One of the biggest mistakes I regularly make is, I make a play pre-flop where I have absolutely no plan for what I’m going to do in the face of future actions. I think it’s a mistake a lot of people make in poker.

So what do you do to fix this?

Make a plan.

“I love it when a plan comes together.”
- Hannibal
“Be prepared.”
- Boy Scouts
“Nobody plans to fail, they just fail to plan.”

The first step in devising a plan is to realize that the hand will not end preflop. Don’t fall into the Phil Hellmuth syndrome “Honey, he called me with the Q and the T.” Don’t judge the whole hand based on just the preflop range.

What are stack sizes of people already in the pot, or left to act?
There’s nothing worse than raising a limper, and then it folds back to him, he shoves for 18bb and you go “oh crap, I have T7o and feel like I have to call.” So don’t raise limpers who are short with hands that aren’t going to make solid TP hands (Jx+). Don’t raise to 4x in LP w/ a shortstack in the blinds. Just minraise. That way, if they shove, you can fold your trash easier.

How often are you getting re-raised? How often is everyone folding?
The more you get re-raised, the tighter you should open. Make your range more value hands that you can play back at the 3bettor with. If everyone’s folding a lot, start opening more and steal more blinds. How often are the villains limp/folding?

How often are they folding postflop? How often do they raise your cbet?

A lot of people limp a wide range, call a preflop bet, and then check/fold after the flop. Target them. Raise in position with a lot of hands. Of course, don’t forget to pay attention to the blinds to see who will 3bet a lot. Don’t open too much with those guys in the blinds. How many people call the flop and fold on the turn? I think by now you should know what to do against them. The more they raise your cbet, the less you should cbet light. Just abuse them when you hit TP+.

How much are they cbetting? How often do they fold cbet to raise? How often do they double barrel?

The harder they make it to get to showdown, the harder it will be to win pots with weaker hands. They won’t fold after the flop as much, they won’t give free cards, cheap showdowns. The more they give up, the more you can steal pots from them. The more they’ll bet 1-2 streets, then give up, the more you can milk them, then steal a bigger pot from them.

EDIT:
How often will they bet when we don't cbet?
Will they bet every time we don't? How often will they call a flop cbet, then bet the turn when we check? Guess what you do against this guy.

How often do they go to showdown? How much larger is their Won When Saw Flop than WTSD? Is there Won At SD large?

Some people love to showdown. The more they go to showdown, obviously the less they’ll win. You just can’t make that many good hands in the long run. So if they’re going to showdown more than 27%, they’re probably going pretty light. If they win less than 40%, they’re really picking the wrong hands to get to showdown with. If their WWSF is a lot larger than WTSD, they just try to make people fold. So, that means they’ll have air a lot. Float your strong hands and bluff them in the right spots.

So how do you put it all together?

Let’s look at some sample hands: (assume 100bb for each)

Seat 1: 19/17 ats: 25/50/70 3b: 7% ip, 10% oop folds to 3b 65% cb: 75% ftcb: 55% raise cb: 15% cb/f: 70% turn cb: 45% fold turn cb: 60% wwsf: 42% wtsd: 24% w@sd: 50%

Seat 2: 45/10 ats: 5/20/15 3b: 2% ip 3% oop cb: 40% ftcb: 40% raise cb: 8% cb/f: 0% turn cb: 55% fold turn cb: 50% wwsf: 35% wtsd: 30% w@sd: 40%

Seat 3: 15/13 ats: 10/25/25 3b: 5% ip 9% oop f3b: 70% cb: 60% ftcb: 60% raise cb: 5% cb/f: 50% turn cb: 45% fold turn cb: 50% wwsf: 39% wtsd: 22% w@sd: 53%

Seat 4: you

Seat 5: 30/25 ats: 30/50/75 3b: 8/15 f3b: 70% cb: 90% ftcb: 45% raise cb: 20% cb/f: 65% turn cb: 60% fold turn cb: 50% wwsf: 45% wtsd: 24% w@sd: 45%

Seat 6: 18/15 ats: 15/35/50 3b: 4/7 folds 3b: 60% cb: 70% ftcb: 65% raise cb: 5% cb/f: 65% turn cb: 45% fold turn cb: 50% wwsf: 40% wtsd: 24% w@sd: 50%

Hand 1:
Seat 1 folds, seat 2 limps, seat 3 isos to 4bb
What are you going to want to 3b with, what do you want to call with, and what do you want to fold?

First, what do they likely have? How much will seat 3 fold? How much will seat 5 squeeze? How much is seat 2 calling? What street will you be more likely to take the pot away on? How often will you have to get to showdown? How much will you get paid off with a monster?

Hand 2:
Folds around to Seat 3 OTB who raises to 3bb. You have AsQs in the SB.
What do you do here? What if Seat 2 is in the BB instead of seat 5? What if you have 66? What kind of information are you looking at to make your decision?

Hand 3: Folds to seat 1 in co who raises to 3bb. Seat 2 folds. Seat 3 3bets to 11bb. Should you cold 4bet light? What are you doing if you get shoved on and you have AQ? What if one of them calls you?

