Poker Video: No Limit Hold'Em by terp (Micro/Small Stakes)

DC Shorts: Terp (#1) - Balance

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DC Shorts: Terp (#1) - Balance by terp

Terp talks about the math behind the concept of balance as a prelude to his new series.

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terp dc shorts balance ipod friendly theory powerpoint

Video Details

  • Game: nlhe
  • Stakes: Micro/Small Stakes
  • 16 minutes long
  • Posted over 2 years ago

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HighOctane

Avatar for HighOctane

585 posts
Joined 09/2008

Do you calculate a balanced range rly that way?
Thought it is depending of the odds which Villain gets.

Example: We cbet on a board 2/3-PS -> hence that the cbet is BE, Villain needs to fold 40%.
When I have understood you correct, a balanced range would consist now of 40% Valuehands and 60% Bluffinghands.

I am pretty sure that you should calculate it this way:
Villain gets odds of 2,5 : 1 -> he needs 28,6% EQ to call.
to be now 100% balanced,
our bluffingpart of our bettingrange should be 28,6% and the rest should be valuehands.

I could be of course wrong.

Anyways,
I am rly looking forward to your series b/c from your posts in the forums it rly seems that you are very strong in especially this theoretical stuffWink



Prologion, I think on your c-betting example, you should be bluffing 40%, just like if you bet pot you should be bluffing 33% (villian getting 2:1). But as an aside, when there are more streets, you can bluff even more because your bet's have more leverage. Your bluff frequencies should go down as a % of your betting range on each street. Like if you bet 2/3 pot on 3 streets, you should be bluffing on the river 40% of the time. So you are value betting 60% on the river and you can be value betting the turn less. On the turn, 36% of your betting range (in this example) would have to be able to value bet the river (60% X 60%). On the flop only 22% (60% X 60% X 60%). Think of having 10 streets vs 3. Could you bluff the 1st street more or less?
.

Posted over 2 years ago

terp

Avatar for terp

1996 posts
Joined 01/2008

I thought it was only our bluffs that have to break even, not our entire range. If our worse bluff hand in our range is losing money, then we should not be bluffing it. Anyway, if our bluffs need to work 67% of the time in your example, then he has to defend 33% of the time. If he 4 bets for example to 25bb, then he will be betting 15 into 25.5, which has to work 42% [15/(15+20.5)=.42]. Thus, we should be 3 bet bluffing in this scenareo 58% of the time or 55 hands, not 20 hands. Then again, I may be totally off base Smile



if our range breaks even, we're balanced

if our bluffs are independently profiting, we're not bluffing enough from an exploitive perspective. we may be bluffing below or above a balanced threshold, but we are certainly not exploiting our opponent perfectly!

Posted over 2 years ago

Ass Get to Jigglin

Avatar for Ass Get to Jigglin

4273 posts
Joined 10/2010

I think a lot of people mis-understand balance and try to make their own strategy profitable rather than trying make the opponents options non-profitable vs your range



good point. however, making our own strategy profitable is what we would prefer to do over making the opponenets options non-profitabe vs our range. i think it was in galfond's well, he said something like i dont want to play so that my opponent cant make a good choice vs my range, i want to play so that they make a mistake vs my hand.

Posted over 2 years ago

Ass Get to Jigglin

Avatar for Ass Get to Jigglin

4273 posts
Joined 10/2010

Prologion, I think on your c-betting example, you should be bluffing 40%, just like if you bet pot you should be bluffing 33% (villian getting 2:1). But as an aside, when there are more streets, you can bluff even more because your bet's have more leverage. Your bluff frequencies should go down as a % of your betting range on each street. Like if you bet 2/3 pot on 3 streets, you should be bluffing on the river 40% of the time. So you are value betting 60% on the river and you can be value betting the turn less. On the turn, 36% of your betting range (in this example) would have to be able to value bet the river (60% X 60%). On the flop only 22% (60% X 60% X 60%). Think of having 10 streets vs 3. Could you bluff the 1st street more or less?
.



right, but is that congruent with terp's example? if we were using terps math, wouldnt it be 40% value bets and 60% bluffs on our 2/3 pot sized cbet?

Posted over 2 years ago

SpewKid

Avatar for SpewKid

575 posts
Joined 02/2008

Do you calculate a balanced range rly that way?
Thought it is depending of the odds which Villain gets.

Example: We cbet on a board 2/3-PS -> hence that the cbet is BE, Villain needs to fold 40%.
When I have understood you correct, a balanced range would consist now of 40% Valuehands and 60% Bluffinghands.

I am pretty sure that you should calculate it this way:
Villain gets odds of 2,5 : 1 -> he needs 28,6% EQ to call.
to be now 100% balanced,
our bluffingpart of our bettingrange should be 28,6% and the rest should be valuehands.

I could be of course wrong.

Anyways,
I am rly looking forward to your series b/c from your posts in the forums it rly seems that you are very strong in especially this theoretical stuffWink




You are absolutely right. If there's one thing I learned from Sklansky's books, it's this Smile
The odds that you're bluffing should be identical to the pot odds he's getting. That way, you're indifferent as to how often he calls or folds. There's nothing he can do about it.

Posted over 2 years ago

Prologion

Avatar for Prologion

2079 posts
Joined 03/2010

You are absolutely right. If there's one thing I learned from Sklansky's books, it's this Smile
The odds that you're bluffing should be identical to the pot odds he's getting. That way, you're indifferent as to how often he calls or folds. There's nothing he can do about it.




yeah yeah, i also think it is this way.
Hence the example in the vid seems to be incorrect (?)

@HighOctane:
I agree and get the point that we should be bluffing from the GTO-perspective 33% and val.bet 66% if we bet Pot b/c Vilalin will need 33% EQ to call.

