This is meant really well but makes about 0.4% of sense to anyone and less than that to someone new to poker.

Sure, I might have exaggerated but just reading gets people nowhere. Passive learning is the least productive for most people.

I have equilab so what do you suggest for working on hands away from the table?

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For example you're not sure about a call you made on the river you work your way through the hand beginning preflop. Equiliab has some pretty decent suggestions for preflop ranges that you can use in the absence of any reads.

Let's say you raised UTG and got called by button, you then plug in the opening range of UTG and estimate what hands the button, which tends to be player specific, will call on the button with. For example he does this with 77-JJ and JTs+/AQ or whatever works.

Then look at what hands you cbet on the flop with and how button can respond. Then follow the action as it happened on the turn and you can start to eliminate a lot of the hands you and the other player have. When you finally get to the river you can start to ask yourself what your equity with your specific hand is versus the range you put him on. Also consider what other hands you can have that play this way that have the same problems and maybe come to the conclusion you have too much trash on the river and you have almost no hands you can comfortably call with.

So how does this come? Work back and see what you can do differently on previous streets. Maybe you're cbetting too many hands and so you end up on the river with too many weak hands. If that's the case, maybe you're very to bluff on later streets. Consider whether double barreling against this player might be profitable since he may call flops with too many hands etc etc.

You can then also start to consider different flops, turns etc and see what you do with your ranges on different boards. What do you do with your UTG range on an A74 flop with all hearts? You probably don't know and with equilab you can see how big of a portion of your range you are currently betting and ask yourself if that may be exploitable. You can calculate equities of your range versus calling ranges etc etc. Just keep asking questions and eventually you figure out the game. Use creativity, maybe you can force someone in a spot like you're having problems with and see how other people did it to you.

It's a recursive process and if you just ask yourself questions and run scenarios you don't need books beyond the very basics of the game. At least, that's what I think. Personally I think spoon fed information is only valuable up to a very limited point and after which your game is based on templates you don't understand and don't know how to alter. If you must read books, read the ones that explain the thought process and not the ones that tell you how to play.

Thanks Kelvis. Can't say I've ever done this. I use equilab for very basic stuff e.g. my exact hand Vs his possible range on the river. I never go into as much detail as you have here.
Would you suggest doing this after a session? So flag the hands you're unsure about and go back or do you work on this at a totally different time with a clear head?
Also would you tend to look at big pots first?/go by position and work on that or just a mix?



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Yeah pick hands you're not sure of after sessions. Doesn't matter if it is a losing hand or a winning hand but they do tend to be on the bigger side. If you do it right you'll uncover mistakes you make in the smaller pots anyways because you go all the way back to the start of the hand.

I think this is an issue most players have, looking at all their biggest pots and analysing but not at areas which may be bigger problems.

So taking this hand as an example, just to see I'm using equilab correctly

iPoker - £0.04 NL (6 max) - Holdem - 6 players
Hand converted by PokerTracker 4

SB: 169.25 BB (VPIP: 34.29, PFR: 5.71, 3Bet Preflop: 0.00, Hands: 35)
Hero (BB): 106.5 BB
UTG: 67 BB (VPIP: 37.50, PFR: 0.00, 3Bet Preflop: 0.00, Hands: 16)
MP: 226.25 BB (VPIP: 25.00, PFR: 14.29, 3Bet Preflop: 16.67, Hands: 29)
CO: 97.5 BB (VPIP: 33.33, PFR: 22.22, 3Bet Preflop: 0.00, Hands: 9)
BTN: 229 BB (VPIP: 32.35, PFR: 26.47, 3Bet Preflop: 28.57, Hands: 35)

SB posts SB 0.5 BB, Hero posts BB 1 BB

Pre Flop: (pot: 1.5 BB) Hero has T T

UTG raises to 4 BB, fold, CO raises to 12 BB, fold, fold, Hero calls 11 BB, UTG raises to 67 BB, fold, Hero calls 55 BB

Flop: (146.5 BB, 2 players) 7 A 4

Turn: (146.5 BB, 2 players) J

River: (146.5 BB, 2 players) 3

UTG shows A Q (One Pair, Aces)
(Pre 43%, Flop 91%, Turn 95%)
Hero mucks T T (One Pair, Tens)
(Pre 57%, Flop 9%, Turn 5%)
UTG wins 136.75 BB


Now, pre flop looking back I think this is terrible, there is a pre flop raise UTG then 3bet (stats useless at this point as not enough hands) but we can assume villain 2 has a range something like TT+, AQ+, AJs+
Using those equilab gives me 30% equity and I'm not closing the action AND Im OOP so basically terrible.
BUT as played villain 1 shoves and here I say ok AQ+, JJ+.
Equilab now gives me 40% and I need 38% according to PT4 so is THIS call correct?
Forget we shouldn't have got here, just on using the software?

My range for 3betting a 4x open from UTG doesn't even have TT in it and generally microstakes players don't 3bet lighter than I do. But regardless of the precise range which may just be QQ+/AK you have around 30% equity which sucks.

Generally against a raise and 3bet, especially out of position, you do not want to call with pretty much any hand. That means you should 4bet or fold your entire range. There are ways to add in some hands that you call with but then you also have to balance that out with AA a percentage of the time else your range is too weak but that's just too tricky, especially at microstakes. TT is a hand you can generally fold pretty comfortably against this action.

As played when UTG shoves I don't think many people realistically have AQo here ever. You are typically looking at QQ+/AKs. Given you've seen his hand you make a note and declare villain insane so you can adjust for future hands.

Thanks Kelvis, agree the hand is terrible, just using it as an example. So using Equilab as above (with better ranges as time goes on) and comparing to equity needed is a starting point when reviewing hands?

Correct. Also equilab has a feature that gives a breakdown of the different hand strengths in your range. If you hit the pie chart button next to your range and you have put in a flop, it shows how often you have top pair, set, two pair, flush draw, straight draw etc. Very useful for cbetting strategies because you can see how often you have something playable and how that changes on different turns.

For example you raise UTG and get called by button. Flop comes AA2r. Now compare equities between those two ranges and more importantly, look at the pie chart how often the BB has complete and utter air vs the combinations UTG has. This means you have not only position over your opponent but also a huge range advantage, and also villain has a lot of air that cannot call bets. This way you can decide what gets maximum value, betting or checking. In any case, it's tough to lose money in this spot.

Then compare this flop with the same two ranges with a 8d9dJs flop. You'll need to come up with a much more balanced strategy because the turn/river will drastically change the board and you can potentially do a lot more bluff catching even with relatively strong hands.

No matter what you read, there's always going to be some disconnect between (being able to visualize your strategy) and (putting it into action at the table).

The only way I know of to bridge this gap is to do this:

a) memorize standard preflop ranges
b) put them to the equilab/stove/whatever test as suggested above

repeat (b) until you can guess at individual hand equities and get pretty close vs lots of opponent types. Then once you're decent at guessing the equities of your bluffcatchers, draws, and strong hands, you should move on to the process of going through full ranged strategy vs strategy equities for entire hands.

This will make you much better at visualizing your strategy at the table. Then you will be able to quickly and correctly* identify what kind of hand you have and which action(s) you should be taking with that hand based on the starting ranges, how they interact, and the board.

*to the best of your knowledge.