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Just a side note
JodaB. Fri Apr 12, 2013 10:12 pm
this paper might be completely ridiculous, its prob quite hard for the average player to read but not at all impossible, but im not posting it for this forum. More just for fun, but I'll have to get a good player who enjoys reading words to look over it to know if its legit.
Meta game and Mixing Strategies.
This writing is a Brahmanic key to one of the chapters of esoteric poker. In the spirit of the discipline of esoterism, certain words and name are not used in the same context of the time and language they were written in. Such deceptive type writing is necessary not only to guard true meanings from those that seek knowledge as a source of individual power, but also as the only true way to use language to begin to describe those things that are themselves above language.
In understanding this we may begin to understand the true intent of such a writing as this one. True to its nature, the meanings are many fold, and somewhat coded. The author will point out, to put one of these meanings in plain sight, one such slightly hidden aspect that is important for the unlearned students to understand. Simply that the very weakness that we are soon to be exploiting in our opponents is the reason this article was put out. That is the article is set to exploit the field, whilst teaching the same field how to exploit each other. Perhaps if one sees this as important, we will not get stuck on the finger.
There are caveats to all the following, that should not have to be reiterated but nonetheless the author feels it necessary. The following concepts will be presented in such a way as to flare the emotional mind of students of game theory, and disciplines that are associated and present in contexts of game theory. This too has esoteric meaning, mostly in that the emotional mind has always been the psychic wall to true learning. We can certainly obtain any degree or certificate in our present day western type academies (by western it’s really meaning lacking true intelligence, as these schools are no longer solely located in the west), but we cannot obtain any type of knowledge that has true meaning with our emotional state.
Those reading from an emotionless state of pure learning should not worry about the learned people’s protests, as it is clear to the reader that the brilliant minds that created the original concepts understand them to be correcter when presented in the following fashion. These explanations are obviously Nash approved as the author is obviously a devote student and a loyal follower to the Dr./Emperor (TL;JFN).
In this the author has decided not to include the google definitions for any of the definitions presented. Since google functions in past present and future and knows not of duration, its answers will produce non esoteric understandings of poker which is not the intention of the author. Although it would be helpful to go into all if this, it won’t be necessary to explain these differences and their relationships.
In short, it can be said there is not time for this. Nor is there really time for thesis.
There are two words that should be understood in the present and hopefully better by the end of this writing. They are somewhat Japanese in origin; however, to the learned student we might understand that nationality is not a language, and that concepts generally precede the words that describe them by unimaginable amount of time, no doubt as far back as ancient vedantic time. Furthermore we must understand that there are no true divisions between the author’s language and the different reader’s native languages. One starts to see this as they look at different dialects of the same language, or when the same language from slightly different time periods is compared with itself. In these enquiries we might begin to see the barriers of ‘language’ are really just perceptions when it comes to the greater heavinic plane that is the great Nirvana.
The first word we should learn a truer meaning to is Ju-Jitsu. Loosely meaning gentle art, Ju-Jitsu explores ways to manipulate this world through effortless means. To truly understand the meaning of JJ, one has to do more than just read. The teaching of the art is such that it can only be learned through one’s own experience. The understanding of this itself is helpful for all, and for most it is enough to raise the level of their own sport to a higher place. But for now, the reader should feel satisfied and will be helped immensely by understanding one key aspect of the art often missed by even the highest levels of Ju-Jitsu instructors. We should not attempt to force our opponents into mistakes; instead, we should open up our own game, in order to effortlessly induce our opponents to mistakenly do the same.
The second word that is important to redefine is Kazushi. Loosely translated as off balancing our opponent, Kazushi is another very misunderstood and misapplied principle. The author feels it necessary to point out however that it is rarer or rare that the present day Judoka misapplies this principle. Judo, comes from Ju Jitsu (loosely explained) and in that its worthwhile to notice that new age Ju Jitsu students (especially of the Brazilian lines) often have little concept of the use of Kazushi while the older offshoot of Ju Jitsu (Judo), seems to have kept this teaching fairly sacred. In the true spirit of Ju Jitsu the Judo practitioner does not force Kazushi, but instead allows his opponents to off-balance themselves in reaction to hero’s ability to open their own self up. Once off balance the hero can then exploit the opponents attempt to rebalance.
In this, if the author is doing a decent job of presenting this somewhat difficult material, we might see that Kazushi and Ju Jitsu as principles are not really divisible concepts but are much related like distance and time are to velocity. Velocity isn’t really a thing, but rather a representation of distance vs. time. Not to suggest the material present here is complex, but as we can see with Judo vs Ju Jitsu, it is clouded by religious type beliefs that block such obvious understandings presented by the ancient masters of the disciplines. None of this is to suggest that this school or that school of thought is wrong, but that we generally do not understand the past, and should not assume that we ever really do.
The example soon to follow is the inspiration for this concept, but it should be said that this paper is really about how to apply Kazushi. In poker we have a definition already set for the word balance, which is essentially to construct our range in such a way that our opponent’s cannot exploit us. If we take such a non-esoteric meaning to this word then we can easily argue that Kazushi and poker’s version of the word balance do not point to the same thing.
At this point before really finishing the introduction to the concepts presented here it is crucial to slightly redefine the concepts of balance and style (namely TAG/LAG ABC). Again we run into the problems of language. Not that language is broken, but that our understanding of it certainly is. If we can understand duration then we don’t have these limitations. But understanding time in a causal sense, it must be pointed out that balance is much related to abc poker. Since this writing will be long enough without fully explaining its points we won’t get far into the meanings of each style, but what the teachers reading this should understand, in order to fully explain the intended meaning of this paragraph, is that in non-exploitable type poker, or a table full of gods, each player should play an ABC style. In this the author has re written the definition of both ABC and Balanced play, and married the concepts with non-exploitability. The author is not worried about making a semantic type error here, nor concerned with flat out blatantly not understanding words or concepts. Or perhaps the author is mistaken in believing these newly married concepts are newly married.
To further illustrate the intended redefinition at a table of gods, when a tight mortal sits down, the gods will move from their ABC/non-exploitable/balanced strategy to a LAG style which begins to capitalize on the mortal who folds too much (ignoring of course the rest of the table dynamics). In this we begin to understand the marriage which we can now refer to as any of the words ABC, NON exploitable, or balanced. ABC poker then is really just our baseline for adjusting. If you are a new player and you have dared to read this far, you now should start to understand the importance of learning beginner strategies before the advanced ones.
This should clearly be understood when seen in relation to other styles of play, a concept in which we will also redefine for the purpose of understanding the rest of this paper. To do this we should compare the purpose of TAG and LAG style in certain contexts. Context is important of course because we might find strategically correct reasons to play TAG poker depending on the different variations of the game of as well as different circumstances such as table dynamics or game dynamics. But here we are more concerned about the context of TAG/LAG created in relation to adjustments made by players vs each other. Lag in this context is the style used when hero has a distinct skill advantage vs the average villain in a certain hand, and TAG is the style used when hero see’s they are at a skill disadvantage in the hand. There is great philosophy to be discussed in even such trivial context but what is important to remember here is that style is really just our ability or lack of ability to adjust and to adjust properly.
We shall now move onto our example or the foundation for the concept of this work. Much like the previous explanations we will ignore many important aspects of the poker hand. Protests might arise from this but to the sincere learner they should not be bothered by such rhetoric. Hero is in position, has barreled both the flop and turn, and is now checked to on the river. Hero has AA and the board is YYYxz in such a way that any player with a pair has a full house. We should not take note of the story of the actions as they are, but instead understand the hand in the following way: Villain never has us beat, and villain is always calling with a full house and never calling without a full house.
One important side not to this spot is villains range is not polarized, as we feel in this spot they would lead out with quads. Instead we view their range as capped and begin to analyze the situation in response to the above knowledge. The other factor that is important here is that villain and hero’s stacks are such that to put villain all in would be a substantial over bet.
