Bluffing and Game Theory

One of my main goals was to spend at least 25% of my poker time studying.  I knocked that one out of the park.  I'm exceeding 25% almost every week.  So far this week I'm at 33%.

It's paying off. I've run up a bankroll on a poker site from $34 to $220 without making a deposit, just grinding it up, starting with $1 tournaments.

One of my biggest leaks has been bluffing.  When I study, I'm plugging leaks.  I often pick an area where I'm weak and concentrate on it for about a month.  Bluffing is my big study topic for September. My study text is Bluffs: How to Intelligently Apply Aggression to Increase Your Profits from Poker, by Jonathan Little and Albert Hart.

I'm slowly getting some of the many new ideas to stick in my head.  I'll be digging into a lot of fairly complex math.  We're not talking theoretical physics here, it's an algebra problem with a lot of variables.  Understanding the math concepts, then learning how to do it myself, and finally applying it at the table, will definitely take a while, probably running over into next month.

One of the most complicated things, one that I've been putting of forever, is building a range.  The top players don't think about "my hand" against "his hand."  They think about their range against the opponent's range. It's a difficult topic that gets into GTO (Game Theory Optimal) concepts.  I understand the concept in broad strokes, but not well enough to explain it, so I'll let Jonathan Little do it for me.  Here is a paragraph from his teaching on this subject:

"Whenever you have multiple options, if you take different lines with various hands, you split your range. In order to be difficult to play against, you should play different types of hands in the exact same manner. For example, after the flop you should often bet or raise with your best made hands as well as your draws. By playing your best made hands and semi-bluffs the same manner, your opponent will have no idea whether you are value betting or bluffing, forcing them into a guessing game."

https://medium.com/@JonathanLittle_99428/5-ways-to-stop-losing-or-breaking-even-at-poker-cfdfd9db1928

In one of my tournaments tonight I will try out the ranges on Little's charts (scroll down the linked page to the charts with the red and white squares) to find out how comfortable I will be playing such wide ranges.  Like the work on bluffing, it will take some time.

The letters and numbers are shorthand for the cards, for example, AQs is ace-king suited and 85o stands for ace-five offsuit.

As always, questions and comments are welcome.



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