Had a hiccup trying to purchase the ebook through D&B due to paypal and was told it would take 6-8 business days to receive my ebook.

I emailed D&B about it. They responded super fast, on a sunday no less, and I had the ebook in no time.

So if you're thinking about buying this book, know that D&B will do right by you.

Hey, so I set up a reasonable-looking game tree and solved it with your starting ranges. Annoyingly, I don't know of any great way to communicate the whole solutions. I've not heard from anyone who found the solutions I posted to the river examples very useful . Maybe I just should polish up and make public my own visualization utility. For now, anyway, here's this:

Tree:
(larger-than-all-in bets (e.g. 999) are trimmed down to all-in)
(12.5 BB in the pot, and 47.85 BB behind at the beginning of the river)

- RIVER 1 Qs3sTd7d9d
-- BB bet 999
--- SB fold
--- SB call
-- BB bet 3
--- SB bet 15
---- BB fold
---- BB call
---- BB bet 999
----- SB fold
----- SB call
--- SB bet 999
---- BB fold
---- BB call
--- SB fold
--- SB call
-- BB check
--- SB check
--- SB bet 999
---- BB fold
---- BB call
--- SB bet 8
---- BB fold
---- BB call
---- BB bet 999
----- SB call
----- SB fold
-- BB bet 7
--- SB bet 20
---- BB fold
---- BB call
---- BB bet 999
----- SB fold
----- SB call
--- SB bet 999
---- BB fold
---- BB call
--- SB fold
--- SB call
-- BB bet 12
--- SB bet 999
---- BB fold
---- BB call
--- SB fold
--- SB call

Ranges:
http://imageshack.us/a/img35/7470/72l2.png
http://imageshack.us/a/img153/6903/zi1t.png
http://imageshack.us/a/img17/922/3b7v.png
http://imageshack.us/a/img13/8977/cc89.png
http://imageshack.us/a/img4/5646/agc9.png
http://imageshack.us/a/img547/1605/3r2n.png

I'm not sure if other people use the words differently, but if it's not clear -- I call a range "capped" when it doesn't contain some of the strongest hands, "capped high" when it is only missing a few of the very strongest hands, and "capped low" when the strongest hand it contains is actually pretty weak. And I use "bounded below" (altho it comes up a lot less frequently) to describe sort of the opposite situation where a range can't include some amount of the weakest hands.

You are correct, thanks.

Actually, I didn't mean the word "betting" there to describe "SBs". I meant the board is not "strong enough for either player to scare the other off betting", i.e. it's not strong enough that either player will be scared away from betting. Probably too colloquial.. not amazing English, I agree.

You are correct, thanks.


No, unfortunately there isn't really a simple solution for this. I talked about it a bit in the section on bet sizing (p256), but when you use multiple betsizings in a spot, the actual solutions don't end up breaking down into small number of well-defined action regions. Generally, you're going to want to bet bigger with your better hands, but if your smaller-betting ranges are completely capped, then it can be exploitable, and Villain's adjustment can motivate you to start betting smaller w/ some strong value hands as well...

As far as where block bets fit into an equilibrium type strategy, though, maybe you'll find this post helpful:

http://forumserver.twoplustwo.com/sh...1&postcount=86

I showed the Mathematica stuff primarily for instructive purposes. It can get tedious and error-prone pretty quickly for more complicated situations. When it comes to doing practical work on real spots, I think a more general equilibrium-finding algorithm is the way to go. Fictitious play is really quite simple to implement.

That said, the equity distribution function there is represented as a list of ordered pairs (hand, equity). Both hand and equity range between 0 and 1, from weakest to strongest. Mathematica's Interpolation[] function turns the list of points into something that can be treated like a function.

I don't know of any publicly available software that can make that list of points. The EDVis utility I released can plot equity distributions, but it doesn't have an 'Export' button or anything..

Do I ask when each one might be a good 3-betting strat? Anyway, if so, I don't think there's necessarily one right answer for each of these, but your analysis looks good.

As you say, (c) is a standard polarized range, (a) is a standard adjustment versus someone who's too loose, (d) looks like a good adjustment versus someone who's too tight vs 3bets. The range in (d) looks to be something like 70% of all hands, so it might be a bit overkill unless Villain is very slow to adjust .

(e) might be a good approach versus an aggro player in at very short stack depths. (b) doesn't seem like a great 3-betting distribution vs anyone I can think of right now...

