Gandalf

Its often a thing of having several (subconscious) goals ur optimizing towards, that are cutting into each others EV, making ur total strategy EV suffer.

I have this goal of moving up in stakes but simultaneously trying to stay/fly under the radar in terms of tax due to the unclear legal status of poker over here.

It de-incentivizes me from growing my roll in terms of moving up and maximizing money and I guess growth period, cuz (incoming limiting belief:):

More money mo problems yooo. Succes leads to visibility. Visibility leads to legal problems.

Its not completely grabbed from the sky also, I've seen it upclose. I had a buddy of mine get completely fucked for 500k by the taxoffice. I also lost 30k in 24hrs from which I still suffer risk aversion.

I really like what u said:

You cant trick the mind perceiving benefit, it will always go in the direction of where it perceives the most benefit.

Additionally, there usually trade-offs in perceiving benefit:

intermittent reinforcement increases persistence

I guess Nick sums it up for me too:

"What u got is shit bro".

Ps. Thanks for doing this ArizonaBay.

Yes, so thats what I am trying to point out. I am not arguing that blocker effects have the same EV, Im saying: because the value of our blockers differs alot due to RvRi, shouldnt we quantify more how big that blocker effect is in every spot IF we place so much emphasis on it in terms of swinging close decisions into one or another direction?

Ben I think even u said urself in a video lately that the blockersgame works alot better in PLO and that NLH is so much more of a handreading game.

Doesn't this notion discourage u somewhat of emphasizing blockers to hinge close (mixed) decisions on?

I get that blockers are a good randomizer/frequency controller but nuancing that value seems really necessary if we know that villains are not holding up their end of the equilibrium strategypair.

So do u have a ballparknumber to assign in terms of EV-increase due to ur blockers? I guess it depends on the specific blockers (Ax i.e.) and the cardremoval effect on the range... Its not clear to me why u always have blockers in the forefront, in terms of high priority considerations without really quantifying that effect (out loud)... Could u elaborate on ur process? Or give a hint? Thank you for doing this.

U seem to always hinge ur (close) decisions on cardremoval, I was wondering if u assign some value to that blockingeffect in terms of equity? If so, how much?

So agree, dealing with this level of solver complexity its impossible to include all the input-sensitive disparity of EV pathways into a simplified language model. Therefore the solution seems to emerge from taking necessary first steps of pruning gametrees in a way that honors simplification vs EV loss trade-offs and then conceptualize the take-aways into a keyword that hits the essence.

Eloquent writings, great job!

In terms of hands that u could raise, it would be more in the category of sets (really strong hands) and flush(draws).

Good luck!

I really like John Daly's stuff as well, nice one!

I'll start off...

Elite:
Coach: Nick Howard
Video: Contextual Mapping

Essential:
Coach: Apotheosis
Video: How Shortstacks Impact Shoving Ranges

Thank you coaches for going next level!

what are u referring to? link?

Clarify intention. It could very well be (assumptions, assumptions) that things have changed, take a step back and try to gauge what ur overarching direction might be.

W/reg to study before play, I dont really do this, you cant learn something right before, it creates doubt imho. I would just right down some in-game goals the night before bed, and then read them before session.

You can do the 30 sec exercise Nick Howard does on river decisions.

2 things:

1) vlog topic: on the mental game of moving up

2) is there a way in RIO functionality to have the latest threadposts at the top? Its annoying to have to scroll through 500 posts everytime..

3) happy newyear!

Great vid again Ben! Always admirable to see you jumping in vs the best players.
19:00 would you ever consider X/R AJo on this board on the turn? What would you do with AK/AQ in this spot?

It is an incorrect approach to take action numbers from raw Pio sims and apply them in comparison to mass DB analysis unless one nodelocks the Pio sims to match mass DB tendencies and then max exploits those tendencies to elicit the proper exploitative response.

W/reg to what IamIndifferent said, I was wondering this too.

As I see it u do this:
1) Gain vision by MDA
2) Run the MFA's and compare them to MDA
3) Figure out exploits

I was wondering what exploits u delve into, are they minimal exploitive strategies or max exploitive? I guess ur answer will be, Its prolly overassumptive to be unexpoitable after the exploit nodelocking?

Do you go in-depth on the type of exploits and if so which pack show(s) this? In Pio Unlocked/Nightvision?

This blog has healing powers, thank you Nick.

Here is at least one person who is very much struggling with this exact, exact point. I hear you loud and clear. Thanks for this great way of expression.

Chris Im glad ur gonna be here for longer cause ur mtt content is absolutely elite!

Maybe a theory vid on icm effects postflop. MTT deviations from pio strategies w reg to betsizing, defense frequencies.

15bb is more like 44+ jam as far as pp goes. Opening serves no purpose whatsoever.

RNG=range
IR= initial raiser
(in my book:))

For starters have a pf iso-range that is not only weighted to AK, QQ+ so our boardcoverage postflop is better.

A higher quality heuristic to use here imo is:

Is the EVjam AT>EVcall AT? Rather than extrapolating on the bluff/valuebet model.

Being the player Mustafa is, he prolly came to an intuitive conclusion in-game not by using a discrete analysis in the moment.

