Strategy vs Loose player… (1 Viewer)

[kirchhausen]

Full disclaimer:

I know nothing about GTO
I am bad at poker
Come at me in poker with math and I'll show you the sunken place.


But with that said, the real secret to winning against a LAG villain is.......

1) Not bluffing into a Lag that cant fold
2) Check raising with the nuts
3) Fold more pre. Never get involved in a land war in Asia, never go against a Sicilian when death is on the line, and never try to out-lag your laggiest villains.

 

[grebe]

Wanted some strategies you find best vs this player at my game… hes not quite a LAG player tho. So he plays a very wide range pre flop, he will call extremely wide with any draw post flop and he just seems to always get there on the turn or river. As far as GTO he’s horrible but he just seems to have all the luck on his side that rewards him for calling anything and always getting there. Now he can make folds if he has to he just plays way loser than GTO strategy would suggest
What is the preferred strategy vs this player? I hate to just way up my sizing and make him fold his garbage and lose value but i almost have to or he seems to always suck out if i dont

Easiest guy in the world to play against.

Bet for value (meaning you want him to call). Bet as much as he is willing to call. Only do this with good hands....like damn near any pair.

Also, get out of your head that he has "luck on his side". That's not a real thing. He just plays a lot of drawing hands and is probably accidentally getting good odds to do so. Make him pay to draw against you by betting and bet big.

In general, only come in for a raise. Do so with good to great hands only. If you don't feel comfortable raising with your hand, you should fold. If there are multiple people limping in ahead of you, raise BIG. When the flop favors you, bet. When the flop favors them, check.

 

[xdukeluvax]

Are you sure you get this?

In fact, things don't "swing back". Probability isn't affected by what's happened in the past. Things are even in the long run, but they don't "even out" - you can expect that in the next 10,000 coin tosses there will be 5,000 heads and 5,000 tails, but if you start with a run of ten heads you can't expect that there will be only 4,990 heads afterwards in order to "even out" the first several tosses.


The most likely explanation is that you are drastically overestimating how often he hits versus what his actual odds are. This is natural. Humans are terrible at estimating probabilities and observing frequencies. Absolutely terrible at it. It's not just you, it's everyone. It's actually part of how our brains are hardwired, because there is an evolutionary advantage from selectively applying attention.

Another possibility is that he's cheating.


This once again makes me think that you don't really understand probability. Luck plays no part in poker, and there's no strategy to use against people who are lucky.

that doesnt really make sense.... of course things swing back. if we play for the next 3 years im sure he will run bad for a stent similarly to how he ran hot. sure there wouldnt be EXACTLY 4990 heads at the end but it would be very close to 50/50 at the end. isnt that why every pro says prepare for the big up swings and big down swings?
i run hands into equity calculators all the time so i know the equity im dealing with. last tournament we played after i posted the thread i had a huge chip lead and we went all in 4 times and he won every time and i was ahead every time. sure it wasnt %90/%10 but i was the favorite getting it in good.

i was just posting my situation and asking how people exploit players like my friend while also venting a little which people did but now its just people telling me i dont understand math lol.

 

[xdukeluvax]

Easiest guy in the world to play against.

Bet for value (meaning you want him to call). Bet as much as he is willing to call. Only do this with good hands....like damn near any pair.

Also, get out of your head that he has "luck on his side". That's not a real thing. He just plays a lot of drawing hands and is probably accidentally getting good odds to do so. Make him pay to draw against you by betting and bet big.

In general, only come in for a raise. Do so with good to great hands only. If you don't feel comfortable raising with your hand, you should fold. If there are multiple people limping in ahead of you, raise BIG. When the flop favors you, bet. When the flop favors them, check.

yeah our last game i was upping my sizing a lot more than i was previously and it ended up working out quite well. i think previously i was getting caught on GTO bet sizing. thats another struggle im having is like GTO doesnt apply all that much in my games because everyone is bigginerish level who only think about the 2 cards in their hand so if GTO strategy isn't the play vs low stakes what exactly do i study to improve?

 

[JustinInMN]

i think previously i was getting caught on GTO bet sizing.

GTO is a defensive strategy to prevent yourself from being read by players that know what they are doing. It is less profitable against bad players where you would benefit from playing far more exploitively and not give anything up if the target won't protect himself against a heavy value betting strategy.

 

[Kentucky]

that doesnt really make sense.... of course things swing back.

