What do you guys think about applying these ranges by default to regs at the micros who have RFI and fold to 3bet stats that fall within reasonable ranges?

i understand vs weaker players we don't have to play GTO but vs the more balanced regs we also ought to be fairly balanced, and the ranges suggested in Janda's book seem to be orientated around balance/GTO and having a 1.5:1 bluff to value ratio

with that said some of the ranges seem a bit bizarre, esp the BB vs BTN range. i agree with other ranges like the IP ones but the ones from the blinds seem totally different from what i expect to be balanced and reasonable ranges

are these ranges simply wrong or are they more applicable to higher stakes than the micros?

I'm working my way through Janda's book at the moment as well.

If I remember correctly Janda himself, in the 2+2 thread for the book, says that the postflop material in the book has aged better than the preflop sections. That said, I don't think the BB vs BU range is that out of line, though I would probably flat some stuff in there instead.

it seems a bit out of line to be 3betting 18% from the BB imo. and also some of the hands included in the 3bet range seem like really obvious flats like ATo and KJo to just about any player type

Try it out!

Yeah, those are examples of what I meant by hands that I would more often then not flat (Although i often would rather 3bet KJo vs someone agro who will barrel alot and flat KJs. But that's an exploitative adjustment, and maybe not even the best one). Taking out unsuited combos from the range will obviously bring down the 3bet % to something "more reasonable".

In general, my default 3bet range is more weighted towards value and playability, and has less garbage hands like Q2s because most people seem to flat 3bets too wide but again that's obviously exploitative and not in line with the purpose of the book.

It would be cool to hear from others who know more about this stuff as to whether these ranges make sense and whether a 3bet % of 18 is sound.

are you suggesting you construct your 3betting ranges in a similar way? i don't want to try it out just for fun, i feel i might end up burning my roll 3betting 18% from the big blind to a steal but if someone can give me some confidence that it actually works to 3bet that wide then i might give it a shot.

Strictly following a preflop hand range chart is for fish. However, it is a starting point and the only way you're going to get better is figuring it out on your own. The ranges described aren't bad at all, but that's following the assumptions listed in his book about what preflop openings and stack sizes are.

Figuring out how to deviate from the hand chart, tweaking it yourself, and generally getting a better feel of what you should be doing will help you.

For example... very few people 3-bet 18% in BB vs BTN as someone said... should they? What's the right 3-betting frequency? Well, a lot of people 3-bet like 8% there... do you think that's good/bad? Why?

--Asking these questions are better than "should I just use this hand chart".

--Figuring the answer out to your question on your own is about 100x better than asking it here.

--Figuring out reasons for doing things on your own, tweaking these preflop ranges, and doing the math off the table that developed some of these charts/reasoning behind them is going to help too.


Anyways, the best way to answer the question is doing it yourself. Half the people (more than half) that post in this site are ******ed and just give bad advice.

Also, preflop ranges really don't matter as much as you think.

yea it all ultimately depends on villain which hands you 3bet. i'm trying to figure out how to play vs the regs tho who tend to be more balanced.

as for 18% yea it seems really high, i also wanna know what an optimal bb vs btn resteal frequency is since before i was thinking more along the lines of half that.

my interpretation of the chart is that 18% still has the same ratio of value to bluffs as a balanced reg with an 8% 3bet, but both the value ranges and bluff ranges of the 18% are considerably wider than the respective ranges for the 8%. i think people don't 3bet 18% because parts of the 18% like ATo aren't really for value because not many worse will call at the micros, so it may only be for value at high stakes (which might be more what this range is aimed towards). but i wanted to hear other opinions to confirm if my interpretation was correct

I can tell you that you should be 3-betting very wide in BB vs BTN, and a lot wider than most people do but this is under the assumption that:

BTN is opening wide (40%+)

BTN is opening small (2-2.5bb)

yea this makes sense. how wide is the question tho? and should the bluff:value ratio increase or stay the same?

This depends on their button open percentage and sizing. At least to create an approximately balanced defense strategy. If we knew true GTO those stats wouldn't matter.

sorry i should have specified. let's take a 45% button opener who makes it 2.5bb OTB and folds to resteals around 55-60% of the time. how would you design a 3betting strategy around that player?

atm i'm thinking fairly close to GTO, but atm i only 3bet around 8% vs that type of player from the BB, maybe it should increase?

Try it out....

