Why you suck at No Limit Hold'em (for newbies)

Note: This turned into something that had a wider scope than what I originally intended, so I've changed the title to fit. This thread was previously called "Why people suck at putting Villains on ranges on turn/river". The new title is obvious homage to Fnord's LHE post.

Edit: Okay I'm done playing and running errands and so I'm going to elaborate on what I mean here so that the chance that people will understand what I'm getting at will increase.

So what street do the vast majority of micro and low stakes players play the worst? The river. I see the lack of putting Villains on ranges on the river (and then using that information effectively) as the main reason that this is the case. But when we look at why that is, we blow open a lot more than just the river.

What street do the vast majority of micro and low stakes players play the best? Preflop. Why? The principles of playing preflop are easy to learn, and there are tons of articles and resources talking about it, not to mention tons and tons and tons of starting hand charts. With all of this information, you can get away with not putting your opponents on ranges because most micro/low stakes players don't adjust for their opponents much preflop anyway, and if they do it's more memorized type behavior, not the result of actual thought.

For example, a 10/7 with a 20bb stack opens 3x UTG in FR and it's folds to you with 33 on the button. It's a pretty easy fold, but you probably don't come to that conclusion because you've considered the entire situation, it's probably just a reaction because someone told you that you should call raises with 33 to hit sets except when you have bad odds.

On the flop we have a lot of "memorized" lines and behavior, but not quite as much as preflop. As a result of this type of behavior, micro/low stakes players tend to play the flop slightly worse than preflop. Suppose a 10/7 with a 100bb stack opened 4x UTG in FR and it folded to you with AA on the button and you 3-bet to 12x and Villain called. Then the flop came A83 rainbow, Villain bet 2/3 of the pot and you called. You didn't call because you considered his range and decided on the best line of action, you called because you've been taught to call in this spot.

So now by the time we get to the turn, our "memorized" lines and behavior have become less reliable. There are some, sure, but it's harder to classify them into little groups for mass consumption because there are too many "it depends" factors at this point because there's too much going on in the hand. The majority of micro/low stakes players have left the safety-net of their "standard" lines and actions, and now they are forced to think. To put their opponent on a range, they have to remember what happened way back preflop, then what happened on the flop, and now what's happened on the turn, but the truth is this is too much work so they just react to it being their turn with whatever seems right, and a similar process happens on the river.

And this is why people suck at putting Villains on ranges on turn/river, which also happens to be why people suck at playing the turn/river. But here's what you can do to change this:

1. Put your opponent on a range on every street, every time.
2. Think about why you are doing what you are doing on every street, every time. To do this, you have to have done #1 already, because you have to know what you think your opponent's range is.

Holy crap! Now you have opened up a whole new world of poker and can start doing some really crazy stuff like reading blog posts by ISF and understanding them.

this thread will improve many peoples hand reading skills

I hope so. I need it.

My problem, in the .01/.02 NL games, is the opposite.

"Only a J7 beats me here, and he called a 5x pre-flop..."

Villian shows full house, jacks full of sevens. It's taken me a long time to balance between getting value on my made hands when a fish donk bets all in with middle pair, and when he's re-raising Kx that hit a wacky full house on the river. Sure it's all read based, but fish (myself included) hit the nuts too.

what about a pokerstove approach.

say the villain is raising 20% preflop, put 20% into pokerstove, and run it againt your hand?

btw, understanding/internalizing ABCD-theorem helps A LOT with this issue

Originally Posted by celtic123

what about a pokerstove approach.

say the villain is raising 20% preflop, put 20% into pokerstove, and run it againt your hand?

Because it doesn't work like this for a number of reasons. Suppose it was 5%. Well 5% of hands could be {44+} or it could be {AQs+, AKo, 77+} or any other 5% of hands.

Really need to learn putting opponents on hand ranges.
some problems I get is either not getting enough value
because I put the villain on a hand beating me. Or calling all the
way because i have a good hand but am not sure of opponents range.

This post has been completely changed.

Originally Posted by spoonitnow

On the flop we have a lot of "memorized" lines and behavior, but not quite as much as preflop. As a result of this type of behavior, micro/low stakes players tend to play the flop slightly worse than preflop. Suppose a 10/7 with a 100bb stack opened 4x UTG in FR and it folded to you with AA on the button and you 3-bet to 12x and Villain called. Then the flop came A83 rainbow, Villain bet 2/3 of the pot and you called. You didn't call because you considered his range and decided on the best line of action, you called because you've been taught to call in this spot.

If my opponent donks into my top set, I've been taught to raise in this spot...

Am I wrong?

Originally Posted by Ragnar4

Originally Posted by spoonitnow

On the flop we have a lot of "memorized" lines and behavior, but not quite as much as preflop. As a result of this type of behavior, micro/low stakes players tend to play the flop slightly worse than preflop. Suppose a 10/7 with a 100bb stack opened 4x UTG in FR and it folded to you with AA on the button and you 3-bet to 12x and Villain called. Then the flop came A83 rainbow, Villain bet 2/3 of the pot and you called. You didn't call because you considered his range and decided on the best line of action, you called because you've been taught to call in this spot.

