This isn't really a COTM, but more of a wake up call for the forum. I'm seeing a lot of discussion in the threads that show some lack in basic fundamentals about how winning poker is played. This lack of understanding is inhibiting both your and others' development as poker players. This is more shot gun blast than detailed analysis but here's my thoughts.

RANGES

I almost never see anyone actually lay out a range for a villain pf. I do see people posting, "he has a wide opening range, so my call is justified." Really? Use pokerstove and the slider provided. Slide it over until you see the weakest hand you think he could be playing. I think many of you will be shocked to see just how wide he has to be raising and realize that he really isn't raising 1/3 to 1/2 of the hands he sees pf. You shouldn't be adding Q9 to a player's range when there is no chance on earth they were raising pf with it.


RELATIVE STRENGTH

Many are forgetting that poker isn't based on absolute strength, but relative strength. This takes several forms. First, look at KK. It is the second strongest starting hand in poker. Only one hand beats it: AA. Against AA, your equity is 18.0%. KK crushes 65s. KK has 77.5% equity against 65s. However against AA, 65s has 22% equity. In other words, 65s is objectively a better hand to have against AA than KK, even though KK is the second strongest starting hand in poker.

I use this as a point when people say, "how can you fold XY, it is such a strong hand?" In an absolute sense, it is. Yet, it isn't a good hand against a narrow strong range (there's Venice yapping about ranges again). Another reason as Bobby Hoff pointed out years ago, hands like 65s are self-limiting. If you miss, you aren't going to get into trouble with it. If you hit it, a strong narrow ranges isn't going to see it.

My final comment on relative strengths is that the board determines strength. Top set can be a strong hand. However, top set on a monochrome board on the river has no value. Too many are looking at the absolute strength of their hand when deciding to call a bet on the river, not their relative strength.


WIN MONEY, NOT POTS

The paradox in poker is that after a certain point, the stronger your hand, the less you can win. If you have AK and the flop comes AAA, you have a great hand, but nobody else can have much of a hand. You don't get paid off. In order to maximum your win, you have to figure out for the villain involved in the hand what is their tipping point as to when they will shut off the spew spigot. If you're in game where people won't stack off with less than a set, then playing small pocket pairs is -EV. You won't get paid when you hit and if someone joins you in getting stacks in, it is because they have a better set. In that game, connectors are better than small pp because you'll be more likely to hit a hand that will hold up if stacks go in.

Special LAG Note: LAGs use the above principle to take money from TAGs.


PLANNING

As promised more ranting.

One constant in most HH threads is that the OP has no plan as to where they want the hand to end up. In particular,

1. Preflop raise sizing. The common approach seems to be, "I raise this much" no matter what one wants to achieve. It is a rare hand that you want to raise and see 5 callers when oop. Yet, people seem to spend no time figuring out the bet size necessary to get the conditions they want. If that takes a bet of $20 at a 1/2 table to get 3 way, than that's what you bet. When you're starting out, yes you need help in figuring out what a "normal" raise is. Once you're further along, if the table needs a big bet, then do it. If it only needs 3BB, then that's what you do. In addition, people don't seem to know what they want to happen. If I have SC and am raising (and yeah, I do it) I want to see folds. Don't bet small and don't worry at LLSNL that anyone is paying enough attention to notice your bet size. If you do run into someone, just show them AA one time and they'll get over their desire to challenge you.

2. Flop raises. I see a lot of HHs where someone has TPTK, sees a donk bet and raises. Just what do you want to have happen? You want TPGK to fold? I hope not. Do you expect 2 pair or better to fold? I hope not.

3. Pot commitment. If you haven't read PNLHE Vol 1, you should for the concepts of pot commitment and SPR. A lot of HHs end up with the Hero stuck with a situation where they can't bet any further without the pot getting so big that they feel they shouldn't fold. The place is to start at the river. It is extremely hard to fold on the river getting 3:1. You only have to be good 25% of the time. In a HU situation, that means that if you have committed 50% of the effective stack, you just can't really fold.

To avoid stacking off, you don't want to be on the river with 50% committed. If you plan to bet the river, you should be planning to bet at least 1/2 PSB. If that is the case and you want to b/f, it suggests that you shouldn't have committed more than 20% or so on the turn. And if your goal is to b/f on the flop/turn/river, you shouldn't have more than 10% committed on the flop.

This is why the flop decision is so important. If you are raising a flop bet, you are essentially committing to stacking off or turning your hand into a bluff. You make a 5BB raise pf and get called. Stacks are 100BB. The villain bets 8BB on the flop. If you raise, you're committing 25%-30% of your stack on the flop. You're on the path of stacking off. If that isn't the path you want to be on, then raising is not the right action. At the same time, if you're in a 4 way flop and the pot is 15BB and you're facing a 10BB bet, you're on the path of stacking off. Do you have a hand that you want to do this with?

You get off this path by checking. Checking when you are the pfr is much easier in position. You get to skip a street of betting and avoid the commitment issue.


AG MEANS AGGRESSIVE

A lot of posters are using the terms "TAG" and "LAG" way too loosely. "AG" means aggressive. Aggressive players don't limp pf when opening a pot. Aggressive players bet or raise 2 to 3 times as often as they call. If you're writing about a player and they call your raise pf and call your bet on the flop, they are either not aggressive or acting unusually.

In LLSNL, extremely few players are aggressive. They are easy to spot because they don't play like everyone else. If you write, "I called because I wanted to see a flop," you aren't aggressive either. You aren't aggressive because you have a hand that might be winning and call a bit. Just about the only time you'll call is because you have a draw or are trapping. Even with a draw, your tendency is to raise it.

