Extremely hypothetical question (part 1)

Which do you think would improve your winrate most? Assume you're playing cash games, there's no chance of anyone catching you cheating etc.

(a) Being able to see all your opponents holecards from the outset of a hand.

(b) Being able to see all the board cards from the outset of a hand.

Thoughts? I'll post mine in a bit.

(Part 2 will follow)

To see all board cards. You can get a read on your opponent's hole cards but you can't get a read on what cards the dealer is going to put down.

combuboom said:

To see all board cards. You can get a read on your opponent's hole cards but you can't get a read on what cards the dealer is going to put down.

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Agreed...............

Plus so much depends on whether or not the board cooperates and matches what you have in your hand. AK suited looks great preflop; until the board flops 6 7 10 in another suit.

Hole cards of my opponents.. I get to see the board anyway. Once all the cards come from the flop, turn, and the river. I am going to know on any of those from the flop,turn, and the river exactly where I stand in the hand. The other way I have to guess at times where I stand..

Easiest example would be if I have A,K while opponent holds A,6 and he hits a 6 on the flop and I missed it. I then know when I do my continuation bet after the flop and he calls, I know I am behind then. No guess work.

To be able to see my opponents' holecards, and I don't think it's even close.

Knowing that I will "lose" a hand (e.g. there will be four to a flush on the river and my AK doesn't pair up anywhere) is not as useful as knowing exactly what my opponents hold. Knowing what the board will show can help us save some money preflop and on the flop, but knowing what our opponents hold can make us huge amounts on the turn and river. Check this out:

My opponent checkraises me all-in on the turn, when I have TPTK. Do I call? Knowing from the outset that the board will be A-T-8-7-2 means that I'm willing to play AK preflop, but how do I interpret the raise? Do I fold?

The bets are small on before and on the flop, and that's when knowing the board will be useful. The bets are big on the turn and river, and that's when knowing what my opponents hold will be useful.

For this reason only, I'd pick the holecards. Now, knowing the holecards also allows me to play a lot better before and on the flop. Never again will I call a preflop all-in with KK when my opponent has AA, etc. I will know exactly whether or not I'm the favourite or not. But that, compared to making correct decisions on the turn and river, is a bonus.

What type of cake?

But knowing what cards your opponent has is still going to leave you vulnerable to suck outs a great deal of the time. If you know every card that's going to come, you can practically eliminate suck outs. If you wanted to be so conservative, you could only play when you know you will end up with the near nuts or better (and this will be more often than you might think). If there's only a few hands that can even conceivably beat you and you have a read that your opponent could even possibly have one of them and it's too many chips to call, lay it down and wait until the next one.

With the right amount of patience, conservatism and common-sense reading ability, you would be completely unstoppable.

combuboom,

Waiting for the nuts or near-nuts is a safe strategy, but for the reasons I mentioned above, it's hardly the most profitable alternative.

In my example above, knowing that the board would be AT872 rainbow, would you fold AK preflop? If you decide to play it preflop, and then decide to continue on the flop, and then on the turn you get checkraised, there's a difference between option 1 and option 2: The person who sees the holecards knows what to do. The person who doesn't knows only one more thing: That the last card will be a deuce.

Being able to bluff, but never bluffed out, is so huge that the two options aren't, as I said, even close.

What's more, waiting for situations where you have the near nuts may be disappointing as well, since it's not in situations where you have the best hand that you win a lot of money; it's when you have a great hand and someone else has a good hand. You won't be able to know these situations before-hand.

If you're playing no-limit, the choice becomes even more clear. Rarely will you get stacked because you were on the wrong side of QQ on a preflop push. But what if you have KK and someone else goes all-in, and you know the flop will put T-9-4-4-5 on the table? Call or fold? I - who pick the holecards - will get to see the board at some point in the hand anyway, but you will not get to see the other person's holecards.

With the right amount of patience, conservatism and common-sense reading ability, you would be completely unstoppable.

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With the other option, you don't even need these three traits to be unstoppable. You just need to plug in all the hands into PokerStove, see if you're ahead, and bet. This way will lead to more swings than knowing what the board will show, but the difference in profit would be incredible.

