I will admit to being kind of obsessed with 2CardConfidence. Just super sharp analysis, very clearly explained. Highly recommend!
Every time I watch high level MTT play and compare it to high-stakes Replay regs, two things immediately stand out:
- Sizing - the pros use wayyyyyy more small bets! I can already count on one hand the regs on Replay who consistently use anything less than 1/2 pot (the button presets are surely largely to blame). But in theory there are SO MANY spots where the ideal size, especially for cbets as the PFR, is significantly smaller.
In general the bet sizing “culture,” if you will, on Replay tends to overlook the fundamental principle that a value bet is an attempt to get called by worse. We (and I say we as I am very guilty of this myself) often instead think things like “I have a good hand, I’m gonna bet big” or “my hand is vulnerable, I’m gonna bet REALLY big so the draws don’t have odds to call.” Both these lines of reasoning are sometimes valid, but they shouldn’t be the rote default, and in many cases they will lead to a big loss of value/setting up the dreaded “value owned” situation where you’re mostly only getting called by better or hands with a lot of equity. Small sizes are often optimal because they force our opponents to continue with fairly marginal holdings in order to avoid being exploited.
EDIT: small sizes are often frequently used by Solver for cbets that are “range bets,” i.e. we will cbet with 100% of our hands because our range should be significantly stronger than Villain’s. In general, the more frequently you will bet in a given spot, the smaller your default size should be.
EXPLOIT: take note of players who frequently use large cbet sizing; this almost certainly means they are betting too big vs. equilibrium. There are a lot of ways to exploit this! One of my favorites is min-check-raise with both my very strong and very weak hands (polarized range). You would be surprised how often this player type is forced to fold to the clickback, because unless it’s super early in the tournament, the large size means that if they continue now their stack will be at risk by the river and guess what? Too often they just missed the flop and were cbetting 50-100% of the pot anyway!
- Defending - it’s really eye-opening to see how wide the solver calls a 2-2.2x open in many cases. If you play the same people often, this becomes even more profitable: they will think twice about attacking your BB if they know you are sticky!