Comparing Simple Strategies

Poker Strategy
161

Finally! Freed from the constraints of overly simple, baby food versions of poker; allowed to use all of the subtle plays born of decades of experience and analysis; given full reign to capitalize on any weaknesses observed in my opponents! THANK GOD ALMIGHTY, I AM FREE AT LAST!

Here, are the impressive results; Night Rain unchained, set loose against his natural prey! Ummm… wait, are those the wrong results? Aren’t those worse than many of the simple strategies??? Well, I was actually down chips for much of this run, LOL, and it took the last few hundred hands to even rescue it to this extent. (It wasn’t the last 11 hands though, lol).

Get da Fishy results: (Note, really another Night Rain run, as I ended up doing pretty much whatever I wanted to)
Tables played: 100/200 NL Holdem 9 max
Hands played: 1,011
Chips won: $210,855
BB/100 hands: 104.28

Results summary:

  • Pre-Flop Hammer @ 1/2: 222 BB/100
  • Super Nit @ 1/2: 856 BB/100
  • Passive Fish @ 2/4: 73 BB/100
  • Lazy Limper @ 2/4: 372 BB/100
  • Value Village @ 5/10: 220 BB/100
  • Pre Flop Hammer @ 5/10: 241 BB/100
  • Value Village @ 10/20: 176 BB/100
  • Lazy Limper @ 10/20: 244 BB/100
  • Pressure Cooker @ 25/50: 139 BB/100
  • GAG @ 25/50: 300 BB/100
  • Robo TAG @ 50/100: 131 BB/100
  • GAG Cook @ 50/100: 190 BB/100
  • Pre Flop Hammer @ 100/200: 2 BB/100
  • Get da Fishy @ 100/200: 104 BB/100
  • LAG Problems @ 100/200: 125 BB/100
  • Orphaned Pot Adopter @ 200/400: 49 BB/100
  • Value Village @ 500/1,000: 109 BB/100
  • The Maniac @ 1k/2k: 39 BB/100
  • Random Fool @ 2k/4k: 26 BB/100
  • Multiple Personality Disorder @ 5k/10k: 66 BB/100
  • Small Ball @ 10k/20k: 3 BB/100
  • Super Nit @ 20k/40k: 58 BB/100
  • Night Rain @ 50k/100k: 77 BB/100
162

New strategy launched today, and this is the first suggested by another (anonymous) player. In their words:

Hi Yorunoame:

I’ve devised a very crude polarizing strategy, let’s call it Post-Flop Polarizer. The basic idea is to see many flops with pairs, high Aces, high suited cards, high off suit connected cards, suited Aces, and decent suited connected cards. On most boards with flush draws and/or reasonable straight draws, the idea is to bet or raise 2x pot on flop and turn with sets, two pairs, flush and strong straight draws, and potentially barrel river with missed draws. When the flush or straight draw fills on the turn, bet less (0.5-1x pot) with all these hands. On other boards, I advise to play a fairly straightforward fit-or-fold style for simplicity. It is advised to tend to over-fold to aggression. I have some more details written down, but this is the basic idea.

A player who wants to stay anonymous, let’s call them PFP, executed this strategy at the 50/100 9-max tables with 200 BB buy-in and auto top-up, playing up to 4 tables simultaneously. The result was:
Hands: 1001
BB/100: 131

PFP didn’t run particularly well (but not too bad either). In particular, PFP hit almost no sets. PFP also got in KK against QQ and 99 preflop for a 600 BB pot and lost to a set. Flush-over-flush was also a significant problem for PFP. It turns out that opponents won’t fold their pure flush draws to 2x pot bets at these stakes. So one would need to skew this strategy more towards nut flush draws to make it more profitable. PFP payed little to no attention to the playing style of their opponents.

Feel free to try it out yourself or suggest adjustments.Here is the hand selection for your information, although PFP was allowed to deviate occasionally:

  • Pot open raise: JJ+, AQ+, AJs, ATs, KQs.
  • Pot raise against limpers (+1-2 BB when OOP), generally treat a min-raise as a limp: JJ+, AK, AQs, KQs.
  • 3-bet: QQ+.
  • Call against a normal-sized raise: 22-TT, ATo+, KQo, QJo, any suited broadway, any suited Ace, suited connectors 65s+.
  • Limp/limp behind in late position: the above plus suited connectors 43s+, suited 1-gappers 75s+, K9s, Q9s, J9s.
  • In the SB: complete with the limp/limp behind range above plus any Ace, any suited 1-to-3-gappers, any connector, any 1-gapper, any broadway.
  • In the BB against a min-raise: call with the same range as in the SB.

