It would not be a balanced range and in theory could be exploited. So, maybe check some or/and bet some up to huge and some up to tiny, to get some ranges, perhaps.

Maybe bet some hands that block his range, smaller, and bet some smaller hands smaller to get more calls to them (and maybe more folds if there are still cards to come). Turning some weak hands into bluffs by betting big with them, if not enough bluffs otherwise.

Betting it smaller or bigger in my case depends on board and whatever other factor I might see or think I see, like his range. Leaking information with a bet size is bad but when it doesn't leak information because the opponent doesn't know you or you are well mixed.

Betting 100% of the range on the flop is generally considered a leak, making the range too vulnerable. It is kind of possible to bet all 1+ street value hands and bluff catchers and balance them with the rest of the hands maybe, but the range is considered too weak vs. a check raise, I suppose (if the opponent check raises enough, while if he floats more, one has lots of hands to call his river bluffs in spite of them losing two bets with one street hands vs. a legit floater but then he folds too often on the flop).

It is not bad to check weak hands (less than 3 street hands) even in limit poker, although the turn is then different. Betting half a pot vs. a 100% range seems the most fine to me, but generally a significant part of the weaker hands are not c-bet there (but perhaps vs. an opponent who rarely check raises).

In his example the opponent never holds anything better than a K and we have a diproportionate number of nut combinations so betting a king is a safer bet because a lot of the time you're improving from splitting the pot to buying the whole pot.

Yeah, this is exactly right.
Plus I think I'm fine just surrendering my position that we could come up with an example in the actual or an actual version of the A,K,Q game and just say that in more realistic examples it can be the case that betting a hand that is in the center of your range and that has decent showdown value is still better used as a bluff. And if that center hand, the one that would be best used as a bluff catcher, is better used as a bluff do to lack of worse hands to bluff with and/or "too many" value hands compared to the stack to pot ratio then at that point (the point where our best bluff catcher is best used as a bluff because it captures the entire pot instead of some % of the pot) then we know that we should be betting our entire range.

Oh, also, it would not necessarily have to be the case that villain never holds anything better than the king just that the total number of value hands compared to our bluffs will not allow him to call with any enough hands to incentivize us to check and call or check back with the, would be, SDV portions of our range.

Does this sound correct to everyone?
Anyone think it's def not correct?

Yes?

Yes I think those sentiments are correct. I wouldn't use the term bluff to describe what you're saying but yeah if you can capture 100% of the pot it's better than capturing say 70% of the pot if that is your equity.

Well sure, yeah. But what I am more interested in knowing is if it is correct that we can know for sure that we ought to be betting our entire range if ever we get to a point where we know we should be betting the middle of our range.

In other words, could there be times when we should bet hands that have decent show down value and in the same spot give up with some hands that have no equity at all?

I was arguing to a buddy of mine that I thought we would never use a decent SDV hand that could catch bluffs or check back and get part of the pot as a bluff if it didn't mean we were already betting all of our worst hands. And, therefore, it must be the case that if we are betting our middle str "bluff catchers" then it also means we are betting our air and obviously our value hands and (and this is the point) we should never be turning hands with decent SDV into bluffs unless we are in a spot where we should be betting our entire range.

Is this true?

He thought it could be better to just give up with some of our hands that will never win at show down and still "bluff" with our middle strength hands that have some equity.

I think we can look at range bets this way *(referencing the A,K,Q game here)..
We would love to polarize our betting range and, for instance, if we have a pot sized bet behind we would like to bet pot with 2 "aces" for every 1 "queen" and then just check our "k's".
But if we end up in a spot where we don't have the right SPR or (maybe even simpler) we just don't have enough Q's in our range to only have the 2 to 1 ratio that would be optimal given a pot sized jam, then we are best off using some of our bluff catcher "K" type hands as bluffs. Rather than not have enough bets in our agro range.

SO my way of looking at this is "When we don't have enough bluffs in our range to make our opponent indifferent between bluff catching our not, then we should just merge our range and bet everything".

Does this make some sense?
total sense?
Am I missing something?
or am I completely wrong??

Why would you fold pre? Why is kq a bad hand to play. Im learning the game

No, KQ is a good hand, but position and stack sizes are important. In early position the off suited version can run into trouble. KQs has more equity and post flop playability. Folding KQs UTG is unnecessarily nitty imo, but to each their own.


As far as choosing the best bet size, assuming you are only choosing one sizing, counting the number of value hands you can make that will be called with a specific bet size and multiplying it by the bet size will give you a number. We can call this number X. Compare different bet sizes and which value hands exist with that bet size. The one with the largest X should be the bet size you choose.

In case that was confusing, here is an example:
Option 1) Bet $250 with 60 value hands
Option 2) Bet $500 with 25 value hands
Option 3) Bet $1000 with 10 value hands
Option 4) Bet $5000 with 2 value hands

Option 1) 250 * 60 = 15,000
Option 2) 500 * 25 = 12,500
Option 3) 1000 * 10 = 10,000
Option 4) 5000 * 2 = 10,000

Option 1 is the best.

This is assuming ranges are completely static, but probably still applies to variable boards as well, but wetness may put a bit of a damper on things. What do you guys think about this?

Would it ever be correct to give up in a marginal spot where you could win to sacrifice winning more when your in that same spot with a better hand?

If I raise from MP with the BB calling and the flop comes AKQ, I could make money by always betting 1/3 with my range. I could, however, give up some EV with 77 in sacrifice for betting AA, KK, QQ, JT, etc. larger and getting more money with those hands.