Videothread "The Nemesis"

Thanks for your comments guys!

Originally posted by Tackleberry
Both is correct! You defend less than 1-alpha, if Villain´s bluffs would have +EV when checked behind - but you defend more than 1-alpha, when you´re calling instead of raising (and let Villain realize his equity).

Another example to help me understand this concept: we call BBvsBU and the flop comes 842r. Opponent has weak ovcards like JTo or something similar. By checking behind he gets the opportunity to improve his hand, so checking has some merits. So if we defend more than 1-alpha because his bluffs have equity (mostly ovcards) then checking becomes more attractive to me. Aren't we defending too much then?

I mean on the one hand we want to defend more becasue since his bluffs have equity he needs less foldequity, put on the other hand since checking has some good EV, if we defend too much checking becomes too attractive. I don't know. This kind of situation confuses me.

Thanks again!!!

What bugs me about '1-alpha' is we never hear about it's limitations. Is it even a practical approach in the majority of situations?

1. It considers every board equal. How do you account for different flops? (re. equities and equity distributions).

2. Very, very often hero has no desire to stop villain from having a profitable bluff with any 2 cards, because of previous action. i.e. calling a shit range in BB v BTN 2bb RFI getting 22% pot odds and then overfolding (compared to 1-alpha) flops.
3. Ignores position.

These limitations are valid right? Does anyone have methodical or mathematical approach to dealing with these limitations that fit with the 1-alpha model? What are some more limitations?

Originally posted by jules97
What bugs me about '1-alpha' is we never hear about it's limitations. Is it even a practical approach in the majority of situations?

1. It considers every board equal. How do you account for different flops? (re. equities and equity distributions).

2. Very, very often hero has no desire to stop villain from having a profitable bluff with any 2 cards, because of previous action. i.e. calling a shit range in BB v BTN 2bb RFI getting 22% pot odds and then overfolding (compared to 1-alpha) flops.
3. Ignores position.

These limitations are valid right? Does anyone have methodical or mathematical approach to dealing with these limitations that fit with the 1-alpha model? What are some more limitations?

1. I would say it matters only how much equity villian has with his bluffs. the more equity he has, we defend more.
2. yes we cant defend always 1-alpha because sometimes villians range is much stronger and we want to call only +EV which is often not possible
3. if we play oop, obviously we need to defend more than IP because villians bet EV increases when he is IP, because he can cbet flop with overcards and take free card on turn.

Originally posted by GingerKid
I heard about gto bots but not about such simulations

http://www.ualberta.ca/~archibal/papers/johanson.pdf

Originally posted by GingerKid
And with rake, I am not sure if there is profit at all vs such bots?

It´s not about playing against those bots, those measurements (exploitability) are figures that the bot-developers publish themselves and it´s a way to compare the "quality" of different GTO-bots (benchmark). => The lower the exploitability the higher the quality.

I´m not aware of the rates of nowadays bots, but I remember that LHE-HU (!) bots in 2013 reached sth. like 2bb/100, so they´d lose 2bb/100 against an absolutely perfect playing Nemesis opponent. It was once claimed that a "potential" exploitability of 10bb/100 (state of ~2008) would be sufficient to crush the world´s top-LHE-players! Here you can already see what we´re talking about. NLHE (let alone 6-max compared to HU) is incredibly more complex, so I´d say current bots are likely exploitable for sth. > 20bb/100 against a perfect playing "GTO-god".

Originally posted by Shakaflaka
Another example to help me understand this concept: we call BBvsBU and the flop comes 842r. Opponent has weak ovcards like JTo or something similar. By checking behind he gets the opportunity to improve his hand, so checking has some merits. So if we defend more than 1-alpha because his bluffs have equity (mostly ovcards) then checking becomes more attractive to me. Aren't we defending too much then?

Again, there are two sides of the medal. If you defended only by raising - then you had to lower your defense, otherwise Villain wouldn´t have any incentive to bluff you on the flop with hands that have equity > 0%. But that´s not realistic! Once you start calling, you still let Villain realize his equity. That means, he loses some EV when you raise, but he gains some EV when he calls (because he still has equity in a bigger pot now). The treshold is impossible to calculate precisely. Maybe I´ll make a video soon on nothing else but (1-alpha), if there´s interest?

Originally posted by jules97
What bugs me about '1-alpha' is we never hear about it's limitations. Is it even a practical approach in the majority of situations?

GingerKid already made a bunch of valid points! I´d just like to add that (1-alpha) originally has it´s roots in the calculation of defense-frequencies in "one-street-games" with totally polarized ranges. Like you´re on the river and your opponent shoves with x% nuts and y% air. You have a bluffcatcher and can call or fold. Here´s where (1-alpha) can be calculated precisely. In any other situation, we can only make estimations - which is the reason why the game is (and will be) unsolved.

because it is reality that we dont play vs gto God but in worst case vs players that are just trying to play balance and spot our leaks, i guess if we are not sure how much to defend, it is better to defend a bit more to make sure that villian bluffs dont get extra EV with bet? anyway nobody cant know how much we defend exactly. also if villian has big equity advantage then it is better to underdefend flop when pot is lowest?

since you mentioned new video regarding 1-alpha, would it be ok to explain it by showing different board structures and how you construct your ranges for both players and explain concept of 1-alpha using example? e.g. for CO vs BU you show ranges for CO and BU on different boards like
9c3c2d, As9c4d, KsJsTc, 8c9cJc

so idea is to show how you defend from BU perspective when CO bluffs have a lot of equity or little. i think we could learn a lot from it. it could be done using 2 examples, one on dry board one on drawy.

Originally posted by GingerKid
because it is reality that we dont play vs gto God but in worst case vs players that are just trying to play balance and spot our leaks, i guess if we are not sure how much to defend, it is better to defend a bit more to make sure that villian bluffs dont get extra EV with bet? anyway nobody cant know how much we defend exactly. also if villian has big equity advantage then it is better to underdefend flop when pot is lowest?

That´s really not universally to answer, obviously, if your opponent cbets too much, you should defend more, if he cbets too rarely we should defend less. But if we have no clue, it´s guessing game and I´d be very cautious with any "rule of thumbs".

The "under defend when pot is lowest"-rule might be flawed as well, as the pot might be lower, but it happens way more often as well, so at the end we might lose more money by underdefending the more frequent spots, even though we lose less money per case ...

Originally posted by GingerKid
since you mentioned new video regarding 1-alpha

To not seed any rumors ... atm I haven't really planned any video, it was just a quick idea. ♦ At the end I won´t decide, I can only suggest to PS. But I´ll keep that in mind.