I tend to think people overrate the importance of board coverage (especially when the pot size is smallish relative to stack depth), but meh.

Your hand is likely too weak to overbet on the turn by a pretty wide margin. You were multiway against two reasonably strong calling ranges and it's easy to imagine someone having a better two pair hand than you.

Remember that even if a spot makes sense to overbet in theory you don't want to always overbet all of your "value bets" as some "value bets" may be too weak to bet big.

I'm not on my desktop at the moment and don't think I have those (old) ranges anymore anyways.

I kinda don't understand the second part of your question, but I mainly wouldn't have a flatting range in the SB against a button and CO open because it's too likely the big blind squeezes you after you call from those positions. It's a lot easier for a random hand in the BB to be strong enough to squeeze vs a BTN open and SB call than a UTG open and SB call. And when you don't have a calling range that's when your raising range gets linear.

Probably fold, might not be close. The equity isn't very robust (which you probably need when ranges will be as strong as they will be here post-flop) and it seems like there's plenty of betting 3-betting options available.

Ranges are weird here but I'd rather 3-bet ATs, A5s, and (since I don't like calling with it) AQo here. So I think I would muck AJo without much thought if I had no read and instead just 3-bet hands I think are better that don't work all that well as calls.

The bottom line in limit sh games is a step lower but those are standards vs. unknowns even there from middle position, and so in nlh i would either fold or cc with them and think a hand like axs being an interesting cc in cases but pretty loose even then.

Aq, 22 raise and reraise comes in mind. Something that seems to be on its way of getting more popular maybe. Actually relative slicks and suited hands with an ace or king also. Adding this book, miller, the low limit book, and some other and general lhe ranges. The old school still use the two steps better rule from lh, with some additional extra hands for todays range fashion. I think i pick something original and 3b nothing.

Matt,

I bought the Kindle edition of your book, and many of the charts are cut off. Could you send me a PDF of them, or is this something I need to address with Amazon or the publisher? Thanks.

I don't own the book and don't even have a PDF with the book on it. You're better off addressing this with amazon or the publisher. If that still doesn't work, PM me and I'll try to help you out.

But as I've mentioned before I really think you probably want to not use those pre-flop ranges, especially when defending from the blinds (they are way too polarized).

Hi Matt,

I just finished the preflop section of your book. It’s great, but I wish you had gone at least addressed the issue as to how to modify play against players who play sub-optimally. For instance, at $100 NL and below, you frequently encounter many limpers, players who never 3 bet bluff, and overcallers.

My thoughts are, vs limpers, increase bet size and decrease bluff frequency (since they aren’t going to fold).

Against players who never 3 bet bluff, 4 bet bluff less (or never?). Players who don’t 3bet bluff also make it harder to get value from premium hands. I thought it might be good to have limp 3 bet and limp calling ranges for UTG and MP. But I don’t think it would work because limps will discourage raises unless the limp-calling range is quite a bit larger than the limp 3-bet range, which means playing lots of pots OOP. I guess you could have a limp folding range instead, but that just seems like burning money to me.

Against a raise and a call, squeezing with bluff hands is good since you win more, but you are also more likely to get called since there are two players in the pot. Make a larger bet. I usually 3 bet the same range I would 3bet the opener. I never 5 bet bluff the opener after squeezing because they are 4betting into 2 people, so I figure their bluff frequency is much smaller. I don’t get 4bet by the cold caller very often, but when I do I consider the position of the original raiser. If they cold called an UTG open, I figure AK and QQ might be in their range so I give their 4bet respect. If they cold called a CO or button open, I don’t give them much credit at all and 5bet for value pretty wide/mix in a few bluffs.

Any thoughts?

Well MPvUTG and or COvMP/UTG would be interesting to see. I recently watched a vid by someone who explained that we actually want to have very small cc range in these scenarios which makes sense especially the MPvUTG, as CO and Btn can often overcall and force us in pretty bad spot.

