This is a long post about some poker thoughts and strategies I've had the last few days.
1. "We should seek to maximise our total profit after identifying an opponents -ev play by maximising the amount of times he makes the mistake & the amount he loses each time he makes it, up to but not over his "adjustment threshold." (... unless you anticipate their adjustment will be even more -ev.)
2. "We could adjust our standard pre flop raise size (4bb) if the opponent/table is either too tight or too loose."
3. "We could adjust our 3bet frequency and even our 3bet sizing vs a specific opponent to maximize our gain depending on whether he is folding to often or too little."
1. The Noble Theorem ?
"We should seek to maximise our total profit after identifying an opponents -ev play by maximising the amount of times he makes the mistake & the amount he loses each time he makes it, up to but not over his "adjustment threshold." (...unless you anticipate that their adjustment will be more -ev.)
I started thinking about this one after reading all the answers for Sauces adjusting thread, specifically the one where we were supposed to come
up with the most +ev play against a villian who was 3-betting any two cards & then consider the adjustments he might make and how we would
deal with those.
Well it turned out I think that the most +ev line if I remember was to raise hands that you are are willing to 4bet shove, something like 16% of our hands,
because either way he's royally screwed if just calls with hands ahead of our range he's folding 8/10x and if he calls with anything wider than that he's still folding alot and getting the rest in as an underdog.
But then we realised he would obviously adjust after just 1/2 shoves & tighten his 3betting range.
So in reality this would actually be one of the worst lines to take because because we would force villian to adjust before we had a chance to exploit his
-ev play.
So then we decided the best option might be to 4bet to a smaller amount, which would work to but he would still probably adjust his 3betting range pretty soon.
But if he we look at (1.) above we see that if our goal is to maximise our total profit from his -ev play then we should maximise our ev as close to but not over his "adjustment threshold" thereby allowing you to capitalise on his mistake for a longer period of time which might work out to less ev per hand but have a higher cumalitive total.
So with this in mind our strategy vs said opponent might be to still 3bet fold a small % of our range & call with a small % thereby not allowing villian to see in the short term just how exploitable his mistake is, sort of like the frog in the simmering water analogy.
& I'm sure most of the good players are already appplying this concept but to be honest I didnt get it, if I saw villian was making an exploitable mistake I would try take advantage of it as much as possible thereby pushing him over the "adjustment threshold" and losing what could have been a long term exploitable edge. (& longterm is relative it could only last as long as a session, ie. the guy adjusted after you'd punished him the next 4/5 times he did it, but if you'd exploited the weakness at a slower rate like 2.5/5 he you could be able to do it 25/50 times without him adjusting thereby making you a greater cumalitive total. I think this manifest itself the greatest against decent regulars who are often difficult to find an edge against, so when you do find a chink in the armour you goal shouldn't be to apply the most +ev line to exploit it on a hand by hand basis but rather apply the theory, so you can get the greatest profit from it without him adjusting.)
I often here guys like CTS say they try to anticipate their opponents adjustment before they do it, which is great but I think if you've found a weakness then you shouldn't run over it till they make a better adjustment but rather pursue a strategy that gets the most total profit from it usually by maximises the amount of times he makes the mistake & the amount he loses each time he makes it, up to but not over his "adjustment threshold."
A case where this at first appears not to be true is vs a big donk with an obvious massive -ev play, like lead shoving flop with weak hands, in which case you probably want to exploit it as much as you can as quickly as possible even if he adjusts because if you dont someone else will bust him first. I still feel this fits in with the theory though because you're still applying the strategy that is likely to get the greatest total/cumulative profit.
2. "We could adjust our standard pre flop raise size (4bb) based on whether an opponent or even the entire table is playing too tight or too loose."
Example...
We are in the sb/otb and we know that the bb folds 95% to a steal.
Conclusion he is folding too often at the moment & we should be able to gain alot of ev just by stealing the blinds more often.
So we should raise a wider range in sb/otb, even co to take advantage of this, however if we raise every time here he will quickly reach his adjustment threshold so there is a ceiling on our ev there - simple enough, but is there any other way to increase our ev further? Well the interesting part for me is that part 2 of the 1st theory says we should maximise the amount he wins/loses with this -ev play.
How do we do this? We decrease our standard raise to <4bb in these positions up to his adjustment threshold and if he doesn't adjust and still folds the same 95% even when getting better implied odds, then we are able to steal the blinds for less & when he does 3bet us (with a tight range) we can often fold only having lost <4bb instead of 4bb which will add up in the longterm (To the greatest cumulative total.)
