Hi,

I'm confused about using 2 poker rules.
1). Reraise 70% of the time and call 30% of the time you enter the pot pre-flop.
2). Balance your 3bet value range with 25%-30% bluffs.

As my opponents opening range widens should I widen my 3bet range?
As my opponents opening range widens should I continue to balance my 70% 3bet range with 30% calls?
As my opponents opening range widens should I continue to balance my 3bet range with 25%-30% bluffs?

eg).

Tight opponent - I 3bet with AA, KK, AKs, AKo preflop, which is 28 hand combos. Do I need to add 10ish bluffs to the 28 hands to be balanced? To balance this should I be calling with 15ish hands combos and folding everything else? This would mean I'm raising 70% of hands and calling 30%.

Average opponent - Should I widen my raise range to something like AA, KK, QQ, JJ, AKs, AKo, AQs, AQo which is 50 hand combos? Of that 50 hands have about 15 bluffs? And balance this with 30ish calling hands and fold everything else?

Loose opponent - If I continue to widen my 3bet range inline with the 70%-30% rule I end up 3betting a large percentage of hands and needing a large percentage of bluffs for balance and this can easily be exploited by 4betting.

Am I using these rules correctly?

Thanks

Where you finding these rules and what game are you talking about specifically?

Doug Polk mentions it in this video at 16:40 seconds. although he says you need two value bets to every one bluff so its not exactly 70%. I realise hes talking about the river but the same rule "i believe" applies pre-flop.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QzF2YPCPZMM&t=1481s

Ive heard another youtuber talk about it but i cant remember the exact video.

To have a VPIP/PFR of something like 23/19 you need to enter the pot with a raise 70ish percent of the time and call 30%?? Is that correct? Am i miss understanding the rule?


The way i understand it, to balance my range i need:
eg.
30 combos of nutish value hands to reraise preflop AA, KK, QQ, AKs, AKo, AQs, etc.
10 combos of medium value hands to call preflop 99, ATs, etc
10 reraise bluffs preflop

So my question is if i play a loose player should i widen my ranges to something like:
60 combos of nutish
20 combos of medium
20 reraise bluffs

as this would remain balanced but then I start 3betting a wide range. have many bluffs and call many weak hands

6max Holdem.

When you type into google "what is a good pfr poker" this is what comes up.

What is a good pre flop raise percentage?
To give you a rough idea, you ideally want to be raising at least 70% of the time you enter a pot. So if you have a VPIP of 20%, you wouldn't want to have a PFR of less than 14%. If your PFR is less than 70% of your VPIP, you're likely calling in spots where you should be raising.

You're not understanding it all man. I'm really not sure where to begin. I'll try to type up a more reasonable response for you tomorrow.

Thanks, appreciate it

Sorry, the video of Doug Polk, he mentions it at 16:35 seconds.

Cheers

So, let's just try to start from the beginning.

1)

Doesn't mean anything and is not useful. You just don't want to be limping in as a default. I'd recommend looking at some preflop ranges. There are some free ones available on GTOwizards sign up which should provide a lot of clarity for you.

2)

You don't really "balance" your 3b range with bluffs (at least not in the way I think you might be thinking about it). When hands are preflop there isn't really much of a thing as a bluff or a value bet at that point. Again, if you look at some solved preflop ranges this might provide some clarity.

--------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
As my opponents opening range widens should I widen my 3bet range?
As my opponents opening range widens should I continue to balance my 70% 3bet range with 30% calls?
As my opponents opening range widens should I continue to balance my 3bet range with 25%-30% bluffs?
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

^ the questions you raised above are not easily answered because they don't make much sense as I said there aren't really "bluffs" preflop too often except in some specific circumstances, but just based on how you are thinking about this it's really not worth mentioning and the focus should just be looking at some solid preflop ranges and then asking questions about the output.

If someone is opening wider than they should, then yes generally speaking you would 3bet more and conversely if they were tighter you would do the opposite and 3bet less. That being said the more relevant statistics which are going to be a function of the latter is essentially their fold to 3bet frequency and their 4bet frequency. If they are folding to 3bets very often then it would make sense to 3bet often and usually with a more polar range (very strong hands, very weak hands), but if they are folding a very high amount then you could potentially just 3bet everything. Conversely, if they are very tight and are not folding much, then 3betting a linear range with ~no bluffs could make sense.

In the video you list at 16.35 (I didn't watch it really). He is presumably talking about a river node in which the player betting is perfectly polarized. In a river scenario where we are in a perfectly polarized situation then the frequency of bluffs will be equal to the pot odds given to our opponent to make his bluffs indifferent.

Pot sized bet lets say is 100 chips. If we bet 100 chips, then our opponent has 100 chips to call win a pot of (100 + 100 + 100), one psb (pot sized bet) for the bet already in the middle, one for IP putting in the bet, and another for the one we are putting in as a call. This equals to pot odds of 100/300 = 33%. So, in this perfectly polarized situation on the river the polarized player should have 33% bluffs. This ends up being two value combos to every 1 bluff.

Say we have 10 combinations of value, then we would need 5 combos of bluffs to equal that 33% frequency. This would be 5/(10+5) = 0.3333. This essentially makes our opponents bluff catchers 0 ev because our bluffs are equal to his pot odds and it's a perfectly polarized situation (nuts or air). This is the equilibrium.

I'm really not sure where to begin.

Thanks for the reply. It does explain a lot but I do have more questions if you don't mind. Also I think I may be using words to explain to my best ability but using incorrect poker terms.

I'll give a more real world example first to explain my new understanding

1). Villain opens 3bb
Hero? -Raise

I'm really not sure where to begin.

Thanks for the reply and the time you've put in. It does explain a lot but I do have more questions if you don't mind. Also I think I may be using words to explain to my best ability but using incorrect poker terms. I'll give some examples and explain to see if my new understanding is correct.

First are these bullet points correct?
- Open linear ranges getting wider as my position gets closer towards the button then tightening up in the Small Blind?
- Defend linear ranges but the more they fold the more polarized hands I can add to my range?
- Also should I defend with hand combos tighter than my opponents perceived range?
- Seating position has no bearing on the range of hands I reraise with?

Are these examples below correct?

My opponent is a tight player:

1). Villain opens 3bb.
Hero
- 3bet 12bb - JJ+, AQo+ etc. - if they fold often polarize my range?
- call - TT-22, AJs-A7s, KQs-K9s, etc.

2. Hero opens 3bb
Villain 3bet 12bb (I understand this could be a 4bet pot)
Hero
- 4bets 38bb KK+, AKo+ - if they fold often polarize my range?
- call - QQ-88, AQs-ATs etc.


My opponent is a loose player:

- Should I widen my ranges in all call, 3bet and 4bet spots?
- If they fold often polarize my 3bet and 4bet hands?


Should I polarize my calling range?
eg. 3bet TT+, ATs+, ATo+ but call with AQo?


Thanks