Trying to better understand and utilize blockers
Posted by nhx
Posted by
nhx
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Low Stakes
Trying to better understand and utilize blockers
Having tried to re-integrate myself into the poker world after years away, one big difference I've observed is an increased awareness of blockers. Pre-BF I can't really remember any discussions of blockers that went very far beyond using the nut flush blocker to make a bluff, or say AA to bluff on a QKJ board.
But having consumed a lot of newer material, there seems to be way more advanced thought on blockers, things that I for sure haven't heard of, at least up till now.
Anyway, had a couple notes on some PG vids I watched a while ago and would like to hear thoughts on the blocker usage.
Hand 1: PG has JTT2hh on an 88J5dd board. He mentions how having the J blocks villain's JJ and J8. Now I definitely get how JTT2 literally is its own blocker to the J, especially with having TT remove some TJxx type hands as well. But I'm not quite getting how we can also say that having the J blocker also extends to blocking J8. (beyond that they're semi-connected?)
Hand 2: PG has AAKT on a 68T6r board. Similar to the other hand, PG mentions how having the T here blocks TT and T6. So, again the first I get but having the T extend to blocking T6 I'm unsure of.
So, any thoughts on what I'm missing here? Is there a good post on theory or math I can also check out, that helps show not just the correlation of having this T blocking the TT and the T6, but also its efficacy?
I want to be able to not just understand the concept, but also to confidently utilize this information in making decisions as well.
Thanks, guys
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As someone who may have a similar poker story (played a ton pre-BF, getting back into the game this year), I can remember some amount of emerging blocker talk on 2p2 back then but it's obviously a heuristic that's become way more common. Anyway...
H1: A jack being removed from the set of unknown cards makes any Jx combo less likely, including J8. But yes: JTT also makes for "proximity blockers" to an 8. Lots of the most playable (and therefore likely) combos with an 8 also have a J and/or T: JT98, for example.
H2: Similarly, having a T removed from villain's possible combos makes any Tx combo less likely.
Even though it's not PLO content (and even though I think blockers are even more relevant in PLO), I think you'd have a lot of this cleared up for you by going into the NLHE Learning Path and checking out the blocker videos there. If I'm remembering right, James Hudson's video on the subject is very clear.
Fun fact: I'm rewatching old High Stakes Poker episodes on YouTube—first of all: boy oh boy is there some bad play from huge name players—but anyway: while I'm forgetting the details (I often watch just before bed, so I tend to be quite sleepy), there was a hand in Season 1 (2006) in which it seemed like maybe someone was making a big bluff with blockers to a straight. So I'm actually very curious about the history of using blockers/combinatorics to make decisions.
Thanks for the vid suggestion, will check it out when I can.
But yeah I get proximity blockers and have made it a point lately to think them through more often. But that's easier because it makes more instinctual sense to me than T6, which are further apart from each other. Or say having one ace in hand blocking A4 or A6 on an A46 board in another hand I watched.
Any thoughts on the efficacy of utilizing blockers though? I took some time to learn 2-7 TD and one of the things I learned was drawing and tossing a few relevant blockers is worth about 3% equity per card.
Suggested video aside, I'm basically wondering if there's something more technical to lean on when studying blockers, or if it's all more of an instinct thing.
nhx I think that once you review the Hudson video, it'll all become a lot clearer.
It's really just about the fact that we have incomplete information in poker and how the information we do have affects the combinations our opponents can possibly have, given the finite deck of cards.
And re: the technical/instinctual question... in NLHE, it's relatively practical to think through how a blocker in your hand affects your opponent's concrete number of combos that are relevant in a given situation. (I don't strictly do this personally, but I'm also not really studying or playing NLHE at a level that demands that I do it.)
In PLO, it's harder to calculate things so concretely in real time given the two additional cards (and thus far greater number of possible combos). For example, there are way more combos of AA(xx) in PLO than the maximum of 6 AA combos that are possible in in NLHE.
There may be people who can run through the math mentally while they play PLO (however roughly), but I'm definitely not one of them. So, as far as I can tell, blockers in PLO therefore tend to be a somewhat more abstract heuristic than in NLHE (though, because we have twice as much information than in NLHE, they can also be more accurate and effective in other ways).
I use the excel form I have created to see the effect via combinatorics.
Basically blockers will reduce the combos that villain could have the hand that you are afraid. However as you see here the effect is not that great and flop texture affects more than possible blockers.
For JT9 UTG opener is more likely to have straight even if you had QQ blockers than he is to 654 when you have 0 blockers.
But by using blockers you can automatically balance your bluffing frequencies and choose the most profitable spots. Many other factors will determine bluff profitability much more than single blocker.
Here is one example when we have two blockers and want to know the odds that one opponent would have nuts.
This is pretty old-school and not as accurate as using pokerjuice, but actually using excel is much quicker!
So if I know that with blockers one villain has nuts only once in 7.6 times, I can happily 2-barrel pots if I think that they fold everything else but nuts. By knowing this I also know that 3-barreling OOP against somebody who always calls with nuts is catastrophy 3-way, but not actually bad 2-way (because they float with more hands which they would then give up)
Thanks, guys, you have really provided a lot to think about.
Awesome spreadsheet as well, Megagrinder!
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