Windbreaker - there's 2 possible definitions/interpretations of an unexploitable shove, one refers to "face up" unexploitability which doesn't really help us in most situations since the fact that you can shove it face up tells us little more than it's a really easy shove and probably should never be the bottom of our range. The other type of unexploitable shove refers to our hand in the context of our range, not face up. A lot of hands become effectively unexploitable, since when we shove a specific hand and everything better the villain cannot exploit us without choosing a -EV strategy.
There are many spots such as with suited connectors in the SB where our hand can be exploited face up by villain calling every better hand, but so many of those hands that he would have to call are -EV since it's near the bottom of our range and so many of his calls would get crushed by the top of our range. Similarly, in many reship spots shoving small pairs and mid-suited connectors are certainly not unexploitable face up, but there's no realistic RANGE that the villain can have which would be able to exploit our shove.
So yes, one interpretation for unexploitablity is the face up interpretation, but it's kind of useless in 99% of situations since we're not playing face up, and ranges are always what is relevant, not our hand in a vacuum.
The term unexploitable play was created specific for the face up situation. The other definition you allude to is what should be done in practice. The unexploitable part means that your opponents, can never gain EV in the long term given that you always shove xy hand with at a stack depth of z...even if your hand is face up.
This information isn't irrelevant in practice. As an example, if you're playing 9 handed w/ antes...and it's folded to you in the sb w/ J9o...you can unexploitable shove ~17 bbs or less. If you are 14 bbs effective...in a vacuum you know that folding is always a mistake, because open shoving is a +EV play.
What you say is true with what should be done in practice. You should tailor your play to maximize your EV against your specific opponent(s). That means if you see an alternative line that will yield a higher EV, you should not follow a push/fold chart. And this is why people don't open shove KK for 200 bbs...even if it's unexploitable.
The term unexploitable play was created specific for the face up situation. The other definition you allude to is what should be done in practice. The unexploitable part means that your opponents, can never gain EV in the long term given that you always shove xy hand with at a stack depth of z...even if your hand is face up.
Right, but in every situation that we can shove xy face up at stack depth of z, we can shove xy + d face down and d is unexploitable by virtue of our opponent having to make decisions vs. our range not actually knowing our specific hand. Sklansky refers to the difference between face up and face down unexploitability in one of his books, but doesn't call it "unexploitability" I don't think.
This information isn't irrelevant in practice. As an example, if you're playing 9 handed w/ antes...and it's folded to you in the sb w/ J9o...you can unexploitable shove ~17 bbs or less. If you are 14 bbs effective...in a vacuum you know that folding is always a mistake, because open shoving is a +EV play.
If you made a range of hands based off of only hands that are unexploitable face up, there are still other hands that are not in that range which are always a mistake to fold because there is no possible calling range that the villain can have which will reduce your EV when you add in that hand, because if they widen their range vs. that specific holding, it adds more EV vs. the top of your range than it takes away from the bottom of your range. So although it isn't COMPLETELY irrelevant, it is almost always the case that there are more hands that can be shoved in an unexploitable range than just the hands that are unexploitable face up. This is basically the idea behind nash.
Right, but in every situation that we can shove xy face up at stack depth of z, we can shove xy + d face downand d is unexploitable by virtue of our opponent having to make decisions vs. our range not actually knowing our specific hand.
not sure im reading right but isn't the idea we can shove xy + d face up and villains calling range can never gain on us....
If you made a range of hands based off of only hands that are unexploitable face up, there are still other hands that are not in that range which are always a mistake to fold because there is no possible calling range that the villain can have which will reduce your EV when you add in that hand, because if they widen their range vs. that specific holding, it adds more EV vs. the top of your range than it takes away from the bottom of your range. So although it isn't COMPLETELY irrelevant, it is almost always the case that there are more hands that can be shoved in an unexploitable range than just the hands that are unexploitable face up. This is basically the idea behind nash.
did you just say you can add more jamming hands to the nash unex shove ranges the villain can't gain vs. range?
The only difference I see is the definition of an unexploitable shove. To me there is only one definition.
My definition of an unexploitable shoves means that when you shove your hand w/ a certain stack depth, it can never be -EV, even if your opponent can see your hand face up...this is what makes it unexploitable.
I think what you're referring to is game theory optimal play. Which is making the most +EV play given the table conditions.
I'm not suggesting people just use follow an unexploitable push/fold chart..and from what I can tell there really hasn't been that many made outside of HU's w/o antes. These charts only start as a baseline...and should be tailored for optimal play.
