Effect of opponents bad play on long term results?

[spore]

I've generally adhered to Sklansky's philosophy on results. Basically, any time you make a stastically correct play, it is a win for you in the long run, no matter what the outcome of that particular hand is.

Example:

You have TPTK on the turn, and make a pot-sized bet. A flush-draw calls and hits the flush on the river. It was a profitable play because he called your bet against the odds, so in the long run, you'd make money off that play. Fairly basic stuff.

Anyway, what I'm wondering is whether you should assume correct play by your opponent or not.

Example:

You have top two-pair on the flop, and make a pot-sized bet. Opponent calls with a flush draw (we don't know that yet). Flush card comes out on the turn. Now, I bet assuming that he doesn't have the flush, otherwise he would have folded on the flop to my pot-sized bet. Now, I'm betting top-two pair against a made-flush. Is my bet here correct, because he called against the odds on the flop? I'm guessing the answer has a fair amount to do with implied odds, which I'm still not great with.

I guess the root of the question is.. should I consider bad play in my bets? When an occasion comes up where you bet to give someone bad odds to draw out on you, should you then play future rounds under the assumption that no drawing hands are left?

I ask this because I lost a fairly big hand in a ring-game yesterday, although I ended up recovering from it and ending up about $1 down for the session. I had flopped a set, and bet just slightly under the pot and got a call from one of the other two people in the hand. There were two clubs on the board and the turn brought a third. I led out another pot-sized bet on the turn to discourage a hand like Top-pair with a big club to try to hit another club on the river. He cold-called again, and I checked to him on the river, he bet about a 1/2-pot size bet and I called. He turned over something like JQs for the flush. He had no straight draw, no overcards, and was on a sole flush-draw. So, was my bet on the and check/call on the river correct in the long-run, or should I have taken in to consideration that he might have called against the odds with a flush draw and been cautious?

 

[jeffred1111]

You also have to take into factor the implied odds, especially with hands such as FD + overs, or ven FD alone. Example hand that is very hypothetical and stupid:

We have AQo, are 200bb deep and we raise OTB. BB calls.

Flop is Qh5s7h
BB, checks, we bet 3/4 pot and he calls.

Turn is Js
BB checks again, we pot it and he calls.

River is the Ah.

He checks to you again, you bet and you get reraised AI, you call with 2 pairs (figuring he has a worse A, two pairs, bluff) and lose to 34h.

Opponent may not have been right calling all the way if he looked at the effective and pot odds, but if he knew you would call a big bet on the end, chasing might have been +EV for him so you can't really rule out drawing hands after you bet big enough to have draws go out. This is why people peel light and sometimes it seems "bad play" is rewarded.

This is especially true with multiple opponents in the pot: once the MP guy calls your bet, anyone with the nut flushdraw and no pairs on board is good to go (at least on the flop) since he will make his hands a good enough % of the time to warrant calling a big bet.

So you shoudln't really take into consideration bad play, but how much reverse implied odds you are offering to your opponent by betting when he could've made his hand and you only have a decent one.

 

[dj11]

spore, that is a great question.

Harrington suggests bluffing 10%, (this thought is currently being bantered around here), but I donk think I have read anywhere any notion of calculating in the 'donk factor'. LMAO

I have no concept at first glance of how big it might be, and until that figure gets a number, we may be hopelessly lost.

So lets think about it;:joyman:

Things that would be important in determining a 'donk factor'
-Reads. Probably most important, but remember, even pros get to donk one off on occasion.
-Is the supposed donk in the hand
-If he is in, just how big a donk is he, and can we saddle him?
---Total donk disregards that he is playing against a live human. As they loose their donkiness, the begin to realize that they are. Biggest donk disregards others the most.

So we might consider an example where there are 3 good players (not totally prone to donkish behavior) and a donk in the hand, meaning the donk is at that moment 25% of a calculation. Since we have defined him as a donk, we assume that regardless of what betting happens he's hanging in. In this case we can apply an increase in implied odds over the good players of 33%. Minus the 25% of the time the donk just flat out gets the cards in this scenario, means that at this point, I'll propose that the donk factor is 8% in our favor!

Lessons in donk factor calculations, chapter one. The 8% solution.........

 

[jaketrevvor]

lol vn dj

This topic is in fact one which crops up in many of Chris Ferguson's papers on Game Theory - whether it can be the correct strategy to not play the optimal strategy (ie folding to a pot sized bet on a FD) in certain situations (a little part of [media]http://www.math.ucla.edu/~tom/papers/poker1.pdf[/media] springs to mind, although this is a good read anyway). This is discussed in hypothetical terms of course, but leads on to your scenario of how if you consider your opponent to be playing optimally his best tactic is to often play sub-optimally (ie implied odds on yo ass). Great question though!

 

[jeffred1111]

Playing optimally, if you know you're going to get payed off big if you hit, is not folding your FD to a TPTK stacking donk especially in NL cash games since the size of bets are increasing tremendously from oen street to another. But I think we are straying away from the original question wich is: "should I take into consideration bad play".

I answered no, but I'd like to take that back. You shouldn't consider bad play when making a particular move, but how a bad opponent might react to your play since it won't lead you to stupid mistakes such as not valuebetting TPTK against someone who is visibly on a FD on the turn (why bet ? he will call anyway). You should still pot it if you know he'll call, and be glad that he called, but when the flush hits, be sure not to pay him off, or pay him off if the pot odds are there (wich will happen often against donks who try to lure you in). But against a passive opponent who was cold calling all the way, once the draw gets there, alarm bells should go off.

 

[Egon Towst]

If you are playing against weak players (and assuming reasonable stack sizes) increase your bet size, so that you increase the size of your opponent`s error when he calls with a drawing hand.

This way, if the opponent is stupid enough to call all the same, the infrequent occasions when he hits and wins the pot will be more quickly offset by the more common times when he loses.

 

[Steveg1976]

The only adjustment that need be made, in my opinion for bad players is to scale down the complexity of your play. Advanced players may recognice a half pot bet as a c-bet/bluff at a pot. A skilled player can then turn that around and make what looks like a c-bet hoping to be called with great cards. Subtle moves like that are completely lost to beginners and poor players. The math of the game doesn't change so as long as you a playing smart all of that will work out long term. That is just my very amature opinion anyway.