TY, glad you're enjoying it and hope you'll continue to.

As mentioned earlier, I intentionally left out SB vs BB ranges when I wrote the book as I wasn't sure what they look like. They are not as simple as value 3-betting with your best hands, then calling the next best, then 3-bet bluffing with the hands not quite strong enough to call.

Since you're going to likely be 3-betting many hands against a SB open, using a 2:1 bluffing to value 3-betting ratio won't work because "value 3-bets" (such as TT or AQ) aren't that strong (they'll be outdrawn constantly) and "3-bet bluffs" can easily improve. The situation simply won't model well.

FWIW, I think I understand these ranges now much better than I used to, but I'm still not looking to discuss SB vs BB ranges yet. I'd highly recommend reading post 62 where I talk about using non-polarized 3-betting ranges to get a feel for why a lot of hands should likely be 3-bet pre-flop even if they're neither a "value 3-bet" or "3-bet bluff."

Thank you for answering!

Matt, you could post some hand examples, like this one, perhaps we could start a new topic only with hand examples , aplying GtO analisis ,and later these hands , you could publish them as your new book?
Sorry about my bad English, that is not my native language

Hey Matt,

On pages 198/199 are you arguing that 2bb or more does or doesnt make sense?
You say it doesnt but the arguments seem to favor that it does.

I just read the section and it seemed correct to me as written (but it's often pretty hard to find errors for your own material, since I know the concept already and what I'm trying to say).

It's saying that if the average EV of a pure air hand on the flop in CO vs button is 2BB, then that's probably too high. That's because any hand in the button calling range (even if you assume the button should call with quite weak hands, like 75s) will still flop pretty well reasonably often. So if the button already gets a good chunk of what he invested pre-flop if he misses (2BB on average) and he can sometimes flop the nuts and win a massive pot, it seems like the CO is not defending his checks aggressively enough on the flop.

Hey Paul,

At the moment I have no intention of publishing another book. I may write some articles for 2+2 though.

-Matt

possibly already answered, and maybe a dumb question, but how well will this book work for a micros player? I know basic ABC should do you well in the micros, so will this book be to advanced for like 4nl and 10nl?

I'm a 20NL reg and I think its great. Its not too advanced it just isn't the most profitable advice, but it teaches u so much about how to spot when other people are playing exploitably.

Hi Matthew I'm reading your book right now, and I'm pretty excited about that. I promised to myself that I would try to understand as much as possible so I'm asking and I will asking you various questions in other to understand better the material. Hopefully my dumb questions will help other readers as well

1. About the polarized range definition.
I lurked in the past 2p2 and other books and I have some confusion about it.
a. The polarized range has strong and weak holdings, but they have to be equal in quantity? I mean a polarized range could be composed by 2/3 strong hands, 1/3 weak hands and still be considered polarized?
b. In some posts I found that a polarized range could have not only strong or weak hands, but 2 different holdings, let's say, strong and mid value and nothing in the weak part... it is still considered a polarized range?

2. About the EVfold = 0 definition
I have begin to reading Expert Heads Up No Limit Hold’em v.1: Optimal and Exploitive Strategies by Will Tipton
but i gave up after I got your book. Anyway I that book, the author have a new way to expose the EV concept, basically, he counts how many dollars/chips you will end up with after you make a decision. I found that his way works better than the EVfold = 0 definition. I mean, it works better for me. The std definition could lead us to some misleading choices: we could c/c 2 streets and c/f the river, we are losing money even if the EV of folding is 0. Can you explain why we should stick to this definition. Maybe I got a mental blockage with it

3. Page 17, Making our opponent indifferent to calling on the river
I'm feeling pretty ******ed about this one... whatever
In the example you stated that:
(2 PSB) ( X ) - ( 1 PSB ) (1 - x ) = 0
in order for the opponent to be indifferent between calling and folding
I tried to get the general formula and I think it is
(amount won) (x) - (amount lost) (1 - x ) = 0
Basically we could thinking about what odds we are giving to our opponent and know what proportion of value/bluffs we should have in our range.
So if we are betting half pot, Villain is getting 3:1 odds, so he needs to be right 25% of the times, so in order to make him indifferent we should have 25% of value hands and 75% of bluffs hands right?

OK. I now see how you are approaching this. Basically you are saying that IF his pure air hands have a 2+ bb or more then this and that would be the case, so THEN the player out of position is not playing optimally. And thus 2+ bb can't be true when both players are playing optimally. IMO this thought process is not really clear from the text though.