I recently tweaked my ranges into looking something like this, any comments?

I approve of this message, as does my favourite training tool.
The days of being able to flat 55 in MP/CO vs UTG are gone.

You could try to view it in a regular PC browser. Go to Amazon, log in, go to your account, then it's something like Your Books or Your Kindle.

Matthew,

You said earlier ITT you don't like the pre flop ranges in the book. Is it just the ranges you don't like or the frequencies as well? Would you still use the same percentages for cold calling, 3betting, 3bet call, etc, and just change the hands in your ranges? Or do the frequencies need to be altered as well? Thanks.

You're mostly talking basic exploitative play.

I think it's really tempting to imagine you should always exploit X leak with Y strategy, but I think it's more complicated than that.

Suppose someone is too loose. How should you adjust? Most people would say "tighten up" (as you have less fold equity), which is probably a good adjustment if your opponent is a bit more aggressive and a bit more loose than average. But what if your opponent is crazy spewy? I'm talking he almost never folds, plays ATC pre-flop, and will raise recklessly post-flop even with a weak hand. If you follow the simple and commonly given advice of "Play loose if your opponents are tight and tighten up if they are loose" you'll end up folding tons of +EV hands. Here, you should adjust by playing looser and hope to flop a decent pair and stake your insanely spewy opponent before he busts from someone else and leaves.

So, my point here is it's often tricky how to exploit someone. If they're crazy loose, I'll loosen up. If they are a bit too loose, I'll probably tighten up a bit (not "3-bet bluff" as much, but still likely 3-bet bluff some very good bluff randomizers.... I'll also likely 3-bet bluff wider "for value").

When we're multiway I'm more likely to 3-bet loosely "for value," especially if I think an opponent might be bad/loose. I probably get it in pre-flop or end up playing 4-bet pots when behind with 99-JJ/AK more than the vast majority of players as I care a lot about denying equity and I just deal with it when I face the 4-bet.

I don't know off the top of my head, but I doubt the 3-bet frequencies are too far off. Keep in mind my 3-betting ranges are pretty linear when I 3-bet from the SB now too, so I don't have a "3-bet value to 3-bet bluffing ratio."

I'd probably call tighter now than I used to against good players. Getting squeezed sucks and I pretty much never slow play good hands. I'm pretty ok with 3-betting and just calling 4-bets with TT-JJ/AK/AQ (in spots where others often call) so my original flatting range is pretty weak.

Against weak players, you can likely make +EV calls with many hands I folded in the book.

I like these a lot at a glance. I would 3-bet ATs before AXs though. Also 76s/65s seems quite a bit weaker than the suited AXs to me.

Well said.

Again, this is against good players (think around your skill level or better). Against soft opponents these hands are likely to be very +EV, but calling 55 in MP vs an UTG in a good 6-max online game isn't likely to be very good (especially if the open is like 3BB).

Hi Matt. I noticed that you were advocating the 'bigger from the button' strategy of PokerSnowie earlier. Any comments on the fact that most of the '6-max End Bosses' such as forhayley seem to be doing the opposite, i.e. ~minraising the button and opening bigger from earlier positions?

I don't want to ignore your post, but I also don't really understand what you'd want me to comment on. You want me to explain why I like opening the button bigger?

No, I guess you've already done that. Perhaps some comments on what you think their rationale is, and whether their approach leads you to want to reconsider your position; or do you prefer to steer clear of such 'appeal to authority' type thinking?

It's really hard for me to guess the rationale, especially once you name a specific player. Now if I comment it'll sound like I'm guessing what his specific thought process is rather than if you were to ask "Why do you think some very good players like min-raising the button?" (which of course there are many)

While I'll reconsider my position, I probably won't change my strategy unless someone explained to me why they think a button min-raise is better than the opening sizing I'm using. While I can understand why someone would just want to try to copy the best players, I usually don't think it's usually a good idea to do something in poker if you don't understand why you're doing it. I doubt changing your button opening sizing would be disastrous, but copying the best of the best in other ways I think could bring really big leaks into your game.

