The anti HEM, stats, GTO, and balancing thread

[lewialex]

Not really here to enlighten or educate; rather, I'm here to see if I'm on the right track. All you big time rollers, please read, even though it may be TL; DR:

We all know that it is common to 3bet wide on the button. Many of us have seen an opponent's 3bet on the button stat reach 15% or more on the button. Naturally, we know that the stat can be combated by 4betting more and defending with hands like AQ or KQ and so on.

The next step is realizing that the 15% button doesn't mean anything. Depending on the opener and from where he is opening, that 15% could actually be 20% against a wide CO opener that folds to too many 3bets, or it could mean 3% against a nit opening UTG.

From my experience at 400-600NL I feel that the majority of regulars understand this concept, but still rely on HEM stats as a focal point. I also feel that the majority understand the concept of balancing, that in theory, one must have equal combinations of value hands and bluff hands.

However, balancing doesn't seem to be employed very often, and rightfully so. Let's take for instance the beginning of a session, where an aggressive 3bettor will put pressure on his opponents from the button, but perhaps his only value range is QQ+ and AK. Many times he is correct to be incredibly unbalanced here since they have so much fold equity.

Another example can be seen when the board runs out 4s 5d 9c - Qc - 2d and the preflop raiser in position fires three barrels. Combination wise, there are more missed draws he can barrel off than potential value hands, but yet the player out of position folds so often at the start of the session or a new dynamic because he just doesn't know his opponent's barreling tendencies or just because he has 88 or 910 and is facing a big bet. Certainly with more history this would be a call against a player that can't simply have enough value hands to match his missed draws, but this is just an example that early on, being unbalanced can be profitable.

Being unbalanced against players with glaring leaks is an obvious example to being profitable, so I don't think I need to go on, but these examples are just to demonstrate that most of the time, players are not balanced.

Now let's fast forward a few thousand hands of history where two fundamentally sound players have established an aggressive dynamic. Let's revisit the preflop situation, a CO facing a button 3bet. During the course of these few thousand hands, both players should be adjusting their ranges frequently. For instance, the CO may tighten his opening range after a stretch of frequent 3betting from the button, and certainly the button will adjust his 3betting range when he notices the CO tightening up or playing back at him.

Now how are these players adjusting specifically? If the CO starts 4betting or flatting more, the button would probably adjust by adding more value hands and cutting back on his bluffing hands. The CO would adjust similarly by including more hands in his opening range that he intends to bring to the front against a 3bet, and less that will fold to a 3bet.

The art of poker arises when a player must realize when a player is imbalanced and, more importantly, in what way. In many situations the ratio between value hands and bluff hands may be staggering. Let's revisit the river decision on the 4s 5d 9c - Qc - 2d board only this time the players have established their aggressive dynamic. The BB called two streets and is now facing a pot sized river bet. It is quite possible to be perfectly balanced here by value betting hands like JJ and taking some combos of missed draws as bluffs.

However, in on single isolated situation, the Hero who three barrels may decide to not bluff at all after getting called twice! So he has nearly 90 value combinations that Hero is just owning a bluff catching range. Here the OOP would be making a huge mistake my calling down with his 88, all because he knows that there are missed draws and that the three barreler is 'capable of 3 barreling in this spot'.

There are dozens of parallel situations where a player's value/bluff range can be extremely skewed in any one given isolated incident, just like one's call/fold range can be extremely skewed. I think by this point you get the idea, and it is clear that HUD stats are completely irrelevant, just as the game theory optimal play can be horrid, and how in isolated hands through the flow of a session, balancing your range and playing accordingly against a balanced range can be catastrophic.

This is why being a genius mathematician, statistician, and probability expert doesn't guarantee poker success if you lack metagame skills.

The main challenge that arises out of the thesis of this post is knowing WHEN. When and how and in what way is my opponent's range imbalanced. This is something that I am in the process of mastering, and this is something I'm sure high stakes crushers have mastered in games when the majority of players are relatively fundamentally sound.