The only difference I see is the definition of an unexploitable shove. To me there is only one definition.
My definition of an unexploitable shoves means that when you shove your hand w/ a certain stack depth, it can never be -EV, even if your opponent can see your hand face up...this is what makes it unexploitable.
ya see this isn't what an unexploitable shove is refering too....if you only shove a hand that is unexploitable your cutting out soooo many hands that you can shove that can never be -ev
i c now the difference when someone say unex shove you are talking about a hand when most are talking about unex shove ranges....which are far more pertinent and useful...
We're going in circles....and it's all over the definition.
If you shove an unexploitable hand, there are no shoves you are making that are ever -EV. If you are shoving wider, and your opponent sees your hand, then your shove becomes exploitable, because now it's possible for your opponent to call perfectly and your overall EV will be negative. The word UNEXPLOITABLE means that even with perfect information your opponent can't make a call to make your initial shove -EV.
As an example if you play 1/2 NL Heads up. You can open shove KK $400. Show your opponents you have KK. Do this a million times. Your opponent will only call you with AA/KK. You will profit $3 every time he picks up anything else...and in the times he does have AA, you lose $399 80% of the time and win $403 20% of the time. This will still show a profit over the long run because your opponent doesn't pick up AA often enough at this stack depth to make it -EV.
In practice you can shove wider than the unexploitable hand charts because people will not call perfectly.
Obviously, my point isn't getting across. Anyways, here's Vivek's article on it:
ya see this isn't what an unexploitable shove is refering too....if you only shove a hand that is unexploitable your cutting out soooo many hands that you can shove that can never be -ev
i c now the difference when someone say unex shove you are talking about a hand when most are talking about unex shove ranges....which are far more pertinent and useful...
not going in circles..im learning here....read the article never heard of it or thought of it that way
my assumption if i understand this right ...is that there are more non -ev shoves in the face up unex 'range' jams....than the face up unexploitable 'hand' jams....
in case im not clear..we can jam more hands confidently (with a non zero ev) if we announce our range rather than the cards we have.....both of which are applicable to real poker....
unless vekked one time told me that some of the hands in the nonex range jamming charts are -ev.......
we still haven't talked about the fact that ill have partial impunity if i take down the blinds here and be totally impune if im called and win the hand....
The word UNEXPLOITABLE means that even with perfect information your opponent can't make a call to make your initial shove -EV.
The word unexploitable actually just means "cannot be exploited". The word says nothing about perfect or imperfect information obv. Instead of talking more vague theory mumbo jumbo, I'm going to try and clear it up with an example/actual numbers (but in short, yes we're just talking about 2 definitions but it's incorrect to say unexploitable = face up unexploitable).
Face up unexploitable range with 10M (15BB) from the SB:
22+,A2+,K8o+,K4s+,QTo+,Q9s+,JTs (30%)
Face down unexploitable range with 10M (15BB) from the SB:
You said something along the lines of "what face up unexploitable show us is that it is a mistake to open fold the hands that are unexploitable to shove face up", which is correct. BUT, the range for what we can shove face down unexploitably also shows us what hands are a mistake to open fold. So what is the difference? The difference is that the face up unexploitable range assumes that villain has perfect information, and the face down unexploitable range assumes that the villain has imperfect information. The ONLY situations which unexploitable face up shoves are relevant are when the villain actually has perfect information, which is never online, and only if you flip your cards up live. Since our villain never has perfect information, face up unexploitable shoves are redundant since they always consist of a range that is tighter than what you should be shoving in practice. Does this make sense?
So yes, the 30% of hands that you can shove face up ARE a mistake to open fold, but there's 16% more hands that are a mistake to open fold as well, and in nearly every situation this will be the case (except when uber deep since face up shove range will = face down, {AA}), thus the idea of face up unexploitable shoves are only theoretically relevant, and in nearly any situation where making an unexploitable shove should be discussed it should be referring to the face down range since our villain does not have perfect information as assumed in the face up range.
NOTE: The bottom of the face down unexploitable range does become -EV if the villain has perfect information, and thus some hands can be exploited in a vacuum with perfect information because of this. Likewise, if villain happens to call with every better hand than a specific hand which is at the bottom of this range with imperfect information, shoving that hand in a vacuum becomes -EV. However, the shove is still part of the unexploitable face down range because when villain calls a wide enough range to make the bottom of your range -EV, it adds more EV to the top of your calling range than it takes away from the bottom of your calling range, therefore yielding a net -EV result for the villain's range vs. your range.
