since we alredy have a lively thread about 6max 5 CD i thought it about time to start a strat discussion about FL HU 5CD.

also i'm impressed by the guys who sit at the 30/60 tables and battle it out HU...



for now i'd like to start with the basics:


1. BRM 200 BB still ok or do the swings get ugly in HU?


2. Openraising

22+
AK
AQx (x>9)

cbet: any 2pair, QQ+, missed AK/AQ


is the value range big enough to make villain indifferent to calling
or can we even throw the unimproved 22 combos in the mix?


how many AK combos are dealt in %?
i know that a single pair is dealt about 3.35% of the time,
so the %age should be higher...



3. Defending in the BB passively

22-TT
AK

c/call: 99-TT, 3322-9922
c/raise: TT22+


can we C/R TT22 being the median two pair here?

with a hand like 22AKx what do we draw to? drawing 3 to AK should have a better equity against a wide opening range.

suppose we openraise and get 3bet: do we ever fold here??? if yes, what hands can we fold? so far i've folded all unpaired hands and called with the rest. called cbet only after improving.



4. 3betting from the BB

JJ+
any two pair

cbet: any two pair, KK+
c/call the rest???


if villain opens wider than 50% the median hand we can 3bet with is 99,
88 is more or less out of the question, even if villain is opening close to 70%.
my problem is what to do with unimproved 99 OOP after the draw?
can we ballance our 3CD range after the draw in an unexploitable fashion if we decide to 3bet down to 99? maybe bet with QQ+, c/call JJ-TT, c/fold 99.

also: if we 3bet 99+ our BB calling range becomes somewhat weak
and we have to calldown with 66 or 77 if we don't want to be exploited.
if we know that villain is cbetting wide, it might be better to call with AA-JJ instead of 3betting because we can catch a full bet from him after the draw.

in general: is it always best to push the equity edge predraw? e.g. 3bet 99 against an openraising range > 50%. if villain is 3betting 99+ (27%) should we 4bet the median hand KK?

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subjects for later discussion:

- incorporating draws into raising / 3 and 4 betting ranges in an unexploitable way

- drawing one to AA in position if villain is calling down with A-high against one card draws, trying to catch a missed draw

- anything you guys are interested in



for now, my goal is to setup an unexploitable strategy for all predraw and postdraw siutations. ofc it is frequently better to employ a different appoach if villain is exploitable, e.g. folding too much to cbets after both drew three cards, here we could bluff with 33-55 and check KK-AA behind since villain will only call with better hands. anyways especially in FL HU it is extremely important to have a sound basic strategy...


i hope we can get a good discussion going. THY 4 your ideas, answers and questions!

"BRM" is quite a misnomer; for a specific number in big bets for a BR with a low risk of ruin, you'd need to know basically a somewhat narrow range ( based on data ) for the winrate and standard deviation ( or variance; any decent statistical estimator for this converges rather quickly ) and IMHO, 200 bets is okay if you don't mind a risk of ruin above 10% and should be okay if you're somewhat selective of who you play.

Also, for those players that like to play very aggressively, $15-30 ( with the SB=$10 ) is the best limit to play to exploit some opponents maximally whereas players that don't want to open so wide are better off at $3-6 or $5-10 because of the smaller SB. There's always a trickle of traffic every week on PokerStars for HU play even as high as $30-60, but most of the HU action will usually be between $5-10 and $15-30.

With the SB = (1/2) x BB, the opening frequency would be too tight, even if you opened any 8-out or better drawing hand, but you normally shouldn't open hands like 5432 or 6543 except against a player that is exploitable. If you included any AQ+, any 8-out or better draws, the total combinations is still strictly less than 2/3, so against decent opposition you'd lose the battle for the blinds. Other candidate hands to include will be some AJ- and maybe even some KQ- hands. The main idea is that normally the SB should be open raising with at least (4/3)(s+1)/3 of his hands according to theory ( where s is the fraction of the big blind that the SB posts ) which translates to (2/3) for a normal blind structure and (20/27) for $15-30 with the SB=$10.

To make a c-bet, you'd normally want the hand to be beating slightly more than half of the opponent's calling+ range ( sometimes because of the extra rake ), so depends on what the BB 3-bets with: e.g., if the BB sometimes cold calls only with AA or KK, the SB may not be able to value bet QQ depending on the cards seen (e.g, you open with QQT98 and end up with QQJ87: looks like a c-bet is wrong here; if you end up with QQAK3 a c-bet seems clear ). In pots of roughly two bets, the SB should normally value bet KKA+ and normally bluff any hand worse than AK if both players draw three. At a looser structure such as $15-30 ( with a $10 small blind ), the SB will be opening wider so he normally can't bluff every hand worse than 22 when both players draw three so he should normally check with AKQ-high since the BB will sometimes have AK/AQ.

