[stigmata]

This is an interesting problem that I have also been thinking about recently. It also appears to be an incredibly difficult problem, and I rapidly become unstuck whichever direction I approach it from. Iv'e been thinking about it recently so I thought I would post my random thoughts so far:

Whilst the analysis of TruckeeSlick is interesting, I'm not sure how useful the results are for helping us at the table. Standard starting hand charts are already decently adjusted for position, and these are reflected in the results of simulation studies themselves. It doesn't help us in specific situations.

In particular, perhaps more interesting as I move up stakes is the problem which stox alluded to: The value of position when HU after the flop. The most common example being blind stealing/defense, blind wars, or the situation where player A raises, and player B reraises.

To simplify things, I have been thinking about the following problem; A raises in the CO, B re-raises on the button. Both players play equally well. If we can define that player A is stealing from the CO with the top 30% of hands, then from a pre-flop equity point-of-view, then we can simply 3-bet with top 15% of hands. This would have to be adjusted according to 1)the juice from the blinds 2)rake 3)chance of the blinds holding a decent hand 4)chance of being capped by the CO when he holds top 7.5%, etc.

However, we now have position and initiative (which is related to fold equity) and these concepts become somewhat entagled. If we can quantify the value of this then we could possibly lower our 3-betting requirements accordingly. From this we could know the exact 3-betting hands against a similar TAG player when we have good knowledge of their raising standards.

We can already see that an apparantly simple example rapidly becomes over-complicated. And we haven't even begun to think about how the player plays post-flop. However, once this problem is tackled, it might be easier to extrapolate to more complex examples of how we adjust starting hands according to position and/or initiave.

But how do we tackle even this simple problem?

1) Simulation studies: I'm don't have either TTH or Poki, but can we simulate something this specific?

2) SQL query on PT: It's a really diffuclt question, I have no Idea where to start.

Apologies for rambling, hope this makes sense, any thoughts/criticisms welcome.