How to value perceived “lucky” streaks during game play?

[Jamper]

In Super System, Doyle Brunson stated that he would capitalize on his opponents’ fear that he was on a lucky streak by betting with cards he normally would have folded. Likewise, many players will alter their own betting style when they believe that they are either on a hot or cold streak. If one is familiar with one’s opponents & their superstitious tendencies, is there some commonly agreed upon method of altering one’s play to maximize EV?

In the Theory..Rushes thread, afreeman stated:


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There are rushes, but they don't have anything to do with luck.


While cards have no memory, opponents do and its a lot easier to semi-bluff and generally bully the table around when you pulled down 3 of the last 5 pots.

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Has a poker theorist already tried to qunatify this approach? For example: modifying the count of one’s outs based on various situational-driven variables. Please post a link if you know of one.

-thanks

[K C]

I see no one's taken a shot at this, so I'll dare to provide a few comments /images/graemlins/smile.gif

Even though cards don't have memories, there still can be "lucky streaks." If you take a normal distribution of events, like a series of coin tosses, there's going to be instances where you get a run of one or the other. Now, this would be from an historical perspective only, and unfortunately doesn't have any real predictive power. Each flip has exactly a 1:1 rate of being either heads or tails.

Now, when you take this and apply it to a multiplayer poker game, where we regularly have 9 opponents, the chances of getting a streak of any length where you have the best hand is going to be very unlikely. Assuming an even distribution, you've only got a 10% chance to win that hand, and it matters not if you won the last one. So on the basis of this it would be foolish to overplay your hand based upon this.

Now, certain types of players, like Doyle, may have the proper playing style, disposition, and table image to be able to intimidate their opponents where this can be taken advantage of. At this stage though, we've gone beyond the realm of odds, or even cards for that matter. And there really isn't any sort of forumla you can apply here - it's more of in intuitive thing, smelling blood and sensing that keeping the heat on is going to yield a better result.

If you're going to approach the game this way though, the critical thing is to know when to slow down. Your opponents will have to remain tight and passive for this to work, and if you sense they are adjusting to you, it's time to back off. Playing ultra aggressively can be very profitable, but it is also the situation where you're the most vulnerable, and opponents with any kind of decent combination of skill and nerve can make you pay pretty easily.

There's some real good stuff in Doyle's section of this book, but the best part is getting inside the head of a maniac so you can use this against them whenever you run into one of these players at the table /images/graemlins/smile.gif

KC
kingcobrapoker.com

[Jamper]

K C, thanks for taking the time to take a shot at me /images/graemlins/wink.gif

sorry, I should have indicated that the Q wasn't HE 10-player specific. was actually thinking HE 6-player, where it would be much more likely, on occasion, to win "3 of the last 5 pots" as afreeman stated.

In regards to your statement:

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it's more of in intuitive thing, smelling blood and sensing that keeping the heat on is going to yield a better result.

[/ QUOTE ]

I agree and that's why I'm struggling with this issue. But I do believe that anything that can be "sensed" can be quantified. For example:

High win % over short term --> add x outs when calculating hand strength. Continue to do so until % drops below some level.

Something along this line of thought is the best that I've come up with. Does anyone have any better thoughts?