Sklansky's response

I recently posted a hand entitled "A 20-40 hand" where I was check-raised on the turn by a tough player when I held queens (the overpair) in a two-toned board. Mr. Sklansky suggested that I "randomize" my play by calling 70% of the time on the turn and 70% of the time on the river barring no improvement. He said he would let others elaborate but no one did (probably cause only Sklansky and God know where these figures are coming from).


What I want to know is how is the figure of 70% determined. Also, since this is a fairly unique situation, because it is player based, its seems impossible to practically apply these figures, since I will never get enough situation to be able to fold 70% of the time.


Here's my last beef, assuming I call the turn, I am saying that I will be good 1/x times and effective odds justify me calling. Assuming a blank hits on the end, my pot odds have approximately doubled since now I only have one more bet to call. How could I fold now?


Unless of course this player might pick up on the fact that in these situation if I call the turn, I will call 100% of the time on the river, but thats not a real concern for me.


Hope you follow. All advice appreciated.

I'll take a wild stab at it. Promise not to laugh.


Sometimes you'll be right. Sometimes you'll be wrong. That's the nature of a game when you're playing with incomplete information. Perhaps he was referring to game theory. You wrote:


"Unless of course this player might pick up on the fact that in these situation if I call the turn, I will call 100% of the time on the river, but thats not a real concern for me."


I think it should be. Just as you can't call on the turn 100% of the time (or fold for that matter), you shouldn't necessarily pay your opponent off 100%. To do so is a self-weighting strategy. You need to make your decisions in such a manner to where your opponent doesn't always have a correct play. This would be the case if he could slap a percentage on how often he should bet/check/raise/or fold according to what you do. I think....

I understand your point in theory.....and I think theoretically it is correct. I need to make sure that an opponent doesn't know I will call 100% of the time on the river. Because this knowledge could easily be taken advantage of. But this situation may never come up against this player again, so I need to make the max EV decision now.


This brings me to another point, i.e. calling with ace high on the turn to pick off a bluff. If I call the turn with ace high to pick off a bluff, I will never fold to a meaningless card on the river (assuming this player will continue his bluff a lot of the time). I know Sklansky will call on the turn with A high and fold on the river a proportion of the time.......I would love to know how and why he can profitably get away with this.

JV-


I think your logic may be a little flawed here (but it's possible mine is). I think you pick off bluffs on the river. On earlier rounds you are inducing bluffs or calling for some other reason.


One reason to call the turn with an ace high (or other hands) is to STOP a bluff on the river. When making plays designed to stop a bluff, you should be prepared to fold when that opponent still bets. Not call again...


Likewise, when you induce bluffs you should be inclined to call a bet from your opponent. Not fold...


Although I do agree with you that there are many situations in limit hold'em where if you call the turn, you should probably call the river as well.

I strongly disagree with your thoughts on stopping a bluff with ace high. I believe that most players will continue their bluff through the river, and if you believe your ace high to be good, you need to call both times to catch this. If you call a bet on the turn and fold the river, you are paying off his desperation bet twice as hard, because he is collecting a turn bet as well. Assuming the player is typical, I believe that if you call the turn with ace high to stop a bluff you need to call on the river somewhere between 75%-100% of the time. (In fact, most of the time, I am know good when they check the river behind because they have a hand to showdown)


I rarely try to pick off bluff with ace high in small pots or with few outs because I see it as costing me two bets to get to the showdown, as oppossed to one like Kevin.


Your idea is very interesting. I could very well be making errors by rarely applying your tactic of calling the turn and folding the river.

"What I want to know is how is the figure of 70% determined"


I believe Mr. Sklansky was merely using this number as an example. He was saying that he believes that this is a situation in which a mixed strategy is correct, for example it might be correct to call with probability .7 . He was using that number to demonstrate what he meant by randomizing, it was not intended as some exact figure that he had calculated but was not explaining.


What was left to others to explain wasn't the 70% number, but the concept of why you should randomize at all (which I guess I'm still leaving for others to elaborate on).

70% may not have been so random a choice. If you are 70% likely to call the turn, and then 70% likely to call the river, the overall chance that you call all the way to the river is 49%. Intuitively, calling down half the time seems about right, but the advantage of the 70%/70% scheme over a 50%/100% scheme is that it will look to your opponents that you are calling down more often than that, which should encourage them to bluff you less often if they are observant. It also gives them a greater chance to "lose their nerve" on the turn, and give up their bluff.

On the other hand, you lose more money when you call the turn and then fold on the river rather than just folding the turn.