Poker is not only a game of incomplete information.
It’s also a game where we are constantly trading information.
Or maybe a better way to say it:
We are constantly giving away information and taking in information at the same time.
The more I think about it, the more I realise how much of what I know today came from something I randomly picked up from someone else.
A friend telling me about some supplement that helped his sleep.
Some guy casually mentioning an investment. I end up researching it and making some money in my own way.
Watching an opponent use an exploitative sizing I had never considered.
Someone says one thing, maybe even without thinking much about it.
But if you’re paying attention, sometimes that one thing stays with you.
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Recently Ameer sent me this hand:
https://pokerbankrolltracker.net/replayer/714729?fcd=true
I would almost always split the turn and check JJ here IP.
But after thinking about his line a bit more deeply, I realised what he is essentially saying.
Chris is overly sticky and calls hands that he shouldn’t.
He is also saying JJ doesn’t perform particularly well in the bet-check-call line because we double block some of his natural bluffs like QJ.
So instead, he puts JJ into the bet-bet-check line.
I found it really interesting.
Not necessarily because I will copy the exact line every time.
But because I got to see how someone else thinks about the hand.
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Then I was watching Limitless and saw him make this crazy flop 4-bet bluff multiway:
(Go to timestamp 3:04:00 , if your youtube player don’t work, mobile version have some bug)
His value range is basically 33 and 55.
So naturally 64 and 42 become some of his first choices for bluffs.
But I don’t think I would ever find it in game.
He is raising into TWO uncapped ranges.
And he had only committed 5k on the flop.
He could just fold.
If he had just called, he probably wouldn’t have enough equity to call a large turn bet anyway.
So in a weird way, is the flop raise also allowing him to price his own turn?
And I imagine somewhere in his thought process is:
I must have value here X% of the time.
Therefore I can have bluffs.
And this is one of them.
Maybe he just rolled it.
What a G really.
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Recently Jungleman posted about five qualities of a successful poker player.
One of them was:
Being open-minded.
And it reminded me of something Alex Luneau (Alexonmoon) used to say.
Most people learn poker through imitation.
I think that’s actually true for almost everything.
When we first start playing poker, almost none of our ideas are really our own.
Someone tells us what hands to open.
Someone teaches us what size to use.
We watch a better player make a play and think:
“Oh. We can do that?”
Then we copy it.
At first maybe we don’t even fully understand why.
But after seeing the same idea enough times, we start understanding the mechanics behind it.
Eventually we stop copying the action and start copying the thought process.
And somewhere along the way, it becomes part of our own game.
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I think that’s why being open-minded is such an underrated skill in poker.
You don’t have to agree with everything you see.
You don’t have to copy every weird line some crusher takes.
And you definitely shouldn’t blindly imitate someone just because they’re better than you.
But you should at least be able to ask:
Why?
Why did he choose this size?
Why does he have this hand here?
Why did he see a raise where I only saw a call or fold?
What does he understand about this spot that I don’t?
Because every player you sit with is giving you information.
Every hand you watch is giving you information.
Every conversation with someone better than you is giving you information.
Even bad players give you information.
The question is whether you’re paying attention.
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Maybe poker really is a game of incomplete information.
But the funny thing is:
We spend our entire careers collecting little pieces of information from each other.
A sizing here.
A concept there.
A mistake we watched someone make.
A play we never knew existed.
We imitate.
We question.
We understand.
And eventually we add something of our own.
Then someone else sees it.
And the cycle starts again.
So maybe the goal isn’t to know everything.
Maybe it’s just to keep noticing.
Keep questioning.
Keep learning.
Stay curious. Stay humble. ✌️
Good luck at the tables.
