Strategy Articles

Here is a link to a free publication that I get sent every month. Some serious strategy in here for beginners and more advanced players. It's worth taking a look at.

http://acepokersolutions.com/poker%20publication.html

Had a look at Issue One. Looks the part, but I am dubious about the quality of the advice. The calculations in the article on bluffing are clearly incorrect and appear to suggest that an opponent must fold more often in order to make a smaller bluff successful, which is illogical.

Are you talking about the article by Chris "Fox" Wallace? He's a decently well known and profitable live player, so I would assume his advice is of quality.

Anyway, almost all of the articles seem to be written by respected players like Russell "Looosefer" Blattberg, Tommy Angelo, and Derric "Sixpeppers" Haynie.

Perhaps he was having an off day when he wrote that article. There is a good general point in there somewhere, about the need to evaluate the likely success of a bluff, but the details of his argument are wrong.

I say that from my standpoint as a decently well known and profitable player, both live and online, who can also do arithmetic.

You should write an article for them then. They ask for volunteers at the end of the publication.

Thank Shwillger- I've started the first article. Always appreciate reading different perspectives. Hope you find more like this.

If you are reading this, then you should have already been thru this section of CC;
http://www.cardschat.com/poker-strategy.php

After which, you can explore our own section of classic threads we call the Golden Archives;
http://www.cardschat.com/f49/

Definitely good reading in the CC archives. I really like "The Math of Poker" articles, in particular the "Equity in Poker".

It is illogical if your opponent dosent adapt so against these guys bluff as small as possible.

If your opponent is adapting to your raise size, then you give him a great price to call bluffs.

In certain spots there are a lot of potential bluffs in your range yet few value hands, so even though you might make this raise size with value hands, its impossible to balance your range with a small bet size.

In those spots the small raise size gives your opponent a +ev call because if you work out how much equity he needs to call he has far more than that with anything that beats a bluff, so ace high calls, bottom pair etc.

Not all spots are easy to read but in spots where you have a substantial amount of bluffs in your river betting range, and if you dont bet really thin, forget TPGK, we are talking third pair etc, then betting small is a mistake because your opponent has to fold all of his bluff catchers for it to be +EV.

A lot of guys wont call this wide because they dont understand how well Ace high is doing sometimes against your range when its weighted towards bluffs so betting small would be fine, but if your opponent is capable of regognising good bluff catching spots then small bets wont work, whereas a bigger bet would work because even though your range is just as it was when you bet small, the price give is worse and thus the EV of bluffcatching is reduced.

So a guy who is reacting to your perceived range and aggression dosent have to fold as much to small bluffs as big ones.

Food for thought there, Stu. However, I am a simple fellow and my original point was more straightforward - the calculations in the original article are incorrect.