Really hard to say. I think you can take a lot from the theory but the ranges you should use should be a lot different from those in the book (not to mention I don't think the 6-max ranges for 100BB stacks are all that good anyways, I think they're the worst part of the book).

If any other HUSNG players want to chime in that'd be great, as they'd probably have a better idea of if you'd like it than I would.

If our range is weak, our opponent is going to bet a lot to both get value and make it hard for us to realize our equity. Since he'll bet a lot, we can check-call or check-raise our good hands.

If our range is strong, we should be the bettor and make our opponent either A) call when he's behind or B) fold and give up on his equity.

Also, you are right that when our range is weak we are check-folding a lot, which further encourages our opponent to bet and push us off our equity (and we of course want our opponent to bet when we're very strong).

What is the difference between PFR or RFI if you are the original raiser? Aren't they the same thing?

Also, next 2+2 article:

http://www.twoplustwo.com/magazine/i...ker-ranges.php

Should be a bit more straight forward than the last one.

Pfr includes raising limpers and 3betting etc. when I look at my stats for MP my pfr is 14.5 but my rfi is 22.1

Hi Matt,

I was looking at a training video where somebody broke down a range in an OOP spot and was checking frequencies in CR-EV.

In one of the spots, the trainer realised he was only defending 50% of his cbets to a raise on the flop, which meant that villain can do it with ATC profitably. But...he then reasoned that this was ok, because villain will continue to bluff with this air on later streets, and so we regain our EV.

I've tried to cross reference this in your book but could not verify if this is correct?

Do you have any thoughts? Is this a legitimate adjustment to make against such a villain?

That is not going to be ok in theory. Your opponent should never be able to raise any two cards profitably in theory or else he'll never fold.

Got it.

If you are only 4-betting or folding, then defending around 30% of your raise first in seems like about what you'll need to defend.

With limpers you'll probably be able to get away with defending less as even limpers usually sometimes limp re-raise, so there's usually two people who can defend against a 3-bet.

When looking at SB play in 6max no limit online. Specifically with respect to late position openers on CO/BB.


Why sb is different from bb? 1) Getting a worse price then BB 3) Guaranteed to be oop to one or possibly two players 3) not closing action

So I was happy to see the ranges you gave in 3-bet SB vs button steal were higher then 3-bet % for BB steal. By only 0.6% but at least the point still stands you should be 3betting more out of the SB and the BB to a wide btn opener.

However, when its CO 3-bet SB vs btn, the BB now has a higher 3bet % then the SB (by 0.6%). I think SB should still retain a higher 3bet % then BB -- in theory. Would you agree now or is there any reason for this? There are many different ways to play SB and some time has passed since you released this book so was wondering if there's any underlying justification for why you distinguish between a CO/BTN opener in terms of the blinds 3bet strategy, specifically the SB.

I am not saying the ranges you gave in the book or the end all be all but they certainly are helpful for guidance and I am happy you provided them. I am just curious. Cheers.

Post #62 -- This post explains how non-polarized 3-betting ranges work and why many people now think they're better than polarized 3-betting ranges in certain situations.

Can you pls upload image for sbvsbtn 3b range, since it is missing now in the post.

Why do you think the ranges aren't very good? How should a player go about developing better ranges than the ones suggested in the book?

Hi, I have been reading this book, and I think it is excellent.
I have a question.

I am sorry, I got this book as Kindle, so I cannot give you page numbers,
but in 'Defending by Raising- The Value to Bluff Raising Ration on the Flop' section,

Beginning of the chapter, it says, So if we raise a 6 big blind bet into an 8 big blind pot to 16 big blinds, our oponent must defend at least 47% of the time......

Where this 47% come from?
Since we raise 0.5pot, I thought it would be 1/1+0.5=0.67.

Thanks for your help

Hello, I have bought and read 3/4 of the book and posting for the first time to ask a couple of questions I hope you can help me with.

I am very keen start utilizing the information in your book but as a newer player am just wondering a couple of things.

In the current current cash games, is the stated opening, calling and 3 betting ranges still optimal or do I need to change them slightly to compensate for the change in bet sizing from 3.5 bb to 3bb?

Whilst on the topic of bet sizing, I know you strongly suggest that players need to consider optimal bet sizes postflop, do you ever believe it is optimal preflop to change the opening bet sizes based on position, as advocated in Gordon Gecko's ebook, e.g 2bb for BTN 67% opening range. 4bb for UTG 13% opening range?

Many thanks,

Hi, its a great book and I ´ve some questions:

1. I miss in the 3-Betting Ranges: VS SB 3-Bet BB. Or is it my mistake?

2. I found some doubled hands like:

AQs, 98s, 87s (and others)

I found them in: Cold Calling Ranges (BB vs. MP) and in 3-Betting Ranges (vs. MP 3-Bet BB). Whats my mistake?

Kind regards from Germany
Sigi20

Hey guys I'm currently trying to figure some stuff out (in addition to just playing) which is causing me to wait to respond on your questions. Once I get some stuff sorted out I'll respond to all of your questions (I'd rather do that then just pick and choose some questions to answer while seemingly ignoring others).

Hi Matthew, I posted a question on #937, but it is solved now, so you do not have to reply that question. Thank you!

