Theory Post: On position

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Well, pot control certainly has to do w/ the notion that keeping the pot smaller in certain situations is inherently advantageous to allowing it to swell. I think the other things you've mentioned are corollary effects of applying this concept.

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Okay, now I think you're really getting to the heart of my misunderstanding...

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The turn is a card. Let's say that the pot is now 25 BB, after your preflop raise and flop bet, and you both have between 100-150 BB left behind. This is a spot where I'm checking behind a pretty decent amount on the turn. It keeps the pot size manageable, and makes it easier for you to get your hand to a showdown. If you had bet again on the turn, on the other hand, and villain had called again, the pot is going to represent a significant portion of your remaining stacks, and boy is it gonna suck when villain pushes or fires out big on the river . . .

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Okay this is what I don't understand. Yes, the pot is bigger. In a practical sense, its hard to call a $1000 bet versus a $100 bet because its a lot more valuable to you as a human being.

However, from a theoretical standpoint, if your opponent bets the pot on the river, it doesn't matter if the pot is $100 or $1000, no? Either way, to call, you need to be good 1/3 of the time. So as far as I can see, the only thing pot control did here was minimize your variance.

I realize I am ignoring the fact that bigger pots generally have opponents with bigger hands, but as you said this is more of a corollary of pot control than what it is directly, so I'm trying to figure out what pot control is in and of itself.

My only idea of what it is then... is that perhaps the argument is, even though there's no theoretical advantage to keeping the pot small (other than variance), in the real world, if your opponent is much more willing to bluff or play second best hands in smaller pots than bigger ones (even if he has the same pot/bluff odds to do so in each case), then pot control becomes profitable.

But if he plays bluffs or plays his second best hands regardless of pot size (ie. only on the percentage of times when his bluffs are successful), then there is no advantage to controlling the pot (other than variance). So in summary, the argument is based on how the opponent will react to a certain type of pot size and nothing inherent in the pot size itself.

This argument is close to the original corollary but isn't quite the same because the original corollary states that an opponent will play with more worst hands because in order to control the pot, you had to exercise some "weakness" so it didn't get too big (by check/calling).

The argument I proposed though is that the opponents actions will be different based on the pot size alone. Meaning that they may not be inclined to bluff or play weaker hands simply because the pot is $1000 versus a $1 pot, even if the bluff would work just as frequently at the bigger pot, its "too much money to risk even if profitable" .

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Notice how we've also lost the least those times that villain has AK or some other made hand better than ours, and at the same time, we've also invited villain to bluff his busted draws by showing "weakness" in checking behind on the turn

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I think this is just the corollary you mentioned earlier.

I'm now convinced that I've jumped off the sane boat into a sea of idiocity. But this is just how my brain works. I want to be able to dispell any erroneous ideas about this basic NL concept so I can correctly apply it.

Thanks for the reply.

[yvesaint]

It's not a monetary difference. It's the fact that the bet is much larger relative to your stack difference. A $1000 bet could easily mean Villain is putting his stack all-in while that $100 bet could just mean a pot-sized bluff. I think there is a difference between a bet that is 1/2 - the rest of your stack and a bet that is 1/10th of your stack.

The bets might be the same relative to the POT, but they are not the same relative to your STACKS.

[turnipmonster]

excellent post man!

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The bets might be the same relative to the POT, but they are not the same relative to your STACKS.

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I was going to mention something along these lines but I thought my post was already getting too long as it was, so I had to exercise some "post control" to keep in managable. Okay that was a terrible joke, I'll go shoot myself now.

The thing is though, that on the final river pot bet, its still a straightforward risk versus reward issue so its seems its still based on the pot itself. That being said, I agree that stack sizes offer a better indication of how much risk a player would be willing to take though to win the pot. A $1000NL player will probably take an iffy +EV gamble on a $100 pot, whereas a $25NL player may not be willing to risk so much. The monetary values are more to give a concrete example than anything else.

But then that would go back to the argument I proposed in my previous post...

[jhall23]

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The thing is though, that on the final river pot bet, its still a straightforward risk versus reward issue so its seems its still based on the pot itself. That being said, I agree that stack sizes offer a better indication of how much risk a player would be willing to take though to win the pot. A $1000NL player will probably take an iffy +EV gamble on a $100 pot, whereas a $25NL player may not be willing to risk so much. The monetary values are more to give a concrete example than anything else.

But then that would go back to the argument I proposed in my previous post...

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You are of course correct that you still are facing the same odd's in relation to the pot and therefore must win the same amount of the time whether it is big or small to make it +EV.

The thing is though, I'll use neon's first example, that if you check the turn the villian will be more likely to bet/call with a hand that is worse than yours on the river where he may fold it on the turn. If he call's the bet on the turn it is more likely that the hands you wind up against at showdown will be higher quality. So if you bet the turn say 3/4 - pot and he calls and then prices you in cheap (1/2 potish) on the river and you call you are losing more than if you had checked the turn and then call a pot size bet on the river. Also if you check the turn and he checks the river hoping for a free showdown he will be more apt to call a bet from you as he will question how strong your hand is. As neon said you lose the least and gain the most against their range.

Okay, well I think everything makes sense now. I was getting caught up in semantics.

Whereas neon said he thought of pot control as a way to control a hand... at least, for me, it's more helpful to think about this as hand control, and "pot control" is simply a consequence of controlling your opponents hands. The distinction: your real goal is not to manipulate the pot specifically, but to manipulate your opponents hand range to the way that is most profitable for you. It just so happens this often means keeping the pot small or big or whatever.

And when I put it that way, everything else seems to fall into place. Thanks for all the responses guys.