Oh, I forgot to mention that the 2x polarizing strategy only applies to unpaired flops with flush and/or reasonable straight draws.

Overall, I think this is really quite similar to GAG, but a bit easier for people to imitate, as I feel the core idea has been more clearly communicated. I like also that this provides clearer instructions than I have in most of the other strategies on when to limp behind, or call raises.

I do think I’ll be modifying it slightly to slightly tighten the suggested ranges for all actions from earlier seats and the blinds, and to drive the ranges a bit wider in high jack, cut off, and button seats (moving progressively wider as position improves), as I think hands will tend to become slightly more profitable with improved position. I’ll also tighten ranges on tables with a lot of pre-flop aggression (say if you get someone jamming pre-flop a lot), and widen on passive tables.

A final adjustment already suggested in the original note will be to only take the 2x lines 50% of the time with non-nut draws (and might sometimes drop that to 25%), which will also help to keep a nice balance between value and bluffs.

163

I like this strategy very much!

I understand that things have changed slightly now, but the consistent advice has always been to raise 3BB or 3.5BB + 1BB for each limper. Raising “pot” from any position gives us exactly 3.5BB + 1BB per limper.

I’ve also found that, if there is a raise and no callers before us, raising “pot” gives us a very suitable 3-bet size. If there is a raise and callers before us, 1/2 pot is generally plenty.

I’ll let you and other clever people worry about ranges - my strategy is to play any two cards, 3 bet randomly and hope for the best lol

Regards,
TA

164

PFP (Post Flop Polarizer) run concluded. I’m embarrassed to say I felt a bit of pressure here, almost as if I was being staked in a real cash game, and afraid to lose that person’s money. I also wanted to be able to validate that I think this is a viable strategy, and certainly something worth mixing in to your game at least from time to time.

I got off to an absolutely, incredibly horrible start, losing well over 1,000 BB in just a little over 100 hands. Strangely, none of those losses game from the polarized moves… just getting all the chips in pre-flop and losing, and making a few tough calls (I might not have been over-folding quite as much as the strategy intended in a couple of spots), getting my money in good, and then having my cards not hold up.

The main middle section of the run ran better… close to normal I’d guess, and then the final 150 hands or so ran bad again, but not nearly as horribly as the start. Overall, like the originator of the strategy, I don’t recall ever hitting a set on a non-paired board with possible draws, which was not helpful. I got lots of two pair hands, which I feel I overplayed… bottom two pair in particular isn’t really a great hand to be over-betting with on multiple streets with multiple opponents, and I think I should have slowed down (that accounted for a bit of my losses at the end). My drawing hands worked out incredibly well, with my over-bets almost always blowing opponents away on one street or another, and hitting on the turn or river in a few other cases (most of the time they did not get to showdown).

I should mention here that I did not always continue to barrel with my draws. Especially in situations where I felt likely to be heavily unbalanced toward bluffs, I would sometimes hit the breaks on the river (and as mentioned in the initial post, with draws not to the nuts, I would not always take these over betting lines).

PFP results:
Tables played: 200/400 NL Holdem 9 max and 6 max
Hands played: 1,009
Chips won: $122,240
BB/100 hands: 30.29

So not a horrible result, but I think the 130 big blinds per 100 in the original run by the author at is a bit closer at 50/100 is closer to what I’d expect.

Some other thoughts:

  • I’m not used to limping and calling so much, and I think that leaves me a little weaker at reading ranges in those situations
  • The players I faced were more aggressive than I was expecting, and that made the generally fit or fold play post flop a bit more -EV, as I was folding in a lot of spots were I thought a bluff raise would win me the pot
  • In late position I raised with some unsuited broadway cards that the strategy seems to have just tossed. I tossed them some of the time, too… but I just like attacking pre-flop, and couldn’t quite help myself. That backfired at least a little, as if I’m going to attack with more marginal hands, playing fit or fold poker post flop bled some chips. While I found tossing those cards a bit unpleasant, I think doing that would have made the strategy a better measure of how the big, polarized bets were performing.

