I tried to put this idea down earlier but I decided to change it completely before posting. I think this is applicable to both our studies and actually playing the game. I'd like to focus on gameplay, but you can talk strict theory if you like.

There are different stages of hand reading that we go through as we progress through the hand. Preflop, we're trying to guess the bottom of our opponent's range based on tendencies and position. Postflop is a bit different though. Once I decide on a preflop range for my opponent and the flop falls, I start thinking about how the flop hits our ranges. There is a crossroads here where we have options both tactically and strategically. I'd like to focus on the strategic options, since this is the theory forum. However I'm not opposed to talking about multiway tactics.

I'll split up the flop crossroads into a few categories:

1) When our opponent has bet and we're in position.

I'm thinking about the top of my opponent's bluffing range and the bottom of his value range. These are the most important hands in the opponent's range. From there it's much easier to imagine how the rest of his range lines up and whether or not my hand fits into a good calling or raising strategy.

2) When our opponent has checked and we're in position.

I'm thinking about the bottom of my opponent's bluffcatching range. From there it's much easier to imagine how the rest of his range lines up and whether or not my hand fits into a good betting strategy.

3) When we have checked and our opponent is in position and he bets.

I'm thinking about the top of his bluffing range and the bottom of his value range. From there it's much easier to imagine how the rest of his range lines up and whether or not my hand fits into a good calling or raising strategy.

These are the most common flop decision points, which I'd like to focus on. However, I'm not opposed to taking it a step further to flop raising, facing a flop raise, and or turn and river action.

Handreading is hard and maybe not suited for the theory forum, but this is more of a question about the theory of handreading, which is applicable to all games.

What can I do to improve this hand reading process?

Thanks

I think you could incorporate bluffing frequencies to somehow replace "top of his bluffing range". If that makes sense.

Bluffing frequency is vague and is determined by the top and bottom of the opponent's bluffing range, as well as his value range. Thus I think we need to think of the top of his bluffing range first and then determine how the other variables add up to form his bluffing frequency. How can you determine bluffing frequency without considering these variables? I don't think you can.

What would "top of his bluffing range" typically look like? If the board is 9h 6h 2s, is 87hh (technically 8-high, but with a zillion outs) or AKhh the top of the bluffing range? Ranking the equities of villain's bluffs is going to depend on what you actually hold, isn't it?

This will depend on the action, which will determine how the ranges are made up. In the most simple case of button vs big blind:

100bb 3 handed no limit holdem:

button raises 3x, small blind folds, I call in the big blind.

flop 962

I check 100%, button bets 2/3 pot, it's on me.

With this action, neither AK nor 87 will show a long term loss when I call because of the many outs those hands have. In this case, it's not really important to differentiate which hand is the top of my opponent's bluffing range; it's rather easy to visualize both of these hands in my opponent's range at high frequency and then imagine the weaker draws as well as some pure bluffs in my opponent's range at lower frequencies.

Then I think about the bottom of my opponent's value range. Some won't bet without T9s or better. Some will bet as weak as 44. The outliers will be even tighter or looser than that, but let's not consider those outliers to be good poker players thus we can disregard them for the construction of a good counter strategy vs good players. From there, it's easy to visualize better hands being bet and worse hands being checked by the button.

Then I decide how my actual holding stacks up against my opponent's likely betting range and I fold, call, or raise depending on how profitable I think those options are.

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Contrast that situation with this one, which is quite different imo:

6max 100bb no limit holdem

utg raises 3x, folds to me in the big blind, I call.

AA6r

I check 100%, button bets 80% pot, it's on me.

The first thing I start thinking about is the top of my opponent's bluffing range and then I fill in the blanks with weaker backdoor draws. I'd expect a good opponent to bluff here with JTs with a backdoor flushdraw at high frequency as well as T9s, 98s, 87s all with backdoor flushdraws at high frequencies. I expect those same hands without backdoor flushdraws to bet at much lower frequencies.

Then I think about the bottom of my opponent's value range. Some players bet QQ here and some won't bet without AQo or better. I think a good utg strategy will fall somewhere in between. Outliers will be tighter or looser, but we can disregard them for the purposes of constructing a good counter strategy vs good players. From there, it's easy to visualize better hands being bet and worse hands being checked.

Then I decide how my actual holding stacks up against my opponent's likely betting range and I fold, call, or raise depending on how profitable I think those options are.

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After that process, if I cant decide on what to do, I consider blockers, population tendencies, and other non range based factors such as psychological influences.

Maybe I'm slow or lazy but I'm gonna guess I'm not alone in thinking that a less complex (maybe toy game) or simplified situation as an example of your thought process would be helpful in trying to "get on the same page" with you.