The last important piece of info is really just an explanation of the concept at hand. Perhaps, already many players can intuit where we are going with this. Villain’s skill level and/or our reads on villain are such that they are an ABC type player. Simply put, they don’t call over bets with marginal holdings. Although it’s possible this player will adjust in the future, we can be assured they will fold most weaker full houses until they actually receive information from us that we are capable of bluffing enough that they profit from calling our over bet.
In this situation hero has the nuts (since villain never has quads), but has to weigh out the ev of over bet shoving and potentially causing villain to fold hands that he would call a smaller bet with to the ev of betting small and getting calls from all villains weaker full houses. At this point it should be pointed out, if we don’t already know this concept, hero must consider the balancedness of his ranges.
In objectively observing hero’s range here we will intuit an understanding in poker that is really a misunderstanding of poker, specifically the same misunderstanding of the relationship of ABC poker to balanced poker that the author pointed out previously. This misunderstanding and the correction of it forms the purpose for this work.
This example paints a great foundation of learning for the inexperienced player, who might choose (possibly incorrectly) to over bet the river since after all we cannot lose chips in this spot. But if we have an intermediate understanding of the game we instantly realize how polarized our play looks. We are repping nuts or air, and if we don’t have air in our range, villain will never call. One simple fix for this that the average reg subscribes to, is to merge our nut range with our medium strength range and bet smaller with either, to induce calls from more combinations weaker hands. The hidden bonus to this is that we can credibly rep bluffs with this same bet size, which is something that also needs to be re-examined.
The astute student (perhaps still a beginner) will quickly point out that if villain will make a habit of folding too many hands to our overbet shoves, then we should make the adjustment that is to use the air portion of our range to force our opponents to incorrectly fold better hands than ours. First it should be pointed out that such a play is generally (in present time) not advisable since we are laying ourselves difficult odds on our bluff. That is, as we risk more and more chips to attempt a bluff, our risk to reward ratio goes down. It’s knowledge of the commoners that over bets do not give favourable pot odds to the bluffer.
Secondly the author should point out that villains’ simple iterative adjustment to our over betting with air only, is simply to begin calling over bets with all made hands. In this we create a cat and mouse game since the obvious recounter is to begin over bet shoving our nut hands, in which villain’s response would be to begin folding again.
At this point it is necessarily to digress from our example to first define and possibly eventually redefine the concepts of the nash equilibrium and mixed strategies. It might so far seem to the reader this paper is convoluted maze of half understanding, but be reassured we will come back to our initial hand example with a greater clarity as to its context than before. We must again remember in making our new definitions of these two concepts that it is impossible to encapsulate the effects of duration through the limited use of words. The author will do its best but the reader must reach ever so slightly with psychic esoteric strength.
In our initial example as players begin to adjust to each other through a repeated process of the same example, eventually we might assume or guess that there becomes a reoccurring pattern of adjusting. We might refer to this as equilibrium. The issue with describing such a concept is we might suggest equilibrium happens on the iterative plane such as, the adjustments described above. But we can also have equilibriums in plane of ranges. Simply put, we can think of equilibriums in terms of what is my strategy this month OR what is my strategy in this specific hand. To put it esoterically, context is a function of equilibrium, context being synonymous with timeframe. Why should one take the time to make something so simple seem so complex? Because the author feels it’s important to point out that the context of time changes the accepted understanding of what N.E.s really are.
In our over bet hand discussion we might see now that we can formulate a different strategy based on the context of time involved in range. Instead of looking at an iterative view or what would be a final fantasy type analysis in which each player gets to decide their new strategy (after each iteration), we should now look at our strategy in terms of our range and what we will do with each part of it. In looking at the issue this way we can find another type of equilibrium in which we mix bluffs in with our nuts in order to not be exploited through the previously described adjustments. This is where, to the protest of some, we enter the context of mixed strategies.
Mixed strategies is a widely misunderstood and therefore misused and underused concept. The reason for this is again our conditioning against the understanding of duration vs. time. To understand this we should move slightly towards a different way of mixing our strategy in shove/fold poker. In a 10bbs effective blind vs blind spot, by knowledge of the commoners, we should be shoving or folding and never raising a non all in amount. Given villains calling range Y there will be an optimal range of hands X for hero to shove from the sb if folded to. Intuitively as villain folds more than Y, hero can safely shove more hands than x, and if villain calls with more than Y seemingly hero might shove slightly tighter than x.
Again if we iterate this concept, we apparently begin to approach equilibrium, since if hero pushes greater than x, villain will call wider than y, which causes hero to push slightly tighter, and so on and so forth. This is all very crude way of describing a certain point in which both villain and hero can no longer adjust to gain upon one another. It is the author’s humble guess is this happens at the infintieth iteration. At this point we arrive at or near equilibrium, of which we have in our world a different mathematical solution to find this same thing, which we shall not touch in this writing.
Inevitably, however we search for this equilibrium, we come to an inflection point between hands that are part of the equilibrium and hands that are not a part of the equilibrium. The hands that are part of our equilibrium shoving range are hands that generally are considered +ev and the hands that are not part of the equilibrium are generally known as –ev hands. However for reasons soon to be pointed out this is not always the cause. To understand this we should first look at hands in which the ev to shove is equal to the ev of folding, namely hands with 0ev or breakeven ev.
In real time players tend to fold a 0ev hand that is of the equilibrium since we are risking our stack for zero return. Theoretically however this is not advisable because we break down the equilibrium by folding such a hand and cause villain to adjust and there becomes a cascading dissolution of the equilibrium. This of course in many people’s minds is just theoretical.
What is important at this time to point out is that our ev can be thought of as originating from a few different sources. Not only is our hand equity important, but also the amount of fold equity we have. Fold equity not only involves villain’s ranges but also the blockers we hold in our hand.
Sometimes with a breakeven hand in the equilibrium range, we only pick up enough chips for our hand to breakeven but if we fold it, we theoretically give villain the ability adjust to our range. So we have to play the hand in order to keep villains range from adjusting, but otherwise we would fold since there is no other reward.
87s might be such a hand in a certain spot, in which we need to play it to keep equilibrium but we don’t expect to gain ev. In reality this might never happen, as humans aren’t able to make these accurate adjustments at this time, but we will seek to understand the game better by observing superior adjusting strategies. One hidden context to mixing strategies is clearly seen at this point in which we can play 87s 50% of the time by playing perhaps only 7d8d and 7h8h. We might see this as a decimal system in which we can use suited to denote many different % in which we play specific hands in our ranges.
This is all a very lengthy contextual intro into seemingly very simply concepts that many player and certainly most cash players understand already very well. What follows now is an explanation of the misinterpretation of the application of mixed strategies in relation to meta-game. This will be coupled as well with a redefinition or a new understanding of the term meta-game. If the author succeeds, many new players will begin to understand that this is a game with no limitations. Mixed strategies and meta-game really imply a game in which the field can infinitely progress.
This is good news for the esoteric player, but not so for the present average reg.
At this point we should talk about the meaning of meta-game. The author is not concerned about the general public’s understanding of the phrase, but instead the true meaning or esoteric meaning or in other terms, meta-game in the context of duration. MG is basically the strategy created when memory is introduced over the iterative process. The easiest example is the daily reg, creating MG over each day when they encounter the same opponents. But we can obviously see this on an hour to hour basis, over multiple tournaments and so on.
One thing and perhaps the most important thought of the entire paper, is MG is affected by many things these days, much of which is most social media. One should only need to be reminded of the effects of skype and stables to see this. Imagine 5 of the to 10 mttsng players having a stable each of 10 horses. Assuming full competence if any of 50 horses that play 20 tables 8 hours 5 days a week, see you make a obvious mistake you should assume to some extent that all 50 players including their coaches will eventually catch a piece of this information. The author will not attempt to put numbers to such adjustments but certainly the pace of the game and technology is such that MG on this level should not be ignored.
Putting all this together and going back to our initial problem we might be able to over bet if we have a specific amount of bluff vs nut hands, in such a way that villain cannot gain by simply calling or folding all of his range. In short we look at this problem as a function of the relationship of our own bet size to our nuts/air ratio. In order to not get complex (perhaps over the authors understanding), there is an equilibrium in which we are balanced in relation to our bet size.