If my opponent donks into my top set, I've been taught to raise in this spot...

Am I wrong?

First, take that question to your why do we bet/raise thread. Second, it's possible that you're missing the entire point of the OP just because you're asking this question.

Originally Posted by angrystoc

My problem, in the .01/.02 NL games, is the opposite.

"Only a J7 beats me here, and he called a 5x pre-flop..."

Villian shows full house, jacks full of sevens. It's taken me a long time to balance between getting value on my made hands when a fish donk bets all in with middle pair, and when he's re-raising Kx that hit a wacky full house on the river. Sure it's all read based, but fish (myself included) hit the nuts too.

Dunno if this was already highlighted, but this post is full of invalid reasoning.

Originally Posted by spoonitnow

it's possible that you're missing the entire point of the OP just because you're asking this question.

this.

My input: people suck at putting others on ranges b/c they cannot post the hand in a forum and get an answer on what their opponent's range is before their time-bank runs out.

my input: it's difficult to figure out but once you get the hang of it, it's easy to understand.

my output: gas

Originally Posted by bigspenda73

My input: people suck at putting others on ranges b/c they cannot post the hand in a forum and get an answer on what their opponent's range is before their time-bank runs out.

That's really not needed, but your point is well-taken.

Originally Posted by ragnar

wat

The idea is that you should get away from doing stuff because "you're supposed to do it", and instead do stuff because you've analyzed that it's the right thing to do.

Originally Posted by a500lbgorilla

Originally Posted by angrystoc

My problem, in the .01/.02 NL games, is the opposite.

"Only a J7 beats me here, and he called a 5x pre-flop..."

Villian shows full house, jacks full of sevens. It's taken me a long time to balance between getting value on my made hands when a fish donk bets all in with middle pair, and when he's re-raising Kx that hit a wacky full house on the river. Sure it's all read based, but fish (myself included) hit the nuts too.

Dunno if this was already highlighted, but this post is full of invalid reasoning.

Can you elaborate? I understand that on the surface this is a very result oriented way of thinking, however I've talked myself into a lot of bad calls by eliminating weak starting hands from a players range only to find out that is exactly what they had.

My intent was to say that when my problem was not that I don't put people on ranges, it's that I do it badly at times, and against my badly guessed range I make a mathematically 'good call' that feels wrong, and ends up being wrong. I also tend to err on the side of giving people too much credit.

Here's the example I alluded to earlier (Sorry, I can't use the hand converter for a few more posts):

PokerStars Game #22916201480: Hold'em No Limit ($0.01/$0.02) - 2008/12/14 15:20:55 ET
Table 'Peiroos' 6-max Seat #3 is the button
Seat 1: VSB.Gimli ($3.01 in chips)
Seat 2: MarcusVonRix ($1.38 in chips)
Seat 3: angrystoc ($2.21 in chips)
Seat 4: Level R1 ($4.13 in chips)
Seat 5: ijwen ($1.22 in chips)
Seat 6: hobbes54321 ($10.78 in chips)
Level R1: posts small blind $0.01
ijwen: posts big blind $0.02
*** HOLE CARDS ***
Dealt to angrystoc [Kc Ac]
hobbes54321: folds
VSB.Gimli: folds
MarcusVonRix: calls $0.02
angrystoc: raises $0.08 to $0.10
Level R1: folds
ijwen: folds
MarcusVonRix: calls $0.08
*** FLOP *** [Jc 7c 7s]
MarcusVonRix: checks
angrystoc: bets $0.14
MarcusVonRix: calls $0.14
*** TURN *** [Jc 7c 7s] [Qc]
MarcusVonRix: checks
angrystoc: checks
*** RIVER *** [Jc 7c 7s Qc] [4h]
MarcusVonRix: bets $0.34
angrystoc: raises $0.34 to $0.68
MarcusVonRix: raises $0.46 to $1.14 and is all-in
angrystoc: calls $0.46

Now let's look at ranges:
Preflop I'm thinking he limp-called 5x on the Button, so it's still fairly wide but we'll say {22+, A9s+, ATo+, KT+, QT+, and probably any number of SCs} (I don't really know how to get these into PokerStove).

Flop Check/Call so I'm thinking a weaker flush draw, possibly any PP or a Jack, the possibility of set is there, but if we make our draw we're still ok and JJ is a small part of his range, so we have a lot of equity. So we're looking at {22+, QJ+, and SCs}

Turn This is could be a misplay on my part, he looks scared of the flush, and I thought slow playing was the best way to get the money in. However, he checks which makes a flush less likely. My range at this point is looking like this {22+, QJ+, and SCs}

River He thinks his hand is good, but we've got the nut flush so we reraise (this probably should've been a fold/shove). He 3 bets... Hmmm, JJ? Oh well, we're priced in and have a ton of equity against weaker flushes and overpairs.

