Haha, I'm back! Sorry guys I've been really busy working on my next book: 100 Hands. It's not too far away now but not close enough to give you guys a timeframe quite yet.

Stay tuned I'll address some of the TGM stuff I've missed on here.

Hi there, thanks for the comment and sorry for taking so long to reply.

I don't play poker at the moment. I haven't put in a full time grind or anything close to it for a few years. I do play regular short sessions to stay fresh and coach players for most of the day every day. I also regularly make videos for DC and you can see samples of my in-game thought process there.

I'm basically always working to stay at the forefront of poker knowledge and I love it when I get a chance to hit the tables. It's not the professional direction I've chosen for the last few years though. Coaching is a little more interactive and rewarding!

Here is a graph of the very low volume I've played in the last couple of years.

I'm very confident that I can beat 100-200NL Zoom. I might return to the grind when I complete my next book, who knows!

In hand 134, the board comes A88 7 2 in a 3bet pot. Postflop, villain 3 barrels from BB and we're CO. The task is to determine a balanced river calling range.

The answer is supposed to be 27 combos: AQ (12 combos), AJ (12 combos), AT (3 combos). However, this leaves out 88 (1 combo) and 98s (2 combos) (which were all decided to be in our preflop defending range). Unless I'm overlooking something, this is an error.

Also, the explanation says there are 3 combos of every suited ace in our range. This is incorrect: there are only 2 combos of A2s in our range because the A and 2 on the board are different suits.

FWIW I also disagree with it on other grounds; if we prioritise other Ax we don't block bluffs as much as with those.

Sent from my Moto G Play using Tapatalk

Are any of the Axs used as 4-bets pre? (I use A2s, so I have no combos of that).

I have a question regarding building polarized ranges. I'm follow the Grinder's Manual method, so I select my 3bet value range, my calling range and only after that the bluff combos. I have doubts regarding some value hands that are ahead when called but probably marginal when they face a 4bet. So let's say we are on the BB vs a BTN open, we can 3bet/shove QQ,AK+ pretty confortably, but our value 3bet range is obv wider than that. Let's say we value 3bet TT+,AQ+. Now we calculate the value:bluff ratio we want to have and add bluffs to our range. My question is, when we 4bet AQ and fold to a 4bet, do our range become unbalanced?

I wondered something similar. Does some of our value 3bet range fold to a 4bet, or does that mean it should be considered a bluff when creating a balanced range? It seems like in a lot of his examples, he's defining his entire value 3bet range as hands that are not folding to a 4bet.

Yeah, I was discussing it with a better player than me and you are right.
Quoting him : "if villain only 4b or folds then your options are limited to 5b jam or fold then 3b/folding AQ is "bluff" "
And if you thinking carefully, it is clear.
Let's say we want 4:6 value to bluff, we can't stack off with 3, because ratio will be 1:9

If you think about it in terms of 15BB, where villain opens 2BB, we jam and villain can only fold or call, never 4-bet, then our range is linear - we just jam the best hands we have.

if villain mostly folds or 4-bets and rarely flats 3-bets then it doesn't matter much which hands are in our 3-bet/fold range. Depending on positions, reads etc a waste to 3-bet/fold a hand like AJ which would often be a fine hand to call with.

If villain only 4bets or folds then you wouldn't want to 3bet hands like AQ if you're not getting it in. You're 3betting a hand like this because villain will call with worse. If villain never calls then you're effectively wasting it by turning it into a bluff if your folding to a 4bet.

Note that this ignores the option of calling 4bets though.

So what the author advocates is completely useless, since everybody have a calling range vs 3bets?

I don't have the book in front of me so I can't put it into context. There are still players out there though who don't flat oop and only 4bet or fold. There are also players who flat a fair bit. Basically we'll have different 3bet ranges against them.