Going to leave this open for discussion on these. I am going to share the stats that I look at most for planning:

- Stack sizes. Gotta know when the shorties will be in the hand. Don’t isolate light with a <35bb stack still active.
- 3bet. Look at it by position. Who 3bets IP vs OOP? Who 3bets EP opens? Are they going to do it light? How much are they folding to 4bets?
- Cbet/cbet turn. How often do they fire one and give up. How often do they cbet/fold? Do they check a lot of flops?
- Fold to steal. Fold to resteal. If they give up their blinds a lot, steal wide and lower your raise amount. If they steal and fold a lot, 3bet wide.
- Fold to 3bet. Some people don’t fight you when you 3bet. Guess what you should do.
- Folds to cbet. Folds to turn cbet.How often do they float? How often do they raise cbets?
- Cbet/fold (and on turn). If someone cbets like 80%, then folds 75%, what are you going to do? Do you want to 3bet them? Do you want to donk into them? You’ll do better to call their raise, then c/r a flop. Pick spots where you can represent a lot though, or he’s unlikely to have much. A guy who has a high cbet and cbet/fold won’t go “oh cmon, the board’s K72r, he can’t have 2pair, combo draws, overpairs. He can only have 77 or 22, I should call this flop and evaluate on the turn.” He goes “Ugh, AQ never hits. I hate JJ, etc” and folds.
- Limp/fold. How often does someone limp, then fold? Abuse these people. Especially if you couple it with folds to cbet. If someone limp/folds 60% and folds to cbet 60%, I’d raise his limp w/ ATC and cbet any flop.
- High WWSF, low WTSD. Obv slowplay stronger hands. He’s going to just try to get you to fold. Let him try. Sometimes, you just have to close your eyes and click the call button.

EDIT:
- Bets vs missed cbet. This is a good thing to check on. Will villain call your flop cbet a lot, and then bet when you check the turn? Against this person, you should be cbetting, then check/raising a lot of the time with a bluff, and c/c with TPGK+.

Basically, what I like to do is, look at a few of the villains’ stats and say “ok, which street will it be easier to steal this pot on?” If they fold to preflop aggression a lot, but don’t give up after the flop much, try to take it away preflop. If they cbet/fold a ton, but don’t fold to 3bets, and cbet the turn a lot, then I’m picking the flop to try to steal. If I have KJ, I’ll flat pre, and c/r the flop. If they cbet a lot, and don’t cbet the turn, float them, and then take it away on the turn.

The moral of the story is, look at all the villain’s stats available. See what they do too much of, and use it against them. If they unload the clip a lot, trap them with good hands. If they fire and give up, pick where they give up a lot, and push them off their hand at that spot.

Look at who else is in the hand. Do you want to raise and isolate a TAG? Is that your best play with this hand? Should you keep others in? Will you get squeezed?

Tl;dr, cliff notes: use all of villain’s stats, anticipate where they’ll push you in the hand, and where they’ll give up. Abuse their errors.

Nice read

Edit: 1st

2rd
nice post

3th, thanks for that

Great post!
Hand 1:
It would probably be best to play pairs and strong broadways since I have the lag in the small blind. I think I'd want to 3bet with TT+, and suited broadways. I'd probably call with all small pairs, all off suit broadways, and fold all gapping and non-connecting hands suited/unsuited.
Seat 2 can have anything, seat 5 is probably raising/3b with pairs, broadways, and suited connectors. Seat 3 is pretty tight and will fold most of his hands and is probably only calling/raising with pairs and strong broadways. Seat 5 is squeezing 50% of hands in SB, if there's an early raise and a call, it's very likely he will put in a squeeze. We have the best chance of taking down the hand on the turn. I think we'll have to get to showdown between 20- 25%. And if we catch a monster, we're likely to get paid off around 50%.


I'm probably way off on this hand, but that's an awesome exercise!
Thanks udburky!

5rd

well done brky

Someone help me here: I'm not understanding this preflop stat: Seat 1: ats: 25/50/70

Just too early for acronyms. :-)

attempt to steal - co/btn/sb

Thanks this is a great post.

I've never used wwsf, wtsd, and w@sd. How many hands do you usually require before you can start relying on them?

Probably at least 500 off the top of my head.

I think you should only be using these when you don't know a player well. After about 1k hands, or against players you play a lot of pots with, you should know what they do better.

"Jimmy fires one and is done a lot, I can float and bet the turn."
"Frank folds to my 3bets all the time. I'm going to 3bet him like almost atc."
"Jorge calls down w/ a draw and bluffs the river a ton when he misses. I'm going to make bigger bets on flop and turn and check the river."

I like those articles by Andrew Burkos faucult on Flop and Turn Arsenal. Covers the same topic. How to adjust your preflop range for calling based on how they will play postflop against certain villains.
Like you can call looser against a player who cbets 70+ on the flop and 20-25% on the turn, where you can get to showdown and free cards to hit draws. Where against a lag who double barrels where pp and strong broadsway play well, where you can call down to collect their barrels. And how sc's are better against weak passives than 22/33.
One example that I liked was you have a villain who always check folds wet boards 865hh etc with AK/AQ hands. You can make KT,QJo hands profitable by being able to fold out better hands. Just thinking what type of hands your holding makes postflop, and how it lines up against villains tendecies.

In.

Brky for mod

nh sir!

Good read, thanks.

Very nice read