Different styles for BB defens

[naphand]

Yes, but is it not also a mistake to not bet the flop as the PFR? And is it not a mistake to fold to the CR?

[naphand]

Yes, thanks for link. I had actually worked this out in the process of posting on this thread. The wording in TOP is very poor.

The post by tallstack earlier clearly illustrates the process; a call is better than a fold as PFR buys back a greater share of the pot than it costs (to call). So a call is profitable for him, even though he is taxed for doing so (based on his inferior equity share).

There are several ways to look at the financial transactions taking place in a hand, and they should be considered financial transactions (not just bets/calls/raises/folds). Looking at a single transaction in detail, as tallstack does here, shows the call is correct. We can work this out in a practical sense by using pot odds but, the pot odds approach does not cover the detail of what happens to the MONEY in the POT already in terms of "ownership". By ownership I mean the long-term distruibution of the $$ in the pot (i.e. PFR wins this pot 0.25 of the time by the River, Defender 0.75).

When TOP refers to "making money" it is referring to the call being the most profitable line to take, in this case instead of folding. There is a cost involved with calling, but this is counterbalanced by a stake (equity) in the pot. When that equity-share of the pot exceeds the cost of staying in the hand, then the call is profitable. However there is still a cost involved. Much the same way as paying a broker to purchase/sell shares on our behalf, we get the benefit of the revenue from the shares but we have to pay a commission. The "commission" on any bet or call etc. made is distributed among the players according to their card-equity (ignoring bluffs, misclicks etc.). In a HU situation one player is almost always getting the larger part of that "commission". In the example given defender gets about 75% of any transaction made.

This also works the other way round. It is a curious fact to note that when defender makes his raise he is giving up 25% of the value of the bet as PFR has a 25% equity stake in all money put in the pot. It costs defender 25% of his his bet in "commission" paid to PFR. The benefit of this is that small fee may win defender the entire pot if PFR folds, and if PFR calls he charges a 75% "commission" on PFRs call. Thus, defender has a net gain when PFR calls, even though it costs him something to make the bet. If PFR folds defender gets the whole pot, which is hugely profitable. The link you give here highlights how the call benefits defender more when PFR calls incorrectly, he actually makes more money long-term. When PFR calls correctly defender makes less money than if PFR folds. You could say his "earn-rate" drops when PFR calls correctly, his earn-rate improves when PFR calls incorrectly. Ditto for folds, but folds end the hand and give immediate profit - equity share no longer exists as the folder has relinquished his share of the pot.

Unfortunately it is not as simple as this, and we have touched in this in various places. The difficult bit is the anticipation of bets. People have stated that is PFR knew he was going to be raised he would prefer to check behind. Well, yes, if PFR knew he was going to be CR by a better hand he would prefer to check behind. If PFR is getting CR by a worse hand, he prefers to get CR. Looking at the two bets put in on the flop PFR prefers not to do this against a better hand, but the fact is he can never know, and the flop bet is the correct play in most situations (defender misses 66% of the time). Looking at the hand as 2 bets is correct from the perspective of a defender who planned his CR. From PFRs perspective the flop bet has positive expectation long-term (so is generally correct) and the call also is correct as it has long-term positive expectation. But as each bet goes in from PFR, he is "watering down" his equity share as it becomes more and more his own money (this does not apply when the number of callers is sufficient to give him a net positive return on each bet, such as with a 30% equity and 3 callers). Unfortunately for PFR he has to keep making these calls as each on its own is correct, over a series of bets, however, it is losing him money faster and faster. Fortunately for PFR, there are only 2 streets to SD and only 1 opponent. Such a situation can occur when getting whip-sawed between two players raising and re-raising. This is where good anticipation can save/make $$.

[naphand]

Actually my example was not so great, as it does not reflect what likely happens.

If PFR takes the standard line of bet-bet-fold (to a bet) with overcards, he is making 2 TOP mistakes. If he plays call-call-fold he is calling correctly and making no mistakes. It could be argued that the bet-bet line is superior as it gets a free SD if he checks behind on the River (esp. if defender was planning a CR), instead of the call-call-fold line.

Thinking on this a bit, if PFR bets flop and Turn then checks behind the River, the mistake is with defender who did not take the chance to CR the flop or Turn. So in fact the bet-bet approach is more profitable for defender but ONLY if he acts correctly and CR his opponent, given the chance to do so on either flop or Turn.

With the call-call-fold approach defender still makes $$ but with PFR (now "defending" his draw) calling correctly he cannot extract the extra bet a CR would provide, so is an SB (flop CR) or BB (Turn CR) worse off. I see now if PFR is making mistakes, defender must still take advantage of them to realise the profit.

[QTip]

[ QUOTE ]
The wording in TOP is very poor.

[/ QUOTE ]

I couldn't agree more.

[kiddo]

Well, if u and I met over a few beers and discussed this I would guess we agree on most of it.

Its not that I always cr if I flop a pair against a stealraiser. If they are weak I often prefer betting all way because if they raise I can often fold (now Im talking about if Im sitting with a not so good pair).

Against really aggressive I also often bet with any decent pair, because they will autoraise and I can 3bet.

But against decent player stealing I prefer the cr, I think part of this is because its very tricky to defend yourself if they choose to call flop and raise turn, which is a good line because they guess I am on a smaller pair or a draw and will have a hard time calling. If I checkraise it feels easier to fold when they pop turn, I have a feeling - but this could be wrong - that they more often really have a hand when they raise after me checkraising and betting turn then after me betting flop and turn. Against a decent player I almost always cr if I hit a really strong hand because I want him to think I am trying to act strong (but am weak).

