Software update:
GUI elements are going well (especially given the small amount of time I have to work on it).

Here is what my first real functionality for the range selection will be:
User story -
As a poker player analyzing a spot*, I want to be able to split my initial range** into various sub-ranges (eg c/f, bet/shove) in order to develop a strategy for that spot that maximizes my expectation***.

*A spot is a street (pf included) with the board (if applicable) effective stacks, relative positions, and pot size.

**Initial range is what you arrive at the spot with. For first action pre flop, that would be all hands. If you get to the flop after some pre flop action, it is whatever your range to get to the flop in that situation is.

***This is against an opposing strategy OR a maximally exploitative opponent. This means that villain ranges and actions will also have to be specified or calculated (the calculated part, for a maximally exploitative opponent, will be one of the last things I add)

Thoughts welcome as always.

I'm going to start keeping track of what hands win big pots. My memory is more than likely selective but it seems like most of the bigger pots are not won by premium starting hands. It's lesser hands on wet boards (straight over straight/set or flush over straight).

You need to find spots to bluff. Your opponents are correct to fold every time you raise if you are never bluffing. Getting caught isn't the worst thing, either, since that should get you more calls on your value bets and raises.

OK.

I'll be posting them here for public humiliation.

This is a serious problem in your thinking. If you can flat 54s profitably against a MP PFR then you should do the same thing every time in that spot against that villain. Winning at poker is about making more correct decisions than your opponents over and over and over again. It's not about mixing things up because you're card dead or bored.

Lol, you guys have me so confused idk wtf to do.

when i used to keep track online i won the most with AAxx at plo, then kkxx, then with qqxx I started to have to get more selective

aaxx was a lot more than kkxx from what i remember

LOL, you sound like Filthy trying to follow Anarchist's conflicting poker advice.

Granted this may not be relevant in live poker, but in gto there are very few hands that are played as a pure strategy preflop

at live 1/2, 2/5, and 5/10(and basically all poker), you should not worry about playing unexploitably. you should be concentrating on how to exploit. but especially at live 1/2!!!

bigger, at 1/2 just fold 54s. if you're super card dead, it's not gonna kill you to raise with it once every blue moon.

but you definitely should have raised the turn. if on the river an 8 came, or any heart, or if the board paired, and he checked raised you, you're probably dead.

This is what everyone who really hasn't studied GTO at all ever says about playing exploitably. I mean it's certainly true to a large extent but people are not static robots, even at 1/2. Regs can adapt to you; I think one of my strongest skills is figuring out what someone is doing wrong pretty quickly and adapting to them.

People should get away from talking about what playing exploitably means and instead talk about frequencies. Understanding GTO helps you to know when someone's frequencies are really out of whack and how to then play perfectly against them. And of course also prevents you from having bad frequencies yourself. And yes, given a bad player pool, you can have bad frequencies in certain spots where you are just printing money but knowing where you are in your range and what your frequencies are can help in any game.

+1 baudib. The concept of just playing exploitative seems so odd to me. How can you know what exploitative is if you don't know what optimal is. As far as I can tell it's just some random mix of guessing, heuristics and imitation.

um, yes. have you never read any of those terrible poker books that came out in the 2000s?

On some level I understand your theory but I'm fairly unable to figure out how to apply it effectively at 1/2. I'd understand it better with real world examples. Anywhere I can read about this stuff and have it explained in real situations?

Also, does this stuff really apply that much at 1/2? How?

So, one of the things I keep hearing is identifying ranges, right? OK, I've got him on a big pair for a lot of reasons. I saw him limp mid-range pairs twice. He hasn't raised anything but premium hands. And, he hasn't bet draws at all. So, I felt confident there was no card that could hurt me.

Playing your own equity effectively against someone else's equity is the heart of every poker hand in every game ever.

To use a non real-world example, let's say you face a villain who raises 100% of hands and cbets 100% of the time. If you are only continuing with top set, trips, flopped straights and flushes, you could probably see that you are folding way too often.

But he can profitably bet ATC because you're only continuing with the absolute zenith of your range. In order to prevent him from profiting by betting ATC, you need to continue with a wider range, based entirely on his bet-sizing and frequencies.

Let's get a bit more specific. Let's say that you're playing an old man who only raises TT+/AKs, but will cbet 100% of A-high flops. You know this because you've seen him open limp and show down AQ and AKo, and also bet QQ and KK on Axx. Now you can exploit him because you can raise him off Axx flops when he raises and cbets because he almost never has top pair or better on those flops.

For completeness sake there is nothing wrong with him being able to bet ATC profitably, that would be assuming that when he checks back he has no equity

mmm it is a serious problem if he can bet ATC profitably, we are surely folding too often.

and errr, someone betting ATC is not checking.

I get this and it seems sort of obvious. Maybe I'm trying to read to much into this theory.

Then the next step is then...since you need to defend more than the stone-cold nuts, to figure out how often exactly (or thereabouts) you need to defend and how many combos and what that looks like on various board textures.

i can tell you for sure that you're probably folding too often on Axx boards, but then arguably no one is bluffing enough on Axx boards.

Then let's say you are playing against the old man.

You flat his raise preflop and the board is A96ss. You have AK and he cbets, what should you do here?

Bingo on the bold. This is what I'm trying to learn.

As far as the Axx boards, if I'm the raiser I'm cbetting this 100% regardless of my hand. It's the other guys that fold too much. The limped multi-way pots I don't care about. Honestly the others maybe, I dunno.

Well, I doubt I flat preflop but if I do I'm raising the flop.

so you're raising to force him to fold all his worse hands?