Why do you keep leaving, then keep coming back? You're like the guy who keeps threatening legal action. Either do it or don't do it, just stop talking about it.

As for your comments in this thread you're entitled to play any way you want. It's your money. But if you're going to give advice to new players, get your definition of balancing right. It's not what you think it is.

Really good post, coming from an old guy

lol

It's quite extraordinary (and humbling) to know that deep down I had no idea that balancing meant something very specific and quantifiable until quite recently. I'm still looking for a really tight definition myself, but it's so much more than some hippy notion of 'trying not to be too predictable coz ppl gonna read you man'.

Instead it's this idea that when I bet a range of hands I should be valuing twice and bluffing once...and that's some mathematically optimal strategy.

I first heard it from a pro cash game player last year who took me aside and starting talking strat at a level I hadn't heard before. He mentioned that he aimed to be running a bluff or semi-bluff line 1 out of 3 times. Then I watched Doug Polk's video and got a deeper understanding of why that ratio is 2:1 and not something else - plus the value that comes from increasing the frequency of profitable plays and the value that comes from not allowing players to adjust to and therefore exploit a style that's either too bluffy or too value-y.

The ratio depends on your bet size into the pot, so you are correct for pot size bets sir, but not any bet.

have gregzs posts been edited in some way (ie editing out personal attacks towards betgo)? if so you might not be completely out of line betgo but it seems unlikely from gregzs posts in this thread. however if he did not attack you personally then you are completely out of line calling him a scammer for no apparent reason (actually seems banworthy but whatever). also i think gregzs is def one of the best/most logical/nicest posters on this forum and not at all having a know it all attitude towards anyone ive seen so far (dont know him at all fwiw). just keep varying raise sizes and limping as much as you want. however if people who are successful at the game in todays world tell you that your approach is outdated/stupid and even be kind enough to explain why just stop being rude towards them.

Or does the ratio remain the same and the optimal bet sizing (inflection point) adjust for each different opponent?

I'm not sure how the underlying math works, because the ratio of calls to folds should change in response to optimal bet sizes which in turn changes in response to the particular opponent. Most interested to know how that computer program in the HU match ended up solving this, because some of the bet sizing it came up with was insane...huge multiples of the pot were bet at times, presumably for balance and to remain unexploitable against the particular opponent.

The ratio is simply determined by the pot odds your opponent receives.

If you bet pot, you're opponent needs to be right 1/3 of the time and so you should bet 2 value hands for every 1 bluff for a balanced approach. If you bet 1/2 pot, you're opponent needs to be right 1/4 of the time and so the ratio of value bets to bluffs should be 3:1 for a balanced approach.

I haven't edited my posts at all.

Betgo, what I have said is not a personal attack. What I have said is constructive criticsm/feedback on a topic you seem to be struggling in considering the title of this thread.

I'm aware of your clash with Stealthmunk and I think that thread went over the top and was poorly handled. Taking that into account, serious or not, that is no justifucation for you to react in the way that you did.

I can undersand my posting style is blunt at times and I might look to lighten it up if it comes across arrogant. What I will say is that without this forum I would not have been introduced to so many great people or had the oppportunity to learn as much as I have. So when I see bad advice that is being given to players and in particularly new players, I will call it out.

Anyway, life is too short for such things. I don't really want to derail this thread any further, but I will offer you 1 hour of free coaching to show there are no hard feelings on my part.

thanks to the guys with the serious responses

Back to the discussion:
It doesn't take too much thought process to work out that some boards are going to heavily favour the pre flop raiser. There are going to be lots of low boards where you aren't going to flop strong pairs. There are also boards where your range will be capped due to pre flop meaning that you won't have any top sets/top two pair etc. You don't have to be a genius to think these things in game.

Even if they are thinking on a very low level about what hands you could have, it doesn't stop them from betting their good hands. In cases where you are at a range disadvantage due to the board texture, it should be worth thinking about what hands we have in that spot and how we make the most money with all our holdings.

Balanced=optimal=unexploitable

Actually surprised to see the thread derailed early on as it was. I get Betgo's extreme frustration which has likely built up over time, but to lash out at Gregz, and then in turn, publicly defame him, who has given mountains of great advice to many posters, and lurkers, for no benefit to himself, while offering his own private coaching aside from his posts, is just flat out wrong on multiple levels.

Hard to witness more extreme example of hypocrisy and definitely lost any sympathy for betgo

Thank you for this. Every now and then I get something from this forum that helps me immensely. I have a feeling this will be one of those things.

Also thanks to oldsilver for bringing up the 2:1 thing and the definition of "balanced" betting.

I have recently increased my bluffs and have found it very profitable. I was wondering what the right proportion should be...

Personally I also think that it has to be coordinated with image (so an older guy like me who "rarely" bluffs should be bluffing more frequently than "balanced" until I have to turn over a bluff at which point I go balanced or slightly underbalanced until an equilibrium is hit).

