So I seem to be having trouble balancing my ranges on flops. I can come up with a lot of value hands but cant seem to come up with even close to enough bluff combos. Do I need to:
1. Put more junk into my bluffing range? Seems kind of spewy but it's also the only way to add bluff combos.
2. Bet less value combos? I can achieve balance this way but lose a ton of value.
3. Widen my preflop ranges so that I can have more bluff combos postflop? Again, seems spewy.
4. Not worry as much about balance and let my range dictate my bet size? So if I have way more value than bluffs then bet bigger. More bluffs bet smaller.

Any thoughts appreciated.

are you a winning player?

if so - how much?

sample size?

Are you playing live? If so, don't worry much about balancing your flop ranges, as live Vs most common leak is calling too much, so you want to be under-bluffing anyway in most scenarios.

Generally for live, 4 is the way to go, though it should be about your perceived range and your Vs tendencies rather than your actual range.

I am a break even player over 2 years of live play. The last year during covid I've played 100k hands online as a small winner. I will be going back to live soon though.

As a break even player I would advise playing for value. I am talking standard abc stuff. Tight up front and a little looser in the co/but.

Being break even over 2 years is in fact an accomplishment but you have quite a few leaks. So playing a more screw down game will plug some of them. Once you have a few hundred hrs and are winning 4bb+/hr you can start think about exploiting others/bluff and value ranges etc imo. Worrying about that stuff as a break even player is putting the horse in front of the cart.

Welcome to the forum, OP, and it sounds like the COVID break has injected some solid fundamentals into your game, but as squid says, and ABC value-oriented style is generally best at live, especially until you can develop a solid baseline to deviate from in certain circumstances.

You don't need to do an extraordinary amount of bluffing at LLSNL. Your game should be very value oriented. The exception I'll give is c betting IP in HU pots...range bet every board 1/3 and you'll print doing this. Other than that, I think you can simplify to only bluffing the turn when you have a draw, and then never bluffing the river.

First off, this question is so broad that its impossible to answer all of it. But here is a synopsis that I think will help.

First off, based on your response that over two years you are a break even player, I would think you need to take a strong re-evaluation of your ranges, and especially postflop play (specifics here would help - can you give an example of your pre-flop strategy for example). There is almost 0% chance that you are playing anywhere near a balanced strategy and not at least a somewhat significant winner. 5bb/hr+ at least. The very idea of balance is such that you win from your opponents mistakes, and there have been many in two years. Yes, we can often win more at low stakes by exploiting errors more than balance, but balance wins plenty still.

1. You say into your bluffing range. You shouldn't have a 'bluffing range'. You should have a basic three ranges when starting out -

-- Strong/Nut hands + Very strong draws

-- Medium strength made hands + weak draws

-- Weak/ Garbage.

Each of these ranges contains bluffs (well at least the top two- you just fold garbage). But the 'range' contains both value hands and bluffs for each. You will play every hand in each of these ranges in a similar fashion. So your 'bluffing range' is really some strong bluffs that you will fire big/triple barrel, and some that you will stab and give up. You balance your big bluffs by having more nut hands you play that way. Balance is about the ratio of bluffs to value when compared to the bet size.

2. Probably yes. Do you have any strength at all in your flop check range? Many players do not and its a huge leak.

3. Unlikely. But can't say without knowing what your range is. If you were truly balanced post-flop and can't find bluffs you would have the nittiest of all nitty pre-flop ranges.

4. This question doesn't make sense unless you are approaching postflop play with a single range in mind. Its fine to think of preflop as playing a single bet size for a range of hands. Once you go postflop you need to start differentiating and playing hands differently (i.e. some check flop, some bet small, some bet big). This creates different ranges for each choice.

Most likely it appears that you are trying to play too many hands the same way.

BTW... other posters are correct. To beat 1/2NL you really only need to play value and let the others spew. Most likely you have a decent strategy and just spew too much in the name of balance (which is probably far from true balance). If you give specific examples like a hand and how you play your ranges on that board we'd be much better able to help you.

Thanks for the reply. I like the idea of thinking of things in terms of strong/medium/junk. I think that will solve a lot of problem for me. I'm gonna go back and re work some things with this mindset. Right now I'm just trying to work things through on paper.

My first guess is you are likely getting involved in too many multi-way pots by limping in behind an opening player. Try not to do this unless you are on the button. It is very difficult for good winning players to extract much value from middle position in multi-way pots. And it is hard to bluff much against 4 opponents. You likely need to adjust your pre-flop ranges to always open 4x from early position and 3x from late position and then rarely ever cold call behind an open raise. Mostly fold or 3-bet to try and isolate the original opening player. Try to get most hands you are involved in to be heads up. If you do this, you can start learning to raise more from late position when several others limp in front of you. It is much easier to find bluff hands to balance your range when you open limp less and 3-bet more.

