My world is still rocked

Even when I think I have bread and butter situations, my world still gets rocked.

A hand posted in the micros, goes a bit like this:

6h FL HE
MP opens, folded to hero in bb, who calls with 97 diamonds

flop comes 6c 8d Qc (4.5 SB pot)
check, MP bets, C/R call

turn 2d (4.25 BB pot)
bet call

river 7c (6.25 BB pot)
.....

My normal thing is I check, let my oppoenent fire one out, and I call. I even put villian on correctly to AK (or other UI A's and K's), and think it'll happen more often than not. Many of the head honchos think a bet out is correct, saying villians are more likely to call here with A's/K's, than to bluff with them.

I am confused by the logic, another poster elaborates:

"Sorry I'm confused here. Are u saying he will call the river with A-high so we should value-bet? Then u say that if u thought he would call the river lightly, then u wouldn't be bluffing in the first place? Then u say u are stuck betting the turn?"

Miles (the OP) replies:

"yes i am saying he will call with ace high. i am also saying that if i had known this player would call flop, turn, and river with ace high i should be more hesitant to try a semibluff. i am stuck betting the turn because i have a sick draw and he folds a lot here after peeling ~any two on the flop. so i have to bet there."

Scary_Tiger elaborates:

"Easy b/f, it takes a certain kind of Villain to bluff bet when the river 3-straight 3-flushes. Valuetown baby."

RESULTS: Miles bet out, villian called with AK Ship the monies

I ask miles:

"what other situations against "normal" opponents do you think the calling range is wider than the betting range on the river?"

He replies:

"this all depends on the action up until the river. the hands that matter are the hands that will call but won't bet. in general, these hands far outweigh the hands that will bet but won't call. this should be true for almost every player, especially as the pfr will be holding A/K high hands - hands which gain just about nothing from "bluffing" the river"

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This hand, and especially scary tiger's comment, and miles' last line gets me thinking. I gotta start thinking past 1st level (hand ranges for villian, 0th level is board reading), and "ZOMG, scary board, bluff time!". In villian's place, I would bet out that river every single time. To anybody who can hand read, that "bluff" looks very transparent, and is burning money. I can see now in retro spect C/R bet bet UI (with 97s now) would be a good line, as we look like 2 club's trying to bluff off villian, and he makes an easy calldown. I worked on alot this past few months working on my hand reading/1st level. Time to start thinking about that 2nd level.

BTW, reading NLTAP, provides a nice definition for the levels of thinking in poker. My (abridged) list that I'll probably have stickied on my wallpaper:

0 - reading the board
1 - hand reading villian
2 - villian hand reading me
3 - villian thinks about what I put him on
4 - Villian thinks about what I think he puts me on.

A bit much, but I at least should involve 2nd level thinking more into my playing. I don't know too much about the next 2. I should definitely know level 2 thinking solid for when I start moving up more.

Speaking of moving up, 2/4 is E-Z


I've also been running pretty well at 1/2


EDIT - heh, may be weak to black out stats, but you never know who is reading!

I've even been getting better at NL! (not good enough to post PT screenshots though :-P) I've been better than loosing money though, played maybe 200-300 hands, and at least wone moenies (got stacked, lost some more on another table, reloaded and stacked 1 person on both tables)

I hope to be moving up in NL fairly soon, but to do so, I should really put in more hands. I want at least 15k playing comfortably and running g00t at NL26 6max before I try NL50 6max.

Alright, off to class. Hopefully I can get all my work done so I can grind some hands out tonight/tomorrow.

Quick thoughts on equity

A recent thread in the 2p2 forums got me thinking about a subject of fold equity. As far as I knew, it was just... this thing. Let's dive into it a bit more.

(from the forums)
I always just thought pot equity:valuebetting, fold equity:bluffing

Wookies long, strung out definition, though may sound useless, it's not that different for value betting, where [b]practical[/b] pot equity for when determining a value bet would just be (an augmented line stolen from wookie)

practical PE = 1/N * (sum from i=1..N of (probability calls hand i) * (hot and cold equity of hand i) )

I say practical because if we know villian only folds hands that we beat, and calls with hands that beat us, the bet has no value. (as implied by the above definition)


Onto Fold equity:

[quote]you have AA and a player folds K5 on a 667 board.
[/quote]

so here, your FE against that range is most likely zero, as he folds it almost always, and he isn't giving up enough FE for a bet to be a profitable bluff(has to be more than 1/(current pot size in bets) %). That's all for a profitable bluff.

You might not have enough equity for a "valuebet" either, where there are some villians who fold K5o almost all of the time in this spot (valuebet in quotes because, though you may not have enough practical pot equity, we have to bet here for reasons of mainly not offering infinite odds, but also image/meta, etc.)

I like using these definitions for practical pot equity, and fold equity, as one can explain the two way bet (or "value-bluff"), such as found in Clarkmeister Theorem this way. (and to some extent the short snippit of the example on pg 159 of NLTAP, "bluffing with a fairly good hand", but the authors say at best, barely fails as a bluff and a valuebet, but is too tricky to analyze)

All in all, what does this theory rubbish boil down to? The only thing I know, and really care about at the tables is. In spots where I consider bluffing, I just hope he folds hands that are better than mine more than he should (how much he "should" dictated by pot size)

EDIT - HOLY CRAP that might have been the longest I spent on a single post, I'm hoping it made sense.

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I think it's worth something, if anything, I got the 'DUH!' effect knocked into me when I remembered "It's only a good bluff when they fold a better hand" This has led me to bluff low bb trash (43, 52, etc) in unraised pots 3handed on flops that didn't hit most. Hey, even if they fold T hi in that spot, g000000t bluff, right? So far so good with that stratergy:-)