Introduction

No matter what form of poker you play, whether NLHE, PLO, or any other format, in any speed, style, or game type, the fundamental skillset of the successful poker player is the same – we make money by making better decisions than our opponents. Even at the lowest stakes, to do this requires a solid fundamental understanding of the game. While it may be possible to beat 2nl today by playing an extremely static and unchanging strategy, by the time we get up to even 10nl we’ll need to have a solid basic understanding of the game and the ability to adapt our strategy to exploit our opponents if we want to maintain a high winrate. Even at 2nl, we can both win and learn far more if we have principled reasons for making our decisions beyond just reading some default ranges laid out in a 2p2 post or an introductory book.

Too many posts from new players today are met with responses such as “play ABC”, “tight is right”, or “just play TAG”. Often, posters will reference strategies laid out in books, telling people to play X range UTG, Y range from the CO, and Z range from the blinds. These strategies are typically laid out in a very static manner, and the supporting reasons for having the ranges we have are seldom described. This causes many to get trapped in a mold, unable to adapt to the games as they change over time and even table by table. Further, people will eventually move up from the absolute microstakes to find that the “solid play” they’ve learned no longer works as effectively, and they have no idea how to adapt and continue to improve.

These problems are solved by understanding poker on a theoretical level as opposed to a superficial one. Hopefully, this thread will introduce the basics of thinking about poker on that level and will allow many to escape the boxes they find themselves trapped in. While it takes time and effort to start thinking about the game in this way, in the long-term it will both improve your winrate in your current games and better prepare you to move up to higher stakes and continue to succeed. Hope you enjoy reading, and hope you find my thoughts useful to you in some way.

The Basics of Decision-Making

Being a profitable poker player boils down to making profitable decisions. While this may seem trivial at first glance, let’s look at it a little deeper. Any poker hand can be viewed as a series of decisions. When we get our cards, the first decision we make is whether or not to play the hand. We can play the hand for a call (whether a limp, or a flat vs. an earlier opener), we can play the hand for a raise to any size allowed (which can be quite a large range of sizes, especially in NL games), or we can fold and wait for the next hand. In the BB, provided nobody has raised, we also have the option to check and see a free flop. If we’ve chosen not to fold, we are then faced with another set of decisions on the flop – and so on for each further street in the hand, and each additional hand until we end our session. We can view every session we play as a series of decisions.

Our goal as poker players is to make the most profitable decision we can at every decision point we face. To do this, we can look at the pros and cons of each line available to us and estimate the EV of each possible line. Despite the fact that we’ll inevitably make (tons of) mistakes, this is the way to improve at poker and start thinking about the game fundamentally. Instead of building our game from the top down (by having some stats in mind which we try to meet, or having some idea of what solid play “should” look like and playing in that mold), we build our game from the ground up – analyzing the EV of every decision presented to us and making the ones we consider most profitable.

On a very basic level, this is just asking “what happens if we do this?” about each decision we face. Here’s an extended example to illustrate: we have pocket aces in an unopened pot in MP at a fullring NL table. We could fold, limp, or raise to any size (from 2 to 100bb, assuming 100bb stacks). Let’s look at each of the options available to us. What happens if we fold? If we fold, we are guaranteed not to lose any money from the hand. We’re also guaranteed to avoid being sucked out on, preventing potential tilt. However, if we fold then we are unable to profit, and as AA is the best possible starting hand it should be very profitable to play.
So now we turn to limping. What happens if we limp? We get to play the hand, and if we get raised we have the ability to continue. Other people have the ability to limp behind with speculative holdings, hoping to see a cheap flop with good odds. Also, we are guaranteed not to win preflop (unless we get raised and reraise) as the BB will get to see a free flop. Further, if nobody else joins the pot, the size of the pot will be smaller on average, meaning we’ll likely win less when we win because building the pot will be harder. We generally want to build big pots with strong holdings, and limping not only invites speculative hands to play against us (which we play somewhat poorly against) but limits potential potsize, both of which seem fairly negative.

