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Poker Video: No Limit Hold'Em by Ansky (High Stakes)

Clearly a GTO strategy can't be exploited. However for one thing people should be very careful about using the phrase GTO in describing poker. Poker is not (anywhere near) solved, so a GTO strategy for playing (say) 3 streets of hold'em is far far far from available. We can only say what is game theory optimal in very very limited circumstances. Most of the time when people say GTO they mean "I did a couple of EV calcs and dc/2+2/most of my skype buddies agree".

I agree. Although people misuse the term GTO is not an excuse for Alex to make the same mistake. Or he at least misapplies it. And although a GTO strategy for 3 streets of poker is no where near being solved doesn't mean that doing your best to use a GTO method to solve a spot in game is unpractical.

Now, to Alex Jacobs point. Say you get to the river with a class of bluff catching hands and all of his value hands beat you and you beat all of his bluffs. Your knowledge of game theory says you should call x% of the time and fold the rest. If you decide "ok, I get here with AK x% of the time so every time I have AK I call". You are definitely not playing a GTO strategy at that point. If the class of hands are all truely equivalent then you need to call at random each time with probability x, and if they are equivalent-ish but varying in strength then you need to call with a weighted probability that adds up to x overall (to handle the case where he might say bluff with AT). If you always call with AK your strategy is exploitable if Prahlad can handread you. If he knows you don't have AK then he shoves more bluffs and if he knows you have AK he shoves more nuts. Alex did not misunderstand what a GTO strategy is, he's saying if the odds say we call x% of the time, we can't just use hand strength alone to decide what makes up that x% (from a pure game theoretic point of view).

I don't really want to get into the details of GTO strategy unless you think it's somehow important to the conversation. But can we both agree that a GTO strategy would say that if your only choices were to call or fold that you need to call some x% of the time and that you should use the best x% of hands in order to make your opponent indifferent to choosing any other action. So you might need to call with AK all the time, fold AK all the time, or calls with AK some % of the time. I think we both agree with this, but you can tell me if you don't.

But I'm not really sure where you think that AJ says any of the points you make in his post.
Where do you think he tries to compare using absolute hand strength vs relative hand strength in deciding which hands are best to call with. Sure he points out that AK and KQ is very similar in terms of relative hand strength, but he doesn't point out that KQ would be a better call because of blockers. Actually in his post he seems to ignore the obvious blockers potential and tries to equate the two hands. "and yet most of you would agree that the vast majority of the time, P has either less than KQ or greater than AK." And so Alex is suggesting that it shouldn't matter if we call with AK or KQ because against Prahlads range they're both bluff catchers. And so he is completely backward in suggesting that a GTO approach would somehow suggest that if you call with AK that you should also call with KQ. In fact, the other user's approach that you should call some x% of time (even if it is based on absolute hand strength vs relative hand strength) is almost surely closer to a GTO approach.

He goes on to make arguments such as Mahatma can exploit a GTO strategy, "it seems to me that this is sort of a game-theoretic approach... THIS is the kind of thinking that makes P so successful, not the guys who are saying to fold. because when you think like this you are giving up already.... you are just saying, my hand falls into the x% when i should call, i hope i win. he knows that you do this."

Instead he says that you need to try and use an exploitative strategy to beat Mahatma and try to "read him", and it is this way that we're going to stop Mahatma from being "so successful". Actually if players were using a more GTO approach, Mahatma would almost surely be LESS successful. It's the people who keep trying to read him who are getting out played by his exploitative strategy, since their ranges will be much much more unbalanced, then if you're using something closer to GTO approach.

I don't really want to get into the details of GTO strategy unless you think it's somehow important to the conversation. But can we both agree that a GTO strategy would say that if your only choices were to call or fold that you need to call some x% of the time and that you should use the best x% of hands in order to make your opponent indifferent to choosing any other action

Nope. We wouldn't agree about using the best x% of hands here and that's exactly my point. Specifically, it is not game theory optimal to use the best x%. It has to be a random x% or it's exploitable. You can use the hand strength as a weight to probability but if it's 100% or 0% then he can exploit you if he can handread you.

