This is a short and simple question mainly about why do we call with the top of our range as opposed to the middle or bottom of it if all our hand is just a bluff catcher and opp. has no pair.

Ik we call w/the top of our range to be unexploitable because if we fold that we are folding too much (this being the general answer to the question). Also are there any other reasons im missing to "call w/the top of our range" besides the main fact of being unexploitable esp against villain's who try to over-bluff us... Is being capped in a spot one of them...?

What is the difference between calling w/AA or 22 OTR in a certain spot if we know our opp. is bluffing with no pair (let's say he won't turn made hands into bluffs).

Is it the fact that we are just so exploitable if we just hero-call 22 in this spot because villain will think we are calling very light and adjust by start value betting us more...

What is the term/concept called i think someone might have mentioned it once in a post referring it to "equity based randomization" basically saying the stronger our hand is/the top of our range the more we should call...

I like to call it strategic consistency. If 22 unimproved is a +ev call, then surely AA is a +ev call.

Game Theory tells you to randomly call in x% of the cases to prevent exploits. Unfortunately you can't just flip a coin or something similar in actual play, because you don't always hold a bluff-catcher. So you simply call with the top x% of your hands. The difficult part is to determine where your hand ranks within your range, but that's a skill that can be mastered. If you wonder what determines a very good player from just a good one, this is one of the areas to look at.

+1. if look at the AKQ game the K hand only has to call often enough to prevent the A/Q range from stealing the K equity. If he calls too often A/Q can always value bet just A.

Blockers often have a significant impact on determining bluff catching range.

under your assumptions there would be no reason to call with AA and fold 22, but you've assumed a special case which does not represent reality.

aha

A common reason to call with the top of our range is facing an opponent who bets light, but is quite nitty when facing a raise.

A typical situation is holding aces, not flopping a set and the opponent donks. You know for a fact that he donks any top pair and sometimes pure bluffs or weak draws like gutshots BUT will fold everything except 2p+ or a very strong draw (which you're flipping against) when you raise. No reason to isolate against a range that beats you, better to keep the opponent bluffing or making foolish bets (what he thinks are valuebets) with top pair.

Of course, it depends a bit on exactly what our hand is and what the flop contains. I would still raise a hand like a nut top set, at least on flops which contains any kind of a draw. Then you WANT to isolate against a tight range when you have the nuts, don't want to give cheap turn cards and you don't want to see a card which kills the action, when the opponent would have played for stacks on the flop but the turn card puts a flush on the table, or pairs the board and kills his 2 pair or whatever.

Doesn't matter if V actually is polarized enough that both hands are bluffcatchers and V's strategy is static, so he can't start to valuebet thinner hands.

This is an alright plan for ultra dry boards like 922 when you have a way ahead way behind situation but by just flatting the flop you risk getting out drawn and paying off on the turn and river and these bets can get pretty big. You can fold on the later streets of course but our plan is for him to keep bluffing, so that's not really smart either. Better to just raise and take it down on most textures.

I would kinda agree if you had, say TT or 9x, because the opponent has somewhat decent equity with JQ or somesuch hand. With AA you WANT him to hit top pair (or better yet, top 2 with T9 or such), and on a 922r, when the opponent is behind, you have very little to fear with AA. Of course you sometimes lose to a random 2 outer when you just flat a donk, but that's just poker.

I would of course raise AA against a complete aggrowhale, because they'll never fold 9x or sometimes even worse. But if the opponent is such that he'll donk 9x, overcards or 33-88 here AND fold when raised, IMO, raising just to prevent a suckout is not the option with the highest EV.

Edit: There's a decent chance I misunderstood your post, sorry.

What I'm saying is that on a board like Tx8s5s it can be dangerous to flat aces even if you know the guy is only donking one pair or a weak / medium strength draw like J9 or K2s because the board texture can easily change and even if he only has 5 outs with say JT it is still very dangerous to allow him to realize that 20% equity especially if you are planning to call liberally on the turn and the river (which surely must be our approach if we think he is bluffing a lot). But on 922 there is no reason to raise, since you are in a way ahead / way behind situation and gain very little assuming you cannot get value (he will fold) from his pair.

On the turn, calling with the top of our range is not an absolute rule to apply. For example, I prefer calling AT on KJ64 than 55, because even if 55 is better than AT, I think I will play better on the river with AT than with 55.

On the river, we used to call with the top x% of our ranges to make approximative GTO calling ranges, i.e. to make sure than we don't fold to often. In my opinion, we should call with hands that contains blockers on opponent value range. For example, you can fold river versus 3 barrels with 6h6s on 8h4h8c Jd Ks because you block some miss straight draws and flush draws in opponent range but call with AsQs because this hand does not block any combo of opponent bluffing range.