Finally, raising. For raising, we have to consider sizings as well. First, we’ll look at reasons we would raise AA generally. First, it is a strong hand, and raising will build the pot larger when we get called (versus limping). Second, villains will likely consider with a tighter range than when facing a limp. Third, due to the increased potsize postflop we can barrel bigger, making it easier to build the pot. Fourth, we can win the pot preflop by causing everyone else to fold (which may seem insignificant, but remember that this represents a winrate of 150bb/100). These all seem like very good reasons to raise. When it comes to sizing, we have to consider how our opponents will react to various sizings (if we jam 100bb pre we will very rarely get called, if we raise 3x pre we will get called far more often but the pot will be far smaller when we do) and also if our betsizings are giving off tells about our hand strength (provided we are playing villains who will spot them).

There are of course more reasons than the ones I’ve listed above, not only general in terms of general strategy but also in exploiting our specific opponents. If we have reads that a player spazzes out over limps, for example, it may be most profitable to limp AA versus raising – as opposed to struggling to build a larger pot, we’re almost assured a larger pot, and villain will likely have a wider range than he would versus a raise (a plus in a bigger pot with lower SPR). If we have reads that the players behind us don’t care if we 3x or 8x, it may be more profitable to 8x than to make a standard open. There are many factors we have to consider, and this is just an analysis of how we should play AA preflop – a decision pretty trivial as it’s the strongest starting hand (equity-wise) and pretty simple to play postflop. Weighing the options and deciding how to play midstrength hands can be much more difficult, as it’s less clear where we stand against our opponents, less clear when we should fold vs. raise, and will get us into more difficult spots postflop with our draws.

To decide between our various options, we have to assess the profitability of each potential line. AA will almost always be a raise – limping AA is certainly profitable (we are still playing a hand which crushes our opponents’ ranges), but raising has many additional benefits which tend to make it the clear best option. Ideally, we approach every decision in this manner, looking at the reasons to take each line and the value of the line generally in light of those reasons. Sometimes we’ll be wrong about the EV of each option, but we can identify that through discussion, study, and hh review, allowing us to refine our thought processes and make better decisions in the future. We should be able to say exactly why we made any given decision and the reasons we chose over the other alternatives; if unable to do this or if reasons for another action seem better after analysis, then we’ve found a leak and can do better the next time!

Labels and Considering Our Opponents

Labels such as TAG, LAG, station, rock, etc. can be useful in categorizing villains, as they give us a simple way to quickly identify their strategy and formulate a decent response. That said, we should never strive to play a “style” ourselves. The most profitable decisions will always be based upon our opponents. Versus some opponents it can be correct to open 32o (bvb vs. someone who folds 90%, for example), while vs. others we can consider folding QQ to a 3bet! As such, we should not try to force ourselves to play a given style or by any rules we’ve read or devised about “solid play”, but should attempt to make the best decisions we can given the information we know about our opponents.

To illustrate (very loosely): if we’re playing against rocks, then in general we want to be more aggressive preflop and shut down quickly with most hands when played back at. If we’re playing against stations, then in general we want to value bet thinner and bluff less often. Against maniacs, we can consider trapping more and recognize that they have a higher bluffing frequency. A similar response can be made for any such strategy – instead of “trying to play TAG” or “trying to play LAG” (two very common topics in BQ), we should try to make the best decisions possible based on the opponents we face.

So, you may ask, how do we go about building a readless strategy? While it may be great to adapt to and exploit our opponents, we can certainly do this better as we get better reads and have more information, and until that point we still have to make decisions. The best way to do this, especially at the lower stakes, is to look at how villains tend to play. This is the reason that many introductory texts recommend TAG play – the typical micro villain will play too many hands, will call down too much, and will spew off in too many spots. As such, we can exploit this by playing a stronger-than-average range, and by aggressively building pots when we have strong holdings. Further, our bluffs will tend to work less often than average as players tend to be more stationy than they should be.

Of course, in practice this means that we will be missing some value against spewers, possibly betting slightly too thin against nits, etc. But we can only make decisions with the information we have. As we get better reads, we’ll be able to better adjust and exploit our opponents. And many of the general reasons we have to play hands (raising AA for value because it’s extremely strong) will be true even if we don’t know the exact parameters of villain’s strategy. In practice, villains will adjust based on their history with us and even will improve over time and change their defaults (many regs are studying and improving, just as we are!), so we’ll never know exactly what villain is doing. But we’ll be able to estimate pretty effectively and still have very good EV-based reasons for the decisions we make the vast majority of the time.

