I am talking about balanced strategies, not balanced ranges. Similar concepts, completely different things.

You can have a balanced strategy HU. You cannot have a single balanced strategy against multiple opponents. What exploits one opponent is exploited by another. For example, the other day I had a TAG to my right who was raising over a limpy fish 50% of the time. I knew what he was up to, so I started 3betting him occasionally to take down a big free pot with whatever cards I was holding.

Your cards do matter in poker, but not nearly as much as everyone thinks. You need to know what range villain has and what range villain thinks you have. The rest doesn't matter. You're playing the same cards as everyone else, plus a few extra. The expanded part of the range is a bit weird and unpredictable and mostly has suited connectors in it.

No.

If it is a strategy dependent on the villain it is not balanced, it is exploitative (or just bad).

Apologize to this fine gentleman
(Bladesman87-- ymu regged before you and has higher post count so you cant really bag him)

So you did misquote him. He said
"I thought he would raise and 9, any flush draw, any gutter, and a lot of air. Because of the pace of the match, I could not see him slowplaying a big hand here ever. I really felt that he had a 5 or something like that on the flop.

On the river, my vb was definitely very thin. I didnt expect him to call many hands, but I didn't think he could have a 9 or a boat(unless he had 77). I thought an Ace was unlikely because he'd be more likely to bet the river with it than c/c, because of his image as a bluffer and my image as a semi-station. The flop was somewhat drawy, and the turn was somewhat of a scare card, so I thought he may see it as a good opportunity for me to bluff, repping the Ace"

You have edited out your post, but you said he would always c/r his air and monsters.
Which is totally different from c/r a lot of your air.
If he c/r all of his air, he would be super unbalanced and very easy to play against. Also he said, that he was more likely to bet the ace which is totally fine, compared to what you said: would always lead the river with ace.

Balanced strategies can only be developed for HU play. The problem remains unsolved for more than two players.

So, you need a set of lines that are useful in various situations. They can be used with different post-flop ranges given the flop texture, and against different villains depending on who called or raised. When raising, I consider who might call, with what, and what their post-flop play is like. Ditto with calling or 3betting raises.

Lines which can get a rock to fold can stack a fish. It's balanced against the individuals, and overall because no one knows exactly what reads you are using to determine a line, or what the true ratio of nuts:air is in any given situation.

ymu just stop you're embarrassing yourself

I edited out the post because it was on the wrong thread. You just happened to catch it before I deleted it off this one.

Of course I gave a simplified version - Galfond has at least four massive posts in that thread! That was his read at the time, based on four hours of four tabling someone he thought he hadn't played before. Since then he has found out that he was (probably) actually playing Patrik Antonius, and that thread has a lot of contributions from people who know Patrik's lines well and can contribute to the read.

You can never rule out unlikely odd plays, but HSNL is all about super-aggressive play and that analysis gives a solid estimate of the ratio of nuts to air, even if he's wrong about some of the probabilities. My guess is that Patrik has changed his line a bit since that thread appeared.

No. Those are exploitative against the individuals. It's quite obvious you have no idea what "balanced" means in any context.

Sigh.

They are balanced strategies designed to be maximally exploitative against particular sorts of leaks. If villain plugs the leak successfully, we find a new line.

Stations don't need to see you bluff much to call you down with A high. Rocks need to fold a lot of nearly hands before they start calling light. The exploitation comes in how you find the balance between nut, showdown and air hands for different villains.

LOL

ymu, you are posting graphs from isildur and durrr HU high stakes, random hands you have played at 25nl, and erroneous conclusions based on bad theory and practice.

your first sentence ITT is "hes a sLAG". you are making so many incredibly strange assumptions about our opponent in this hand when in reality 99% of the time he is simply a fish.

ITS 10NL HOLY **** stop leveling yourself!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Sigh

This

Why do you insist on speaking in oxymorons?

ymu, all you have done ITT is wrote long posts with a lot of terminology you probably don't understand and avoided everyones questions, and ignored any way that people have proved you wrong.
You speak as if you have discovered some new unbelievable strategy, as if you are a young isildur or dwan, when everything you said has been said before, and you are misunderstanding and missaplying almost all of it.

Also you need to understand that is highly likely that when many posters, some of whom may play much higher stakes than you (not me just to be clear) are telling you you're wrong, you probably are.

also this literally makes no sense in any context

I think you're bang on about the terminology, and there are higher stakes players trying to engage with my messy thought processes elsewhere, which is appreciated.

