The Monty Hall HU problem

[aargh57]

Just reading "Weighing the Odds in Hold Em" by King Yao right now and find it to be pretty good. Already know a few parts that I'm gonna reread but anyway.....

In the back he's got some extra section and one is The Monty Hall problem. I won't go into the whole thing but the basic gist is that sometimes we will know our opponents action ahead of time regardless of what cards fall. The example he give is: you're 4 handed in the blind against a very aggressive player on the button who will raise with many hands if folded to. He says to ignore your cards. The flop is 992 rainbow. This is where the Monty Hall thing comes in. You know ahead of time that when you check, villain will bet 100% of the time. He's basically saying that you don't know any more information now than you did preflop.

Here's my question: How do we use this info? This situation comes up quite often in 6max games so it seems like a good thing to know how to handle. Obviously, we need to loosen up here not only preflop but postflop but that's where it starts getting sticky. In these situations I try to basically use HPFAP's guidelines. I'm thinking in this situation, however, were given a good piece of info. Namely, villain will always bet. I think I'm starting to ramble here and don't know if I'm even being coherent but I'd just like to know what others think our strategy should be against a player like this (BTW, I don't think villain's strategy is a bad one, especially against an average or weak-tight player). I guess you just got to get some cajones here, bet out sometimes, bet/fold sometimes, check/raise sometimes, and check/fold your uber crap (the problem I have with this one is that I would rather fold pf if I know the flops gotta hit me HU to continue). Anyway, if this is of any interest, let me know what you think here, otherwise just let it drop like a rock.

[DoomSlice]

Against an opponent who will always bet, the optimal strategy would be to check-raise 100% of the time when your hand improves to what is likely the best hand, and also mix in a combination of check-raises and check-folds with hands that don't improve to make him indifferent from bluffing like this.

[DMBFan23]

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Against an opponent who will always bet, the optimal strategy would be to check-raise 100% of the time when your hand improves to what is likely the best hand, and also mix in a combination of check-raises and check-folds with hands that don't improve to make him indifferent from bluffing like this.

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what if he'll raise sometimes if we bet? shouldn't we mix in some bet-3bet? what if he'll fold a lot of we bet, but only raise middle pair or better? shouldn't we bluff some?

I think it's more complicated, even if we know he'll auto bet if we check.

[Aaron W.]

[ QUOTE ]
Just reading "Weighing the Odds in Hold Em" by King Yao right now and find it to be pretty good. Already know a few parts that I'm gonna reread but anyway.....

In the back he's got some extra section and one is The Monty Hall problem. I won't go into the whole thing but the basic gist is that sometimes we will know our opponents action ahead of time regardless of what cards fall. The example he give is: you're 4 handed in the blind against a very aggressive player on the button who will raise with many hands if folded to. He says to ignore your cards. The flop is 992 rainbow. This is where the Monty Hall thing comes in. You know ahead of time that when you check, villain will bet 100% of the time. He's basically saying that you don't know any more information now than you did preflop.

Here's my question: How do we use this info? This situation comes up quite often in 6max games so it seems like a good thing to know how to handle. Obviously, we need to loosen up here not only preflop but postflop but that's where it starts getting sticky. In these situations I try to basically use HPFAP's guidelines. I'm thinking in this situation, however, were given a good piece of info. Namely, villain will always bet. I think I'm starting to ramble here and don't know if I'm even being coherent but I'd just like to know what others think our strategy should be against a player like this (BTW, I don't think villain's strategy is a bad one, especially against an average or weak-tight player). I guess you just got to get some cajones here, bet out sometimes, bet/fold sometimes, check/raise sometimes, and check/fold your uber crap (the problem I have with this one is that I would rather fold pf if I know the flops gotta hit me HU to continue). Anyway, if this is of any interest, let me know what you think here, otherwise just let it drop like a rock.

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There are two things you need to do:
1) Discover his weaknesses
2) Exploit them

In a 4-handed game, you're going to have lots of opportunities to try various angles. Try some experiments and see what works well. If he's firing all streets with nothing, then be prepared to showdown a lot of hands. If he fires the flop and checks the turn if he misses, check-raise a bunch (to encourage him to fold). If he bets the flop and turn, but not the river, call-call-bet with hands that have value against him.