I just purchased a Pokersnowie.

I open 2.6BB from BTN with T9s. SB 3bet x3.4. I call.

On the Flop I have a gutshot and SB leads full pot. I fold.

Snowie says I should call. I disagree. First of all, I have a big stack, 250BB, we should play tighter with a stack this big. Leading a full pot after 3bet is a sign of extreme strength (I guess).

I think I can understand some of psychology of calling this. We definitely can't call this because of outs, but probably we are assuming he will check on the Turn and then we can bet big. Am I right?

My main question is what does this bet sizing mean (full pot donk F)? What will change if it is 3/4 or half pot?

This software is completely GTO. So let's discuss how we should react to this GTO vs. exploitative.


EDIT: Oh, I almost forgot, picture. Here:

yes

a straight wins more money the bigger your stack

Also snowie is not GTO

EDIT: wait what are you saying lol, stack depth is 150ishbb. Still, call

Looks like a standard call IP with a GS and BDFD even vs that big sizing.

Effective stacks are 120BB but it's even more of a call if we were 250BB deep like you thought because our implied odds are better.

"Snowie says I should call. I disagree. First of all, I have a big stack, 250BB, we should play tighter with a stack this big. Leading a full pot after 3bet is a sign of extreme strength (I guess)."

I think you can actually play a little looser with a stack that big. Obviously you don't want to lose the entire stack, but you can make calls you might not ordinarily make with a 100bb stack. It is one of the privileges of being a big stack, as any tournament player knows. Also, just to point out the obvious, you are only risking 98bb because that is the size of the villain's stack.

Whether leading the pot is a sign of extreme strength ... I don't know. It could just be a regular old cbet. I don't like the size of it though, that concerns me. But let's say it is a sign of extreme strength, like an overpair or a set, isn't that exactly the kind of hand you want to be up against if you hit your straight?

"I think I can understand some of psychology of calling this. We definitely can't call this because of outs, but probably we are assuming he will check on the Turn and then we can bet big. Am I right?"

I don't think so. It is not outs that you should be thinking about, it is implied odds. I also don't think you can count on him checking the turn, especially if you think he has extreme strength. If you make your straight you get his whole stack.

"Do I really have to call with a gutshot?"

No. You don't HAVE to do anything. You don't have to always do what the computer says, that the computer thinks, is ideal. This is poker, man. If you don't want to call this bet with a gutshot then don't call. I'd be glad to keep discussing my opinions about this.

Good luck out there, Magnum

"Snowie says I should call. I disagree. First of all, I have a big stack, 250BB, we should play tighter with a stack this big. Leading a full pot after 3bet is a sign of extreme strength (I guess)."

I think you can actually play a little looser with a stack that big. Obviously you don't want to lose the entire stack, but you can make calls you might not ordinarily make with a 100bb stack. It is one of the privileges of being a big stack, as any tournament player knows. Also, just to point out the obvious, you are only risking 98bb because that is the size of the villain's stack.

Whether leading the pot is a sign of extreme strength ... I don't know. It could just be a regular old cbet. I don't like the size of it though, that concerns me. But let's say it is a sign of extreme strength, like an overpair or a set, isn't that exactly the kind of hand you want to be up against if you hit your straight?

"I think I can understand some of psychology of calling this. We definitely can't call this because of outs, but probably we are assuming he will check on the Turn and then we can bet big. Am I right?"

I don't think so. It is not outs that you should be thinking about, it is implied odds. I also don't think you can count on him checking the turn, especially if you think he has extreme strength. If you make your straight you get his whole stack.

"Do I really have to call with a gutshot?"

No. You don't HAVE to do anything. You don't have to always do what the computer says, that the computer thinks, is ideal. This is poker, man. If you don't want to call this bet with a gutshot then don't call. I'd be glad to keep discussing my opinions about this.

Good luck out there, Magnum

Watched this same hand (though the 3bet was from the BB) online. Coach did not want to call the 3bet pre. Reason, sharing same cards vs range of villain. Preferred cards are 87s, 76s, 65s, 54s. JMO.

Would not call the 3bet here.

As played, pool usually calls once for gut shots, open enders, twice to river for flush draws. Might be some deviations for open enders.

PS, don't use poker snowie for gto advice.

