nice thread!!

Originally Posted by verneer
Balance is something we are not at all concern with at 25NL and below simply because regulars won't play with you long enough (you move up or they move up) to exploit your lack of balance.



heh, what is the "balance" ?

A Balanced Range

Let's say that you the only time you 3-bet a hand is when you are holding AA or KK. Well ... if someone knows this about you, it's really easy to play when you three bet them. They call if they have the odds to set-mine and 4-bet you with AA. Every other time they fold.

Unbalanced Range: {AA, KK} = 100% value

This is an unbalanced range because all your 3-bets are strictly for value. What about a balanced range?

Well ... there are 6 combinations of AA and 6 combinations of KK. So your range of {AA, KK} is composed of 12 total hand combinations.

Let's balance that with 12 hand combinations of bluffs. For example, let's now also 3-bet 97s, 86s, and 75s. There are 4 combinations of each of those for a total of 12 hand combinations.

Balanced Range: {AA, KK, 79s, 68s, 57s} = 50% value, 50% bluffs

Now you are in theory much harder to play against because the opponent does know if you are bluffing or re-raising for value.

Why you shouldn't worry about balance at the micros:

First of all, opponents call without the right odds all the time, so even if your 3-betting range is strictly for value, they will still call with much worse hands and pay you off.

Secondly, to understand a player's ranges you need to have a large (2K+) sample on them and there is so little stability among the micro player pool that this doesn't happen often.

Finally, even if someone has a large hand sample on you, they might not be able to figure out what your ranges are from the numbers they see.

Thank you verneer

Balancing for the sake of balance is definitely silly at micros and is even silly at SSNL/MSNL (according to my coach) because what's the point of balancing your range if your opponents aren't adjusting to you?

However I believe some things can be done that add to your win rate that could be classed as 'balancing' but are actually done because they're profitable. Such as squeezing with a more marginal hand (Axo for example) because it's just printing money and gets a ton of respect (if done against the correct opponents).

We're not squeezing with Axo because it balances when we do it with AA but simply because the move itself is +EV.

Thanks Verneer. Another great thread. The UTG range is interesting.
I wonder why I quite often leave ATs AJo KJs out of my UTG range but add QJs JTs A4s into it. I'm probably doing something wrong but QJs is just so much prettier than AJo or KJs.

I don't know if you are saying this tongue-in-cheek or not, but what you said is a really important to digest.

45 is also a very good looking hand. So is 68. This is why people don't like folding them preflop, even to a 3-bet.

People remember all the times they call a 3-bet with those hands and hit a flush, trips, or straight. They forget all the other times (most other times) when they've hit nothing and slowly bled money. Poker players have an incredibly selective memory.

listen to him imo

Oh I have . Re-reading my post I guess the 2nd half could come across as "But I do it anyway because it prints money", but my coach actually showed me the power of squeezing so that's advocated by him too :P

Well a bit tongue in cheek but I do fold AJo sometimes UTG but open QJs always.
I feel like the potential to make straight and flushdraws outweighs the slightly worse pair value. Against most people I'm not happy trying to get 3 sreets of value when I make TP with AJo anyway.

Is it really bad logic? Maybe I should remove QJs from my automatic open range.

I don't see how your post is in any way contradictory. Did I miss something?

Grunching

1. I would say pairs probably 88 and lower most the time probably call from the btn and don't 3 not a 100% as he might 3bet some of the time vs a CO open. But for the most part these are hands you want to take a flop with for there implied vaule not there pre flop edge vs the villans range as it is pretty close to 50/50 most the time at best. And if your 3 betting them your going to be getting 4 bet and forced to fold by the hands that you have the best chance of stacking when you flop your set.

2. generally here would be suited connectors maybe even some one gappers. In a 3 bet pot it is going to be really easy to play these hands post flop or when you get 4 bet there easy to fold. Basically your hands that are going ot be str8 forward to play. Where the hands in group one can be really dicey is 3bet pot. And these hands OOP post flop are going to be awful tricky a lot of the time and tough to play profitablly.

3. Hands in both ranges are probably QQ+ AK, just really strong hands your always raising for vaule.

Nope just me paranoid and defending myself without anyone questioning me!

I haven't commented on this yet so I thought I would. I think it's a good example of when you can take the right theory and apply it incorrectly. When I say this I don't mean to say that AJo plays well against an 8% 3bet range (because it doesn't really, he's rarely 3betting AT as much as he's 3betting 78s etc), but rather that SB is 3betting quite often so we're looking for a way to counter.

This is a perfect spot to 4bet bluff imo. Both the A and J (although to a lesser extent) are good blockers and we're at the top of our folding range. Here this turns from getting into complicated situations postflop by flatting the 3bet to one that shows immediate gain and makes our decisions fair less complicated.

he is gonna cbet cards that hit us.
and his QJs, JTs, KJ are also dominated.

you cant 4bet bluff with AJ vs an agressive players. you will get good odds to make the call vs his shove.

This stood out to me. You 3bet SCs on the BTN?

The only reason imo for doing this is if there is a squeeze happy player in the blinds, as it stops you from getting squeezed (obv).

Normally I flat SCs OTB as I like to have a high Stack to Pot ratio. We have position and should be able to win our fair share of pots post flop.