http://www.splitsuit.com/equityexploration/



Equity Exploration:

This video is meant to serve as both a tutorial to two very powerful and useful pieces of software and also assist in understanding continuation ranges. I cover some basic math and math formulas and put backing to some of the basic plays that we may make, while also exploring equity given ranges. This video aims to be a bassline of your own equity explorations and also help explain important concepts such as variable effect, weighted ranges, and continuation ranges.

PokerStove

Stox Poker Combo

If you have any questions, please don't hesitate to ask. Enjoy!

*SS*

Nice video!

I found the part on 3 betting very interesting.

Thanks!!

gracias =)

*Split*, this is easily one of my favorite videos ever. I'm posting to expand on why you added small pocket pairs to the ranges at the beginning of the video. You mentioned in passing that Stove doesn't like small pocket pairs, and I have illustrated that with a series of screenshots that show what you were talking about.

Pokerstove rates hands based on their preflop all in equity against a random hand, or something like that. Consequently, what PokerStove considers to be a top 25% hand, especially at the bottom of people's ranges, starts to lose touch with what people are actually playing.

Here's what Stove considers top 10%



I don't have much problem with this range, but I suspect that your average TAg who raises a positionally weighted 10% is raising 66 and 77 earlier than he is raising ATs and A9s (I know I do).

To add 77 to somebody's raising range, you have to dip down to top 15%:




And to add 66, you have to dip down close to the top 25%



77 and 66 are basically interchangeable to people who raise them, but in order to get a range that stove says includes both of them, you also have to add in the remaining suited aces, ragged suited kings and even J8s. This, again, does not accurately reflect most people's raising ranges.

This is a big variation from what people are playing versus what Stove says are the top 25% hands. People are not making a mistake, they are just playing hands that can flop big. If you raise K6s, get called and flop a K, bet and get action, you stand to get yourself dominated and lose big. 66 and 77, by contrast, are easier to play, since real poker is not run hot and cold like Stove.

Stove consistently undervalues small pocket pairs. To add 55 and 44 to a raising range, you have to dip down to the top 37%



Look at all the trash that gets added to a raising range in order to add in 33, which Stove adds at the top 50% mark.



And people who raise 22 are not also raising T3s interchangeably with 22. In this last screenshot I have circled all of the trash that Stove ranked higher than the small pocket pairs from 55-22. Stove adds 22 at the top 60% mark.



I'm not knocking Stove; I love it and I think it's great. But you have to independently evaluate the starting hand ranges it considers as superior to the small pocket pairs, as it starts to undervalue pocket pairs at 77 and gets worse as the pocket pairs get smaller.

The fix for this is to do work away from the table, and come up with your own stock ranges for what you think a top 15%, 20% and 25% raising range really looks like.

excellent follow up Mpethy. =)

Excellent video, split. I got enlightened especially in the 3 bet range part.
I recommend this video to everybody.
Keep on continuing the good work.

mpethybridge, you are right. I would take the so called Karlson-Sklansky ranges (see NLHE book from Sklansky for that issue).
There are 169 starting hands.

10% range are the top 17 hands, which are 66+,AT+
20% range are the top 34 hands, which are 33+, A3s+, A7o+, KTs+, KQo
30% range are the top 51 hands, which are 22+, Ax, K6s+, K9o+, QTs+, JTs

Hope this helps, Digga

These are the Karlson-Sklansky numbers for the top 20% of all hands.

How do you read it? There are in total 1225 holdem hands (all suits, all hands).

If we take AKs as an example:

AKs is beat by 75 hands, whereas it is better than 1150 hands. However, it has an equity of 0.457697 = 45.8% against better hands.

You can see that in opposite to pokerstove 33 is in the top 20% of all hands.

I look forward to this video and to this Concept of the Week Series. Thank you for your time and effort.

Thanks for the great vid split. I decided that today would mark the beginning of my more academic approach to the game and this thread was the perfect place to start!

One area that I really need to open up in my game is being more conscious of how my opponent's range narrows as the hand progresses. Your bit on continuation ranges really helps to put this in perspective.