Well, you see, that's a table of something like the 98th, 94th, 89th, 72nd, 44th, and 16th percentile hands, b/c I forgot about card removal effects . Btw, Xth percentile means the hand is ahead of X% of hands, not behind X% of hands. So, e.g., I think K9 should be 44th, not 56th, percentile on the J53r. Anyway, nice catch, and here's an update:

board: 2s2h2d
98 7h2c
95 KdKs
90 AcKh
75 Ad3c
50 Qd3s
25 9d7c

board: KdJs7h
98 Kc7d
95 KhQd
90 Kc6d
75 ThTc
50 Ac6d
25 9c6s

board: Ts9s8s
98 Qs2s
95 7s6c
90 Js8h
75 Qs6h
50 Qh4s
25 AhKd

board: Js5h3d
98 Jc3s
95 AcJd
90 Jd6s
75 9c5c
50 As6d
25 7c6s


There isn't any place which has solutions for all the questions, as far as I know. I mean, a lot of the questions are mostly meant to be thought-provoking and don't really have right or wrong answers. Answers to questions that have a simple numerical answer are usually given in the text.

I don't know of any study groups, but a number of people have asked me about it, so hopefully you guys can find each other. For now, if there are any generalish theory questions that might be interesting to people who aren't working through the book, a post in Poker Theory or something might get more eyes and generate more discussion than this thread.

Nice, I'm glad to hear it. Hope you enjoy the book.

Hey Will, the book is great!
I have a one question about your book. You say p.332 "spending some time away from the tables breaking down your range in spots and grouping hands into regions", What do u mean by this? Could u give a example?
Thank you!

Hello Will, just started reading the book over the past week. I'm up to chapter 5 and I'm just about following everything so far which is good!

My question is extremely basic but I want to make sure I'm getting everything as I go along rather than just moving on having not understood something. In a lot of the examples where we solve for X (is ev open fold - ev raise fold) discussed in the first few chapters, I have re-read looking for the method to solve for X. I have done all the calcs to check they work etc, and done a few of my own, but I only get there by trial and error.

Other than that I have followed everything fine except p.127. I don't really have much of a question because I'm not really sure at all what is going on there in terms of the method for solving for the numbers.

Anyway, great book so far and great thread as well, I actually decided to buy this book just from reading through this thread as I found it very eye opening on its own! Cheers.

Ah of course, the percentiles work the way you mentioned.

I can help you out with that.
In every spot your range is divided into regions.
For example, if you're in position -
the ones you bet(raise) for value, the ones you call (check back) with, the ones you bet (raise) as a bluff, and the ones you check (or fold) with. And they're usually observed (distributed) in that order.
The parts in the () are when you are facing a bet, the other ones are when you're facing a check, obviously.

For instance, you'll bluffbet (or bluffraise) hands that aren't strong enough to checkback (call) with. Hoping to get a better hand to fold (and all his air, too, as that'll have equity as well anyway). You do that with what's called "the top of your folding range".

And those regions are what we begin with. From that you adjust in this or that way.

The idea is that you put more money with your strongest hands, put a bit less with the ones that are strong but not strong enough to put as much money, use the part that comes after that as bluffs, and just muck the rest.

For example, if you're IP on the flop, the board is T82r, and you're facing a check -
your QT is a clear valuebet; A high are often times checked back; K4 is a great bluffbet, and you might want to muck 36o.

If you're facing a bet in that same situation -
AT is a valueraise, 89 is a call, Q2 might be a bluffraise, and again 36 you fold.
In most cases you want your "bluffraises" to be semibluffraises, ie you want them to have equity when called.

Of course, these ranges (or hands in the examples) vary greatly depending in the action you saw, the precise spot, the characteristics of the board, what you think villain is actually doing and how he'll react, etc.; but that's the general framework.


Eagle

This should be "the ones you check back (call) with", obv.

Hello yaqh

I'm a french player and I would like to know if a version of your book will be translated in french and when?

Thanks

Just got the book today and its great. For anyone who's already read some of it maybe you can help me out with this.

On page 48 when listing Hero's and Villain's ranges for the example, why isn't AJos included at all? I'm confused as it would seem to be in both of their ranges.

Hey Will, can you expand a bit on this statement you made in another thread?



I'm concerned because I was planing on designing ranges for HU and 6 max based on this concept.

Have you read Janda's book yet?