I also have one more question about p. 230. I understand our valuebets are now 85% instead of 80%. However, why are our bluffs also 15% instead of 20%? A gutshot is still a gutshot, no matter how strong our opponent's range, right?

strong to mid value (assuming there's nothing in between) would be a linear range, not a polarized range.

he is "right" when we are bluffing, so we have to be bluffing 25% and vbetting 75%.

It's not saying that if the expected value of flopping air is 2BB a player cannot be playing optimally, since that can't be proven. It's saying that to me that sounds quite unreasonable, and I'm willing to say "If a player expects to win on average 2BB when they flop pure air in position, then the OOP player is likely not betting and defending his checks aggressively enough."

I just picked 85% and 15% to make the value bets and bluffs a bit more polarized. Wasn't chosen for any particular reason other than that.

A polarized range does not need an equal proportion of strong and weak hands. And a range that is composed of strong hands and medium strength hands wouldn't be polarized, because a polarized range more or less means clear value hands and bluffs.

Sometimes using the definition that folding have an EV = 0 is best, other times it helps to look at the EV of the entire hand. As long as it's clear what you're doing either should be fine, and the book does both (though usually sticks to EV of folding = 0 as I think it's usually best for comparing lines).

Since villain only needs to win 1 out of 4 times, we'd need 75% value bets and 25% bluffs. That way if he calls 4 times he'll on average lose 3 times and win 1 time (and break even).

Just received the book today.

I have only reda the preflop section.

I can see some issues with the preflop hand chart.

eg.

UTG vs a 3 Bet IP. You say to 4 bet AA,98s,87s,76s.

So we are 4 Bet calling 33% and 4 Bet folding 66%. This have to be wrong. We can easily be exploited with such an unbalanced range as this.

And to chose 98s,87s,76s instead of say KQo is really bad. KQo blocks so many combos of hands that will 5 bet us. KK, AK, QQ etc.

I have the same issues with the UTG vs 3 Bet OOP hands.

I also wish you had not put asterisks next to the hands and actually listed the individual combos or even put AQo (3c) cause now you have to play a guessing game as to how many combos of each hand when their is multiple asterisks in the same range ie TT and AQo both have asterisks. If there is only 1 asterisk i.e AQo i can just take out combos till i match the defending range i.e 5.1% etc

There are many things "wrong" with the pre-flop hand chart (see my previous posts in this thread), and a ton of hands in it will be part of mixed strategies (calling sometimes and folding other times). Keep in mind the more accurate a hand chart gets, the messier it will also get and it will be less useful to new players.

If you're comfortable with your pre-flop ranges then I would try to take some new information from it (if you play SSNL or lower, you're likely not defending against 3-bets nearly aggressively enough in theory) but don't worry about all the hand combos adding up perfectly.

Also keep in mind in the example you pointed out with AA, if the opponent 5-bet jams AA has like 80%+ equity. That's why there are so many more "value 4-bets" than "4-bet bluffs" in that position. And I agree I'd rather have KQ than suited connectors as "4-bet bluffs" now, as already explained earlier in this thread.

Matt,

This is the best book on NL poker I've come across, and the one I wish I'd had when I was learning. Amazing work.

I thought the situation you'd discussed before was 3betting stuff like 75s vs stuff like K7s out of the blinds, and you were saying you'd changed your position to believing that K7s would be better because it had higher equity, even though it will be harder to play postflop. Correct me if you were referring to a different point.

In any case, there is a tradeoff between the effectiveness of "ease of play" vs "pure equity." In the 4b example you were just discussing, it seems that the difficulty of playing KQ, especially as a TP, possibly dominated hand, gets really nasty when you've been 3b as UTG. But you are saying the extra equity still outweighs that difficulty?

It is really, really hard to evaluate what hand is better pre-flop since you can't convert equity into expected value. That's why when someone makes a comment like to "chose 98s,87s,76s instead of say KQo is really bad" my thoughts or more or less just "meh." Chinned may be completely right, and I would rather have KQo than 98s now (as explained earlier), but it's not like this is something you can prove, pre-flop probably uses a very mixed strategy, and I'm not sold KQo is better than other hands we can use (such as ATs, KJs, KTs, QJs, AXs, etc).

