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Old 12-19-2005, 03:21 PM
AaronBrown AaronBrown is offline
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Join Date: May 2005
Location: New York
Posts: 505
Default Re: Theory of Deadweight Information Loss

Most poker theory takes a different approach. The information in B is not necessarily valuable. A good player will keep track of the information she has revealed, and act in the future to frustrate people trying to take advantage of it. Granted most players have some degree of predictability, so it does make sense to assume they are likely to act as they have in the past. However the value of this kind of information in poker is much less than in other games, and the better the players, the less valuable it is.

The usual poker advice is if you are willing to call a raise (including an all-in raise) you should make it yourself. The main exception is when you are slow-playing, you also need to work in exceptions for deception. But in general, it takes a stronger hand to call a raise than to make a raise, and to bet less than the maximum amount you are willing to bet gives options to the other player, and thus is passive.

As you can see, this sacrifices information about the other player's hands in the interest of limiting their options. It is closer to minimizing the information about their strategy than maximizing it. Gathering information is passive, forcing issues is aggressive, and conventional wisdom is that aggressive is better.

Therefore, this is a radical way of looking at the game. That doesn't make it right or wrong, but most people's first reaction will be to argue with you.

I don't like your specific example because calling an all-in raise with only an overpair is suicidal. Villain is representing a set, which has a 90% chance of winning. Even if he is loose enough to call 3 BB preflop with KJ and go all-in with two pair, he has a 73% chance of beating you. This ignores any flush possibilities. You are only likely to beat a pure bluff.
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