Is it possible to quantify metagame and game theory dynamics or is it just all left to intuition and instinct?

[PlsTilt]

Solid post.

Yes you can quantify metagame, that's what you do when you assign people a range. And adjust as you get more reads.

No not all is left to intuition and instinct, but, still a lot is. That's probably why Ivey reads souls and crushes the interwebz pro's.
It's a good thing that there is more to poker than just watching vids, reading books and clicking raise - bet - bet - bet.

[lancelott_]

Very solid post

moar

[JamesMa]

I think it takes quite a while before someone does realize that you have adjusted. Add to the fact that a lot of players play sooo many tables that they tend to autopilot and cant focus enough to put the pieces of the puzzle together very quickly except for the select few nanonoko-esque players.

[harangutang]

I think a lot of it is experience and being able to put players in "boxes" very fast and then using that experience to make reads on how your opponent will react and adapt.

Single hands that your opponent shows down can often reveal a lot of their tendencies/leaks/strengths, eg their capability of 3 barreling, how light they valuebet in certain spots, what type of hands they 3bet, how they react to 4bets, etc.

[Pwoita]

Originally Posted by lewialex

There are dozens of parallel situations where a player's value/bluff range can be extremely skewed in any one given isolated incident, just like one's call/fold range can be extremely skewed. I think by this point you get the idea, and it is clear that HUD stats are completely irrelevant, just as the game theory optimal play can be horrid, and how in isolated hands through the flow of a session, balancing your range and playing accordingly against a balanced range can be catastrophic.

When you play GTO, you are not exploiting his skewed ranges ... that was never the point ... the point of GTO is to make it so that he is not able to exploit you, so you don't lose the times you have nfi what the gameflow would lead him to do.

You don't win lots from GTO but you shouldn'y be losing since the money you would have made from calling him wider when he is bluffing more is gained back by winning a lot more with the non-folding range that should contain enough hands to be theory optimal

That doesn't make it "catastrophic" ... it just means you aren't exploiting him

[grogheadflow]

Really good post

[Donkadocus]

Awesome post.

Originally Posted by lewialex

mathematician, statistician, and probability expert doesn't guarantee poker success if you lack metagame skills.

This is my box.

[RedJoker]

I disagree with a huge amount of this, the stats stuff is fine but you have almost no idea about GT or balancing.

Originally Posted by lewialex

I also feel that the majority understand the concept of balancing, that in theory, one must have equal combinations of value hands and bluff hands.

Why equal combinations? In almost all situations an equal combination of value and bluff hands would leave you unbalanced. You've also forgotten semi-bluffs.

Originally Posted by lewialex

However, in on single isolated situation, the Hero who three barrels may decide to not bluff at all after getting called twice! So he has nearly 90 value combinations that Hero is just owning a bluff catching range. Here the OOP would be making a huge mistake my calling down with his 88, all because he knows that there are missed draws and that the three barreler is 'capable of 3 barreling in this spot'.

A river call may be an exploitative mistake but the turn and flop calls would become significantly better since villain is checking down the river with a huge portion of his range. You can't just analyze one strategy point in isolation without considering the overall effect.

Originally Posted by lewialex

There are dozens of parallel situations where a player's value/bluff range can be extremely skewed in any one given isolated incident, just like one's call/fold range can be extremely skewed. I think by this point you get the idea, and it is clear that HUD stats are completely irrelevant, just as the game theory optimal play can be horrid, and how in isolated hands through the flow of a session, balancing your range and playing accordingly against a balanced range can be catastrophic.

The GTO play can never be horrid and balancing your range will never be catastrophic. Almost by definition you have positive expectation by balancing your range. What is catastrophic however, is 4bet/folding 100% of your range when your opponent has decided to never 3bet bluff. What is horrid is folding 100% of your bluff catching range when your opponent is always bluffing. These are massive mistakes and just because you sometimes make more when you guess correctly, it doesn't make balancing bad. In fact, unless you have some special ability to guess better than your opponent, balancing your range will always net you a higher expectation than essentially clicking buttons.