All this might not settle right with the academic reader but we can soften the blow by pointing out that we are generally perceived as having nuts or air in this spot (or better put we are checking back our middle range hands) and it is our bet sizing that tips off our villain to this fact.
What the author is trying to describe is a situation in which hero gets to the river and has very few value hands in order to balance with bluffs. By now the solution should be obvious, even to the novice player, that we should choose a smaller % of total air hands to match vs. value hands. In other words we will find some certain % of bluff that will create a balance for us.
Overbetting generally causes this number to be smaller, since we don’t credibly rep as many value hands. This should be plainly understood because villain knows we can’t over bet medium hands and expect to get looked up by worse. Instead, because of game dynamics, we will generally give villain a better price with our near nut hands, by betting small, and expect to get looked up more often by worse hands. Because of this, if we wished to balance, we expect to have more bluff combos in this small bet sizing range than we would in a nutted overbetting range. In short the more value hands in a range the more bluff hands are needed to balance; the less value hands in a range the less bluff hands are needed to balance. The smaller the bet size vs pot, the more value hands are used and therefore more bluffs are added; the bigger the bet vs pot less value hands are used and so less bluff hands are added.
The simple fix then of course is to enact a primitive mixing strategy and to turn some %X of our air range into a bluff where X is a considerably smaller amount of our total air and largely related to the amount of air in our range and the bet size. All this might not be mathematically so, and may not describe game theory optimal play in any way whatsoever but the idea is we can theoretically safely overbet jam in a certain context by choosing a certain amount of hands to bluff with, perhaps all hearts, or all Kx hands or whatever category meets the required equilibrium % needed to satisfy the justification of the action described.
The protest of course, is that no villain plays optimally; therefore no such equilibrium type analysis is needed. We don’t seek any sort of balance vs such imperfect players. As a matter of fact, vs imperfect players we will seek to be almost as unbalanced as they are, in order to capitalize on their exposed weakness. In this regs often find themselves in the habit of playing exploitably, that is by value betting and bluffing with no regard to balancing ranges in respect to nuts vs air, and no regard to balancing in respect to ranges vs bet sizing. Not fully understanding this, many reg vs reg battles take place in the context of two players who have zero bluff combos in there ranges. Often at best the bluffs that do take place are quite robotic cbet attempts in which the player oop often responds by playing TAG poker, that is, they never or rarely bluff back. This is different as we can now understand from ABC poker, where ABC poker will often match many value actions with some % of matching bluff combinations.
These robotic tag regs are often said to be fairly unexploitable. This myth comes from sayings such as the games have been solved, and is fueled by the belief that the only way to combat a tight player is to fold. If we have gotten this far we should now know that the author will soon produce a counter argument to such a statement, but first would like to point out a natural counter to such a tight strategy.
The counter is based again on our context. If hero is in the blinds vs a TAG reg on the button, there is little to do but fold all but our best hands. However we must look at a bigger picture to understand what really goes on. The TAG reg folds many more hands to us than their button folds to them. In this we secretly pick up more chips on average than they do. As if that isn’t enough we ourselves as an ABC player pick up more blinds from our button steals than the TAG player. This is how we can see ABC as unexploitable, or in other words TAG is a strategy that is moved from the equilibrium, and therefore it loses to ABC poker. We also are aware possibly now that different contexts reveal different ways in which we gain from our opponents.
That is not to say that TAG is wrong. Sometimes, because of other rec players at the table playing further from equilibrium, we enact TAG style to capitalize. This is not to suggest the author will take these lines as the correct adjustment but it’s just one example. What’s important to understand is style is not really style, but rather should be seen as different strategies ready to be adjusted. The problem occurs when the robotic reg takes a certain particular strategy or style as poker itself.
One way of explaining what happens to the strategies when villain’s presents the table with a TAG style is that he loses his ability to credible threaten players by representing bluffs. They never or rarely bluff so all big bets are always nut hands. Like our overbetting example, they never bet big with medium hands in fear of folding out weaker hands and value cutting vs better hands. All this may not make mathematical sense, in fact it is of the opinion of the author that it does not. It is however, how the games of the present time seem to play out.
Thus in the spirit of the present day skill or strategy of the game in our overbetting hand history question, when TAG reg faces TAG reg, the standard accepted line is to make a 2/3 type river bet, the same as we would use with our medium range. Overbetting doesn’t pay us off because villain doesn’t give us enough credit for bluffing. To be specific, villain assumes since we are a winning player (such is the nature of TAG at the present time) that we don’t have enough bluff in our range for them to call. Since this is the nature of TAG regs, and TAG regs know each other’s strategy, the common accepted practice becomes not to overbet at all.
By our definitions laid out previously this is an exploitable strategy in many senses of the words. We are able to gain from this knowledge if we understand it and apply it correctly. The author wonders if it’s common knowledge that we cannot exploit a strategy that we do not understand. That is if we cannot properly or correctly analyze a certain strategy then we cannot formulate a corrector response with any certainty. In other words if we do not fully understand a strategy it is essentially gambling to begin to adjust to it. This all becomes important in the conclusion of this work. All that protest such an observation should be reminded of the problems of context and time.
Since a TAG player has deviated from ABC poker, we expect they can be maximally exploited by a certain strategy S, and we might expect that we even stand to gain by sticking with ABC poker. This is strange for some to hear because we never see poker in its original context. For example with a tournament with a certain structure, TAG strategy may be the correct equilibrium approach, but depending on the context of the game ABC poker is the equilibrium and TAG is a deviation. The relationship of S to ABC poker is going to be comparable to the amount the TAG reg deviates from ABC poker, or what we defined as the equilibrium.
That is to say that if the reg plays tighter and tighter we are able to exploit them further and further. This is counter intuitive to this days TAG reg because the understanding that Tight is right prevails. But as we will show, this mantra breaks down when we involve context and duration. Simply put the secret is Meta-Game.
For the purpose of this argument we will have to use induction in order to free ourselves from the self-imposed chains we are caught in. This solution should seem fitting, after all, considering we were caught in this mess through similar illusory logic. Perhaps this control was imposed from a contrived purposeful ideal, or perhaps through accidental means. It is not the author’s intent to discuss such a philosophical question.
We are to assume a better strategy N exists than that of TAG poker, in response to our original example. In this we would discover that TAG is not the equilibrium in the Nash definition as we are able to gain by deviation. If this is true then with our new strategy N we expect to gain vs the TAG strategy since its very definition says so. Therefore we can test the new strategy and if it gains vs TAG strategy we can see that TAG is not the correct equilibrium vs two TAG regs.
We will now go into a possible strategy N, and test whether or not it stands to gain vs a TAG strategy. At this point many readers will continue to protest and deny such an approach has any validity or relationship to game theory and or the game of poker. But it must be said some things can only be understood in their whole and not in parts. So we should continue with a grain of salt, only half serious but whole heartedly, and again run into the contextual problems of what a strategy entails.
To look at what a strategy entails we have to decide if it encompasses different iterations, meta-game, adjusting opponents, adjusting game conditions, etc. An infinite amount of variables are not separate from a single hand history question. For this example and paper none of this is important, as all the variables cancel each other out. This is the only context that one needs.
We are to get to the river and over bet a certain type of balanced range. If villain responds correctly then we gained nothing, and our induction is in vain. But as for TAG regs we will find two types of players, 1 that understands ABC poker, and 1 that doesn’t. The reg that doesn’t understand ABC poker has become a robot slave to the TAG style and is not able to properly adjust to non TAG poker. The reason we know this again comes through induction. If they knew how to adjust properly then they too would be involved in applying over bet mixed range strategies as we will soon realize.
When villain doesn’t respond correctly they do 1 of 2 things, they either open or tighten their range too far, or they don’t change their strategy at all. We are able to exploit both of these with the former being the more obvious as to how we might do so. If villain begins to open their calling range hero can tighten up his bluffing range, and do the opposite when villain tightens their calling range.