Hey Matthew,

I am currently rereading your book while trying to figure out some different bet sizes. Maybe you could help me here. I can't find the exact page number, but, if I recall correctly, you say that we should have around .34 value bets on the flop when we intend to 3-barell .75 pot on each street (.7*.7*.7). Can we only arrive at this number by starting our analysis from the river and going all the way back to the flop, as you did in the book? Or can we just bet around 2-1 on the flop and readjust our ranges with different sizes on turn-river (let's say we want to bet smaller than .75 on turn so do we simply give up a higher portion of our flop bluffs, and continue with slightly more bluffs if we decide to overbet)? Also, can you suggest some heuristics on how to calculate bluff combos for 1 street of value (flop or turn) or 2 streets of value (if we want to bet flop, X turn IP, and are likely to bet RVR on most runouts).

If it's not too much, I want to add one example that's relevant to my first question about bet sizing. Let's say we cold-call in MP v UTG with a range of QQ-77 AQ(16) AK(12) AJs KQs KJs QJs JTs (around 6%). Flop is Q72r and villain X's. We won't have enough bluffs for 3 streets (if KQs is not too thin) with traditional sizings so how do we increase our EV the most? If I understand it correctly, in these polar-v-bluff-catcher situations we win the whole pot on the RVR against the optimal opponent if we balance everything correctly, so our goal is to put as much money as possible through 3 streets so we could get as much money for our value hands as we can since the bluffs have the EV of 0, right? Another example that illustrates the same situation: A76r, we raise 2 sets for value (77,66) and bluff with 99-88. Turn is either 9 or 8. We have 9 value hands and 6 bluffs. How do we find our optimal play through 2 streets? Is there any situation where we could bet very very small on the turn and overbet river?

Sorry if that's too much. Please take your time.

Hi, fantastic book.

So, I am a bit confused about something...

Say for example somebody is opening the button and folding to 80% of 3bets to 9bb vs 2.5bb open, then your adjustment becomes to 3bet 100% of hands in a vacuum, but are we NOT supposed to 3b 100% of hands because then we will end up playing a style that is so easily exploitable?

It seems that your reaction per hand vs either side of an equilibrium should be very extreme right? But as a whole gameplan it should be gradually moving in one direction or another so that your own game doesnt become terribly exploitable?

Does this make any sense, or am I misunderstanding?

On page 94 Matthew Janda says we should use a descending bet sizing structure when our strong hands are susceptible to being outdrawn on later streets. By betting bigger on earlier streets, we make sure our opponent puts more money into the pot when he's behind if he wants to try to outdraw us.

Why should we use a descending betting structure?

It's a good book so far, but I'm surprised at the number of typos. I also noticed earlier in this thread there were some math errors. This was a little concerning...but overall really good so far. I'm about half way through.

I think I now 3-bet in the SB a higher % against all opens than I do from the BB. I have no way of knowing if that's correct though.

I also rarely cold call in the small blind unless we're going to be mulitway. There are a few exceptions (like I might flat 88 in the SB vs a MP open in anonymous tables) but for the most part I prefer to 3-bet or fold.

Sorry but I don't have the older version of this range and I'd rather not post my most recent ranges as I'm pretty unsure of them.

If you post your ranges though I'll be glad to comment and help, especially if anything seems particularly out of place. I'll do this for any range you post (doesn't need to just be SB or BB vs BTN), so long as you don't post too many of them that I can't keep up.

Few things in "real poker" can really be shown as optimal. It's more of just making an educated guess based on models or toy games, and educated guesses can often be wrong.

You should check out "Poker Snowie's" pre-flop ranges. They let you play around with different opening sizings too (you can do their free trial).

In theory not only would you most likely change your opening bet sizing based on position, but you'd also probably use multiple opening bet-sizing ranges from the same position. So, for example, you might open the button with one range for 2.65BB and another range for 2.90BB. This isn't important though and no one knows what's correct and there are probably multiple mixed strats anyways as optimal poker is crazy.

There are some spots where you'll see super extreme exploitable reactions. Say someone bets 1 PSB it on the river (ignore removal effects). He needs 2/3, or 66.7% of his river bets to be value bets to keep us indifferent to calling.

What do we do if he is value betting 68% of the time? We always fold all our bluff catchers (which is likely most of our range).

What do we do if he is value betting 66% of the time? We always call our bluff catchers.

Yet our opponent is playing a really balanced game even if he's value betting here 68% or 66%. I mean, that's REALLY close to optimal and I doubt many if any people get that close in practice.

But the river is extreme. Pre-flop if someone calls 3-bets a bit too much or a bit too little, your response probably won't be that far from what you think is GTO. The same hands will still be the correct hands to 3-bet even if an opponent calls slightly too much or too little. Just because someone calls 3-bets a bit too much doesn't mean you never 3-bet "bluff" 76, and if someone folds a bit too much you don't stop 3-betting KK.

If an opponent actually folds 80% to 3-bets and won't adjust to you I would literally 3-bet him 100% of the time from the big blind. That's a silly high fold to 3-bet. But in reality even most nits will adjust.

You bet bigger on earlier streets when you want to deny your opponent the ability to cheaply realize his equity. In these spots you'll have to bet smaller on later streets if the opponent improved to some strong hands.

Example: You open UTG and button calls. Flop 322. You can make a big bet here (bigger than the usual 50% or so of the pot) since your opponent can't be strong and we want to deny him his equity as our hands like 88-TT are very vulnerable to being outdrawn.

Yet if the turn comes J now our opponent has full houses and flushes and we can't keep bombing it. So we now have to bet smaller on the turn than we bet on the flop.