Can you quote where I said that or where you got that info from?

Also I cannot come close to playing optimally and in general I'm a pretty big advocate of trying to implement a strategy that's reasonable to implement based on your skill level (see my previous heads up post where I talked about what I do since I'm nowhere near good enough to precisely balance lines HU).

I think you should just acknowledge those ratios come from a model so you don't need to strive for those exact numbers. The take home message is "Bluff more on the flop than the turn and more on the turn than on the river."

Yes when analyzing hands I'll usually start with hoping I have around 1:1 value bets:bluffs on the turn (when looking at a spot where my range is reasonably polarized).

Good stuff boss, thanks for taking the time, I'll skip the frequency and work on the ratio's :-)

I've been wondering the theory behind spots like this for a while. I hope I make enough sense, and this doesn't get too complicated.

On a flop like Ah9c6h, you defend the big blind vs a button raise. He cbets 75% pot. Your opponent is very good and balanced. I think on this board I'd be check/raising:

- Gutters that feel too weak to call a cbet, like 75, T7 w/o heart, etc.
- Good backdoor straight/flush hands like QJ/QT/JTcc.
- Some 2 card flush draws so they are in my range. Lets just say 7 combos.
- Most sets/2 pairs.

Comes up to a ratio of around 2 bluffs per 1 value hand.

The turn comes a 5h.

We have 7 combos of flushes, whereas our opponent will have way more combos. As far as who has the higher percent of flushes vs their range, I'm not sure. But our range will be roughly 10% flushes.

It's a weird spot cause opponent has more nutted hands (made draws), whereas we have more 2nd tier good made hands like sets and 2 pairs. He'll also have more bluffcatchers that may check the turn, although a good player will turn those into bluffs at decent frequency. I also feel like if we bet turn and river, our sets will be behind their river calling range.

In this case, is it best to just go into range protection mode?

It is also possible to just bet with flushes/bluffs on the turn, and then bluffcatch with our sets/2pairs. It caps our range but in these spots where 2 more bets get all in easily, that may not be such a big deal. It just results us in only betting like <15% of the time on the turn.

Pretty sure you have a small arithmetic error on page 114:

This is what you have:

This is what I got:

(0.8)(x)+(0.2)(1-x)=0.389
x=0.315

Confirmed at:

http://www.algebra.com/services/rend...simplifier.mpl

-copy paste "(0.8)(x)+(0.2)(1-x)=0.389" and click solve

Yeah, sorry about this. I do want to update the OP but don't want to ask someone to update it every time a new mistake is found out (that's annoying for the mods).

A few seem to come up often enough though that I just need to get on it. Should come into some more extra time in a few weeks and will make this happen.

These are good questions and the answer can get very tricky. When OOP especially you also have the option to bet very small (which is similar to checking without giving a completely free card, as betting small OOP does not re-open up the betting).

It's also ok to bet the river OOP and be behind his calling range as explained in the river play chapter (this would NOT be ok in position).

Either way, at the end of the day if the turn card hit your opponent significantly harder than it hit you, you probably will need to just slow down some. How much exactly will depend on how strong his range is relative to yours, and since you are "value" betting for two reasons (deny the opponent his equity and get value from worse) it's unfortunately not very easy to tell which hands are bets and which are checks since you may want to be some hands which are vulnerable to being outdrawn but not exactly in love with getting called either.

How to balanced this spot ?

I'm in the SB and I try to steal the blind from someone fold to 65% on my steal. It's just a little bit better than the 60% to make profit from a 3BB open.

How to balanced my c-betting range, x-calling and x-raising range on a K72 rainbow board?

I'm not able to find enough value hand in my checking range to be able to x-call or x-raise a good percentage to avoid to be exploited.

Is there a solution?

This is not really a spot you can figure out how to "balance" because there's no way to tell how often you need to defend because your opponent's range is so much stronger than yours. In other words, you called pre-flop since you got such a great price and closed the action, so now you should expect to check-fold the flop a lot. Exactly how much you should defend is impossible to tell.

Additionally, the board is so dry you can probably c/c all your strong hands (at least your sets, and quite possibly most if not all of your two pair) and wait until the turn before you put in a raise.