And that doesn't even get into the blocker effects etc that make some hands which are worse in absolute strength better candidates for bluffcatching because they increase the probability that he has a bluff.

So you are worried that Prahlad might somehow be able to put hero on AK exactly? How is he supposed to handread like that?

Time Link to 00:00:00

I enjoy watching your videos. And what you say here is correct. Unfortunately, you didn't apply the same logic to the video. Instead you contradicted this statement throughout the video and butchered what a GTO strategy would entail. I don't want to come off as pretentious, but I suggest that you listen to the video and see if this is what you advocate.

I think you will be surprised to find that in the video you advocate the following contradictory strategies:
- don't use an exploitative strategy because Mahatma is going to do it better than you.
- don't use a GTO strategy because Mahatama can somehow exploit it (which is by definition incorrect).
- GTO strategy is somehow tied to what a default strategy at some level vs some type of opponent would be
- Since the Villain has either the nuts or air that GTO strategy would suggest that you should call with both AK and K2... or AK from a GTO could only be a call because of blockers.

I think you would agree that there are so many wrong things with these arguments.

So I guess my point is that I never suggested that we would "lose", you did in the video and Alex did in his post when he misunderstood GTO strategy. And beyond that, there's a lot of contradictory and illogical arguments made in the video.

I dont see where I said that at all. I tried to get across that when I referred to something as standard, I don't necessarily mean what GTO play dictates, but more what is the "correct" by general consensus. The only thing I definitively advocate is applying relative hand value as a metric of hand strength. And I said right at the beginning of the alex jacob post that "the biggest thing to take away is the relative hand strength talk."

The people in the thread who are saying obv you call are saying it because top 2 is very strong, and mahatma bluffs a lot, therefore we call. It is not "call with AK, because if you don't you are violating GTO and you can't beat mahat by playing exploitative." I said in the video if you are calling it has be be for the right reasons, that's all I said.

And if in fact you "knew" that prah had QJ here or bluffs, but simply didn't know what % he had which and therefore tried to use a strategy where you called x% to at the very least breakeven in this spot, AK would not be at the top of the list of hands which you start calling with (qq, jj, kj, kq all better).

At some point I said that Mahatma tries to play every hand optimally, I didn't mean game theory optimally though, just that he tries to play every hand vs specific opponents to make the most amount of money possible.

I don't think I ever really claimed to know the answer to this hand, I was just exploring some of the concepts talked about in the thread. If you want to be more specific where you think I failed at doing so, I'd be happy to keep talking about it.


As far as I can tell:

"- don't use an exploitative strategy because Mahatma is going to do it better than you."
Really don't see where I said that.

"don't use a GTO strategy because Mahatama can somehow exploit it (which is by definition incorrect)."
Didn't say that. I said that you can do better than GTO when your opponent plays exploitative.

"GTO strategy is somehow tied to what a default strategy at some level vs some type of opponent would be"
I really hope this isn't how it came off, I was simply trying to describe what the consensus play is in a given spot (ie when you 3b AK and it comes Axx standard play is to bet 3 barrels). And that in order to deviate from what you certainly would agree is best on paper, you need to have some strong criteria.

"- Since the Villain has either the nuts or air that GTO strategy would suggest that you should call with both AK and K2... or AK from a GTO could only be a call because of blockers"

I understand that GTO dictates calling with a minimum hand strength in order to be unexploitable, I am simply saying that 1) people advocating calling with AK are not exactly doing it from a GTO perspective. 2) There might be better hands to call with than AK.

Time Link to 00:00:00

I rewatched the whole video, and I'll agree with you that I was a little muddled at times, My apologies for not making the best possible video, I should have prepared some notes so that I could have clearly presented each point. Usually I don't have notes but this was a very different style video than I am used to so it may have been better if I did have them.

I still don't see where I contradicted myself though. I was trying to explain everything as openly as possible. If I misspoke and said something that was wrong or contradictory I am sorry. There are a lot of ways to approach the hand, and not all of them are necessarily 100% right or wrong.

Time Link to 00:00:00

And fwiw I don't think your post was trollish at all, I expect to be held to very high standards for all my videos and if I do something wrong I'd like to be called out. I take a lot of pride in my coaching and video making so I want to do it right 100% of the time.