AK-high without a flush draw or pat broadway straight occurs on (164)(960) = 157440 combinations, so simply divide by C(52,5) to get the percentage.

Some HU players like to 3-bet with 22 ( and other small pairs ) or AK or AQ suited as well to have at least some bluffing range when the BB makes a c-bet when both players draw exactly three cards. At $3-6 with the SB=$1, you should probably fold 22 and defend with AK since AK normally has okay equity versus a pair whereas 22 isn't as good ( of course, the opener could have two pairs or better, but it's not really that often ). You often want to 3-bet with not just TT but also 99 ( especially with the right texture ) because if the SB is opening close to correctly, say 2/3 of his range, the border of the top 40% of this range will be a pair of nines. Three-betting with 88 selectively at $15-30 could be okay too, but then postdraw the BB's range when drawing three can be extremely weak when he has failed to 3-bet ( okay if you don't mind check-calling with 66 and 55 sometimes to be unexploitable postdraw unless you're also just smooth calling with QQ-AA selectively ).

Check-raising for value is so dependent on what the SB is willing to value bet with and call the checkraise with and I'd think that checkraising with jacks-up or worse is normally not good unless the SB is almost autocalling the checkraise with almost his entire value betting range; however I'm sure that you'll find some rare opponents for which this play is okay ( say they value bet ~TTA+ and at least autocall with KKA+ ). BTW, the median two pairs looks like JJ44A or JJ552.

22AK? Good question, but drawing to AK should be better than drawing to 22, but not everyone likes breaking a pair.

If you open raise and get 3-bet, against an aggressive opponent who is often semibluffing or 3-betting with hands like AK or small pairs, you don't want to be exploitable, so I'd recommend never folding 33+ and always folding AQ or worse unless you happened to have AQ(suited). With AKo, you'd want to think the 3-bettor is likely to have less than KK to continue; otherwise, you're simply blowing off more chips in the long run. Now, if you were playing $15-30, your opening range would look ~KQ+ and some semibluffs because that's the only way to get to about 20/27 of the hands, so you'd have to call the 3-bet with just an ace-high most of the time, so even with 22 you'd continue; however, if you had opened with KQ or maybe KJ(suited) and get 3-bet, simply give up unless somehow you think you can get some value postdraw or for metagame and future considerations! Against a player that doesn't 3-bet semibluff very often, you should probably give up anything less than 33 except maybe a hand like AK (suited) and you'd probably also fold 33 with a deuce; against a very tight 3-bettor, just surrender on AK and the very weakest pairs.

You can't just call+ when you've improved because you'll simply get run over! Drawing three to a pair, you're only going to improve ~28.7% of the time, so a very aggressive opponent can exploit this: e.g., he could 3-bet almost any 9-out or better draw and some 8-out draws to exploit this.

I'll add some comments later after others have chimed in!

epic post

hi bigpooch, i've read a lot of your past posts and i was hoping to get an answer from you

first of a thank you very much for putting in the time and effort to answer my questions, much appreciated!


before firing out one or two more questions, let me recap if i fully understood your post:


I) button play only.


openraising with 66% at a blind structure of 1/2:
22+, AK, AQ9+, all FDs, SDs 8-high+

now we can cbet every hand which beats half of villain's calling hands,
also depending on villain's 3betting (both draw 3 cards):

CBet against tight 3better: 2Pair, KK+, QQAK+, missed AQ+ combos
CBet against wide 3better: 2Pair, QQ+, JJKQ+, missed AQ+ combos, 22QJ+
(because of weak flatting range)


calling 3bets and 4betting:
(1st row is villains 3betting range / 3rd row is hero's calling range)

99+, all draws, some AK 36% 22+, AQ 4bet KK
99+, some draws 30% 22+, AK 4bet AA
99+ 27% 33+, AK 4bet 3322
JJ+ 20% 33+ 4bet 6622
KK+ 14% 44+ 4bet 8877

- is the calling and 4betting range correct from an GTO standpoint?
- why can't we 4bet every hand that has 51% EQ against villain's 3betting range (i think u suggested to 3/4bet the top 40% of villain's range)?
- on the other hand: does it make sense to call with AA-KK sometimes, esp. if villain is cbetting wide? (giving up the small bet in order to collect a full bet)
- btw. are the 3/4bet stats in pokerhands correct?


calling down unimproved after calling villain's 3bet:
- required equity 20% (4:1 odds)
- both draw one
- villain bets every improvement and never bluffs
- villain is betting his pair unimproved

i've calculated the following:

Villain Hero's calling range

AA – 99 JJ (30% EQ)
AA – TT JJ (20% EQ)
AA – JJ QQ (23% EQ)
AA – QQ KK (37% EQ)
AA – KK AA (70% EQ)
AA AA (33% EQ)

this table is based on the required equity against villain's range,
how does an unexploitable approach look like?



