are part of an overall stronger range.

I'm sure you have experience bluffing on the river when OOP and making an opponent fold a better hand IP (say you bluff go all-in with KT on a QJ527 board and make your opponent fold T9). It might feel like your "bluff" didn't do anything, but if you would have checked your opponent probably would have bet and made you fold the better hand. So making a player fold a 0 equity hand does matter and often quite a bit.

Shandrax,

My interpretation of the section you're referring to is that he is indeed introducing that bet sizing for the first time (deliberately so) but it's just clumsily worded. The thing he's 'returning to' is the general situation at hand, not the sizing (which I think he attempts to show is now being introduced by the use of the future tense in 'going to be utilized'). I agree it's not great writing.

Also never read the book.

Agree with you here.

Attempt to clarify my previous post, starting with the river and working backwards:

In a nuts/air vs bluffcatcher (NA and BC going forward), BC calls enough so that NA's bluffs have EV 0. If he called less, NA could increase his EV by bluffing more. Note that the EV of NA checking his air is 0, he always loses. BC is calling enough so that EV(check air)=EV(bluff air) which in this case so happens to equal 0.

Take the same situation except now BC has 90% bluffcatchers and 10% nut lows. Then BC should NOT call enough so that NA's bluffs have EV 0. If he did so, NA could increase his EV by never bluffing. Instead, BC should call enough that for NA EV(check air)=EV(bluff air) which is not zero but instead 0.1P. Therefore BC should fold his 10% air and call the appropriate % of the remaining 90% of hands (50% of the 90% or 45% of his total river range for a PSB.)

As applied to earlier streets, your goal is not to defend against a bet enough so that the EV of betting his weakest hand is 0, because your opponent's alternative to betting is not folding, it's checking. Your goal is to defend against a bet so that the EV of betting his worst hand = EV of checking said worst hand. This may or may not be 0.

So what I was trying to say in my previous post is that the idea:
defend enough so EV(bet worst hand)=0
is just a simplified version of:
defend enough so EV(bet worst hand)=EV(check worst hand)
where you're assuming EV(check worst hand)=0.

This assumption is correct for pure nuts/air vs bluffcatcher but may not be in other situations or on other streets.

I believe all of the above is correct but would be happy to be shown otherwise! Also, feel obliged to mention I thought your book was excellent and think it's pretty cool how much time you've spent replying to the many posts ITT.

I appreciate Janda's reply where he explains why Villain gains from bluffing hands even when Hero has zero equity. But I want to address this specific issue that you raise. If, relying on pot odds on the river, say, you must defend x% of your range on pain of allowing your opponent to profitably bet any two cards, then, surely, defending with a smaller frequency will yield a negative expectation on the river. But the source of your dilemma is (or is equivalent to) the worry that your range might not contain enough hands that are strong enough to make such a calling frequency profitable (or neutral EV) against villain's whole betting range. But if that's the case then that means that you may indeed need to call with a lower than x% frequency in the case where you have such a weak range on the river. But that only means that you made some mistake on an earlier street and only now are paying the price for that mistake.

A correct GTO strategy must be such that, whatever actions occurs on earlier streets, you must get to the river with a hand range that is strong enough not to allow Villain to exploit you at the end of the day, unless, of course, he is only being reimbursed (on the river) a cost that he has paid earlier on in the hand (e.g. within some branches of the whole EV-tree that don't make it to the river, or that do make it following different actions).

Sure it is, but betting exactly 57% of the pot doesn't get mentioned anywhere. I hate stuff like that falling out of the sky.

57% does appear on p. 56, but only as success ratio for 4-betting.

I guess that is what it comes down to.


P.S.:
Talking about numbers falling from the sky. The same goes for opening 45% on the button. This magic number can be traced back to an essay from Andy Bloch that people seem to take for granted.

http://forumserver.twoplustwo.com/15...guide-1426349/

I see what your are saying. But suppose you got to a street via a unusual sequence because of which the ranges are asymmetrical?
Ex. You see the flop as the blind against an EP opener.
Or say you check behind on the turn with the part of your flop bluffing range
which you had planned to give up on the turn. In both cases your range would contain hands which are pretty hopeless.