Exploiting the tight reg that seemingly refuses to adjust is slightly more elusive. This player for all of the existence of TAG strategy has been an impossible to move rock. Until now. This player IS exploitable, as we can assume from our induction, but we have to slightly change context to find out how. This player doesn’t use or understand mixed strategies; otherwise, as we will see, they themselves would be using them. Since we know they don’t understand them we know that they aren’t able to create proper counter strategies to them. That is enough to open the game up into a level they fear greatly: mixed meta-game strategies.
Vs. these rocks we will use hands that signify a larger or more importantly incorrect bluffing range than we are actually playing vs them. This might seem silly at first but not so once we cross context into different ranges. For example we will sometimes bluff with medium value hands. Intuitively this seems –ev since if we always overbet shoved medium hands we become exploitable in the way a TAG reg hopes to avoid. But the key is we are only ‘mixing’ in some medium hands, so instead of adding in 15% of hands (our entire medium hand range) perhaps only 1% of the time we will overbet with a medium strength hand. If we use a bottom hand in our bluff range such as 63o for our bluff, villain will mistakenly assume we are bluffing with 15% of our range.
Many people will argue this will not have the desired effect, but these are the people that don’t understand this strategy in the first place. They are the very people that can be exploited with it. A simpler way to present such a strategy is to suggest that we need to be taking advantage of TAG regs that don’t understand how to use and respond to mixed strategies. As we understand this to be true, we can soon see the coming changes to the game.
One change that isn’t immediately apparent is that other rec players that don’t understand what is going on will begin to adjust to such play, on an in tournament level and also as a general field level. Many changes on many different contextual levels can result from such a small change. The most direct and immediate change in relation to villain is there will be a varying response depending on their ability to understand such mixed meta game strategies. When technologies like skype are in play like today, these changes on any level should not be ignored.
A certain specific initial change this might bring to the game is our ability to play nut hands almost face up as nut hands. We have AA preflop, we bet an AAX flop, bet turn, and overbet jam the river. Vs very good TAG regs that legitimately don’t budge we might not stand to gain so much, but vs the type of TAG reg that doesn’t understand mixed strategies we stand to gain more than other regs that don’t employ these tactics vs such exploitable villains. A new way of constructing a strategy then, can be to bet all our nut hands in every spot on every street, and construct a meta-game mixed bluffing strategy that supports such a fundamental construct.
The author feels the need to point out in that since in the general field of regs little to no players are employing such strategies on the players that also don’t employ this strategy (and therefore do not understand them and therefore cannot adjust properly to them) that at least for some time period this strategy extracted from strategy N is superior to playing with non mixed metagame strategies.
A complete encyclopedia would be needed to describe the entire revolutionary change in the game that is capable of coming from such a small observation. Furthermore we can apply mixed meta game strategies in any way we like and at any level of the game. This too would take its own volume and such creativity is left up to the readers.
In all this we might begin to understand that poker is a game of infinite strategy. Players should not be afraid to share knowledge, as in a game sense this knowledge often makes the game deeper not harder. It is those mediocre regs that fear the pond drying up. The champion level regs understand that a healthy game is created by a learning environment that encourages growth and aspiration. In this new world the rec player understands they too can progress to which ever level they want and should not fear a rigged game. The rec player knows that hard work can pay off and either work towards eliminating the conditioning that blocks their own true learning or they can simply accept the game as pure entertainment. This type of new world would encourage people to take up poker as a hobby and release it from its dark stigma of being a game separate from enlightened thinking and thinkers.
Meta game and Mixing Strategies.
This writing is a Brahmanic key to one of the chapters of esoteric poker. In the spirit of the discipline of esoterism, certain words and name are not used in the same context of the time and language they were written in. Such deceptive type writing is necessary not only to guard true meanings from those that seek knowledge as a source of individual power, but also as the only true way to use language to begin to describe those things that are themselves above language.
In understanding this we may begin to understand the true intent of such a writing as this one. True to its nature, the meanings are many fold, and somewhat coded. The author will point out, to put one of these meanings in plain sight, one such slightly hidden aspect that is important for the unlearned students to understand. Simply that the very weakness that we are soon to be exploiting in our opponents is the reason this article was put out. That is the article is set to exploit the field, whilst teaching the same field how to exploit each other. Perhaps if one sees this as important, we will not get stuck on the finger.
There are caveats to all the following, that should not have to be reiterated but nonetheless the author feels it necessary. The following concepts will be presented in such a way as to flare the emotional mind of students of game theory, and disciplines that are associated and present in contexts of game theory. This too has esoteric meaning, mostly in that the emotional mind has always been the psychic wall to true learning. We can certainly obtain any degree or certificate in our present day western type academies (by western it’s really meaning lacking true intelligence, as these schools are no longer solely located in the west), but we cannot obtain any type of knowledge that has true meaning with our emotional state.
Those reading from an emotionless state of pure learning should not worry about the learned people’s protests, as it is clear to the reader that the brilliant minds that created the original concepts understand them to be correcter when presented in the following fashion. These explanations are obviously Nash approved as the author is obviously a devote student and a loyal follower to the Dr./Emperor (TL;JFN).
In this the author has decided not to include the google definitions for any of the definitions presented. Since google functions in past present and future and knows not of duration, its answers will produce non esoteric understandings of poker which is not the intention of the author. Although it would be helpful to go into all if this, it won’t be necessary to explain these differences and their relationships.
In short, it can be said there is not time for this. Nor is there really time for thesis.
There are two words that should be understood in the present and hopefully better by the end of this writing. They are somewhat Japanese in origin; however, to the learned student we might understand that nationality is not a language, and that concepts generally precede the words that describe them by unimaginable amount of time, no doubt as far back as ancient vedantic time. Furthermore we must understand that there are no true divisions between the author’s language and the different reader’s native languages. One starts to see this as they look at different dialects of the same language, or when the same language from slightly different time periods is compared with itself. In these enquiries we might begin to see the barriers of ‘language’ are really just perceptions when it comes to the greater heavinic plane that is the great Nirvana.
The first word we should learn a truer meaning to is Ju-Jitsu. Loosely meaning gentle art, Ju-Jitsu explores ways to manipulate this world through effortless means. To truly understand the meaning of JJ, one has to do more than just read. The teaching of the art is such that it can only be learned through one’s own experience. The understanding of this itself is helpful for all, and for most it is enough to raise the level of their own sport to a higher place. But for now, the reader should feel satisfied and will be helped immensely by understanding one key aspect of the art often missed by even the highest levels of Ju-Jitsu instructors. We should not attempt to force our opponents into mistakes; instead, we should open up our own game, in order to effortlessly induce our opponents to mistakenly do the same.
The second word that is important to redefine is Kazushi. Loosely translated as off balancing our opponent, Kazushi is another very misunderstood and misapplied principle. The author feels it necessary to point out however that it is rarer or rare that the present day Judoka misapplies this principle. Judo, comes from Ju Jitsu (loosely explained) and in that its worthwhile to notice that new age Ju Jitsu students (especially of the Brazilian lines) often have little concept of the use of Kazushi while the older offshoot of Ju Jitsu (Judo), seems to have kept this teaching fairly sacred. In the true spirit of Ju Jitsu the Judo practitioner does not force Kazushi, but instead allows his opponents to off-balance themselves in reaction to hero’s ability to open their own self up. Once off balance the hero can then exploit the opponents attempt to rebalance.
In this, if the author is doing a decent job of presenting this somewhat difficult material, we might see that Kazushi and Ju Jitsu as principles are not really divisible concepts but are much related like distance and time are to velocity. Velocity isn’t really a thing, but rather a representation of distance vs. time. Not to suggest the material present here is complex, but as we can see with Judo vs Ju Jitsu, it is clouded by religious type beliefs that block such obvious understandings presented by the ancient masters of the disciplines. None of this is to suggest that this school or that school of thought is wrong, but that we generally do not understand the past, and should not assume that we ever really do.