But forgive me for not being convinced by someone who has to have that 33 hand explained. It is totally standard.

There are lots of people scoffing at my read of the villain in the OP without giving any real read themselves. But I'm the only person who included the hand he actually had in my range for him. It's the obvious nut hand, but you can't conceive of calling a 3bet with T9o being a good play, so you range him wrong and make mistakes against him that you wouldn't with a better read. In this case, the mistake was not betting enough on the flop that a rebluff attempt would be too expensive for him, forcing him to play straightforwardly to protect his stack against the nut hand that you are representing with your line.

If you scream strength, a raise says you are beat. If you scream weakness, a raise says you have no idea where you are and have no idea how to proceed.

You can't play this villain optimally if your read only goes as far as 'doesn't follow all the rules for beginners, therefore is a fish'.

Fwiw, I'm the guy that wrote the COTW that you link to. The other players in this thread are correct about the distinction between balanced vs exploitative strategies. I think your confusion is that your trying to talk about different balanced ranges against different player types which would be true, but it's only true because different player types have different RANGES in any given situation. You are wrong in that a balanced bluffing frequency would be different--the ratio of value to bluff hands is always the same regardless of the opponent.

For example, you're on the river in position with either the nuts or air. when checked to, you're going to have the exact same ratio of value to bluff hands to be balanced against all opponents. The only difference is that you can have more value hands against a LAG because his range is wider. But the percentage of hands which are bluffs will be exactly the same.

However, since most people don't play a balanced strategy, you can maximize your EV by exploiting your opponents imbalances which is the point of the COTW that I wrote.

Let's use your assumption that the Villain is a LAG and assume that he's opening 50% of hands from the CO (this is very very loose and is almost surely too loose to be profitable against 3 good players left to act -- and given his stats over the small sample size probably almost 1.5 times what his actual opening range is here). Let's further assume that the Villain will never 4-bet (this only means his calling range will need to be wider). And the final assumption, assume the BB gets back 50% of his bluff when a bluff his called ... in other words, he'll on average lose $.55. These are all reasonable assumptions and all actually should strengthen your argument.

Given these assumptions, the CO needs to call the 3-bet with a range of 22.5% of hands in order to not be exploitable. If you look at the top 22.5% of hands, it will not include T9o. This is what a balanced defending range would be in this situation.

But setting aside be balanced here, against almost any Villain's 3-betting range here from the BB, it's going to be very difficult to profitable defend T9o here. Most people aren't opening 50% of hands from the CO and so most players are 3-betting a much tighter range from the BB. And the difference between being suited and not suited is often the difference between hands on the fringe being profitable to defend or not.


Bet sizing is probably the most difficult part of poker. And while it could make sense to bet in order to "play straightforwardly" this is very similar to saying "raise to see where you're at". It's important to remember that in all cases, we should be making decisions which maximize our EV.

I can't necessarily say what bet size would maximize our EV in this situation, but I don't necessarily think betting pot is that much better than the bet size he made from a theoretical or exploitative process (but like I said, bet sizing is really difficult).


As for the 33 hand, I'd probably just fold pre flop. Most people aren't balanced with their 3-betting ranges at NL25 from the blinds, and especially from the SB. They're often over-weighted toward value hands. Not to mention 33 is going to be hard to play correctly because like you did here, you're going to need to know when you can turn it into a bluff. And against a good player I don't think you'd be giving up much value by folding it pre flop even if you could profitably defend it.

And if you did want to defend it preflop, I'd prefer floating the flop. It's a pretty good flop for your range and not so good for his. Most SBs shouldn't be value 3-bet AQ against most peoples CO opening range (but maybe it's different if you're opening really wide). Therefore, your range in the CO is going to have a lot more top pair type hands, since you can have both AQ and KQ. I also think you can have quite a few sets here as well.

Given that the board texture is pretty drawy, it should allow you to float a little easier and raise some different turns which might bring a flush or completes a gunshot or something. Although I'd rather have the 3 in my hand if I was going to bluff raise or float.

Thanks Rainbow, that was really useful. As is your thread.

I think optimal bluff frequencies do vary by opponent later in the hand. Someone who is folding 70% to a cbet has a lot more value in their range than someone who floats 100%. There are some villains where a zero bluffing frequency is optimal once they call a flop bet (stations and rocks). If this happens you check/fold or try to draw cheaply or get to showdown if you have any showdown value. You might be able to get some value from big hands by using your image from the bluffs you run on looser players.

