Agree 100%.

this is where i think you are wrong...... and right, depending how you look at the problem of bluffing like phil said previously ( imo, tho i might be wrong) :

and what i meant : when trying to play GTO, you try not to maximise profit but to play unexploitably and make sure u get maximum value from your value hand.
So the bolded part in your statement about requisite profit from bluffing is wrong if you think about playing GTO !
Bluffing GTO means you bluff to break even to make sure your value hand get paid, so any hand you choose to bluff do not matter much, so you choose the worst hand to maximise your value with your worst hand.

If u want to make profit with value hand AND bluffing hand, now you try to win more pot then you should, hence you do not play GTO but exploitably .
Now using "better" bluffing hand is needed because you bluff more then you should.
So you will get call more often and so you need better bluffing hand to cancel the negative of being call lighter because you will get there more often with your bluff with higher equity instead of bluffing with your dead hands.
In turn you will be able to value bet lighter as well.

like i said you deviate from GTO and this strats is good vs calling station or anyone calling to much at the risk of being exploited by better player tho.


make sense ?

ps: it is late

The bold is true on the river, but I believe it to be false on the flop and turn because if both players are playing their part in a Nash equilibrium then every hand will be maximizing it's expectation. It's only the threshold bluffs that should be breakeven. On the river, bluffs have 0% equity, thus they're all threshold bluffs and will be breakeven.

Of course I could be wrong and draws may have a higher ev if played straight forwardly, but intuitively this seems wrong to me because by playing our draws straight forwardly, we forfeit the ability to win the pot unimproved.

when you win with a bluff, it does not matter how much equity you have with it
if your oppoenent fold right ?

but it matters a lot when you bluff with the best hand tho, you did not gain anything while bluffing with worst hand you gain hugely.

it is another way to maximse your entire range , cause what you ttry to do is maximise your entire range equity on the river not just try to win more pot by lowering your lost when you are wrong by bluffing with better draws wich you should get to the river anyway and bluff with it still

I wrote some probably useless equations:

First, there's the opportunity cost of not betting a particular hand. Let's call this "OC"

Second, there's the gain of equity realized when we check. Let's call this "ER" for equity realized.

Third, there's the gain of bluffing with equity. Let's call this "BG" for bluffing gain.

Fourth, there's the cost to our checking range by not checking a particular hand. Let's call this "CC" for checking cost.

Finally, there's the cost to our betting range when we get check raised. Let's call this "FC" for fold cost.

If: ER - OC > BG - CC - FC then we should check.

If: ER - OC < BG - CC - FC then we should bet.

Did I miss any gains or costs?

I think by looking at the extreme opponent models, and the effect of these models on various bluffing hands, we might be able to draw some conclusions regarding which hands to bluff and which hands to check.

Evidence? Probably not, but I took a shot:

http://forumserver.twoplustwo.com/15...ction-1422146/

Hi, On pg. 237, you give some concrete examples of what types of boards and what types of hands we could consider donk-checking ( In SB v. BB ). You showed the board of K52 and suggested donk checking from the SB with Qx and Jx type hands. But what is the plan post flop with these hands? suppose we have QJ or Q7 or J8. Are we check calling one time and without improvement check folding? If the turn bricks, say by pairing the brd, are we check calling twice? Or do we just check fold these right away?
Thanks

Yeah I mean the first key point is that the donk-checking range needs to be made so that there are a whole bunch of different hands in there.

The key reason for having a donk-checking range in the first place is that with you being out of position and with a relatively weak range on certain boards always c-betting should be very exploitable. I mention the Qx Jx hands because they seem like prime candidates to donk-check: they are too weak to value bet and also too strong to bluff.

Basically a lot depends on board development; if the board gets better for your opponent's range then you'll have to give up more. Still you'll want to progress with some of these hands (perhaps getting to showdown with some weak Ax or pairs this way). You'll also want to mix in some check-raises with this range to keep your opponent guessing. I've always felt that hands which totally cripple the deck and your opponent's hand range (e.g. top set) are good candidates for this.

I think this ties into what we talked about earlier regarding bet 3 betting the top of our range in 3+ bet games. If we're betting the top of our range hoping to 3 bet, then there should be a region just below that for check raising. Here's an example where I proposed seat of the pants range breakdown:

http://forumserver.twoplustwo.com/17...layer-1395127/

Though this example is for the turn, I think flop range construction will follow the same trend.

Yeah the same ideas can often be applied to different situations. That's the nice thing I like about the GTO style. When you come to adding extra strategies to your game, such as donk-checking the flop, this is made much easier by having learned to balance similar branches before.

Hi Phil,

I've been toying with the ideas of fold equity and draw equity for a while now. I'm almost convinced that maximizing draw equity when called isn't just an important factor, but it's the only factor on dynamic boards specifically because the opponent will be calling at a rate higher than that which would cause indifference.

Likewise, a static board should, imo, be defined as one that allows the opponent to fold at a rate higher than that which would cause indifference.

On page 70, under "Draws to Bet," you list "draws with close to no equity."

I like this for static boards because the opponent will be allowing immediate profit when we hold napkins, but i dislike it for dynamic boards because this wouldn't maximize draw equity when called.

I remember our conversation upthread about the cost to our checking range, but I think that by forfeiting our opportunity to win the hand unimproved with our strongest draws, we lose more value than our checking range would gain with the inclusion of our strongest draws.

