DuckinDaDeck said
You make a lot of good points, and I have no illusions about this being a genius bluff, but I’m not entirely convinced that it isn’t my best option here.

I think my showdown value is somewhat irrelevant, as I expect villain to bet the majority of his hands that I beat, and he’s unlikely to give me a price I can call. I would be a lot happier checking a hand like K8 or Q3 because I’ll beat more of villain’s check-back range. As you mentioned I have reverse blockers and don’t block any nutty hands, but my 8 has some blocker value. I don’t mind villain having less Q8/87/98. My targets were queens and better 8s, and although I think ‘betting because I don’t want to be bluffed’ is a terrible reason on its own, it probably adds some value to spots like this against strong aggressive players.

I’m not sure if you meant you don’t like bet/ check-call/ jam, but I use bet/ check/ big bet for value a lot, partly because many players perceive it as overly bluffy. Villain and I have tangled enough times that I think he’s less likely to perceive it that way, but hard to say. I don’t have a ton of spades in my preflop range, but hands like 95,73,54 are all there. The ~20% I mentioned is strong hands that can raise-call (or 4bet) and Q3-Q2,J4-J2,T5-T2,95-93,84-83,74-73,64-63,54-52,43-42 suited (6.64%) that I don’t want to limp-call with. I don’t have any weak offsuit Aces in my preflop range, so can’t bluff with those, but A7/A5 are there and probably take this exact line.

Not sure how often hands like 86/85/76/75/65 call flop and bet turn, so probably doesn’t make a huge difference, but do you expect villain to hero call their weaker 2 pairs? I think I would be hating life in villain’s shoes, but calling at least some of the time against a player I respect.

Granted, I don’t have a lot of combos that would take the bet/ check /jam line, but if I’m shoving any flush and any 9 here (which I probably am) I don’t think I’m necessarily value-starved in this situation. I don’t want this to sound like “my bluff was great and you can’t tell me otherwise” (that’s the opposite of what I try to post about), but does my reasoning here make the bluff sound better, or am I fooling myself?

 

EDIT: Realizing that I probably can’t shove any 9 for value if I think villain is folding many 2 pairs, and I probably can’t make this bluff profitably if villain never folds 2 pair, so I will need to give this spot some more thought. **** I love poker, so much complicated, so much wow 😀  

Don’t worry, you’re not coming across as overly stubborn or anything. I think the big issue here really is whether you think villain is folding 2pair to the jam or not, as you’ve identified – if you do, then it makes this play good, but it also makes playing all flushes and 9x this way pretty bad.

Ultimately I think the decision you need to make is, am I trying to stay balanced because I expect this opponent to make good decisions, or am I trying to exploit the mistakes I think this opponent is making? If it’s the former, you benefit from simplifying your strategy and not trying to have both a jamming and a checking range on this river.

If it’s the latter, then there’s no reason to justify the river shove by figuring out which value hands you would also play this way – if you’re playing exploitatively, all that matters is what villain thinks you might play this way. My biggest concern is it’s just not that easy for villain to think you have a flush or a straight here, and thus I’m not convinced it’s a great spot to be exploitatively over-bluffing.

FWIW, I also think your preflop strategy is overly complicated. The inherent EV gains from having a split-range approach to playing the SB are extremely marginal (even though your approach seems well-constructed in itself), and it seems like the ambiguity it creates over whether or not certain combos are in your range postflop is throwing you for a loop somewhat.

I think a straightforward limp-or-fold strategy and a straightforward raise-or-fold strategy are both viable here, but the more you try to cover all bases, the more difficult you make it for yourself. Constructing the perfect blueprint strategy is much less important than executing your chosen strategy correctly.

The better your opponents, the more important it is that you keep your approach simple and repeatable. It seems like you’re doing the opposite here, and levelling yourself into overly-complex or tricky plays.

DuckinDaDeck said

theginger45 said
Ultimately I think the decision you need to make is, am I trying to stay balanced because I expect this opponent to make good decisions, or am I trying to exploit the mistakes I think this opponent is making? If it’s the former, you benefit from simplifying your strategy and not trying to have both a jamming and a checking range on this river.

I’m definitely not good enough to play exploitative poker against this player, although I think he probably has some of the common midstakes online grinder leaks. Definitely playing certain spots too aggressively, and probably slightly over-folding to large bets. I haven’t put in enough work to start going after players like this. In general I just try my best not to have obvious leaks which he can exploit.

That being said, my main reason that motivated bluffing here was the chip stacks. Villain can fold and still be almost tied for chip lead, but if he calls and loses he is suddenly a distant 3rd. I don’t expect very good players to make ultra tight folds, but it may be enough pressure that his bluffcatching range gets tighter. I’m still not sure how much I should be trying to get away with, but I find most of my opponents are too focused on ICM. Without a chip lead, they don’t bluff enough on final tables. They also seem not to bluff-catch nearly as often as they would in the rest of the tournament.