Yup, I think Eagle pretty much nailed it (thanks Eagle!). The big idea is just to spend some time breaking down your strategy in various spots. If you do it away from the table, you can take the time to look at the big picture, get practice thinking about the entire ranges with which you take various actions, see what your frequencies actually turn out to be when you play all your hands the way you usually play them, etc, and it can be very educational. Of course, the section that that quote comes from gives a lot of suggestions for splitting your ranges in various river spots.

Hey drsmooth,

I'm not quite sure what you're asking -- is it how to solve algebraic equations? It's true that I usually just write down equations and then skip to the answers without showing all the intermediate algebra, since it's mechanical and can take up a lot of space. However, if you're not quite sure how to solve those equations by hand, I'd recommend giving it a bit of practice, since it's a very useful skill to have. Actually, someone asked a very similar question previously, so please see my response here:

http://forumserver.twoplustwo.com/18...-book-1345573/

And if I've misunderstood your question, please let me know . Glad you're enjoying the book otherwise!

Cheers,

Will

Hi ced,

Sorry but I'm not aware of any plans for a French translation.

Glad you're enjoying the book, Christapho.

You're asking about ranges at the beginning of river play after SB raised pre and was called, and then BB c/r SB's flop cbet and barrelled turn and SB flatted. The board ran out J63ssJo2o or so.

I removed AJo from BB's range, since it likely would have been 3-bet preflop, and I discounted it from the SB's range, since he would play good jacks faster on the flop or turn a lot of the time.

Generally, when building ranges to analyze spots, it's more important to include the types of hands each player could hold with the right frequency than it is to include every single hand he could show up there with. And, indeed, if we included 100% of every hand the players could show up with in the ranges, we'd get the relative frequencies of the various parts of the ranges wrong, because the players don't play all their hands that way every time they're dealt it (as far as we know). So a common approach (and what I did in that example) is to just pick some representative combos. And both players do have some good jacks in range in the example (including AJs), which can stand in pretty well for times they get there with AJo, if that does ever happen.

A more careful analysis might give each player, say, 10% of each individual AJo combo and assign higher (but < 100%) fractions of a lot of the other hands in the range, etc. But there's a lot of hand combos, and if you think some of the range listings in the book are long now, imagine having to show a different frequency for every combo...

Sure, well I think I expanded on it a bit in that same thread:

A complete answer to the question of what exactly we should do instead isn't short (and will get a lot of discussion and examples in Vol 2), but for now, is the big idea of the criticism clear?

I haven't read Janda's book. Does he rely much on this method?

Do I understand you correctly that this is refering towards a 'binning of comparable hands' & that we focus a bit more upon
how many combo's bin A contains compared towards
the combo's present in bin B

As I discovered by creating ranges out of population tendancies that the impact of these 'bin ratio's' have often more effect upon EV then expected. Meaning, sometimes you have some min required threshold ratio before a bin starts having significant impact.
And such that there is not really a requirement to go on in a 'grey area' of we have include combo's ... a certain amount BUT instead you can go on with including or excluding the combo's completely.

I even had sometimes the feeling that focusing upon getting these bin ratio's as representative as possible for the population tendancies was more important then ensuring
that the sum of all weights (of each hand as it is thrown over different ranges) was 100%
(an example just created for clarification for the last part: not really focussing that 100 - AA 3bS 10% + AA 3bnonai 60% means AA flatting 30%)

Maybe you want to share something or correct me ...

A little confused on the bolded statement. Did you mean to say "by betting all bluffs"?

Yea, that seems reasonable.

Frequencies summing up to 1 is something that must be true in reality, and it's an easy property to check for and enforce. So I think of it as an easy first step towards coming up with rational ranges, and I usually try to make it hold. I guess it's not entirely necessary to get good results in some calcs though.

yes

Hi Will I have just purchased your ebook and video pack on D&B and I set up a PayPal account as it advised me to. The payment was confirmed but can't see where to download the ebook and videos? It has just taken me back to your book section and asking me to purchase again? Thanks.

Hi Bobba, I forwarded your message to my publisher, and he said that sometimes Paypal reacts slowly, and prevents the link from being supplied. Please contact Dan at info@dandbpoker.com, and he'll sort you out right away. Sorry for the inconvenience.

Thanks for the swift reply - sent them an email. A massive incentive to purchase the book is that you're around to answer any questions, so great work!

Hi Bobba,

I'm the web developer for the D & B Poker website. We've had a few problems lately with people missing the emails and are tryng to work out what's going on, we think perhaps they are ending up in spam folders (they are definitely being sent...).

I've forwarded you a copy of the email containing the download link.

Any further problems let me know either by PM here or reply to the email.

Simon