pop quiz
 

Old man river decides one day to check his pokertracker database. He's been playing for a LONG time. In particular, he's wondering about how well he's handled all those crying calls over the years.

Old man river decides to examine all the times he was getting 19:1 to call, heads up, but could only beat a bluff.

Since old man river reads 2+2, he knows his math. Getting 19:1 to call, he needs to win 5% of the time to justify calling. He runs the SQL query and discovers... his win rate in these situations is exactly 5%!

Re: pop quiz
 

He's too tight. Old men are always too tight. I'm very interested in seeing who can think straight at 3:48 AM and enlighten me on this matter. [img]/images/graemlins/ooo.gif[/img]

Re: pop quiz
 

If instead of calling he raised a few times would that bring up his win rate?

Re: pop quiz
 

[ QUOTE ]
If instead of calling he raised a few times would that bring up his win rate?

[/ QUOTE ]

why would you EVER RAISE SOMEONE WHO IS BLUFFING ON THE RIVER when you beat a bluff(but no legitamite hands)???

you might consider a bluff-raise when you think they are bluffing but still have you beat, but that is a very rare spot

Re: pop quiz
 

[ QUOTE ]
He's too tight. Old men are always too tight.

[/ QUOTE ]

Re: pop quiz
 

I just want to know how to run the SQL query and get the results.

Re: pop quiz
 

I personally haven't seen very much bluffing going on in massive pots that are HU, because

A. 20BB pots are rare
B. most massive pots aren't HU

I'm not sure what the average players bluff frequency is in 20BB pots

also boards with broken draws are more likely to have a river bluff than the raggy boards, and LAGs tend to have a hell I can only win with a bluff mentality a lot

so if he's only winning 5% against LAGs he's likely too tight

Re: pop quiz
 

It feels like we are not getting enough information here for some reason. I'm leaning towards too tight, But right now I'm mainly bothered by the fact the subject of this thread wasn't "POP QUIZ HOTSHOT"

Re: pop quiz
 

If OMR wants his crying calls to be +EV, he needs to be right *more* than 5% of the time. Thus, he is too loose with his crying calls (because they are zero EV).

Now that i've answered, can i throw out a "this poll sucks" post? Sweet.

THIS POLL SUCKS.

[img]/images/graemlins/smile.gif[/img]

Re: pop quiz
 

He's too loose.

He should have just called on the times it was LIKELY his opponent was bluffing.

Re: pop quiz
 

[ QUOTE ]

why would you EVER RAISE SOMEONE WHO IS BLUFFING ON THE RIVER when you beat a bluff(but no legitamite hands)???

you might consider a bluff-raise when you think they are bluffing but still have you beat, but that is a very rare spot

[/ QUOTE ]

Well you sortof answered you own question if the're bluffing and you know you can beet them why not raise to maximize your profit? If they call more money for you, if they fold the same as if you had called.

Re: pop quiz
 

You have just revealed a huge leak in your game. If you think someone is bluffing you on the river, the last thing you want to do is raise, as already pointed out.

If you raise:

When you are ahead, your opponent will fold and you gain $0 extra.

When your read is wrong and you are behind, your opponent will either:

a) call, costing you 1 big blind or
b) raise, costing you 1 or 2 big blinds depending on your move (hopefully you'll be folding to a raise, but who knows given your raise?)

There is little chance your raise will fold out a better hand at the micros, somewhere close to 0%.

Re: pop quiz
 

To turn a profit in this situation he could..

1. Make more good calls when his true odds are better than 19:1.

2. Make more good folds when his true odds are worse than 19:1.

Over a large sample, the opportunity for 1 and 2 would be about the same. If OMR had played perfect poker his good calls would be balanced out by his good folds and so his calling frequncy would be the same.

Therefore, he is neither too tight nor too loose -- he just has to make better decisions.


rgb

Meant to reply to OP -- put post in wrong place.

