when you say that 3way button opening range should only include hands that are +ev from start of hand because there's zero forced investment so you can look at your database and stop opening hands that aren't winnning money... i understand what you are saying, but my question is this:
doesn't it raise the ev of the top of your range by having a wider range? that is, by having bluffs in your range that are -ev to open, doesn't that force your opponents to play a wider range (bluffcatch some amount) vs you and therefore raise the ev of your nutted hands?
so say in a made up scenario that your ev with AA was 500bb/100hands when only opening AAKKQQ (so opponents are either folding 22-JJ pre or only continuing with sets)... you then add some range of hands that are -ev to open (but not that much)... which might be -10bb/100 each for instance... but playing those hands has forced your opponents to now guess with 22-JJ and therefore increased the ev of AA to 750bb/100 and KKQQ correspondingly... hasn't the ev of your range increased dramatically making it worthwhile to add those extra hands even though they themselves are -ev to open?
obviously this is not a realistic example but i'm not sure where my logic is incorrect and how that doesn't apply to the 3way button opening range in terms of including hands that are slightly -ev in order to increase the ev of the range as a whole.
thanks in advance!
The blinds can afford to be -ev from start of hand so are already incentivised to play wider than Btn.
Why would you deliberately lose money?
Another way of making the blinds play wider would be to fold some % of flops when checked to
You lose money but make villain play wider pre flop.
'Why would you deliberately lose money?'
-i thought i explained my reasoning, which you didn't address at all... i am saying that when you add hands to your range, the ev of the hands that were already in your range change. specifically, when you widen your range, the top of your range increases in ev, which can therefore increase the ev of your range even though the bottom of your range is now slightly -ev.
'Another way of making the blinds play wider would be to fold some % of flops when checked to'
-i don't understand, i don't think it's even possible to fold when checked to on the btn on stars? ...and also thats the same as sometimes mucking the winning hand at showdown... wait, is this sarcasm?
'You lose money but make villain play wider pre flop.'
-the goal isn't to make the villain play wider pre, the goal is to raise the ev of our range as a whole specifically by raising the ev of the hands at the top of our range.
sorry want meant to be quite so sarcastic. was merely trying to show that taking -ev options to increase the Ev of the top of your range can seem a little bizarre.
lets look at a couple of examples:
say you have a BTN strat: BTN1
villain has a BB strat: BB1
you add a slightly -EV combo to make a new strat: BTN1-
this new strat has a lower EV when matched up against BB1. unless villain adjusts, his EV has increased and ours has lowered. we hope that villain will spot the extra -EV combo and adjust by playing wider in some spots thus increasing the EV of the top of BTN1-'s range.
villains EV has already increased. he doesnt need to adjust unless his new strat : BB2>BB1.
the problem is that our previously slightly -EV hand now becomes much more -EV when villain adjusts. also previously break even or slightly +EV hands now may become -EV. will the gains at the top make up for this? i doubt it. the thick value part of as starting range is dwarfed by marginal value and semi-bluffs.
lets look at a toy game:
board 22223
BTN AA, KK, 66, 77
BB: TT
pot 100
stacks 100
optimal play:
BB checks
BTN bets AA,KK and 50% of his 66 77 combos
BB calls 50% of his TT
EV BTN: 75c
EV BB 25c
EV AA KK: 150c
EV(bet) 66 77: 0c
EV(check) 66 77: 0c
so lets try to increase the EV of AA and KK by betting 100% of our 66 and 77 combos. they are exactly 0ev bluffs anyway. and villain will have to call wider - increasing the EV of AA and KK
so:
BB checks
IP bets AA KK 66 and 77
BB calls 100% TT
EV of AA and KK is now : 200c
amazing, yah
but our previously 0EV bluffs now lose 100c
and our overall EV is crippled
BTN EV: 50c
BB EV 50c
--------
summary:
dont lower your overall EV hoping that villains adjustments will be +EV
1 if villain doesnt adjust you have simply lowered your EV
2 if villain does adjust it will be in the aim of increasing his overall EV which has to come from yours.
double post sorry
thanks for taking the time to respond in detail to something that probably seems trivial to you.
you did a great job of explaining GTO in a toy game when opponent adjusts perfectly.
my only concern is that pf in a spinandgo is quite far from a GTO situtation.
