Happy Thanksgiving! I know I’m a few days late, but I do want to thank all of my readers, especially those of you who read and comment regularly. I generally enjoy blogging and am pretty sure that reviewing my thought processes publicly is helpful to my bottom line as well. Still, for an egomaniac like me, it’s very rewarding to know that I am not just writing into the void but that there are people who enjoy reading what I have to say, who find it helpful, and who take the time to offer their own thoughts, questions, and disagreements.
My latest article for 2+2 Magazine, Relative Hand Strength, is a small token of my appreciation. In my opinion, the subject matter is among the most advanced that I’ve ever made widely available for free (i.e. to folks who are not students of mine or members of Poker Savvy Plus). It’s a concept that even some high-stakes players don’t fully grasp, yet something that even small stakes players would do well to consider at the table:
“You won’t always be able to calculate your equity with such precision, but there are three key points to take away from this example that will help you with real-time decision-making. The first is that there is a lot of value in dominating the portion of your opponent’s range that is “drawing”….
The second point is that having outs vs. the “made” portion of your opponent’s range is important….
The third point is that, when there’s money behind, you want to have good implied odds on later streets.”
Hope you find it helpful, and as always, please let me know if you have any questions or objections.
Great article. As you know this is something I’ve been working on recently, so I really enjoyed reading it.
If I understand the term correctly, I think you’re only covering like one half of the topic. The other half would be making value bets with weak hands in an absolute sense that are strong in a specific situation, usually because of villain’s action so far in the hand. I guess this is mostly covered when talking about thin value bets, but it’s also based on relative hand strength.
I’m covering way less than half the topic. My goal was just to get people thinking about something many probably haven’t considered before, not to give a thorough analysis of the topic.
Great article. I’d thought about Hand 1 but not much about Hand 2. Is there any implication for how you play 44 in this spot? Would you ever flat and c/shove a blank turn? Your opponent did leave himself with a pretty crappy SPR, assuming he also started with 200bb…
Yeah, I deliberately simplified the options to make a point. Calling and looking for a blank turn is certainly an option when you have so much information about your opponent’s hand. Basically you are taking advantage of that information to make a better decision on a later street, after re-evaluating your equity. Balancing that can be tricky though….
I’ll join the others in saying great article. Thank you for sharing your thoughts on this (and other) topics. But I am a bit confused regarding Ex 2, perhaps you can explain where i’m going wrong? If you shove with A2 you will get called 75% of the time. 25% of the time the villain folds. So at the end of the hand your expected stack is: .75 * (.31*4015) + .25 * (2000+400+40+15) = 1547
But folding to his raise on the flop leaves your stack at 2000-40-95=1865
So isn’t shoving just bad(given what you think about his range)?