Hey everyone so a friend did me a solid and ran some preflop sims on simple pre for HU SB vs BB (100bb)

- 2.5x open, 4x 3bet, 2.5x 4bet, 5bet all in

& another sim for

-3x open, 4x 3bet, 2.5x 4bet, 5bet all in.

Both sims are ran with consideration of 5% rake with 1.5bb cap

Postflop bet sizing used - 33%, 66%, 100% raise sizes 33% and 75%

i'm not sure how to set up the constraints but I just passed my friend what I felt was accurate for the sizes

The result i got however seems impossible to be what is optimal preflop, HERE ARE THE RESULTS

2.5x open sim - 82.05% RFI, 27.32% 3bet, 10.83% 4bet, 23.58% 5bet all in

3x open sim - 77.86% RFI, 27.62% 3bet, 12.28% 4bet, 29.75% 5bet all in

the 3bet % and 5bet jam % seem way too high to be optimal, it pure 3bet 5bet jams hands like AQo, KJs

Anyone can comment on how accurate these frequencies are?

heads up or for 6max

for actually headsup it seems fine

They seem solid. I think you were playing too tight instead. 3betting around 33% of the 2bet range shows up a lot(in fact it's what I use as a shortcut when unsure), and then jamming for 50% of the 4bet range also shows up a lot in late positions too. Plenty of breakeven 0 ev jams is common. Your sizings suck tough, you need to have one overbet sizing in there or the game is weird, and make sure to allow all ins always on the river

postflop sizings aren't going to have much of an effect on the preflop RFI ranges

Yeah it's for heads up.
KJs and AQo are pure 3 5s in the ranges I have, and a hand like 44, 33 are 3betting 40% and 20% and both pure jamming facing a 4bet. I always thought 20% was a reasonable 3bet % from the bb from watching some doug videos in the past. I'm struggling to know how different of a range you can come up with some tweaks in the sims. Im also thinking the high rake cap could be another reason for such high raise freqs as the incentive of calling is dincentivised

It's because of the rake. A 0 rake sim would have less xbetting and more flatting. Although you should consider that it's not necessarily the case that you should be using rake adjusted ranges. Presumably you're playing HU because the opponent is weaker and against weaker opponents you'd rather want to play more deep SPR pots.

I ran a preflop sim with similar rake and got a similar output

The rake structure was my only logical explanation as well.

I agree with what you are saying regarding wanting to play more smaller pots with weaker players, but i also consider myself a 'weaker' player as HU is just so hard and complex, so im looking to take an approach to playing as sound preflop as the charts say. Its hard to go wrong when I can look at my ranges while playing (preflop charts are not RTA right afaik)

My question is will implying this preflop strategy work in NL50 because of the high rake, or can I get exploited by the stronger 5bet calling range I will be facing? I hope someone gets what Im trying to say

would you implement it yourself say if you were playing HU nl50 with that rake structure?

I don't see why not

Would I need to adjust the 5bet jam range for someone who regularly call 3bets and only 4bets under 5% of hands or will simply following the chart regardless of opponents strategy be a better alternative?

With information available suggesting someone was not 4betting enough, then yes you would adjust your 5b range accordingly if you wanted to maximize your EV.

Yeah thats what I figured too, appreciate the feedback!

Hi, a bit late to the party on this, but your preflop ranges should really be solved to have two 5-bet sizes: a small 5-bet, and jam. Not having a smaller 5-bet size will skew your ranges a fair bit. Also, 2.5x is a pretty large 4-bet size. The SB isn't really incentivized to go that big, and it will lead to the BB jamming wider as a result

The solutions I have for HUNL are:
82.4% 2.15BB open
25.8% 10.25BB 3-bet, 42% call
9.6% 22.9BB 4-bet, 26% call
14.9% jam, 8.5% 39.5BB 5-bet, 33% call

Happy to share the exact ranges too so you can see which hands go for the jam and which go for the small 5-bet.

hey man, if you would be kind enough to share the ranges, that will be very much appreciated.

Why the 2 5bet sizes? In what way will the ranges be skewed because in real time I dont implement two 5 bet sizes nor have I ever faced a smaller than all in 5bet at 100bb

Also may I ask did you run your sim with any rake structure?

Noted on the 4bet size, cheers man.

The two 5-bet sizes are just how the solver splits up its 5-bet range to extract max EV with certain hands (mostly KK, AKs/AQs, some QQ & A5s). Notably, AA rarely jams or small 5-bets, as the solver uses it to protect the rest of its flatting range, which has to continue pretty wide versus the small 4-bet. Good rule of thumb is, the smaller the 4-bet you're facing, the less frequently you should 5-bet AA, and if you do decide to 5-bet, you should go for the small size. With the exception of the exceedingly rare 4-bet shove (which I excluded from the final sim), 5-bets are where the solver really likes having two quite different sizes.

After facing a small 5-bet, the SB just 6-bet shoves the hands it would have called a 5-bet shove with anyway, but it's forced to fold the majority of its 4-bet bluff combos. The only 4-bet combos that can continue versus the small 5-bet are the suited Aces, suited Kings, and a little bit of AQo.

Just because you don't see it from your opponents doesn't mean you shouldn't implement it yourself. Chances are your opponents won't know how to play versus it and will make mistakes in terms of which hands they 6-bet, call, or fold.

This is taken from a rakeless sim, which was then re-run with only weighted average raise sizes (mainly for simplification purposes in my own studies), and the outputs rounded to individual combos for further simplification (so to the the nearest 25% for suited hands, nearest 16.7% for pairs, nearest 8.3% for offsuit hands).

82.4% 2.15BB RFI:


25.8% 10.25BB 3-bet:


9.6% 22.9BB 4-bet:


14.9% jam, 8.5% 39.5BB 5-bet (green=jam, blue=small 5-bet):


and the SB response to the small 5-bet (response to jam should be obvious):