Well, he showed J7o which didn't enter my ranges at any point. I don't know how differently I would've played the hand, but I do consider it a $1.50 lesson in why you proceed with caution on paired boards when you have a FD.

You absolutely destroyed the turn in that hand.

If you consistently are seeing hands shown down that aren't in the range you've given Villain, then you need to work on the ranges you're giving your opponents. In that hand, you posted no reads about Villain, so that would be a good place to start.

Villain had sat down ~20 hands prior to this. I had been in 1 hand prior, and he folded the turn where I bet pot with TPTK after calling a 3/4 pot raise on the flop. I had also seen him show down in a 50x bb hand with bottom pair. And take 3-4 pots without showing down. Overall, I had him pegged as a little laggy, but wasn't very confident after such a short time.

I'm open to the idea that the turn was butchered. However, I'm not sure specifically what line would be better, or why my line is inferior. Assuming he puts me on a flush draw, betting there folds a lot of the hands I want him to call with. Trying not to look at it from a result oriented standpoint, I guess that a jack or 7 means I'm beat, and another club kills my action further.

This thread is actually confusing the hell out of me.

Im going to follow with my own new post trying to explain why I dont understand it.

Ill use word to construct it.

Easier to read hand from above:


PokerStars No-Limit Hold'em, $0.02 BB (6 handed) - Poker-Stars Converter Tool from FlopTurnRiver.com

MP ($3.01)
CO ($1.38)
Hero (Button) ($2.21)
SB ($4.13)
BB ($1.22)
UTG ($10.78)

Preflop: Hero is Button with ,
2 folds, CO calls $0.02, Hero raises to $0.10, 2 folds, CO calls $0.08

Flop: ($0.23) , , (2 players)
CO checks, Hero bets $0.14, CO calls $0.14

Turn: ($0.51) (2 players)
CO checks, Hero checks

River: ($0.51) (2 players)
CO bets $0.34, Hero raises to $0.68, CO raises to $1.14 (All-In), Hero calls $0.46

Total pot: $2.79

Attention! The following quote is a perfect example of incomplete analysis that does not attempt to put an opponent on a range. The point of this thread is to get you away from this type of analysis, and into habitually putting your opponents on ranges and playing accordingly.

Originally Posted by angrystoc

Villain had sat down ~20 hands prior to this. I had been in 1 hand prior, and he folded the turn where I bet pot with TPTK after calling a 3/4 pot raise on the flop. I had also seen him show down in a 50x bb hand with bottom pair. And take 3-4 pots without showing down. Overall, I had him pegged as a little laggy, but wasn't very confident after such a short time.

I'm open to the idea that the turn was butchered. However, I'm not sure specifically what line would be better, or why my line is inferior. Assuming he puts me on a flush draw, betting there folds a lot of the hands I want him to call with. Trying not to look at it from a result oriented standpoint, I guess that a jack or 7 means I'm beat, and another club kills my action further.

Here's a thought that might help clear up your thinking: What portion of your range are flush draws?

Now for the hand, put Villain on a range after his preflop call and after his flop call, and decide the best course of action on the turn against that range. That will clear up your doubts about the turn.

Preflop I'm thinking he limp-called 5x on the Button, so it's still fairly wide but we'll say {22+, A9s+, ATo+, KT+, QT+, and probably any number of SCs} (I don't really know how to get these into PokerStove).

Flop Check/Call so I'm thinking a weaker flush draw, possibly any PP or a Jack, the possibility of set is there, but if we make our draw we're still ok and JJ is a small part of his range, so we have a lot of equity. So we're looking at {22+, QJ+, and SCs}

Turn This is could be a misplay on my part, he looks scared of the flush, and I thought slow playing was the best way to get the money in. However, he checks which makes a flush less likely. My range at this point is looking like this {22+, QJ+, and SCs}

River He thinks his hand is good, but we've got the nut flush so we reraise (this probably should've been a fold/shove). He 3 bets... Hmmm, JJ? Oh well, we're priced in and have a ton of equity against weaker flushes and overpairs.

Well, he showed J7o which didn't enter my ranges at any point. I don't know how differently I would've played the hand, but I do consider it a $1.50 lesson in why you proceed with caution on paired boards when you have a FD.

This is much better, and a step closer to what we're getting at here. I think your mistake is that earlier you talked about how loose he was, but the ranges you put him on here don't reflect that. After the flop, you should know that hands like 99 or T7 or J8 could be in his range because of the 50bb hand you said he played with bottom pair.

To give you an idea on how you could improve on this analysis, let's consider why you bet the flop. First we start with an estimation of his range: Probably any broadway, 22-99 or so, and some random suited and possibly offsuit hands centered around suited connectors, suited 1/2 gappers and offsuit connectors. A lot of this stuff misses the flop completely or makes a one pair hand. There are a few hands that hit trips, and a few weird 7s that hit to make trips. For the most part, his range is pretty weak, and against most 1-pair hands we have about 50% equity (for example, we're 52% against Jd9d on the flop). Against those few weird 7s, we're about 25% (for example, against 9d7d we're 26%), but that's a very small minority of his range. We expect to probably be +EV from the fold equity alone when we bet since most of his range easily misses this flop, and since checking is basically 0 EV in comparison, betting is a pretty easy decision. Villain calls our bet.