I don't think like this personally, maybe I'm dead wrong and there's great wisdom here for me if I can grasp it, but some if this doesn't make sense to me.

For instance, why would we only think of the bottom of villain's range pre-flop?

Are you saying that our opponent will continue with some hand, X, and everything better than it so all of those hands will be in his range?

I don't think that's right.

For instance,
If you open the cut off and I 3 bet you from the button I will likely be polarized and have an uncapped range that is also not nearly as bounded as my flatting range would be. So it could well make sense for you to try to consider the bottom of my value range but then wouldn't you want to know my aprox bluff % and the types of hands I like to 3 bet light with?

If you open cut off and I flat call from the button, I don't think the bottom of my range is all you need to consider by a long shot. I think you should assume my range is capped and bounded and you would need to know what my worst and best flat calling hands would be.

If I am 3 betting a linear range then, sure, just the bottom of my range is sufficient. If you just meant, "when a player open raises we only need to consider the bottom of his range" then I think that makes sense.

But maybe I just don't get what you're saying??

I do something like this when trying to think of exploits. But it's pretty useless on most flop spots and also not that useful on turns. OTF ranges are so wide that you can't just pinpoint a pivoting point in villains range that would make the cutoff decision for your exact hand. Maybe he isn't valuebetting enough toppairs, but also maybe he is deciding to not bluff with some hands that should be bluffed etc.

But on turns and esp rivers you can easily find pivoting points in ranges, as on those spots it's like a lot of hands don't really have a choice how they can play, clear valuebets need to valuebet etc, but then focus on close valuebets and bluffs and the frequencies of those. On rivers you can often find the few hand types that if villains plays those one way or another, it will affect how you should play your hands.

The point is that I consider the marginal hands first and then I fill in the blanks. The most important hands are the marginal hands. If instead I was to think about the hands in the middle of my opponents value and bluffing ranges I would still have to fill in the blanks. However by concentrating on the marginal hands I can fast forward the process in my mind visually.

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This isn't something that I came up with before I tried to implement it at the table. This is just the thinking process that I have adapted to after many hands.

I decided to actively think about the process after a river situation caught my eye. I had called a river bet in a checked down pot with queen high in a heads up limit holdem game. It turned out that my opponent was bluffing with the exact same hand. We chopped it and it got me thinking about the top of his bluffing range. Different people view the games differently. I for one wouldn't have bluffed in my opponents shoes because queen high is often good enough to win a showdown in heads up limit holdem in a checked down pot and if he's bluffing all worse hands in his range then he's likely quite bluff heavy. Now that I've identified the hand that surely must be close to the top of his bluffing range, it's easier for me to calculate the best response at game speed vs that opponent.

Then after the session I was mentally reviewing the hand and put my finger on something that had previously escaped me conceptually.

I think the idea is particularly valuable on the river, but I chose to put my thought process for flop decisions in the op because there are so many ways to get to the river action but there are relatively few flop situations.

OP is saying that he creates in his mind a range for the villain as standard, but he finds that his attention centres on specific aspects of that range at different times.

(Do correct me if I'm wrong mate)

Everyone does that sort of thing. When we think of ranges our amazing mind automatically points us to the important bits of the range so that we can concentrate on it in more detail. We slowly develop an unconscious ability to do this sort of thing as time goes by. Do be careful though, we do need to be fully aware of his entire range in our mind.

That is very impressive to me though mate, not many people are able to look directly at their own thought process, nor the opponents thought process, and notice stuff that is so precise.

I have a gem for you... A gem which is never received kindly........... It's not all about his range, (Level Two), nor is it all about your cards, (Level One). Your next step is realising that it's all about your perceived range (Level Three).

Add your perceived range to your deliberations. You think of it before anytime you think of his range.

As the opponent gets better my perceived range approaches my actual range.

Nice logic but that's not entirely true...

If a player is looking at our range in more detail, that means that we can mislead him more accurately. We can show him that we have exactly the nuts, when really we have nothing.

We're have control of our perceived range.

dank. I've thought these thoughts but didn't put it into words so elegantly.

It also means that we're very exploitable if we do attempt to mislead our opponent, which is exactly why we should only exploit on the margins vs good players. As the opponent's skill level increases, the margin for exploitation shrinks.

VERY exploitable is clearly wrong. You didn't mention how far you're straying from balanced.

The only way adding bluffs to your range is going to make you more exploitable is if you start off as being balanced. It's only GTO players who think like that. For everyone else, adding bluffs to our range is exactly how we become more balanced. Level Two is pure value. Level Three is where bluffs come in.

You GTO guys are looking at it all backwards.