Lets say 3 people open limp from early and middle position and you are in the CO with KQ suited or A5 suited. Both of these hands can make for reasonable 3-bet hands from late position to attack multiple limpers. You want to likely raise 5x BB given 3 limpers, maybe even 6x. Try to get this heads up or three-ways but key is to get the button and blinds to fold so you have position after the flop.

Lets say you 3-bet with KQ in CO and get called by one EP player. He will likely check the flop to you. He likely has a range including mostly pocket pairs and Ax hands. If flop comes with an Ace on board, you can often bet the flop and get folds from weak Ax holdings and many pocket pairs that missed. So, by playing your hands more aggressively pre-flop and eliminating limping from your pre-flop play, you will find many more opportunities to bluff.

One last example. Lets say a MP player raises to 2.5 BB and you 3-bet to 6 BB from HJ with AQ suited. Only the MP player calls. Flop comes K75 rainbow, giving you a back door flush draw. EP player checks to you. You can continuation bet here most of the time. Often this will be a value bet as he may very well have called with a weaker suited ace that missed the flop. He may have a small pocket pair and will be worried you have AK. Point is in heads up play, many more opportunities to turn your draws and middle pairs into semi-bluffs.

I'm Loose, from both this post and a few others I've seen from you, it sounds like you are used to a certain game dynamic and think that all other LLSNL games are much like it. This is not the case.

There are many, many games, for example, in which "3-betting" (it's not really 3-betting if you are raising limpers, it's just raising) with A5s is just a recipe for playing a bloated multi-way pot with trash. I'm not saying to never do it, but your advice above is only for certain game conditions. Also, the sizing is just horrible for some games.

As for getting an average LLSNL V to fold a weak TP, that's pretty unusual. Generally speaking, your V didn't limp-call A7o to fold when he hits an ace in most of the LLSNL games I've played across the country.

Frankly, I've never played a live low-stakes (1/1-3/5) cash game where a 2.5BB open is common enough that I'd use it in any examples, which makes me think that your game is unusual enough that you need to caveat it.

+1 to the posts on emphasizing a focus on value hands. As G indicated, #4 is the way to go.

Once profiting long-term, then you can expand your game. To give 1 example:
- Widen your opening range ip;
- Try to isolate and get pots HU;
- Suited cards, especially AXss give you the opportunity to pick up equity on turns, allowing more semi-bluffs.

If you are unable to get pots HU, the range of hands to semi goes down substantially.

GL!

Thanks everyone. I went and ayed today and tried to focus on where my hands lied; strong hands, marginal hands and junk. For example I opened QJ suited in early position. The flop was queen high and rather than bet I checked realizing I can have many better queens in this situation. I then called a turn lead and checked back when the board paired on the river and turned over the winner. In the past i think i would have bet the flop and when i got raised by the agro player who led the turn i would have folded. By checking the flop i allowed myself the chance to call down if warranted. Anyway a good winning session.

Umm, I think I see your problem. On the very rare occasion I open early with QJ, it's for a raise. The vast majority of the time, it's a fold and forget. There are special cases, but I doubt this was one.

I opened

QJ suited

8 handed

From utg +1

Same difference.

Anyway thanks for the help. Y'all be good!!!

I would just fold this pre flop. You definitely missed value this hand. Assuming you're HU IP, this is a flop bet. Turn call is good. Again, assuming you're IP, you can't check back river here, it's not even a thin value bet as played - I expect to have the best hand almost 100% of the time.

He's probably not IP. He opened from EP (UTG+1).

don't think about poker this way, hands can't be strictly divided into bluffs/value bets before the river anyway.

Just look at your hand, then what your range looks like and how it interacts with the board, then figure out what actions your hand prefers to take in order to maximize it's EV on the flop

Looking at sovlers can be useful for this, but isn't strictly necessary

I assumed he was because he mentioned lead and check back, but these terms are often misused

The point of my original reply was not about how to properly size your open or your 3-bets but as to you are likely playing too many multi-way pots and playing them OOP. It is very hard to find many bluffs in a pot with 4 players. It is also hard to bluff when you are in early or middle position in 4-way pot. In most multi-way pots, you either have to hit the flop hard or have a really good combination draw to bet strong.

I am often amazed at how often an early position player will bet 20 into a 300 pot with 4 players behind and it gets called by everyone. He continues to donk bet every street and I have bottom pair with a bad kicker on the button and it folds around to me and I still fold figuring there is no way he is doing this with a worse hand. I know I should call because he is giving me such good pot odds and I really should raise knowing he likely has a very weak made hand that he is value betting, but I could easily have improved or been trapping. On the other hand, my raise on river in last position after everyone else folds looks pretty obvious. So I mostly fold.

Point is hands mostly play more straight forward in multi-way pots. Hard for even good winning players to get max value out of their strong hands in multiway pots when they are in early or middle position. Likely you need to avoid multi-way pots especially if you are still struggling on how to play post-flop. Focus on narrowing your range to open raise and 3-bet range. Mostly limp in on the button with reasonable speculative hands when stacks are deep.