Anyways, if someone were super blunt and asked me "Why do you think some players much better than you prefer min-raising whereas you open bigger" I'd probably just respond "While I would guess that a truly GTO player uses multiple raise sizings from the button, he must think if he has to pick one sizing min-raising is most +EV whereas I feel like a 2.5-3x sizing is more +EV."

Hmm, and while you may both be trying your best to approximate GTO, it's entirely possible that each of you is trending the right (explo) way for the games you're playing in. Heh. Thanks for the answer

No problem.

One more thing I should point out is I try to emphasize concepts where I think a lot of people are currently doing it wrong. Some past and current examples that I think turned out pretty well are bluff raising the flop with lots of bluffs, overbetting, and defending your checks OOP. Some examples which I think turned out pretty poorly are when I used to overemphasize checking with hands on the flop that cannot get 3 streets of value (but still need to deny equity by betting now and can check later) and the whole "bluffing to value raising ratio" pre-flop thing (though it did work pretty well when people used to call less to 3-bets and 4-bets, but still could have been much better).

So since I try to emphasize concepts where I think lots of people (some much better than me) are doing something wrong, there's always going to be a pretty reasonable chance I'm the one who is wrong even if I've given it a lot of thought. But I always try explain myself clearly enough that you can decide if you agree or disagree with me rather than me just take a line and say "trust me" which I think would only really have merit if you were a super, super good player (a lot better than me) and even then I don't think that'd be the best way to learn.

Anyways, I intentionally try to emphasize these concepts as I think they make the best and most interesting content whereas if I were to make videos or articles on less controversial topics I'd be more confident I'm right but they'd be a lot less useful. I don't think anyone wants to see another video explaining why position is good or why you can open the button wide, so I tend to avoid them. But someone saying "Hmmmm.... this robot seems to think we need to open the button bigger and I'm now inclined to agree" or "Hmmmm..... it seems like overbetting into small pots on certain turn cards after the button checks back may be really good even if virtually no one seems to currently be doing it" is a lot more interesting even if you need to be a lot more careful that they might be wrong.

So yeah, I do not like the button min-raise for the reasons I've already explained even if some players a lot better than me do. Maybe in 5 years I'll be able to recheck this post and we'll have a better idea of if I was right or not.

Hello,
I'm just starting to read this book and learn these concepts. So excuse my lack of knowledge.

My first question is around this statement "Seven-five suited will play much better in a 3-bet pot than king-ten offsuit.... seven-five suited has the potential to make more very strong hands than king-ten offsuit."

How did you come to that conclusion?

I'm trying to verify your statements using flopzilla but it's showing K10o having a higher equity than 75s against a 3bet calling range. Now I realize 75s can hit more flushes, and it has higher "hand signalling" strength than K10o (I think...) but K10o can still have decent hand signalling (I think...) as it can still hit straights/straight draws and high cards and our opponent may very well be calling 3bets with 75s/109s/98s and things like that.

Should I not be using flopzilla to check this? I know total equity is not the only factor, I know flop texture is important too, but doesn't 75s and K10o have similar flop texture/hand signalling abilities?

I'm very new to this theory so I'm probably missing something obvious. But can you list the reasons why 75s plays better? The reason given is "it has the potential to make more very strong hands than king-ten offsuit." but as of right now I don't see how that's true.

I'll keep reading and maybe it will become apparent to me but if someone wants to chime in please do so.

I guess it is because suited connectors are dominated much less than KTo in 3bet pots and also this hand gives us more opportunity to profitably semi bluff and double barrel with equity than KTo.

This seems true against a tighter 3bet calling range, but against a looser 3bet calling range (which is what that section is about) I'm not too sure. I'm just looking at it with pokerstove but maybe I shouldn't be using that for this. I'm still learning this stuff. Thanks for the reply anyhow.