Multiple river sizings
Posted by Adreno
Posted by
Adreno
posted in
High Stakes
Multiple river sizings
Suppose we have 2 river sizings on some specific river: overbet and 2/3pot. If we put all our nut hands in the overbet range, how do we protect our 2/3pot range from being capped?
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I don´t understand the question ... it´s like "How to prevent getting wet when diving naked?". ;)
Close the window. Dumb question.
Well I think it depends. If villain is capped, then you can use such a strategy
Sorry, let me elaborate:
Intuitively it makes sense to have multiple bet sizes on a single river, as opposed to a single betsize. We can make thinner value bets by using a small sizing and we can polarize part of our range with overbets. While we can balance all sizings by bluffing an appropriate amount, we typicly end up with having all our nuts in 1 range, thus capping our other ranges. 2 problems arise from this:
1) Villain can exploitatively bluff raise a lot when we are capped
2) If we bluffcatch villain's raises the appropriate % of the time, villain will be able to extract a lot of thin value with hands that would "just call" against an uncapped range.
Galfond has a video where he advocates using multiple bet sizings on the turn from a game theory perspective (and by extension, other streets as well). Sauce appeared to disagree in the comments section, but it didn't really evolve into a debate. I certainly see the merit of using exploitative sizings on the river, but it's a more complex question from a game theory standpoint where we face the perfect opponent: Does the added benefit of using the "optimal bet size" for each hand outweigh the cost of allowing villain to put pressure on our capped ranges?
Using multiple sizings allows us to valuebet more hands, and therefore also bluff more hands. It also improves the EV of some individual hands considerably (for example, the EV of our overbet range). However, the EV of some of our other hands must decrease, since villain is now able to valueraise more thinly.
Another way of solving the problem would be to mix some of our nutty hands into our capped ranges, and I think it would be a good practical solution to induce mistakes from our opponent. However, against a theoretical nemesis opponent, that's going to greatly reduce the EV of our nutted hands. And the more mixing we do, the more we should ask ourselves why we want to split our river betting range in the first place.
I'm pretty sure that (in theory) we should just be adding some nut hands to the smaller sizing. In practice I think it's unimportant. I also don't see how how adding some nut hands to our smaller sizing will greatly reduce the EV of nutted hands vs a theoretical nemesis.
Well, one thing a larger sizing achieves is that it allows us to have more bluffs in our range. When we put some of our nuts into the smaller sizing range, we have to check/fold more of our bluff hands.
That´s what I wanted to make clear with my first (offhand) comment: there´s no way to prevent being capped if you put all your nut combos into one single range. If you want to use multiple betsizes and you want to stay uncapped, you MUST split your nutrange ("nutrange" to be understood in terms of hands you´re able to call a shove with).
By the way - if you think about being uncapped, which implies that you think about optimal play, consider that the developers of Snowie didn´t allow even Snowie with his "infinite" brain to use multiple betsizes, Snowie always decides for ONE single betsize which is optimal for the situation and puts his entire range into that. Here´s the answer from their FAQ:
"Why does the bet size not depend on the hole cards?
Imagine the following example: in a certain preflop
situation you raise with AA and KK 0.5 pot (to not scare away your
opponents), with your medium hands 1.0 pot (to extract good value) and
with your weak hands 2.0 pot (to make the opponents fold most of the
time). This strategy may work for a few hands, but once your opponents
become aware of what you are doing, it is very easy for them to exploit
you.
A more efficient strategy is to use just one bet size for all hands and not give away any hints about your hand strength.
Even though theoretically it can be occasionally
correct to have multiple bet sizes in one situation (with different,
separately balanced ranges), in practice this would be very hard to
implement."
This is a great thread. I think the answer to this after tons of experimenting at low limits is that it can be answered in this order of importance: Board texture first. Blockers second, and then your range vs your opponents. For most players developing a river overbetting strategy first and working backwards makes the most sense and is probably game theory optimal in any no limit cash game. Overbetting turn, flop or even preflop is hard to balance without history and your oppoenent Knowing you overbet river sometimes as a bluff first. In theory you should want to just over min raise or 1/2 pot the river with nuts or air sometimes given ranges, board texture etc so its perfectly fine. And the obvious exploitative adjustment to villian exploiting us with a 2/3 bet size with a river bluff or check raise us off our thinner value bets is to bet 2/3 and call a check raise thinner if you think opponent is turning weak showdown or a busted draw into a bluff for your percentage needed to be good x amount of the time for the pot odds etc etc.
I always read all the comments last and this post in no way dumb, this is one of the better questions ive seen in this high steak thread.
I have not read the responses and do not know if this has been said before: It is pretty simple really, you should NOT use all nut type hands in your overbet range. All ranges must of course be balanced.
Seriously, GTI, I´m not speaking as RIO-mod now, just as an increasingly annoyed forum user: it´s like the 120th time I read a comment from you on threads that were like months old - where you either repeated what has been said 20 times before or just answer with one single sentence - without bringing up ANYTHING new. What´s the point?
At first, I didn´t want to comment on that at all ... but when I read "I have not read the responses ..." and then answer with one single sentence, after others before you have written walls of text - don´t you think it would´ve been a sign of respect to read those replies before you come up and look like "See here, you´ve all waited for me to enlighten you - with one single sentence, because it´s all I need for this simple game called poker!". See, what I mean? ;)
I just swept thru a bunch of threads just before bedtime and did not believe anyone would get offended. Now I do know though so I will not do it again.
Sent you a PM, not sure if you got it?
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