Making your next decision "easier"

[AtticusFinch]

Am I the only one who has serious issues with Harrington's idea that deliberately sizing your bet so that your next decision is automatic is a good thing?

It seems to me that if you size your bet such that your next decision is pre-determined, all you've done is take away your ability to make a decision. Assuming you're a good player, isn't it more advantageous to leave yourself with more flexibility to use your good judgment?

I don't object to making a bet of this size, by the way, if it's right based on other factors. But I don't see how limiting your own options is a material advantage in anything other than an all-in situation, and even then only with certain hands like AK and small pairs.

If taken to its logical extreme, this thinking could suggest that it's always better to just push or fold PF. Heck, it may even be true for some players. But surely not for any of the readers of this board.

I very much agree. (I think I was just arguing this in another thread.) You should make your next decision easier only if it was going to be easy in the first place. I keep trying to contrive an example, but I'm struggling (I'm sorry; if this thread's still up, I'll do it tomorrow after class.)--the best I can think of involves having 15 BBs or so with AA against a big stack's bet on a draw-heavy flop, in which case I think the proper play is definitely to do whatever will get your chips in against the widest range of hands.

[yabastid]

Yeah, that has bugged me too. It's like, I have Q9s and 20 BBs on the button and want to make a steal raise, but if I only raise 3 or 4 BBs I'll have to fold to a push from the blinds- I'll raise 12 BBs then my call will be automatic!

Granted this is a bit extreme, but I never quite grasped what he was getting at.

[fnurt]

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Yeah, that has bugged me too. It's like, I have Q9s and 20 BBs on the button and want to make a steal raise, but if I only raise 3 or 4 BBs I'll have to fold to a push from the blinds- I'll raise 12 BBs then my call will be automatic!

Granted this is a bit extreme, but I never quite grasped what he was getting at.

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But in the first case, your fold is automatic, so that's fine. The point is not that you should always price yourself in, the point is that you should try to avoid giving yourself tough decisions.

In live events where you can get a read maybe there's nothing wrong with postponing your tough decisions until later, but in online poker where the decisions are basically binary, you can predict a situation where a raise will leave you in a tough spot, and insulate yourself against it ahead of time, by making your bet either larger or smaller.

[yabastid]

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Yeah, that has bugged me too. It's like, I have Q9s and 20 BBs on the button and want to make a steal raise, but if I only raise 3 or 4 BBs I'll have to fold to a push from the blinds- I'll raise 12 BBs then my call will be automatic!

Granted this is a bit extreme, but I never quite grasped what he was getting at.

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But in the first case, your fold is automatic, so that's fine. The point is not that you should always price yourself in, the point is that you should try to avoid giving yourself tough decisions.

In live events where you can get a read maybe there's nothing wrong with postponing your tough decisions until later, but in online poker where the decisions are basically binary, you can predict a situation where a raise will leave you in a tough spot, and insulate yourself against it ahead of time, by making your bet either larger or smaller.

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Maybe I need to reread that section, but it seemed like he was saying, in those marginal situations just price yourself in so that a call is automatic, therefore, no more "tough" decisions. Maybe a combination of bad writing and poor reading comprehension [img]/images/graemlins/tongue.gif[/img]

[AtticusFinch]

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Yeah, that has bugged me too. It's like, I have Q9s and 20 BBs on the button and want to make a steal raise, but if I only raise 3 or 4 BBs I'll have to fold to a push from the blinds- I'll raise 12 BBs then my call will be automatic!

Granted this is a bit extreme, but I never quite grasped what he was getting at.

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But in the first case, your fold is automatic, so that's fine. The point is not that you should always price yourself in, the point is that you should try to avoid giving yourself tough decisions.

In live events where you can get a read maybe there's nothing wrong with postponing your tough decisions until later, but in online poker where the decisions are basically binary, you can predict a situation where a raise will leave you in a tough spot, and insulate yourself against it ahead of time, by making your bet either larger or smaller.

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That just amounts to deciding ahead of time what you'll do in case of X, which doesn't make much sense to me. Why decide now, when you will necessarily have more information to work with later? I just don't see it as a positive factor. I think it's a non-starter.

Don't get me wrong, I'm all for looking ahead and thinking about contingencies, but setting things up so it's "automatic" doesn't make sense. Just bet the right amount for your hand, position, and the stacks.

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Just bet the right amount for your hand, position, and the stacks factoring in the fact that your opponent can raise

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[AtticusFinch]

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Just bet the right amount for your hand, position, and the stacks factoring in the fact that your opponent can raise

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Agreed, but you dont know how much opp will raise if he does. Even if you do, I don't think that the ease of your next decision is a reasonable factor. A better way of looking at it is to size your bet such that you have a better idea of opp's range if he raises. Now you have more information to work with down the line. This may still make your decision for you, but it's a far better way to analyze the hand than simply arranging it so you'll have the pot odds. In that case, you're essentially making the decision now, with less information than you'll have on your next action. Do you see the difference?

As I've always stressed, when dealing with statistics, information is everything.

[petvan]

nope

http://forumserver.twoplustwo.com/sh...v=#Post3492484

[petvan]

A few pages later (really need to dig it up) he contradicts in a situation where you make a bet, then fold to a push over because irrespective of calling odds, the push over tells you that you are dead in the hand and you have to fold.

P