[fabriceleal]

> They made very annoying, aggressive plays that were difficult to counter, not taught anywhere in professional videos, forums or training sites

Mind sharing more on these strategies? I'm curious about what sort of strategy a poker pro would find so unique as to not recognize it from anywhere

[jaaames]

Sure. In poker you never play like you or your opponent(s) hold a specific hand, you always do the analysis against a range of hands. Every action (bet, call, raise) at any point (preflop, flop, turn, river) in the hand gives you extra information, which helps you narrow that range (more tightly define it) and help you make better, and hence more profitable decisions. Your range in every hand starts with all possible hands, and with each action gets more narrow.

The first strategy which we first noticed intuitively/by feel and then confirmed from stats, and which tipped us off to the whole thing, was that they would always fold or reraise (3bet) preflop. This was unheard of, as having a calling range preflop is incredibly important, as it has so many flow on effects for the rest of your strategy postflop (where the large majority of the hands play out). Most players (at least in 2010), had a polarized reraising (3bet) range, meaning they would mix very strong hands, with very weak hands, call with medium strength hands, and fold weaker hands. These bots had a very wide (higher %), and merged 3bet range, meaning they'd pick hands from the top down. It was mind bending to deal with as all of your experience, maths and theory away from the tables was wired to deal with a certain type and width of range and this was just so different.

The second main one was as follows. I've already described the situation where the action goes preflop raise, and reraise (referred to as a 3bet). You can counter this with a 4bet (yet another reraise), a valid and common strategy, again, ranges get even narrower here, but would still happen frequently (dozens of times a day). If each player started with $100, the action usual goes raise $3, reraise (3bet) to $10, reraise (4bet) to $22, then usually fold, call (very rare), all in $100 or reraise again ($30ish). The reraise is just so uncommon as it's difficult to make sensible range that isn't obviously strong. These bots would do this frequently. It's a very ballsy move, stops you in your tracks, and your only options are really to fold and give up your $22 and leave you scratching your head, or costs you $100 to call bullshit and go all in and find out if he's bluffing.

The last one that stood out off the top of my head was the river check raise. Check raising is when you act first in a hand, elect to check, let your opponent bet, then raise. You can do this both for value and as a bluff. It's an essential part of everyone's strategy, most frequently on the flop, less so on the turn and river. These guys would check raise the river a ton, and it was extremely effective. Again, it's a ballsy uncommon move (at the time) and was very profitable.

Here's the link from TwoPlusTwo (biggest and oldest poker forum) if you want more info.

http://forumserver.twoplustwo.com/56/medium-stakes-pl-nl/ala...

[EGreg]

I used to do a lot of this in real life. Not to say these aren't bots, but I seem to have discovered unconventional strategies in Chess and Poker due to never having had formal training - and I want to describe the rationale. They would work as effectively in real life as these bots did online:

When I had, say, suited connectors, I'd often reraise preflop (in late position). Why? So people would put me on a high hand. Since I was in late position, they'd be afraid to bet the flop, letting me see more cards cheaper than if I had not reraised preflop (the preflop betting usually isn't super large). By the time the turn arrives, I'd know if I had a pretty good chance to make a flush or straight on the river (or may have already done so).

Meanwhile, they still had me on high cards from the preflop raise so I represented it as such. If high cards came out on the flop and everyone was timid I could steal the pot by making a large bet bluffing that I had made a set with high cards and slowplayed the flop (that's how "confident" I was of my hand on the flop). If a high card came out on the turn I could also steal the pot by the even more believable story of preflop reraise followed by checking the flop and then "hitting" the right high cards on the turn.

But the biggest payoff would be when low cards came out and I would check, checkraise. Since I was late position, and representing high cards that didn't hit, I had people betting medium amounts on the flop to push me out. Often I'd be one card away from a flush or straight and just call them, "as if" waiting for a high card. If the turn completed my draw then I was all set for a call on the turn followed by a checkraise on the river.

In early position, I would definitely avoid raising with suited connectors because I wanted the maximum number of people in the hand, many with high cards, to suck out a large pot. Calling passively and checkraising the river. This last strategy netted me the most money. Also made people think I'm a lucky fish for giving them such a "bad beat"... but it was all in the stats involved in having a lot of people in the hand.