The main points that I hopefully got across here are:
a) Conclusions based on the assumption that villain has perfect information are flawed/insufficient when put into practice.
b) As a result of neither us nor villain having perfect information, it is a mistake to ever analyze a specific hand independently of a range.
c) Therefore, in situations where a shove is referred to as being "unexploitable" when villain has imperfect information, and the term can correctly mean both "face up unexploitable/unexploitable in a vacuum" and "face down unexploitable/unexploitable in a range", the 2nd usage of the term will always be more accurate, and the 1st usage will always be redundant, since imperfect information is only assumed in the 2nd usage and not the 1st.
ALSOOOO, neither the face up unexploitable range or face down unexploitable range optimally exploit 99% of opponents we face, so it is actually optimal to be shoving wider than what is face down unexploitable in nearly every situation, and that should actually just be looked at as the bare minimum amount of hands that we should shove.
not sure im reading right but isn't the idea we can shove xy + d face up and villains calling range can never gain on us....
No I didn't make a mistake there, but I didn't specify what D was. If xy = hands we can shove unexploitably face up at stack depth z, then D = hands we can only shove unexploitably face down at stack depth z. xy + D = our entire range of hands that can be shoved unexploitably face down at stack depth z.
did you just say you can add more jamming hands to the nash unex shove ranges the villain can't gain vs. range?
No, I'll add some things to make it clearer:
"If you made a range of hands based off of only hands that are unexploitable face up(THIS IS NOT NASH, NASH = UNEXPLOITABLE FACE DOWN*), there are still other hands (HAND IN NASH) that are not in that [face up] range which are always a mistake to fold because there is no possible calling range that the villain can have which will reduce your EV when you add in that [nash] hand"
I'm saying that you can add more jamming hands to the face up unexploitable range that villain can't gain vs. that range, which just means that nash is wider than the face up range, which should be obvious.
*The bottom of the Nash range is only unexploitable face down if the entire range is jammed, in situations where you would never jam QQ+ for instance, the bottom of the range is no longer +EV in this new range since those hands are no longer "protected" by the top of your range. In other words, nash = the entire range not part of it. You cannot just shove part of it and have your strategy be unexploitable.
You can't turn your nash range face up because people would adjust their calling range to every hand you jam obv.
yes but the best they can come up with is an equilibrium where no one gains...the whole point ...is you can turn your nash shove range face up...and they can't gain no matter what....no ????
you could tell them your range and they wouldn't be able to show a profit, but if you shoved a nash range and turned every hand face up they could
yes now what's all this talk about me being spewy. And not knowing what an unexploitable shove is? ???
edit: actually the real question is what do we do when sit n go wiz and nash show clearly distinctly different answer as to shoving or folding with the same hh and same calling ranges???
you probably have the settings wrong on SNG Wiz if it's super different, I think SNG Wiz has a setting for minimum edge or something like that, if you don't have it on 0 then it'll give you tighter answers. If the difference is a couple hands or a couple %, it could be in the way that it is calculated because both programs use slightly different ways of coming to the answer in order to do it at a reasonable speed, so there will be some deviation.
you probably have the settings wrong on SNG Wiz if it's super different, I think SNG Wiz has a setting for minimum edge or something like that, if you don't have it on 0 then it'll give you tighter answers. If the difference is a couple hands or a couple %, it could be in the way that it is calculated because both programs use slightly different ways of coming to the answer in order to do it at a reasonable speed, so there will be some deviation.
ah right...ill check that...i mean i know theres a difference cause of how they do the calc and because you can't select certain hands in the range but its just sooo far off..
bonus is the new feature where you click on chart nash and it will bring up the nash website and fill in the hands...if you click beta on the nash website it will transfer the hand in the beta section and you can adjust all the ranges......
maybe ill post a hand thats way off between the two.....
naw see im seeing a pro folding 44 utg (7players left in 9 man sitgo)...with 10bbs and antes in play and folding 22 in the cut off with 10 bbs antes in play...and then proving with sngo wiz that they are spewy shoves....215 dollar buyin...
Comments
Windbreaker - there's 2 possible definitions/interpretations of an unexploitable shove, one refers to "face up" unexploitability which doesn't really help us in most situations since the fact that you can shove it face up tells us little more than it's a really easy shove and probably should never be the bottom of our range. The other type of unexploitable shove refers to our hand in the context of our range, not face up. A lot of hands become effectively unexploitable, since when we shove a specific hand and everything better the villain cannot exploit us without choosing a -EV strategy.