I dont do nearly as much checkraising when we are talking about 3way or more. If I flop anything decent in the blinds against 2 or 3 players I almost always bet. I guess I could start to bet a little more on flop hu, will think about it after this.

And by the way, I have a pretty low cr%, among the lower I think, so its not that I cr a lot.

[djoyce003]

My line is to checkraise the flop, and lead the turn. I find that this gets more folds than a turn checkraise.

[naphand]

[ QUOTE ]
Thats why its called stealing.

[/ QUOTE ]

Stealing with trash is worthy of a separate discussion on its own, I take your point but it is not really what this thread is about. We are talking about a hand that PFR will auto-bet on the flop, but which still has a reasonable chance to draw out on defender.

There are enough value-raising hands which can be played 1st-in OTB to not require stealing with trash at all. With a correct "steal" rate (and I agree that "stealing" is not really stealing at all, it is usually "value-raising") you could be raising up to 40-50% of your hands PF, some limitations apply (such as how to play post-flop for value, and some trouble/disguise hands).

Charging a weak stealer playing trash only works if he calls your CR, if he is stealing with garbage why does he call your flop CR? This needs a read to be +EV, otherwise calling and letting him bet again on the Turn might be better?

The issue here is where to get the most value and do we want opponent to fold asap? CR the flop is straightforward due to the auto-bet play made by PFR, which can be taken advantage of. I think we agree that in most cases they will call the flop CR (but perhaps not with total trash). The next question is, will they call a Turn CR? or will they fold? Will they call a Turn bet after a flop CR? I think they probably DO call the Turn bet more easily but against a player who folds the Turn bet (correctly, in this example), we are better calling the flop bet, and calling/CR the Turn bet if PFR is the sort of player to go bet-bet-fold/call. Allowing PFR to get to the River gives him approx. 25% chance to draw out on us (in this example). Do we want him to fold the Turn? Is our flop CR getting more money in than call-CR? By CR the Turn we get an extra 0.5 BB from a player who calls the flop CR but folds the Turn for a single bet, plus we get an extra 0.5 BB from a player who wants to see the River and calls the Turn CR.

Balanced against this we have to consider the possibility of scare cards falling on the Turn which make a Turn CR more difficult. But even on a math-level we could just go ahead and CR the Turn with most cards, knowing opponent only hits 13% of the time (we may need to revise that %age based on what card falls, of course). The line that we CR our weaker hands on the flop applies when either (i) we can get opponent to fold a hand with a decent chance to draw out on us that we will have to pay off, or (ii) many scare cards can fall on the Turn which make a Turn CR potentially very costly or difficult. That said we are looing at a very low (approx. 13%) chance for opponent to hit on the Turn, so we will get paid off much more often than charged when drawn out on, providing we believe opponent either calls the Turn CR or uses the bet-bet line.

[sqvirrel]

[ QUOTE ]
My line is to checkraise the flop, and lead the turn. I find that this gets more folds than a turn checkraise.

[/ QUOTE ]

That is a common line but nap argues (correctly, I think) that since you are ahead you don't want a fold. The object is to win the most money, not the most pots.

[naphand]

I think you describe a big reason to use the flop-CR, for exactly the reasons you give. I am just wondering if we are missing some value by not waiting for the Turn, and just how often we can expect to see a Turn CR from opponent. In the games you describe, it seems that your opponents are CR the Turn when you bet the flop as they see you for a small pair, but you are also CR the flop with strong hands as it is your standard line when you have a small pair... [img]/images/graemlins/confused.gif[/img]

I certainly think there is room for both and other lines discussed, I just do not think they have been discussed enough (for me anyway) to be sure exactly where they "fit" in the scheme of things. I hate "standard" lines without an understanding of how they fit in with alternatives, and when those standard lines or alternatives may apply or be more correct.

I CR the flop to tell my opponent in no uncertain terms that I am not going to be messed with in this hand, I have a made-hand "so don't get clever with me". That said, just yesterday I raised a JTx flop with QTo in a HU blind-defence spot (I was OTB in this case) and was CR on a Turn-rag. Opponent bet River as well and showed A8o (no pair). I called as they were unknown and the line was unusual, so I figured high chance of a power-resteal. This kind of line (the call flop raise CR Turn as a re-steal) is pretty uncommon to see in the games I play, so I have to bow to your experience if you say that this is a major concern/problem in your games.

Amusingly, same session on Stars (where you can post your own avatar image), I was CR on flop after stealing OTB, took a look at the players photo (this was a photo not a cartoon or suchlike), figured he looked the type to try a resteal, and 3-bet him. He bullet-folded. Arf! Who says you cannot get reads on-line? [img]/images/graemlins/grin.gif[/img]

[Trix]

[ QUOTE ]
Yes, but is it not also a mistake to not bet the flop as the PFR?

[/ QUOTE ]

Thats unimportant really. You should be looking at mistakes according to the fundamental theorom of poker (think its called that).

[ QUOTE ]
And is it not a mistake to fold to the CR?


[/ QUOTE ]

Not sure where you are going with this, but if its overcards vs pair and he has odds to put in a SB more, then its a mistake.

What he has done though is to put in 2 SB in a pot where he shouldn´t if he could see our cards. It doesn´t matter if he put them in one at a time or if he was correct to bet in that situation against whatever range BB may have. If he could see the cards, his play would be to check, unless he could buy a free card with a bet, but lets ignore that.