how do you know what X% is if you don't know what a balanced range looks like? No one is suggesting playing a balanced range when exploitative play is better. But it's IMPOSSIBLE to know how to exploit a player unless you know what a balanced range is.

If you don't know what your opponents range is, the BEST style to play is a balanced range. You cannot exploit your opponent if you don't know what there range.

It has very little to do with disguising the strength of your hand (although information hiding does play a role), and EVERYTHING to do with maximizing your EV against a perfect opponent. And it's only break even against other game theory optimal player. And guess what... every other strategy is a LOSER to this opponent.

I don't even know where to begin with this. Do you even want to try and back it up?

Your pretty much right here... although I think blockers are pretty important (especially with smaller ranges).


None of this is so cut and dry. No one type of hand is necessarily better than the other. I see where you're coming from, and I think it does make a certain sense, but I don't think the implementation is as so clear cut. For example, very often you'll NEED to call a raise with a gut shot that you bluffed, but you couldn't have bluffed with a weaker draw because the weaker draw wouldn't be +EV.

I'm pretty confident that 90% of plays at microstakes is consistent to the point where balance is not necessary.
For example: you do not need to balance your 5betting all in range vs a random player, because over 750k hand sample my bet success is close to 25%, you need a little over 50% to 5bet bluff shove over 25bb 4bet profitably (assuming villain has AA whenever he calls and you bluff shove (56o)- or any hand w/o an Ace).
You do not need to have a (check-call/check-call/checkraise all in)- balanced range because 3barrel bluffs do not occur often enough to make that play profitable.

There are just certain spots where you don't need to balance your range for the sake of balancing. You balance so you don't get exploited, given most people at micros aren't out there to exploit you: you don't need to worry about that.

Last comment is; balancing pre-flop is unnecessary in the sense I meant- (you don't need a polarized range from early position)- in the same reason by playing 67o/74s/ UTG it will not create more action from the times you open AA/KK. Simply because at micros people really aren't taking into consideration if ranges that often.

I really believe that every stake/pool players have a general tendency. I can pretty confidently say that all of the regs at 25-50nl play 80% the same, and yes I have 600-800k database on that.

Rock paper scissors example:
Balanced = I play 33/33/33 until I figure something out.
General tendency= If I know the typical player at a pool is playing 80% rock/10% paper/10% scissors; I'm playing 100% paper vs their range.

-example: You could have a 5bet bluff shove range to balance your 5bet AA ai.
however, the general player pool do not 4bet/fold often enough to justify having to balance it.

Well now your contradicting yourself. In your first post, you said that you didn't need to balance because you didn't know Villain's ranges. Now you claim that you know Villain's ranges, so you don't need to balance. So I'll agree that if you know Villain's range that you should exploit it, assuming you can.


But how do you exploit a Villain if you don't know what a balanced range looks like? Your examples for exploitative play are very simple, and the math looks a little funky but that's neither here nor there. And your logic for preflop isn't correct -- read my first concept in the OP.


Why do you think having a depolarized betting range is the best way to exploit players at your limit?

DanielLiu: Against 90% of the microstakes players, bluffing is unnecessary. But that is beside the point of this thread.

As usual, people have unclear ideas about poker theory and repeat concepts they have heard somewhere.

The typical range of the majority of players in a given pool is congruent. A depolarized range takes advantage of players tendency to call as opposed to fold, which happens to be the trend in microstakes.

Not arguing that the theory you wrote on bluffing is wrong, but more so it's unnecessary and if applied incorrectly can result in more harm than good.

Bluffing is something that has to be pinpoint and precise, wrong person, wrong situation, wrong dynamic causes spews.

Just find it peculiar such a concise concept and theory exists in microstakes fullring sub-forum.

No, why do you think it is?

You should still take into consideration which pair you can play profitably from which position.

i like odd pairs from ep-mp. 33/55 when it's mondays /wed / fri
22/44 when it's tue/thur /saturday

~ (:

Well in the post, I give the specific situations where you should ignore the theory and take an exploitative line. So I'm not sure what your point is.


What makes you think this is the trend? For example, I organized my database of over 800,000 hands and filtered it for players wtih vpip between 30-100. Ran it And then I ran there fold to flop c-bet, turn c-bet and river c-bet. On the river, the middle of their calling range on the river is 2 pair or better. This is also ignoring any flops where the villain flops a flush or straight. Even when you account for the board bricking off on turn and rivers, the middle of the Villain's calling range on the river would be TPTK. So how does having a depolarized flop range help you against Villain's who have the widest preflop ranges and call down the widest-- much more so than the average player?

+1 for the cotw, good read

Will read it through, looks like a solid COTW

Enjoy your posts, even if they take some re reading to comprehend. RB, do you think that your COTW's are as practical for the LLSNL guys (like me) as they are for the online micro FR guys? The games are obv quite different yet similar. Most of your points you make seem pretty theoretical and not so specific, making the info of equal value in other games/limits.

Yeah, I think they apply to live stakes as much as any other form of nl. Is there one of the points that you didn't think would apply?

So, has anybody described an optimal bluffing strategy for multi-street games with draws such as Holdem?

Yes. Rhode Island Hold'em.