Math and Stuff

It may be a stretch to call this a poker theory post without looking at some math-based topics. There are a number of good primers about basic poker math (see: The Mathenoobics of Poker), so I’ll take a more conceptual angle here. The fact of the matter is that the math allows us to know how profitable a decision is. Each theoretical reason we come up with will impact the EV of any given decision we have in a certain way. A basic understanding of poker math will help us greatly with identifying and making profitable decisions at the table, and deeper analysis off the table will allow us to better make decisions in future spots. I will touch on both in this section.

First, let us look at some basic poker math which is extremely important to making good decisions at the table. Equity, pot odds, and implied odds are the concepts I will focus on here, though other concepts are certainly important as well. While we don’t need to be able to calculate things to exact decimals or percentages, having a rough idea of how well our hand fares against our opponent’s range is an extremely important skill. Further, the ability to estimate our fold equity is also important. Generally, we don’t want to value-bet if we’re going to be behind our opponent’s continuing range in equity. Estimating how often our opponents will continue against a bet or raise will inform us about the profitability of bluffing (fold equity) and about playing our value hands profitably (if we think raising the nuts will have our opponent fold 95% of the time, for example, we should likely just call to induce bluffs or allow our opponent to valuetown himself).

Pot odds and implied odds are hugely important when it comes to playing draws. In addition, pot odds will often determine things such as our river bluffcatching range – with better pot odds on the river, we need to win the pot less often for our call to be profitable; while we need to win 33% of the time getting 2 to 1 to break even, we only need to win 10% of the time getting 9 to 1 to break even. Similarly, pot and implied odds tell us the equity we need to continue with any given hand. In short, being able to estimate our equity against ranges and compare that to the odds we’re facing is fundamental to making profitable poker decisions. Everything from calling ranges to our betsizing is determined by equity of ranges in conjunction with the size of bets.

At the table, however, we are only estimating based on our assumptions and reads. It’s pretty common to think things like “we’re way ahead here”, or “we’re slightly behind here” and have those correspond to general ideas about our equity. Further, our idea about our opponent’s continuing ranges will often be pretty rough and imprecise – on wet boards, our opponent may “continue more often vs. a raise”, but how much more often is impractical to determine on the spot. Clearly, however, honing these skills is crucial to making good decisions.

Doing work off the table is the main way to improve in these areas. We can do much more precise work, using combinatorics and explicitly defining ranges to see continuing percentages and equities. Programs like CREV exist, allowing us to see the EV of each hand at each point in a full decision tree and very precisely calculate EV and toy with our ranges. Ultimately, while it is a process, doing simple work (even just using the Equity Trainer in Equilab) and reviewing a lot of hands will let us refine our estimates and be more accurate in our calculations at the table. We may never be entirely precise, but refining an estimate from within ~20% to within ~10% of actual values will over time reflect in our decisions and allow us to be more profitable.

Being Exploited

Thus far I’ve described the basics of determining the most profitable action in a vacuum. Of course, in reality our opponents don’t play perfectly static strategies. Additionally, our game is sure to have leaks which are open for others to exploit – not only are our decisions going to be imperfect, but we’re playing a very exploitative style. This is quite profitable at the micros and lower stakes as the average villain is quite bad, there are fewer competent regs, and we have to worry less about adjustments. When we start moving up, however, we have to worry more about being exploited and adapting over larger samples. A more defensive strategy can be prudent when we’re unsure of what to do against a given player, or if a player in particular is giving us trouble. In an attempt to address this, I’ll briefly look at how we can work on our own ranges to be less exploitable.

One thing that being very exploitative tends to do is to open up gaps in our ranges. For example, if we have a player who is folding a lot to double barrels, we double barrel a lot of bluffs – meaning that someone perceptive can quite profitably call us down with bluffcatchers as we have less value. Against a station, we barrel most of our thin value for multiple streets, meaning that when we check we’ll have a weaker range than usual and opening us up to being bluffed. These and similar situations are all because our ranges are imbalanced in ways that are exploitable.