Thank you for great answers. I learned a lot. But still, I just don't feel comfortable calling pot-sized bet, gut-shot straight is just so unlikely to complete imo (even with implied odds). I don't usually call 3bets with this kind of hand (but seems Snowie does), but it is interesting to see what Snowie says (I can beat it easily anyway).


Snowie is just training tool for me, and when I use it I follow it slavishly. At the real money table, I will use my own brains of course. I am just trying to fix the biggest GTO leaks out of my game, math is my biggest problem area.

But what do you guys mean Snowie is not a GTO? I thought it is all about that?

nothing is GTO, some things are closer to GTO than others.
solvers are the closest to GTO, snowie is nowhere near solvers

So what is GTO then?

A mathematically "perfect" strategy

your coach said fold vs 3bet with T9s?

are you new here?

How Snowie is not mathematically "perfect" then?

In all fairness, I think there are some situations where calling a 3bet with 76s/65s/54s might be better than T9s (like maybe MP open vs CO or BU 3bet), although I really don't think there are many where if calling with 76s is profitable, it is unprofitable with T9s.

But clearly, this is not one of those situations, facing a 3.4x 3bet from an oop player, the question isn't whether calling with T9s is profitable, it is whether calling with T7s is profitable (pretty sure it is profitable with T8s).

call pre is good

call flop is good

if you were shorter stack otf, it could be a fold

What do you mean how, It just isn't.

You said you can beat snowie which means its not perfect(i doubt u actually can tho)

Is this a meme I'm not aware of, or?

Give some example hand when Snowie has made a mathematically incorrect decision

Snowie is pretty good pf and on the flop. When it gets to turn and river starts to have some noticeable deviations compared to solvers in several situations. So it's not advicing the maxEV play some of the times.

It's a good tool for practicing if you don't have a good pc, and you save time not running sims.

I'm no expert and only trialled Snowie years ago, but if it is still the same, it restricts itself to a few bet sizes. So its not that there is anything mathematically incorrect going on when it plays itself to estimate an unexploitable strategy, its just that the restricted parameters on sizing bets and raises means it will never be perfect e.g. a 28% pot bet might have higher EV than 25%. Any solver-type tools will only approximate solid play given the parameters input.

I'm gonna nitpick spud gun here. Snowie doesn't technically even play GTO for its given parameters (which are, as you say, artificially limited). It's a neural network trying to discern patterns, whereas solvers are calculating (to an acceptable degree of precision). Snowie is going to playing closer to GTO than most humans, but it's not perfect.

The unknown EV problem between a 25% pot bet (which you simulate) and a 28% pot bet (which is unknown) is going to happen with solvers as well, unless you're running on a super-computer with 200 different bet sizes.

But to the original point, even if you have the solver run spots with the same bet sizes and ranges as snowie, you're going to come out with differences between the two, which get bigger and bigger the deeper you go into the game tree. If you search around 2+2 there are threads about how snowie can sometimes suggest weird things on turn/river spots, presumably because it doesn't have a large enough sample size in more obscure spots. The idea is that if you give snowie a large enough sample that it will eventually be nearly indistinguishable from "real" GTO, but that doesn't seem to be happening (otherwise they would've made a big deal about it)

For example:

https://forumserver.twoplustwo.com/1...ation-1704260/

On snowie's blog they're still releasing "updates to the AI". Why would they be doing that if it was already playing perfect GTO? https://www.pokersnowie.com/blog/202...snowie-heading

^^ makes a lot of sense. I'm assuming the AI updates they're doing is exhaustive testing of the machine playing versus itself. Maybe with some different bet sizes.

On a related note, I'd be interested if anybody has any reading on current AI developments like Libratus.

@ OP, this is good information for you if you keep utilizing snowie. Focus more on high frequency scenarios and lines and more focus at earlier in the game tree.

I think that you need 8.5 outs to call a pot sized bet on the flop.

You are getting 2:1 and need 33% equity to call.

Snowie is probably looking at the sizing and determining that V is polarizing and so has a mix of value hands and bluffs here, probably looking at the preflop range and what parts of this range play a polarized strategy and using a combination of Hero's equity and MDF and position to call.

I have played hundreds of thousands of hands vs snowie. If you use its advice 100% against the micro pool you will burn money as none of our Villains are balanced.

I'm folding here