Well kinda, but not really. The coin doesn’t know or care about what flips came before. So just because you had 1 head, or 10, or 100 in a row the next one is still 50/50. I’m sorry to say that yesterday’s suck out has no bearing on today’s game.
That’s different to saying from here forward I’d expect 50 heads from 100. And the next time you have Aces vs. a front door flush draw you still have a 60% chance to hold up, but by that doesn’t mean you will, or should win. Maybe run it twice, or three times!

In general, only come in for a raise. Do so with good to great hands only. If you don't feel comfortable raising with your hand, you should fold. When the flop favors you, bet. When the flop favors them, check.

^^ This is good advice that I try to remind myself of often.

i was just posting my situation and asking how people exploit players like my friend while also venting a little which people did but now its just people telling me i dont understand math lol.

Suck outs suck. You’ll get no argument here. Vent away friend. I feel your pain. Sorry about the math part.

 

[grebe]

yeah our last game i was upping my sizing a lot more than i was previously and it ended up working out quite well. i think previously i was getting caught on GTO bet sizing. thats another struggle im having is like GTO doesnt apply all that much in my games because everyone is bigginerish level who only think about the 2 cards in their hand so if GTO strategy isn't the play vs low stakes what exactly do i study to improve?

The thing that most people get caught up on with GTO is it is a way to play against other players that are playing similar to GTO or an unknown strategy. If you know how someone is going to play, then you should adjust away from GTO in order to exploit their tendencies. A couple examples....

You have a hand on a particular board that GTO says you should be betting for value 60% of the time and checking 40%. Your opponent is:
a) a calling station. He calls with way too wide of hands and pays off bets thinking that everybody is always trying to bluff him. In this case, you should bet for value 100% of the time. Yes, every time...not just a little more, all the time. Sometimes you will value own yourself, but you will more than make up for the value you gain by his tendencies. Also of note: never bluff this person.
b) a nit. This person shows up with good hands any time he calls. You should value bet the above 0% of the time. Sometimes you will win, but this player just isnt going to call enough to pay off your thin value hands. Not worth it, check all your hands that arent monsters down against him. Also of note: bluff this person constantly.

You can play this way against players until you notice they adjust to how you play against them....then you can either go back to GTO like strategies, or you can readjust to their new style. It's not very often that players change strategies in the long run though.

 

[xdukeluvax]

Well kinda, but not really. The coin doesn’t know or care about what flips came before. So just because you had 1 head, or 10, or 100 in a row the next one is still 50/50. I’m sorry to say that yesterday’s suck out has no bearing on today’s game.
That’s different to saying from here forward I’d expect 50 heads from 100. And the next time you have Aces vs. a front door flush draw you still have a 60% chance to hold up, but by that doesn’t mean you will, or should win. Maybe run it twice, or three times!


^^ This is good advice that I try to remind myself of often.

Suck outs suck. You’ll get no argument here. Vent away friend. I feel your pain. Sorry about the math part.

Technically youre kinda right but when you look at statistics the more heads in a row that hit statistically tails has a higher chance of hitting which is of course true because odds are low either one would hit 10 in a row. Yes its an individual flip each time but there are statistics at play for things to even out roughly. I remember studying statistics before i ever played roulette lol.

 

[JustinInMN]

Technically youre kinda right but when you look at statistics the more heads in a row that hit statistically tails has a higher chance of hitting which is of course true because odds are low either one would hit 10 in a row. Yes its an individual flip each time but there are statistics at play for things to even out roughly. I remember studying statistics before i ever played roulette lol.

Things will likely head toward "leveling out" but you can never predict when, how quickly, or how precisely that leveling will be. Which is why the whole concept of numbers (or cards) "being due" is a flawed concept. Back to the coin, yes you would expect 50 out of 100 heads on average. But it would actually be pretty unusual to get exactly 50 heads out of 100 flips. If you start with 10 tails, it becomes fairly unlikely to get to 50 heads. You will probably get around 45 heads. You probably will not get 10 tails in a row again, but it's just as possible as the first 10 tails.

All our randomization devices have no memory. We only see stats in the rearview mirror. In poker, it means it's someone else's job to worry about randomness, the player's job is to make the best decision the most often.

 

[DrStrange]

Seeing a run of "heads" does not make the next coin toss more likely to be "heads" or "tails". The chances remain 50/50 no matter the history. Assuming the coin toss is fair. Regression to the mean doesn't somehow allow a coin "remember" historical events and adjust the chances for future events.

 

[MatB]

Maybe this will be the outlier and you’ll never get back to winning against villain

You’ll be flipping and getting tails for the next 5 years.

