It's neither fast nor slow. It depends on what you're doing while reading. If mason is reading, interpreting, understanding, taking notes etc it's a fine speed. If one was to simply read the book and not critically analyse it (wouldn't be much point in that), you could probably do the whole thing in a few days.

I assume Mason is doing the former.

Hi mark;

No. It's more of a function of when I get to it. However I'm reading now.

Best wishes,
Mason

Hi Everyone:

Time for discussion. As I'm reading, I do mark things that I think need some fixing and for sake of discussion I thought we could start with his multiwayness. And to be fair it just may be that what I'll mention here is covered later in the book.

First, Clarke never mentions that the pot is bigger. This means your c-bet doesn't have to work as often . Now generally the probability of a successful c-bet goes down faster than the pot is going up, but it still needs to be accounted for.

The second error I see is the idea that in multiway pots your opponents will all call at the same frequency. This usually is not the case as players in the middle will often give up on their bluff catchers because they're afraid of an over call that will beat them. By the way, you see this, I believe, in all poker games and is consistent with my understanding of game theory where most of the calling burden is placed on the person last to act. So unless this is addressed later, in my opinion it's a serious because more light c-bets should be profitable, especially if the last to act does not understand that the majority of the calling burden is on him.

Best wishes,
Mason

With regards to the multiway cbetting point, I would explain it in the same way as Pete, as it makes modelling simpler, and in my experience, while the last to act player probably defends a bit tight, the others will defend too loose (for instance, most people are never folding A2 to a cbet 4-way on an A hi board with poor relative position).

Hi Mason,

Perhaps I'm misunderstanding, but this would only be the case if the size the of the c-bet in a multiway pot is smaller relative to the size of the pot and I don't see what that assumption is based on.

This isn't mentioned.

Mason

Hand #24:

Hero has AdQd and the flop is KcJh6c. The question is how large a c-bet should be.

Author writes:

Notice that this is a reason to bet small since pocket pairs only have two outs to a better hand.

Isn't this another reason to bet smaller since Hero won't want to lose his opponent? But yet Clarke recommends a larger c-bet. And most important he doesn't mention the idea that with this flop many good draws are available to Villian where you would want to bet large.

Mason

One more. In the very next sub-chapter.

Why? If he's only going to be called by hands that "fit," unless your hand is extremely strong, why bet large since when called (or raised) you can easily be beat.

Mason

Against a fit-or-fold fish, I presume being raised indicates a very strong hand, which won't happen very often at all, so it's not a large concern. With regards to betting bigger to build a bigger pot, I think the point is that the fish will be calling with plenty of hands that "fit", but this definition will be very different for a fish. I suspect these kinds of fish will consider A6 a "fit" on a 26Qr board, and thus when we have hands like QJ/KQ we want to be building a bigger pot with a bigger cbet, to punish the relative looseness of the fish.

If that's the case it should be explained. I don't think fit-or-fold is defined at all.

Generally the author talks about fish that call down too wide which would be consistent with your A6 example. In my mind that's not consistent with fit-or-fold. You also need to understand that books like this are written for beginning/intermediate players who won't necessarily know what the author has in mind unless it's well defined.

Mason

Now this is from the value bet chapter:

While it's certainly nice to find these additional bets, unless you're able to find a bunch of them by definition they won't add much to your overall return.

Also in this section the idea of getting called by a range where your equity is 50+ percent is stressed, and this is true when your bet puts you all in. But if you're not all-in you probably want a little better than 50 percent since you may occasionally get raised.

I just want to add that despite the above comments I thought this was a very good chapter.

Mason

Now I'm in the calling chapter.

1. The Gap Concept is a term coined by David Sklansky and it first appeared in his book Tournament Poker for Advanced Players

2. I suspect this is cleaned up later in the book but Clarke shows that against a 14% range only KK and AA should go to three bets. Given that's the case, I suspect the Game Theory experts would recommend only calling with these hands to hide information.

3. Concerning flopping a set:

Shouldn't this be 25.5 since 3BB are coming from Hero's call?

Mason

Hi Everyone:

My reading is done for the day and I'll be returning to my much slower pace.

I do want to state that based on what I've read this is a very good book despite some of my comments. Assuming the quality remains the same, it should be very helpful to many of you trying to improve your games.