The example soon to follow is the inspiration for this concept, but it should be said that this paper is really about how to apply Kazushi. In poker we have a definition already set for the word balance, which is essentially to construct our range in such a way that our opponent’s cannot exploit us. If we take such a non-esoteric meaning to this word then we can easily argue that Kazushi and poker’s version of the word balance do not point to the same thing.
At this point before really finishing the introduction to the concepts presented here it is crucial to slightly redefine the concepts of balance and style (namely TAG/LAG ABC). Again we run into the problems of language. Not that language is broken, but that our understanding of it certainly is. If we can understand duration then we don’t have these limitations. But understanding time in a causal sense, it must be pointed out that balance is much related to abc poker. Since this writing will be long enough without fully explaining its points we won’t get far into the meanings of each style, but what the teachers reading this should understand, in order to fully explain the intended meaning of this paragraph, is that in non-exploitable type poker, or a table full of gods, each player should play an ABC style. In this the author has re written the definition of both ABC and Balanced play, and married the concepts with non-exploitability. The author is not worried about making a semantic type error here, nor concerned with flat out blatantly not understanding words or concepts. Or perhaps the author is mistaken in believing these newly married concepts are newly married.
To further illustrate the intended redefinition at a table of gods, when a tight mortal sits down, the gods will move from their ABC/non-exploitable/balanced strategy to a LAG style which begins to capitalize on the mortal who folds too much (ignoring of course the rest of the table dynamics). In this we begin to understand the marriage which we can now refer to as any of the words ABC, NON exploitable, or balanced. ABC poker then is really just our baseline for adjusting. If you are a new player and you have dared to read this far, you now should start to understand the importance of learning beginner strategies before the advanced ones.
This should clearly be understood when seen in relation to other styles of play, a concept in which we will also redefine for the purpose of understanding the rest of this paper. To do this we should compare the purpose of TAG and LAG style in certain contexts. Context is important of course because we might find strategically correct reasons to play TAG poker depending on the different variations of the game of as well as different circumstances such as table dynamics or game dynamics. But here we are more concerned about the context of TAG/LAG created in relation to adjustments made by players vs each other. Lag in this context is the style used when hero has a distinct skill advantage vs the average villain in a certain hand, and TAG is the style used when hero see’s they are at a skill disadvantage in the hand. There is great philosophy to be discussed in even such trivial context but what is important to remember here is that style is really just our ability or lack of ability to adjust and to adjust properly.
We shall now move onto our example or the foundation for the concept of this work. Much like the previous explanations we will ignore many important aspects of the poker hand. Protests might arise from this but to the sincere learner they should not be bothered by such rhetoric. Hero is in position, has barreled both the flop and turn, and is now checked to on the river. Hero has AA and the board is YYYxz in such a way that any player with a pair has a full house. We should not take note of the story of the actions as they are, but instead understand the hand in the following way: Villain never has us beat, and villain is always calling with a full house and never calling without a full house.
One important side not to this spot is villains range is not polarized, as we feel in this spot they would lead out with quads. Instead we view their range as capped and begin to analyze the situation in response to the above knowledge. The other factor that is important here is that villain and hero’s stacks are such that to put villain all in would be a substantial over bet.
The last important piece of info is really just an explanation of the concept at hand. Perhaps, already many players can intuit where we are going with this. Villain’s skill level and/or our reads on villain are such that they are an ABC type player. Simply put, they don’t call over bets with marginal holdings. Although it’s possible this player will adjust in the future, we can be assured they will fold most weaker full houses until they actually receive information from us that we are capable of bluffing enough that they profit from calling our over bet.
In this situation hero has the nuts (since villain never has quads), but has to weigh out the ev of over bet shoving and potentially causing villain to fold hands that he would call a smaller bet with to the ev of betting small and getting calls from all villains weaker full houses. At this point it should be pointed out, if we don’t already know this concept, hero must consider the balancedness of his ranges.
In objectively observing hero’s range here we will intuit an understanding in poker that is really a misunderstanding of poker, specifically the same misunderstanding of the relationship of ABC poker to balanced poker that the author pointed out previously. This misunderstanding and the correction of it forms the purpose for this work.
This example paints a great foundation of learning for the inexperienced player, who might choose (possibly incorrectly) to over bet the river since after all we cannot lose chips in this spot. But if we have an intermediate understanding of the game we instantly realize how polarized our play looks. We are repping nuts or air, and if we don’t have air in our range, villain will never call. One simple fix for this that the average reg subscribes to, is to merge our nut range with our medium strength range and bet smaller with either, to induce calls from more combinations weaker hands. The hidden bonus to this is that we can credibly rep bluffs with this same bet size, which is something that also needs to be re-examined.
The astute student (perhaps still a beginner) will quickly point out that if villain will make a habit of folding too many hands to our overbet shoves, then we should make the adjustment that is to use the air portion of our range to force our opponents to incorrectly fold better hands than ours. First it should be pointed out that such a play is generally (in present time) not advisable since we are laying ourselves difficult odds on our bluff. That is, as we risk more and more chips to attempt a bluff, our risk to reward ratio goes down. It’s knowledge of the commoners that over bets do not give favourable pot odds to the bluffer.
Secondly the author should point out that villains’ simple iterative adjustment to our over betting with air only, is simply to begin calling over bets with all made hands. In this we create a cat and mouse game since the obvious recounter is to begin over bet shoving our nut hands, in which villain’s response would be to begin folding again.
At this point it is necessarily to digress from our example to first define and possibly eventually redefine the concepts of the nash equilibrium and mixed strategies. It might so far seem to the reader this paper is convoluted maze of half understanding, but be reassured we will come back to our initial hand example with a greater clarity as to its context than before. We must again remember in making our new definitions of these two concepts that it is impossible to encapsulate the effects of duration through the limited use of words. The author will do its best but the reader must reach ever so slightly with psychic esoteric strength.
In our initial example as players begin to adjust to each other through a repeated process of the same example, eventually we might assume or guess that there becomes a reoccurring pattern of adjusting. We might refer to this as equilibrium. The issue with describing such a concept is we might suggest equilibrium happens on the iterative plane such as, the adjustments described above. But we can also have equilibriums in plane of ranges. Simply put, we can think of equilibriums in terms of what is my strategy this month OR what is my strategy in this specific hand. To put it esoterically, context is a function of equilibrium, context being synonymous with timeframe. Why should one take the time to make something so simple seem so complex? Because the author feels it’s important to point out that the context of time changes the accepted understanding of what N.E.s really are.
In our over bet hand discussion we might see now that we can formulate a different strategy based on the context of time involved in range. Instead of looking at an iterative view or what would be a final fantasy type analysis in which each player gets to decide their new strategy (after each iteration), we should now look at our strategy in terms of our range and what we will do with each part of it. In looking at the issue this way we can find another type of equilibrium in which we mix bluffs in with our nuts in order to not be exploited through the previously described adjustments. This is where, to the protest of some, we enter the context of mixed strategies.
Mixed strategies is a widely misunderstood and therefore misused and underused concept. The reason for this is again our conditioning against the understanding of duration vs. time. To understand this we should move slightly towards a different way of mixing our strategy in shove/fold poker. In a 10bbs effective blind vs blind spot, by knowledge of the commoners, we should be shoving or folding and never raising a non all in amount. Given villains calling range Y there will be an optimal range of hands X for hero to shove from the sb if folded to. Intuitively as villain folds more than Y, hero can safely shove more hands than x, and if villain calls with more than Y seemingly hero might shove slightly tighter than x.
Again if we iterate this concept, we apparently begin to approach equilibrium, since if hero pushes greater than x, villain will call wider than y, which causes hero to push slightly tighter, and so on and so forth. This is all very crude way of describing a certain point in which both villain and hero can no longer adjust to gain upon one another. It is the author’s humble guess is this happens at the infintieth iteration. At this point we arrive at or near equilibrium, of which we have in our world a different mathematical solution to find this same thing, which we shall not touch in this writing.
