Deception (2) - Application

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Deception - Application

from MiiWiin

Last week we dealt with the topic of "Deception".
Apart from analysing what deception really is and why we should use it
more frequently, we looked at situations in which it is sensible to
abstain from using deception.

Today we want to deal with the
application in practice. When do we use it intentionally or not? Just
like mentioned in the first part, we will discuss exceptional examples
about when we should use deception dependently on your opponents next
week.

"Deception" somehow sounds foreign, but nearly everyone uses it without knowing it. A few standard examples:

We obviously try to disguise our hand preflop. A
fundamental idea of every beginner comes into play here: "Why should I
raise if I have two aces? Every worse hand will fold..."

This
is correct if you assume that you only raise strong hands. You will
become readable if you do this and your opponents will fold frequently
because they only put you on a very strong range. We want to get the
most money with our aces though.

Obviously it would be wrong to limp with your
aces, although this is a kind of deception as well. There are, in fact,
quite a few players on the lower limits who only limp and never raise.
It actually is impossible to put them on some kind of a range.
Admittedly you won't go broke against those players with great
pleasure. You never know if they have a weird two pair with 53o or if
they show you two aces on the river... Basically everything is possible
here.

To go without saying this isn't our game. We know that we should play aggressively and
if possible put the worse players under pressure. What did we learn
from the last part? "We earn money from the mistakes of our opponents!"
So we should offer them plenty of opportunity to make mistakes.

Accordingly we don't even think about limping aces. We act in the
complete opposite way: We raise pocket pairs, suited connectors, suited
ace and depending on the position and opponents, even wider ranges!

Why do we do this? We focus on our two options to
win unimproved: We could take the pot preflop or postflop after our
continuation bet (see point 2). As a matter of fact, we could get a
very strong hand with an alleged weak hand or a draw on the flop, which
nobody would expect from us.

Exactly this is deception. Many players expect
strong hands from players who raise because they are only holding small
pocketpairs or suited connectors themselves with which they only limp.
If we hit a set with our small pocket pair, we will often be paid out
because our hand is disguised well. You rarely put an UTG-raiser on 22,
even though this does fall under the open-raising-range (at least in a
shorthanded-game) of a good player.

We profit from deception because others don't
really put us on suited connectors or similar drawing hands due to our
aggressive style of play.

The second point of deception is obviously clear.
We don't have any problem with getting some action out of our aces or
kings. We raise preflop with such a large range that our opponents
cannot know whether we are holding aces, a small pocket pair or a
suited connector.

This fulfils the main point of deception: Our
opponents cannot put us on a certain hand preflop! They don't have
sufficient information about our ranges and we can therefore safely
assume after David Sklanskys central theorem of poker (see part 1) that
nobody can play against us as well as if he would know our cards. He
will be forced to make mistakes.

The eternal fight about the definition of a
continuation-bet: Is it a bluffbet or a normal valuebet? Do you only
call it a continuation-bet if you haven't hit anything? Does the
continuation-bet become a valuebet if you have hit something? You can
define it in which ever way you want, but it is clear that by betting
on the flop we disguise our hand even more because we obviously use
this bet disproportionately more often than just if we have hit
something.

Our amateur comes into play again considering the central theorem of poker as well.

Too many times people try to bluff out all
opponents from a multiway-pot or an ugly board with very weak hands.
You sometimes feel obliged to make a continuation-bet. After all you
are the preflop-agressor and have a right to take the pot. This is
wrong though. When you haven't hit anything you should be aware that
your opponents have to fold enough times in order for the
continuation-bet to become profitable.

However, once in a while the continuation-bet is
not made, normally in the case when you have hit the flop well. The
player should be thinking: "Nice, after I have been winning very few
pots through my continuation-bet, I can finally bet with the best hand
and try to extract as much value as possible! Nobody will put me on a
strong hand".

This would be logical and surely the best
alternative most of the time, however, it is not self-evident that an
average player thinks this way.

You sometimes see the craziest moves in these
situations: Check-raise flop, check flop and check turn, minraise, to
keep the opponents in the hand. Freecards are given away without an
end, potbuilding is ignored completely and in the end you mostly have a
small pot or someone who has outdrawn you.

Nevertheless, this is not the main problem.
Surely, you can question whether these moves extract more value than
strictly betting with your strong hand.

We have learnt that there is a much more important problem: Our deception!

What does it look like to your opponents if you
contibet every flop and fold to any further action but check with
stronger hands to try to slowplay? We become very readable, if we
decide to always act this way, because we will give away the strength
of our hand on the flop. Just like you would give away the strength of
your hand using the basic principle of folding weak hands and only
betting strong hands. No matter how we act here, both alternatives are
bad because in the long run, both give away the strength of our hand to
our opponents. If our opponents know our hands or respectively our
ranges, they could make fewer mistakes!

However, due to the fact that we either contibet
with complete air, with draws or a strong made hand, after having
looked at the board, the potsize and our opponents (number and type),
we become less readable. Our fold equity rises on the one hand because
our opponents know that we bet strong hands as well. On the other hand
they will pay us off with weaker hands because they know that we would
bet the flop with weaker hands as well.