The next bit should have read:

"We should only exploit on the margins against heavily balanced players. As the opponent becomes more balanced the margin for exploitation shrinks"

Well if you're raising 72o, I think you're straying too far.
Means exactly the same thing. The only difference is that I said it without such gratuitous use of the word balance.

Calm yourself

I'm explaining that balanced doesn't necessarily mean better

Well you're the only one talking about balance. The rest of us are talking theory without having to rely on such a broad, vague, and basically useless term to get our points across.

I still maintain that this statement is true:

Now, can you show that I'm wrong without saying the word balance or talking about the levels? I don't think you can and therefore you have not progressed at all since our last conversation.

Once again, poker is all about profitability. Relying on tricks and ploys to manipulate your opponent is like second grade recess ****. The third graders get a whiff of what you're doing and they'll skip over the bull **** and punch you in the face because they're on level infinity playground gto style, if you'll pardon my French.

So stuff like this:

Is just totally useless to the progression of poker theory. I'm sorry but it's true.

I think you've talked about this before in regards to "pivoting points" to find out how villain's are deviating/what villain's range composition imbalances are.

Also this may be irrelevant but i find myself asking questions in order to help answer what villain's range composition imbalances because it's easier to make range assumptions that way one by one such as... are like is villain over-defending here (raising + calling)? What is villain doing with all these bluff combos is he going to be checking most of his range in this spot etc...?

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Hey doc in the last paragraph (bolded) you mention more exploits on turns + rivers, which means EV OTF are pretty much not that significant and EV OTT isn't that significant compared to river EV in general?

Also in regards to EV as long as our total EV of hands in our range is > then villain's then we are technically exploiting? ...and secondly villain isn't super +EV with his range/hand strat which just means something like if we are exploiting turns + rivers a lot/in general we don't care if we have to give up EV OTF like x-fold the flop/under-defend in certain spots?

Clear value bets need to value bet, so if you know how many value bets villain has in this spot, just ask yourself how many bluffs he should have/needs given pot odds/bluffing frequency or what nash ranges are here? But then you have to make assumptions about villain's range for betting and checking, raising etc... and if those assumptions are off then what lol...

^
Would be awsome if you could answer/clear some of my questions and sorry for the ramble...

Well yeah different villain's construct their ranges diff in x,y, and z whether it's FPS stuff or not knowing how to construct their range in general lol...

Range assumptions/Identifying range composition are tough like there is no math involved just information which you receive more and more up until the river/prior information or history/pop reads etc... about villain and how villain's are likely deviating/constructing their ranges in a imbalanced way... then when we know step 1, step 2 would be to adjust appropriately and max exploit/take the highest EV line which is where the math comes into play because now that we know his imbalances/range we can exploit...

Flop exploit EVs are smaller, but they are more frequent. So its not like it's not important, but I'm just saying its harder to make assumptions OTF. Also on rivers the range % for hands that have decisions that are close is a lot bigger than OTF, and this makes a lot more room for exploitation.

EG V bluffs a bit too much OTF without info if he is underdefending to raises, ok how to exploit that? Maybe we can peel a bit more 2 overs and backdoors, but not that much.

And OTR, okay V bluffs a bit. Ok we can fold basically every bluffcatcher which is like 80% of our range.


When our total EV is higher compared to GTO situation, meaning when villain would play perfectly.



Yes everytime you are exploiting, that is based on assumptions and assumptions are never perfect. That's why I think and use similiar strat as WCG, play kinda GTOish, exploit at the edge of ranges. Obv in live this kinda goes out of the window as ppl are so terrible and you can just hardcore exploit every spot.

Not sure what you are askin. In poker good hands don't really have that many spots where decisions are close. And when you are playing vs ok villains, you can just assume they know this and often play their valuehands like they should be played.

Hey Bob, interesting topic, thanks for the post.

I am a novice and this thread got me thinking about time frame. This is A LOT to think about during a turn. How much time do you usually take to make a decision? At what point does the time you take to make a move become a tell and reveal uncertainty. Or is it ok to take ones time (within reason)

Thanks!

Like the doctor noted earlier, there really aren't many close decisions in a given session for experienced players. Maybe 5% of decisions are close. Also since the decision is close it doesn't really matter much what you do as long as you avoid glaring mistakes. Like if it's close between raise or call, just don't fold and you'll be fine.

I don't worry about tells. As long as we can keep from telling our opponents our cards, I think we're ok.

Course I can.

If a player is amazing at exploiting, like me, for instance, the margin for exploitation is huge because he/or she is exploiting all the time.

But that certainly doesn't mean someone who doesn't even use their perceived range, like you, could touch me.

No, I've not progressed lol.

... That dude who said Dank. He progressed. The legend.

Yadoula wins

/thread

Correlation does not equal causation. Try again please.