There are many spots such as with suited connectors in the SB where our hand can be exploited face up by villain calling every better hand, but so many of those hands that he would have to call are -EV since it's near the bottom of our range and so many of his calls would get crushed by the top of our range. Similarly, in many reship spots shoving small pairs and mid-suited connectors are certainly not unexploitable face up, but there's no realistic RANGE that the villain can have which would be able to exploit our shove.
So yes, one interpretation for unexploitablity is the face up interpretation, but it's kind of useless in 99% of situations since we're not playing face up, and ranges are always what is relevant, not our hand in a vacuum.
This information isn't irrelevant in practice. As an example, if you're playing 9 handed w/ antes...and it's folded to you in the sb w/ J9o...you can unexploitable shove ~17 bbs or less. If you are 14 bbs effective...in a vacuum you know that folding is always a mistake, because open shoving is a +EV play.
What you say is true with what should be done in practice. You should tailor your play to maximize your EV against your specific opponent(s). That means if you see an alternative line that will yield a higher EV, you should not follow a push/fold chart. And this is why people don't open shove KK for 200 bbs...even if it's unexploitable.
Right, but in every situation that we can shove xy face up at stack depth of z, we can shove xy + d face down and d is unexploitable by virtue of our opponent having to make decisions vs. our range not actually knowing our specific hand. Sklansky refers to the difference between face up and face down unexploitability in one of his books, but doesn't call it "unexploitability" I don't think.
If you made a range of hands based off of only hands that are unexploitable face up, there are still other hands that are not in that range which are always a mistake to fold because there is no possible calling range that the villain can have which will reduce your EV when you add in that hand, because if they widen their range vs. that specific holding, it adds more EV vs. the top of your range than it takes away from the bottom of your range. So although it isn't COMPLETELY irrelevant, it is almost always the case that there are more hands that can be shoved in an unexploitable range than just the hands that are unexploitable face up. This is basically the idea behind nash.
did you just say you can add more jamming hands to the nash unex shove ranges the villain can't gain vs. range?
My definition of an unexploitable shoves means that when you shove your hand w/ a certain stack depth, it can never be -EV, even if your opponent can see your hand face up...this is what makes it unexploitable.
I think what you're referring to is game theory optimal play. Which is making the most +EV play given the table conditions.
I'm not suggesting people just use follow an unexploitable push/fold chart..and from what I can tell there really hasn't been that many made outside of HU's w/o antes. These charts only start as a baseline...and should be tailored for optimal play.
i c now the difference when someone say unex shove you are talking about a hand when most are talking about unex shove ranges....which are far more pertinent and useful...
disclaimer: i think
If you shove an unexploitable hand, there are no shoves you are making that are ever -EV. If you are shoving wider, and your opponent sees your hand, then your shove becomes exploitable, because now it's possible for your opponent to call perfectly and your overall EV will be negative. The word UNEXPLOITABLE means that even with perfect information your opponent can't make a call to make your initial shove -EV.
As an example if you play 1/2 NL Heads up. You can open shove KK $400. Show your opponents you have KK. Do this a million times. Your opponent will only call you with AA/KK. You will profit $3 every time he picks up anything else...and in the times he does have AA, you lose $399 80% of the time and win $403 20% of the time. This will still show a profit over the long run because your opponent doesn't pick up AA often enough at this stack depth to make it -EV.
In practice you can shove wider than the unexploitable hand charts because people will not call perfectly.
Obviously, my point isn't getting across. Anyways, here's Vivek's article on it:
Unexploitable Play and When To Use It by Vivek Rajkumar | Bluff Magazine January-2009
my assumption if i understand this right ...is that there are more non -ev shoves in the face up unex 'range' jams....than the face up unexploitable 'hand' jams....
in case im not clear..we can jam more hands confidently (with a non zero ev) if we announce our range rather than the cards we have.....both of which are applicable to real poker....
unless vekked one time told me that some of the hands in the nonex range jamming charts are -ev.......
The word unexploitable actually just means "cannot be exploited". The word says nothing about perfect or imperfect information obv. Instead of talking more vague theory mumbo jumbo, I'm going to try and clear it up with an example/actual numbers (but in short, yes we're just talking about 2 definitions but it's incorrect to say unexploitable = face up unexploitable).