I think I’ll run this one again at higher stakes later. I’ll probably modify it to turn many of my limps into raises, as I frankly find I enjoy that more, and I prefer having my pre-flop raises at least as frequent as my limps.

But I suspect in general, we learn more from playing outside of our normal patterns than we do from just continuing to make the same old moves, and it felt like giving this a run really got me thinking about a lot of facets of my game.

1 Like
165

Results summary:

  • Pre-Flop Hammer @ 1/2: 222 BB/100
  • Super Nit @ 1/2: 856 BB/100
  • Passive Fish @ 2/4: 73 BB/100
  • Lazy Limper @ 2/4: 372 BB/100
  • Value Village @ 5/10: 220 BB/100
  • Pre Flop Hammer @ 5/10: 241 BB/100
  • Value Village @ 10/20: 176 BB/100
  • Lazy Limper @ 10/20: 244 BB/100
  • Pressure Cooker @ 25/50: 139 BB/100
  • GAG @ 25/50: 300 BB/100
  • Robo TAG @ 50/100: 131 BB/100
  • PFP @ 50/100: 130 BB/100 (guest run)
  • GAG Cook @ 50/100: 190 BB/100
  • Pre Flop Hammer @ 100/200: 2 BB/100
  • Get da Fishy @ 100/200: 104 BB/100
  • LAG Problems @ 100/200: 125 BB/100
  • PFP @ 200/400: 30 BB/100
  • Orphaned Pot Adopter @ 200/400: 49 BB/100
  • Value Village @ 500/1,000: 109 BB/100
  • The Maniac @ 1k/2k: 39 BB/100
  • Random Fool @ 2k/4k: 26 BB/100
  • Multiple Personality Disorder @ 5k/10k: 66 BB/100
  • Small Ball @ 10k/20k: 3 BB/100
  • Super Nit @ 20k/40k: 58 BB/100
  • Night Rain @ 50k/100k: 77 BB/100
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I’ve started a new run at 50k/100k. After most runs I was typically wanting to play more normally at 100k/200k or 50k/100k anyway, and so I thought I might as well track my results. I considered just doing a Night Rain run (my normal play), but thought instead I’d try to again play in a defined way.

I thought I’d already done Super Nit at this level, but it turns out that was 20k/40k. But not remembering that when I started, I decided to try and create a new strategy… still trying to come up with a good name.

Let me just say at this point that I’m playing a style closer to my normal game, in that I generally open wider than Super Nit, and also generally have more balanced post flop play, and felt kind of forced to do that, as I want to win at these stakes, which cuts down on my options (I’m not going to try a Passive Fish run at this level, LOL). There will be some things that won’t be typical of my game, but I’m imagining that most of the people I’m playing against won’t notice any major differences (let me know if you did).

Well, good luck on the tables. Hope you all also enjoy reading the details of this particular style once the run is finished.

167

Tough sailing in rough seas so far. Here’s a fun sample. I’m pretty happy with the line I took, though I think I’d mostly want to 3 bet pre-flop heads up against a strong player like El-Jog. I considered check raising on the flop also, but still think I like calling a pretty good fraction of the time. On the turn and river, I think it is mostly call or fold.

I’d also mention that I’m actually trying to avoid heads up play, but that at these stakes, I usually need to start new tables, which then typically involves quite a few early hands of short handed play. This is a bit different, though, where we’d just recently had a number of players drop from the table.

Oh, in case it is not visible for others, I had KcQh, and so no blockers to the flush draw (increasing the number of possible bluffing combinations).

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By the way (and off topic for this thread, but I thought worth mentioning), for those of you really interested in improving your games, I’d highly recommend watching El-Jogador play, thinking carefully about his lines, and try to understand some of what he’s doing. While the hand above is reasonably standard, he really does take a wonderfully balanced mix of lines, with a lot of aggressive options mixed in.

I’d avoid watching his hands against GG though, LOL. That just get’s confusing. It’s better sometimes to watch how a grandmaster crushes an amateur than it is to see two battling with each other.

2 Likes
169

OK the run is finished, and I’ve come up with a name, Laggy TAG. I’ll post the results in another thread a bit later, as this will be the strategy with the most moving parts so far, by a very large margin. It also gives people a chance to think for themselves about how well they think it would do typically in a 1,000 hand run.