However if u break it down after the fact using rational assumptions:

• Mustafa is way less capped than villain at this exact decision node given villain(s) lines and RNG construction(s). SB+MP CC range is suited BW/midpair happy so 9Tx creates alot of straightdraws for villains that will continue vs a CB, therefore incentivizing IR to CB flop w 87s/TT/99/66. TT should be the least incentivized to bet of the sets due 2 TP CR reasons.
  AT blocks TT so facing a non-CB when holding AT reduces the weight of TT in IR flop check-back range.
• He should be able to also aggressively reduce KJ combo's from IR's range cause:
  1) KJo not being in his range for all 12 combos (too wide fr) and
  2) 4 suited KJ combo's cbetting flop at some mixed frequency w 2OC+BDSD/BDFD.

Given the sequence of events, basically non-aggressive lines from both IR and MP, it increases the likelyhood OTR of IR being at a rangepart that excludes nuthands incentivizing SB to apply pressure.

Therefore he might think his EV of shoving is even higher than EV of flatting even with AT under the assumption that villain is folding fullrange. Basically going even as far as folding Qx (KJs).

Wether this is true is dependent on the weight of Qx (or to a lesser degree KJs) in villains river starting distribution in the first place (AT blocks AQ) and the calling frequency of these hands vs a jam.

A video on mtt adjustments to Pio, due to the fact that Pio approximates in cEV, so no chip-non linearity effects are included in solutions.

Ez check emphasize getting to showdown with ur equity. Protecting equity is usually better on later streets (at this stacksize) under the condition that ur opponent is continuing his check-mode.

O yeah postflop: bet flop on the smaller side to fold out rangeparts. As played, I would fold river just on the merit that I think the population is to valueheavy here. The real problem however is how u constructed ur ranges on earlier streets and how that snowballs into your river starting range. Imo.

U dont give any reason for re-opening the action last to act in the BB with a hand as in the middle as pocket 66. If this is ur normal gameplan with these rangeparts (medium pocketpairs) than I would say that at minimum its very unconventional. In short, flatting is awesome here, its better than raising given ur in bb closing the action, ur 30bb stacksize, flatting keeps pot small and SPR higher and thats good for these rangeparts. If u were to raise u should jam, but because hes raising EP this is usually to loose, but this mediumsized raise is the worst option cause it doesnt get enough folds, so u find urself alot in a spot OOP in an inflated pot with small SPR + a hand that pretty much plays the worst under these circumstances. Small pp's usually prefer a stacksize that u can jam preflop or a stacksize postflop that is deep enough where u can setmine. U should take the action that optimizes for these conditions hence u should flat>jam>raise bigger>current line.

Without going over the calcs, imo its hard to yield more EV from other options than jamming. 'Not being uncomfortable is optimizing for another reason than 'maximizing EV'

Cliff: Not all heuristics are created equal.

Your talking a lot about 'quick and dirty rules'. I agree that its not a big deal if they are not perfect. However, it is a big deal imo if they become too dirty.

I would argue that you should be careful with creating new 'narrative theory' by building on existing heuristics, cause they have a treshold for extrapolating on them. At that point your set of 'quick and dirty rules' gets to out of line with the fundamental properties of the game.

Theres a big difference in creating simplified rules that express the more useful takeaways of discrete theory and a having a collection of 'dirty rules' that can steer u in the wrong direction.

A good example imo is the difference in these 2 heuristics:

1) I bet for value,to bluff or for protection.

2) I bet cause I have a range advantage.

They are both 'dirty' in that they both solely hinge on showdown equity to assess the highest EV route, when in reality EV is a function of many more parameters like position, cardremoval effects, action frequencies, betsizing, stackdepth etc.

However there are qualitiative differences between these rules which makes one a better heuristic than the other in my opinion.

1) Is 'dirty' in the sense that it steers u in the wrong direction, because it trains u to see things from a single handview point. It also 'wrongly' compartementalizes equity in between some magical borders where in reality its just a continuum pre-river.

2) Is 'dirty' because its a simplification in that it compresses the concept that we are incentivized to apply pressure when our absolute/polarity of our equity is greater than villains range in a single word 'advantage'. However it does remind the in-game mind to approach a decisionnode from a range perspective. Thus, a higher theory concept is encapsulated in this rule, making it a better guideline.

All audibles u can find of Nassim Taleb I would suggest personally:)

Definitely not of that breed ;-)

I guess I recognize myself alot in this statement:

or guys who tend to think more with their mind and not with their heart. I really believe I could have benefited a ton in my 20s if someone took the time to explain this to me logically.

This population type, even more so than others, uses logical explanations to 'get it'.

Focus on the quality of those explanations, that self-narrative that seems to be most effective towards our goals, therefore seems highly beneficial to me.

I guess what I have stumbled upon alot myself is that its a double-edged sword; craving that logical explanation, but by seeking it and clarifying it, enhancing the tendency to think, think, think.

If we consider trust to be all about not thinking, not needing explanation (anymore). Its a weird paradox. Using thinking to (eventually) think less or not at all. In that sense it sorta trains my mind to not trust, love, let gooo, if that makes sense. And to the same degree, not thinking just doing is training to trust.