Inevitably, however we search for this equilibrium, we come to an inflection point between hands that are part of the equilibrium and hands that are not a part of the equilibrium. The hands that are part of our equilibrium shoving range are hands that generally are considered +ev and the hands that are not part of the equilibrium are generally known as –ev hands. However for reasons soon to be pointed out this is not always the cause. To understand this we should first look at hands in which the ev to shove is equal to the ev of folding, namely hands with 0ev or breakeven ev.
In real time players tend to fold a 0ev hand that is of the equilibrium since we are risking our stack for zero return. Theoretically however this is not advisable because we break down the equilibrium by folding such a hand and cause villain to adjust and there becomes a cascading dissolution of the equilibrium. This of course in many people’s minds is just theoretical.
What is important at this time to point out is that our ev can be thought of as originating from a few different sources. Not only is our hand equity important, but also the amount of fold equity we have. Fold equity not only involves villain’s ranges but also the blockers we hold in our hand.
Sometimes with a breakeven hand in the equilibrium range, we only pick up enough chips for our hand to breakeven but if we fold it, we theoretically give villain the ability adjust to our range. So we have to play the hand in order to keep villains range from adjusting, but otherwise we would fold since there is no other reward.
87s might be such a hand in a certain spot, in which we need to play it to keep equilibrium but we don’t expect to gain ev. In reality this might never happen, as humans aren’t able to make these accurate adjustments at this time, but we will seek to understand the game better by observing superior adjusting strategies. One hidden context to mixing strategies is clearly seen at this point in which we can play 87s 50% of the time by playing perhaps only 7d8d and 7h8h. We might see this as a decimal system in which we can use suited to denote many different % in which we play specific hands in our ranges.
This is all a very lengthy contextual intro into seemingly very simply concepts that many player and certainly most cash players understand already very well. What follows now is an explanation of the misinterpretation of the application of mixed strategies in relation to meta-game. This will be coupled as well with a redefinition or a new understanding of the term meta-game. If the author succeeds, many new players will begin to understand that this is a game with no limitations. Mixed strategies and meta-game really imply a game in which the field can infinitely progress.
This is good news for the esoteric player, but not so for the present average reg.
At this point we should talk about the meaning of meta-game. The author is not concerned about the general public’s understanding of the phrase, but instead the true meaning or esoteric meaning or in other terms, meta-game in the context of duration. MG is basically the strategy created when memory is introduced over the iterative process. The easiest example is the daily reg, creating MG over each day when they encounter the same opponents. But we can obviously see this on an hour to hour basis, over multiple tournaments and so on.
One thing and perhaps the most important thought of the entire paper, is MG is affected by many things these days, much of which is most social media. One should only need to be reminded of the effects of skype and stables to see this. Imagine 5 of the to 10 mttsng players having a stable each of 10 horses. Assuming full competence if any of 50 horses that play 20 tables 8 hours 5 days a week, see you make a obvious mistake you should assume to some extent that all 50 players including their coaches will eventually catch a piece of this information. The author will not attempt to put numbers to such adjustments but certainly the pace of the game and technology is such that MG on this level should not be ignored.
Putting all this together and going back to our initial problem we might be able to over bet if we have a specific amount of bluff vs nut hands, in such a way that villain cannot gain by simply calling or folding all of his range. In short we look at this problem as a function of the relationship of our own bet size to our nuts/air ratio. In order to not get complex (perhaps over the authors understanding), there is an equilibrium in which we are balanced in relation to our bet size.
All this might not settle right with the academic reader but we can soften the blow by pointing out that we are generally perceived as having nuts or air in this spot (or better put we are checking back our middle range hands) and it is our bet sizing that tips off our villain to this fact.
What the author is trying to describe is a situation in which hero gets to the river and has very few value hands in order to balance with bluffs. By now the solution should be obvious, even to the novice player, that we should choose a smaller % of total air hands to match vs. value hands. In other words we will find some certain % of bluff that will create a balance for us.
Overbetting generally causes this number to be smaller, since we don’t credibly rep as many value hands. This should be plainly understood because villain knows we can’t over bet medium hands and expect to get looked up by worse. Instead, because of game dynamics, we will generally give villain a better price with our near nut hands, by betting small, and expect to get looked up more often by worse hands. Because of this, if we wished to balance, we expect to have more bluff combos in this small bet sizing range than we would in a nutted overbetting range. In short the more value hands in a range the more bluff hands are needed to balance; the less value hands in a range the less bluff hands are needed to balance. The smaller the bet size vs pot, the more value hands are used and therefore more bluffs are added; the bigger the bet vs pot less value hands are used and so less bluff hands are added.
The simple fix then of course is to enact a primitive mixing strategy and to turn some %X of our air range into a bluff where X is a considerably smaller amount of our total air and largely related to the amount of air in our range and the bet size. All this might not be mathematically so, and may not describe game theory optimal play in any way whatsoever but the idea is we can theoretically safely overbet jam in a certain context by choosing a certain amount of hands to bluff with, perhaps all hearts, or all Kx hands or whatever category meets the required equilibrium % needed to satisfy the justification of the action described.
The protest of course, is that no villain plays optimally; therefore no such equilibrium type analysis is needed. We don’t seek any sort of balance vs such imperfect players. As a matter of fact, vs imperfect players we will seek to be almost as unbalanced as they are, in order to capitalize on their exposed weakness. In this regs often find themselves in the habit of playing exploitably, that is by value betting and bluffing with no regard to balancing ranges in respect to nuts vs air, and no regard to balancing in respect to ranges vs bet sizing. Not fully understanding this, many reg vs reg battles take place in the context of two players who have zero bluff combos in there ranges. Often at best the bluffs that do take place are quite robotic cbet attempts in which the player oop often responds by playing TAG poker, that is, they never or rarely bluff back. This is different as we can now understand from ABC poker, where ABC poker will often match many value actions with some % of matching bluff combinations.
These robotic tag regs are often said to be fairly unexploitable. This myth comes from sayings such as the games have been solved, and is fueled by the belief that the only way to combat a tight player is to fold. If we have gotten this far we should now know that the author will soon produce a counter argument to such a statement, but first would like to point out a natural counter to such a tight strategy.
The counter is based again on our context. If hero is in the blinds vs a TAG reg on the button, there is little to do but fold all but our best hands. However we must look at a bigger picture to understand what really goes on. The TAG reg folds many more hands to us than their button folds to them. In this we secretly pick up more chips on average than they do. As if that isn’t enough we ourselves as an ABC player pick up more blinds from our button steals than the TAG player. This is how we can see ABC as unexploitable, or in other words TAG is a strategy that is moved from the equilibrium, and therefore it loses to ABC poker. We also are aware possibly now that different contexts reveal different ways in which we gain from our opponents.
That is not to say that TAG is wrong. Sometimes, because of other rec players at the table playing further from equilibrium, we enact TAG style to capitalize. This is not to suggest the author will take these lines as the correct adjustment but it’s just one example. What’s important to understand is style is not really style, but rather should be seen as different strategies ready to be adjusted. The problem occurs when the robotic reg takes a certain particular strategy or style as poker itself.
One way of explaining what happens to the strategies when villain’s presents the table with a TAG style is that he loses his ability to credible threaten players by representing bluffs. They never or rarely bluff so all big bets are always nut hands. Like our overbetting example, they never bet big with medium hands in fear of folding out weaker hands and value cutting vs better hands. All this may not make mathematical sense, in fact it is of the opinion of the author that it does not. It is however, how the games of the present time seem to play out.
Thus in the spirit of the present day skill or strategy of the game in our overbetting hand history question, when TAG reg faces TAG reg, the standard accepted line is to make a 2/3 type river bet, the same as we would use with our medium range. Overbetting doesn’t pay us off because villain doesn’t give us enough credit for bluffing. To be specific, villain assumes since we are a winning player (such is the nature of TAG at the present time) that we don’t have enough bluff in our range for them to call. Since this is the nature of TAG regs, and TAG regs know each other’s strategy, the common accepted practice becomes not to overbet at all.
