I'm looking into memorizing some preflop BB defense ranges, and one pattern i'm seeing a lot when I look around is an area with higher raise frequency around some middle suited one-gappers.
For example, this range against a button raise has you 3betting with J9s more often than both QJs and QTs, even though they're all drawing for three different straights, and 3betting Q9s more often than either QJs and QTs. This all seems pretty counterintuitive to me because I'd expect to 3bet QJs>QTs>(J9s, Q9s). Does anyone know why this pattern seems to arise in these ranges? I'm hoping someone can offer an explanation, so I can work with a better understanding instead of just pressing whatever buttons I'm told are best. Thanks.

This question is too advanced for BQ for sure.

Bb gets good odds to flat so is gonna need to develop a well-rounded flatting range as opposed to other positions which can be played mainly 3b/f

QJs is a fine hand to 3bet obviously, but that doesn't necessarily mean the ev of 3betting QJs is higher than the ev of flatting QJs. These hands are gonna get pre folds sometimes, play postflop in 3bps sometimes, and get 4b sometimes and the ev of all those is compared to the ev of flatting the bb. Solver is also concerned with having hands that hit on a wide variety of runouts (board coverage) and is clairvoyant to opener strat (which allows for perfect consideration of blockers/unblockers).

Simply put there are a lot of factors, poker is complicated, and when you need to develop a robust split range from the bb (both a balanced calling range and balanced 3betting range) it's not as simple as linearly 3betting anything decent. If you 3bet every single suited broadway, what's left when you flat?

It helps to at the BTN response to a 3-bet.

I haven't looked, just guessing, but QJ/QT probably dominate a lot of hands that fold to a 3-bet, like JTo, which you keep in their range by just flatting. J9s/T8s benefit from folding those types of hands.

Agreed - this is far too advanced for BQ.

It's not about simply raising the strongest hands - it comes down to comparing the value of a raise against the value of flatting with that same hand. That can change a lot in different scenarios.

Here's the same 3betting range at 50NL. The extra rake prevents BTN from calling as wide, and lowers the value when you get called with speculative hands, so the 3bet becomes more polarized:



Here's a BB strategy without rake (low accuracy solve), and as you can see it becomes more linear:



Stack depth, rake, position, and the opponent's actual strategy can all affect the value of a raise vs call.

Right, this all makes sense, but it seems like the discrepancy lies in pure value, rather than range balancing. If it was just about board coverage and having a balanced ranged, wouldn't it be less picky regarding exactly which hands to raise? If the values were intuitive and balancing was the main concern I feel like the Qxs hands would still be raising more than the Jxs counterparts would be raising more than the Txs hands and so on until you reach a bluff range. But the solver seems to think that raising JTs is straight up higher EV than raising QJs.

I definitely have a very beginner question coming up:
I think I understand what polarization is. It's raising with your premium hands to boost the pot and get more value for showdown/later streets, but also raising with more marginally-valued hands as semi-bluffs to cash in on some fold equity. I'm assuming in the top range that the semi-bluff range is the Q8s-Q3s and surrounding area, and that's what you were referring to when you said that range was more polarized.
But if the range was polarized wouldn't you be raising more with even lower valued cards like K2s, Q2s, J3s and less so with your mid-range Qxs hands? Because Q8s would have a lot more showdown value with a flopped 8 than Q2s with a flopped 2?

But it seems to me, as we were originally discussing, that raising J9s et al. is a pure value play, and not due to polarization. The ranges you posted seem to support this. The more linear bottom range with less rake raises QJs as or less frequently as JTs-J8s.

It is almost like the Queen hands have some specific interaction with the Button's range that makes them less valuable in this situation, as someone mentioned above.

Either way I had a feeling this was going to be a question that goes pretty deep and wasn't right for here but I wasn't sure exactly where to post it. But I'm a beginner and I felt like preflop ranges were a pretty beginner topic. Anyone know what a better forum to post this in would be that would get more appropriate traffic?

This is not true. QJs > JTs and the solution should tell you that.

I still stand by my first comment after looking at BU's response in the GTO Wizard ranges you're referencing.

going to guess that a bunch of this might be the higher hands potentially running into more crappy spots post where you hit TP and get dominated and lose more afterwards, but yeah, this is the kind of angels on a pinhead question that doesn't belong here

Perfectly polar and perfectly linear are two ends of the spectrum. Ranges can exist between those extremes (e.g. "merged"). Both of the above ranges are relatively merged, though one is more polar than the other.

For an example of a more polarized range, look at BB vs SB open:



QJs has higher value overall, but JTs benefits more from a raise. But it depends on the exact spot.

Qx hands are not "less valuable". They can extract more value from a flat than a raise (although it's usually very close to indifferent). Use the EV tab to check for yourself.