Skip to forum
Mathematics in poke...
 
Notifications
Clear all

Mathematics in poker - II. Range - myth called "NIT"

31 Posts
13 Users
0 Reactions
6,360 Views
gadget51
Joined: 23.06.2008

Super stuff guys, tyvm!

Now, if only I can remember just some of it! :rolleyes:


Reply
Quote
KillerFishes
Joined: 11.07.2010

Folks thank you for your time spending in this thread! And thank you NoOneSpcl for adding on :) Actually I was going to make something more, however, I'm happy that you've made already a great job! :f_biggrin:

About the "NIT myth" I mentioned it more from the view that people looks at 10/10 and think "OMG, he's raising only "TT+,AQ+" or something like that. Of course that 10% = nit :f_biggrin:

And you're definitely right about the stealing. I will make a short article about it. A lot of players are missing value there.

I'm not sure when next article of my series will arrive. Since the new Czech comunity has started I'm focusing more on my series there - we need to grow our community as fast as possible and I strongly believe it can be interesting for many people and you're just confirming! Once more thank you for your time guys. :f_cool:

Cya,
K.F.


Reply
Quote

Since it was mentioned in a reply to one of my posts that 10% would be a good range "if the others are playing 85/48", to which I generally agreed,
but missed on a very important clarification for many who may have read it:

The key word is "others", as in, not A player, but rather, many players!

That refers to a common contradiction many players have a problem with, as they hear both of these pieces of advice:

1) Play tight when the opposition is loose and loose when the opposition is tight.
2) Be more willing to play more hands against bad players

but, so many bad players are characterized by playing way too many hands...
Well, in a way, that's the essence of any strategy game. The different principles will contradict and you need to understand which one applies when (or is more important at certain spots).

Key idea is, all else being equal, tighten up if the opposition gets looser and vice versa.

Another is, if you're playing at a very loose table, where many players open up sooo many cards and 3-4+ players see the flop all the time, you do need either stronger hands or good drawing hands...

But with only a couple of these ultra loose players at the table (the aforementioned 85/48, for instance), or with only 1 of them in the pot and it's folded to you in the blinds, or on the button, or simply there aren't (m)any other loose players left to act, you want to actually open up your range!

Many good value hands that would be hard to play normally because they may be dominated are now much more playable, since the odds of running into a dominating hand are very slim. A player with that range obviously does not understand the concept of domination.

That said, middle-low suited connectors become bad hands against these players (these hands have bad equity against wide rangers, when considering the hand playability. You're not playing these for a pair anyway, and when your range overlap you again run into problems that are similar to being dominated, such as stacking off with a straight against a higher straight, and also, hard to play your draws against such a range).

One great video series which touches on that subject (only regrettably for just a couple of minutes of the series...) is "perfecting preflop play" here on pokerstrategy. Even if that is on shorthanded, the ideas are applicable to full ring games as well (which is also stated by the author) .

Unfortunately, it's for silver members, so not everyone here can access it.


Reply
Quote
dochazard
Joined: 01.10.2008

The forum should really find a way to give a credit/thumbs up _thumbsup: /applaud marker system to great posters like the people who share their knowledge in threads like these!

Always learning!


Reply
Quote
hansbans
Joined: 21.02.2010

Originally posted by NoOneSpcl

Suppose I raise to 4BBs. I'm putting 3.5 BB to win the 1.5BB already there when you fold, or the 1.5BB + the 3BB you'll call with for the times you call. So I'm getting 1.285:1 on my money when you call(I'll deal with 3bets in a bit). That means that when I do get called I need about 43% equity in the hand.

Why waste 3.5 BB against the nit when you can just raise it 1.5 every time?


Reply
Quote

Originally posted by NoOneSpcl
That refers to a common contradiction many players have a problem with, as they hear both of these pieces of advice:

1) Play tight when the opposition is loose and loose when the opposition is tight.
2) Be more willing to play more hands against bad players

The resolution of this contradiction is that #1 is wrong. It's just a common misconception that you should play tightly in cash games when your opponents are loose. A mathematical approach can help to justify this.

Most poker players approach the problem by asking, "Which hands are right to play?" They get widely differing answers. A better question is, "How valuable is it to play each hand?" That makes the different answers more reasonable. It's not important whether you play a hand whose value is very close to 0, so whether you play marginal hands or not doesn't matter. Usually, the hands where experts disagree will be marginal. However, since most poker players don't ask how profitable hands are, they don't have a good feel for which hands are marginal, and which are very profitable. It is worth the effort, though.

In general, when your opponents are playing badly either by playing too loosely or too tightly, this raises the values of marginal hands, and can make some hands which are ordinarily unprofitable into profitable hands. There can be some hands which lose value when your opponents are very loose. If your opponents are calling stations, usually don't make marginal bluffs or semibluffs. In general, other marginal hands become more profitable, allowing you to play a looser range against loose opponents. You drop some hands which are semibluffs and which perform poorly in multiway pots, and you add hands which do well in multiway pots and which you can bet for value against players who are drawing to bluff-catcher hands.

