I have heard this term used but I don't fully understand what it means. I think I know, but I would like to ask if someone can explain it.

Thanks.

meaning you are representing a select range of hands of opposite strength, often referring to a situation where you have nuts or air or any two opposing hand strengths

so like you betting on the river on a scare card could be for value as it is likely to strengthen your range or as a bluff, but you would check medium strength made hands meaning by betting you are polarizing your range

something to that degree, also dont worry about it at micros

Three-betting a polarized range means you still three-bet your good hands for value but your "light" three-bet hands have no value in seeing the flop.

The basic idea is you want to take a hand you'd normally fold and three-bet it as a bluff to try and get your opponent to fold.

When you only raise or 3-bet with monsters, nobody will ever play back at you so hands like AA/KK will lose tons of value.

But when you add some crap like 76s/33+ etc to your 3-betting range, you are balancing your range by doing this. Villain won't know whether you are 3-betting light or 3-betting for value anymore.

A nut range and a bluff range and not the middle stuff.

It basically means that your range is either extremely strong or extremely weak. For example, I check-raise on the river on a board of KK529. My range is polarized at this point; either I have a set/FH or nothing. I'm never, ever check-raising A9 or JJ (the middle of my range), so I've polarized my range.

Another application of polarizing your range is when you 3-bet preflop. Obviously, we generally want to 3-bet the top off our range for value: JJ+, AK, AQs. However, if we only 3-bet the tip-top, then we'll have a 3-bet percentage between 3%-4% and it will be painfully obvious what your hand is in 3-bet pots. So, we need to toss in some more hands for balance. Most people advocate polarizing your 3-bet range, so rather than 3-betting 88-TT (middle of my range), we might decide to 3-bet with the bottom of our calling range. For me, this would mean 3-betting stuff like 54s, T8s, KXs IP. OOP, this would probably include A2s-A5s, ATs-AJ, JTs, QTs, etc. By polarizing your range, you can manage to play more than your fair share of hands and push your 3-bet% up to 7%-10% (or more for some players), which helps you get value with your top 4% hands.

you don't want to polarize your range OP.

love how 6 people post the same thing just in different words.

Why do we 3bet with things like 45s to polarize? Doesn't it "polarize" if they actually get to see what we have? If we 3bet and whiff we just b/f or c/f...

What's your reasoning there? I'm pretty sure you're dead wrong. Obviously, you don't always want/need a polarized range, but to flatly say don't do it is wrong.

I like to say it with moar words. Lots moar fwiw, I was simply working on my essay while all the others were being posted.


The why is where I get a little bit confused tbh But my understanding is that we polarize is in part to encourage them to play back at us. There's no better feeling than a guy getting frustrated and 4-betting us with A9 when we've got AA. Maybe there's no point in polarizing/balancing in the micro-micros, but I know at 25NL, I manage to get lots of action with my monsters because I occasionally get it in with 54s when I spike a pair+FD.

Most people adjust to being 3-bet by calling more OOP, which is the opposite of what they should do, however. If this is their adjustment to us, instead of 4-betting light (very few villains will begin 4-betting light, but the ones that do will give us their stacks sooner or later), then we've got to figure out if they're c/f-ing most flops. If that's the case, we can continue 3-betting light and taking down pots with c-bets; however, if they get really stubborn, then we just stop 3-betting them light. They won't notice that we've adjusted to their adjustment for a bit though, so we get to take them to value-town a few times before they re-adjust (if they ever do).

So, our range is polarized, whether we show down or not. Eventually observant villains will realize this and hopefully over-adjust. The reason we tend to balance with suited cards is that we can ship with them and have ~50% equity sometimes; the fact we're willing to 3-bet 45s, then ship flops when we catch a decent piece will greatly enhance the value you get when you play AA the same way.

FullMoon, thanks for the advice! That was a great explanation, and I now fully understand!

nice posts, good advice

Just realized my tone was kind of douchey there, Never Win My apologies. I was reading some about merging your range and got kind of confused after posting this. What are some examples of situations in which you wouldn't want a polorized range? After further thought, I'm sure there are some, but I haven't figured out when yet.