that is, instead of what you described, where we start bluffing 100% instead of 50% and then villain adjusts perfectly, i am suggesting that we bluff 60% instead of 50% and i think it is more likely that certain villains will underadjust while other villains will overadjust... and pretty much zero villains will adjust perfectly. (not to mention that the starting strategies aren't close to GTO to begin with)
if villains underadjust, we are losing a small amount of ev because as you said strat BTN1>BTN1-... however if villains overadjust, our value range goes up in value while our bluffs lose value... but this effect gets multiplied over multiple streets for our value range (with 6x pot behind or whatever) but not for our bluffs (because we won't be stacking off with our pf bluff range, we can cb and shut down most of the time when we whiff but again villains won't adjust perfectly to our strategy)... which then results in our value range gaining more ev than the ev lost by adding -ev hands to our range... which can overcome the slight amount of ev lost to the 'underadjusters' and make our new strategy better than the original. (and of course we can try to choose overadjusters as opposed to underadjusters when we deviate in this manner)
to maximize this effect, we can open wider vs opponents who are likely to overadjust a small amount but making sure to showdown enough times (in small pots as much as possible) so he notices our wider range but then afterwards playing our value range stronger and shutting down quickly with our -ev-to-open range... wouldn't this strategy increase the ev of our range as a whole while adding in some -ev hands to our open range?
maybe there is some huge hole in my reasoning that i am not seeing? but it seems to me that this is what exploitative play is, playing a different strategy to exploit opponents who 1. do not play GTO and 2. will adjust poorly.
again, i appreciate you taking the time to respond!
This approach has some problems.
1 you need villains to adjust.
The players you are targetting don't make adjustments. Lots don't play with an over-arching strategy and just decide when to play a hand. I just played a player with an 8% SB vpip over a significant sample, and he showed down 23o as part of that 8%
You are also reliant on them noticing your -ev adjustment.
2 you need them to make a somewhat correct adjustment.
Ever played a player who starts donking flops in response to your high cbet%? Recreational can make unpredictable adjustements. What if villain decides to increase his aggression. Most players are too passive - you have now encouraged him to plug this leak.
3 you are increasing your variance
You are lowering the ev of your strategy in the hope that villain:
A notices this new strategy
B adjusts to this new strategy
C adjusts in a way that lowers his ev
There are many links in this chain (and I would wager that players who are capable spotting adjustments in your strat and making their own adjustments are likely to be somewhat competent). Even if those 3 conditions are met you have lowered the ev of most of your range hoping to get paid of with the top of your range. The top of your range is small.
Against weak players it is better to just play each hand in a vacuum. Don't worry about the overall ev of your strategy. Just look for the most profitable line. If EVs are close take the lower variance option.
On the btn this is to fold.
See will Tiptons section on win rate maximisation, or the coffeeyay guest segment on pbogz's stream (search on 2+2) for an extended discussion on this.
W
thanks for another detailed reply.
your explanation makes a lot of sense, i think i get it.
so to maximize the ev of my range, i should basically assume villains have fixed (but pretty random) ranges and should try to maximize ev of each hand in my range vs that, as opposed to try to manipulate villains' ranges or to think about effects of changes in villains' ranges to certain parts of my range...
appreciate you being so helpful!
"so to maximize the ev of my range, i should basically assume villains have fixed (but pretty random) ranges and should try to maximize ev of each hand in my range vs that, as opposed to try to manipulate villains"
Against readless recreational players I believe that will be the best approach, yes. Build some General assumptions and look to exploit those tendencies in a low variance way by thinking about the hand and situation in front of you.
"or to think about effects of changes in villains' ranges to certain parts of my range..."
Well you still should adjust as you get reads. Most players are weak, loose and passive. If someone is aggressive or tighter than average then your ranges and strategy should shift.
------
Against regs then you will want to think about maximising the ev of your range. But this shouldn't manifest itself by having 'loss-leader' -ev plays. But it might involve taking a line that protects another range. This might mean not leading all of your nutted hands on the river to prevent not having a capped river range, or not using unbalanced betsizes even if in a vacuum it might seem best.
There are some meta-game reasons for sacrificing ev. You'll often hear about live pros playing looser to keep a rich action-hungry whale in the game. But other than providing a cool playing environment and not being a dick at the table I don't think it's anything we should generally worry about.
Just my opinion.
Glgl