Face up unexploitable range with 10M (15BB) from the SB:
22+,A2+,K8o+,K4s+,QTo+,Q9s+,JTs (30%)
Face down unexploitable range with 10M (15BB) from the SB:
22+,A2+,K2s+,K6o+,Q4s+,Q9o+,J5s+,J9o+,T6s+,T8o+,96s+,98o,85s+,75s+,64s+,54s (46%)
You said something along the lines of "what face up unexploitable show us is that it is a mistake to open fold the hands that are unexploitable to shove face up", which is correct. BUT, the range for what we can shove face down unexploitably also shows us what hands are a mistake to open fold. So what is the difference? The difference is that the face up unexploitable range assumes that villain has perfect information, and the face down unexploitable range assumes that the villain has imperfect information. The ONLY situations which unexploitable face up shoves are relevant are when the villain actually has perfect information, which is never online, and only if you flip your cards up live. Since our villain never has perfect information, face up unexploitable shoves are redundant since they always consist of a range that is tighter than what you should be shoving in practice. Does this make sense?
So yes, the 30% of hands that you can shove face up ARE a mistake to open fold, but there's 16% more hands that are a mistake to open fold as well, and in nearly every situation this will be the case (except when uber deep since face up shove range will = face down, {AA}), thus the idea of face up unexploitable shoves are only theoretically relevant, and in nearly any situation where making an unexploitable shove should be discussed it should be referring to the face down range since our villain does not have perfect information as assumed in the face up range.
NOTE: The bottom of the face down unexploitable range does become -EV if the villain has perfect information, and thus some hands can be exploited in a vacuum with perfect information because of this. Likewise, if villain happens to call with every better hand than a specific hand which is at the bottom of this range with imperfect information, shoving that hand in a vacuum becomes -EV. However, the shove is still part of the unexploitable face down range because when villain calls a wide enough range to make the bottom of your range -EV, it adds more EV to the top of your calling range than it takes away from the bottom of your calling range, therefore yielding a net -EV result for the villain's range vs. your range.
The main points that I hopefully got across here are:
a) Conclusions based on the assumption that villain has perfect information are flawed/insufficient when put into practice.
b) As a result of neither us nor villain having perfect information, it is a mistake to ever analyze a specific hand independently of a range.
c) Therefore, in situations where a shove is referred to as being "unexploitable" when villain has imperfect information, and the term can correctly mean both "face up unexploitable/unexploitable in a vacuum" and "face down unexploitable/unexploitable in a range", the 2nd usage of the term will always be more accurate, and the 1st usage will always be redundant, since imperfect information is only assumed in the 2nd usage and not the 1st.
No I didn't make a mistake there, but I didn't specify what D was. If xy = hands we can shove unexploitably face up at stack depth z, then D = hands we can only shove unexploitably face down at stack depth z. xy + D = our entire range of hands that can be shoved unexploitably face down at stack depth z.
No, I'll add some things to make it clearer:
"If you made a range of hands based off of only hands that are unexploitable face up (THIS IS NOT NASH, NASH = UNEXPLOITABLE FACE DOWN*), there are still other hands (HAND IN NASH) that are not in that [face up] range which are always a mistake to fold because there is no possible calling range that the villain can have which will reduce your EV when you add in that [nash] hand"
I'm saying that you can add more jamming hands to the face up unexploitable range that villain can't gain vs. that range, which just means that nash is wider than the face up range, which should be obvious.
*The bottom of the Nash range is only unexploitable face down if the entire range is jammed, in situations where you would never jam QQ+ for instance, the bottom of the range is no longer +EV in this new range since those hands are no longer "protected" by the top of your range. In other words, nash = the entire range not part of it. You cannot just shove part of it and have your strategy be unexploitable.
anyways it all makes sense.....as long as we agree that you can turn your nash 'range' face up....and no one can gain on us...
also with the nash calculator it seems every hand in the nash jam ranges and the eq calling ranges are +evdiff%.....?
You can't turn your nash range face up because people would adjust their calling range to every hand you jam obv.
yes now what's all this talk about me being spewy. And not knowing what an unexploitable shove is? ???
edit: actually the real question is what do we do when sit n go wiz and nash show clearly distinctly different answer as to shoving or folding with the same hh and same calling ranges???
bonus is the new feature where you click on chart nash and it will bring up the nash website and fill in the hands...if you click beta on the nash website it will transfer the hand in the beta section and you can adjust all the ranges......
maybe ill post a hand thats way off between the two.....
explain pls?