When everyone else is wearing green, I want to be the weirdo wearing red.

theginger45 said
FWIW, I also think your preflop strategy is overly complicated. The inherent EV gains from having a split-range approach to playing the SB are extremely marginal (even though your approach seems well-constructed in itself), and it seems like the ambiguity it creates over whether or not certain combos are in your range postflop is throwing you for a loop somewhat.

I think a straightforward limp-or-fold strategy and a straightforward raise-or-fold strategy are both viable here, but the more you try to cover all bases, the more difficult you make it for yourself. Constructing the perfect blueprint strategy is much less important than executing your chosen strategy correctly.

The small blind is the one seat that I’ve put the most work into recently. I’m curious where you see confusion in my ranges. I’m not saying it doesn’t exist (and I definitely break down on rivers) but, at least in terms of preflop and flop, my small blind opening play is more comfortable and repeatable than any other position. I raise 62 – 44% (by stack) and limp very little as a standard, and I’ll use the raise 20 / limp 60 split against strong regs (and super-aggro bad players). I’ll adjust against players as I develop reads (or in very specific situations), and that definitely can lead to some confusion, but I’m getting better at that with practice.

I hear what you’re saying about the merits of simplicity, but I’m not really capable of thinking that way. In pretty much every thing I do, I’ve always been the person that over-complicates everything. I’m not really sure how to explain what I mean, but I seem to only get motivated to learn when I can try everything and look for new ways of doing things. It definitely leads to some weird spots, in poker and in life, but its kind of the only way I know how to function.  

I want to pick out a few specific things to try to keep it concise:

1. The assertion that you’re “not good enough to play exploitative poker against this player” doesn’t match up with the assertion that current chip stack distribution is going to grant you exploitative opportunities against this player based on your reads of the common MTT player pool’s tendencies.

2. I think you need to separate the concept of how the Nash equilibrium changes when ICM factors are entered into consideration, from the concept of your how your opponents are playing relative to Nash – it’s very possible that the current stack size distribution does incentivize you to play differently here, but you need to be clear on whether you’re doing that because of a mistake your opponents are making, or because you think that this constitutes the new Nash equilibrium when ICM is factored in. As it stands, you’re identifying that your opponents are folding more, but you seem unclear as to whether that’s an exploitable leak on their part, or simply a response to the ICM factors of the situation.

3. I don’t see confusion in the ranges themselves, I see confusion in your understanding of whether you’re trying to play optimally or whether you’re exploiting your opponents. Can you explain how you’ve established that adding complexity to your strategy against stronger regs is +EV in relative terms? If you’re doing this in an attempt to get closer to optimal play to avoid being exploited by better players, your goal should be to condense the game tree, not expand it.

There are only two reasons it makes sense to have a ‘standard’ framework and then deviate specifically against strong regs:

a) The standard framework is a baseline, pseudo-GTO approach and the deviation is an exploitative adjustment to the weaknesses of these regs

b) The standard framework is an exploitative adjustment to player pool tendencies, and the deviation is an attempt to revert closer towards a pseudo-GTO strategy

If you’re using a) as your reasoning, it makes no sense, because stronger regs have fewer weaknesses to exploit. If you’re using b), then your decision to deviate into a more complex strategy is likely to be a mistake, because there’s simply no way that your ability to execute a less exploitable strategy can get better as the game tree becomes more complex. The fewer decision points there are on the game tree, the greater your capacity for optimizing the way you play each point on the tree relative to Nash.

4. Recognize that the paradigm of over-complication is one that you’ve chosen for yourself. The human brain is inherently predisposed towards simplicity – we prefer to think of things in binary terms wherever possible. This means that there isn’t really any such thing as a person who doesn’t respond well to simplicity – just someone who doesn’t respond well to the idea of simplicity, because it carries connotations that don’t sound favorable to them.

Consider whether some factor or another is causing you to resist the idea of simplicity. Perhaps even more importantly, consider the question, “what is the inherent value in wearing red when everyone else is wearing green?” I think these two concepts are related, and I think it’s possible that your desire to employ a complex strategy that is different from others’ is interfering with your ability to identify the spots in which such a strategy is actually incentivized.

Just some food for thought. 

You’re welcome! Glad I was able to provide some insight.

joelshitshow said
From a clinical psychology perspective this is brilliant. Especially: This means that there isn’t really any such thing as a person who doesn’t respond well to simplicity – just someone who doesn’t respond well to the idea of simplicity, because it carries connotations that don’t sound favorable to them.

I’ve been focusing on my mental game the past 2 years because knowing the right thing to do doesn’t matter if I don’t want to do it. Complexity for the sake of complexity: Who needs it, right?  

I’m glad you find it valuable. In many cases, the hardest part of improving at poker can be moving our egos out of the way, and recognizing that it’s more important to play better than to feel smarter.