total unfluffableness

[Tommy Angelo]

"this question isn't "is this guy bluffing more than 22:1?", it's "does this guy have a flush?". averages are good when you don't know exactly what to do or want to make a post-game observation, but the guy isn't doing anything ON AVERAGE right there. he's doing a very specific thing, right at that moment in time. "
---------

Astro, thank you. I was about to spend half an hour saying what you just did.

Rick,

I have no idea who bluffs 1/20 of the time or 1/10th of the time or whatever. Not even a clue. It's all about if they are bluffing when their chips go in the pot.

Tommy

[Tommy Angelo]

"In other words, calling on the close ones protects your future."

::: loud annoying buzzer sound :::

lol

Rick,

You mock meta-game considerations when they support a "big laydown," and in the same breath, you repeatedly cite meta-game considerations as a reason for me to call when I know I'm beat, just so that I won't get successfully bluffed later.

Something don't jive there.

The way I see it, if I make some huge laydown, which by the way, the opponents don't see it or (ideally) get even a smidge of an indication about what I had, so they can't be sure I made a big laydown, but let's say some guy thinks I folded a big pair and not a busted draw, and now, "he adjusts." That can only mean that at some point in the future, he makes some betting decision other than he otherwise would have, based entirely on the fact that at some point prior, I had folded a hand on the river.

Fine. If and when that happens, I will have been a witness to my own fold, and I will be prepared to make whatever betting choices seems like the best ones at the time. This is just regular old poker. Calling it "meta-game" makes it sound like an addition to something, when actually, it is the 20-1 type stuff that is the tangent. When the hands are live, the meta game is the game.

Tommy

[Rick Nebiolo]

[ QUOTE ]
"this question isn't "is this guy bluffing more than 22:1?", it's "does this guy have a flush?". averages are good when you don't know exactly what to do or want to make a post-game observation, but the guy isn't doing anything ON AVERAGE right there. he's doing a very specific thing, right at that moment in time. "
---------

Astro, thank you. I was about to spend half an hour saying what you just did.

Rick,

I have no idea who bluffs 1/20 of the time or 1/10th of the time or whatever. Not even a clue. It's all about if they are bluffing when their chips go in the pot.

[/ QUOTE ]


Tommy,

This will be my summation, sort of like a closing argument by a lawyer. Then I'll *probably* give up. But I'm not *certain* [img]/images/graemlins/grin.gif[/img].

"Although I and others have used numbers such as the above to help describe the math issues, at the table for a given hand they really represent the degree of uncertainty.

Your remaining opponent played the hand and bets the river in such a way that you *know* he has made his flush draw. You have a hand that can beat anything but a flush.

For this and all reads, there has to be some degree of uncertainty. This degree of uncertainty might be very small, but unless you are superhuman (see PS below) you can't be 100% sure - in this spot or any other. If you are 98% certain you are beat and your estimate of certainty is correct then a fold is clearly the right play. But if you are *merely* 95% certain, then folding is a mistake.

We also tend to have a rather large margin of error when estimating long shots. 98%, 99%, 96%, 95% and even 90% certain all feel about the same to most of us. This isn't the math gurus way of representing margin of error, but it works for me, who sees so many things in shades of gray.

It is the degree of uncertainty in combination with margin of error that all poker players should consider when deciding whether to call or fold. And IMO these factors usually justify a call when the pot contains 22 big bets and it costs you one bet to show down.

~ Rick

PS Probable mike l. response before I wrote this postscript is something like "tommy is superhuman" [img]/images/graemlins/grin.gif[/img]

[skp]

But with all due respect, Astro (and believe you me, I have the utmost respect for your posts), what you are saying is somewhat akin to saying " I have a 50% chance of hitting a set everytime I get a pocket pair...either I will hit it or I wont".

Sure, the ultimate decision is whether the dude has a flush. But the whole point of the discussion is what margin of error do you have in arriving at your decision. See Rick's response to Tommy.

[andyfox]

"unless you are superhuman you can't be 100% sure"

Sure you can. I've been 100% certain hundreds of times. And I'm not half the player or reader that Tommy is, nor have I played half as many hands as he has.