I've been thinking about this as well. It clearly makes sense on streets before the river since ranges will never be perfectly polarized so playabilty and hand strength are major concerns. I had a conversation on this topic with someone recently about how I see it on river. I always looked at it from the perspective that when we don't know how to exploit our opponent, we call 1-alpha on the river more less for the sake of our overall strategy. In other words, we are just trying to prevent our opponent from being able to make an adjustment down the road and not exploit us in similar later situations. He argued that isn't really the case though, and we are preventing them from exploiting us in this specific hand as well. By calling a pot sized bet with a hand in the 75th percentile of our range, we prevent even a bad player from exploiting us in that moment, even if he's doing it unknowingly. I have a problem with this, because unless we have already shown a weakness in our strategy that our opponent should know how to take advantage of, we shouldn't be at risk of being exploited in that moment. So if we are truly indifferent, and we don't have any good or bad blocking effects, I don't think it should matter what we do, as long as it doesn't become an exploitable trend in how we play these spots in the future? Can someone point out the error(s) in my logic assuming they are there?

In spots where villain's are usually never bluffing/never have a bluffing range we can fold the top of our range (over-fold) and def vs. fit-or-fold/str8 forward villain's @ LLSNL/micros (who don't really realize that you are folding too much in this spot, or realize that you are capped so they will start bluffing you more...).

I think i use the excuse and other people do to make questionable hero-calls sometimes, tho justifiable in certain spots. In that we are @ the top of our range and villain's are thinking opp. who are trying to exploit our capped range/potentially get out of line here often enuf in that folding our very best hands we can have here to them would be a mistake in the long run.

Calling w/top of our range is basically (1-A)/MDF?

When our range is a lot weaker than our opponent's range then we don't call 1-alpha (in fact GTO solvers don't call 1-alpha with any accuracy anyway) .. To blindly decide we need to call X% of hands to not be exploitable is pretty wrong when our opponent just has way more value than us . Like sometimes villain can bet 100% of hands he gets to the river with and we still have to fold so much that he has a profitable bet with his whole range . Just remember that another time the situation will be reversed so that's where the equilibrium lies.
I guess one reason why we call stronger hands than weaker hands when they are both bluffcatchers is because opponents can merge IRL and it's actually not a completely polarised situation . So stronger hands usually block some of his merge value bets . But like someone said , blockers are usually first priority when choosing to bluffcatch (assuming your bluffcatcher actually beats his bluffs ofc)

Say we are in a hand that falls into the top half of our range with no blocker affects from a villain we don't know how to exploit. Do you look at it from the point of view that we call this hand to avoid being exploited in this moment with this particular combo? Or do you look at it from a overall strategy point of view, as in, if I fold this hand I'm likely folding to much, and villain may eventually pick up on this and exploit me in similar situations down the road?

I always kind of looked at these spots when we believe we are truly indifferent, as more less just calling for the sake of our strategy. Does this seem correct?

Say you are playing vs. an unknown who just sat down like 5-10 minutes ago 1st hand @ your table...or zoom/speed poker variant...

1/2 FR... Straddled Pot
(Button) Hero $600: KK
(SB) Villain $900:
(MP) Villain II $200: Station/Fish

Preflop: V limps for 5, V II limps, Hero makes it 30, Villain in the hand calls, V II calls, (3-way to the flop).

Flop, Pot = 100
965
X to hero, Hero bets 60, Villain x-raises to 140, Villain II folds, Hero...?


Do you over-fold or call w/top of your range in this spot vs. an unknown?
(Um live tells she is a middle aged lady...)

I'd fold, but I don't play live.

How do we figure out the dilemma of what our range looks like in a certain spot if we decide to apply MDF (assume our ranges are constructed differently then what would be nash equilibirum/GTO)?

Say v bets some amount OTR and now we have to call and using MDF we figure out we have to defend 40% of our river range here and say the run out effects how we would play/construct some hands in this spot

So what i'm saying is that 40% is unclear in a sense in that you could get here with a wide range or narrow range of hands because of the way your ranges are constructed flop + turn or how you played the hand...
Such as we underdefend the flop or turn in some spots but now arrive at the river with a weird range and dunno what to do?

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I think i'm sort of answering my question but if we say that we don't really have better hands to call here we can assume that this hand is prolly high up and just call in game (again we run into the dilemma again of our ranges be constructed differently)

1) it's easier to get the frequencies right than just randomly trying to call or fold the correct percent of all of your bluff catchers

2) sometimes you will misread the situation and your opponent will not understand that he SHOULD be polarized and he will try to value bet some hand that the top of your range would beat but the middle would lose to

3) people do range merge from time to time and try to make a very thin value bet in a spot they would appear to be very polarized and the top of your range may just be able to pick off the range merged thin value bet (if villain believes you will just be calling with your bluff catchers X% and folding the rest and he thinks this spot looks like one where, as you proposed, 22 and AA are ~ then he may just go for a thin value bet with KK or something expecting it to be good against your bluff catches and you win because you used the top of your range to bluff catch

4) players will sometimes turn hands into bluffs. Maybe villain has a hand like 66 and decides to turn it into a bluff and you bluff catch with 22.. OOPS! nothing worse than correctly determining your opponent is bluffing and then making a losing call against him. That's the worst.