II) big blind play


calling against different opening ranges


Vraise Hcall Payoff when both draw 3
74% 22-88, AK, AQ 77+ ?
66% 22-88, AK 77+ ?
60% 33-99, AK 88+ ?
54% 33-TT, AK 88+ ?

- should we adapt our defending range depending on the openingrange of the opponent? is there a GTO defending range for different opening frequencies?
- is the payoff point correct? it feels way too loose and sometimes i feel like an idiot calling down that wide and it fells like we are not goog often enough...


3betting range against different opening ranges:

Villain’s opening range Hero’s 3betting range Cbetting Range
74% 99+, AK9 QQ+, AK
66% 99+, AKT QQK+, AK
60% TT+, AKJ KK+, AK
54% JJ+, AKQ KK+, AK

- as villains opening range widens our 3betting ranges widens as well, are the ranges correct?
- i've incorporated some AK combos as bluffs, the tighter the opening range, the less bluffs are in our range...
- how does the cbetting look like (both draw 3)? this spot OOP is sometimes a bit awkward and sometimes i feel a little lost OOP...


THX for your input!

For such a long post, I'll answer bit by bit.

I'd think the SB should be able to open more than 67% of his range; how much more depends on how exploitable the opponent is in practice and how often the SB faces a 3-bet. You would need to open AQ+ and I'd also open 7654 most of the time and 6543A and I'd pick some hands selectively from AJ and KQ suited as well. It's simply cruching out the combinations of hands to get to at least the minimal opening frequency. For semibluffing hands, I'm assuming you draw three to AKQJx but some people like to draw one to that but I'd think you prefer to draw to AK in HU play.

Generally, you want as much data as possible for numbers like opening frequency, 3-betting frequency, etc. and if possible scout your opposition in advance before taking a hand.

Here, you're talking about pots of about 2 big bets where the BB draws three. You should bluff with most AK high combinations at $10-20/$2-4 except maybe some that have bad kicker texture. Against a wide 3-bettor, this seems pretty close and you may want to bet TTAKx too if you think the BB thinks you have AK again.

It seems you want a baseline/formulaic approach here so I'll look at this more closely later. I think if you are autocalling the 4-bet, you want to be in roughly the top ~40% of opponent's raising range - there's a simple toy game to think of: suppose opponent caps with top 20% of his range, so you essentially gain a bet 60% of the time, lose a bet 20% of the time and lose two bets 20% of the time. You might be able 3-bet with a hand like 88Q32 and fold to the 4-bet, but then you could have just called. For metagame reasons, you don't want to fold to 3-bets or 4-bets predraw that often except when you have "trash" or at the very bottom of your value range.

I think you want to occasionally do something like not 3-bet with AA or KK just to get the SB to bluff with AK/AQ/AJ/KQ hands that bust out, so you want to have good hand texture and the right opponent to just smooth call.

The other thing that's not explicitly mentioned is that every card that's seen carries some information and that sometimes influences borderline decisions.

THY again, seems like there is not too much interest in discussing HU strategy. i would buy a book if there were one available so wouldn't have to bother you with my questions. anyways:


def. drawing to AK with AKQJ because people tend to call down ridiculously wide against 1card draws HU.


adjusting the opening frequencies to diff villains:
- opening wider if villain is folding too much pre or post
- narrow down range if villain is calling too loose or 3bets very wide

...i guess.


what do you mean with bad kicker texture when bluffing AK unimproved?


3betting the top 40% of villain's range makes sense to me now because of the possible 4bet.

when we are 4betting and can't face a 5th bet predraw, now we can 4bet with 51% equity - should look something like this:


villain 3bets hero 4bets
99+, all draws, some AK 36% QQ
99+, some draws 30% KK
99+ 27% KK
JJ+ 20% AA
KK+ 14% 6655

however, the problem if we 4bet this wide is that our flatting range to 3bets is so weak and exploitable if we dont call down with about TT which i generally do not like.