In general I would not worry about defending "enough" in BB vs BTN situations, or at the very least don't expect to defend enough to prevent the opponent from being able to profitably bet any two cards. The opponent's range is again much stronger and when a player has a much stronger range it's reasonable for him to expect to be able to profitably bluff with any two cards.

^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^ ^^^

Misread the post and that response is for BTN vs BB. Don't want to delete it as it still answers common questions people have for BB vs BTN.

================================================== ==

Below is my how to play SB vs BB generic response without a read:

In small blind vs BTN the SB opening range should be stronger, so you probably shouldn't be check-folding too often after checking (especially since you can likely profitably bet any two cards).

That said, there may still nothing wrong with check-folding often enough after checking that your opponent can profitably bet any two cards since. Remember, it's +EV for your opponent to check back too (and possibly improve or bluff later), so just because your opponent can make a slightly +EV flop bet does not prove something is wrong since checking is at the very least slightly +EV too.

Since giving free cards isn't all that risky, once again I wouldn't check-raise very aggressively here. If you do decide to check-raise the ratio of value bets:bluffs (the term value bet and bluff actually work pretty well here since the board is so dry) is what matters most, not how aggressively you're check-raising. In other words, if you checkraise 9 combos bluffs maybe 15 (just an estimate), but if you check-raise only 3 combos then just bluff like 5. I don't know which one is right and either one seems reasonable, but I'd personally prefer to check-raise less when the board is so dry and giving free cards isn't risky. I'd rather bet my strong hands on the flop (since my range is stronger) or delay my check-raise to the turn.

The best way to go about approaching this problem is figure out how often you are defending your checks and see what your opponents EV is if he bets like 0.6 PSB. If his immediate EV is very high (to the point where he'll be unlikely to check back many hand since betting is so profitable since you fold so much now and when you do defend you'll likely defend by calling), then you need to defend more aggressively. If his immediate EV seems pretty low or is negative, then you're probably on the right track.

Once again though your range is stronger than his by quite a lot here, so you should expect to bet at a high frequency.

================================================== ==

Below is my answer with your given read:

Your opponent doesn't seem like he's defending nearly enough vs steals, so check his "fold to flop CB" and go from there. He may also be a nit post flop and then you can recklessly bet and expect him to fold a lot despite his range being stronger than yours (since he called too strong of a range pre-flop). If his fold to flop CB is low, then I'd just check/give up with a lot of your crappy hands and know you're exploiting him pre-flop as he's folding way too much.

I would not worry about balance AT ALL against weak players. Balance is mostly only used against very good players or to give you an idea of what hands likely belong in what types of ranges in theory.

Chart: Facing a 3-bet in Position
p. 85, "Button vs. a 3-Bet"

3-Bet Flatting Range includes: A7s, A5s-A2s
4-Betting Range includes: A6s, A4s-A2s

Which puts A4s-A2s in both ranges. I understand that these charts are meant to be illustrative instead of definitive, but I'm looking to learn by using a carefully constructed balanced strategy.

Would these Axs hands fall into your change of heart, "I'd now emphasize 4-bet "bluffing" high equity hands (AJo, KQo, etc) rather than hands with robust equity, and those hands also have a favorable removal effect"?

The book is stunning. Thank you.

You talk about river situations where it can be right for us to make a bet OOP when we are behind villains calling range. I understand the logic that we don't want to allow him to bet his own balanced range of strong hands and bluffs on the river so we are taking the lesser of two evils by betting and hopefully taking the slighter higher EV line.

Can the same logic be applied at all on streets before the river? When we decide to take a check call line on the flop as the preflop raiser, or decide to check back hands that are too strong to fold/give up with OTF, but not strong enough to be multiple streets with, we automatically put ourselves into a multi street bluff catching situation. So when we open a hand like AQ, get called by the button, and decide to check call on an 842 flop, I get that we really don't get a lot of value from worse hands when we bet, but we will also get bluffed off our equity later in the hand a good percentage of the time when we check. Is this reason enough to try to balance a large leading range on the flop, or check behind less in position?

