[bolgenmod]

Let's get this party started!! (I stay up late and get up late, so I will probably be starting these threads around this time for each section.)

This thread is to discuss NLHETAP pages 11-44 starting July 17, "ending" July 18. (Discussion obviously may continue beyond the end date, but we will be moving on to a new part.)

Since this is our first thread, and I frankly have no idea what to expect, I will begin with a question. As I've said, I am pretty much a beginner at NL, so I claim no expertise at all, just eagerness to learn and the willingness to ask stupid questions. So here it goes, my stupid question (which is naturally long and convoluted!).

EDIT: Please feel free to ignore my question and post your own questions or comments -- I just felt the need to start with SOMETHING!!

I understand (theoretically at least) the concepts introduced in these parts, and, of course, I am familiar with the basic theorem of poker and the concept of implied odds. And I realize that the authors (why not call them S&M just for fun?) are trying to teach a way of thinking rather than giving hard and fast rules, which would be pretty useless.

And I believe I follow S&M's discussion of implied odds on 37-39 -- the example is that you have a gutshot while your opponent has either a set of jacks or the nut flush draw (with AKs). But I guess I don't understand the point. S&M write that while the implied odds make your call of a flop bet +EV if you are certain your opponent has a set of jacks, that same bet is -EV if he might also have the nut flush draw. But I don't understand how you can put him on a hand so precisely, and if you can't, what is the point of the example?

What I get from this example is that despite the implied odds, you can rarely call that flop bet unless you are pretty sure of your opponent's hand AND you are positive you can stack him when you make your hand AND his stack is pretty big compared to the pot (in the example he has over 26 times the size of the pot behind!). This seems like a rather unlikely parlay of events. So what I get from the discussion is that you really shouldn't call with a weak draw unless all of those things are true, which is very rare. I assume I am missing the point, unless the point is that you have to think about implied odds and avoid offering correct implied odds to an opponent. Is there a bigger and more important point that I am missing here?

[ddollevoet]

ummm..... you get up early?

I am at work and I don't have the book in front of me, so I won't comment specifically about S&M illustration (yet).

I will say this however. After you get a couple hundred thousand hands under your belt, you'll be surprised at how accurately you begin to identify your opponent's holdings. You won't be exactly right every time, but your range of holdings will be pretty darn accurate. Sometimes you'll be so accurate it's spooky.

[yeltzen]

Since I'm a freaking poker genius, I'll answer your question.

Okay, what S&M are saying (while enjoying some S&M) is that of course you could never narrow your opponents hand down that precisely, and of course no idiot is going to tell you exactly what they have. However, the more you can narrow down your opponents hands, the larger the bet you can call to try and bust them. Of course, the size of their stack (or your stack if they have you covered) is important, as well... since it determines how much you stand to win if you hit, but in general you are getting better Implied Odds when you can narrow their hand down because you will be less prone to making a mistake on the next betting round.

In the example, since he has pocket Jacks and is gonna go all in on the turn (HE SAID SO SO IT MUST BE TRUE!), you know that you will fold if you don't hit the gutshot and call him if you do. You really can't make a mistake on the turn. So you can (theoretically) call a larger bet because you know exactly what you will do on the next card... either fold or win his entire stack (ASSUMING THE FISH DOESN'T SUCK OUT). You can do some EV calculations to figure out exactly what size bet you can call (S&M give you a mathematical equation for the exact bet you can call that you will "break even" on), but the main point is that, the more precisely you can read their hand, the larger the bet you can call.

Now, when they throw the flush draw into the mix, this changes things. Now, if you hit the 4c on the turn, you're not certain that you can call his all-in bet. You probably will, since there's three ways he can have JJ and only one way he can have AcKc, but there is a bit of uncertainty. Because of this, you can't call as large a bet as you could when he told you he had specifically JJ. Just adding one hand into the mix makes the call go from profitable to unprofitable.

This also gets turned around when you're making a bet yourself. The better you think your opponent can read you, the larger the bet you have to make. So, to use myself as an example, if the preflop action is yeltzen open-raises, someone else re-raises, and yeltzen re-re-raises... someone that's played with me before is going to be pretty certain that I have AA or KK. So (to use the example a few pages earlier in the book - JJ vs. AA), they could use this concept to decide whether they have enough implied odds to hit a big hand on the flop and bust me, and I could use this concept to decide how large a re-re-raise I would need to make to not offer the correct implied odds.

Hopefully that makes sense. If not, yell at me. The major premise of this section is in the very last sentence of it.

Now, in terms of practicality, there's not a whole lot in the example. Unless you're a complete moron, you're not going to be calling an overbet with only a gutshot draw with any kind of regularity (in the example, narrowing it down to TWO hands made the call unprofitable... chances are you won't be able to get it even that close). And you're not going to be able to read their hand so well that you can figure out your expectation like that. I think that this section applies to the real world in terms of:

a) not turning into a pud preflop with a big hand... raising only a little bit preflop with a monster so you can "trap" your opponent is offering them the right implied odds (unless you are mixing it up with good reason)

b) being able to take risks postflop with deep stacks against a player you have a good read on or a player who overvalues weakish hands like top pair/two pair (i.e. will call off a lot of his stack with those hands).

