For a more detailed answer, can you give the exact board texture you're assuming on the river as well as his exact range? EDIT: If you can also include how often you're beat or split that would help too, though I know you included it in the previous post.

If you don't want to do that I can answer your question conceptually but it might not answer as many questions as you'd like for this specific spot.

Ah, good catch, I'm glad you pointed that out before replying. I've forgotten to screenshot BB's river range as well and included just his preflop range.

Here it is, the most important one for the conceptual questions here I'd guess is the brick river - unfortunatelly FlopZilla cannot handle "50% of A high" or "A high with bdoor fdraw" like crEV can so it's not 100% exact exact, but it will work:

River bricks off, we can take that we're 80 20 favorite for simplicity -



River is a middling card, we're 67 33 -



River is a middling spade (usually great for our range, but not for this particular hand), it's around 60 40 -



Toying around with various cards did lead from a total brick like 2h being the best for SB, through middling cards taking it to 70 30, to some spades which end up with 60 40 for the SB. It also still seems our 80 20 range (for the Pinpoint optimal size concept) is quite small as I figured earlier.

I've excluded Q7o but left Q7s in, and excluded sets and some of his gutshots from his preflop range. That mimics how he will in most cases raise all those earlier and they won't be there in his river range (although I kept a small amount in).
River range is what we're interested in the most here.
It does alter the effect some runouts have as 9T might be still in there, but it's okay for now. It's not like we'll know exactly which gutters he does raise anyway.

I think this might be helpful - I found a similar example in Tipton's book, pg198 and pg298. Q96 with a flushdraw, turn is a 2, river a 6, not completing the flush.

Ranges roughly match our example here, with us being stronger, and BB thus not leading or blockbetting.
The conclusion he makes was to pot it with all of our betting, and the best non-vbetting hand (ie the cutoff point for valuehands) had 75% equity (there were no hands between 85% and 75%) for that river.

I am very curious about learning more on river play and river sizing here, as you can see!

Since your post is pretty long I'm probably just going to answer a bit at a time over the next few days. Let's start here.

In order to value bet the river, we know we need to win at least 50% of the time when called, and significantly more than that if the opponent can ever check-raise. Right off the bat, if we're beat 40% of the time on the river we'd only win 60% of the time if our opponent calls with 100% of his range on the river. He of course won't do this and will defend less combos of hands the bigger we bet.

I've only recently started playing HU and haven't spent any time working in flopzilla, but I wouldn't even consider betting here. In order to win more than 50% of the time when called on this river, you'd have to bet incredibly small (like 10-20% of the pot or so). But I would never want to bet only 10-20% of the pot IP because doing so re-opens up the betting and allows my opponent to CR his flushes and his bluffs, and it's devastatingly bad when I bet-fold the winning hand on the river. So here, without using any formula I'm just going to check back and don't imagine it's particularly close. If you make a rule like "the opponent can never check-raise this river" (if you think he has almost no flushes or something) then you can probably make a very, very small bet but I don't think that's a reasonable assumption.

Hi Matthew,

I'm slowly working my way through your book and really enjoying it. I had some questions regarding constructing ranges on low dry flops, say something like 752r. Let's say we open in MP and BB calls and it's checked to us.

On such a dry flop, is it a good idea to put sets, 75, and say AA in a check-back range, and have a flop value bet range of just 88-KK? Would you consider 7x hands value hands as well? If so, then I feel like I'll have to put a ton of bare overs into a bluff range and will be cbetting this flop at a really high rate, which seems exploitable (or I'd have to defend against checkraises with a weaker range). To balance out the value hands in a spot like this, what do you recommend putting into a flop bluff range? Is it better to have say suited broadways or overs in a bluff range so you can barrel a turned draw, or to bet nonsuited broadways and overs as bluffs because they're "less valuable" since they can't turn a flush draw on a rainbow board?

Also, I know that you put AQ and AK in your check-call range on some flops when out of position. When in position on similar flops, do you check these behind?

Matthew,

I am curious what your cbet flop% is. In the example hands at the end of the book you bet about 40%. This is in stark contrast to what the typical cbet percentage of most regs is (55-75%)

The example you're using (specifically a 7 high board) I tend to CB at a very high frequency when the BB calls, very close to 100%. It's just a board that favors position a lot and usually the opening range is much stronger than the BB range, especially if the BB 3-bet most suited connectors/gappers so he doesn't have that many pairs. So for your example I'd probably bet about 45% of the pot with 100% of my range or so.

In general I will not check back very strong hands in position until I know my opponent aggressively overbets or I have a ridiculous removal effect (KK on a K72r board).

Whether or not you should bet or check AK or AQ OOP depends on way too many factors and will very frequently be a mixed strategy (they each usually make up 16 combos and it's pretty easy to exploit someone if you know they have 16 or 0 AK or AQ combos in their range).

I don't know my flop CB because the site I play doesn't allow HUD/HEM to be used.

However, none of the book examples have button vs blind ranges and I imagine when we open the button and the big blind calls we'll CB at a pretty high frequency. That's because we both have position and the stronger range. So even if I did have access to my CB frequency, I imagine it'd be higher than you might think just from having read the book because in 6-max we are very frequently in button vs blind situations and we'll CB very frequently here. I think CB 55-75% when OOP is probably a leak in theory (and probably a pretty large one), which is why the book has a CB frequency in those spots much lower. Of course no one knows for sure though.