The way I'm looking at it to give an extreme example would be something similar to the nuts/air game, where on the turn villain can bet 5/9 bluffs and 4/9 nuts. So on the turn if we have KK, and believe are up against six combos of AK and six combos of AA, we have to fold even though we are ahead of 50% of his range getting 2:1 on our call. This is basically due to the fact that we need to bluff catch the river to realize our equity, and he will be able to continue on the river w/ a balanced range more than 2/3 of the time on the river? So because of this factor is there any merit to trying to avoid line that will put us in more of these bluff catching situations over multiple streets? What am I missing here?

Hey, glad you like the book.

Unfortunately, the pre-flop section (especially the ranges) are the one part of the book I'm not particularly happy with. I basically tried to apply a model to pre-flop (using polarized ranges) that I no longer think works all that well, especially since people are becoming more and more comfortable flatting 3-bets (and 4-bets) out of position.

I think to really address pre-flop I'd have to write 10-15 pages and give an example of the button vs blind ranges I now like (I couldn't realistically also do UTG and MP and wouldn't want to, but it's easy to apply a lot of the same logic). If I am able to do this over summer (pretty likely, but can't promise) I will post it here.

It's hard to compare AXs to AJo because they might both be better as calls vs a 3-bets as it depends on the opening position. It's really hard to say if A5s or AJo is better (though it will usually be AJo), but just because one hand is better than the other doesn't tell us which one is a flat vs a 3-bet and which one is a 4-bet. It also has to deal with how well each hand retains it's equity.

Example: Say we open in the button and SB 3-bets us. Maybe we should 4-bet A2s even if it's +EV to call, because we believe 4-betting makes our opponent fold his A6s-A8s/ATo hands. So 4-betting might be more +EV than calling even if calling is +EV. It's tricky stuff

Pretty much yeah. Also hands you bet that are strong but not that strong (so "value bets" you don't want to get called) are also usually pretty vulnerable so denying the opponent her ability to realize her equity is pretty important too.

The problem is all of this happens vs good opponents when you bet too. You just often (especially vs weak opponents) bet the flop and win so you think "Awesome!" without realizing that if your opponent would have called you'd likely be pushed off the hand.

So let's say we bet AK on a 842 board (which can of course be fine). If we bet and he calls, what do we do on most turns? If we check-call, we'll be bluff catching. If we check-fold, we likely folded a reasonably high equity hand (we probably had 6 outs) and could have easily even folded the best hand. If we bet the flop and get raised, then now we have a bluff catcher and have already made the pot bigger.

My point here isn't that betting AK on a 842 board is bad, it's just that betting won't allow you to avoid most of the problems people complain about when they explain why they don't want to check. In reality many lines here might be fine and in theory it might be a mixed strat (I can see good reasons for c/c flop, good reasons for bet flop and c/c turn, and good reasons for bet flop and c/f turn..... depends on positions and turn card, and again might be a mixed strat in theory so a few lines have equal EV).

Whether you bet a lot on the flop or little will mostly just depend on how strong your range is relative to his. Kind of how you mostly CB as the 3-bettor in a 3-bet pot and you mostly (sometimes always) check as the 3-bet caller.

I think you are more or less just realizing "Bluff catchers suck when facing a bet, especially when out of position." The problem is there's not much you can do to effectively avoid it as I just explained.

So what do you plan to do with KK in this spot then? Bet it? Now he can RAISE you with his entire range (if he has enough stack depth) and you're still holding a bluff catcher but you have now invested more dead money into the pot.

So in your example, if you find yourself with KK vs 6 combos of AA and 6 of AK on the turn, you have to check. It sucks you have so much equity and it's so hard (maybe even impossible) to realize, but there's just not much you can do. And in reality you are going to get yourself in spots where you have bluff catchers on the turn or river even if you've played perfectly up to that point. The key of course is to win more with your good hands and lose less with your mediocre and bad hands on average than your opponents, but it's very important to understand that you'll often be put in undesirable positions even if you are playing well.

From what I've seen the general progression seems to be this:

Stage #1) Play awfully as you're learning poker and get into terrible and easily avoidable spots all the time.

Stage #2) Realize you can avoid getting into most of these awful spots by better pre-flop and flop play, so you get excited about this and overdo it. In other words, you now fold AJo when facing a 3-bet because "it's hard to play" or you won't 3-bet K9s OOP because "you won't know what to do with a pair of kings or nines."