I find it just awesome that in 2012 this hand is still stirring up really interesting and awesome threads. How cool is that?

I rewatched the whole video, and I'll agree with you that I was a little muddled at times, My apologies for not making the best possible video, I should have prepared some notes so that I could have clearly presented each point. Usually I don't have notes but this was a very different style video than I am used to so it may have been better if I did have them.

I still don't see where I contradicted myself though. I was trying to explain everything as openly as possible. If I misspoke and said something that was wrong or contradictory I am sorry. There are a lot of ways to approach the hand, and not all of them are necessarily 100% right or wrong.

Yeah, no worries. I agree that the concepts probably get muddled a little bit. I don't think there's any need to go sentence by sentence through the video.

As I said before, I really enjoy your videos and look forward to the next one.

Nope. We wouldn't agree about using the best x% of hands here and that's exactly my point. Specifically, it is not game theory optimal to use the best x%. It has to be a random x% or it's exploitable. You can use the hand strength as a weight to probability but if it's 100% or 0% then he can exploit you if he can handread you.

And that doesn't even get into the blocker effects etc that make some hands which are worse in absolute strength better candidates for bluffcatching because they increase the probability that he has a bluff.

I agree with you here. I'm just saying that a GTO approach would be calling with some x% and would be using the "best" (in a relative hand strength sense... whether absolute, blockers, reverse blockers) hands to call.

And while I do see your point, I just don't see in the post where AJ makes it. Can you quote the part of the post where he is talking about blockers? Instead I see him suggest that anyone attempting to use a GTO approach will get owned by Mahatma because they're "giving up" and not trying to "read him" as if using an exploitative strategy was the only valid one.

I agree with you here. I'm just saying that a GTO approach would be calling with some x% and would be using the "best" (in a relative hand strength sense... whether absolute, blockers, reverse blockers) hands to call.

I always wonder when ppl wanna come up with an unexploitable calling-freq. on the river vs. a bet,
why they do not as a default with blokervalue regards to their bluffcatchingpart of their range, always higher than absolute handstrength?

The vid was awesome and just shows that from the beginning of onlinepoker there have been many smart minds which have come together to explore strategy - that`s imo a nice picture^^

for him to be bluffing the river, he has to set this up with a PSB on the turn.... is anybody that good? to check-call, fire a PSB, then jam with an airball?

it look more bluffy to check call, check call, check jam...or check call, check check (in the days of pot control)(, check jam (because our pot control usu means we have a medium strength hand)

GTO (as i understand it) goes like this
- Mahatma can't just jam the nuts, because we'd always fold and he'd make no money
- so M has to bluff sometimes
- his correct bluffing frequency is in dynamic equilibrium with our calling frequency
- so we want an equilibrium calling frequency

our pot odds are 7k to win 12k or just worse than 2-1, so he has to be bluffing a lot (what is the math?) - x% (bluffing) x 12k (win) - (1-x%) * 7k loss... set this to zero and you have our break even point

merging effectively works by depolarizing - so that our calculation becomes a lot more complicated... in some sense, our hand strength is irrelevant here (as long as we beat all the bluffs) - but when he can complicate things by having weaker 2 pr, then we do have to consider relative hand strength as well as equilibrium calling frequency

i have to say - thinking about it - that turn bet (psb!!), followed by a shove is just too artful to be a bluff.... i do think he can merge 55/ tt in here profitably and those were the first hands i thought of since the turn bet with a FLOPPED straight draw just too clever...

so give me 30m and i would have folded...
at the table my 'thought' process would be 'he is a bluffy guy', 'i call'

Another way to think about this spot is that it's largely about how often we have QJ. Prahlad's river jam has to work ~60% of the time if he's bluffing for us to be losing to him bluffing too much, and if we have 16 combos of QJ here (is there a word for in our eyes? In his eyes we can have 12 or 9 depending on his own hand) his equity with a bluff changes massively depending on if his hand is 87s or J9s.

