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A response to Matt
Nov. 9th, 2006 11:52 amYou need to see Matt's comments on my hand histories below to understand this post. I posted it as a response, but it was too long! So, consider it a continuation of the entry below. Another post may follow later.
BTW, I didn't play poker yesterday. I went out. It was quite nice, but a bit tiring.
My response to Matt and Aksu
I can't really disagree with this analysis, although, given my more theoretical bent, I don't hold any truck with the word "inexplicable". Everything is done for a reason, even if that reason is wrong. The trick is to find the reason, and then to see if it has a more general application.
Aksu, I think, unwittingly found the key with the phrase "You are either beat or not".
I was falling into a trap which novices fall into pre-flop; the assumption that a call is a compromise between a raise and a fold. It is, of course, nothing of the kind.
Now, being of a very theoretical bent, I started wondering to myself "what led me down this false path?" The obvious conclusion is that there was some kind of pavlovian reaction at work. Because, as I noted, I have a habit of not raising on the flop with overpairs if my opponent has raised pre-flop.
I shall have to go through a lot of hand histories to see what happened in the past to cause this flawed response on the flop.
Now, this brings up the more important theoretical point, which might be good news and bad news. If my play pre-flop has generally been quite good (I know what my pre-flop thinking was on the above hand -- it was flawed, it was particular to Jacks, and I won't do it again, let's move on) and my stats on the turn and river indicate that I am doing little wrong, then, by process of elimination, my major leaks must be in my play on the flop.
This is good news in the sense that if I can identify and rectify those leaks, a major improvement should result, since you make a lot of plays on the flop (say, 30 an hour when two-tabling), so even minor improvements have a big long-term beneficial effect.
However, it's bad news because plays on the flop generate a lot of variance, and you can't afford to be results-oriented until you have a big database. In other words, the analysis would be long, slow and hard.
Matt's point identifies what may well be the key. We are probably looking at multi-wayers (as a rule) or at two-wayers where I am "slow-playing" incorrectly on the flop.
The general flaw (I suspect) might be a warped twisting of the Sklansky principle of not betting (or raising) in some situations so as to avoid giving pot odds in the next round of betting. The farce here is that I have always backed the Gary Carson line that this is "making a big mistake now in the hope that opponent will make a bigger mistake later on".
The net impact of this (and this fits in with my Pokertracker stats neatly, which is why I think it might be one of the answers) is that I will be winning a slightly higher percentage of pots, but my net figure will be impacted, because the pots I am winning overall are smaller than they should be.
This brings us back to the point that you should build the pot on the flop, and fuck the fact that this means your opponents will be getting the odds to call on the turn, whereas before they wouldn't have been. Because, hell, you are favourite to win the pot, so get the extra money in.
My second flawed line of thought, also based on a Pavlovian-inspired error, was that I had noticed in $2-$4 and $3-$6, that people would call on a flush draw (on the flop) for two bets as well as for one. In other words, because my raise had no fold equity, I wasn't raising. The flaw in this argument is the same as above. The lack of fold equity matters not one jot, because I don't want them to fold. I want them to call with their drawing hands for two bets, because a lot of the time I am going to bet at them again on the turn, and they will now call (because they are getting odds) and often they will miss, and I will win a much bigger pot on the river as a result.
This passiveness on the flop could be an error of fundamental proportions and curing it could help me back to winning decent-sixed pots at showdown rather than (as I have said) winning lots of smaller pots on the flop and turn. Thinking about my pokertracker stats, it all hangs together.
Unfortunately, it really means I have to kind of rebuild my game, if not from level 0 or level 1, then at least from level 2. I have a kind of "skeletal structure" of how it would be rebuilt in my head, with the major changes taking place in flop betting in about 5 to 10 hands an hour, which is enough to be able to practise it live. But what I don't know are the exact situations. The general principle is, build bigger pots and look to win them at showdown, rather than keep pots small and win them on the tur through an opponent folding (since he is not getting pot odds).
Yes, that's it. I make the big mistake on the flop in the hope that opponent makes bigger mistake on turn. But then, when opponent misses, he doesn't call, so he doesn't make bigger mistake on turn. My flop action gives up EV, but because I have won a small uncontested pot on the turn, I fail to notice.
This would also explain why my Big Bet Standard deviation is so much lower than most other players' (it trots along at about 10BB per 100 hands).
