"Just Play Poker"

[LearnedfromTV]

Food for thought:

There are many poker situations where the best play is also a play that forces you into unfamiliar and/or difficult situations on later streets. The TT hand and the JJ hand posted by Nomar are examples. In both cases, calling is clearly the correct play. In both cases, a lot of people would advocating raising because it seems to make future decisions easier. Similarly, a lot of people take the allin push too far, making it in situations that don't warrant it.

So we often get dialogues like this in good threads:

Player A (Very good player) - "Calling and seeing a flop is clearly the best play"

Player B - "But I have to find out where I'm at. What will I do on the flop if I just call."

Player A - 'Just play poker"

The point: If you are reading these boards to learn and improve, take "Just play poker" as a euphemism for "there is a postflop skill that you need to develop." Every situation that is difficult to you is easy to someone, or if not easy, playable. (We all hate medium pairs, but some of us hate them less than others.)

Imagine Phil Ivey calling your reraise out of position, or coldcalling your UTG raise and then having to play a four way pot with him in it. Good players can intimidate even when putting themselves in a tough spot because their opponents know they know what they are doing in a tough spot. The key to getting better is being willing to put yourself in the difficult situation when the difficult situation is clearly the best situation. I try to do this, and often find myself getting outplayed, but I would rather get outplayed in a tough situation until I figure it out than avoid tough situations.

Thoughts?

[PFrese]

I agree completely. I said something similar in another post. You have to look for ways to make it difficult on your opponents. Pushing preflop many times makes it very easy for your opponent to play. Whereas, calling or whathave you, forces another decision to be made by both you and your opponent. And that is Poker! Pushing, pushing pushing, is bully poker!

[LearnedfromTV]

Let me clarify that I'm not saying pushing is necessarily wrong, only that people tend to default to plays and situations that they find comfortable and that this isn't a good thing.

I've made general posts such as this before without much response, but I'll give this one more shot with a couple more thoughts.

I think we can all agree that the path to making the best decision at a given point in a hand is to

- narrow your opponent(s) to a properly-weighted range of hands based on his (their) action in this hand adjusted to account for his (their) action in previous observed hands.

- understand each opponent's thought process with respect to their own hand and your hand (and other opponents in the hand). Understand how he goes about reading hands (if he does) and use this to understand how he will interpret your action up to this point and any future action.

Edit: of course, you can only approximately do either of these things (and only approximately evaluate the effect of different future actions). but that doesn't change the fact that this is the theoretical goal.

- choose the action that will enable you to

a) maximize the information his future action gives you, as well as put yourself in a position to capitalize on that information, while at the same time

b) minimizing the information he can discern from your future action about your hand and/or his ability to capitalize on that information.

a) and b) are often difficult to achieve in concert because often your opponent is more predictable when he has more information about yoiur hand. This is not always the case, however. The JJ Bellagio hand is a great example. Assuming he flat-calls raises in position with a reasonable frequency, if Nomar flat-calls the raise, regardless of whether other players come along, it is going to be very hard for the raiser to get to the turn with a better idea of Nomar's hand than Nomar has of his. Add to that Nomar being in position on the raiser and the certainty that his hand is better preflop than anyone else who comes along, it is very likely that he'll be able to make better decisions on future streets than the raiser. This may mean folding when he's clearly beat, but it also means he is much more likely to extract value when he is ahead.

Fine. What does that have to do with my original post? What people usually mean when they say "a difficult spot" is that they have less information than they would like to make their very next decision. This is only one part of what should be taken into account, however.

It is more important that you

- have relatively more information than your opponent
- manipulate the context such that you are likely to gain more information from his future actions than he is from yours

The amount of information you have is one factor but only one factor. The best move may be one that gives you less information because it gives your opponent even less and/or forces them to give more information than you on later streets.

Thanks for taking the time to read. Comments welcome.

good post. i was one of those who was saying reraise on the JJ and TT Bellagio hands (not push, thats suicide, altho ive been convinced that reraising is just a slower suicide in both cases).

you are exactly right, my instinct to reraise stems from wanting to find out where im at. But what does that stem from: fear to play on the flop in a situation where my read is not clearly defined.

MLG made a great post on the JJ hand where he said that if you reraise the UTG raiser, you allow him to play perfectly preflop. Folding hands that are behind yours, and raising/calling you with hands that beat you. I hadnt thought about this.

Also, you made a great point, LFT, that calling here masks your hand from UTG. Forget gathering info, your concerned with giving info (which is exactly what MLG was saying).

Thank you for the thoughtful responses.

[betgo]

I don't disagree with your main point. However, sometimes just calling is not the best play. If your hand is worth calling is it often worth reraising. That way you gain initiative and give your opponent difficult decisions, where he often may fold a good hand or call with a worse hand.

[LearnedfromTV]

[ QUOTE ]
I don't disagree with your main point. However, sometimes just calling is not the best play. If your hand is worth calling is it often worth reraising. That way you gain initiative and give your opponent difficult decisions, where he often may fold a good hand or call with a worse hand.

[/ QUOTE ]

The easiest example of what i am talking about is a call in a deep stacked situation where a raise or fold is more comfortable, but that doesn't mean I'm saying you should call more often indiscriminately, or that this is the only example. In another deep stacked situation, a dangerous seeming semi-bluff raise (not allin, not close to pot committing, i.e. really deep stacks) may be the play the maximizes your information edge for future streets, and the safer but less optimal play is a call. (a low-level version of this is teaching a loose passive in limit the 'free card play').

Regarding 'initiative', elindauer in the high stakes limit forum created an excellent recent thread arguing that 'initiative' is not a pure advantage independent of the hand range assessments that accompany it. Making the last raise or bet on an earlier street typically gives you an advantage on the next street because your hand range is weighted stronger by your opponents, not because there is a fundamental advantage to having the initiative. It sounds like a semantic difference, but when you think it through you realize it isn't. The thing is, sometimes, you would prefer you opponent weight your hand range weaker. Other times, your opponents will interpret a flat call as stronger than a raise, and this may or may not be what you want them to think. Generally, what matters is how effectively your action will manipulate your opponents view of your hand range such that you can get the most value from your actual hand. "initiative" is shorthand for the fact that often aggressive action maximizes your information because it makes your opponent view your hand as strong and forces him to make a difficult and readable decision. This is not universally true, however.

[ QUOTE ]
I don't disagree with your main point. However, sometimes just calling is not the best play. If your hand is worth calling is it often worth reraising. That way you gain initiative and give your opponent difficult decisions, where he often may fold a good hand or call with a worse hand.

[/ QUOTE ]

Good points.

The primary exception I would have to these and it seems to come up a lot in online MTTs, is when you are pretty sure to be way ahead or way behind. In these cases, IMHO, the call is the optimal play.