Imagine not ever having to make a tough laydown again. Imagine knowing exactly how to best extract value from every marginal decision. Imagine being able to bluff with your 6-high hand knowing that the busted flush draw with j-high won't be able to call. And you can do this every hand.

I'll even say this: If I had the ability to see my opponent's holecards, I'd be having virtually a 100% VP$IP in limit hold 'em. I'd see almost any flop. The bets I lose preflop will be so easily made up for the bets I gain postflop.

Dorkus didn't specify that it was Hold 'em (suppose it could be Omaha as well), but the thing with Hold 'em is that 60% of the board will be defined after just one round of betting. So after one round of betting, I will - usually cheaply - have gotten 60% of the information, but simultaneously knowing exactly what my opponents have. And with three more betting rounds, that's a lot of money I can make.

Another example to show my point:

No limit hold 'em. Tight UTG raises 3xBB, one fold, tight MP re-raises the pot and it's up to you to decide if you should call. You check your magical machine, and it shows that the board will be A-K-J-4-4. Do you fold, call or raise?

FP sums it up pretty nicely. Just to expand on a point I was going to make...

F Paulsson said:

Dorkus didn't specify that it was Hold 'em (suppose it could be Omaha as well), but the thing with Hold 'em is that 60% of the board will be defined after just one round of betting. So after one round of betting, I will - usually cheaply - have gotten 60% of the information, but simultaneously knowing exactly what my opponents have. And with three more betting rounds, that's a lot of money I can make.

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This is exactly true. When you look at your average hold'em hand, when does most of the money go in? Post-flop, of course. Thus, you have at least 60% of the board cards in sight when you are faced with most tricky decisions. Combu, you refer to being able to 'read' your opponents holecards, are you ever able to read an opponent's holecards with anything approaching that level of accuracy?

The fact is, if you choose holecards, you will be making most big decisions with both your opponents holecards and at least 60% of the board cards in sight. This is far more valuable than if you choose board cards, and thus you are just able to see all the board cards whilst not knowing your opponents cards, as you will be faced with many fewer tough decisions in the vain of FP's examples.

I would suggest that anyone voting board cards needs to analyse their postflop play.

Incidentally, I meant hold'em, not Omaha. My head hurts even trying to think about what would be preferable for Omaha.

My mistake, actually. I re-read the first post and saw that DM's situation was referring to cash games and I was relating it to SnGs because that's what I play. Since tournaments more about survival and having the "sure thing" would seem to increase your success rate by a lot, I think I'd much rather know the boards.

But that being said, I still don't know if I'm convinced that knowing your opponents hole cards are more profitable in cash games. This is because knowing the turn and river cards will give you all sorts of opportunities to completely de-stack people on the flop!

Scenario: board is rainbow, with one club. You're holding two clubs and you know that the last two cards are going to complete your club flush without pairing the board. Every single time you're in this or any similar situation and your opponent has a good hand at the flop (possibly the nuts), you'll be able to completely ROB them with virtually no risk. The only time you'd be able to do this successfully when just knowing their hole cards are in situations where you already have a great hand, and your opponent has a very good hand that's not as good as yours. Guess what? You're generally going to kick ass in this situation whether you can see their hole cards or not.

So I suppose you might win more hands if you could see the other's cards, but I think the profit potential in seeing the board would be far greater, and I'd have to choose that ability.

Board for me. Pretty much the polar opposite of Freddy's point of view, but i also think the difference is more pronounced in No limit, but favouring the board side - knowing before hand how the hand will end, is much more of an advantage than knowing whether you are ahead at the beginning. You can bet the hands you know will end well for you and build the pots up, and keep the pots small when they wont - long term, i dont see the fact you wont know whether you've actually won as that much of a disadvatage, as you'd have firmly shifted the odds in your favour.

I disagree with Freddy's ascertation that the majority of betting is done in later rounds in NL - it's very rare someone will bet $50 into a $2 pot - you need to get the pot built up erly - that's when you'll get the $50 bets going in, into $20 pots.

its not even close. I would never lose money if I could see my opponet's holecards. never. ever.

Dingodaddy23 said:

its not even close. I would never lose money if I could see my opponet's holecards. never. ever.