Best wishes,
Mason

Maybe you've missed this, but it is accounted for under the 'Multiwayness' section of Chapter 4.

"Without going into the specifics of any exact situation, let's assume that, on average, on this dry flop our c-bet yields a fold 60% of the time vs. this player. In this case, we'd be very happy c-betting even with minimal equity hands as we'll win the pot often enough and it's doubtful that this opponent is going to punish us for c-betting a wide range (he's straightforward remember.)
Now let's add two more equally straightforward players to the mix and see what this does to our fold equity. Let's assume that because we're now four-handed the other players recognise that they need to be even tighter with their continuing ranges to a c-bet. Let's say now that each folds 70% of the time. Recall that to find the probability of X, Y and Z all occurring we multiply the three individual probabilities together.
0.7 x 0.7 x 0.7 = 34.3%"

I've increased individual fold equity from each player by 10% to account for this and explained why.

I've introduced success rates for bluffs including cbets as functions of RFE (Required Fold Equity) RFE (before adjustment for pot equity and future advantages) is Risk / Risk + Reward. C-bet sizing is always in relation to the pot. I don't think that the pot being larger is relevant at all as the c-bet size will still be some % of this pot and RFE will be calculated in the way the reader is already familiar with.

It might be true that in multiway pots we can afford to size our c-bets a bit smaller in relation to the pot due to each individual opponent probably folding a bit more on average, but this is a separate point and does not concern bet sizing in abosolute terms or the pot being larger per se.

This part does not concern bet-sizing but is an argument in favour of c-betting. Sizing is discussed just after this, Here is the full quote:

Interesting point. With our hand there is a trade off if we consider this spot in a vacuum.

1. On the one hand we'll lose some EV from making more of villain's range fold

2. But on the other hand we gain EV by building a much bigger pot to value bet into with this part of our range when villain does continue and this pot building effect is exponential for the whole hand.

We can't just consider the first point without looking at the second.

Overall Hero's range has more incentive to build a bigger pot here as more of it is value betting than in some other c-bet spot. That said not so much is value betting that we don't still want fold equity.

I think the main point is that when our bluffing range contains some good draws and when we'll be checking back some more middle strength hands we'll be polarised with high-ish equity bluffs and so overall our range prefers a larger sizing. This may not be covered in full detail yet as the book is progressive. Contrast this to a spot where we're making a small c-bet in position weak range vs range to protect equity and grab fold equity right away.

Correct. The idea is that the fish's range is very inelastic meaning that he's unlikely to start folding much more if it to larger sizing. He has either fit or he's folding (within reason) and so exploitatviely larger value sizing and smaller bluffs is the way to go.

Thanks for the positive review of this chapter. I've omitted the idea of getting raised by hands we beat at showdown and losing EV that way for now. I guess I've made a trade off between having a nice snug theroy that almost fits and 100% technical accruacy. You're absoliutely right that if there is a likelyhood of being raised (by worse hands) and sometimes folding the best hand then we should look to increase this target of 50% slightly.

2. Yep balance follows later as 3-bet bluffing ranges are introduced. In chapter 10 we explore polarised 3-bet ranges and this very spot comes up. We need the right bluffs and right frequency of said bluffs to balance this value range if that is we want a polarised and balanced strategy.

3. It's okay that this money includes Hero's investment as he gets this back when he wins the pot. If we were to insnsit that Hero gets back purely profit alone we'd be in a realm where the investment goes into a separate pot that cannot yield a return or a "vending machine" as I like to call it. It doesn't matter where the money from the average return comes from. In other words when Hero invests his 3BB is adds on to the pot and is now part of what he stands to win.

Thanks for the feedback so far Mason and others. I'll be away on vacation for a couple of weeks from tomorrow so won't havbe much of a chacne to comment on posts. I'll try to catch up and address any posts that need addressing after that. Run good everyone :-)

No. The players in the middle should not call at the same rate as the player on the end.

MM

Agreed, I thought you were saying the book didn't account for players being tighter due to being multi-way. This is a simplification.

I actually consider this a serious error. If the player on the end does not call enough bluffing into multiple players can be far more profitable than your text indicates.

Mason

Okay.

MM