What up SSPLO, 1k post time. Decided to do another one of my little strat articles, as they have been somewhat popular in the past. For those that are new, or may have missed the previous one's, here ya go:

http://forumserver.twoplustwo.com/38...uction-782242/

http://forumserver.twoplustwo.com/38...reling-555785/

http://forumserver.twoplustwo.com/38...-light-503613/


Not trying to be an arrogant jerk in linking those, I just spent a decent amount of time on each and figured you might get something out of them.



The topic is exploitability. For the purpose of this topic, i would define "exploit" as using information gathered on an opponet against them to determine the most +EV actions against them. You may believe you don't have to worry about being exploited at small stakes, but it's not true. The best regs will be trying to exploit you too varying degrees at every level.

Imagine if you could play HU against yourself, but the other yourself didn't know. I personally would demolish my #2 because I have complete knowledge of "my" tendancies, and would use that knowledge to exploit him into obliteration.


Assume you are in the BB, how would you exploit a vilan who raises %100 of buttons and plays super passive fit or fold post? You could get away with 3betting this villan with as much as the top %50 of hands, and cbetting every flop. How about if the villan raises %100 of buttons, but is now a maniac, never missing a bet post? Against this guy, you may call very wide pre, and c/c post with very strong hands you normally wouldn't. How about if you raise UTG and a nit 3bets you from UTG+1 200BB's deep? Here an appropriate countermeasure may be to call the 3bet and donk %90 of flop/t/r's. Given, these are extreme examples, it's not much more diffucult then those.



Now, how should we fight being exploited? We all know the feeling, a villan is betting everytime you check air, checking everytime you check a big hand, calling everytime you bluff, etc. Maybe he was lucky, more likely he was owning you. Here are a couple things to keep in mind to prevent from being exploited:

Balance- Again, most people will tell you it doesn't matter at small stakes, against thinking players it does matter, regardless stakes. Sometimes, when balancing, you will sacrafice EV for the hand, to gain EV for the session. Balancing your ranges is the most effective way to prevent from being exploited by good players.

Here's an example, say we 3bet a good players BTN raise from the SB and get called by BTN only, and flop very good, one we would normally bet get it in. Although bet/get it in is our standard, we should mix in a check here sometimes, even though it may be less +EV then betting. C/ring here protects our later checks from being bet relentlessly by observant opponets.


Adjusting- Making adjustments and being fluid in your descisions is an effective way to fight exploitation. If you are constantly changing your opening range/ bluffing range/ value betting range, due to game conditions, image, villans tendancies, then we are going to be tougher to exploit. Again consider deiviating from the "standard" play occaisonaly to avoid exploitabillity.


I understand that this(and my other topics) might not be groundbreaking, and are prob things that most of you know/could figure out anyhow, but the difference between theory and practice is what seperates 2+2 all stars from the game crushing regs. So gradually attempt to incorporte some of this stuff into your game at your comfort rate, and don't be discouraged by short term results obv



Big thanks to all the contributers of this forum!

Thanks for this post !

I would like to think i instigated this

Thanks op and ty for linking the other posts I missed Range construction first time round.

Gonna read through these at work.

Now I know why you owned me so hard Hu, nice post thx

Great post, thanks a lot. Always enjoyed your posts in this forum, keep up the good work.

Always very interesting posts. Thanks for the effort.

Finally got round to reading some of these.

Very well done sir.