Deception (3) - Deception vs. Valueplay

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Deception vs Valueplay

from MiiWiin

In the last two articles we dealt with the topic of deception. The last
article was mostly about standard moves, which we use to disguise our
hand as much as possible. Today, as a finish for this episode, we deal
with a special example as well as an analysis with which we will
compare deceptionplay with normal value play.

We have already learnt and understood the basics
and the application. Surely everyone knows that disguising your own
hand has a positive effect on your game. However, what is the most
important thing when it comes to deception? Opponents that follow a
line of thought when they play!

We assume that our opponents - at least some of
them - pay attention to the hands played at the table which they are
not involved in. Even without any supporting software or taking down
notes it stands out whether someone is limping or raising every hand or
whether someone generally plays tight or loose.

This image is partly used by the villains to make
a decision. If you only play or raise few hands, you will get credit
for your raises and continuation bets on the flop. In turn, if you play
aggressively and raise a lot of hands preflop, your foldequity will
decrease substantially.

What is your image?

It is important not to limit your thoughts to your
real image. It is much more important to think about how your actions
affect what your opponents think of you. If you are playing on a table
with 5 unknown players and you raise a few times in series with strong
hands, some might think you are a very loose player and a maniac
respectively which your aren't. If you fold your first 10 hands because
your are only getting crap hands, some might think you are pretty
tight. Therefore it is important to take your current table-image, and
if possible your own table stats, into account when you are faced with
a marginal decision.

Who is sitting on the table?

Of course the basis for deception is to find
opponents who do pay attention to this. Right in the beginning of a
game, you should always check whether there are familiar faces at the
table. You will get an image by playing deceptively and the question is
whether there are players at the table who know you from previous
rounds. If you classify them as a thinking player as well, you can
assume that villain "knows" you. You don't have to create an image
again because you can assume that villain will adjust his play
according to the image he has already got about you.

An example:

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

Stacks & Stats
MP ($25) (19/15/2.5/26/2823) [VPIP/PFR/AF/WTS/Hands]
CO ($25)
UTG ($25)
BB ($25)
SB ($25) (47/3/3.9/19/35)
Hero ($25)

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

Flop: ($2.25) A, 9, 2 (2 players)
SB bets $2.50, Hero...???

We are sitting at a table with 4 unknown
opponents. However, we know the player in middle position. We have
played some large pots with him before and we know that he is a
thinking player.

After 35 hands, we have some stats, which don't
say that much, but have to do for the moment. The small blind is a
player who has called every other hand preflop but rarely raised. He
likes to play aggressively postflop though and already caught the
attention with a purebluff.

We have a very nice hand on the flop. We hit our
set and the player donks into us. The board only offers a flushdraw. We
can't exclude this possibility but it surely is only a little part of
villains range. Furthermore we are holding the ace of spades, which
gives us a flushdraw as well as our full-house outs.

We have two options now: We can call and slowplay our set or raise by default.

Advantages and disadvantages of the raise:

For deception purposes a raise would be standard
in this position. We would probably raise/fold, raise/call or muck
kings, queens and worse hands as well. (Which option might be the best
one is not to be discussed now). A call doesn't make much sense though.
Similarly we would want to protect Ax. We would rarely just call here
although it would be possible against this opponent. But which hands do
we call with otherwise? Only with the nuts?

The real problem only starts here: If we just call
down strong hands, but raise with weaker hands, we'll eventually give
away our hand.

We assume that the small blind is such a bad
player that it doesn't bother him. Such players like to bluff on the
turn again; hence we should let him do it. We can probably expect more
value in this situation if we just call on the flop. But how does this
affect the way the other opponents think about us if we play a hand
with them in the future?

It will be a good piece of information for the
other three opponents. However, we don't know if and when we will play
a hand with these players. First and foremost it would only affect our
current table image. It is obvious that we have to keep this in mind
for the current table because we are seen as a slowplayer right now.

This is not bad for us either because we deviated
from our standard line. We have shown that we tend to slowplay with
strong hands, but this isn't actually the case. The players will give
us less credit for our raises in the future which we should make use
of. We should abstain from making bluff-raises against a donk, in the
sense of a continuation bet, in the future.

