I think you have to get away from having a static preflop range. No opponent is the same so 3 betting 88 may be good against someone but a disaster against another.
So, against someone who 4 bets alot i would increase my shove range and deffinetly 3bet/shove 88 but against someone who is never flatting but doesent have a wide 4betrange i would just flat..

Moving on to a merge range. It also is very player dependent, i might 3 bet KT for value against someone but just muck it pre against another. What you need to do is to note every time you see à showdown in à 3bet pot, after that you can play accordingly (just remember that people Will adjust).

Something that i been discoverd recently is that some people Will just flat with their premiums and only 4bet Ax. Havent figured it out exactly how to adjust so if roonnie could think aboit it it would be great! I think th best way to play is to 3bet a merge rang, just c/f if he flats and then flat his 4bets with AK/AQ/AJ, AA, KK and so on and jam pockets. Take à look at it please and let me know

Typing from My iphone so might have spelled wrong

Ty, great post.

I think u have to 3bet/get it in with pp's, bcz u will have 55 vs 45 against all his Ax, and if he flats AA,KK u can flop a set and stack him, cuz he wont put u on 66's etc. Or is that wrong?

No i think thats probably good. Once he flats i think we have to get out of the way unless we flop a monster. Otherwise i think flat his 4bets with good aces are sweet since we dominat him (almost) all the time. I totally agree that shoving pps i good...

In regards to 88 and good merged ranges, it's been said. It totally depends.

- 88 should not be a part of a merged range, unless your opponent is flatting hands like 45, 87s, 79s, etc. But you should be 3betting an absurdly wide range at that point...something like any two broadway, A8+, 88+

- small/middle PPs are usually used (in 100bb games) as a part of a polarize range that has a very wide stackoff range. We do not want to get flatted! But we are begging to get raised by a wide range (polarized or merged, as long as he folds a decent portion of it). This is a great transition to...


Thats interesting...lol. I'd love to see the exact frequencies and ranges, but you're saying that his stackoff range is even slimmer than usual, but his bluffing range is still something like 6-8%?
Does this include premium Ax hands?

If someone is 4betting a ton of air, and flatting with the middle and top of his range...well...that's interesting.

I guess the best hands become small-medium suited connectors, small and middle PPs and all of our nuts. A weird hybrid of our two ranges...we can reshove pretty much all of this range until he adjusts, and are going to be able to play pretty well OOP. Basically, our opponents 4-betting range is very weak and his flatting range is very strong, so we should 5bet a high frequency and generally play or value when he flats?

What do you guys think, does that sound right?
This sort of isolates our flatting range to Ax and broadway, but I don't think that's terrible at all.

I think this sounds about right, and I believe that with this post you are very close to come full circle with regards to 3-betting preflop 100bb deep.

So we could move onto discussing 3+ betting 200bb deep.

ps: question. You use "merging" basically as synonymous for "value betting wider", not the aejones' defintion, right? (Not to make an argument about the "correctness" of either, just to undesratsnd unambiguously what you want to convey)

As long as there is not middle, I consider it merged. Even if it contains air.

And as for 200+...
I'll have to get back to you on that. XD
I definitely need more experience with it before I could come close to trusting what I write. Sorry mate. =(

Ok, just to continue squeezing you, how do you construct your polarized 3-bet ranges? In your original post you say "the math of this is easy and you can do it on the fly"? Guess what, I have no idea how do you do that, mathematically.

Well, I start with my stackoff range. That part is just figuring out what has equity against your opponent's range. Just go 1 hand at a time through pokerstove against what you believe their range to be, and you'll get a handle on it. Since people's stackoff ranges are generally within a pretty tight range, it's easy to memorize your stackoff ranges against similar ranges.

The most difficult part is identifying the bottom of your "+EV call/check, -EV against his range" middling hands. For example, I'll flat A2s on the BTN against a loose player opening in the CO when there is a fish/station in the BB, but I'll 3bet it when there is a solid regular in the BB. I basically start with Axs, and go from there. And when you're deeper, Axs becomes an insta-call, as might K2s. So then I'll drop to beginning at Qxs with my air.

Once I decide where my "zero equity call/check point" is, I'm pretty much done. I just figure out what ratio I want between nuts:air (equilibrium based on betsizing...your opponent gets X-1, so you should have an X-1 air:nuts ratio for equilibrium...I think...probably not...whatever...) and adjust from there. Generally, I just go 1:1 for people not folding exploitably (if I'm just balancing) and somewhere between 3-1 and 5-1 against players folding exploitably.

So, for instance, my stackoff range against villain A is KK+, AK, or 2.1% of hands.
I can't flat Axs, so I'll be 3betting it.
I flat with all the usual +EV hands.
And he folds to 85% of my 3bets, so I'm throwing a ton of air his way. I'm going to add 8% of the hands below Axs (which I can't flat...so like A7s-).
So I run to pokerstove, and find out that:
J2s-J7s, Q2s-Q7s, K2s-K7s, and A2s-A7s are about 7.1% of hands.

So my range looks like:
3bet:
AK, KK+
J2s-J7s, Q2s-Q7s, K2s-K7s, A2s-A7s

Flat:
QQ-22,AQs-ATs,KJs+,QTs+,J9s+,T8s+,97s+,86s+,AQo-ATo,KQo

So my 3bet is about 9.2%, flat about 13.1%

Here I lost you. Normally a 3-bet is to 9bb when facing a 3bb raise. So, if not on the blinds, villain is getting 9 + 1.5 + 3 = 13.5-to-6 or 2.25-to-1 on his call. So, according to GT equilibrium, we should have a value-to-bluff ratio of 2.25-to-1, or 29% of bluffs in our range, as a default against an unknown or a near to GTO player.

