Ganz1987

Howdy!

The aim of this post is to expose my thinking to the community and perhaps invoke some kind of a critique of it and make adjustments.

Ok, let's get to it.

Most good players use sizing on flop, turn and river accounting for flop texture (the wetter the more), opponent tendencies etc. They mostly play 1/2 to 3/4 on the flop, turn and river and mostly progressively in later streets.

So let's say I open A5s on the button and get called by BB. Flop comes out K,5,2 rainbow, I bet 1/2 of the pot. I am right that that is standard?

Now, that's all well and cool, but it got me thinking, what about GTO?

I mean, the more we bet, the more bluff combinations we can include into our betting range to make villain's fold/call indifferent, am I right?

So let's assume the same thing. We open A5s OTB, get called by BB.
Okay, now my analysis goes like this.

Let's make up our value range OTF:

There is a 10% for us hitting a nut flash draw. That gives us almost always about +50% equity, so that is not pure semibluff, but a bet for value (most of the time).

Chances of hitting a pair (an ace or a 5) are about 27%. Some of the time 5 won't be a pair to value, but it will balance itself with high cards that we could bet safely assuming it's for value

There is about 4% to get a two-pair hand

There is about 1,5% to get trips

Other big hands like four of a kind, flashes on the flop etc. make up about 1%

So that is about 44% (let's say for the sake of simplicity 45%) that we bet safely assuming it's for value, and about 55% we bet as a bluff.

As we know in GTO play, even a ratio of 50/50 bluff and value combos can't be reached, because the whole thing is an asymptote, so 40/60 is unfeasable.

Simple conclusion is that we can't play GTO on the flop if we continue with 100% frequency. What happens when we continue with a lower frequency?

Let's say we checkback some of the time we hit a 5, sometimes when we have an ace for pot control, and sometimes with a high card even though we think we are ahead because we wanna realize our equity OTR. That is about let's say 12% of the time we are on the flop.

So now we bet 32% for value and 68% as a bluff 88% of the time total. Oops! That is even worse for GTO play! We can't possibly have a bet to make it indifferent!

So, how much air and weak draws do we need to remove from the betting range to make the whole thing look quite okay when we bet half the pot? We need 25% of bluffs for 75% of value...

The answer is that we need to remove 42% of our bluffs (ALMOST HALF!!!) and 12% of our value hands to be able to bet half the pot with GTO correct play. This all, of course is assuming villain either folds or calls his whole range, but that is too complex for me now to think about it xD

Now, is my analysis worth something? Or am I making some huge incorrect assumption about it all. Please feel free to respond, I just thought of it, and am in dire need to misapply it as soon as possible xD

Hi All!

About me:
I'm a 28 year old semi poker pro from Eastern Poland playing for about 8 years and some of those professionally. I haven't played professionally for about 1 year now because of getting married (Phil doesn't even know what he is in for lol) and spewing some cash to organise the reception and refurbishments of my flat.

If someone asks why do that, then the answer is I don't know and love is a helluva drug.

Right now, I'm almost broke. I've got a couple of hundred laying around, but that's about it. I am able to somewhat support myself through teaching English, but I'm born to be a poker player.

About RIO:

I have never, ever, ever, ever posted on any type of poker forum before. Not because I'm lazy or not like to exchange info, just because I found it very hard to swim through the bullshit. I am friends with some of the best pros from Poland (especially PLO cash players), but I never were an online forum monkey. 2p2 was way too arrogant and pretty childish (sometimes I sigh when I see they applaud some ideas not because of their merit, but because of who posts them). Pokerstrategy on the other hand seemed kind of I don't know...grindy. Some folks there are madly successful, but it always felt like a paradise for people with small winrates and awful lot of volume who are too stubborn to try new things (haven't been there in 5 years, maybe something changed).

RIO seems fresh, very active, very merit-centred, very to the point, and mature in the forum section. I am very fond of this, that's why I decided to post this.

About my Game:

I am strictly a cash game player. Some of my winnings are live, some are online though the bulk of it I'd say is live. I have a very good feel for a live game, but I had some success online (including a mad winning streak where I went from having 10$ to having 5000$ in 3 weeks on a eurosite).
In the early days, I was a kid so my BRM and my spending habits were just horrible, now it's getting a bit better. I've never had much success on the main sites, but I've never really treated them seriously until now.

I am part of the old guard now. When I started, TAG was someone who played top 12% and TJ Cloutier book was trendy (Yeah, I know, although I have some sentiment to it, anyone remembers it?). I was a spewy LAG at first, then a nit, then a spewy LAG with some more understanding of the game, then a middle-of-the-road player, until I found my own way and have a very logical and very creative playing style (I guess pretty unorthodox, but it's not for this post)

Now I am a TAG player by default, but can change gears and become crazy. I have a positive red line and blue line, but never does any line take an elevator ride (sometimes the blue does and it's always above red). It's "smooth sailing". I'll let you know more about my game later (why? it's a form of self-expression allowing me the opportunity to have a little bit of hindsight in all of this at least).

About the Journal:

It's to motivate me whenever I read it (knowing my narcissistic ways it's gonna be every single day), give me some perspective and get to know you guys, who really are a unique bunch on the poker interwebz.

The Goal:

The Goal is to have at least 10 000$ starting from now about 200$ in some reasonable amount of time. Online I wanna play 6max zoom on stars NL5 to NL whatever, and live I wanna play in some decent homegames in my area (which there are some). If my bankroll reaches 10k, I wanna go to Malta for a few months with my wife and enjoy my modest life in a modest flat while playing online poker there before I'm too old to enjoy it anymore.
I don't want to set a timeframe, because it's gonna feel like a race. And cash games never are a race.

I'm gonna post more graphs, thoughts etc. later on.

Wish me luck guys and see ya at the tables!