** Above should read "If ranges are asymmetrical (as they will be when one player 4-bets and the other calls), it's very common for the superior range (the 4-betting range) to be able to profitably bet any two cards. So you should not try to defend aggressively enough to prevent the 4-bettor from being able to profitably bet any two cards, but that isn't problematic since he had to pay a lot of money (by 4-betting) to maybe get into a profitable post-flop spot (he'll sometimes face a 5-bet pre-flop and have to fold his weaker holdings without ever get the opportunity to bluff post-flop).**

Note: I've been sucking at proof-reading before I post, going to try to get better at this. I'm used to typos not mattering much in random posts but obviously missing a word or phrasing something incorrectly can result in confusion here, so I'll try to be better about this. Man I wish I could edit after 30 minutes though.....

great thanks that all makes sense.

I guess you meant 67% instead of 33% here yeah ?

ya

Janda for mod

Wow excellent book! I've read part 2(preflop play) over 4 times because of all the info.

I have a question in part 2, on first in ranges and maximal 3bet ranges (pages 39-44). Why would the worst hand of a theoretically correct first in raising range of UTG (or any position) have a negative EV?

If the total villian 3b is > 30% and they have a cold calling % (say 25%) that would make the weakest part of the hero's first in raise range -EV. ( as proven in the book)

My question is why doesn't this make the hero remove the weak part of his range to stop his -EV play?

It wouldn't have a negative EV against a table of players playing optimally, but it would almost definitely have a negative EV against a table of players playing too loose, as in the example.

Because we're not trying to design an exploitative range against sub-optimal opponents. Consider a HUNL game with 100bb stacks against someone who 3-bet jams all-in from the BB 100% of the time. Against this opponent, the vast majority of a GTO open-raising range will be -EV. That doesn't mean it's GTO to remove the weakest part of our open-raising range to stop our -EV play.

ok thanks for the reply spladle.

to clarify, if the hero was playing GTO (or playing as described the book) and faces over aggressive opponents, he may loose money with the weaker parts of his range (because he will raise-fold to 3bets and will be behind when called) but raising with the whole opening range is a +EV move on average?

If he was playing against over aggressive opponents, hero would have the option of switching to an exploitative strategy of removing these -EV hands but that is not what Matthew Janda was trying to prove.

Am I understanding this correctly?

Correct. More importantly, against over-aggressive opponents, your strong hands will gain more than your weak hands will lose, and so your overall opening range will be more profitable against over-aggressive opponents than against optimal ones.

It sounds to me like you are, yes.

Spladle gave some very good responses, and please feel free to do that guys if someone asks a question where you feel you know the answer. It's also probably better to hear things explained in different ways from different people.

Sorry if this has been asked, but will there be an e-book of this? really want to read it asap.

Yes, there will be an e-book. The 2+2 store will produce an e-book relatively soon. Amazon will probably eventually have a Kindle book, but that will most definitely come out after the 2+2 e-book.

I think I found a small typo....page 84, Vs Button 3-Bet SB should be 18.4% instead of 18.1%...I may be wrong, but I was entering it into flopzilla and checked it a couple times....:-)

I think he calculated the %s and then put ranges that are close to them, also a 0.3% difference won't matter in practice anyways

Oh yeah for sure....I just thought maybe they would want to know about it in case they make changes to further printings...if they even do that.

Is this book focused on 6max games or full ring? I play both but I read some comments on another thread that have me a bit confused. Really want to know what it covers before I decide to add it to my poker library.

It covers poker.

Since early positions in full ring tend to use very tight ranges, there are no hand examples from full ring since wider ranges tend to illustrate concepts better. The hand chart in the book is from 6-max as well. Just about all the concepts in the book will apply immediately to full ring even if the book focuses on 6-max play.

The book will help you even if you are a full ring player, even though there aren't ranges spelled out for you for the earlier positions it will still help you with the other positions in full ring. You can also extrapolate the 6-max ranges to the full ring positions. Also the pre-flop theory will help you in full ring too....and the post flop is golden...this book is a no-brainer to buy.

@ Matthew Janda
so you say its applicable to fullring. I guess then it is useful for HU as well?
Cheers,
Aquila

Yes, but it will require you to be more comfortable applying concepts to wider ranges. For my hand examples I didn't use any button vs big blind situations for that very reason (gets messy pretty quickly), but I have done several button vs bb examples on my own and with students to improve our blind vs button play. Even if you don't want to put in that much work, a lot of the concepts about bet sizing, frequencies, etc will apply to HU.

I'm having a difficult time understanding the first paragraph on page 46.

So we know that they will 4bet/call with 15.2% of their opening range. Therefore, you say we need to "defend" with at least 15.2% of their opening range. What do you mean by "defend", 5bet, 3bet, 3bet/5bet?

Also, I think I am missing the logic of why defending range should match our opponent's 4bet/call range.


Thanks.

Just got my book yesterday, looking forward to reading it. Also looking forward to this discussion thread both will compliment each other nicely

Using the assumptions in the section, if we won't flat 3-bets we need to 4-bet 27.5% of our opening range when facing a 3-bet. Once we've 4-bet, we need to call a 5-bet with 55% of our 4-betting range. Since (0.275)(0.55) = 15.2%, if we never flat 3-bets we must be willing to 4-bet then call the 5-bet with 15.2% of our opening range.

This is just useful for giving you an idea of how aggressively you'll need to stack off in situations where you open MP or the CO and get 3-bet by the button. This of course isn't optimal, as an optimal player will very frequently call 3-bets OOP. But it is useful for giving you an idea of how strong of range you can felt if you choose to play a 4-bet or fold game when facing a 3-bet, as you can see on page 46 you're only felting AQs+/AK/TT even if you open 25% (like many players do in the CO).



I'm not sure what you mean by this, as the original raiser is the 4-bettor and calls the 5-bet. If you clarify what you mean I'll be glad to help.

At the bottom of page 128:

"And if we do just call, a raise on the turn would be ineffective on
any ace, King, queen, nine, eight, or heart and probably should be made."

..........

Should his read:

"And if we do just call, a raise on the turn would be ineffective on
any ace, King, queen, nine, eight, or heart and probably should not be made." (?)

Yup, looks like a type-o, thanks for pointing that out. Hopefully it didn't cause too much confusion and is still clear from the rest of the passage.