Originally Posted by lewialex

The main challenge that arises out of the thesis of this post is knowing WHEN. When and how and in what way is my opponent's range imbalanced. This is something that I am in the process of mastering, and this is something I'm sure high stakes crushers have mastered in games when the majority of players are relatively fundamentally sound.

You've pretty much just summed up the entire problem with your approach. How can you even know WHERE your opponent is imbalanced if you don't know where balanced is to begin with? Sure, it's obvious against the 62/30 maniac or the 17/14 nit but against anybody remotely competent you have absolutely nothing to benchmark their play to if you don't know what an optimal strategy is. How can you say that somebody is, for example, cbetting too much if you don't know where too little ends and too much begins?

It seems strange that you'd dismiss game theory and balancing when you haven't even worked out when people are adjusting to an exploitable strategy, that's like the whole point of that approach right, you have some sick soul reading ability that allows you to know when your opponent is exploitable?

Rather than trying to master the WHEN, why not make it irrelevant?

[jaykay25]

Originally Posted by RedJoker

Why equal combinations? In almost all situations an equal combination of value and bluff hands would leave you unbalanced. You've also forgotten semi-bluffs.

I dont think OP means to speak literally that balancing means 50% bluffs, but rather understands that balancing means choosing one action X% of the time and doing something else Y% of the time in the same situation. Or whatever he meant, i'm sure people are evaluating the post based on a solid understanding of how balancing is defined.


A river call may be an exploitative mistake but the turn and flop calls would become significantly better since villain is checking down the river with a huge portion of his range. You can't just analyze one strategy point in isolation without considering the overall effect.

To phrase his example a different way, if youre playing someone who would never bluff right after being caught bluffing, itd be a bad idea to keep calling just because its the GTO play given villain's HEM stats. He calls it "horrid"; you wouldnt go that far, but who cares about these semantics. Suffice to say that deviating from GTO to account for game flow/table dynamics/villain tendancies in that spot for example, is the play that makes more money than staying with GTO.


The GTO play can never be horrid and balancing your range will never be catastrophic. Almost by definition you have positive expectation by balancing your range. What is catastrophic however, is 4bet/folding 100% of your range when your opponent has decided to never 3bet bluff. What is horrid is folding 100% of your bluff catching range when your opponent is always bluffing. These are massive mistakes and just because you sometimes make more when you guess correctly, it doesn't make balancing bad. In fact, unless you have some special ability to guess better than your opponent, balancing your range will always net you a higher expectation than essentially clicking buttons.

This is kind of the opposite of what OP is talking about. All youre proving is that if you're WRONG with your exploitative plays, then youd lose more than if you had just played GTO to begin with. I'm sure thats true, but then the issue is developing the skills to make good reads, which is what this post was all about. You make it sound like these kinds of reads are just "guessing," and therefore poker is a math game and not a psychology game. I think most would disagree with you here.


You've pretty much just summed up the entire problem with your approach. How can you even know WHERE your opponent is imbalanced if you don't know where balanced is to begin with? Sure, it's obvious against the 62/30 maniac or the 17/14 nit but against anybody remotely competent you have absolutely nothing to benchmark their play to if you don't know what an optimal strategy is. How can you say that somebody is, for example, cbetting too much if you don't know where too little ends and too much begins?

Knowing how to balance would definitely help but obv its not a prerequisite to developing an exploitative strategy (such as when its 'obvious' or whatever)


It seems strange that you'd dismiss game theory and balancing when you haven't even worked out when people are adjusting to an exploitable strategy, that's like the whole point of that approach right, you have some sick soul reading ability that allows you to know when your opponent is exploitable?

Rather than trying to master the WHEN, why not make it irrelevant?

lol i just realized ur the guy who made the (awesome) math videos for leggo. Trus me brah theres something to this psychology thing too : D )

I think a word that isnt used enough to describe Ivey is 'math genius,' but the reason other math geniuses are not Ivey is that hes also extremely perceptive and likely recognizes behavior patterns that no one would ever find in HEM.

note to self learn to multiquote