 

[MatB]

Seeing a run of "heads" does not make the next coin toss more likely to be "heads" or "tails". The chances remain 50/50 no matter the history. Assuming the coin toss is fair. Regression to the mean doesn't somehow allow a coin "remember" historical events and adjust the chances for future events.

I remember a disagreement with a friend who thought it was insane that people rush to buy a lottery ticket at a gas station that just paid out a big winner.
He thought that they were insane because the chances it hits there again are even more extreme.
I tried in vain to explain that the gas station has same chance of hitting again as every other gas station. No more no less. And the people are still insane for that reason alone

 

[RainmanTrail]

Folding when you're beat helps more than anything else

 

[MatB]

Folding when you're beat helps more than anything else

Hoping they don’t have a better hand, but in your gut you know they do.
And you call anyway.

Probably one of my biggest leaks in poker. More of a flood

 

[RainmanTrail]

Technically youre kinda right but when you look at statistics the more heads in a row that hit statistically tails has a higher chance of hitting which is of course true because odds are low either one would hit 10 in a row. Yes its an individual flip each time but there are statistics at play for things to even out roughly. I remember studying statistics before i ever played roulette lol.

I'm a statistician. No offense intended, but this is nonsense.

 

[CrazyEddie]

I'm a statistician.

How's your BB/hr ?

 

[RainmanTrail]

How's your BB/hr ?

21.26 BB/hr in a database of 358 hours of play, according to my Poker Bankroll Tracker app. Don't remember what it was back when I was playing professionally though. However, being a statistician doesn't really help nearly as much as one might think. It's useful, but reading players and studying game theory are far more important. I think my biggest edge in poker probably comes from knowing when to lay down big hands, not in knowing what the probability that my open-ended straight flush draw will hit is.

 

[grebe]

21.26 BB/hr in a database of 358 hours of play

boom.

 

[xdukeluvax]

I'm a statistician. No offense intended, but this is nonsense.

Well its what i read when studying odds. Not like I made it up. How is it nonsense tho in the sense that its less likely for a quarter to hit heads 100 tomes in a row than it is to be roughly 50/50 right? Sure every flip is a different flip i get that but yet the results end up close to even at the end of it. No?

 

[DrStrange]

If your coin comes up heads 100 times in a row, someone should legitimately suspect you are cheating.

But if somehow this happened with a normal coin, then the 101st flip is a 50/50 proposition no matter how one sided the previous run of results were.

People want to see patterns and trends. They see them all the time. Sometimes finding something legitimate, sometimes finding nothing useful at all,

 

[MatB]

I think people mistake the probability of it happening X times in a row, with the actual probability of each coin toss. (50/50)


'less likely to be heads 100 times in a row' is true but even if it made it to 59 times as all heads in a row. Number 60 is still 50/50 as to what it will be.

 

[RainmanTrail]

Well its what i read when studying odds. Not like I made it up. How is it nonsense tho in the sense that its less likely for a quarter to hit heads 100 tomes in a row than it is to be roughly 50/50 right? Sure every flip is a different flip i get that but yet the results end up close to even at the end of it. No?

You definitely did not read that in any statistics textbook or hear it from any statistics professor on the planet. Perhaps you misunderstood something you read about reversion to the mean? I don't know. But the odds of a fair coin flip coming up heads is always 50/50 regardless of whether it just landed on tails 10 times in a row or not. As @DrStrange said, "it has no memory". Reversion to the mean is a real thing, but you seem to be confused about what that means.

 

[RainmanTrail]

boom.

Win rates mean very little though without context. People like to compare win rates, but it doesn't really tell you much unless you are comparing two players playing in the same game with very large sample sizes (you need thousands of hours of play for the data to converge to your "true" win rate). Playing in soft games with no rake is not really comparable to playing in tough games with an uncapped rake and dealer tokes.

 

[xdukeluvax]

You definitely did not read that in any statistics textbook or hear it from any statistics professor on the planet. Perhaps you misunderstood something you read about reversion to the mean? I don't know. But the odds of a fair coin flip coming up heads is always 50/50 regardless of whether it just landed on tails 10 times in a row or not. As @DrStrange said, "it has no memory". Reversion to the mean is a real thing, but you seem to be confused about what that means.

