you're welcome =)

great poast

In the beginning of the artice, split gives two "visuals" of what polarized and depoled look like. The depoled visual threw me off a little bit... I always thought a depolarized range was A LOT wider than that and included hands like 89s, Q9o, K10o, hands like this. Can someone shed some light on this?

neither a polarized or a depolarized range will necessarily be wide...the terms polarized and depolarized essentially highlight the way a player shapes a given range

What does this mean?

A good while back there was a forum upgrade and any posts which hadn't been posted in for the last x months got auto-archived and effectively "closed" for any further comments, so people just bumped all the good COTW threads to make sure they didn't get archived.

Really? I've seen threads with the last post in 2007 get bumped. Does this achieving only apply to newly created threads then?
Also, some posts like Pokey's have an archive and non version.

hmm, i think the image of range 3 and range 4 is missing could someone repost please

i suppose, as a rough guess these ranges would be

is that correct

those look right on. not sure why Imageshack lost just that image...very odd

mm, got to ask, probably obvious, but nevertheless:

1. why would we can't use polarized hands IP ? what would be the reason to not use polarized hands IP? like, is there any ? shouldn't we always or like almost always use polarized ranges when we're ip ? i mean like beside maybe the obvious reason when we'd be facing a station right,
so could you show up with a reason and/or example when 3-betting a depolarized range vs a kind of usual TAG opponent would have its purpose, what would be that purpose exactly iyo ( i maybe come up with some reasons to do it, but to know for sure.. )

2. on one hand you show the advantages of making a polarized c-bet;induce bluffs, induce comfortability, minimize loss when behind, pot control, on the other that the combat Against such a c-bet is very easy to play, if so aren't we making our range easy to play then ?

3. in the following examples about VB-ing/bluffing you showed two that included bluffing - bluffcatching - could you also show a few including the vb-ing and how could we use it ?

4. lets say you open on the co (vs btn) how would you create/weight a polarized CR range on the following board K94r vs a TAG? i bet it would consist for ex. like 22-33,55, bdfd, bdsd (87?JT?), KK-AA,99,44

5. in the following example lets say that now you CB otf, got called, turn is blank ( a deuce ), how would you construct a polarized betting range ott ? the board now is K94r2, your polarized betting range would be like, nuts: 22, 44, 99, KK, AA?, bluffs: Ax, missed bdfd + overcard, missed bdsd + an overcard, QT? QJ?

6. how would your betting range change if turn would be a 7,J,Q or a T? would it change at all ? if so what cards would stop you from barreling

thx for answers, glad to hear cheers

1. You can use a polarized range IP...but would hands like KQ or AJ play better by flatting or 3betting? Also consider the frequency that your 3bet gets action when you are IP v OOP...

2. ofc...and if you are playing against a player that can read it, obviously you wouldn't want to turn your CBet range face-up regardless of your action. Like anything, don't make plays that allow villain to play perfectly against you

3. I don't have an example off hand...but there are plenty of times when our range looks like it would be polarized given our previous actions. But again, this is only relevant against a hand reader

4. too dependent on villain. can he hand read? does he understand my CBet strategy? would he bet/fold anything but Kx+ if I CRd?

5. that's pretty polarized. as for the weight, it's against dependent on how villain plays. does he fold to a ton of dubs or does he get stickier because it's a steal pot? does he call dubs liberally yet play super fit or fold to triple barrels? these questions are too vague tbh

6. again, depends on villain.

sorry I couldn't give you more concrete answers...but a lot more info is needed. How you polarized and how you weight ranges is very villain and spot dependent

mm, is see your point what i meant by opponent in here was yeah what would be answers to 4,5,6 questions if the opponent is TAG and would be like you say super fit or fold ( rather folding a lot then calling )
thx

even if TAG is very fit-or-fold...is he fit-or-fold on the flop? or put another way, if I bet KT on K94 and he only gives my flopCB action with a very strong range...can I really bet the turn for value with it? was the flop bet even for value?

what i mean by that is that it is kind of a guy that is gonna call with 2nd pair good kicker or better, but fold everything else and on the turn he is usually gonna fold and keep up with just top pair or better

then cbet everything and consider dubbing a ton. anyone who plays that straight forward probably isn't a very thinking player and thus you don't need to overly concern yourself with depoling your ranges =)

7. hmm as it comes to stakes say NL10-NL50, and to say making a 3-barrel, i think we still suppose to stay polarized versus some decent TAGs right? but as it comes to stakes as low as NL10 yes we Should be polarized but as people out there hardly can hand read, we suppose to play ton unbalanced - heavily weighted towards our nut hands - because they will just call us down whatever the reason ( so let's say by betting missed 9,8 out NFD NSD otr )

8. would you consider a 3-bet range ( say SB va Btn/CO) 99+,55-22,AJs+,KQs,T7s+,96s+,85s+,74s+,64s+,54s,AQo+
a still polarized range ?

7. When you say good tag I assume you mean a hand reading tag...so i wouldn't want to be too heavily top or bottom side weighted as any action would turn my range face up

8. It depends on how villain would continue versus your 3bet. If they would continue with a lot of junk, then I'd say it's closer to being depolarized. If they would continue very tightly versus the 3bet then I'd say it's a bit more polarized.

oh i understand now, what i mean by a good NL10-NL50 TAG or a 'good' TAG maybe was actually a good ABC TAG -> so and rather without any special abbility to hand read or make some really tight folds otr

so.. with that said with a player like this, an ABC TAG player, nothing like too would you stay polarized otr but heavily weighted towards nuts though? cause i would suspect that they guy's just probably gonna call you down with a decent top pair nevertheless

9. also to be add, i think versus some guys that will call like say 80% of the flops when you opened, i believe that some hands for example like A9 on 952r, just become some nut hands otf, right ? because their calling range is just gonna be so lose that hands like top pair HU on a dry flop are just going to light speed in value, isn't

10. as to what is said, would you believe that for example on a flop of 973s a hand of say A9 would be a good part of our polarized betting range ? as i think the board gets more and more wet hands like top pair raise in value as we can treat them as part of the top of our polarized range on such flop

Thanks *Split* - really good.
How come this isn't stickied like the other COTW's ?

when an ABC Tag calls the flop + turn his range is usually quite strong...so yes, your range on the river will usually be quite poled

if he'll float the flop super wide, then yes, A9 performs super well on 973 (and 952). I think you are over-complicating the poled strategy concept and are now focusing too much on your own ranges rather than just exploiting your opponent.

Thank you! COTWs are only stickied for a short time (right after they are written usually)

thank you for all the answers *Split*, hopefully make a good use