Poker thinking, part II: the battle of mistakes

Poker has often been called the "battle of mistakes". Let's see what this means and in particular, what it means in WeBL.

According to our fundamental theory (discussed in my last blog entry), if we knew our opponent's fight plan, it would be pretty easy for us to write a perfect fp to counter it. In other words, we wouldn't be making any mistakes. (Sometimes the matchup favours the other guy so heavily that they will win no matter what we do, but let's just not go there). A "mistake" in this context is something we wouldn't do if we knew what our opponent is doing, even if it makes perfect sense otherwise.

Since we don't know our opponent's fight plan and they don't know ours, we have to rely on incomplete information. In an otherwise even matchup then, the manager who makes less (and less severe) mistakes, is most likely going to end up the winner. So, our goal should be to push the other guy into making those mistakes, while trying to stay clear of them ourself.

There are some key situations and concepts in WeBL that often lead to mistakes. Every good manager has some understanding of them. So let's take a look at a few.

Controlling the score: Letting your opponent get significantly ahead in score early in the fight is one of the most common ways of screwing yourself up. Unless your guy is capable of knocking out the opponent late even if they have the decision locked up, you are just giving your opponent too many options against you.

As an example, let's say you're fighting with a non-KP Balanced fighter against someone with a similarly built guy, and decide to go 4B/8/8 against him for the first four rounds. Your opponent responds with 5B/7/8 or 4/7/9 and wins those rounds. Now, you may have built a small endurance advantage with your efficient style, but you need to start catching up on score next because you can only afford to lose 1 more round before looking at a draw at best. Meanwhile, your opponent has a 4 point lead; he can use one round for rest and pound your guy with 4B/9/7 until the score is even, for example. How exactly are you going to continue after losing the first four rounds? Even if you anticipate what your opponent may be doing with his lead, it is going to be very tough for you to keep that endurance advantage you built early and win rounds at the same time. Invincible Iain and Rotmo are masters at this.

The KP effect: The natural fighting style of KP fighters is a perfect example of luring the opponent into making mistakes. Mostly, when facing a non-KP guy, they are using 1 power to score. An opponent looking to wear them out then is making a mistake whenever they're using any other style than allout or inside, as they would if they'd know for certain that the KPer is using 1 power. And obviously, it's an even bigger mistake to go 5B/10/5 (allout) on a KPer throwing 4H/7/9 (counter), which is another possibility. Combine this with what's said above about controlling the score, and you should see why KP Dancers can be such annoying opponents.

Some non-KP fighters can also use this same concept occasionally to trick their opponents, the Agile Sluggers in particular. Because they are so efficient, they aren't losing much in terms of the endurance battle, if they go 7/1/12 (ring) for the first round or two against a less efficient non-KP fighter. Followed by a flash with 5H/11!/4 (ropes), this can totally mess your opponent up. Ternfield and Boozefighters are masters of this tactic.

Endgame desperation: The outcome of a fight is often resolved during the last couple of rounds, and again (most often) the advantage is held by the fighter who has the lead, because the losing fighter is often forced to use extreme tactics while the winning fighter isn't. Consider two Balanced fighters going into the 12th round, for example: their endurance levels are pretty much even, but the other one is leading by 1 point. Now, a 5H/10/5 (ring) line is pretty nice for the one who's winning, because the losing fighter will most of the time use more desperate lines which will all be losers. If he tries to flash with inside or allout he will get KO'd, and if he tries to go for the draw with 13/1/6 (feint), he will often be at least stunned.

Happy Easter,

FBG