That said I imagine my CB frequency is still lower than most regs. I think one significant leak most players have is they are very afraid to pass up a +EV betting spot even when checking is more +EV (especially when they'll have to fold if they face a bet after checking).

One more thing -- I would encourage you not to look at hands as "value bets" or "bluffs" on the flop in complex spots. It's pretty common to want to bet a hand like AJ on a 7s 3s 2h board and calling it either a bluff or value bet would be inaccurate.

Thanks for the feedback, Matthew. So in a button vs blind situation on a low dry board, since our range is stronger than the big blinds, are you less likely to give credence to a blind check/raise (since big blind can't rep much) and will defend more of your range?

Also, what should our range look late position versus blind on a low monotone flop? Let's say the flop in my example, 752, were all hearts? Do you bet a lot of your overs? What hands do you like in your check-back range here, if any? Is it better to bet a marginal hand with a heart for protection (say 97 or with one heart) or check it back and hope to realize some equity? With a hand like 98 with one heart, do you semibluff with it or try and realize some equity by checking back?

What about if it's slightly more coordinated, say 874 all hearts?

Why would you want to bet AJ on a 732ss board? I know this is what I am doing frequently, but I am having a hard time to say why.

In the first post Janda said:
"Page 41 -- The bottom of page 41 should say "If a player defends against 4-bets by only 5-betting or folding, they must 5-bet 40 to 46 percent of the time when facing a 4-bet. In other words, he cannot fold more than 50 to 54 percent of the time or else his opponent will make an immediate profit.""

Did you mean to say:
"Page 41 -- The bottom of page 41 should say "If a player defends against 4-bets by only 5-betting or folding, they must 5-bet 40 to 46 percent of the time when facing a 4-bet. In other words, he cannot fold more than 54 to 60 percent of the time or else his opponent will make an immediate profit.""

Thx

Correct, thanks.

It really depends on the situation, but some of the more common reasons include...

#1) You may make a hand you beat fold (44 or 55).
#2) You may get called by a worse hand that will check down (AT/A9/A8)
#3) You may make a hand with a good amount of equity fold (K9)
#4) You may need a hand that can bet the flop, check back the turn, and call a river bet and this hand often works pretty well for that.

Re the bolded, I'd say the big blind is more likely to have the stronger range. With people stealing around 50% on the button and most BB's calling a much tigher range than that then it's definitely the BB who has the stronger range imo.

Well I guess as the BB will be 3-betting the stronger part of his range and calling wide due to 'pot odds' then the Buttons range might well be stronger?

It doesn't really matter if the button opening range is wider than the BB's calling range since the BB range doesn't have many (or quite possibly any) 99+/AT+/KJ+ type of hands and that's a huge, huge deal. And remember, even if the BB cold calling range has more equity than the button opening range it still doesn't mean the BB range is stronger than the button opening range (as the button opening range may have a much better distribution of equity).

There's no way to prove what either range is though, and you may very well be right that players are currently defending way too tightly at certain stakes in the BB vs the button that the BB actually ends up with the stronger range.

Yup. This is especially true if the button is min-raising, which I'm not personally a huge fan of but it seems to have become the norm in a lot of games.

Again, it's nothing you can prove, but in theory I really think the button opening range >>>>>>>>>> bb cold calling range especially as the opening sizing gets smaller and smaller. Whether or not this is the case in practice I'm sure depends on the games you're playing, as if the blinds are defending too tightly then it's often +EV to open 100% on the button and then you'll of course have the much weaker range post-flop.

Hi Matt
few questions if u dont mind
So u're playing again? how is the results?
u don't like minraising btn, but which sizing do u like the most and why?

Matt, in the chapter on playing the turn, you talk about using multiple bet sizings, from betting smaller (around 25%) to overbetting. Given typical 100bb stacks, how big of a bet relative to the size of the pot do you make when you're overbetting the turn?

I think it may be different as I'm playing FR (even though it shouldn't be given the positions). Hands like TT, AJ, KJ tend to be a call rather than a 3bet in the games I'm in.

Then I think most SSNL+ players would agree they have pretty big leaks and you should open the button very, very wide.

I'm not going to post anything results related unless I actually have a graph to post from HEM and a reasonable sized sample.

I prefer to just open the button to 2.5BB as I think 2BB gives the BB too cheap of price. I think 2.5BB makes the blinds fold a bit more pre-flop without requiring me to risk much more which I think is worth it.

It depends on if it's a single raised pot or a 3-bet pot.

I would say in single raised pots I pretty regularly bet 100-120% of the pot in a lot of spots (even a spot as simple as I call an open in the BB and my opponent checks back the flop), and in a 3-bet pot I'll sometimes go all-in for 150-175% of the pot on the turn if I don't think I can bet/fold very effectively and my range has a lot of vulnerable strong hands as well as draws.

I don't think I bet more than 2x the pot very often, and when I do it's usually on the river.

I'm having a hard time trying to figure out situations where flop donking is appropriate. You say that theoretically optimal poker doesn't care about initiative and that most players have a leak in an inability to donkbet the flop, but you also say that donkbetting out of the blinds is ineffective.

Donkbetting is appropriate when the OOP player has a stronger range on a flop than the IP player, right? But typically you'll be OOP without the betting lead only when defending from the blinds by calling (aside from calling in 3bet pot scenarios).

Can you give an example of a situation where donkbetting is appropriate in a non-3bet pot?