Please stop using TAG as when you mean tight passive.


That's it for now. If I have to rant some more, I'll add to this.

i like it

amen

this needed to be done.

nice post, I need to work more on putting villains on ranges as you said rather then just saying "wide opening range..he COULD be playing Q8 here" etc....nice post and thank you

Rant away Venice...

Thank you.

Rant on. I can read this ****e all day.

"Special LAG Note: LAGs use the above principle to take money from TAGs."

All great stuff but last point about winning money not pots turned a light on for me especially when thinking about LAG vs TAG play. Never put it into words before but I always fear the crazy disguised hand when playing LAGs. This made it clear and now I can think more clearly about how to play back against certain villains and not just nit it up.

LOL, Valiant but vain attempt. Like tedious meeting at work about things everybody is already supposed to know, the people who it is aimed at will never take it in anyway. Decent effort though.

I agree with this 100%. I see people calling with marginal hands in this forum just because they saw villain doesnt JUST raise with AJ+ and 99+. Just because they saw villain open from the CO with QJ one time doesnt justify calling with a SC. In fact, if anything, you should 3 bet this villain or fold since when you hit you probably wont even get paid off if he opens a little wide, and a high % of the time you get action in a cooler situation.

inb4 people misinterpret the whole post and think venice is advocating opening sc's

Erm......

I humbly disagree. I consider myself a decent winning 2/5 player but I am still learning and desperately trying to improve (especially maximizing). I feel like I am getting some value and learnings from posts like this. If I am benefiting, there must be others.
Reading what players like yourself, Venice and others say abouty hands and poker strategies in general can only help myself and others improve a bit.
I do agree that there are many posters on this forum that can dramatically improve their skill sets but may not know how or may not have the deire or drive to, as it is hard work. As long as there are some willing to put in the work and effort, it is worth it.
The best way to learn something is to try and teach it. The teachers on this forum, at times, may be benefitting from their generous sharing of information and knowledge.

I am relatively new to 1-3 NLHE and I am having a hard time putting a lot of the players on a range. I am seeing $20 calls preflop with k7o et al. routinely. I have been mostly value betting them to death, but sometimes miss a bet or two when I try to give them a range that makes sense...I need help with the thought process that makes these ranges reveal themselves!

There is no "thought process" it is just practice, experience and careful observation.

Nobody can know if the loose guy limps 46o in MP after one limper but folds 84o. It isn't rocket science, just approximations. If you see somebody with K7o you just know it will be really wide.

For people are limping 80% of hands (or so it seems), you can't put them on a hand pf. However, you can pay attention to what their continuation range range is. What do they call a bet with? Is it top pair or any pair? How about raising? Is it the near nuts or ace high good enough?

Each street should give you more information on how to narrow what they have.

I responded to this thread bc. I do need to learn to think more in terms of ranges, but for the weak players (who I tend to play most pots with, ldo) I think I am more putting them on ranges of categories, not so much specific cards..."he'll do this with one pair only", "a raise means he can beat one pair", he cannot get away from an over pair of TT on a low flop" etc. etc

My game must be really freaking good! I'm routinely seeing hands like the following from last night, except there are no exposed cards usually:

1-3 four limps to me and I make it $25 with KKo. BB and utg+2 calls
$75ish in pot.

Flop: JT2r
I bet $70, v1 calls, v2 calls
Turn ($285) JT2 7r
I bet $150, v1 folds, villain 2 calls and tables K8s (lol)
of course river was a 9!, but who cares. This hand was inspiring and made it clear why I have been doing so well--there are just so many good spots to get the money in.

You learn to put people on ranges by practicing, especially when you aren't in the hand. It takes a while to learn how to use logic plus your observations and experience to set reasonable estimates of hand ranges. It is easy on paper, not so easy in practice because it requires disipline to do this every hand. This skill is one of the key differences between winners and losers.

Keep in mind that setting ranges is progressive through the hand. Each check / bet / call / bet size (or even a fold) is another clue about the Villain's hand. As you get more clues, your range gets more accurate but it never will be down to a specific hand. Sometimes you find clues that the villain tricked you early in the hand - say by limping a big pair. You'll need to learn when to change an early impression based on later actions.

Lastly you need to be able to learn from your mistakes, especially when you aren't in the hand. Its far cheaper that way and you get a lot more practice (at least we hope you aren't playing more hands than you fold.)

One last thing - avoid mentioning putting people on a range at the table. The less the other players think about the idea the better.

DrStrange

"Shotgun Blast" lmao. Great post venice, basic fundamentals is important at the table and on the forums.

Good post. I see very similar situations posted over and over on this forum, and a lot of those posts could be answered by the poster if they did some range analysis of their own before posting.

One thing that folks can benefit from here is when they post a hand - range their opponent on each street and include that analysis and why you think that's the range in your post. If your opponent is a good hand reader (rare in this forum), also include what you think your perceived range is and why. That way the few posters on this forum who actually do range analysis can help you with your thought process and we can have a reasonable discussion based on ranges/equity/how to maximize rather than the typical discussion in a typical thread here....

It would be difficult to make this post any better.

Great post! Everyone should be consistently thinking in this manner for any hand they see.

Drop the sarcasm This forum's audience will range from kids leaving the eight table micro world and just learning how much to tip the waitress to guys beating $2/$5 at a solid clip looking for one more little piece of advice to increase their edge.

It is very reasonable to review fundamentals

Im calling for more rant. Venice writes well. I wish I could.