[Rick Nebiolo]

Tommy,

The nanosecond I send my other response (the so called final summation), my in-box beeped with an alert regarding this response (it could have been a millisecond, but that's within my margin of error [img]/images/graemlins/smile.gif[/img])

[ QUOTE ]
You mock meta-game considerations when they support a "big laydown," and in the same breath, you repeatedly cite meta-game considerations as a reason for me to call when I know I'm beat, just so that I won't get successfully bluffed later. - Something don't jive there.

[/ QUOTE ]

I'm not sure where I mock meta game considerations (if I did it wasn't intentional), but as I wrote in the previous post sent the millisecond/nanosecond this post came in that there is a degree of uncertainty and margin of error, for this and all hands.

[ QUOTE ]
The way I see it, if I make some huge laydown, which by the way, the opponents don't see it or (ideally) get even a smidge of an indication about what I had, so they can't be sure I made a big laydown, but let's say some guy thinks I folded a big pair and not a busted draw, and now, "he adjusts." That can only mean that at some point in the future, he makes some betting decision other than he otherwise would have, based entirely on the fact that at some point prior, I had folded a hand on the river.

Fine. If and when that happens, I will have been a witness to my own fold, and I will be prepared to make whatever betting choices seems like the best ones at the time. This is just regular old poker. Calling it "meta-game" makes it sound like an addition to something, when actually, it is the 20-1 type stuff that is the tangent. When the hands are live, the meta game is the game.

[/ QUOTE ]

But Tommy, even if your hand wasn't turned over the way this hand was played even the weakest, most incompetent opponent would have to put you on trip aces/big kicker. Nothing else makes sense, and the degree of certainty has to be at least as great as your putting the BB on the made flush. Everyone at the table would see this too. Against this group in the near future expect them to fire some bullets at you on the river when a possible draw comes in. But you knew that (I'm 98% certain with a 4% margin of error [img]/images/graemlins/grin.gif[/img]), cause you have "meta-game".

~ Rick

[astroglide]

i know, but there are situations where you completely have the read. you probably use the history of the person to strengthen it, but i think it only comes down to percentages (and a call) when there's any doubt in your mind. sometimes there just isn't.

[skp]

I too have often felt that I was 100% certain. But it's simply impossible to prove that my feeling was correct.

We make a laydown when we are 90% sure that the other guy has us beat. The hand gets shown and our assessment is validated. We feel good. We do it again. We feel gooder (sic). This repeats itself a few times and we convince ourselves that the read is 100%. Except that the 15th time it occurs, the guy was indeed bluffing (or betting Ax in Tommy's example). The hand doesn't get shown down. We continue to feel smug about our 100% accurate reads.

I am certainly not immune from making these regretful laydowns. A couple of weeks ago, on Party, I had T3 in the bb and flopped bottom two on a AT3 flop. The turn was some small card but it did put a flush draw out there. Me and another guy got into a raising war and capped it.

River was an Ace and I checked and bullet folded. Of course, my fold was dumb (particularly since I did not have the history with my opponent that Tommy had with his).

[Zeno]

[ QUOTE ]
"unless you are superhuman you can't be 100% sure"

Sure you can. I've been 100% certain hundreds of times. And I'm not half the player or reader that Tommy is, nor have I played half as many hands as he has.

[/ QUOTE ]

¡Olé!


Well said and ditto on not being half the player....yada yada yada.

Why is this so simple concept so difficult for some to understand or accept? Is some form of brainwashing going on?

Anyway, I done with this.

Go Dodgers. [img]/images/graemlins/smirk.gif[/img]

-Zeno

[andyfox]

I'm saying there are times when I'm 100% sure. Not 90%, not 99%, not 99.99999999%. 100%. I'm not talking about being sure 15 times and the 15th time I'm wrong. I'm talking about being 100% sure the one time I'm 100% sure.

Now there are times where I've been 99% sure. I can't tell the difference between, say, 90% and 91%, but I can tell the difference between 99% and 100%.

I suppose one can say that one is never 100% sure. Especially head-up. But even then, I've had situations where I'm as sure of my read as I am that the sun will rise tomorrow or that if I wake up and the streets are wet that it rained last night. That's close enough for me and, by any reasonable definition, it's 100%.