I’m introducing a pre-flop range mechanic that I haven’t had in prior runs. For each seat there will be four ranges:

  • cards that I will open raise with 100% of the time from that seat
  • cards that I will open raise with 50% of the time from that seat
  • cards that I will open raise with 25% of the time from that seat
  • cards that I will open raise with 10% of the time from that seat

The 100% range will be a very tight, nitty range, and then the subsequent, less frequently used ranges will introduce a broad range of speculative holdings, and provide much of the board coverage.

  • Pre-flop raises will generally be pot sized
  • Raises from the blinds will generally be slightly larger, especially from the small blind (though only a normal sized range if attack the big blind alone)
  • Raises as the button with no prior limpers will be smaller
  • All raises will get larger if you have some people that call wide pre-flop that are still in play
  • With limps in front, the 100% range will almost always attack the limps, except from late position with small pairs, Ax suited, suited connectors, or smaller suited broadway, where it will be split 2/3 limps, 1/3 raise
  • for 50%, 25% and 10% ranges, double the percentage in deciding whether to limp behind or fold (so the 50% range will always at least limp behind), and cut the percentage in half to decide whether or not to raise (so the 50% range will attack limpers 25% of the time)
  • blinds will usually attack limpers with the seat 5 & 6 ranges, along with with off suit broadway less frequently (most of the time with a hand like AJ or KQ against 1 limper, and very rarely with a hand like QT against 5 or 6 limpers), and call with the balance of the button 100% and 50% ranges
  • If a range specifies suited 2 gap cards, it will also play all equivalent suited 1 gap and suited connectors
  • The 100% range will be presented additively, as with previous ranges (so that all seat 6 hands will also be played from seat 5), the 50%, 25% and 10% ranges presented will only be additive with respect to prior ranges for the same seat

Here are the opening ranges:
100%:

  • 6: AA-QQ, AK, AQs
  • 5: JJ-TT, AQ, AJs
  • 4: 99-88, AJ, ATs
  • 3: 77-66, A9s, KQs
  • 2: 55-22, AT, KQ, KJs
  • 1: A9, BWs (suited broadway), SC (suited connectors)
  • 0: Axs (suited aces), BW

50%:

  • 6: JJ-TT, AJs, JTs, A5s
  • 5: 99-77, KQs, T9s, A4s
  • 4: 77-22, A9s, KQs, J9s, 76s
  • 3: 55-22, Axs, QJs, 98s
  • 2: BWs, Axs, SC
  • 1: BW, Axs, S1G (suited 1 gap)
  • 0: Ax, Kxs, S2G (suited 2 gap)

25%:

  • 6: 99-22, A4s-A2s, KQs
  • 5: 66-22, Axs, SC
  • 4: Axs, SC, KJs
  • 3: BWs, SC
  • 2: BW, S1G, Q9s
  • 1: Ax, Kxs, S2G
  • 0: Qxs

10%:

  • 6: 87s, 65s, 43s
  • 5: 98s, 76s, 54s
  • 4: S1G
  • 3: S1G
  • 2: Ax, S2G
  • 1: Qxs
  • 0: Jxs

Defending the blinds, I would call quite wide if I was last to act (calling with most anything listed above), and would tighten up a lot (probably played half to 1/3 of the hands I would have otherwise) when not, unless the players left to act were generally quite passive. I’d recommend a somewhat tighter range than I actually used, unless you enjoy splashing around and are comfortable firing a few bluffs post flop.

For 3 betting and 4 betting, I noted raise frequencies of my opponent. If someone raised from a given seat 18% of the time, I would raise with the best 9% of my hands, usually using a merged range, and would also call with some of my 50%, 25% and 10% hands if I had position on the raiser, and not too many that would have position on me behind me (trying also to assess how much risk there was of a squeeze). Obviously, it takes some time to get enough notes on an opponent to be able to use this technique, and so where I did not have the necessary notes, I just tried to guess what I thought the raising range in front of me might be.

Post flop play:

When you limp behind, you’ll mostly be playing a multi-way pot and just waiting for a monster. I used the PFP approach here also, attacking with over-bets using a mix of strong made hands and high equity draws. I attacked less frequently with more marginal made hands (2 pair) and non-nut draws, and also tended to reduce the size of the over-bet (110% to 150% of pot). With sets and up for made hands, and high equity draws to the nuts, I’d range it from about 130% to 190% of pot.