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How could you "never" lose money? I dont get it?!

over the course of a session if you could see the holecards of your opponet it would very hard to end up with a net loss. Just think about it. You always know when to play back. You're never bluffing into a made hand. You're never paying off a draw. You know exactly when you can value bet against a 2nd best hand. You pretty much know how much you can value bet to get called because you know exactly how strong the other player is. You will never get bluffed out of a pot, you can make disgusting calls with middle pair or TPNK. Seriously tho, do you think you would ever lose money if you played with your opponets cards face up and they didnt know it?

Dingodaddy23 said:

its not even close. I would never lose money if I could see my opponet's holecards. never. ever.

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You mean the same way you never make a near perfect read on what your opponent is holding and he still manages to improbably suck out on you? I mean, I don't know about you, but that happens to me a little more than sometimes.

Dingodaddy23 said:

over the course of a session if you could see the holecards of your opponet it would very hard to end up with a net loss. Just think about it. You always know when to play back. You're never bluffing into a made hand. You're never paying off a draw. You know exactly when you can value bet against a 2nd best hand. You pretty much know how much you can value bet to get called because you know exactly how strong the other player is. You will never get bluffed out of a pot, you can make disgusting calls with middle pair or TPNK. Seriously tho, do you think you would ever lose money if you played with your opponets cards face up and they didnt know it?

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Too much effort. I'd liquidate as many assets as i could, buy a big 2 monitor set up, and multi table NL ring games with the "board" software. If i could see i made a hand on one of the games i'd bet it - if an opponent had a better hand and i lost, who cares, the next big hand will be along on another game soon, and i'd win there.

You've got the holecard reader instead - how are you going to use that? I think it would be more suited to limit - you know when you're ahead, can work out odds, but you dont need card reader software to know you're ahead a lot of the time, you can often tell when someone is on a draw. In No Limit, you're often putting the money in blind - OK you're ahead when it's in, but after that it's out of your control. And would you be playing a pair of 8's if you could see A5, KQ, J 10 showing? I'd rather know whether the 3rd 8 flopped, raise if it did,and move on to the next hand if it didn't. I agree you'd obviously lose a lot less hands knowing what your opponents started out with, but i think you'd make a lot more money (and more easily) if you just decided to lose a lot of hands, but build up the pots on hands you are likely to win at the end. After all, Poker isn't about how many hands you win, its about how much money you win, and winning 12 out of 20 big, pots, will win you more than winning 18 out of 20 small pots.

Going to make money either way. No since in arguing over which one is better, the are both good. However, I'm on the Atkin's diet and that cake option is looking pretty good.

I SMELL A DRUNK POST

I don't think that's what you're smelling.

Rob,

I'll concede that if you play no-limit, you can actually adjust your gamestyle to fit your improved knowledge better. In my post, I was thinking along the lines of playing the "ordinary" way despite knowing the board. But if you know you'll hit a powerful hand (trips and up, essentially) you could build a pot early on in the hand in a way that isn't possible in limit. Given how rare hands like trips-and-better are, I still don't think that this advantage is enough to outweigh knowing the other opponents' holecards, but I'll agree that it's more profitable than I first gave it credit for.

Edit: By "adjust your gamestyle" I'm talking about making larger bets early on in the hand. I disagree with Rob that you're often "putting in money blind" in NL. Very few hands - except AA vs. KK or similar - make entire stacks go in preflop or on the flop. For most of the bread-and-butter hands, the big money goes in on the turn and the river. But if you change the style to one where big bets are made early on, you'll catch up some.

The problem with knowing the board but not the holecards is that you're not in a position to extract maximum value out of marginal hands, and this is where the majority of the money moves back and forth. You still don't know what to do when you're checkraised on the turn with a one-pair hand, etc.

Anyway. Interesting hypothetical, Chris.

F Paulsson said:

Edit: By "adjust your gamestyle" I'm talking about making larger bets early on in the hand. I disagree with Rob that you're often "putting in money blind" in NL. Very few hands - except AA vs. KK or similar - make entire stacks go in preflop or on the flop. For most of the bread-and-butter hands, the big money goes in on the turn and the river. But if you change the style to one where big bets are made early on, you'll catch up some.

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If you're putting money in on the river able to see your opponenet hole cards (and by then of course, all of the board) then clearly you'll be folding all the hands you've lost and betting/ calling. reraising all the hands you've won, with 100% accuracy. If you're putting money in on the turn however, though you know you're 60/40, 65/35 ahead, you'd lose those bets when the river goes against you.