Results
 

The answer I was looking for was: he's too loose.

The point was to show that if you need to win at 5% to justify a call, your true win rate when you call should be much higher. This is because every call you make should have, as a floor, a 5% win rate. You should get plenty of opportunities to call with much better odds than this though, and those calls should drive your winrate up.

If you answered too loose because he should fold if he's exactly 19:1 against then you got the right answer for the wrong reason. I should have made it "just a tiny fraction better than 5%" to make this logic clearly wrong.

If you got the wrong answer because it was unclear that I meant the 5% to refer to his winrate when he calls, and not overall, I apologize for the confusing wording.


thanks,
Eric

Re: Results
 

[ QUOTE ]
The answer I was looking for was: he's too loose.

The point was to show that if you need to win at 5% to justify a call, your true win rate when you call should be much higher. This is because every call you make should have, as a floor, a 5% win rate. You should get plenty of opportunities to call with much better odds than this though, and those calls should drive your winrate up.

If you answered too loose because he should fold if he's exactly 19:1 against then you got the right answer for the wrong reason. I should have made it "just a tiny fraction better than 5%" to make this logic clearly wrong.

If you got the wrong answer because it was unclear that I meant the 5% to refer to his winrate when he calls, and not overall, I apologize for the confusing wording.


thanks,
Eric

[/ QUOTE ]

[img]/images/graemlins/confused.gif[/img]

He's breaking exactly even so..

profit from +EV calls = loss from -EV calls

He can up his winrate by :

1. calling more (+EV calls)
2. calling less (-EV calls)

I don't see where looseness or tightness comes into it.

I've probably missed the whole point of your question so just ignore this if you want [img]/images/graemlins/smile.gif[/img]



rgb

Re: Results
 

[ QUOTE ]
The point was to show that if you need to win at 5% to justify a call, your true win rate when you call should be much higher. This is because every call you make should have, as a floor, a 5% win rate.

[/ QUOTE ]

This has no basis in reality whatsoever and if it were true we could never draw to a 2-outer no mater what.

Now if you're talking about triggering rake which inherently reduces win rate then it's a different story.

Re: pop quiz
 

[ QUOTE ]
[ QUOTE ]
If instead of calling he raised a few times would that bring up his win rate?

[/ QUOTE ]

why would you EVER RAISE SOMEONE WHO IS BLUFFING ON THE RIVER when you beat a bluff(but no legitamite hands)???

you might consider a bluff-raise when you think they are bluffing but still have you beat, but that is a very rare spot

[/ QUOTE ]


SSHE suggests raising a bluffer in order to fold a better hand from a player behind us yet to act as a +EV move.

Re: Results
 

[ QUOTE ]
[ QUOTE ]
This is because every call you make should have, as a floor, a 5% win rate.

[/ QUOTE ]
This has no basis in reality whatsoever and if it were true we could never draw to a 2-outer no mater what.

[/ QUOTE ]

Come on. Do I really have to say in every sentence I make in the thread that I'm talking specifically about the situation in the OP, in which you are calling, can only beat a bluff, and are getting 19:1? Do you typically run around opening random threads and calling the poster a moron without any regard for context?

Between tyler_cracker's "THIS POST SUCKS" and now this guy, I understand why so many good players I know don't ever come here.

-Eric

Re: Results
 

[ QUOTE ]
He's breaking exactly even so..

profit from +EV calls = loss from -EV calls

[/ QUOTE ]


Yeah, that's the point. "Loss from -EV calls" should be 0. You should never make a -EV call, right? If he has lots of -EV calls, it means he's calling too much. If he stops calling in those spots he currently thinks are close, he'll make more money. That is, if he plays tighter in this spot, he'll do better. That's what I was driving at in this total bomb of a thread.