More often than not, though, you’ll be the pre-flop aggressor, and deciding whether or not to make a continuation bet. For this, we have a point system:

  • A on flop: 6 points
  • K on flop: 4 points
  • Q on flop: 3 points
  • J on flop: 2 points
  • T on flop: 1 point
  • paired board: 2 points
  • trips: 3 points
  • 2 cards of same suit, or 2 connected cards: 1 point
  • monotone, or 3 connected cards: 2 points
  • every opponent more than 1, -1 point
    Take points, divide by 12, and you have your percentage chance of firing. I usually either rolled a d12, or just used the 5 minute markers on a clock, and looked at where the second hand was. I also really didn’t follow the rule as much with more than 3 callers, and instead mostly fired a bet with a value hand that would likely get out drawn if everyone stayed in the pot (along with some better draws), and then primarily checked with everything else.

On c-bet sizing, I mostly bet 1/2 pot, but increased the sizing somewhat (usually 60% to 80% of pot) on a wet board, and decreasing it a little (30% to 40%) on paired boards (with paired, suited, connected boards often landing back at 50% to 60%).

Turn and river play:

I tried to consider my table image. If I had shown some big bluffs, or even made a bunch of big bets that had not been called (regardless of whether I had been bluffing or not), I made less bluffs. If I had not been very active recently, or had shown down a series of strong hands recently, I’d try to find more spots to bluff in general. Some betting scenarios:

  • I tried to take down unwanted pots from time to time with moderately sized bets
  • I tried to find spots to make thin value bets with bets typically in the 30% to 60% pot range
  • I made some similarly sized bets with some weaker draws (this really wasn’t that often, but I fired a few, and tried to keep the option in mind), and somewhat bigger (40% to 70%) with a high card hand that had fired a c-bet but picked up a few outs
  • some of the PFP over-betting described earlier

Some checking scenarios:

  • have trash, no draw, and a lot of opponents (might sometimes fire a steal on the river if no one still shows interest)
  • have a hand that might be in front a decent amount of the time, but probably won’t get called by worse
  • on the turn with a monster, if no one is showing any strength, and I’ve monopolized all of the cards that someone might fight back with
  • with some of my draws, especially when they are not to the nuts (mix of checks and raises here)
1 Like
170

Laggy TAG results:
Tables played: 50k/100k NL Holdem 9 max and 6 max
Hands played: 1,002
Chips won: $27,225,957
BB/100 hands: 27.17

So I won chips, but not at a huge rate (just over a single max buy in over one thousand hands). Did I run poorly? It didn’t honestly feel like it. I certainly lost plenty of big hands, and got stacked quite a few times, but I’d say it felt like a fairly run of the mill result at this level. I had hoped to do a bit better, and certainly could have won a lot more over a 1,000 hand stretch where I’m running really good.

Just one level lower than this, Super Nit finished with a better win rate, and if both runs are equally hot/cold, you might suspect that Super Nit might be the stronger style, though of course at the highest levels you start seeing significantly better play with each step up to higher stakes. If I was forced to play one or the other at 50k/100k for a 10,000 hand run, I’d personally choose Laggy TAG.

  • I think players will make effective adjustments to Super Nit more rapidly than they will to Laggy TAG, and so especially over a long run where you face the same opponents a lot, Super Nit would show a sharper decline in profitability in the latter part of the run (though any style will suffer if your opponents are making adjustments to your play, and you are not adjusting to their adjustments)
  • I think Laggy TAG is a bit harder to to play against, in general, with ranges that are broader and shaped more confusingly, and putting opponents under more pressure, both leading to a greater likelihood of making mistakes against it
  • I enjoy the Laggy TAG style more, personally… I think others will gravitate naturally toward Super Nit, and still others might find both styles too tight and passive
171

Correction for an accidental omission on the c-betting mechanics used in the Laggy TAG run: you start with 2 points, so that there is always at least a 2 in 12 chance of c-betting on any flop, and those points gets added to anything else, so that an A93 rainbow flop provides a 8/12 chance of a c-bet, rather than a 6/12 chance.

Note also that you can customize this, dialing that base frequency up or down so that you can modify your c-betting frequency. You could also add additional conditions that you think might favor your range.

