A Better Thought

[Jason Strasser]

Ok, this next post is definitely much better than the previous one I made today, and more concrete (read: Johnnybeef will understand [img]/images/graemlins/laugh.gif[/img]).

This idea comes from something I see a lot on two plus two, here is the core:

If you are analyzing a hand, one of the very first things you should do is throw out cases that involve similar outcomes regardless of the line taken.

For example, say you are deep stacked in a tourney with 100bb. You raise with 88 and get called by an opponent. Some stuff happens, and on the river, the board reads Q8853.

So when you are trying to think of a line to take on the river, you start an analysis. The first thing you should do, in this analysis, is forget about the cases that involve your opponent having QQ, or any other hand (If this is a 5$ tournament and your opponent will for sure get it all in at whatever cost with AA on this board, then AA would be a hand you throw out) that has the same outcome as if he had QQ, like a lower set probably. If you plan to check-raise the river, bet out, blah blah, its all the same. Your money is getting in. You will also be able to throw out other cases.

Say your opponent has 77 on this board. Many times, he will always fold to a river bet of any size, and will always check if checked to. So you can take the possibility of your opponent having 77, and, in your analysis, disregard it. It's just not an important thing to consider because whatever action you take the same thing will happen.

I guess this sounds kinda basic, but this idea can be extended to very many hands that are discussed here. Sometimes the entire hand can be ignored because regardless of the path the hero took the same thing would happen, or sometimes parts of analysis that people do here (IE, when people do analysis involving a range of hands) can be cut out or ignored.

The options you need to weigh are stuff like hands that he might bet with if checked to (air, AQ?, overpair?), hands he will call a bet that will check behind (AQ? range obv. depends on opponent), hands that he will call a big bet with but that you could checkraise against and maybe also have him call, and on and on.

You can clear away a lot of the clutter of analysis once you take the important step of understanding what information to ignore.

-Jason

[Exitonly]

Well when doing an analysis you can't just throw them out, because the probibility that he has those hands, will affect what your correct line is. Or maybe i'm not understanding what you're talking about.

[Jason Strasser]

Think about it.

Why are you doing an analysis? To come to a decision.

So, what if your decision doesn't matter.

Why even consider the option that he has something that wont matter?

-Jason

[Jason Strasser]

So if villain in this hand I gave you has QQ, and he has that 50% of the time... Or if he has it 1% of the time, who cares?

You still should ignore the possibility completely because the outcome is the same regardless of what you do.

-Jason

[Exitonly]

Just wrote up a long thing, and then *click*


"Kramer: You just blew my mind"

edit: while this was cool to 'realize' i dont know if it would actually change anything i do. I mean, i'd spend 0.2 seconds thinking about what to do if he has QQ.

good post, I find myself doing this all the time

[La Brujita]

I like this point better than the first one. This one I have to mull over. I was too tired and stuck to much to read the first thread but can I break in to comment that if you have a hand like 44 you don't want 55 and higher or garbage calling you even if you are willing to back your chips with your fours. Same for AT with respect to AJ and AQ, or was I missing your original point. Sorry for thread hijack.

As to this point it seems you are saying you have to worry about doing something about hands you can do something about. That is something I often think in limit. For example you think, ok I will bluff at this river because I will get x and y to fold z percent of the time. Any pair isn't going anywhere.

[Lmn55d]

it seems your example kind of contradicts what Jason is saying. Let's say we know if that he will always will call with a pair. If he doesn't have a pair he has Ax 50% of the time and Kx 50% of the time. He will fold Kx and call with Ax.

Two Scenarios when the pot has 4BB at the river:

A. He has a pair 80% of the time, Ax 10% of the time, Kx 10% of the time. 90% of the time you lose 1BB, 10% of the time you gain 4 BB. EV of this is -.5 BB.

B. He has a pair 60% of the time, Ax 20% of the time, Kx 20% of the time. 80% of the time you lose 1 BB, 20% you win 4 BB. EV = 0.

So the percentage of times he holds a pair matters. Am I missing something Jason?

[La Brujita]

Jeez I forgot Jason has his legions working for him. My only point was you have to estimate the effectiveness of a play on the river vs. the range of hands he has. I wasn't advocating a bluff or not in that particular hand.

[EverettKings]

This is a good point, though it's most applicable in river/all in situations where the action is closing. I mean it's hard to throw anything out really when, say, on the first hand of a tourney your AK sees a KT9 flop or something. At that point theres just not many (if any) hands that have an inevitable "destiny". His range and the possible actions are just too numerous.

It is, however, a very important consideration when you get to the point in a hand where the action is coming to a close. And this is really a general poker thought that applies to cash, tournaments, hold em and crazy pineapple alike.

BTW, is this supposed to be related in any way to your last post?

Everett