This was a great post, thanks.
Perhaps you consider this horse dead, but please allow me to flog it one more time.

So if you're checking 100% TPTK mw against good regs, why can't they exploit you by calling all your PFRs light in position? They would know they can over-realize equity of their SCs, FD-type hands by getting to many more turns cheaply. This would be their exploit to your 100% checking range. (At Nash Equilibrium, there can still be "cooptition".)

Thanks a lot for your help. ITT, I was pretty firmly in Amanaplan's camp of betting big purely based on position and I agree with you in general that I'm checking alot here. But I think it's worth following this strategy to its logical conclusion and seeing if there's a countermeasure/exploit against it.

Thank you so much for this

Pretty certain that Amanaplan also stated in his response that this is a very situational dependent decision. V’s involved here is a huge factor.

V’s can’t foresee a flop like this coming. This wouldn’t be such a middling hand if the flop was K-J-4 rainbow or A-9-5 rainbow. The reason it’s such a middling hand is because there’s several players and we’re playing a wet flop against multiple hands.

Further reasoning: often in these MW pots with a middling hand equity denial against one player is just value owning yourself against another. Cliffs - equity denial has a tendency to be drastically overrated at times.

If they start calling preflop too wide then we don't have to check as much (if heads up) because their range will be too weak on many textures. They can't plan on the flop being multiway; even though we might check 100% multiway. Versus good players the flop will rarely go multiway as players are more likely to 3bet than overcall.

Because of this, when if they overcall preflop they are risking being 3bet behind and while it may actually lower your EV if they call wide, it will also lower their EV. (Yes, lowering people's EV in multiway scenarios is a thing)

So, yes. Someone could potentially lower your overall EV by calling you too wide preflop (who then plays very well postflop), but it will also lower their EV. So no, I wouldnt say that they would be exploiting you.

if you read my post history you'll see I used to be one of the half intelligent ones. There were some people here who helped me improve; I figure I should return the favour.

Thanks so much! You have a wonderfully clear method of explaining complex subject matter.

I remain at best half intelligent.
And honestly, I’ve already harvested your post history. You’ve officially been post stalked several months ago. There’s a small handful of posters that I felt worth reading through past posts so thanks. You explain your thoughts well.

Really nice post Jarretman.

A small nitpick but on a KJ8 tt board we would never be at a range disadvantage vs PFR callers.

Being at a range advantage has nothing to do with betting range. In fact, betting range is usually a downbet (or small size bet) and being at a range advantage should always be a bigger sized bet but at less frequency.

Just because we have more air doesn't mean range disadvantage - the way range advantage is quantified is by whoever has more nut holdings (i.e. highest equity hands). So even if we opened say 20% of our range and Villain's called with 15%. He might have more middling hands and therefore can continue more often but we still have a range advantage because of our nut hands.

I agree with everything else though.

I don’t think that’s quite right. Polarity advantage and range advantage are not always one in the same.

DooDooPoker you're confusing polarity advantage (aka nut advantage) with an equity advantage (aka range advantage).

All the spots I have solved have been in position. So you might be right that being OOP makes us an EV underdog.

I still think we would be an equity favorite though - at least marginally.

Having AA/KK/JJ/AK means a lot. And a lot of the hands we raise will also be in Villain's calling range. So there is a ton of overlap - except at the most polarized points.

We have an equity advantage though. The only reason we would be an underdog (Expected Value wise) is because we are OOP (vs Button).

Last thing - this is also how you figure out high frequency donk lead spots.

So let's say UTG opens 12% of hands and BB calls 15% of hands.

Flop comes 543r

UTG never has A2s/76s/33/44/55 - while BB has all these hands.

So BB would have a range advantage (aka more nut holdings--->equity favorite) but be an EV underdog in the hand because he is OOP.

That's the difference between Equity and Expected Value. Range advantage is calculated by Equity not by EV.

Which of these two things is more important:

(a) Increasing your understanding of the subtle and complex factors influencing a difficult situation; or

(b) Getting the last word in an Internet donnybrook?

ETA: You are still confusing range advantage with nut advantage.

Are you taking about a guy who opens 12% or a guy who opens 12% when hes UTG? Either way, an actual top notch player can open 12% of hands but those 12% aren't the top 12% of hands in any hand ranking. They can easily be a mix of strange hands and premiums which work out to 12%.

I may open 12% but I am raising 67s but not TT UTG. You will never know which hands a tricky player is raising with. Not to mention you dont have a HUD when playing live so there's no way you will know what percentage of hands people are raising unless you play them day in and day out for 100s of hours. I may open UTG a lot today or never tomorrow. That may be because I had a lot of good hands today and tomorrow I had lots of trash.

I also may be raising tons of hands today because Im a nitty table LAGing it up more than usual or my table may have a lot of action so Im playing extra tight and rarely raising any hands in EP.

12% of hands when he's UTG:

Something like this

These are important concepts.

Please show me an example of when someone has a nut advantage but not a range advantage.


I'll wait.

And what if this particular guy raises 12% UTG but he doesnt like to raise small suited aces and hands like AJ that can be called by hands that dominate him too often. but instead he throws in 76s, 87s, and smaller pps like 66, 55, 44?

Now youre in a world of hurt relying on so much of this theory/math/numbers. Seriously, how in the world do you expect to be able to tell with any certainty that a guy is opening UTG 8% or 15% after playing with him for even 50 hours? Hes only been UTG like 200 times. He could be card dead as hell when hes UTG or keep getting big hands when hes UTG.

That would be a good strategy. That's what GTO does - it mixes in lots of different hands at low frequencies. This helps us have some board coverage on a lot of different flops.

That doesn't mean studying the theory isn't productive though.

Of course, I just think you shouldnt say things like "UTG never has A2s/76s/33/44/55 - while BB has all these hands."

BB's range is more condensed though.

What is more likely for UTG? The 30 combos of TT-AA that almost always raise. Or the 22 combos of 76s/66/55/44 that sometimes raise.

Just because UTG can have some nut hands doesn't mean he isn't at a disadvantage. It is about how often he will have those hands. BB will always at 100% frequency have 76s/66/55/44. UTG will not.

OK. Ill play along. So BB has more nutted hands in his range. That will come into play if the pot gets really big but UTG still has the overall advantage based both on his entire range and having position.

UTG will have more big pps than BB.

If they both have pps, UTGs will tend to be bigger giving him a big advantage.

If UTG has a pp and BB has an unpaired hand, UTG will win most of the time.

If BB has a pp and UTG has an unpaired hand, BB will win most of the time but less often than when its the other way around because he has position and will can take a free card to river his pair.

If they both have unpaired hands and both miss the flop, UTG will win more often even when his unpaired hand is lower (AJ vs AQ for example)

Assuming equal skill level, UTG is going to win this hand more often and win more total money if they played this hand 1000s of times. So I guess I dont know what your point is.

My point is that everyone is saying nut advantage and range advantage are two separate concepts. But they aren't. They are the same thing.

For instance in my UTGvsBB example. BB has a range advantage because he has the nut advantage.

Now in some cases you might be an EV underdog but have an Equity advantage, but that is because of position. If you are OOP you will under realize your equity and if you are IP you will over realize it.

Also the composition matters as well. It is much harder to realize a hand like TPGK over a hand like a pair+straight draw. They might be 50/50 in equity when against each other - but the pair+straight draw will always realize more equity than the TPGK.