By our definitions laid out previously this is an exploitable strategy in many senses of the words. We are able to gain from this knowledge if we understand it and apply it correctly. The author wonders if it’s common knowledge that we cannot exploit a strategy that we do not understand. That is if we cannot properly or correctly analyze a certain strategy then we cannot formulate a corrector response with any certainty. In other words if we do not fully understand a strategy it is essentially gambling to begin to adjust to it. This all becomes important in the conclusion of this work. All that protest such an observation should be reminded of the problems of context and time.
Since a TAG player has deviated from ABC poker, we expect they can be maximally exploited by a certain strategy S, and we might expect that we even stand to gain by sticking with ABC poker. This is strange for some to hear because we never see poker in its original context. For example with a tournament with a certain structure, TAG strategy may be the correct equilibrium approach, but depending on the context of the game ABC poker is the equilibrium and TAG is a deviation. The relationship of S to ABC poker is going to be comparable to the amount the TAG reg deviates from ABC poker, or what we defined as the equilibrium.
That is to say that if the reg plays tighter and tighter we are able to exploit them further and further. This is counter intuitive to this days TAG reg because the understanding that Tight is right prevails. But as we will show, this mantra breaks down when we involve context and duration. Simply put the secret is Meta-Game.
For the purpose of this argument we will have to use induction in order to free ourselves from the self-imposed chains we are caught in. This solution should seem fitting, after all, considering we were caught in this mess through similar illusory logic. Perhaps this control was imposed from a contrived purposeful ideal, or perhaps through accidental means. It is not the author’s intent to discuss such a philosophical question.
We are to assume a better strategy N exists than that of TAG poker, in response to our original example. In this we would discover that TAG is not the equilibrium in the Nash definition as we are able to gain by deviation. If this is true then with our new strategy N we expect to gain vs the TAG strategy since its very definition says so. Therefore we can test the new strategy and if it gains vs TAG strategy we can see that TAG is not the correct equilibrium vs two TAG regs.
We will now go into a possible strategy N, and test whether or not it stands to gain vs a TAG strategy. At this point many readers will continue to protest and deny such an approach has any validity or relationship to game theory and or the game of poker. But it must be said some things can only be understood in their whole and not in parts. So we should continue with a grain of salt, only half serious but whole heartedly, and again run into the contextual problems of what a strategy entails.
To look at what a strategy entails we have to decide if it encompasses different iterations, meta-game, adjusting opponents, adjusting game conditions, etc. An infinite amount of variables are not separate from a single hand history question. For this example and paper none of this is important, as all the variables cancel each other out. This is the only context that one needs.
We are to get to the river and over bet a certain type of balanced range. If villain responds correctly then we gained nothing, and our induction is in vain. But as for TAG regs we will find two types of players, 1 that understands ABC poker, and 1 that doesn’t. The reg that doesn’t understand ABC poker has become a robot slave to the TAG style and is not able to properly adjust to non TAG poker. The reason we know this again comes through induction. If they knew how to adjust properly then they too would be involved in applying over bet mixed range strategies as we will soon realize.
When villain doesn’t respond correctly they do 1 of 2 things, they either open or tighten their range too far, or they don’t change their strategy at all. We are able to exploit both of these with the former being the more obvious as to how we might do so. If villain begins to open their calling range hero can tighten up his bluffing range, and do the opposite when villain tightens their calling range.
Exploiting the tight reg that seemingly refuses to adjust is slightly more elusive. This player for all of the existence of TAG strategy has been an impossible to move rock. Until now. This player IS exploitable, as we can assume from our induction, but we have to slightly change context to find out how. This player doesn’t use or understand mixed strategies; otherwise, as we will see, they themselves would be using them. Since we know they don’t understand them we know that they aren’t able to create proper counter strategies to them. That is enough to open the game up into a level they fear greatly: mixed meta-game strategies.
Vs. these rocks we will use hands that signify a larger or more importantly incorrect bluffing range than we are actually playing vs them. This might seem silly at first but not so once we cross context into different ranges. For example we will sometimes bluff with medium value hands. Intuitively this seems –ev since if we always overbet shoved medium hands we become exploitable in the way a TAG reg hopes to avoid. But the key is we are only ‘mixing’ in some medium hands, so instead of adding in 15% of hands (our entire medium hand range) perhaps only 1% of the time we will overbet with a medium strength hand. If we use a bottom hand in our bluff range such as 63o for our bluff, villain will mistakenly assume we are bluffing with 15% of our range.
Many people will argue this will not have the desired effect, but these are the people that don’t understand this strategy in the first place. They are the very people that can be exploited with it. A simpler way to present such a strategy is to suggest that we need to be taking advantage of TAG regs that don’t understand how to use and respond to mixed strategies. As we understand this to be true, we can soon see the coming changes to the game.
One change that isn’t immediately apparent is that other rec players that don’t understand what is going on will begin to adjust to such play, on an in tournament level and also as a general field level. Many changes on many different contextual levels can result from such a small change. The most direct and immediate change in relation to villain is there will be a varying response depending on their ability to understand such mixed meta game strategies. When technologies like skype are in play like today, these changes on any level should not be ignored.
A certain specific initial change this might bring to the game is our ability to play nut hands almost face up as nut hands. We have AA preflop, we bet an AAX flop, bet turn, and overbet jam the river. Vs very good TAG regs that legitimately don’t budge we might not stand to gain so much, but vs the type of TAG reg that doesn’t understand mixed strategies we stand to gain more than other regs that don’t employ these tactics vs such exploitable villains. A new way of constructing a strategy then, can be to bet all our nut hands in every spot on every street, and construct a meta-game mixed bluffing strategy that supports such a fundamental construct.
The author feels the need to point out in that since in the general field of regs little to no players are employing such strategies on the players that also don’t employ this strategy (and therefore do not understand them and therefore cannot adjust properly to them) that at least for some time period this strategy extracted from strategy N is superior to playing with non mixed metagame strategies.
A complete encyclopedia would be needed to describe the entire revolutionary change in the game that is capable of coming from such a small observation. Furthermore we can apply mixed meta game strategies in any way we like and at any level of the game. This too would take its own volume and such creativity is left up to the readers.
In all this we might begin to understand that poker is a game of infinite strategy. Players should not be afraid to share knowledge, as in a game sense this knowledge often makes the game deeper not harder. It is those mediocre regs that fear the pond drying up. The champion level regs understand that a healthy game is created by a learning environment that encourages growth and aspiration. In this new world the rec player understands they too can progress to which ever level they want and should not fear a rigged game. The rec player knows that hard work can pay off and either work towards eliminating the conditioning that blocks their own true learning or they can simply accept the game as pure entertainment. This type of new world would encourage people to take up poker as a hobby and release it from its dark stigma of being a game separate from enlightened thinking and thinkers.
Last edited by JodaB. on Sat Apr 13, 2013 3:02 am; edited 1 time in total
JodaB.- Posts : 1327
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Join date : 2012-12-29
Re: Just a side note
Smoker.B. Sat Apr 13, 2013 12:01 am
I managed to read all of this.
I feel like it was really all over the place, but somehow in the end was good.
the touching on martial arts and poker is very interesting, although I personally can't apply it, as I have never taken part in martial arts.
I feel like your perception of LAG vs TAG is wrong.. you think laggy players play lag because they have an advantage? um no, lag tards play lag because it is literally their style. some play better with it than others. Just as a reference - Isildur is EXTREMELY laggy, and is the best NL player in the world.
On the other hand, TAG (tight aggressive) is another style used by very good regs (v1per claw, forhayley, and w00kiez (daniel cates) are extremely TAG players and have won millions over a big sample. I wouldn't say that they aren't as good as other players.
Then you went on to "over betting" theory that was ok, but what do u mean by over betting? like when someone shoves 2x pot?? how often does that even happen?
also how big a factor do u think meta game is for recreational players? probs non existant. More so for regulars.
I feel like it was really all over the place, but somehow in the end was good.
the touching on martial arts and poker is very interesting, although I personally can't apply it, as I have never taken part in martial arts.
