Blog crosspost: Blind addendum - discussion welcome

[F Paulsson]

From the blog:

--
In the “How-to-play-blinds” posts, I mention protecting your hand by using the preflop raiser to force the rest of the table to call two bets cold, making gutshot straights unprofitable to continue with. While this is not incorrect per se, it is slightly misleading if you think that you’re only profiting if they make the mistake of calling two cold. You will be profiting just as much by making them calling two bets, one at a time (e.g. checkraising if the bettor is immediatley to your left). They will still have paid two bets to see the next street; in which order the money went into the pot does not matter whatsoever. However, and this is the point I felt I didn’t make clearly enough: You want to emphasize that they’re making a mistake - this is why you want to make it two bets cold. The reason for the emphasis is that the pot is already big enough to be worth fighting over; and you want to increase your chances of winning it. Learning how to win the big pots is a very big part of being a successful poker player.
--

Does this make sense to everyone? Discuss!

/FP

 

[joosebuck]

is this kinda like the flush semibluff you were talking about to me?

where you bet enough to get the most callers because every dollar that goes into the pot you get 55 cents of? ..you checkraise because if you bet he will probably only call your bet and if he doesnt call the checkraise then youve taken down the pot already and dont have to worry about unlucky turn/river?

just a guess..

 

[joosebuck]

"you checkraise because if you bet he will probably only call your bet"

i mean like if you were to bet out instead of checkraise

 

[F Paulsson]

Sorry for not getting back to this post; I've been travelling and forgot about it.

In order to explain where I'm going with this, I need to make a few additional statements:

1. Poker is a game of decisions. When your opponents make bad decisions, you make money.
2. Therefore, you should try to make your opponents make bad decisions.
3. Making a call with a drawing hand when the pot odds are sufficiently good is not a mistake; it's correct. Therefore, an opponent who calls with the correct odds is seemingly costing you money (as he is not making a mistake).

The keyword in statement #3 is "seemingly," and that's what my addendum was about:

Your opponent, despite getting correct odds to call, is making a mistake when he calls: He's making the mistake of thinking that you won't raise him. If he knew that you were going to raise when it gets back to you, he shouldn't have called (he might have anyway, but he won't have the odds for it).

This is a fairly advanced concept, that for some reason is usually better understood by beginners than by intermediate players; I think a lot of books actually confuse players when they talk about "protecting your hand" and "forcing your opponents out." And I even added to the confusion in the original blog post where I talked about it, which makes me one of the culprits as well.

 

[holduplaya]

Vacation

Paulsson, you should come to Lethbridge one day and teach me more after I do some reading. You seem to be on your way to the wsop or already have been there is it ain't in your mind it really should be because you know alot about poker. Your a Great Guy no matter what you think.

 

[F Paulsson]

I also make a really mean Spaghetti Carbonara.

Thanks for the kind words, though.

 

[joosebuck]

i make pene carbonara