Simple Question -Tough Answer

[David Sklansky]

Playing 20-40 with only one twenty dollar blind and no rake. Everyone folds to you on the button. The big blind is a good player except for one thing. He will ALWAYS call your raise. (If you just call, he will raise only with the top 20% or so of his hands plus the occasional offbeat hand. And if you raise, he will reraise with about half of those hands ). Given that, approximately what proportion of your hands should you call fold and raise with and what sort of hands would they be?

[LondonBroil]

Is this a trick question?
Seriously, how could you know that kind of detailed information about someone?

[droidboy]

How often does he fold the flop?

[astroglide]

it completely depends on his flop play

i'd raise any 2 cards if he folds when he misses

[spiral]

[droidboy]

What about the turn and the river?

[tewall]

Assuming I read this right, he will only re-raise 10% of the time (half of the 20% he will raise with if you just call), so you're not in much danger of a re-raise if you raise. You have position on him, so it's to your advantage to get money in with a better than average hand. Since he's going to call no matter what, there isn't a point to raising to win the blinds right away. Given that he plays well (except for calling this original raise), we can assume he won't fold too often on the flop and thereafter, so raising to set up a bluff later on can be eliminated (except for the correct game theorectical pct. of doing this, whatever that is).

What hands should be folded? You're getting 1 to 1 odds and have position. This is a less than normal, which would suggest folding more than usual would be correct. I'll guess 20% would be the correct amount to fold.

Final answer:

1) Raise with top 50% of hands or so (maybe top 45%).
2) Limp with others ( 80th to 50th percentile hands)
3) Fold bottom 20%

Of course these are general guidelines and play should be varied some of the time for FTOP reasons.

[CreamPuff]

Since you will only be reraised 10% of the time,
I think you should raise a lot. So raise 50-100.

Since he will always call, you should play less hands.
But when you call, you will be raised 20% of the time.
Less reason to call..Call 45-49..

Summarized:
Raise 50-100
Call 45-49
Fold 1-44

[haakee]

First, assume you play as well as he does on the flop and beyond. Let's look at it mathematically.

Folding is clearly 0EV. When you raise or call, we can look at how often you will be ahead, behind, or about even, and for how many bets.

When you raise, the following scenarios are possible:

You raise, he calls.
You raise, he reraises.

Say the %age of times you raise is r. Let's also assume that r >= 20% to simplify the math (it seems clear that you're going to want to raise at least that much anyway). And let's also assume you only raise with your top r% of hands.

If I raise and he calls, he has a bottom 90% hand. That means I'll be ahead with a pot of 4sb on r * (1 - r) hands. The rest of the times I raise, we'll have hands that fall in the same range. If I raise and he re-raises he has a top 10% hand and therefore he'll be ahead of me for 6sb .1 * (r - .1) hands. The rest of the time we'll both have top 10% hands and be about even.

So, you're going to be ahead for 4 bets r * (1 - r) % of the time and behind for 6 bets .1 * (r - .1) % of the time.

When you call, the following scenarios are possible.

You call, he raises.
You call, he checks.

If I call and he raises, he has a top 20% hand. That means if I call his raise (which seems right, getting 3:1) I'll be behind for 4 sb on c * .2 hands. If I call and he checks, he has a bottom 80% hand. I'll be ahead (but won't know it) for 2 sb on c * (1 - r - c) % of hands.

You have two functions you want to maximize expected return for r and c.

4sb * r * (1 - r) - 6sb * 0.1 * (r - 0.1) == 3.4 * r - 4 * r^2 + 0.06

AND

2 sb * c * (1 - r - c) - 4sb * c * 0.2 == 2c - 2cr - 2c^2 - 0.8c == 1.2 * c - 2 * c * r - 2 * c^2

Some calculus shows us that 1.2 - 2r - 4c = 0 => c = 0.3 - 0.5r

also, 3.4 - 8r = -2c => c = 1.7 - 4 r

1.7 - 4 r = 0.3 - 0.5r => 2 = 4.5r => r = 40%
=> c = 10%

This seems to make sense. Why play hands that are worse than average when you're getting 1:1 odds (if position is ignored)?

All of this math is position-agnostic. I'd play a bit more loose-aggressive than this math implies given that you have position on him.

So, it seems about right to raise maybe 45% of the time, and call another 15% or so? Or am I underestimating the value of position?

[mike l.]

"Given that, approximately what proportion of your hands should you call fold and raise with and what sort of hands would they be?"

since i cant crunch numbers like some of you what i need to know is if the blind thinks he has a line on my raising and calling standards from the button and on my post-flop play and what is that line. once i know what that is i can do a better job of forming an answer that will disappoint his expectations, force him into FTOP errors, minimize my losses and maximize my wins. this is how i play great heads up poker when my A game is on, playing the player to a great extent.

without that info i guess im taking a pretty predictable route and raising with hands that have good showdown value, maybe limping with some very strong hands, and mixing it up much less w/ suited garbage and stuff since there is no chance of stealing his blind.