It seems to be that most players fold more than 29% of the time to a 3bet, therefore it would make sense to bluff more than this often.

Here I got completely lost as I don't know how to exactly determine a bluff ratio given bet size and fold frequency when villain folds more often than GTO. I would appreciate it if anyone could explain this in more detail.

You're right on 2.25:1, I believe, given the betsizing. I still keep it at 3:1 given no reads, because of general player-pool folding too often.

As for calculating the ideal ratio, I'm not 100% sure this is really a math problem, but I'd love to hear more feedback about that. I tried to ask this question before myself, and was never answered.
I believe the optimal number would be 100% of our air if our opponent is folding an exploitable amount given our betsize. The reason we don't is that our frequency would be so off our opponent would quickly adjust to our 80% 3bet%.
So I think the idea is to come up with a ratio you think you can get away with. For example, in the BTN v CO, a vast portion of players aren't using the "3bet IP v Co Open" stat, so they don't notice that despite an overall 3bet frequency of 8%, your 3bet range on the BTN is as high as 15-20%. In that case, My stackoff range is a little looser, because people generally ship lighter, but it's still hella exploitable.

This is weird. I made the exact same question in three forums on this site and no answer either. Is the question way too difficult, way too off, or are we onto something too powerful?

Mind asplode. I think I have learned more in one sitting from reading this than any other post or the entirety of any poker book that I have read.

/thank you

Great OP.

I just think its worth noting that this mainly is based on battling other regs, or atleast players that have a solid grasp on the game.

Most people in the casino 500NL and under, and in my homegames, have no clue about polarized 3bet ranges...or even really ranges at all, for that matter.

Against players like that, they generally don't fold to 3bets at all. Whatever they open with is worth seeing a flop with. So against them, I am only 3betting a solid value range.

There are also players in these games that fold to a lot of 3bets, but they're not really thinking in terms of ranges. They just have a hand like 88, A10, 10Js that they know to raise with, but will fold to a 3bet. AGainst these guys, I would agree with your polarized 3betting range EXCEPT that they generally don't ever 4bet (as bluff or value).

Mostly, they will call or fold to the 3bet. I dont think a polarized range is best against them

Take my response to this with a grain of salt, but...
- the amount of air you want to use is obviously, ideally, all of your air. It's +EV just based on fold equity, so our hand and frequency really have no affect.
- we don't care about equilibrium, except in identifying it. Figure out your opponents 4bet size, and how often you have to fold to be exploited. Equilibrium is found there.
- however, we are exploiting our opponent because he folds too often...its okay to be exploitable. So why don't we 3bet all of our air?
- our opponent will adjust! We lose our ability to 3bet him with this range forever. Is this bad? I'm not sure...because we can readjust and exploit his adjustment, and (because we are 2+2ers) we WILL win that level war more often than not. We are basically putting that level war on hyper-drive. We lose the ability to 3bet a polarized range for the fiddies, but gain something else in return (though that is an undefined something). There are also third party players as well, and obviously 3betting all of our air would leave us susceptible to them, and it only takes one to adjust to your play to force an adjustment...but again, we can always readjust and force him to make a mistake there. Is it more +EV to slowly drain our opponent without him realizing, or to force him to adjust and possibly play beyond his comfort zone?
I don't have these answers, and I think this question deserves its own thread. =P

That was very kind. Thank you for the compliment.

A bit of a stupid question not directly related, sorry to destry this quality thread but i never know when i should be flatting and when i should be 3 betting in position.
should i ever flat ahead of opponents range if he will only fold worse holdings and call better?
If not is this not giving him a chance to take the lead on flop?

This is polarizing. All the hands that we flat instead of 3bet are being flatted because of the situation you described. When you 3bet, he either folds or 4bets (and we are behind his 4bet range). When you flat, it is +EV. So flat, and 3bet with air instead of your middling equity hands.

For figuring out if you should be flatting or 3betting for value, sit down and take time away from the tables. What is your standard stackoff range in a few scenarios? What does that mean you should probably be 3betting for air?

Let me know what you're having trouble with. Maybe I can help you get some practice.

let's hide this thread so the rest of the poker world doesn't figure this stuff out, seriously

Duh, that's why it's in the Poker-Theory subforum.

Occaisonally there will be traffic reports posted on the mod forum. You have no idea how sad they make me. (Hint: the highest traffic forums are ones I usually wouldn't bother to set foot in)

NVg and BBv are for sure the highest followed close by BBV4l i would guess

Im not going to sit up here and weak front your obviously a very intelligent and creative thinking dude because i read about 6 paragraphs of that **** and it made my brain swirl.
However ive bookmarked it and have commited myslf to finishing it with the room stops spinning.
Nice post OP

Pretty much. It's funny to think about - all the good stuff on 2+2 is sponsored on the backs of the worst parts of it (in my opinion). Without NVG/BBV this site probably wouldn't really exist.

If it makes you feel any better, I'm a moderator on some other random forums on the internet, and have been a regular user of a fair number of others, and I can confirm that this happens everywhere.

I have no doubt this is true. Every medium that is funded essentially by popularity gets most of it's income from the most popular stuff, most of which is crap.