Also FTR I don't count cbets as bluffs unless its into 3 or more players.

I think your cbets are often bluffs. If you're not betting for value, then you're betting as a bluff.

So much balancing has been built into standard lines now, that we don't even realize we're balancing

You bring up an interesting question about c-betting and balance.

When we c-bet for 1/2 pot, if we're "balanced" we want to have a range that's relatively balanced between 3/4 value hands and 1/4 bluffs. But very often when we're c-betting on dry boards, we're not necessarily betting because our hands have absolute value, but because the hand is either bad for our opponent's range or good for ours. (even if we didn't necessarily connect)

So when we're constructing a c-bet range, how do we incorporate balance effectively? Or is that a coaching lesson?

I have some doubt about whether it's worth creating a strat around "cbetting hands that are good for your range, bad for opponents range" because it may end up putting too many airballs in your triple barrel range and be too exploitable. i may be wrong there, i've never tried to build a balanced strat around that starting point and it could be possible.

however imo it's always been a flawed strat on a few levels. for starters, any blind defend range or MP-LP float from your opponent can have a full range of Ax, paint and any pair. what flop does that range miss? there isn't one. if V calls, it's hard to create a balanced c/c c/c line. not impossible (and i've done this recently with AK UTG vv UTG1 on a KxxQx runout to get value on a tricky board from KJ) but imo the ranges are getting too small.

Axx is the most likely candidate to include in such a 'good for my range' strat, and we may be able to restrict our cbet range to include naked Axx bluffs, best draws and TPGK+ and still come out with a balanced strat.

But I still don't like it unless we've decided that V is a strong candidate to fold Axx to a single or more likely a double barrel (or even occasionally a triple barrel) and that the risk-reward is justified and we're creating a balanced strat for a particular opponent that's based on sheer naked aggression and a hope that he won't improve to 2pr+ or get sticky with AK or flop a set and murder us with a river raise.

i'm not sure what the current thinking is behind c/c and checkback ranges, but I'm sure that these ranges are a lot stronger than they used to be. weaker TP hands especially A9- on Axx hands are definitely there. and if you have weaker TP hands in that range, then that reduces your cbet range quite a bit also. so we're seeing far more Axx flops checked through, followed by balanced OR leads ott.

cliffs: if weaker Ax is now in our check back and c/c ranges, it's harder to cbet Axx flops and other flops that are 'good for our range'

I just don't know the answer to how often I'm bluffing.

When I have AJ on a 872 board I have the best hand a lot of the time. But my cbet feels like a bluff because I missed the flop (which I will do like 67% of the time).

Its hands like JTo on a K76 flop or 77 on a AQ8 flop vs one or two opponents where my cbet has got to be a bluff. And the way I "balance" is that early in tournaments where winning smallish pots doesn't matter that much, I don't cbet so I try to establish in the minds of my tablemates that I won't cbet when I miss. Then later on virtually identical types of hands I do cbet and I get the benefit of the doubt. Sometimes.

But I will continue to mix it up a bit. I do see the value of not cbetting at random times HU even later in the tourney. Sometimes it costs me. Sometimes it saves me. But in the end I tend to think I am not truly balanced in my cbets vs opponents ranges (I think I bluff too much).

When you are making a c-bet, just because you might have the best hand, does not make it a value bet. A value bet is a bet where you expect that 50% + 1 of the hands that will call your bet are worse than your hand.

A bluff is a hand that is not going to get called by more worse hands than better hands, but may make some better hands fold. For instance, the last poster talked about betting AJ on a 872 board. A c-bet may get pairs from 66 - 33 or hands like AQ to fold.

But against most opponents, unbalanced c-betting is profitable. When you are betting 1/2 pot, and they are not defending their range more than 66% of the time you automatically profit. Their balance is the minimal range defense point. Which here would be 66% of their range. If they are unbalanced in their defense of their range, it is ok to go in the other direction away from balance to exploit their error.

If they are defending their range just right, you want to have a balanced range. If they are defending their range too often, you should unbalance in the other direction and make your range value heavy.

Of course, this stuff is all very basic and I agree. Of course it is important to think about how the board hits both players' ranges and so on.

My point is worrying about actually being balanced all time and protecting our calling range and so on. Even if your opponents are the best regs, they are unlikely to figure out exactly what your ranges are and adjust. Even the best opponents in MTTs aren't playing that much attention to exactly how everyone plays.

Of course Betgo is right. If you play BB44$/Big22/Big11 etc with no regs/crappy regs on the table is no clue to be balanced. In other hand if you play BB109$, Big55 etc with good regs on the table you have to play complex strategy.
Of course you can meet some really good guys in tournaments like Big11 but it's rare.

betgo and hoolzky and others, this may help

If an opponent is a station and is calling down every hand, that would suggest that we should be value betting as high as possible.

In other words, if we believe we have the best hand, and opponent never folds, then we should put as much money into the pot as possible. i.e. over-bet jamming for value vv stations.