All of the hands I've discussed here are villain dependent. The 33 raise was against a player who cbets >90%. I'm never calling down here, but a raise can win the hand or a free showdown. If the player was a rock who cbet 47%, then I can also do this, because he is betting every made hand and check/folding everything else almost all the time. Players who are more balanced on their hand ranges and cbetting strategies don't get messed with as easily. Strong draws are the hands you need to raise them, especially if you have the equity against their pushing range to get it all in on the flop.

I'm afraid you're incorrect about 3bet calling ranges for loose players playing in position. They will dump more easily dominated hands (non-strong As and broadways) and keep more pairs and suited connectors and mid connectors. These are hands that play well deep, are easy to get away from if they miss, and if they hit often hit with outs to very strong hands, and allow us to bluff with outs against a player who is OOP with a weaker than usual hand for a 3bet pot.

Obviously, different players have different ranges. But I've never read an article on LAG strategy that said any different from what I'm saying here. There are dozens of different hand rankings, and they're all useful for different sorts of purposes. Push-fold shortstack poker needs different steal hands from deepstack cash.

This is quite a decent article from Bluff, on Combating the LAGfish. It discusses their weaknesses (and those of the TAGfish in a companion article) by comparison to true LAGs (and TAGs). You don't have to take my word for it, the ranges you give are not realistic for a player who understands the strategy they are employing.

You are beyond saving ymu.
FWIW I would consider myself pretty laggy, play like 30/25/9, 77% open to when folded to otb, but to me everything you're saying isn't laggy, it's just bad.

Best post itt.

I'm new here and just wanted to ask a noobish question. Why are we bothering with balancing our ranges at the Micro's? I've never bothered and win @ a decent clip. I just focus on value bets and semi bluffs vs villains that know how to fold. That's enough strategy for me at these stakes to build a roll. When I arrive at uNL 50 - well then I may start to apply some SSNL-Ed- Miller-versed theory and balance some ranges.

FWIW, I open any two on the BTN, flat a wide range and steal post flop profitably. But it's not range balancing. It's just reads based, on notes I've taken from previous hands, supported by HUD stats like "fold to flop, fold to float etc etc.......

sigh, kinda ruined a decent post

You are misunderstanding the very fundamental difference between exploitative and balanced play. Let's put it in COTW of the rotating Roshambo situation. Player 1 throws rock 60% of the time. Therefore, I best EXPLOITATIVE strategy is to throw paper against him every time. But then the very next hand, we need to play Phil Ivey and when we use a BALANCED strategy against him, we do NOT try and take our image of throwing paper every time and try and out level him by throwing rock. Instead, we should simply go back to an unexploitable defensive strategy of throwing each option 33% of the time.

I don't know really what to say about this. Given my assumptions, the result is provable by math. I just don't think you'd be able to find a top 22.5% of hands which are going to include T9o.

If you're defending hands this weak in your opening range, then your opponent should react by simply never bluffing against you and only value bet. And he should use a very depolarized 3-betting range.

Not sure what you disagree with. Fwiw, I'm not saying that you should be floating this flop or that there aren't a ton better hands to do it with. All I'm saying is that if you do continue on this flop then I'd prefer floating over raising because I don't think we're going to get double barreled a lot here.

From an exploitative standpoint, depending on how often the Villain c-bets this flop and what hands he uses to 3-bet bluff, I think we could probably get away with floating it.

Well yeah, the Phil Ivey's of this world need different strategies than the fish because they'll know what you're up to.

On hand rankings, there's a good thread on this in the STT forum. There's at least 5 different rankings linked to there, all based on radically different mathematical methods of ranking hands.

LAGs want to play hands that they can dump cheap or push hard without making too many dominated pair hands. The % that pokerstove gives you are sub-optimal for that purpose.

And I'm not 'defending hands'. What does that even mean? I'm playing situations. If the situation offers potential and the hand I have been dealt has a good chance of realising that potential, then it can be played. You can't do hand charts for that. The % range will depend on what players are to your left and right and the cards played will depend on the purpose of playing them. Different hands against shortstackers in the blinds because high cards gain value with shallow stacks.

3betting range is whatever range does well against his range post-flop, and some rags when the reason for three betting is that they raise too much and fold too easily.