Now the turn card comes, we adjust the range that we have for Villain, make an evaluation of each betting option, and then pick the one that we think is best.

This whole post was me - get to the turn, think "wtf?!?! now what did he do preflop...oh, screw the whole range thing, I'm all-in." I'm a lot better putting villain's on ranges during the hands, but I got better by watching a TON of hands in the HEM replayer, with hole cards hidden and HUD stats showing, stopping the action on each street. I chose big pots that went to show down (so there would be lots of action to narrow ranges) that I wasn't involved in so I didn't remember the outcome (like I would have if it was my stack won/lost).

After only a couple of hours of work, I was getting pretty good at it. One thing that helped was a chart I made listing each hand in terms of its hot/cold (all-in) strength a la Poker Stove, and then reworking it into coherent ranges for various VP$P/PFR combinations. When I went back online to the tables, I pretty quickly got "up to game speed" with my reads.

Here is an example of the range work I put together using Poker Stove:

4% PFR: 99+,AK, AQs
10% PFR: 77+, AJ+, KJ+, ATs
16% PFR: 22+, AT+, KT+, QJ, A8s+

These are basic ranges that I tweak based on reads - they don't include much consideration of suitedness or the fact that many TAGG's open 22-77 before KJ, but they get me "in the ballpark."

I'm leaving a lot of the results unreported (I have all even PFR's <35, for example, with notes about how they change when a person overplays Axs or suited BW's, etc), because I think you remember it long term BECAUSE you did all the work figuring it out in the first place.

BTW, I did the work because I was break-even for like 50k hands at 10nl, which means I REALLY sucked at poker for several months. And guys like Jyms, Spoon and BJaust kicked me in the ass for being a lazy sonuvabitch, and spewing when I should be pwning the micros. Trust me, when Spenda or Spoon or rilla start suggesting a "thinking" project , it will help your game if you do what they say. I had a $300 br 3 months ago that's now 10x thanks to those guys' "encouragement."

So, while I'm not perfect at putting opp's on ranges, yet, the 10 hours or so effort was +++++EV for me, and could be for all y'all.

This is a Poker career changing thread.
Great stuff in here

Originally Posted by mrhappy333

This is a Poker career changing thread.
Great stuff in here

Feel free to show your support by giving this thread 5 spades or commenting in any of the BC mod threads in the feedback forum.

Originally Posted by angrystoc

Originally Posted by a500lbgorilla

Originally Posted by angrystoc

My problem, in the .01/.02 NL games, is the opposite.

"Only a J7 beats me here, and he called a 5x pre-flop..."

Villian shows full house, jacks full of sevens. It's taken me a long time to balance between getting value on my made hands when a fish donk bets all in with middle pair, and when he's re-raising Kx that hit a wacky full house on the river. Sure it's all read based, but fish (myself included) hit the nuts too.

Dunno if this was already highlighted, but this post is full of invalid reasoning.

Can you elaborate? If J7 is in his range, it's in his range. When he turns over a J7 full house and beats you, that's just him being at the tip top of his range. Ideally, he should be able to turn over a few different hands at showdown and you think, "cool. I played it right." And some of those hands actually ship the pot to him! I understand that on the surface this is a very result oriented way of thinking, however I've talked myself into a lot of bad calls by eliminating weak starting hands from a players range only to find out that is exactly what they had.So... why did you say this sentence? Was it because you actually understand that it was results oriented thinking or was it because saying, "i understand it's very results oriented thinking..." makes you appear to understand more than you do? ooooooo, did I just write all that to make myself appear more understanding??? The levels!

My guess is it's closer to the ladder but you think it might be close to the truth. You hear people talk about the shortcomings of results oriented thinking and your first post could easily be an example of that! What it's actually an example of is misunderstanding what it means to play your hand appropriately.

"It's taken me a long time to balance between getting value on my made hands when a fish donk bets all in with middle pair, and when he's re-raising Kx that hit a wacky full house on the river."

This sentence specifically. The "balance" comes because he can have both hands and more! They all fall within his range. The only time you lose balance is when the donkey shows up with a hand that you thought he could never have! And that's not to say the hand is "J7" or "23o", that's to say that hand is like "checking behind on a 3 straight 2 spade flop with top two pair! When he checks behind, you've likely removed two pair hands from his range. If he shows up with these hands at showdown, that is when we've lost "balance." So for the hand you posted later. Op is loose enough to limp/call any 2. Cool. On the flop, what hands can he check call? Jx, full houses, overcards, clubs? I'd expect him to checkraise 7x (and maybe 2 clubs) a good portion of the time. His range isn't {22+, SC, Big pairs} I never think of ranges in terms of pokerstove inputs, but in terms of what hands fit the flop texture and my opponents actions

My intent was to say that when my problem was not that I don't put people on ranges, it's that I do it badly at times, and against my badly guessed range I make a mathematically 'good call' that feels wrong, and ends up being wrong. I also tend to err on the side of giving people too much credit.

