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Shi Loh Split
Jun. 14th, 2008 06:12 pmBefore I forget, I must mention that the superbe California Split is on ITV at 00.50 this coming Thursday Night/Friday morning. A chance to see Amarillo Slim's single speaking film role. Also one of the best gambling films ever.
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Howard Lederer has made the astute observation that NL Hold 'em is really a "pricing" game. Now, that isn't quite true, in that you have to have some knowledge of what you are pricing before you can attempt to put a price on it. However, he's right in the sense that you can be absolutely rock solid in your reads and temperament, but if you price your bets wrongly, you will either win less than you should or, even worse, not win at all.
At the levels that I play people take to heart the Sklansky concept that if you overbet, you only need to be called by the odd mug to make the overbet worthwhile. In the live games of 2004, this might have worked, but it isn't such a good system today when online.
But it did occur to me that, if you could delineate the parameters, then you could write a program to tell you the optimal amount to bet. I had a think, and the four parameters that I came up with, which I think are all-encompassing if you have just one opponent (i.e., any other factor can, I think, be included in the following four numbers), are:
1) What is your estimated equity?
2) What is the size of the pot?
3) What is the smaller stack size?
4) What is the estimated percentage chance that your opponent will call for any sum greater than that for which he can profitably call?
Number 4 is the slightly problematic one, in that you could argue that, if opponent would always fold correctly, but would sometimes fold incorrectly (but never raise correctly) for a bet that he could profitably call, you should widen the betting range. But let's leave that out for the moment.
So, suppose (you estimate) your equity is 80%, you have $80, opponent has $50, and there is $20 in the pot, and (you estimate) opponent will call all half-pot bets, half your pot bets, and a quarter of your all-in bets (with the call percentages sliding proportionately according to the size of your bet), then it should be trivial to write a program (nay, an Excel function) that gives you the optimum bet size. Once you've written the function for these specific numbers, then it should be only slightly more complex to cover all scenarios.
In cases where you are not sure of your equity, the program could either say to you "well, take a guess", or it could subdivide it. For example you might be 80% sure that you are an 80% chance, but there's a 20% chance that you are drawing dead (i.e., 0% chance). That can be factored into the equation without much dificulty.
Note that implicit in all this is that you will not fold to any bet opponent makes on the river. Your opponent will have made the mistake on the turn. It doesn't matter if you pay him off when he hits -- that is taken into account in the 20% part of the equation.
Also there's the standard caveat of garbage in and garbage out. Or, back to the original Lederer point. It may be a pricing game, but you need to know what you are basing your pricing on.
_________________
++++++++++
Howard Lederer has made the astute observation that NL Hold 'em is really a "pricing" game. Now, that isn't quite true, in that you have to have some knowledge of what you are pricing before you can attempt to put a price on it. However, he's right in the sense that you can be absolutely rock solid in your reads and temperament, but if you price your bets wrongly, you will either win less than you should or, even worse, not win at all.
At the levels that I play people take to heart the Sklansky concept that if you overbet, you only need to be called by the odd mug to make the overbet worthwhile. In the live games of 2004, this might have worked, but it isn't such a good system today when online.
But it did occur to me that, if you could delineate the parameters, then you could write a program to tell you the optimal amount to bet. I had a think, and the four parameters that I came up with, which I think are all-encompassing if you have just one opponent (i.e., any other factor can, I think, be included in the following four numbers), are:
1) What is your estimated equity?
2) What is the size of the pot?
3) What is the smaller stack size?
4) What is the estimated percentage chance that your opponent will call for any sum greater than that for which he can profitably call?
Number 4 is the slightly problematic one, in that you could argue that, if opponent would always fold correctly, but would sometimes fold incorrectly (but never raise correctly) for a bet that he could profitably call, you should widen the betting range. But let's leave that out for the moment.
So, suppose (you estimate) your equity is 80%, you have $80, opponent has $50, and there is $20 in the pot, and (you estimate) opponent will call all half-pot bets, half your pot bets, and a quarter of your all-in bets (with the call percentages sliding proportionately according to the size of your bet), then it should be trivial to write a program (nay, an Excel function) that gives you the optimum bet size. Once you've written the function for these specific numbers, then it should be only slightly more complex to cover all scenarios.
In cases where you are not sure of your equity, the program could either say to you "well, take a guess", or it could subdivide it. For example you might be 80% sure that you are an 80% chance, but there's a 20% chance that you are drawing dead (i.e., 0% chance). That can be factored into the equation without much dificulty.
Note that implicit in all this is that you will not fold to any bet opponent makes on the river. Your opponent will have made the mistake on the turn. It doesn't matter if you pay him off when he hits -- that is taken into account in the 20% part of the equation.
Also there's the standard caveat of garbage in and garbage out. Or, back to the original Lederer point. It may be a pricing game, but you need to know what you are basing your pricing on.
_________________