The site looks great. Good work.

Thanks!

As far as I know...nobody has really coined the term "continuation range"...so if I am the "originator" of the term...you all me $1 everytime you use it =)

But seriously...continuation ranges give meaning to our betting and raising. their range should always be getting thinner and we can manipulate that by raise/bet size (think back to my poohbah...bigger bets get continued by bigger hands, most of which beat us...and small bets get continued by a wider range of hands, more of which we beat).

Poker is easy, right?

*SS*

can't wait to get home from work and watch it. 3 betting is something I've found myself doing much differently lately

*Runs off to d/l StoxCombo*

Great point about continuation ranges and bet sizing. I would like to reiterate what you said about adjusting continuation ranges based on our own 3b frequency. If you are taking a purely mathematical approach to 3b and bet sizing, it's easy to assume you can just do this every time and get away with it because "it only needs to work X% of the time," but the reality (and non-mathematical) is people who are aware of what you're doing will start continuing with a wider range, either through flatting and outplaying you postflop or by 4b shoving. So you either need to be aware of your own 3b frequency vs their steal frequency and be aware of your hand equity vs their 4b shove range so you aren't in a situation where you go, "****, I just 3b with 89s and they 4b, wtf do I do???" It's always good to know ahead of time what you'll do.

edit: If anyone needs help with doing calculations, just shoot me a PM. Nerdy as it sounds, I love doing weighted calculations.

Excellent work.

One small suggestion would be to leave some assignments for the student to do and post the answers at the end of the week. I really believe that you don't truly understand it until you sweat the details yourself.

Nice suggestion and I offer:

50NL all involved 125BB stacks

Villain 15/13/4 over 850 hands
WTSD 20% W$SD 48%
CBets 85% Cbets turn 65%

Hero on the Button is similar holding 99.

Villain opens MP1 4X and we call for setmining value. all fold.

Flop (9.5BB) T87

Villain bets (8.5BB). Hero calls

Turn (26.50BB) 2

Villain bets 22BB.

Hero considers options based on equity calculations and the new Stars software patch allows unlimited TimeBank.

This vid is just great, split.

Hope I can get that coaching from you soon.

in before lock.....seriously delete this thread, uNL is getting tougher and there is no need to give everybody the key.

thnk u =) PM for the latter part of your post =)

and Sammy...i 100% agree. i, and many others, give away way too much for free.

the calling the 5bet shove, was a real eye opener for me...I've been doing it wrong.

great i will watch this tonight

Great video, will have to watch it a couple of times to fully get it I guess. Is there a way to dl it? (if not np)

Can't resist the following plug for arithmetic: If you want to figure out a mixed equity, say 70% of the time we have 57%, and 30% of the time we have 46% (or whatever the numbers were), then take the difference between the two and add a proportion of it to the lower value. Here, difference is 11, 70% of that is 7.7, 46+7.7=53.7. If you approximate that at the table you might say that you have to go 70% of the way from 46 to 57, so that gives you a good idea.

I think you wildly overestimate the ability of the average poker player to do hard work.

This thread has 370 views as of when I'm posting. Out of that, just how many people do you think are going to take King's challenge and actually work out the problem? If the answer is in two digits, I'll be stunned.

Understanding there is this thing called equity is one thing, actually running enough scenarios that a player will know the right play in the heat of battle is another.

*split*, I just wanted to add that I was doing it wrong when the villain 5 bet shoved, as i was often folding some pretty decent hands.

I manned up last night and 4 bet a BB 3 bettor whose 3 bet from the BB was 14% or so; I 4 bet him with AQs, he shoved and I called. He showed me 44 and got my stack.

Couldn't have done it without you, buddy.

So I had a relatively spewy session last night, but I think my mistakes could be a good teaching tool, so I will post some of the hands with calculations if people are interested

I have done my homework, when can I post it (" oooo ooo ooo" waving wildly from the front of the class).

My humble suggestion would be wait until Friday night, but I don't want to hijack the thread. It is really the mods and/or split's decision.