Our combos of QJ inform what his bluffing range should look like. It's unclear what his turn range is, but his bluffing range should include something like J9, Q9.

Bluffing ranges should include defense against blocker calls. It's actually possible for Prahlad to balance his range so that calling with KQ and AK have the same equity, and if we are going to call perfectly it makes sense for him to do it. Basically we can start his range at QJ, then add in bluff combos making sure that no bluffcatcher crosses zero equity before the others. If KQ has the most equity as a bluffcatcher we should add AJ to our bluffing range to lessen its equity, and if after doing that AK has the most equity we should shift the proportion slightly more towards hands which compensate back. Basically to have a perfectly unexploitable shoving range we should construct a range for which every bluffcatcher has a zero EV call, which is perfectly doable.

A way to think about this at the tables is not as "merging" but as "tripolarizing", perhaps. We have three range segments - air, nuts, and hands which are good against his best bluff-catchers by nature of their showdown value and blockers.

While balancing this range Prahlad has to always seek to have blockers to QJ with his bluffs. If we call perfectly he wants to strive to give us 0 EV calls with everything while minimizing the EV of a call with QJ. If he can take a call with KJ from -20 EV to 0 EV he can snag a bit more of the pot, but if that changes the QJ call EV by greater than 20 in our favor it's a losing play for him. Our QJs are massively massively important.

His betsize needs to account for how often we have QJ. For this to be a correct betsize we need to have QJ less than 8% of the time; if we have QJ more often than that it becomes better to bet a balanced range at a progressively smaller betsize. The reason is that increasing his betsize increases the ratio of nuts:air that he can have to bluff us off KQ or AK. If we have QJ more than 8% of the time making a 2x pot bet instead of a 1.8x pot bet loses more money by getting bluffs called by QJ than it makes money by allowing more bluffs to fold AK/KQ. I work through the exact equation for determining this at ppv.gainmes.com.

Whether or not to call with AK is just an information gathering exercise. Does he bluff enough or not? I think these days it's reasonable, with technology, to answer that question with AK against most opponents. Against some it's going to be a massively +EV call, against some it's going to be massively -EV. If you can't work out whether it's +/- EV then it doesn't really matter, just call 40% of the time I guess, or 100% if you want that image, or 0% if you don't want to show your hand.

Against Prahlad in this hand if we start with the assumption that he donks turn with a reasonably balanced range the main factors are

1) does he valuebet worse than QJ?
2) does he have J9, Q9, and follow through?
3) does he turn AJ/AQ into bluffs?

My guess is that most of the assumptions give this as a fold. Note though that if he is valuebetting worse than QJ with this betsize he's making a massive mistake and you're going to print money with your combos of QJ, so whatever.

It's sort of fun to talk about whether AK is higher or lower than 0 EV to call with here, but irritating that people still just say "higher" or "lower", instead of what they think it is. My guess would be that a call here is very bad, maybe -$2,000 on a $10,000 call. It's useful, in my opinion, to give a numeric value to equity of the decision when making a choice, as it's the clearest way to voice exactly how close you think the decision is. Also once we become more using to talking about decisions in terms of EV we can start having equally interesting discussions about whether to raise or call on the turn (I'm shocked that raising turn was just immediately thrown out of the question), or what the EV is of a turn call with QJ for us.

This video and entire thread is chock full of great analysis and the real keys here are understanding relative hand strength and hand reading.
I get the relative hand strength part of this hand but the part of this hand I am having trouble with is
what hands does mahatma check/call flop with and then LEAD turn for a pot sized bet

it would seem to me that leading the turn for a smaller amount would be more consistent with a draw as opposed to a pot sized bet
or am I just completely off base?

Awesome hand, also the you can do review of Aj Prah`s hand in the future shorts.I remember reading a thread as a kid, that Brandon Adams wrote, after analyzing a couple of K hands with Prah, about Prah being -Ev when it comes river overbeting.Would you tend to even slightly agree with that?

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZAUPYyWX_3s

I'm from UK.

Who was the original spirit rock? I'm interpreting the ESPN video to be the middle-aged bloke with his head spinning. Was he a tv character or basketball player? I dont share the same cultural experiences as Prahlad