We don't have to worry too much about the player
in middle position. There are three possibilities as to how our
opponent dealt with this situation:

• He didn't notice it! Our hands don't
  interest him much because he can already asess us and doesn't need any
  additional information.
• He did notice it but he can assess us as well as villain. He knows that we purposely abstained from deception.
• He
  misinterpreted the whole situation. He suddenly has the impression that
  we play our hands differently. He is surprised that we didn't raise
  normally, but if he thinks that we have become a slowplayer, we have
  created another form of deception. If he does give us less credit for
  our raises, we will get paid off more with our strong hands.

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

Stacks & Stats
MP ($25) (40/3/0.8/32/50) [VPIP/PFR/AF/WTS/Hands]
CO ($25) (8/3/1.3/22/50)
BU ($25) (30/4/2.2/29/50)
BB ($25) (30/0/0.0/37/50)
SB ($25) (41/4/1.3/36/50)
Hero ($25)

Preflop: Hero is UTG with 9 , 9
Hero calls $0.25, MP calls $0.25, 1 fold, BU calls $0.25, SB calls $0.25, BB checks

Flop: ($1.25) 2, 4, 9 (2 players)
Hero bets $1.25, ...

A hand which is rarely played like this. We normally raise 99 from UTG.
This action is part of our deception because many thinking players
would suspect a small pocket pair from a limp/call.

If we hit a flop like this, hero is a player who usually check/raises (because hero is normally in a raised pot with his 99!). He receives valuable bets and can protect properly with his raise.

But it is a little different in this situation. We
have found a table with a lot of calling stations who have basically
always seen the flop and the turn. They even wanted to see showdowns
with marginal hands.

We limp with 99 from UTG. As indicated there are 4 reasons for a standard raise:

• We can win the pot preflop.
• We can win the pot through a continuation bet.
• We can hit our set and get paid off.
• The raise belongs to our total concept of deception. We stay unreadable.

In this case neither of these points is fulfilled.
Winning an unimproved hand is nearly impossible against these
showdown-crazy villains. It is very clear as well though that if we do
hit our set, we will be paid off even if the pot is unraised.

This leaves us with the most important point, the
deception. We don't know any of these villains from previous rounds and
don't expect any of them to be interested in our range. Having a
disadvantage in the following rounds due to this hand can be excluded.

We assume that we have a higher expected value if
we adjust our game to abstain from deception and to limp/call a lot
more preflop to hit a good hand.

It is a different scenario on the flop. Thinking
that we could chase away all opponents is, as mentioned, nearly
impossible. It is possible though that none of these passive players
bets. Therefore a bet, contrary to our normal game, is advisable.
According to this we can abstain from disguising our hand to bet for
value and to protect against draws.

Note: For both hands applies the fact that it is
more about the theory of deception and the question of when you can
abstain from using it. Whether the standard game might be better from
other perspectives (raise flop in hand one, raise preflop in hand two)
is another question.

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

Stacks & Stats
MP ($25)
CO ($25)
UTG ($25)
BB ($25)
SB ($25) (24/21/3.1/24/2099) [VPIP/PFR/AF/WTS/Hands]
Hero ($25)

Preflop: Hero is Button with A , A
3 folds, Hero raises to $1.00, SB raises to $3.25, 1 fold, Hero calls $3.25.

Flop: ($6.75) 2, 2, K (2 players)
SB bets $5.00, Hero calls $5.00

Turn: ($16.75) 5 (2 players)
SB bets $12.50, Hero raises All-in, SB calls All-in

This special example shows you how to use
deception if you know who your are playing against. We know villain. He
knows, that we steal relatively loosely from the button. Furthermore he
knows, that we know, that he defends his blind very loosely.

He would probably fold on a 4-bet. As we are in a kind of "blind-battle", we can slowplay here.

Villain will pretty much never put us on AA,
because we would want to move all-in preflop with that hand. As we are
in position, we call at first and call on this drawless flop as well.
We don't want to chase any worse hands away. Villain commits himself to
the pot by betting the turn and has to call our turnpush.

We drift away from our normal deceptionplay a
little. Villain has seen something new from us, namely that we can
slowplay aces as well. The next time we push aces, we hope to get a
little less credit and a call from villain.

As we have played a lot with villain in the past
and assume that we will play against him in the future as well, we have
expanded our deception a little more with this variation. We give our
opponent something to think about because he won't be able to figure
out what to think of our preflop push or a call in a blind-battle in
the future. We don't even know it ourselves.