I’ll admit that I found this awkward and a bit difficult to use initially, and that I often forgot parts of it while playing (and even while writing these posts), but that it did gradually start to feel more comfortable.

172

I think I’ve decided on the next run, and it will be something a bit new relative to everything before. I’ll call it Balance, and it will be focused on hitting certain targets between bluffs and value on each street. I’ll probably play whatever opening ranges I feel like, and so I’ll switch frequently between tighter and looser opening ranges depending on table dynamics and even just my mood. I haven’t quite decided on when to start or what stakes to play it at, but think I’ll probably fire it up in the next day or two.

I’ll also limit the number of bet sizes used, as I’ll want to track frequencies for each size, also. I suspect I’ll aim for a slightly higher bluff frequency with smaller bets, but haven’t quite made my mind up on that. When the run is over, I’ll report what my exact number of bluffs versus value was for each bet size and street, and what targets I had been aiming for.

One complication here: it’s honestly not always perfectly clear whether you are bluffing or value betting. To mitigate against this, I’ll try to take more passive lines with some of the hands where that is the most unclear, except that I will categorize continuation bets with high cards that have not improved as bluffs, even though they will often be ahead, and may well get calls from a pretty wide range of cards that are behind.

1 Like
173

Wow… I’m finding it quite a bit more difficult to do this than I was expecting, especially on fast tables. I might need to drop to two tables I think. I find myself just racing around… “ok, I need more 1/2 pot bluffs on the turn… keep your eyes out, keep your eyes out.” It’s surprisingly hard forcing these ratios. You’ll normally use board texture and outs and range comparisons to drive both bluff and value betting, but here I’m mostly just looking at the holes in my frequencies and trying to plug them, driving me to thinner value than I might ordinarily select, and also to some more unorthodox bluffs.

I just took a look at my chips, and was surprised to see that I was up at all… but it is pretty thin at this point. Still, good practice, I suspect.

175

I’m nearly finished, with just under 100 hands left to play, and I have to say this has felt like one of the hardest runs I’ve done so far. I’m up a reasonable amount at this point, but the play has felt much more unnatural and forced than I’d been expecting.

I’ve been free to play however I want, excepting only that I’m trying to hit certain targets between bluffs and value on each street and for each bet size, and I’ve found that to be a lot more of a struggle than I had expected. In wondering why that has been so difficult, and think it is because most bets, whether bluffs or value, are context driven: you find yourself in a particular spot that seems to demand a bluff or a value bet. These contexts or opportunities naturally occur in random, non-even clusters, constantly disrupting the ratios I’m striving for in this exercise.

Overall, I’m mostly finding it hard to bluff as much as planned at this level (500/1k). Some of the players are fairly tight, but there are also a lot of incredible call stations. I’ve had several occasions where I made bluffs on the flop or turn, gave up on the river, and found I had been called by worse hands that never even had a draw… That happens a few times, and you start to wonder if you have any fold equity at all, lol.

Still, I’m glad to have tried this, and think I’ll come back to it some more in future runs, making some modifications to the target ratios. The run has forced me to play in some very unorthodox ways, sometimes delaying value bets to later streets where I need more value bets (or because I don’t have enough bluffs in the current street), or just constantly being alert that, “ok, I need more pot sized bluffs on the turn, stay focused for chances for pot sized bluffs on turns”. The very artificiality of it forced me to think of odd plays that I’d never usually make, and while too much of that might just be likely to generate bad habits, it’s also been interesting to discover some of these weird plays working more effectively than I would have expected.

176

Results for Balance:
Tables played: 500/1k NL Holdem 9 max
Hands played: 1,002
Chips won: $1,531,212
BB/100 hands: 152.82

Target ratios and ratios achieved:

  • Flop
    • Pot target: 1 value to 1 bluff
    • Pot actual: 17 value, 13 bluff
    • 1/2 pot target: 2 value to 3 bluff
    • 1/2 pot actual: 15 value to 18 bluff
  • Turn
    • Pot target: 3 value to 2 bluff
    • Pot actual: 14 value to 9 bluff
    • 1/2 pot target: 1 value to 1 bluff
    • 1/2 pot actual: 17 value to 12 bluff
  • River
    • Pot target: 2 value to 1 bluff
    • Pot actual: 7 value to 4 bluff
    • 1/2 pot target: 3 value to 2 bluff
    • 1/2 actual: 11 value to 5 bluff

So you can see I missed my targets by quite a bit in several spots. That will take some work. I’m curious to see, as I try other rungs with wildly different targets, how hard that will also end up being.