(Disadvantage - We give better implied odds to esp. bb when we have premium hands like AA, however if our main ev in this game is coming from stealing (very tight game), then this loss of ev ahould be acceptable.)
If an opponent is calling our raise to loosely (like 30% of all his hands.) That means he is making a big - ev play by calling with a range that is actually behind ours & + he won't have the initiative post flop.
I've read books advocating playing tighter to exploit this weakness but I think it seems you should actually be raising more hands if they are willing to call a raise with a range behind ours, (& u'll have the initiative post flop). Thereby maximising the amount of times they make it (up to adjustment threshhold.), but if we want to maximise the amount they lose by it then we can increase our standard bet size up to the point he will adjust. So if he is still calling the same range vs a 5/6 bb raise we are successfuly getting him to put 25-50% more money in pre-flop as an underdog.
(Also I think you might even consider adjusting your raise size in loose games because you want people to adjust, say for example it is profitable to raise A8o vs one of these loose calling opponents, however at the moment you are getting 3+ multiple callers on avg, forcing you to usually play hit to win poker oop, decreasing your edge and maybe forcing you to adjust to a tighter range. But if you raise to 6bb's (or just over whatever most of their adjustment thresholds are) you can get into more 1 on 1 situations again with the added of advantage of them having put in more money pre with a weaker range.)
(Disadvantage - we are putting in more money pre with the bottom of our range & are losing ev when our opponent has a hand ahead of that, but if our main ev is coming from people putting in money too often with a hand behind ours (too loose game) &/or folding flop then this loss of ev should be acceptable)
& the final concept I thought about in relation to (2) is this - We should consider increasing or standard pfr size utg & utg +1 & then decrease it on the CO & OTB.
Why? We all know we cant just raises AA to 8bb (to get more money in pre when we have best hand) & min raise our sc's because people would be able to easily put us on a specific range of hands, adjust and exploit us accordingly.
However most people are already exploiting our range (& us theres) in the following way - they are are calling with sc's & lowpp in pos to an utg raise as they know most ranges are tighter there & they are getter better implied odds/ chance of getting paid off with a set etc &/or having positional advantage . They are folding /three betting to our CO & OTB raises more as they know our range is wider &/or they dont want to call oop.
Well to exploit this we could raise more utg & utg +1 (5bb) so that we are getting in more money pre with a range that is ahead of theirs (& cutting their implied odds) till they adjust. We could also raise less on just co, otb thereby stealing the blinds for less.
(In reality though adjusting your pre-flop bet sizing is very easy to pick up on as opposed to adjusting your raising range so in practice it may occasionally work at low stakes & only in certain circumstances, but it's something to think about.)
3. "We could adjust our 3bet frequency and even our 3bet sizing vs a specific opponent to maximize our gain depending on whether he is folding to often or too little."
I started thinking of this one after seeing ISF query as to why people would be 3-betting to a larger amount.
To be honest I didnt really get (& maybe still dont get the whole idea) behind three betting.
I think the idea is to get more money in the pot pre when your range is far enough ahead of theirs or perceived to be and regain the initiative in the hand which is very +ev. So I would follow Sauce's advice & 3bet the top 1/3 or 1/2 of my opponents range & also add a few sc's and low pp & be like, yay, I'm making a +ev play.
But our ev in 3betting generally I think now comes from our opponent responding in a very negative ev way (ok obv.) but we should look at how he is responding negatively and exploit it up to his adjustment threshold.
I think the most common mistake is that they fold too much pre or on the flop and only 4bet with a uber tight range.
If our opponent is doing this we should exploit it by three betting them even more (often up to their adjustment point) & even 3bet them to a slightly lower amount - getting their 4bb raise for less and we will have put in less when they do have a good hand.
Conversely if your opponent is calling your 3bets too often you can 3bet him to a bigger amount so that he is putting in more money pre with a range behind yours.
So I hope people at least consider the idea of manipulating their bet sizing pre-flop (even though it's very transparent) and of course we do it all the time post flop, ie. if a guy is calling for draws too much we charge him more, (but I get it now, that we almost never want him to fold but rather pay the most amount possible before he adjusts by folding.) If a guy is calling too much with marginal hands we value bet him more and to a greater amount (but again we dont want him to fold or adjust his play so we should avoid going past his adjustment point.) & of course this idea can be applied to most post flop situations.
Wow that was long & although I'm sure the better players are already applying this I still hope this post will stimulate some discussion & maybe it will help someone improve/ come up with a better approach to getting the most profit possible out of their opponents in a variety of situations for a longer period of time.