What about our junk hands with no equity on dynamic boards? I think these are clear checks due to a lack of sufficient fold equity. Am I worried about someone exploiting my junk range by bluffing more? No. So what if they make me fold my junk hands on the next street after I check back? By betting too much they become bluff heavy themselves and my bluffcatchers gain while my junk hands get outta Dodge.

Hi Bob,

Ultimately, distinctions such as "draw equity" and "fold equity" are arbitrary at best, and what we want to be maximizing is total equity. There do seem to be arguments pointing in both directions, which would seem to say that neither strong/extreme position is accurate.

With poker, it's always a case of starting off with a strategy that is simplified in one or more respects, digging a bit deeper into the theory, and then discovering the cases where complication helps more in terms of unexploitability than it does in terms of making your strategy unnecessarily difficult to execute.

This is why I enjoy looking at bot data so much, since they are completely external of our subjective biases. I'm too busy with school to go looking into bot databases to investigate this issue further, but I'm happy to guide you if this is something you wanted to pursue.

Phil

That's cool Phil. I hope school is going well. If I was to investigate the bluffing frequencies of bots, I'd probably start by looking at "might be the best hand draws" such as King high or Ace high flushdraws, King high or Ace high straight draws, and those that are a combination of both. My hypothesis is that with these hands, we'll see high pot share bluffs on the flop and turn and lots of giving up on the river. I think this will be somewhat evident that making better hands fold on the early streets is not a condition of bluffing range construction.

Then I think I'd look at pure bluffs, which I think will be given up on the early streets unless the board is such that it dictates a high folding frequency for the opponent.

For example:

huhu

small blind raises 54, big blind calls

flop: 8TJ

big blind checks, small blind?

Here I think that there is not enough fold and draw equity to result in a high enough pot share for the small blind to bluff with, resulting in a check down unimproved to the river, where this hand will be turned into a bluff if checked to.

another example:

huhu

small blind raises, 54, big blind calls

flop: AAT

big blind checks, small blind?

Here I think that the board will dictate a high folding frequency for the big blind, resulting in a bluff with 54 and other hands with a similar pot share, as well as the high equity broadway draws and flushdraws. This may seem unbalanced towards bluffs on the surface, but I think that the big blind will have no choice but to continue folding a lot on such a board, otherwise the big blind would have to pay off on the flop with very weak hands, which would in turn benefit the small blinds strategy as a whole.

Of course, it's tough to find the fine line between a static board and a dynamic one if we're using the opponent's folding frequency as a qualifier. I'm not sure, but perhaps this could provide reassurance to your HLM and DQM scores.

Changing the subject a bit:

A friend of mine is currently employing a mixed strategy, but in a way that I either don't understand or in a way that I think is wrong. He's donk check raising "sometimes" with the very top of his range on the flop, which I think is a clear bet 3 bet spot. I think mixing should or will occur only on the margins where both decisions have the same expected value because to do otherwise would be missing value somewhere and it would therefore not be gto.

This was reconciled in the poker theory forum. The reason the out of position player can fold so much is because the stronger bluffs of the in position player's range have a shred of showdown value against the out of position player's checking range. So the out of position player folds enough to make the in position player indifferent between the two +ev decisions of bluffing and checking back.

Interestingly, the bigger the pot is, the more the out of position player bets, which leads to a weakened checking range. This increases the ev of checking back for the in position player and therefore the out of position player folds more relative to bet/pot compared with the folding frequency seen in the smaller pot.

However, I do still believe that there is a threshold between static boards and dynamic boards which should be defined.

I think there will be "general case of symmetrical ranges" definitions and "special case of asymmetrical ranges" definitions. I just can't put my finger on these definitions yet.

page 25 paragraph 4 sentence 2 ?

cross posted w/ PM to philnewall
Sorry for the bother.

in the discussion entitled Principle No. 5 the following sentence ( Page 25 Paragraph 4 sentence 2 ) sent me into somewhat of a trance.

It reads, "If a hand is neither a favorite against an opponents calling range and doesn't force a worse hand to fold , then aggression accomplishes nothing",

shouldn't our aggression be better served through forcing a superior hand to fold rather than a worse one?

that is shouldn't we be concerned with getting a worse hand to call through an up beat in aggression?

I.e. page 25 Paragraph 3 sentence 2 " Aggression forces opponents to fold or to pay off bets with the second best hand..."

these two quotes seem to contradict one another. OR am I missing something?

Hi yeah Timmer I believe you're correct. Sorry for the confusion, the odd error does tend to creep in when writing a book of this length!

One of the problems with normally impeccable information sources. easy to slip up and interpolate ones-self back into darkness.

I put up my preflop and flop strategies for discussion in the micro limit forum. The only link between that thread and FLH is my donk checking strategy sb v btn for 3 bets, which I've been experimenting with on boards that cap my range and uncap my opponent's range.

Here's the thread:

http://forumserver.twoplustwo.com/35...s-imo-1479761/

Anyone and everyone is encouraged to respond.

hey phil long time no see. only issues I ever had with both of your books:

the flop analysis model was a novelty in retrospect. interesting nonetheless, but insignificant as far as strategic application.

the definition of balance on page 23 in Further Limit Holdem is decent imo, but here's what I think a more intuitive explanation looks like:

https://forumserver.twoplustwo.com/3...020-a-1770769/

Nice definition Bob! I'm sure things have moved on since I hung up my minbets 7 years ago