177

I think it is also interesting to note the small number of any kind of bets, given that this reflects 1,000 hands played. So only 63 flop bets in 1,002 hands played. That is probably a ratio to pay attention to also, that I haven’t really thought about in the past. It probably depends both on how tight my pre-flop play is, and also how thin I’m diving down for value (which will in turn normally be impacted by how much I’m bluffing). Here, I was trying often to slow my value bets down, so that my bluffs could catch up (something I would definitely not normally recommend, lol).

178

Results summary:

  • Pre-Flop Hammer @ 1/2: 222 BB/100
  • Super Nit @ 1/2: 856 BB/100
  • Passive Fish @ 2/4: 73 BB/100
  • Lazy Limper @ 2/4: 372 BB/100
  • Value Village @ 5/10: 220 BB/100
  • Pre Flop Hammer @ 5/10: 241 BB/100
  • Value Village @ 10/20: 176 BB/100
  • Lazy Limper @ 10/20: 244 BB/100
  • Pressure Cooker @ 25/50: 139 BB/100
  • GAG @ 25/50: 300 BB/100
  • Robo TAG @ 50/100: 131 BB/100
  • PFP @ 50/100: 130 BB/100 (guest run)
  • GAG Cook @ 50/100: 190 BB/100
  • Pre Flop Hammer @ 100/200: 2 BB/100
  • Get da Fishy @ 100/200: 104 BB/100
  • LAG Problems @ 100/200: 125 BB/100
  • PFP @ 200/400: 30 BB/100
  • Orphaned Pot Adopter @ 200/400: 49 BB/100
  • Value Village @ 500/1,000: 109 BB/100
  • Balance @ 500/1,000: 153 BB/100
  • The Maniac @ 1k/2k: 39 BB/100
  • Random Fool @ 2k/4k: 26 BB/100
  • Multiple Personality Disorder @ 5k/10k: 66 BB/100
  • Small Ball @ 10k/20k: 3 BB/100
  • Super Nit @ 20k/40k: 58 BB/100
  • Laggy TAG @ 50k/100k: 27 BB/100
  • Night Rain @ 50k/100k: 77 BB/100
1 Like
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I think up next will be another Balance run at 1k/2k, trying out some different target ratios. I’d in general think I’d want fewer bluffs at these stakes, so it will be interesting to see if adding more bluffs reduces profitability, and also if dropping bluffs improves it.

Of course, 1,000 hands probably isn’t enough to generate any confidence on this front. Just looking at my last run, if I’d cut it off, I probably would have had about a 5 to 10 BB/100 win rate, while in the second 500 hands, that must of been closer to almost 300 BB/100. I even had a big double up on nearly the last hand (probably hand 995 or so), and had I lost that, my total winnings would have been more than 400 big blinds lower.

But despite all that, we are getting a lot of variations with higher bluff density, and a lot with much lower densities, and hopefully that starts to create slightly clearer patterns at some point.

But in general, I think I’d already tend to conclude:

  • you can bluff more than you generally hear suggested at lower stakes
  • but it is also perfectly effective to play insanely tight, as you’ll still get calls even if you only bet once every other century

Your bluffs will probably have a harder time being outright +EV on their own, given the significantly higher calling frequencies, but I think they will also allow you to widen your value range profitably, and also collect a little higher percentage of time on your biggest hands.

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Thought I’d also post a link to the original thread that inspired this:

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Update also on the 2nd Balance run, also: I’m about $150,000 down, or just shy of half of one $400,000 buy in. It’s funny how many times this has happened in the first half of a run, and how many times the second half has turned that around. Instead of 500 hands with a losing result, 500 hands with a winning result, 500 hands losing, 500 hands winning, if two of those in a row instead had been losing, this streak of 27 winning runs in a row (so far) would have come to an earlier end (I would not have expected this many 1,000 hand winning sessions in a row, honestly).

But I think this illustrates an interesting point: most of your winnings tend to come from a relatively small number of hands, and those big wins (and big losses too, I suppose) tend to be scattered about irregularly, and so when you get two or three in a short span, that often creates a giant shift in your win rate over a sample this size.