Thanks much I just try to restate some of the high level poker thinking that I glean from good posters and then retype it in the way I think of it in my not super-developed poker mind lol. If you really want to understand the mechanics of 3-betting and 4-betting, search for posts by BreathWeapon; he's a certified coach and his posts tend to focus on 3-betting/4-betting strategy.

Tyvm, sir (if that pertains to me). See, I told you not all of my posts were sarcastic flames I occasionally think about and discuss poker.

wow, some real terrible advice ITT

Care to specify, new guy? Some examples would probably be more helpful for us Beginner's than an un-punctuated 1-liner.

No. Let someone else do it, the meaning of the phrase is in the word itself.

Well, thanks for stopping back by then. Your 100NL/200NL strat posts look pretty solid, if, I a 25NL/50NL guy am qualified to say as much, so maybe if you find the time, you could expand for us.

Yes, a polarized range is one that doesn't include the middle stuff, as its name indicates. I was just wondering where the bad advice was, as I spend most of my productive time in the forum reading about 3-betting and 4-betting, and I can't find any bad advice itt, which means it could very well be mine lol. If that's the case, I neeeeeds to know

A range isn't really polarized preflop because even the bottom of your range still has 30-40% equity. Your range can be balanced preflop, though.

A polarized range is, as most people here have said, when your range has a handful of strong hands and a handful of weak hands, but none in the middle. This is a problem because it tends to make decisions pretty easy for your opponents.

Example:

Board is AAT52. Your opponent calls the flop & turn and raises the river. His range is polarized here because he can basically have missed broadway draws and Ax+. There are probably around the same number of Ax+ combos here as there are missed draws, meaning about half of his range is bluffs. Depending on his bet size, you have a really profitable call at this point even if you hold 77.

Now imagine if your opponent plays KK-JJ this way also (just for the sake of argument, not saying these are good plays from anyone). It makes your decisions a lot tougher after his raise and it makes his bluffs a lot more profitable since you can't blindly call with your pairs.



So, in general, you don't want to have polarized ranges at any point really. I think some folks in this thread are confusing "balance" with "polarization".

In engrish, pol- means at the extreme.

Let's look at a standard spot.

Board is Kd5d4d6dTc

By default, anyone betting here has a polarized range, meaning nuts or air. This is a spot where a range is super-polarized.

The reason?

We can (ignoring action beforehand) separate villain's hands into a few categories:

1) Air
2) Nuts
3) Nut-worthy
4) Strong
5) Showdown value

By far, category 5 is the widest 5 but it can't bet for value because it can't gain EV by betting, only lose since worse hands never call. Only 1-3 can gain EV (in this case only the Ad is nutworthy) and thus a villain's range is polarized.

You want to be polarized (QQ+, 92s, etc) when your opponent rarely calls and when he does it's a strong hand. The reasoning is obvious. The job of the poker player is to determine frequencies of the 92s-like hands.

You want a balanced range (AJ, 88, etc for 3betting) when villains call wide because 3-betting bluffs is terrible but 88 and AJ and al can gain lots of value by 3-betting.

Also, OOC, but the board I used would be perfect for range merging vs thinking opponents.

A range doesn't have to be super-polarized, though, someone check-raising only draws and sets is still considered to have a polarized range.

A metaphorical light bulb just clicked on above my head Thanks VUcats!

And you don't see the problem with only betting Ad and air on that board?

I highly disagree with VUcat's statement about making it easier to play vs us, that's nonsense and if anything it makes it harder to play against you. A balanced range is well-defined, a polarized one is not.

I would bet the Q and the J as well, but there is no problem. A case can be made for checking the Ace as well.

Betting anything else is lolbad.

Also, no your opponent can't call with the 2d. You are an idiot if you assume air and Ad means 100% air. The frequency you bet with here is everything.

Okay, I thought I had a better handle on this than I appear to actually have.

in response to your edit, he cant call with 2d necessarily, as it depends on the frequency with which ur betting ur air...