What i read was actually exactly about flipping a coin and it said for each flip the odds are 50/50 but for each time the coin lands on the same side in a row the odds of hit hitting the other way increases by a certain % which did make sense since it usually does evenish out. So theres never any change in odds or equation for something like this considering we would expect it evens out in the long run. You would think some equation would calculate a change in odds if it leaned heavily in one direction for a short time. Saying its 50/50 and thats it seems a little to simple for what we end up seeing results wise but im just an idiot so what do I know

 

[tabletalker7]

What i read was actually exactly about flipping a coin and it said for each flip the odds are 50/50 but for each time the coin lands on the same side in a row the odds of hit hitting the other way increases by a certain % which did make sense since it usually does evenish out. So theres never any change in odds or equation for something like this considering we would expect it evens out in the long run. You would think some equation would calculate a change in odds if it leaned heavily in one direction for a short time. Saying its 50/50 and thats it seems a little to simple for what we end up seeing results wise but im just an idiot so what do I know

Alright let me get this straight here. You made this post looking for help. People here offer you the help you need. You tell them they are wrong and regurgitate the same theories that had you asking for help in the first place?!? Good luck dude (adding to blocked list now). You need it.

 

[RainmanTrail]

What i read was actually exactly about flipping a coin and it said for each flip the odds are 50/50 but for each time the coin lands on the same side in a row the odds of hit hitting the other way increases by a certain % which did make sense since it usually does evenish out. So theres never any change in odds or equation for something like this considering we would expect it evens out in the long run. You would think some equation would calculate a change in odds if it leaned heavily in one direction for a short time. Saying its 50/50 and thats it seems a little to simple for what we end up seeing results wise but im just an idiot so what do I know

You definitely misunderstood whatever it was you read if you thought you found that in a textbook. If you read that from some random post on an internet forum, then all bets are off. But I guarantee that you were not taught this from any credentialed academic institution.

Your own post doesn't even make sense. In one sentence you say the odds are 50/50 for any one flip. But in the next sentence, you say it's not. Both can't be true.

 

[DontKnowWhen]

I think (some) people are confusing the a priori expectation with the actual outcome.

Let's you and I play a game. You will flip a (fair) coin exactly 10 times and I win if it lands on heads all 10 times.

A priori (a statistics term meaning before the event or game has started) my chance (ie probability) of winning is exceedingly small. The exact probability can be calculated using the Binomial distribution (@RainmanTrail Help????).

After the first 9 trials the result has been all heads (itself a very unlikely outcome but here we are). My chance of winning the whole game is now 50% (i.e. the 10th and final coin flip is a 50/50 chance). However unlikely I am to be in this scenario to begin with, the next coin flip is independent of what preceded it. This holds true (obviously) for rolling a die (1/6), black or red in Roulette (making these tracking systems somewhat curious), or hitting my two outer on the river (~5%).

Would you have predicted I would have won before we started? Probably not. Would you bet with me for the final flip? Probably.

 

[ekricket]

but now its just people telling me i dont understand math lol.

You don’t seem to understand capitalization or punctuation

 

[upNdown]

Okay I am going to take a swing at filling in the gap that @CrazyEddie is trying to explain with an additional thought. This is one of the many great life lessons poker can teach. In this case, it is recognizing a human flaw to round probability off to 1 or 0. There is a difference between 80% and 100% even though I think most people interpret 80% as a near certainty when in truth it means there will be a miss for every 4 times it hits. And that miss is every bit as real as the 4 hits, even if it is outnumbered.

To your example, there is a big difference between 6% and zero by a similar token. That means roughly for every 16 times the outcome doesn't happen, it will happen once. And the one time it happens is every bit as real as the 16 it doesn't. Just because it's near zero, doesn't mean the chance no longer exists.

I think it's easy to forget the 16 times and take it for granted which makes it sting extra when the one time hits. The 16 times aren't memorable. These spots are players quietly calling bets to draw slim and folding without incident when they miss. It's usually unnoticed and taken for grated. But even if 1 time in 17 is rare, the one time is real, and it comes up, and it's far more noticed than the mundane 16 times the outcome hits.

I mentioned this recently somewhere else, but I'm going to keep posting it, because it's just rings so true to me and I'd never thought of it this way before. Bart Hanson explained this on his podcast recently:

When I get my AA all in for $100 against your KK, I'm 80% (roughly) to win. So yeah, I'm hoping and expecting to win every time, and when I do, I feel like that's justice; everything happened as it should. But what I'm ignoring is that my EV was only $80 there. When I win and get $100, I'm getting $20 more than EV - When my Aces hold, I'm finishing ahead of expected value - I'm getting lucky.

 

[xdukeluvax]

Alright let me get this straight here. You made this post looking for help. People here offer you the help you need. You tell them they are wrong and regurgitate the same theories that had you asking for help in the first place?!? Good luck dude (adding to blocked list now). You need it.

Hahahaha!! One little discussion about statistics as i try and work ideas out in my brain and you run off like a cry baby? Lolol yes please block me soy boy.