Here's the example I alluded to earlier (Sorry, I can't use the hand converter for a few more posts):

PokerStars Game #22916201480: Hold'em No Limit ($0.01/$0.02) - 2008/12/14 15:20:55 ET
Table 'Peiroos' 6-max Seat #3 is the button
Seat 1: VSB.Gimli ($3.01 in chips)
Seat 2: MarcusVonRix ($1.38 in chips)
Seat 3: angrystoc ($2.21 in chips)
Seat 4: Level R1 ($4.13 in chips)
Seat 5: ijwen ($1.22 in chips)
Seat 6: hobbes54321 ($10.78 in chips)
Level R1: posts small blind $0.01
ijwen: posts big blind $0.02
*** HOLE CARDS ***
Dealt to angrystoc [Kc Ac]
hobbes54321: folds
VSB.Gimli: folds
MarcusVonRix: calls $0.02
angrystoc: raises $0.08 to $0.10
Level R1: folds
ijwen: folds
MarcusVonRix: calls $0.08
*** FLOP *** [Jc 7c 7s]
MarcusVonRix: checks
angrystoc: bets $0.14
MarcusVonRix: calls $0.14
*** TURN *** [Jc 7c 7s] [Qc]
MarcusVonRix: checks
angrystoc: checks
*** RIVER *** [Jc 7c 7s Qc] [4h]
MarcusVonRix: bets $0.34
angrystoc: raises $0.34 to $0.68
MarcusVonRix: raises $0.46 to $1.14 and is all-in
angrystoc: calls $0.46

Now let's look at ranges:
Preflop I'm thinking he limp-called 5x on the Button, so it's still fairly wide but we'll say {22+, A9s+, ATo+, KT+, QT+, and probably any number of SCs} (I don't really know how to get these into PokerStove).

Flop Check/Call so I'm thinking a weaker flush draw, possibly any PP or a Jack, the possibility of set is there, but if we make our draw we're still ok and JJ is a small part of his range, so we have a lot of equity. So we're looking at {22+, QJ+, and SCs}

Turn This is could be a misplay on my part, he looks scared of the flush, and I thought slow playing was the best way to get the money in. However, he checks which makes a flush less likely. My range at this point is looking like this {22+, QJ+, and SCs}

River He thinks his hand is good, but we've got the nut flush so we reraise (this probably should've been a fold/shove). He 3 bets... Hmmm, JJ? Oh well, we're priced in and have a ton of equity against weaker flushes and overpairs.

Well, he showed J7o which didn't enter my ranges at any point. I don't know how differently I would've played the hand, but I do consider it a $1.50 lesson in why you proceed with caution on paired boards when you have a FD.

shitty lesson. By the turn, the only lesson you can take from this hand is that poker deals you coolers. Is it impossible that he turns over 4c5c and the pot is shipped to you? Hell! then it'd be a $1.50 forgettable hand of the day where some fish played crappy cards and shoveled all of his american dollars to you!

I like how you think your opponent is telling you a story with his actions. I used to do this all the time and I've lost it. I guess I still conjure it up when I think, "well, he's expecting me to call... so I fold"

Originally Posted by spoonitnow

Now the turn card comes, we adjust the range that we have for Villain, make an evaluation of each betting option, and then pick the one that we think is best.

Ok, let me take a stab. He called the flop bet, which tells us something. The turn check may tell us a little, but could also be deceptive since we had the initiative, so I'm not going to eliminate too much of my range based on that.

Based on the Flop call, he's pretty likely to have some sort of hand (from overs to flush draws to the nuts). Hands that beat us are a small part of this range 12 combos of JJ/QQ and 12 combos of J7/Q7 (1 combo of 77). Flush draws that just hit are considerably wider (about 50 possible combos, some less likely than others. Based on our read he is certainly cable of calling gappers though). And finally you have the trips / pocketpairs / overs that are less likely to continue. Without time to do the napkin math (or having pokerstove on hand), I'm going to guess there's at least 300 in this range. So we're something in the area of 90% good against his range. So let's look at our options.

Fold - Don't like it. Certainly --EV.

Check - With our equity, the best argument for checking here would be to induce a bluff. We have the near-nuts, and if he's re-drawing to a full house with trip 7s, he's about 6% to hit. He's shown some weakness this hand, folded to turn bets in the past, and taken some pots without going to show down. I'd say this is 0 EV on this street, with a possible EV edge on the river against the lower part of his range if we can convince him we're scared of the flush or have a weaker hand than we do.

Bet - We're certainly ahead of a large portion of his range. We can bet for value here, and are likely to get a call with 20-30% of his range (only about 5% of which beats us) and then again on the river. We don't want to overbet and push out all the hands we beat. Betting half pot looks good because it also builds the pot enough to give him good odds to call the rest of his stack on the river. Half pot bet here is optimal EV if he's in the higher portion of his range.