You often need to play these hands even though they're marginally profitable and you'll often end up calling with the worst hand or folding the best. Remember, you're usually getting great odds when you call (even a pot sized bet gives you 2:1 odds).

Stage #3) Accept you'll often have to play many hands where you'll end up folding the best hand or calling with the worst hand. Start playing every hand you think is +EV, even if you're not looking forward to calling that 4-bet OOP with AJo.

Yes, both you and Ed Miller discussed the poor strategy of flatting OOP, but then PokerSnowie seems perfectly happy to do it. It's interesting if conventional wisdom is evolving like this (I wouldn't know).

I'll probably stick with your preflop advice. I'm looking for advice to lock down and into my brain, so I can go on to learning frequencies with ranges I'll get to know intimately. It may be flawed, but it reflects a thoughtful, cohesive gameplan and better than what I could generate on my own. My other option is Snowie, but I worry that I'd have to play and think like Snowie to justify using it. The flatting 3-bets is actually what first spooked me about Snowie's advice!

I still don't know whether, in the text, A4s-A2s was meant to be called or 4-bet, since they exist in both columns. I'll try again to work out the ratios.

That would be very generous (and fun) of you and I look forward to the post.


Ummmm... yes.

Just finished reading the book, thought it was terrific
Thanks for writing it.

p85
facing a 3-bet in positsion.

1) posistion: co vs IP 3-bet 8.9% range. this means that im in posistion or the 3betor is in posistion?
2) posistion: co vs OOP 3-bet 11.6% range. and here im am OOP and 3betor is IP?

I just bought the book.

From what i can gather, the preflop part is the main flaw with this book and you (matthew) said yourself you are not happy with it.
Is there still value to be had from studying it or should i just skim it?

That's probably a pretty misleading chart title, as it seems to include spots where both we're IP and OOP. It says on the left hand side "CO vs IP 3-bet" on page 85 and on the next page "CO vs OOP 3-bet." So the chart title should really just be "facing a 3-bet" as it includes both. Sorry about that and let me know if anything else is confusing.

TY, glad you enjoyed it.

I'd just skim it. I would make sure you understand how to calculate how much money an opener, 3-bettor, or 4-bettor is "effectively paying" to see a flop, but the rest I think is more confusing than it us useful. You'll probably be pretty surprised to see how aggressively players likely need to defend against 3-bets and 4-bets, especially if they are opening the button or the cutoff pretty wide.

As I mentioned before hopefully sometime this summer I'll make a post showing how I'd construct BTN vs Blind ranges (possibly CO as well) and for now I'd look at post 62 for guidance.

why do we defend 3bet by calling in CO 40% more in OOP.
shouldn't we have wider calling range when we are IP?

Regarding your calculations for adjusted equity value:bluff ratios

From Pg 148:
Using this same formula has given me some very strange results when tinkering with the bluff equity, value equity, and initial V:B ratio.

ex.
(0.7)(X)+(0.3)(1-x)=0.296
x = -0.009

indicating we should have -109 bluffs per value bet on the flop...!!
** note that 0.296 is the flop B:V ratio we get when we use pot, pot, pot

Math is not my strong point and I can't find an explanation for why this is happening. Do you have one or is there a problem with your formula?

You've given the bluffs enough equity that they should just always bluff. So if the number is negative, a hand will bluff any chance it gets.

Hi Matt. I'm really struggling with the whole BT can cbet ATC on most flops idea. I'm currently looking at a flop: 852 two tone. I really don't have much of an idea how to approach the problem of BB's defending range.

My current best effort was 44% continue range after checking(of that: 12.9% c-r, 31% c/c), no lead range, so 56% c/f OTF.

The way I went about it was to pretend I had flatted BT's range in the BB, so playing his range against him, and I formed a model around defending ~60% each street, then I tried to form a similar range with my actual BB range to prevent BT vbetting any wider than he would be able to vs his range. Was this a bad idea?

I slow played 88, but I think a 7.9% turn c-r is too small to prevent overbets(don't understand the whole slow play to prevent overbet thing really). I'm also worried about turn/river as i think BT will want to overbet A8+ if A8 is the top of my range, and A8+ is a huge part of his range. Do you think I am being crushed here with my current plan?