But why we have now to bluff 40% when Villain only needs 28,6% EQ to call.
Pretty sure that the more you bet, the more you can from a theoretical perspective bluff.

Imo I should bluff here 40% if I would overbet 1,5x Pot.


Or do I miss something?

Posted over 2 years ago

Steppin Razor

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Section 9
2237 posts
Joined 12/2009

Videos like this make it impossible for me to pretend I'm good at poker.

Posted over 2 years ago

Ass Get to Jigglin

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4273 posts
Joined 10/2010

Videos like this make it impossible for me to pretend I'm good at poker.



there are a lot of really good players who prob dont understand stuff like this, so i wouldnt feel too bad lol

Posted over 2 years ago

HighOctane

Avatar for HighOctane

585 posts
Joined 09/2008

if our range breaks even, we're balanced

if our bluffs are independently profiting, we're not bluffing enough from an exploitive perspective. we may be bluffing below or above a balanced threshold, but we are certainly not exploiting our opponent perfectly!



Terp I agree that bluffing 33% is optimal or balanced provided

a villain can only call or fold and

b) this ends the hand

Let me explain. You example is like the text book example like that in
Theory of Poker where our bluff portion of our range equals the odds we
are laying villain. But in your example, the villain can 4 bet. More
precisely, he can 4 bet bluff. If we choose to be balanced as in your
example, that should presuppose villain is also balanced. Let’s say he
4 bet bluffs to 25bb. His pot odds are 15/(15+20.5) or 42%. So we need
to defend 42% of the time (just like when someone bets pot on the river,
it needs to work 50% so we call 50% with our bluff catchers). Therefore
our value portion of our 3 bet range should be 42%, not 67%. So if we
use a 40 value hands to 20 bluff hands in our 3 bet, we are actually
unbalanced and he can easily exploit this by never 4 bet bluffing us
since the value portion of our range is much greater then the 42% we
need to defend against his 4 bets. Would you 4 bet bluff someone 3
betting 60 hands (4.5% of all hands)?

Posted over 2 years ago

HighOctane

Avatar for HighOctane

585 posts
Joined 09/2008

@HighOctane:
I agree and get the point that we should be bluffing from the GTO-perspective 33% and val.bet 66% if we bet Pot b/c Vilalin will need 33% EQ to call.

But why we have now to bluff 40% when Villain only needs 28,6% EQ to call.
Pretty sure that the more you bet, the more you can from a theoretical perspective bluff.

Imo I should bluff here 40% if I would overbet 1,5x Pot.


Or do I miss something?



Yeah my mistake Prologion. You would bluff 28.6% since those are villians pot odds assuming he knows your strategy. He would call 40% with his bluff catchers if you know his strategy. So in my earlier example on balancing across the turn and river, 51% of the hands that you bet the turn with would have to be ones that can value bet the river for 2/3 pot. 1-.286=.714 and .714 X .714 = .510. So for every river value bet, you can have roughly 1 turn bluff vs GTO opponent (ie oppnent that reads your soul).

Posted over 2 years ago

Ass Get to Jigglin

Avatar for Ass Get to Jigglin

4273 posts
Joined 10/2010

He would call 40% with his bluff catchers if you know his strategy.



is that supposed to be if he knows your strategy? if not, how does you knowing his strategy affect how often he calls with his bluff catchers?

Posted over 2 years ago

HighOctane

Avatar for HighOctane

585 posts
Joined 09/2008

is that supposed to be if he knows your strategy? if not, how does you knowing his strategy affect how often he calls with his bluff catchers?



No. I said villian would call 40% if you know his strategy because that is the basis upon which GTO works. Villian would not need to use game theory if he knows your strategy (ie what percent of your range is bluffs) and you don't know his. He would just use exploitative strategy. Game theory is used as a defensive strategy. Like Phil Ivey will know how often you will call and fold to his bluffs so to defend against his knowledge of your strategy, you are forced to use game theory frequencies based on pot odds.

Posted over 2 years ago

Ass Get to Jigglin

Avatar for Ass Get to Jigglin

4273 posts
Joined 10/2010

No. I said villian would call 40% if you know his strategy because that is the basis upon which GTO works. Villian would not need to use game theory if he knows your strategy (ie what percent of your range is bluffs) and you don't know his. He would just use exploitative strategy. Game theory is used as a defensive strategy. Like Phil Ivey will know how often you will call and fold to his bluffs so to defend against his knowledge of your strategy, you are forced to use game theory frequencies based on pot odds.



what if your are playing a GTO strategy and he knows this?

Posted over 2 years ago

Ass Get to Jigglin

Avatar for Ass Get to Jigglin

4273 posts
Joined 10/2010

No. I said villian would call 40% if you know his strategy because that is the basis upon which GTO works. Villian would not need to use game theory if he knows your strategy (ie what percent of your range is bluffs) and you don't know his. He would just use exploitative strategy. Game theory is used as a defensive strategy. Like Phil Ivey will know how often you will call and fold to his bluffs so to defend against his knowledge of your strategy, you are forced to use game theory frequencies based on pot odds.



ok so you are saying that if we knew his strategy and he knew that we knew his strategy (just like we know that Ivey knows our strategy), then he would call 40% as a GTO defense?

Posted over 2 years ago

FullTimeSmile

Avatar for FullTimeSmile

392 posts
Joined 09/2009

Time Link to 00:09:35

One question, if we want to balance our 3bet - 5bet game shouldn't we balance around our 3bet - his 4bet size?

Like my stack of range is JJ+, AK. My 3bet size is 9$, his raise is X, so he profits if I fold to 4bet Y% of time.

Posted over 2 years ago




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