All that said, I still like a check against this villain. He hasn't shown us any strength in this hand to make us believe he's on a flush draw or better, there aren't many hands he's going to make on the river that beat us, and we've seen him fold to turn bets after floating the flop. If I think he's folding to a bet 70% of the time, but betting the river with worse half the time after a check... Again, if my logic was flawed, I'd be interested to hear other opinions.

all of that solid thinking and you still can't let go of checking the turn? It's a bet and it's not close. And here's why... if he calls the turn 30% of the time, he still gets to call the river!

And you should always shove the river if you intend to induce him to bet the river. Minraising just give him the chance to put less money in with his unfoldable hands.

Also, I forgot to add, how much does it suck when the river comes a J, 7, club, Q?

Originally Posted by Robb

This whole post was me - get to the turn, think "wtf?!?! now what did he do preflop...oh, screw the whole range thing, I'm all-in." I'm a lot better putting villain's on ranges during the hands, but I got better by watching a TON of hands in the HEM replayer, with hole cards hidden and HUD stats showing, stopping the action on each street. I chose big pots that went to show down (so there would be lots of action to narrow ranges) that I wasn't involved in so I didn't remember the outcome (like I would have if it was my stack won/lost).

After only a couple of hours of work, I was getting pretty good at it. One thing that helped was a chart I made listing each hand in terms of its hot/cold (all-in) strength a la Poker Stove, and then reworking it into coherent ranges for various VP$P/PFR combinations. When I went back online to the tables, I pretty quickly got "up to game speed" with my reads.

Here is an example of the range work I put together using Poker Stove:

4% PFR: 99+,AK, AQs
10% PFR: 77+, AJ+, KJ+, ATs
16% PFR: 22+, AT+, KT+, QJ, A8s+

These are basic ranges that I tweak based on reads - they don't include much consideration of suitedness or the fact that many TAGG's open 22-77 before KJ, but they get me "in the ballpark."

I'm leaving a lot of the results unreported (I have all even PFR's <35, for example, with notes about how they change when a person overplays Axs or suited BW's, etc), because I think you remember it long term BECAUSE you did all the work figuring it out in the first place.

BTW, I did the work because I was break-even for like 50k hands at 10nl, which means I REALLY sucked at poker for several months. And guys like Jyms, Spoon and BJaust kicked me in the ass for being a lazy sonuvabitch, and spewing when I should be pwning the micros. Trust me, when Spenda or Spoon or rilla start suggesting a "thinking" project , it will help your game if you do what they say. I had a $300 br 3 months ago that's now 10x thanks to those guys' "encouragement."

So, while I'm not perfect at putting opp's on ranges, yet, the 10 hours or so effort was +++++EV for me, and could be for all y'all.

Robb, I don't use HEM, but have found inspiration in your post. I'm wondering if you or others can comment on the functionality of doing this through PT3. I do like the PS ranges, I have worked with them and also tied the PFR% to some hands through posts previous in the digest where there are some odds of say AA,KK,AK being their hand pre-flop... I think that may have some value here also.

Originally Posted by angrystoc

some stuff i cut out because this post is already long as shit

This is immensely better. This is closer to the type of analysis you should be doing every street of every hand. From that point, the major way you'll improve is by improving your analytical skills, including the speed and accuracy that you make your evaluations of different aspects of the hand. First a few comments about your process of analysis, and then a few comments about the analysis itself.

You probably wouldn't consider folding at the table because you have the option of checking so don't mistake this as me saying you shouldn't consider folding rah rah rah just because you typed it. But instead, this is a good spot to mention what a dominated strategic option is because it can come in handy in other spots and help make your analysis faster. A strategic option (any betting decision) is dominated when there is another option that is always better than or equal to it. Here, checking dominates folding because it's always better than or equal to it (for obvious reasons). Anytime you find a dominated option you should disregard it from your analysis because the dominating option is always a better choice and doing so will keep you from wasting time (which is important because we have a limited time to make decisions).

The second thing about your actual process of analysis is that you didn't do much along the lines of quantifying or estimating the value of each possible choice. Obviously you shouldn't be expected to do a whole lot of complicated math at the table, but these estimations are like the one step you really really really need to work on to make your analysis effective. Like I can't even stress the importance enough.

(Note: Keep in mind I'm just trying to illustrate how to add a simple calculation to your analysis -- don't take the rest of this paragraph as advice on the hand because that starts in the next paragraph. This paragraph is just to show a sample calculation!!) Here's what I mean. When considering a check, you noted that it was close to 0 EV on the turn with a small amount of value on the river. You could reword that just a little to include how much you think you would get on the river on average. Let's pull something out of our asses as what you expect to get on the river if you check just so we have an example: let's say you get a $0.30 bet out of him 2/3 of the time for an average value of about $0.20. Now, when you consider betting, you say that you expect a call with ~30% of his range and about 1/6 of that (~5%) beats you. Well you suspect you'll be stacking off on the river, so roughly five times you'll win about $1.10 total (since that's what he's got left in his stack and you have him covered) and one time you'll lose $1.10 for a value of about $4.40/6 which is like $0.70 or something but is obviously higher than $0.20. So if we used those calculations with our analysis we decide that we think betting is better.