So, if I look up that kind of hand (where I win small pots on the turn), I might be able to make a good analysis of things.
PJ
BTW, I didn't play poker yesterday. I went out. It was quite nice, but a bit tiring.
My response to Matt and Aksu
I can't really disagree with this analysis, although, given my more theoretical bent, I don't hold any truck with the word "inexplicable". Everything is done for a reason, even if that reason is wrong. The trick is to find the reason, and then to see if it has a more general application.
Aksu, I think, unwittingly found the key with the phrase "You are either beat or not".
I was falling into a trap which novices fall into pre-flop; the assumption that a call is a compromise between a raise and a fold. It is, of course, nothing of the kind.
Now, being of a very theoretical bent, I started wondering to myself "what led me down this false path?" The obvious conclusion is that there was some kind of pavlovian reaction at work. Because, as I noted, I have a habit of not raising on the flop with overpairs if my opponent has raised pre-flop.
I shall have to go through a lot of hand histories to see what happened in the past to cause this flawed response on the flop.
Now, this brings up the more important theoretical point, which might be good news and bad news. If my play pre-flop has generally been quite good (I know what my pre-flop thinking was on the above hand -- it was flawed, it was particular to Jacks, and I won't do it again, let's move on) and my stats on the turn and river indicate that I am doing little wrong, then, by process of elimination, my major leaks must be in my play on the flop.
This is good news in the sense that if I can identify and rectify those leaks, a major improvement should result, since you make a lot of plays on the flop (say, 30 an hour when two-tabling), so even minor improvements have a big long-term beneficial effect.
However, it's bad news because plays on the flop generate a lot of variance, and you can't afford to be results-oriented until you have a big database. In other words, the analysis would be long, slow and hard.
Matt's point identifies what may well be the key. We are probably looking at multi-wayers (as a rule) or at two-wayers where I am "slow-playing" incorrectly on the flop.
The general flaw (I suspect) might be a warped twisting of the Sklansky principle of not betting (or raising) in some situations so as to avoid giving pot odds in the next round of betting. The farce here is that I have always backed the Gary Carson line that this is "making a big mistake now in the hope that opponent will make a bigger mistake later on".
The net impact of this (and this fits in with my Pokertracker stats neatly, which is why I think it might be one of the answers) is that I will be winning a slightly higher percentage of pots, but my net figure will be impacted, because the pots I am winning overall are smaller than they should be.
This brings us back to the point that you should build the pot on the flop, and fuck the fact that this means your opponents will be getting the odds to call on the turn, whereas before they wouldn't have been. Because, hell, you are favourite to win the pot, so get the extra money in.
My second flawed line of thought, also based on a Pavlovian-inspired error, was that I had noticed in $2-$4 and $3-$6, that people would call on a flush draw (on the flop) for two bets as well as for one. In other words, because my raise had no fold equity, I wasn't raising. The flaw in this argument is the same as above. The lack of fold equity matters not one jot, because I don't want them to fold. I want them to call with their drawing hands for two bets, because a lot of the time I am going to bet at them again on the turn, and they will now call (because they are getting odds) and often they will miss, and I will win a much bigger pot on the river as a result.
This passiveness on the flop could be an error of fundamental proportions and curing it could help me back to winning decent-sixed pots at showdown rather than (as I have said) winning lots of smaller pots on the flop and turn. Thinking about my pokertracker stats, it all hangs together.
Unfortunately, it really means I have to kind of rebuild my game, if not from level 0 or level 1, then at least from level 2. I have a kind of "skeletal structure" of how it would be rebuilt in my head, with the major changes taking place in flop betting in about 5 to 10 hands an hour, which is enough to be able to practise it live. But what I don't know are the exact situations. The general principle is, build bigger pots and look to win them at showdown, rather than keep pots small and win them on the tur through an opponent folding (since he is not getting pot odds).
Yes, that's it. I make the big mistake on the flop in the hope that opponent makes bigger mistake on turn. But then, when opponent misses, he doesn't call, so he doesn't make bigger mistake on turn. My flop action gives up EV, but because I have won a small uncontested pot on the turn, I fail to notice.
This would also explain why my Big Bet Standard deviation is so much lower than most other players' (it trots along at about 10BB per 100 hands).
So, if I look up that kind of hand (where I win small pots on the turn), I might be able to make a good analysis of things.
PJ