Obviously you're right that the majority of money is put in post flop in No limit, but the big pots - the 3 way pots, are the ones where the pot is built up to some extent preflop, with the flush/straight chasers being given irresistable odds to carry on. The hands where there is little pre-flop action and then a huge amount of post-flop action are few and far between, and in lots of cases you dont need to know your opponents hold cards anyway to know that you are ahead. And presumably you'd only be playing made hands on the turn - if you're drawing with correct odds, again you don't know whether you'd hit, and again, seeing your opponents cards is often irrelevent.

Of course you'd save yourself money by folding QQ's when opponents have AA to start, but if you could see the board and could see your QQ wasn't improving and there was a flush/overcards etc, you'd be folding these anyway. The big advantage of seeing the board over seeing the holecards is that you'd be playing the 9 2's that turn into full houses, the 10 5 suited that hit a flush - you'd be a total fish, with a big run of luck, and you'd get LOADS of action.

Shame we'll never know which one of us is right!

My 2 cents on this issue.

Poker is about mistakes. Either your mistakes or your opponents. There are several kinds of common mistakes:

Betting/raising when a check or fold is the best play.
Checking when you should bet/raise
Folding when you should call/raise
Calling when you should fold

If you could see your opponents hole cards you would never make a mistake. Could you get sucked out on and lose, of course, but the odds would always be in your favor.

You would never make a mistake and you would force opponents to make lots of mistakes. Long term you would clean up, especially in cash games.

Take a fairly common scenerio:

You are sitting on pocket Jacks in the big blind and a player moves all-in. What do you do? If you see all the board cards are Ac Kc 2C 7h 6d what do you do? Fold of course. What if you could see your opponents hole cards instead and see he had pocket 9's. What do you do then? Call as fast as you can. In the first case you made a mistake by folding the best hand. In the second you made an easy call that wins over 90% of the time.

I think alot of the arguments for seeing all the board cards are from people tired of getting sucked out on and it clouds their judgement.

If you see the other opponents hole cards you will always know where you stand. That is far superior than knowing you will hit top pair but not knowing if your opponent has a set or flush or straight.

Actually, I would like to see both the opponents hole cards and the board and have cake, but I'm greedy.

robwhufc said:

Shame we'll never know which one of us is right!

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Just buy those cards that have the hologram or 3D image on the back side, put on your special glasses, and try it at a home game.

We will make 'incorrect' decisions in both scenarios. If we're faced with aggression preflop with KK we may incorrectly fold if we see an Ace is going to flop/turn and villain actually has QQ. If we have AQ we may incorrectly fold against AK because we don't know a Q is going to flop and the rest of the board will brick. Both sides of the debate can point out examples of the failings of the other side, but this proves nothing.

However, consider most standard games - it will usually, given a raised pot, cost 3BBs to see a flop, for example if you're preflop in a coinflip situation. In paying 3BBs, 3/5ths of the information the person who has knowledge of the upcoming board cards has been rendered completely useless. On the turn, 4/5ths of your advantage has gone, and by the river, it's all gone. Contrastingly, the only way to gain any proportion of information on opponents holecards is through speculative reads (always flawed), and through going to showdown (often expensive).

By knowing your opponents holecards, as long as all the chips don't go in before the river you will never lose a showdown. As long as players are deep stacked enough, you need never commit all your chips before the river except in rare cases where villain overbets hugely or two other people are in a raising war. Even then, we will always be able to make a +EV decision, not true when we know only the board cards. And it's when everyone is deep stacked that the most profitable situations will occur, obviously.

Knowing the board cards would be about 50 times as funny though, admittedly.

Interestingly, I didn't really go into much detail in the OP. I said "assume cash games", but that was about it. To everyone who has replied (and anyone else intereted), does your opinion change at all if we take these separate details into account?

1) NL vs. Limit
2) Heads-up vs. Full table
3) Your choice only lasting for 24 hours vs. your choice lasting forever
4) Hold'em vs. Omaha vs. Omaha8 (if you can come up with a reasonable answer to this you're a better person than I >_>)

Edit: Actually, nevermind this - it's the board in Omaha(8) and it's definitely not close (and I feel silly for thinking so much about it).