5) sometimes the top of our range will be the kind of hand that has good blockers to villains value range and that makes it the perfect bluff catcher but other times it does not and if could even block the bluffs in villains range and in these spots you may well do best to chose the hands that are not the top of your range but, rather, the hands that have the best blocker effects. So it's just a good rule of thumb that you should TEND to use the top of your range to bluff catch

also, here is just a good, simple and practical rule of thumb that I teach people whenever they ask for my help with poker; WHY NOT?
There is rarely a reason to fold hand A and continue with hand B in a given spot where hand A is > than hand B.

It is just a very good habit to get into that we should not fold some hand like AA for an over pair in some spot where we call KK. They may be ALMOST identical but they will almost never be exactly the same because players do strange things sometimes.


So; Simplicity, getting good frequencies, occasionally beating a range merge, occasionally beating a worse made hand that is turned into a bluff, and sometimes people just do dumb things that make no sense and you having a better hand to call with makes it more likely you win in a spot where villain is just randomly clicking buttons. And, most importantly,.. WHY NOT?

+1....nail, hammer....BANG !!...square on the head !

Evo, maybe make the question a bit more precise?


But if I'm understanding it correctly, you're asking how to construct the river defending range?

I basically do this.

1. What is my range approximately, after doing a lot of work, you get pretty good idea what % of your hands are 2p+, tp, and mp-weak pairs, total air/missed draws.

2. Point out the cut-off handvalue that isn't a bluffcatcher, but a call that sometimes beat their valuehand. Easy on some textures/spots, not that easy on some.

3. Then start estimating blocker effects, what are likely bluffs for V, what are valuehands, what combos we want to block etc.

4. Estimate what hands should be called often and yolo.



Like lets take and example, BUvs SB call 3b, face 3 barrel on AT5f-6r-2r


1.
- I got a lot of top pairs on this texture, and don't really need to call anything else than Ax, and not even all Ax. A lot of draws missed, but I don't need to worry about that too much as I got so much made hands.

- Got some 2p and sets, but on this texture we want to be protjamming them OTT sometimes.

2. AQ is possible jam, AJ close, A9 way too thin. Pretty easy to figure this out. So we just always call AQ+, and if V is really good also start calling AJ always.

3. Blocking Q J is bad, but AQ AJ so high in handvalues (may split sometimes vs V's AJ), that we don't care of this, if you are 100% sure V never jams AJ, you can start treating is as a bluffcatcher and fold it sometimes based on bad blockers. 9 and 8 also may block 98 87 if V plays high freq cbet strat. So A4 A3 seem best bluffcatchers and then A9-A7. We have some other than Ax hands that could think of herocalling, but the blocker effect of having an A is just so good here, considering most of Villains valuerange are AK AQ and Ax 2pairs, so A just trumps anything else. Having an A removes 33% of his AK AQ combos, and AT if he 3bets ATo, having an offsuit Ax to 5 and 6 it removes 50% of those 2p combos, so calling an T or something like that is just super bad priorisation.

4. Well we call AJ+, A4, A3 and we are getting close, can't fold all of A9-A7, or we'd be overfolding so we call them sometimes. Actually probably need to call almost always here, but can prob fold some.






But the important thing is to realize, that no-one is clairvoyant to your strategy, as long as you are respecting gto frequencies even in some extent, it's hard for someone to just soulread that you fold 55% here instead of 50% and exploiting you. But that doesn't mean this isn't useful to understand. By understanding this and doing work on it is the way you can actually exploit people.

A few things I feel the need to point out:

1) if calling the river is profitable then you should call.

2) if calling the river is unprofitable then you should fold.

These statements are true no matter where you are in your range; top middle or bottom; it's about profitability.

Really good thanks doc, my question was sort of unclear again but i was basically asking well if idk what proper nash equilibrium ranges look like here should i even be applying MDF to my range OTR if i don't get here with a correct amount of hand combos (using MDF if having no info/no pop reads about how villain deviates from his range)

Once we figure out our range and what x% we need to defend then it becomes super clear for me like people have said hands w/blockers are going to be high up in our range coz of having a more +EV call of such nature and yeah we just open up a range vs. range software and have it process the answer for us as well.

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Here i'll provide an example of what i'm talking about/trying to ask through a hand i played recently...

2/5
(EP) Hero $650: A4
(BB) Villain $900: Some bad LAG regular
Preflop: Hero raises to 20, BB calls


Flop, Pot = 45 (2 players)
A82
BB x, Hero x

Turn, Pot = 45 (2 players)
Q
BB x, Hero bets 35, BB x-raises to 115

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I generally split my range in these spots having a xing and betting range and I would prolly x back some FD's here OTF like T9 or JT will be betting a lot of K FD's tho + FD's with good backdoors.

However just assume that i just barrel all my FD combos/ OTF so now OTT Ax is the top of my range no?
^It's obv not GTO to bet all FD's OTF at 100% frequency but let's just say i did that then what do we do with all our Ax in this spot if we decided to apply MDF for discussion sake.
Obv it's going to be hard to defend on turns now or we might not be able to defend as much when facing a x-raise (given range advantages mentioned above)?