[jojobinks]

nice post, B. i guess you are gonna do more than just try to annoy us after all.

the point of studying theory is that, while it may appear to not necessarily be applicable at the moment, the study will give you a deep understanding of practical situations later. isn't that right?

i believe s&m make this example so extremely specific (we know he has JJ, we KNOW he'll push the next street), b/c when it's not that specific, it gets really complicated and we're not ready for that yet (in reading #1). this is how school and learning work, right? first we learn how to do the easy stuff, then we learn how to do the 80 step calculations (which all consist of easy 'lil bits).

i move to another topic now: pot size.
i'm a really aggressive player, and it works for me in tournaments. but i've traditionally gotten whacked pretty badly in cash games. the pot size thing is relatively new to me. and here's the thing...that's pretty retarded. it basically is an extension of the "win big pots, lose small pots" thing, but i've somehow never articulated to myself the idea that i should keep pots small when i hold only a moderately strong hand. the way i lose money in nlhe ring games is this; there's a raise, i reraise from the button with AK. the flop comes Aj2. he bets. i raise. he calls. the turn comes T, and i get stacked off b/c the guy has AT.

i think i may be over that now...

[yeltzen]

Originally Posted by jojobinks

i move to another topic now: pot size.
i'm a really aggressive player, and it works for me in tournaments. but i've traditionally gotten whacked pretty badly in cash games. the pot size thing is relatively new to me. and here's the thing...that's pretty retarded. it basically is an extension of the "win big pots, lose small pots" thing, but i've somehow never articulated to myself the idea that i should keep pots small when i hold only a moderately strong hand. the way i lose money in nlhe ring games is this; there's a raise, i reraise from the button with AK. the flop comes Aj2. he bets. i raise. he calls. the turn comes T, and i get stacked off b/c the guy has AT.

i think i may be over that now...

That's probably just because you're so used to trying to get all your money in the pot with AK later in a tournament. A pair of aces on the flop after the first hour or so of an online tournament is a monster and you're pretty much always going to get all your money in.

But in the first few rounds of a tournament (assuming I'm actually on my game), I would have a pretty hard time convincing myself to get involved in an all-in unless I was 90%+ sure I would win the hand. Having AK and flopping an A wouldn't make me 90% sure. It's the same in a cash game, I suppose... I don't really play them, but it's deep stack, etc.

Of course, depending on how much your raises and bets were, you might not have had a choice. And it's kind of hard to keep a pot small with a marginal holding when the dope you're playing against is calling a reraise preflop and a raise on the flop with A10.

[VARoadstter]

Managing pot sizes is the thing that I've come to understand of late which has turned my game around completely. Preflop, you can expect a lot of calls by people with suited connectors, Ax suited and any pocket pair if you both have significant money behind. They are looking to pick up trips, really strong draws, or well disguised big hands. If you are the type of player who can't smell danger when a limper raises you when you bet out with TPTK after a strong preflop bet, then you're going to lose some big pots while catching the occasional idiot who will just give their money to whoever sticks their hand out first. Obviously, anyone continuing after the flop with position on you should be watched like a hawk. Now do all of this and stay aggressive instead of looking for monsters under the bed all the time - that's the really tough part.

[hachkc]

Originally Posted by yeltzen

That's probably just because you're so used to trying to get all your money in the pot with AK later in a tournament. A pair of aces on the flop after the first hour or so of an online tournament is a monster and you're pretty much always going to get all your money in.

But in the first few rounds of a tournament (assuming I'm actually on my game), I would have a pretty hard time convincing myself to get involved in an all-in unless I was 90%+ sure I would win the hand. Having AK and flopping an A wouldn't make me 90% sure. It's the same in a cash game, I suppose... I don't really play them, but it's deep stack, etc.

Of course, depending on how much your raises and bets were, you might not have had a choice. And it's kind of hard to keep a pot small with a marginal holding when the dope you're playing against is calling a reraise preflop and a raise on the flop with A10.

I can't think you did anything wrong as you had the best hand and he was drawing to 3 realistic outs. The details of the play are left out but you were basically sucked out on. A lot of times, I'll check down the river in situations like this especially if the player is prone to C/R and I have position.

Also, cash games put more emphasis on knowing players and their tendencies especially compared to late in tournaments where blind sizes and such can determine how a hand is played versus just the cards and players.

[yeltzen]

Originally Posted by hachkc

I can't think you did anything wrong as you had the best hand and he was drawing to 3 realistic outs. The details of the play are left out but you were basically sucked out on. A lot of times, I'll check down the river in situations like this especially if the player is prone to C/R and I have position.

Also, cash games put more emphasis on knowing players and their tendencies especially compared to late in tournaments where blind sizes and such can determine how a hand is played versus just the cards and players.

As far as I can tell from his description of the hand, he raised on the flop (not all-in), got called, the guy hit a 10, and then they ended up all in on the turn.

[hachkc]

Originally Posted by VARoadstter

Managing pot sizes is the thing that I've come to understand of late which has turned my game around completely. Preflop, you can expect a lot of calls by people with suited connectors, Ax suited and any pocket pair if you both have significant money behind. They are looking to pick up trips, really strong draws, or well disguised big hands. If you are the type of player who can't smell danger when a limper raises you when you bet out with TPTK after a strong preflop bet, then you're going to lose some big pots while catching the occasional idiot who will just give their money to whoever sticks their hand out first. Obviously, anyone continuing after the flop with position on you should be watched like a hawk. Now do all of this and stay aggressive instead of looking for monsters under the bed all the time - that's the really tough part.

TPTK and OOP is probably what gave rise to this sort of comment:
NLHE - Hours of boredom followed by moments of sheer terror

In limit, you bet, he raises, you can call it to the river for 2.5 big bets unless you believe him. In NLHE, it all depends on your read of the player. This why NLHE tournaments are so popular because its not nearly has scary but still provides the "rush" of the big hand while limit is more of a grind.

[hachkc]

Originally Posted by yeltzen

As far as I can tell from his description of the hand, he raised on the flop (not all-in), got called, the guy hit a 10, and then they ended up all in on the turn.

Yep, but no discussion of postion, bet sizes, stack sizes, etc.