I understand how a small open size encourages us to flat wider but how is it applicable to 3betting (other than we need to defend wider in general). I instinctively feel more inclined to 3bet rather than flat vs larger opening sizes.

So the ratio between flatting and 3-betting definitely is going to correlate with BTNs sizing, however.

It makes sense that vs a smaller sizing (and very often, a wider range) we would also want to 3-bet at a higher frequency when compared to someone who opens maybe 3bb for 35% RFI. Think about it. I'm not here to prove it to you.

The thing that hurts BTN the most is getting squeezed out of the pot.

yea i would if it was cheap. my guess is i may have to burn through hundreds of dollars to know for sure if 3betting 18% is right or not, as opposed to variance. it seems like an expensive proposition and probably not worth doing unless i'm confident i can make it work for me. i'd rather do some research into it first, kinda like how someone researches a share before they make an investment. so that's why i made this thread

Play the lowest stakes? That's probably where you're at right now anyways.

i play 10nl, you're right lol. but i'm determined to improve blind defense is the biggest leak for me though, i lose at 59bb/100 from the big blind overall and am doing everything i can to fix it.

i wouldn't feel comfortable trying it out at 10nl so i'd have to drop down in stakes to 2 or 5, but it seems quite unnecessary to do that, and would make my life a lot easier for someone just to give me some brief comments about HOW wide you should be 3betting vs the mentioned player type (45 RFI, 60 F3B, 2.5bb open)

Edit: i do understand perfectly well that you should be 3betting MORE vs a looser stealer, but my general response is to add one or two percent to my 3bet % as opposed to doubling it

You pay 100bb/100 in the big blind. loosing 59/100 is actually considered winning 41/100. You are doing fine in the bb. Don't beat yourself up over it.

-59bb/100 is still not good for BB, lots of room for improvement!

Don't be afraid of losing money to learn, better you do it at 10nl than 100nl. Figure your **** out, and more important, figure out HOW to figure stuff out.

Learn to learn basically.

i agree, trying to increase to -40bb/100 or better. and i'm trying to learn using maths based strategies but i need a basis for what a "default" 3bet % should be vs specific RFI and F3B to base my formulas around

the main thing i'm not sure about is the extent to which we take these exploitative adjustments. for instance, do i 3bet double the frequency vs the 60% RFI because 60 is double 30? or is the relationship not a linear one for these adjustments? i've assumed a non-linear relationship (e.g. square root function) until now and hence have only 3bet an extra 2% of hands vs the guy who opens 60% compared to the 30%. and then i need a default vs someone with correct or close to optimal frequencies as a basis to make my adjustments on

there ought to be a mathematical formula which approximates how to make these adjustments. for instance, suppose default strategy is say 15% 3bet vs someone with RFI 50% and F3B 60% and 2.5bb button raise

then P=(15rf)/s could be a formula to generate a 3bet % for any player if r=(new RFI/old RFI), f=(new F3B/old F3B) and s=(new BTN raise size/old size)

so for instance vs someone with RFI 60%, F3B 60% and raises to 2bb we can plug in the numbers and get P=(15*(60/50)*(60/60))/(2/2.5)=22.5%.

that would be if a linear relationship existed between our 3bet frequencies and RFI, F3B.

we'd then need another formula for the value and bluff components separately. like say two people with different RFIs have the same fold to 3bets, would we bluff just as often because they fold just as much? or would we keep our bluff frequencies proportionate to our value frequencies according to the ratio, since our value 3bets will obviously widen vs the wider RFI (so if we kept the 3:2 ratio of bluffs to value vs different RFIs with fixed F3B, then we would need more bluffs to compensate for our increase in value 3bets)

any thoughts about the mathematics of 3betting adjustments and whether a linear or non-linear relationship exists? i.e. as say RFI increases for fixed F3B should our 3bet % increase at the same or a lower rate?

You can`t just take this and apply to your game.

This range is balanced with his open ranges etc.

RFI (raise first in) is included in the formula so that accounts for his opening range. and if you mean that different people open different hands at the bottom of their range, well as with most formulas they come with some assumptions so here we should assume each x% opening range contains the same holdings (i.e. the best x% of hands to open with from that position). we also must ignore the skill difference between players postflop

not saying my formula is correct (there are probably much better approximations, i expect a non-linear model would fit better tbh) but there is probably A formula that approximates the relationship reasonably well. i'm wondering if there are any mathematicians out there who have thought about this and can suggest a better model?