In a general sense, one way to combat this is to have a variety of hand strengths in most spots. While our ranges will not be perfectly balanced, it’s hard to exploit in practice when we have a variety of strong, middling, and weak hands in a spot – coming up with optimal counterstrategies is something done largely off the table through extensive analysis; in real time we are estimating, and a range that is not too heavy in any one segment is going to be hard to exploit – only large imbalances are easy to pick up on and counter.

Further, we can adjust in a way that’s harder to exploit or encourages less adjustment. While we may get max value by 3betting 100% pre vs. some villain, if we 3b that wide he’ll very quickly adjust his open percentage, change how he plays in 3b pots, and 4b us quite frequently. If we only open up our ranges moderately, he is less likely to make substantial adjustments, meaning that he’ll stay quite exploitable and easy to play against for longer. At the micros we generally want to go for absolute max value every hand, but vs. solid regs at higher stakes we sometimes would rather make minor to moderate adjustments as opposed to drastically varying our strategy.

This topic has much more depth than the considerations given here; in fact, much of GTO theory these days is focused in this area. Programs like CREV are great not only for some of the math work I mentioned before but in analyzing our own ranges for their exploitability. It’s best not to focus on playing like this and to stick to playing very exploitatively while at the micros and smallstakes, but as you improve and face better opposition you will have to begin to consider being exploited yourself, and these are some basic thoughts to keep in mind for when that happens.

Conclusion

Hopefully these posts have helped you all learn to think about poker in a more theoretical manner. Making any given play at a poker table is not good because “it’s solid TAG poker” or “that’s how we should play”, but because there are equity based reasons for the decision we make which makes it the most profitable option available. As we improve and play higher, we need to escape the mindset of charts and set strategies, instead being willing to deviate in manners we find profitable for reasons we identify.

While all of us will make mistakes doing this, ultimately very few people take up poker with the idea of being marginal winners at the microstakes. To succeed even in smallstakes today, it’s necessary to understand why we make the decisions we make, and to be able to compare the EV of any given decision to the EV of the other plays available. Having a fundamental framework which is focused on how our villains play and how best to adapt to that is key to identifying the most profitable decisions at the table. While this post contains little in the way of concrete advice, my hope is that it opens a new way to think about poker up to some, and introduces some methodology which is able to accommodate play as you continue to improve and move up in the future. Thanks for reading.

-Dunce

If that isn't a sticky then I dunno why we have stickies.

Good stuff, Duncelanas.

Mods are asleep, make seminal poasts. Holy crap.

YUSSSSSSSSS.

Edit: In case it wasn't obvious, that means '**** me, this is good'.

Excellent post Dunce. I will add it to the best of BQ OP.

nice post

Thank you.

Fantastic thread - I will be re-re-re-reading this.

Awesome post!

Ok, this works - just play a single table and try your hardest to make the most +EV decision on each hand rather than stock theory from books. I did it after reading the article and just owned the table. Thank you OP, you have redirected my path to small stakes!

Jolly good post sir.

Vwp Sir. A must read for everyone here

If I ever make a pooh-bah post, it will just be a link to this thread. This thread will help a ton of BQ'ers out, assuming they actually read it. Hopefully they will

Seems like its a lot of effort so i shall read later at a better time.

ty in advance

nice post from an upstanding guy, wise beyond his years. WP G22

Thanks for all the kind words, guys

If anyone has any questions/comments/disagreements/whatever, I'd be happy to hear and respond.

Thanks for letting me know about the equity trainer, I didn't know that thing even existed. I used to just stove ranges vs hands and guess their equity lol.

The equity trainer is pretty straightforward in regards to its use, but is there any way that you use it in particular that might be different from the way most people use it?

2 questions.

1) How do I play HUSNGs like you?
2) What's the c\t going to be?

Great Post

Yeah, no problem. I didn't know about it for quite a long time, either.

I don't really use it in any particularly special way, I would just say to make use of the "user defined ranges" feature as opposed to the default situations, especially if you're trying to better estimate equity vs. some given player or player types.

1) You don't want to play husngs like me, you want to play them better than me

2) Oh god, hope I never get there Might make a 5k post, though! Maybe on husngs, though I also feel I missed some stuff in this post that would be good to write about, too.