Calculating Bluff Equity And Breakeven Points

[Actuary 3]

Getting raised when we have a million outs isn't that bad though.Getting raised out of a pot where we have to fold our outs, is bad.You should be betting when you have more outs, more often.

But with less outs we need him to fold.Theres less reason to bet when we have more outs,.Until I have more time I'm just thinking off the top of my headAs seen in David's graphThe more outs we have the less often villain needs to fold; therefore the less outs we have the more we need him to fold.I'm still mad at myself for my botched EV equationI'm still not sure what I calculated and how it relates

[Zach6668 513]

I know Act, I hear that a lot, about betting with less outs.I tend to do the opposite though.Am I a trailblazer? lol

[Actuary 3]

I know Act, I hear that a lot, about betting with less outs.I tend to do the opposite though.Am I a trailblazer? lol

no..lolI think Wang agrees with you; but I'm not sureI think the "problem" is in the phrasing of the question and I am not saying I'm right...for sure...only that it's a mult-vector problem

[Shimmering Wang 1]

This was a super interesting exercise, but the original conditions did state there was no chance of getting raised, and no action to consider on the river. Rigid conditions need to be set to get good answers to a problem like this, however in real life there is that risk of being raised.

See, that's kinda not true. I set the problem up to limit the amount of math that had to be done to solve it, but you can add in all the other variables, too. We can easily set up a model where our opponent check-raises a third of the time, and then decide how often a bet has to win the pot right there. It's not hard.If the pot is 10BB and we win the pot 1/3 of the time, a bet "costs" us 1/3 of a BB every time he calls. Assume he check/raises half the time. In these instances, it costs us double, or 2/3 of a BB. So, our actual cost is: .5(2/3) + .5(1/3) = .5BBNow we can just plug .5BB in for cost instead of 1/3BB. 6 and 2/3 / .5 = 13 and 1/3. He folds the next time, so he has to fold 1/(14 and 1/3) times for a bet to be breakeven. Or a little less than 7% of the time. These things are very adaptable.

But with less outs we need him to fold.Theres less reason to bet when we have more outs,.Until I have more time I'm just thinking off the top of my headAs seen in David's graphThe more outs we have the less often villain needs to fold; therefore the less outs we have the more we need him to fold.I'm still mad at myself for my botched EV equationI'm still not sure what I calculated and how it relates

Well, I think if you set up an equity function, you'll find that when you own a larger portion of the pot (say, a full third), then a semibluff has less risk (because it's cheaper, and also must be successful less often to show a profit), but also has less reward (because you're earning a much smaller share of the pot, since a big part is yours already.)For example:Say the pot is 10BB on the turn, and our equity is 1/3. Like above, a bet costs us 1/3 of a BB, and must only be successful 1/21 times when he never check/raises. {Math: 1/ (6.666/.333 +1) }If we have no equity, on the other hand, he must fold 1/11 times. Let's assume he folds a full HALF of the time. When we're drawing very live with a full third of the deck on our side, and he folds half the time, we earn half of his share of the pot, or .5 x 6.66666. So we earn 3 1/3 BB.When we're drawing stone dead and he folds half the time, we earn HALF OF THE ENTIRE POT (because all of it is his and none of it is ours), or a full 5BB.So that's the rub. If you bet when you're drawing live, it's cheaper and more often earns you SOME profit, but if you bet when you're drawing dead it's much more expensive, but earns you much more profit each time it's successful.Ya heard? David, you should put together a graph that shows how earned equity increases when a bluff is more or less successful, depending on your number of outs. I'm not EXACTLY sure what I'm looking for.Let me babble a little...A graph which contains the variables: Opponent Fold Rate (total rate, not breakeven)Turn Pot Equity And then we need to be able to determine how this affects: Total Equity gained at each fold %age and Turn Equity %age. I think I could figure out how to do this, but I'd have to sit down in front of a whiteboard and just start drawing graphs and shit. You're much better suited for this than I am.Wang

[Shimmering Wang 1]

I guess what I was trying to say earlier is this:If your opponent is folding x% of the time (where x% is often enough to show a profit), it's more important to bet when drawing dead than it is to bet when you're drawing live. BOTH cases are profitable, but it's much more profitable when you're drawing dead.A corollary:An opponent must fold MUCH MORE OFTEN when we're drawing live to show the same Earn Rate (ie, increased equity) than when we're drawing dead. We show SOME profit when we semibluff with a lot of outs much more often, but the marginal returns for every extra fold are lesser compared to when we're drawing to fewer outs.Y'all heard?Wang

[Ouch-8s 4]

Well, I think if you set up an equity function, you'll find that when you own a larger portion of the pot (say, a full third), then a semibluff has less risk (because it's cheaper, and also must be successful less often to show a profit), but also has less reward (because you're earning a much smaller share of the pot, since a big part is yours already.)

but aren't you also increasing the size of the pot, making it harder for him to fold when you do hit and causing him to pay off when you make the (earlier agreed upon not to happen) value bets on later streets?

