Producing a Dynamic Poker Game

Poker Strategy / Short-Stacked Shamus / 24 November 2011 / Leave a Comment

Music is being produced with ever increasing volumes, creating a so-called "loudness war"

Not varying your style is kind of like “compressing” your range of actions. You are turning up the volume on what you are doing as well, broadcasting loudly to your opponents how they might play profitably against you.

I love all sorts of music. I could probably live without my iPod if I absolutely had to, but it's definitely on the short list of items I'd choose to keep if I were forced to pare down my possessions to a few essentials. I guess that makes me a lot like most poker players, many of whom listen to music while playing online or are constantly plugged into their music makers at the tables.

While I'm old enough to have a large collection of vinyl records and cassettes -- as well as a number of CDs -- I don't listen to those much anymore, having moved with everyone else into the .mp3 age. But perhaps because I have a half-dozen copies of The Beatles' Revolver in several different formats, I've always been curious about the evolution of production techniques as music made the transition from analog to digital.

Not long ago I was reading a number of articles about the so-called "loudness war" that has come about as many old LPs are being remastered and rereleased, and as new digital-only titles are being produced.

Over recent years -- especially during the last decade -- producers have been compressing music further and further in order to make quiet parts louder and louder parts quieter, then turning up the overall volume as high as they can. The result is a louder sound, but one that is less nuanced or dynamic.

That's not a complete explanation, but you get the idea. It's like Nigel Tufnel cranking it up to 11 all the damned time. If you're interested, search around the web for technical explanations of the "loudness war." There are a few interesting YouTube videos explaining it, too. To put it simply, a lot of new music (and some remastered old music) is being produced this way -- big and loud and noisy from start to finish.

Reading these articles got me thinking about playing styles in poker and the importance of varying one's play -- that is, to employ a musical term, to have a "dynamic range" in which you mix things up sufficiently enough to keep your opponents guessing.

To describe a relatively uncomplicated example from no-limit hold'em, a common habit some players fall into is after raising preflop to fire a continuation bet on the flop nearly all of the time, or even 100% of the time. It's a strategy that may work in certain games where your opponents are weak and/or unattentive, but even there your constant c-betting can be easily taken advantage of the first time an opponent hits a flop harder than you do and responds with a raise.

As experienced players know, a more reasonable approach following your preflop raise is to c-bet most flops, but not all -- two-thirds is a commonly recommended ratio for making that continuation bet. And, in fact, you shouldn't necessarily be letting the flop dictate when you c-bet and when you don't. That is to say, you should ideally be firing two-thirds of the time with made hands as well as two-thirds of the time when you miss.

By varying your action after the flop, you avoid falling into easily recognizable and thus exploitable patterns. If you c-bet all of the time, your opponents will come to expect that and act accordingly. If you only c-bet when you hit the flop, your opponents will notice that, too, and know how to respond there as well.

In other words, not varying your style is kind of like "compressing" your range of actions. And to take the analogy further, you are turning up the volume on what you are doing as well, broadcasting loudly to your opponents how they might play profitably against you.

Keep doing the same thing over and over and even those opponents who normally don't "listen" will start picking up on what's going on.

No, keep mixing it up. Don't unwittingly play an overly "loud" game that others can easily "hear" and manipulate. Think of Revolver, with its eclectic collection of tracks -- loud and soft, happy and sad, light and dark, and so forth.

Vary your style and remain in action longer. And play the game existence to the end. Of the beginning... of the beginning...

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