Now balancing theory would seem to run counter to this. If we are over-betting the river in a spot, then we'd need to be bluffing something like 1:1.5 ratio or less to retain a balanced range. And bluffing a known station is NOT a good idea, not even for image, and let alone more often. But retaining balanced ranges that increase the frequency of won pots and make us less predictable to other more observant players at the table IS a good idea.

So the more non-optimally a station plays against us, does it indeed become mathematically optimal to run more unbalanced lines against a particular opponent - or indeed against a particular class of opponents (known pool of fish)? Yes, of course it does. But you have to know that equilibrium point to start off with and to know how much to adjust, when and why.

I could certainly get behind a strategy that involves running as close to perfect balanced lines against unknowns and confirmed GTO/advanced players, but adjust to more unbalanced lines against stations (larger value sizing, fewer bluffs) and weak/tight players (smaller or standard value sizing, more bluffs) as they reveal themselves. In truth, that's probably the closest to how I try to play irl.

None of this dispenses with the need for a very strong understanding of balance in low-mid stakes mtt for optimal play however. In fact optimal play becomes rather more difficult. First you need to know balanced lines to know what the equilibrium point should be. Then you need to adjust ranges on the fly for different players types to include more or less bluffs than a perfectly balanced range.

I propose that all off-topic posts and parts of posts are deleted (both past and future, both mods and non-mods).

It's too useful a thread to be derailed and may end up being a sticky.

Many levels to this discussion that haven't been explored yet - in particular

1. whether it even matters what range your opponent gives you if you are playing unexploitable balanced ranges.

2. whether unbalanced opponents can/should lead to unbalanced lines against them becoming optimal - provided we wink at the known GTO players to let them know we're being unbalanced for a reason

Yeah oldsilver, you are right with all this stuff, but be a realistic. Talking about all these things in mid stakes MTT perspective is waste of time. You have to do only 2 things to crush mid stakes MTT 1) Get value from your good hands 2) Realize your draws equity as cheap as possible.
And that's all. Then you can work on your complex balanced strategy and go to high stakes, where it matter.

No I completely disagree for any number of reasons including

(i) i suspect balancing works mathematically whether your opponent knows your ranges or not - although that's going to be an important point for discussion here
(ii) it's not just the players in a hand who are watching you be balanced/not
(iii) mid stakes is not as easy to beat as people think and the standard of play has improved massively in the past five years
(iv) practicing good habits in msmtt is precisely the thing that allows you to move up to higher levels
(v) most midstakes players find themselves playing at higher stakes at some point - especially when they've won a satellite to play a $10K main event or similar

Those last two points are super relevant to me. I spend most of my time playing live locally in Australia at $2-$5 and $5-$5-$10live cash and every local tournament I have the time to play with a $250+ buyin.

I can win at $2-$5 doing exactly what you say, or I can win playing balanced against unknowns/GTOs and unbalanced against confirmed nits and stations. i make more doing the latter, but the initial balanced lines and image help with that. but sometimes I just zone out, drink beer, pretend to be loud and bluffy, make an advertising play then grind value lines. sure, why not? i don't play professionally and poker followed by dinner with mates is hugely fun.

I cannot win at $5-5-10 unless I run an appropriate number of bluffs and value lines, and this thread has helped a huge amount in defining what 'appropriate' is against high level players.

The biggest difference between cash and MTTs however, is that while cash and early stage MTTs are multi-way deep stacked donk fests where value lines are essential, mid-late stage MTTs become steal, resteal and defend-fests where many hands revert to a HU situation where balanced lines become absolutely essential no matter what stakes you are playing.

And that's probably where I have the greatest disagreement with the OP premise. HU play is hugely dependent on balancing - from the initial steal/resteal to defend strat, to check back ranges and check, lead turn ranges to everything else. it's hugely visible to every player no matter what stakes and balanced and unbalanced lines become so obvious - even to less experienced mid-low stakers.

>i suspect balancing works mathematically whether your opponent knows your ranges or not - although that's going to be an important point for discussion here

Yeah, but whatever, there is no need to do this.

>it's not just the players in a hand who are watching you be balanced/not

And again, whatever? Fish will be always -Ev vs me because he is fish.

>mid stakes is not as easy to beat as people think and the standard of play has improved massively in the past five years

Yeyeye, I play with them everyday and they are as bad as they can.

>practicing good habits in msmtt is precisely the thing that allows you to move up to higher levels

Bankroll and skills allows you to move up.

>most midstakes players find themselves playing at higher stakes at some point - especially when they've won a satellite to play a $10K main event or similar

Yeah, only morons play satellites to 10k me(online) if they are midstakes players.

>Those last two points are super relevant to me. I spend most of my time playing live locally in Australia at $2-$5 and $5-$5-$10live cash and every local tournament I have the time to play with a $250+ buyin.

So you don't have idea of online tournaments dynamics etc.