I feel like your perception of LAG vs TAG is wrong.. you think laggy players play lag because they have an advantage? um no, lag tards play lag because it is literally their style. some play better with it than others. Just as a reference - Isildur is EXTREMELY laggy, and is the best NL player in the world.
On the other hand, TAG (tight aggressive) is another style used by very good regs (v1per claw, forhayley, and w00kiez (daniel cates) are extremely TAG players and have won millions over a big sample. I wouldn't say that they aren't as good as other players.
Then you went on to "over betting" theory that was ok, but what do u mean by over betting? like when someone shoves 2x pot?? how often does that even happen?
also how big a factor do u think meta game is for recreational players? probs non existant. More so for regulars.
Smoker.B.- Posts : 586
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Re: Just a side note
JodaB. Sat Apr 13, 2013 1:31 am
Great post!Smoker.B. wrote:I managed to read all of this.
I feel like it was really all over the place, but somehow in the end was good.
the touching on martial arts and poker is very interesting, although I personally can't apply it, as I have never taken part in martial arts.
I feel like your perception of LAG vs TAG is wrong.. you think laggy players play lag because they have an advantage? um no, lag tards play lag because it is literally their style. some play better with it than others. Just as a reference - Isildur is EXTREMELY laggy, and is the best NL player in the world.
On the other hand, TAG (tight aggressive) is another style used by very good regs (v1per claw, forhayley, and w00kiez (daniel cates) are extremely TAG players and have won millions over a big sample. I wouldn't say that they aren't as good as other players.
Then you went on to "over betting" theory that was ok, but what do u mean by over betting? like when someone shoves 2x pot?? how often does that even happen?
also how big a factor do u think meta game is for recreational players? probs non existant. More so for regulars.
You have to understand most of the stuff you brought up is correct theory by todays standards. So you have to see that initially you are correct, but I am trying to push the game.
Don't be upset then if I refute what you say and back up my writings. This way we can have discussion and both learn.
You give a welcomed and fair criticism.
Although you correctly point out in one sense tight is right for certain games and players, its a general rule in poker that as we get better we can play a wider range. In another example, I might play a tighter range on the button vs to very good reg than I would against two rec players.
I am only pointing out that from a certain perspective style can really be seen as adjustments to our opponents. Chewy for example will open up at a tight table and tighten up at a loose table. We should not expect him to play tight, we should expect him to play good which might often be tight. We shouldn't think Chewy plays a tight style. We should think, Chewy is good, therefore tight in a correct game situation.
As for over betting in general, its just one example of adding mixed ranges, but you really need to hone your TAG poker game in order to really fully appreciate this stuff. I wish you would post tons of hands and find your leaks, because you are capable of this kind of stuff, but when you base your foundation on shotty basics your advanced stuff doesn't kick in.
You know some good advanced poker but it will never show through if you don't go back to the basics.
Anyways thx for reading and the comments, its nice to know it doesn't just make zero sense.
JodaB.- Posts : 1327
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Re: Just a side note
Smoker.B. Sat Apr 13, 2013 2:34 am
JodaB. wrote:Great post!Smoker.B. wrote:I managed to read all of this.
I feel like it was really all over the place, but somehow in the end was good.
the touching on martial arts and poker is very interesting, although I personally can't apply it, as I have never taken part in martial arts.
I feel like your perception of LAG vs TAG is wrong.. you think laggy players play lag because they have an advantage? um no, lag tards play lag because it is literally their style. some play better with it than others. Just as a reference - Isildur is EXTREMELY laggy, and is the best NL player in the world.
On the other hand, TAG (tight aggressive) is another style used by very good regs (v1per claw, forhayley, and w00kiez (daniel cates) are extremely TAG players and have won millions over a big sample. I wouldn't say that they aren't as good as other players.
Then you went on to "over betting" theory that was ok, but what do u mean by over betting? like when someone shoves 2x pot?? how often does that even happen?
also how big a factor do u think meta game is for recreational players? probs non existant. More so for regulars.
You have to understand most of the stuff you brought up is correct theory by todays standards. So you have to see that initially you are correct, but I am trying to push the game.
Don't be upset then if I refute what you say and back up my writings. This way we can have discussion and both learn.
You give a welcomed and fair criticism.
Although you correctly point out in one sense tight is right for certain games and players, its a general rule in poker that as we get better we can play a wider range. In another example, I might play a tighter range on the button vs to very good reg than I would against two rec players.
I am only pointing out that from a certain perspective style can really be seen as adjustments to our opponents. Chewy for example will open up at a tight table and tighten up at a loose table. We should not expect him to play tight, we should expect him to play good which might often be tight. We shouldn't think Chewy plays a tight style. We should think, Chewy is good, therefore tight in a correct game situation.
As for over betting in general, its just one example of adding mixed ranges, but you really need to hone your TAG poker game in order to really fully appreciate this stuff. I wish you would post tons of hands and find your leaks, because you are capable of this kind of stuff, but when you base your foundation on shotty basics your advanced stuff doesn't kick in.
You know some good advanced poker but it will never show through if you don't go back to the basics.
Anyways thx for reading and the comments, its nice to know it doesn't just make zero sense.
I definitely can grasp that you are trying to take a different approach to the game. that's for sure lol
but its a good thing, I think.When you write stuff like this, people can really see how deep into the game you think, and that maybe some things that we conceive as being standard, may not infact be standard at all, and might even be wrong!
If we are speaking as a whole, I think yes you are right. I need refreshers on basics. I never have really settled into poker. Everyone has their "game" , BTP plays mtt's, u play sng's, I play cash (for the time being), but haven't mastered PLO or NL, I never perfected mtt's , and I never really played sng's. Im really all over the place, and I know that it may make some of my views very very strange. I have kind of compiled all tidbits of information from sources all over the internet and my friends, and I think its turned my poker brain into mush- to the point where I cant even speak on what's right or wrong.
Id love to post a ton of hands, but I'm not comfortable doing that just yet. not because I'm afraid of what you or others think like in the past, but because im not even really playing that much NL these days.
anyways, back to this thread at hand.
Id really like you to elaborate more on polarized and capped ranges, maybe even in specific situations. As an advanced theory type subject, I think its important to be clear on those things before we get into over betting , and metagame. I say this because im having a hard time FULLY understanding your post.
But then again, you wrote this for the real advanced poker player, so im not sure im even supposed to understand.
If you ever want to physicly witness this sort of stuff that your article touches exactly on, i recommend you watching a HS reg on stars named "Wilhasha"
He plays pretty much every morning, sitting at 100/200 usually and goes around asking every single reg for HU action until he gets someone to play.
Its really fascinating to see the hands that this guy shows up with. he tilts, talks in chat, over bet shoves 5x pots with complete air, and sometimes nutted... he gets thin value off of 3rd pair, makes stupidly light calls, all sorts of really great interesting stuff and is really really lag, just metagaming all over the place.
Wilhasha is down over 1MM on stars, but my old roomate used to be fascinated with this guy and his play. It really is something to see.
anyways, im rambling sorry about that.
Smoker.B.- Posts : 586
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Re: Just a side note
JodaB. Sat Apr 13, 2013 3:05 am
The cliffs are that the best players in the world will purposely make mistakes against the 2nd best players. The 2nd best players fall for the trap because they think the best players are really only 3rd best.
And I don't think I'm the best, its just example fuckers!
And I don't think I'm the best, its just example fuckers!
JodaB.- Posts : 1327
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Smoker.B.- Posts : 586
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Join date : 2013-01-14
Re: Just a side note
JodaB. Sat Apr 13, 2013 3:13 am
You made two posts in this thread that were of intelligence, if you always stuck to that attitude you would do well.
Also no doubt you have the poker mind to fully understand topics that are advanced in nature, provided you clear up any misunderstanding you have with smaller concepts.
The funny thing is the moment you do this, your poker will go through the roof.
Also no doubt you have the poker mind to fully understand topics that are advanced in nature, provided you clear up any misunderstanding you have with smaller concepts.
The funny thing is the moment you do this, your poker will go through the roof.
JodaB.- Posts : 1327
Likes : 93
Join date : 2012-12-29
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