Fluid and Persistent Edges in Information Saturated Environments

How’s that for a mouthful title?

In considering what sorts of subjects
I would like to cover exclusively in articles which I would not want to
cover more so in the video content one thing I’ve decided to cover here
are the concepts which are maybe a bit too specialized to warrant their
own instructional video.

The concepts that will be discussed in
this article will be exclusive to heavily information saturated
environments (hereafter abbreviated to “ISE,” if you’re not familiar
with this subject you may need to watch video 115 to catch up) such as
heads-up and extremely shorthanded play (or perhaps play with extremely
regular players).

In ISEs winning players exploit two types of
edges over their opponents: fluid and persistent edges. A fluid edge is
temporary, and is gained either by 1) leveraging plays that have
occurred in such a way (either naturally or through your manipulation)
as to encourage your opponent to become more likely to make a certain
action, or 2) by exploiting common behavior in your opponent which,
once he is given reason to believe that he may be being exploited, the
opponent will correct. In both cases the edge is temporary, and may
only be leveraged a finite number of times.

A persistent edge
occurs when your opponent has an exploitable tendency which, if you
begin to take advantage of it, he will not adjust. Opponents who are
not dynamic and interact with their opponents little will often provide
more persistent edges which, once discovered, can be exploited on a
permanent or semi-permanent basis.

There are degree of grey
between the two edges, however, and when playing with long-term
opponents it can often be important to micro-manage your edges
correctly. As an example, if you are playing against a long-term
opponent who takes actions where are easily and frequently exploited
you may consider very occasionally (and I do mean very occasionally)
declining to take advantage of the action in question, or at least go
to some effort to disguise your play if you suspected that by attacking
the action every single time he may eventually become aware of it. In
doing so you will almost certainly sacrifice some short-term
expectation, but are doing this in the hopes that by giving your
opponent some doubt as to your actions the edge will remain permanent,
and you will net a larger gain in the long run.

More often than
not, leveraging fluid edges is simply a matter of being aware of past
actions and considering what previous hands may encourage your opponent
to do. In some situations, however, fluid edges can be managed a bit
more proactively, but this is a much more dynamic and intuitive
process, and requires that you both consider how likely your actions
are to affect your opponent’s future actions, and if you believe you
can encourage him to act in an exploitable way in the future by taking
some sub-optimal actions for the immediate hand, you must be aware of
how much you are giving up in the immediate hand and weigh that against
potential future gains. Very seldom is it worth sacrificing a large
amount of immediate value for future gains, but often more subtle
choices which may only have a small impact on your immediate
expectation may have a substantial impact on your opponent’s future
actions.

Being aware of where potentially exploitable
tendencies in your opponent have developed and not taking
low-expectation actions which may jeopardize the situation can also be
an important skill in managing fluid edges. As an example, if you
believe your opponent gives up too easily to certain sorts of bluffs
you might decline to make that bluff on a board where it would show an
almost neutral expectation due to the assumption that if you are
“caught” bluffing your opponent may play tougher in future hands,
erasing your edge, whereas by attacking flops where your bluff is much
more likely to succeed you are more likely to preserve your edge in
these higher-yield situations. Again, however, it is seldom worth
sacrificing any sort of strong immediate gain for a future gain, even
in the most information saturated environments.