Re: pop quiz
 

[ QUOTE ]
[ QUOTE ]

why would you EVER RAISE SOMEONE WHO IS BLUFFING ON THE RIVER when you beat a bluff(but no legitamite hands)???

you might consider a bluff-raise when you think they are bluffing but still have you beat, but that is a very rare spot

[/ QUOTE ]

Well you sortof answered you own question if the're bluffing and you know you can beet them why not raise to maximize your profit? If they call more money for you, if they fold the same as if you had called.

[/ QUOTE ]

everytime they call the raise YOU LOSE THE POT! so if you beat a bluff but nothing else, and the odds of them bluffing are at least what you need to breakeven you call. They never call the raise with a BLUFF!

The problem with your thought process is, that they aren't always bluffing, so when you raise they fold every hand you beat, and call or 3bet with hands you lose to, so you minimize your profit by raising when all you beat is a bluff HU on the river

you throw away a BB everytime you raise in a spot like that, like I said its very rare for you to be HU against someone who could be bluffing often, but you can't beat a bluff, that is the spot for a bluff-raise


[ QUOTE ]
SSHE suggests raising a bluffer in order to fold a better hand from a player behind us yet to act as a +EV move.

[/ QUOTE ]

yeah I guess I didn't specify that I was talking about HU river play.

Re: pop quiz
 

fwiw, I don't think I've learned much from this poll, and you haven't even told us how to run these filters in PT!

Re: pop quiz
 

Elindauer,

The idea that he is too loose is correct, but it also isn't very practical since it is impossible to analyze everyone of these spots using traditional methods. I have had always held back some ideas from the boards becuse they didn't seem logical (to people who may be reading it) or were too hard to confirm. Having the ability to attach a model to such spots would be highly useful. My basic theory on the issue is that calling in big pots is an overrated concept on the boards. So I just have to ask...

1) Is it possible to run a search like this?

2) If so, how do you do it?

Thanks in advance.

Re: Results
 

[ QUOTE ]
[ QUOTE ]
He's breaking exactly even so..

profit from +EV calls = loss from -EV calls

[/ QUOTE ]


Yeah, that's the point. "Loss from -EV calls" should be 0. You should never make a -EV call, right? If he has lots of -EV calls, it means he's calling too much. If he stops calling in those spots he currently thinks are close, he'll make more money. That is, if he plays tighter in this spot, he'll do better. That's what I was driving at in this total bomb of a thread.

[/ QUOTE ]

"Profit from +EV calls" should be maximum possible. You should always make a +EV call, right? If he has too few +EV calls, it means he's calling too little. If he calls more in those spots he currently thinks are close, he'll make more money. That is, if he plays looser in this spot, he'll do better.

Don't see how you can choose one over the other from the information given.

If he likes to call and has made almost every +EV call correctly then he has also made a ton of -EV calls to break even. (fold more)

If he likes to fold and has made only a few +EV calls then he has made only a few -EV calls to break even. (call more)

rgb

Re: pop quiz
 

You can't tell. He could start calling more and winning more. He could start calling less and winning more. Same with calling less.

Krishan

Re: Results
 

[ QUOTE ]
The answer I was looking for was: he's too loose.

The point was to show that if you need to win at 5% to justify a call, your true win rate when you call should be much higher. This is because every call you make should have, as a floor, a 5% win rate. You should get plenty of opportunities to call with much better odds than this though, and those calls should drive your winrate up.

If you answered too loose because he should fold if he's exactly 19:1 against then you got the right answer for the wrong reason. I should have made it "just a tiny fraction better than 5%" to make this logic clearly wrong.

If you got the wrong answer because it was unclear that I meant the 5% to refer to his winrate when he calls, and not overall, I apologize for the confusing wording.


thanks,
Eric

[/ QUOTE ]

Heh, I got it wrong. Thanks for making me a better poker player today than I was yesterday.

Krishan

Re: Results
 

[ QUOTE ]
That's what I was driving at in this total bomb of a thread.

[/ QUOTE ]

Well said