[Ouch-8s 4]

If your opponent is folding x% of the time (where x% is often enough to show a profit), it's more important to bet when drawing dead than it is to bet when you're drawing live. BOTH cases are profitable, but it's much more profitable when you're drawing dead.

ahhh

[Actuary 3]

Wang, you had me at "equity"so less outs, be more apt to bet the turn (I was on track)- .. and I'll guess the more we put him on a c/r the more we should CHECK with less outs. (like we say, check more vs tricky players)

[Shimmering Wang 1]

but aren't you also increasing the size of the pot, making it harder for him to fold when you do hit and causing him to pay off when you make the (earlier agreed upon not to happen) value bets on later streets?

Yeah. This is an added benefit of betting when getting called is -EV.If he's 25% more likely to call a river bet when we make a hand -- which we will do 1/3 of the time -- our turn bet improves our equity by .25 BB the 1/3 times we do get there. That's an equity boost of about .08BB, which we could really "write off" from the cost of the turn bet. So, instead of costing us 1/3 of a BB, it really costs us 1/3 - .08 = .25BBObviously this will affect our cost-benefit on a turn semibluff calculations (ie, the "how often does a turn bet have to win the pot to be successful?" question this thread is addressing). So now, instead of costing 1/3 BB everytime the turn goes bet/call, it REALLY costs .25BB. Which means we have to be successful with a turn semi-bluff even less often to break even or show a profit.But this is a very extreme and simple example, since we're still ignoring a lot of factors, like the likelihood of a check/raise, etc. Plus, increasing the size of the pot by 2BB on the turn rarely means we'll improve the odds of getting called on the river by a full 25%. It'll be much lower, and usually negligible.

Wang, you had me at "equity"so less outs, be more apt to bet the turn (I was on track)- .. and I'll guess the more we put him on a c/r the more we should CHECK with less outs. (like we say, check more vs tricky players)

Not necessarily. The only real issue is: "Is betting here +EV?" Doesn't matter HOW positive the EV is, really. If we show a quarter-bet EV boost by betting when we have a ton of outs, and a 2BB boost when we have few outs in the same situation, we should still bet in both cases. It's just that when we're semibluffing with a lot of outs, our opponent must fold much more often to show the SAME equity boost when compared to semibluffing with few outs. It's also likely that we're rarely going to LOSE equity by semibluffing the turn with a lot of outs (like when he only has to fold 6% of the time for us to break even), but we may find ourselves repeatedly betting the turn with 8 outers where we're getting called -- or raised -- and making bets that are long-term losers.WangPS- I'd like to add that this has easily been the strangest series of posts I've ever made in the LHE strat thread. Do any of you guys remember being this analytically solid in the past? I think quitting the booze has added like 15 IQ points. Since when did I get all... mathy and shit? Dig it? Betting may be

[Ouch-8s 4]

I think quitting the booze has added like 15 IQ points. Since when did I get all... mathy and shit? Dig it? Betting may be

Is this deliciously ironic?

[Shimmering Wang 1]

Is this deliciously ironic?

Flowers for Algernon.

[Ouch-8s 4]

Flowers for Algernon.

I love wikipedia

he learns 20 languages, reads books at one page per second, writes a piano concerto, and disproves the hypothesis of the experiment that he was the subject of, among other accomplishments

[SilverSeven 0]

Weird page 4 hijack to a vague "mad genius" reference...No, this thread delivers !Shimmering_Wang, Actuary & David_Nicoson <<< SilverSeven

[Zach6668 513]

Weird page 4 hijack to a vague "mad genius" reference...No, this thread delivers !Shimmering_Wang, Actuary & David_Nicoson >>> SilverSeven

FYP.

[Dirtydutch 8]

Interesting thread, Wang. I'd be lying if I said I didn't learn, laugh and love -- all here today.