Social Convention

It pains me a little to make a blog post mostly about poker, but a coaching session I had yesterday reminded me of a concept I think is pretty interesting.  Also, nothing that funny has happened to me lately.

A new student was asking me about a hand where he turns top pair with A2 in a 4bet pot on JT7ccA after villain flats a 4bet and flop gets checked through.  My student got check raised all in on the turn.  He told me that some of his poker friends said they don't fold top pair in 4bet pots and that folding there is exploitable.  These types of generalizations are almost always bad poker thinking. 

You should always be asking yourself, "what is my opponents range?"  In the above example I can't help but think how hilarious the idea of being "exploited" is.  The word exploitable is an extension of game theory.  The idea of playing unexploitable tends to imply that our opponents are playing optimal and near perfectly balanced in certain spots.  For the most part, this is never true. 

The next time you justify a bad call because you didn't want to be exploited, ask yourself if your opponent's range is well balanced in that spot and if you even need to worry about being exploited.  cliff notes:  trying to play unexploitable against an unbalanced exploitable range is BAD

My wife is 37 weeks pregnant today.  It's kind of a big deal because it means the baby is officially full term and is much less likely to have any problems if she were born before her due date.  Her due date is Jan 6th and my wife has been in preterm labor for a couple weeks.  Anyone who would like to participate in a $5 pool to guess when she will be born please post your date in the comments and send $5 to jk3a on stars or ftp.  80% to the winner and 20% to the 2nd closest .  The winners will be determined by whoever comes closest without going over.  Two people can't pick the same day.  Ties are lame.