Okay now to address the analysis itself.

The first thing is how you've quantified his range. On the board of J77Q there are only 3 combinations of JJ and 3 combinations of QQ (if you have trouble with this then read this thread sometime). There is 1 combo of 77, and 6 combos each of J7 and Q7, so about 19 combos that have us crushed. You noted that there are about 50 possible FD combos that hit as well, but this might be off depending on which ones you considered - if you were talking about all possible combinations of two clubs then it's closer and probably a decent enough estimation for our purposes. Next you say there are other trips/PPs/overs(?) that are less likely to continue. You said you guessed 300 or so possible combos, but again it depends on which hands you put in that range. Each possible non-boat 7 is about 8 combos each and each PP is 6 each, then there are some one-pair Jx type hands as well that are 12 combos each, so I'm thinking this is closer to 150-160 than 300, but this is something you get better at with practice. Not all of these fold to a turn bet, so in your analysis of betting when you think of his calling range you should estimate how much of that range calls a bet as well.

As it turns out, betting gets in your opponent's stack with you as a huge favorite very often. For estimation purposes, let's say that quads/boats' 20 combos have you crushed, 50 flush combos you have crushed, about 60 combos worth of trips come along and the other 100 or so combos of one-pair hands and stuff fold. That's around 230 combos, about 130 or so of which call, and about 15-20% of that time he has you beat. With his trips he's drawing to some outs, so we'll kick that up to say about 20% total of the time he'll have you beat on the river, and otherwise you're getting his entire stack of $1.20 or whatever it was. Summary of betting analysis: you get value from over half his range in the form of his entire stack by the river.

For a quick consideration of checking, note in comparison that you get no value on the turn, and minimal value on the river after you've given him a free card to a possible 10 outs or giving him a chance to get away from a smaller flush with another club coming on the river. Betting gets tons more value, and gives no chances for him to suck out for free or get away from a worse hand for free, and that's why betting is better than checking.

Overall it was like 10x better than what you've done so far in this thread. If you practice this in your study time and do this consistently at the tables then you will be making a shitload of money in a relatively short period of time. I seriously wish other people would pick this up because it would make them sooo much money.

I've been thinking since I made this post about how analysis could be broken down into parts for easier digestion and an increased chance of understanding. I'm thinking that a discussion of each part should include a discussion of the types of mistakes each part is prone to, and how to work with those mistakes to improve our analysis. Each part of analysis could [should] probably be applied to each street, though more specific parts (and specific parts of other parts) could possibly apply to only one, two, or three of the streets. It could also be useful to break down exactly what a street is, and the properties and attributes of some individual arbitrary street. Then we could show how some arbitrary part of analysis is affected by particular characteristics of a street, or even more specifically the particular characteristics of a betting decision. I wonder if we should start with the macro or the micro here, though.

Another awesome BC thread from the Spoon
I think about 50% of the FTR threads I have bookmarked are yours.

If everybody in the BC reads and applies this, there would be next to zero threads about individual hands here.

Let me try a HH here, see what others think. Villain is 33/9 but only 80 hands w/ station-like flop stats: 31% folds to cbet, AF ~ 0.5 and AG% ~ 17. Here's the hand:

$0.25/$0.5 No Limit Holdem
9 players
Converted at weaktight.com

Stacks:
UTG ($10.80)
Hero (UTG 1) ($104.70)
MP1 ($33.30)
MP2 ($50.80)
MP3 ($80.95)
CO ($54.00)
BTN ($51.25)
SB ($10.75)
BB ($50.00)

Pre-flop: ($0.75, 9 players) Hero is UTG 1
1 fold, Hero raises to $1.50, 3 folds, CO calls $1.50, 3 folds

Flop: ($3.75, 2 players)
Hero bets $2.50, CO calls $2.50

Turn: ($8.75, 2 players)
Hero bets $4.50, CO raises to $10.50, Hero calls $6

River: ($29.75, 2 players)
Hero checks, CO bets $18, $18 to Hero ($90.20)?


I tend to get the hand types estimated with some accuracy, but I'm not good at actually getting proportions for combos for the subranges where villain will raise/call/fold, so I'm working all that out below to see what you think.

Ranges
Preflop: his cc is extremely wide, including 22 - AA (no evidence of 3betting, but I'm still discounting premium hands a bit anyway), all BW's, all sc's and suited 1 gappers, and Axs. There's probably some junk like K8s or A8o, too.

Flop: Again, his range is wide, since he apparently calls with everything up to the immortal nuts. I have 3 groups:

1. pp's 22+
2. Ax / Axs to include all FD's plus AT+ w/ redraw
3. SC's / suited gappers / suited broadways that connect

So we have, say, 150 combo's:
1. 55ish combos (discounting AA/KK)
2. 45ish combos (this part of the range may be wider if he's willing to call down bets w/ GSSD's)
3. 50ish combos (depends on how many hands like K9s are in there)

Turn: Pretty much a blank.