For the K7s vs 75s, the only thing 75s does better than K7s is it makes some straights. This of course matters, but as of now I'd rather just have better pairs (pairs of kings are better than pairs of fives, and K7s makes pairs of sevens with a better kicker than 75s). If I'm talking poker with someone who understands this and still thinks 75s is better, then that's totally fine with me and not something I'd really get in a disagreement about, since no one actually knows.

Thanks for the answer. As for the bolded, the other advantage it has, as you discuss in the book, is that with 75s it's more likely that you're equity flops in a polarized way -- some flops where you have very little and can make a safe fold, and others where you have a lot with a good draw and that is clear. This leads to relatively easier decisions (and therefore a smaller chance of making an error) than K7s, where your equity is distributed more evenly on flops, and where even your good TP hands can be dominated.

I'm explaining this just to make sure I understood your old argument. I understand that you are now leaning more toward K7s because of its absolute higher equity.

Are you sure? The image is taken from a QTip book
http://i.imgur.com/XM4cXNX.png

A. "We want to emphasize playing hands which have a high amount of equity against our opponent’s betting and calling range. Hands which only have a high amount of equity against those hands our opponent will frequently fold by the river are much less useful"
Ouch my english is not that great, another way to say that could be what I wrote below?
We can't play only hands that have a huge advantage over Villain's holdings, so we should play more marginal hands

B. “Hand signaling” occurs when our hand tells us whether or not we should try to see additional cards to make the best hand by the river. For instance, after seeing a flop with a suited connector, we’ll almost always know exactly what we need in order to make the best hand, and we’ll usually want to see a turn card if we flop a pair, straight draw, flush draw, or three to a flush and three to a straight. Since we only fold suited connectors on the flop and turn if our hand has little equity, if we don’t see a river card, it’s unlikely we would have outdrawn our opponent on the river anyway.
Pretty embaressed about that, I don't understand the last sentence

C. About the grey area between value betting and bluffing
I read this chapter and a question come into my mind, while your considerations are pretty strong, I think we need to decide if a bet is for value or bluff, in order to keep the things simple especially at the tables. At the tables, if we are questioning about what type of bet we are making, we could get confused. I think what you stated is good, but maybe it could help us away from the table. What do you think? If you don't agree with me, when you are at the tables, what you are asking yourself instead "why I'm betting?

I think I can help with this one, and it's related to the question I asked MJ in my last post. He's saying that typically if you flop a pair or good draw with a SC, then you will try to see the river. If you flop absolutely nothing with those hands, then you typically have a very little equity anyway. so when we fold on the flop we're not giving up that much. Whereas if you are forced to fold overcards like AJ on the flop, you'll often be giving up more equity since your 1 pair outs are often live.

Sorry, I'm not sure what point you're making with that picture.

If you start with a range of the strongest hands and then add hands to it sequentially based on strength, the range would be linear, not polarized.

A 3betting range can often be polarized because you may 3bet the strongest hands, call with the next group of hands (thus, they aren't in the 3bet range), and then also 3bet hands that aren't strong enough to call.

<--strong----mid value----weak-->

<--3bet--> <---call---> <--3bet--> = polarized 3bet range
<---------3bet-------> <--fold---> = linear

Ok ty for the explanation.
The image I posted is referring to a flat range, a range where there are strong, mid and weak holdings. When you said linear range I thought about the flat range, btw I understood now ty

Update to post #146.

I was acting hastedly in my previous post when I said there was no new content except for the turn section compared to Matthews Janda's CardRunner's Videos. In my initial post I had only skimmed the book, and most of the new content is in the details. However, I think I was hoping for a section where a new way of thinking about poker was brought up -- such as Matt's Donking series. Matt does spend quite a bit of time going through Turn and River decisions much more than in his videos. More discussion on small stack play. However, unusually absent was a section on multiple bet sizes. But more than anything, he does dig in deeper to all the concepts he's presented in previous videos and the well thought out and organized structure makes it a good compliment to his videos and vice versa.

On a more general note, at the end of each section is a general though process for different lines which will be helpful more people new to Matt's material when it can seem overwhelming. He provides lots of useful hand histories and at the end of the book, he goes back and forth between players all the way through to the river with multiple hands. A lot of the concepts in the book can't be proved or easily implemented, so it does a good job of teaching you how to think about poker. But to take advantage, you're going to have to do a lot of work away from the tables becoming familiar with different scenarios and ranges.

As I said in my last post, I'm a big fan of Matt's and would consider this book as a great foundation for your poker theory knowledge.