Something I have repeated to my students and in training videos is “once your opponent breaks the rules, you’re free to break whatever rules you want.” What I mean by this is, if you are trying to play solver poker and your opponent does something the solver would never do, you don’t need to respond in a balanced fashion. If you make it 2bbs UTG and someone playing 50% of hands makes it 5bbs from middle position, you don’t need to fold KJo because their three-bet is supposed to make you indifferent with some of your range. They are playing too loose and sizing too small; your minimum defense frequency can be a maximum defense frequency. The worse your opponent is, the more confident you can be in breaking the rules and doing whatever you want to exploit them. If someone never bluffs the river, you fold every bluff-catcher. Playing someone who might raise the river on JhTh9h3c2c and confidently table two pair when called? Don’t start folding straights to them.
The hardest hands to play can be trying to navigate when a very good poker player makes a blunder that you know to be a blunder, but you also know they are a smart thinking player and they are trying to balance their range. Let’s look at POTD #346. My river lead is not a play with my hand or my range, but that doesn’t mean my strategy does not represent an attempt to be balanced. I should not lead this river, but once I do, I should be bluffing roughly 1/3rd of the time with a goal of making a pair of kings roughly indifferent. When I’m playing an opponent whom I don’t respect and they lead all-in on the river in a spot where the range is supposed to check, I usually try to figure out what their two cards are in that moment. When a poker player I respect does something unexpected, I assume they are trying to be somewhat balanced, and I can’t just assume “they have it” or “they’re bluffing” and pivot to an easy max-exploit line vs. their unusual play. In today’s hand, Isaac Haxton took a weird (and solver unapproved) line vs. me; and I had to figure out what it meant.
Triton Poker Series Cyprus 2023 - Event #11 $100,000 NLH - Main Event
(1.5k/3k/3k) (SB/BB/BBA) 250k Starting Stack
It folds to me in the HJ with A♥️ T♠️ (62.5k/21bbs) I make it 6k, three stacks more than 200k deep fold, it folds to Ike (312k/103bbs) who calls.
Flop (16.5k) 9♦️7♣️3♠️ : Ike checks, I check.
Turn (16.5k) A♣️ : Ike bets 3k, I make it 16k, Ike jams for my remaining 56k, I call, Ike has A♠️ J♠️ and I am eliminated.