Ordinarily, it is recommended that you open-fold hands like ATo when you are 3 off the button. The problem is that it is very expensive to run into hands which dominate ATo while you don't expect to get much when your opponents have much weaker hands. Players with position and some hands like QJs or 55 can make trouble for you. However, if your opponents are either very tight or very loose, you can play ATo from BTN+3 or BTN+4. Very tight opponents who will fold AQ and flat-call AK will give you the blinds very often. If you get called, you aren't happy, but you won't often get called by such tight players. You will make a large immediate profit by raising. Against very loose opponents who call raises with A3o and K7s, you are raising for value. You build a pot so that they will pay you off with hands ATo dominates or with weaker single pairs, and you no longer lose much more when ATo is dominated than you gain when ATo is ahead. You will not win as many pots, but your profit will increase greatly on average.

One good book on limit hold'em contained the misleading statement that in a loose and wild game where lots of players put in 4-5 bets preflop, you can profit by playing a very tight range. This is true, but similar to the fact that if there are 5 $20 bills on the ground, you can profit by picking only one of them up. It's not close to optimal. Subsequent books by the same authors have tried to clarify that you should play looser in very loose games, but people continue to cite the first as a justification for running away from terrible players who are trying to give money away.

If your postflop play is weak, then you might run into trouble when you play some loose players. You might make continuation bets which are very unprofitable, or fail to make profitable ones. You might fail to bet for value, or make it obvious that you are giving up on pots where neither you not your opponents have hit. The best solution is not to tighten up to avoid messy but profitable situations, it is to work on your postflop play.

A common mistake is to tighten up after a loose limper. You remember raising AJ, the limper calls, you cbet and end up losing to Q6s. Maybe tighten up? But players who want to play Q6s out of position are huge sources of profit, and if you check your database you should find that hands you ordinarily think are at the bottom of your opening range are very profitable raises after a limp or two. In fact, you can often widen your range significantly when you isolate a loose limper. With a positional advantage, your hand should not need to be ahead of a limper's range to want to play a heads-up pot, particularly with a little added money from the blinds. What stops you from raising an extremely wide range is the possibility that other players will 3-bet you widely, and they usually don't adapt this way in low stakes games.


Reply
Quote

Nice.
This makes sense.

Hmm that would be an even better way to understand in which tables to play suited connectors and in which not... loose aggressive players would make it harder to play the draws ... but very profitable to play more hands which would usually be dominated... but not against them...

But against loose passive opponents who let you play all draws for free... it might be ok, depending on their willingness to pay when you do hit...

ok, so, I've already posted too many posts in this thread about fold equity, so what you said about raising tight players would require no reply.

Now when there are a few very loose players behind you, which type of hands would you be less interested in playing, given that you expect to be called by a few of them? Which hands would you categorize as less suitable for multi way pots in such a table?


Reply
Quote

Originally posted by NoOneSpcl
Now when there are a few very loose players behind you, which type of hands would you be less interested in playing, given that you expect to be called by a few of them? Which hands would you categorize as less suitable for multi way pots in such a table?

If they are very loose preflop and postflop, then it's hard for quality hands to perform poorly. If they are loose, but not extremely loose, then it can be tougher to play weaker suited broadways like KTs and QTs and low to medium pairs. These hands might be marginal raises from 4 or 5 off of the button, but you might fold them with some loose players after you. It depends on the stack depth, though. If the effective stack depth is large, then you might be happy to raise with a low pair hoping to stack someone after you flop a set or better.


Reply
Quote

Thanks.
It's nice to see you here too!

I still remember you from a few years ago when, as part of my interest in all sorts of strategy games, I used to be on GammonVillage a lot...

Glad to find you here as well :)


Reply
Quote

pzhon,

The statement 'play tighter in loose games' has its roots in a mathematical concept regardin adjusted filters. But, it's true you should ask slightly different
questions, because accurate answer to 'how to play in loose/tight' games has not been found.

Moreover, it'd be tough to find one because of the distribution (seats) of players at the table. Basically, there are six players at the SH table - each position has its own character.

And, yes, I agree that asking a question 'how profitable this hand is given my position at the table and all the ranges (positional) and opponents' characteristics?' is way better than the known one. Ofc, vs a wide opener who opens 20x preflop in casino, you can't call profitably with many holding, but you might raise/call w/99. On the other hand, vs. a OOP passive weak reg you might call wider range IP etc.

Final thing- NIT is badly referred to in many books, so I'd like to say a couple of words about this term. Being a nit involves two things: inability to play postflop and semibluff/bluff enough, with low WTSD and higher W$SD. Secondly, preflop it's often being more than tight 'tight'. But, the more important factor is the first one. This is the case. To very tight but aggressive players we tend to refer to as rocks.

pzhon- very good point and I think this is a very valuable post for the entire Community _love:

Cheers,
Michal


Reply
Quote
KillerFishes
Joined: 11.07.2010

!bump

I just think this could be very helpful for a lot of new players :) I found it kind of dead, so I'm giving it second chance, hopefully mods dont mind :) I see many nonsense threads here anyway so :))

Cya
KF


Reply
Quote