I haven't read the book, but the terms "value bet" and "bluff" aren't particularly useful pre-flop imo, because so much of your EV comes from protection and/or fold equity due to blockers.
Something like KQs or AQ can 3-bet pre-flop and can get called by worse, but can also get 4-bet by better hands (or worse). To that extent, it's fine to 3b/fold some hands that can get called by worse but that don't do well vs a 4-betting range. As long as you have some solid hands to flat the initial raise, and you have enough hands to 5-bet profitably, your range won't be open to exploitation and your flatting range won't be too capped.
e.g. in BB vs BTN (where I think a 3-betting range should be more linear than polar), you might sometimes 3-bet AQ/AJ/ATs/A6s and sometimes call. Same thing with KJs, KQo, KJo, QTs, 99, 88 etc.
When building your BB defending range, make sure you've got some "decent" aces, kings and queens in all three of your ranges (3b/stack off, 3b/fold, and flat call) so that you've got board coverage in all situations.

When you're in position, your 3-betting range should be much more polarized, because villains won't flat anywhere near as often as they do in BTNvBB. You want to make your range much more clearly divided into stack offs and 3b/folds. e.g. OTB vs MP, 3b/stack AK, 3b/fold A5s (an obvious bluff), but just call AQo (profitable as a call, and too good to turn into a bluff that folds to a 4-bet).

The way I remember it, he gives you criteria to decide whether or not you should be 3-betting a polarised range or a linear range.

I think it depends a lot how much someone is flatting relative to the other options rather than just whether they have a flatting range at all.

About the meta in cash games I can't comment, but at least with shorter stacks in tournaments 3-bets have a lot in common with cash game 4-bets (often being the last bet before the all-in) and when players flat them OOP it's usually a weak player who's going to play fit or fold on the flop, so we don't mind that much either

Ty for your reply... but something still missing...
If we include AQ in our 3bet range and plan to fold to any 4bet, do we have to have fewer bluff combos like A2s, A3s and something like that? Because if we 3bet and fold too much we are getting exploited. So if we want to do that we should plan to fold less, meaning that we will shove more often


Actually, he shows a method to build unexploitable polarized ranges, not only whether choose between linear or polar

I have a question with regards to balanced c-bet sizing against regulars. 'Balanced sizing vs regs' sub-chapter under light c-betting states that:
However, Matthew Janda in his book "Applications of No-Limit Hold 'em" says that:
I'm basically just curious of why do you advocate using only one bet size with the whole range in each spot vs using multiple sizings (which can be verified using a solver)? If the answer is basically to make the decision process simpler, what do you think is the approximate EV loss of having only one size?

When you have the proper FE you are to be polar, otherwise linear. He suggests polarizing against players that are 50%+ to PF 3-bets.

In the prior post, I meant to say 50%+ PF Fold to 3Bet.

I think it is for the reason you guess. What kind of EV difference is there in solvers using multiple bet sizes versus one bet size?

Assuming we're in the blinds for this spot (because I don't like "wasting" AQ as a 3-bet/fold IP), we can have lots of Axs in our 3b/folding range and we don't need to worry about exploitation. After all, if villain starts 4-betting "too often", we print even more money with the hands that don't fold (TT+/AK/AQs*).
If your 3-betting/5-betting ranges are optimal then if villain tries to exploit you, he'll actually lose. While it might make you feel bad to fold AQ/ATs when villain 4-bets A7o or K3s or something ridiculous, he looks like an idiot when you wake up with AK.
(Remember that you only lose 9bb when you 3-bet/fold a hand. Villain risks about 22bb when he 4-bet bluffs. He'd need you to be 3-bet/folding at a very high frequency for him to be able to 4-bet bluff very often, because he's losing so much when you don't fold.)

* In the BB, you can also flat some 4-bets, and you might include AQo in the flatting range, alongside TT/99, AJs, AQs, maybe AKo, especially against a bluffy 4-bettor.

Random Observation: I've heard the author on a podcast and also in his book he uses the terms "results orientated" and "results orientation(a made up term that I'm fine with)." But it needs to be "results oriented" and "results oriented-ness(or a different grammatically proper made up word - haha)." I'm about 200 pages into The Grinder's Manual and finding it helpful so far.

Pretty sure that oriented is in fact the 'made-up', albeit has now become an accepted synonomous alternative, version of orientated. Agree that orientation is just inappropriately used there.

I just researched it a little. Carroters is British and Brits are more likely to use "orientated" rather than "oriented" apparently. So I guess its fine haha

I don't see what objection one could have to results orientation?

Or is orientation not a word in the US?