We have achieved exactly what we wanted: You cannot estimate our hand; our opponents are forced to slip up again.

In point two it was briefly mentioned that some
players tend to try to lure their opponents with minraises.
Unfortunately this is a big mistake most of the time.

There are many thoughts about minraises - we don't
want to discuss this here any further. Minraises do have some
advantages and I don't want to curse them here. They can be a useful
weapon in no-limit if used in the right spots.

We refer to our basic deception-problem: Do we
contibet smaller if we have hit the flop really well? Do we raise more
if we are unimproved to try to maximise fold equity? Do we try to bet
smaller with stronger hands to keep the opponents in the pot?

The "normal" problems obviously apply here as
well. Is a slowplay even advisable. Don't you protect your strong hands
enough if you try to keep your opponents in the hand through small bets
or respectively raises. Actually there are very few reasons to chose
smaller bets or raises.

Our main focus is to disguise our hand! I want to show you three examples about this.

1.) PartyPoker $25 NL Hold'em (6 handed) HandRecorder v0.9b

Stacks & Stats
MP ($25)
CO ($25)
UTG ($25)
BB ($25)
SB ($25) (23/4/1.3/28/1100)[VPIP/PFR/AF/WTS/Hands]; Folded-SB-to-Steal: 45%; Fold-to-continuation-bet: 69%
Hero ($25)

Preflop: Hero is Button with 6 , 7
3 folds, Hero raises to $1.00, SB calls $1.00, 1 fold

Flop: ($2.25) 4, 5, Q (2 players)
SB bets $0.50, Hero...???

2.) PartyPoker $25 NL Hold'em (6 handed) HandRecorder v0.9b

Stacks & Stats
MP ($25)
CO ($25)
UTG ($25)
BB ($25)
SB ($25) (23/4/1.3/28/1100) [VPIP/PFR/AF/WTS/Hands] ; Folded-SB-to-Steal: 45%; Fold-to-continuation-bet: 69%
Hero ($25)

Preflop: Hero is Button with 6 , 7
3 folds, Hero raises to $1.00, SB calls $1.00, 1 fold

Flop: ($2.25) A, K, 8 (2 players)
SB bets $0.50, Hero...???

3.) PartyPoker $25 NL Hold'em (6 handed) HandRecorder v0.9b

Stacks & Stats
MP ($25)
CO ($25)
UTG ($25)
BB ($25)
SB ($25) (23/4/1.3/28/1100)[VPIP/PFR/AF/WTS/Hands] ; Folded-SB-to-Steal: 45%; Fold-to-continuation-bet: 69%
Hero ($25)

Preflop: Hero is Button with 6 , 7
3 folds, Hero raises to $1.00, SB calls $1.00, 1 fold

Flop: ($2.25) 6, 6, 7 (2 players)
SB bets $0.50, Hero...???

Now you should think about how to react in these
situations. If you have answered the question of whether to raise or
not, the question of the size of the raise is crucial.

Lets look at whether we should raise at all. Our
opponent calls a lot preflop, but rarely raises. He infrequently folds
his small blind so that we can put him on a very large range.
Nevertheless he can fold postflop. He folds 2/3 of his hands directly
after the continuation-bet. We should be able to give ourselves enough
foldequity. This question rather applies to example 2 as we have hit
something in example 1 and 3. The board is drawless, an AKx-board is
not the worst board for a continuation-bet. We want to contibet in all
three cases.

There are three cases how to hit the flop. We either pick up a draw,
more or less good, or respectively give ourselves quite a few outs
(example 1), or we totally hit the flop and want to extract value
(example 3). Unfortunately situations like the one in example 2 happen
too often - we have missed the flop completely but can't fold to a
donkbet in a heads-up.

The two main points start to differ now: On the
one hand we want to extract value, pay attention to protection at the
same time, and try not to chase our opponents out of the hand. On the
other hand we want to pay attention to deception.

For the purpose of deception it would be best if
you always raise the same amount. We would basically want to raise the
most in example 1 because we want to increase the fold equity and
anticipatory give ourselves good odds to possibly call a push.

Example 2 follows after example 1 where we are
completely unimproved and only want to put in a "probebet". We want to
invest as little as possible but still create enough fold equity.

However, in the third example only two actions are
taken into account most of the time: Minraise or call. We don't want to
chase Villain out of the hand. Putting in a raise here as we would in
example 1 hurts most players. It should be clear to everyone by now
that this would be the best solution from a deception point of view.

We should try to disguise our hand here as well
and try to play pretty much the same with all three possible hands. If
we do this, how should even the most attentive Villain know whether we
are holding a draw a made hand or a bluff on such a board? He can't
know it! Therefore the way is now paved for our opponents to make
mistakes.

This example makes room for a lot more questions
like: Can't you vary the size of the raise a little bit? What do I do
if there are only fish at the table who don't care about how I play
different hands? The question of when it is advisable to abstain from
using deception in order to play completely dependent on your opponents
or the situation arises. We will deal with this problem in detail next
week - certainly with more examples! Furthermore we will look at
postflop-situations, which wouldn't arise in standard-play.