He'll likely raise with:
1. Sets (12 combos) plus he might think JJ+ is good (18 combos - recall AA/KK discounted).
2. A2 and ... not much else, maybe Ad4d (5 combos, assuming he's only flatting suited Ace-rag).
3. 32s - 76s (12 combos), 42s - 75s (11 combos). IDK, here, he's so passive it's hard to tell.

He'll likely fold...next to nothing he called the flop with, but might find the fold button with 99 or TT. So we basically have:

Raise: 40 combos
Call: 100 combos
Fold: 10 combos (maybe)

I bet smallish on the turn intentionally. He's so passive that if I pot the turn to make him pay for draws, he probably won't raise even with sets/straights. I figured that if I bet small, he might raise some hands that have me drawing thin.

The troubling thing that I didn't have time for at the table was whether we should call this raise. Of the 40 combos, we are only ahead of the 15 or so combo hands like 65s (some other suit that diamonds, obv), but we're not sure he'd actually raise with a pair + OESD. Hero gets 17.75 to 6 pot odds on the call (just worse than 3 to 1) and Hero's best case is to be ahead 5 to 3 against. I don't our odds are that good. So the call is close break-even, but I think in hindsight this was a fold against a villain this passive.

River: well, that decision was obvious, even though I was off in my mental estimates of his range, since the flushes hit and we now have a station firing a 2/3's pot river bet which he does with 65 about never. The pot odds are 48 to 18 (about 5 to 2), but it's a pretty clear fold.

How'd I do? At the table, I did try this (since I was focused on range reading practice during tonight's session) and got close to these estimates by the turn. I would appreciate any critiques y'all have.

Ive had a result trying to apply putting people on ranges.After reading this awesome thread.

Because I was trying to put everyone on the table on some kindof range.I noticed one villian in particular , I noticed he was opening 5xBB on a massive range.SOmething I probably wouldnt have noticed prior to this thread!



I was sat waiting for him. patience.

I made notes on him.

bluffs a fair bit.loose aggresive
Calling machine with second pair.
called aggressive 7BB on turn and river with Js 7D with a 9s 7c 2s 3h 5d


---------------===

a few orbits later.


I was sat with

10H 9H

the flop

10S 5C 2D

He did his usual 5xBB.

I took his. stack.

I felt like Sherlock Holmes.The Jackal.

I exited Because I know I would have Tilted.

Outstanding thread Spoon. Really outstanding.

Also:

Originally Posted by spoonitnow

I've been thinking since I made this post about how analysis could be broken down into parts for easier digestion and an increased chance of understanding. I'm thinking that a discussion of each part should include a discussion of the types of mistakes each part is prone to, and how to work with those mistakes to improve our analysis. Each part of analysis could [should] probably be applied to each street, though more specific parts (and specific parts of other parts) could possibly apply to only one, two, or three of the streets. It could also be useful to break down exactly what a street is, and the properties and attributes of some individual arbitrary street. Then we could show how some arbitrary part of analysis is affected by particular characteristics of a street, or even more specifically the particular characteristics of a betting decision. I wonder if we should start with the macro or the micro here, though.

Yes please please please. Speaking as something of a noob who has barely started to understand and try to apply this stuff (I desperately want to) that would be of enormous help. It's often quite difficult not to be overwhelmed by all this. A street by street, stage by stage break down would be fantastic.

im away for a while and come back to find this.

spoon for mod imo.

Thanks sil693.

You guys seem to like posting hand histories with analysis in this thread, but what you should be doing is posting hand histories in their own threads with the same type of analysis.

Just the fucking BOMB!

I'm a mushroom-cloud laying motherfucker, motherfucker.

Originally Posted by spoonitnow

Thanks sil693.

You guys seem to like posting hand histories with analysis in this thread, but what you should be doing is posting hand histories in their own threads with the same type of analysis.

Good point - may redo the post. But if you were a mod, you could just split them off.

Awesome bumped thread link bump for awesome bump factor

Bump.

Stumbled upon this and it turned out to be a pretty good thread that's worth reading.

Originally Posted by spoonitnow

I'm a mushroom-cloud laying motherfucker, motherfucker.

Blessed is he who, in the name of charity and good will, shepherds the weak through the valley of darkness, for he is truly his brother's keeper and the finder of lost children.

Originally Posted by spoonitnow

Bump.

Stumbled upon this and it turned out to be a pretty good thread that's worth reading.

Yes it is. For a while there at the beginning I thought all was lost but I'm working my way through and trying to get my head around it all. I see questions in the future of this thread...

I think this post has helped me. I haven't been back on PStars.com to play in any Cash game just some Freeroll Tournaments and I feel I'm getting better as the hands I'm involved with do progess to showing all 5 community cards. Great Post!!

great informative post, I find myself messing up the river like that from time to time too. This will definitely help new players get in the habit of putting their opponents on a range

Originally Posted by spoonitnow

...I've been thinking since I made this post about how analysis could be broken down into parts for easier digestion and an increased chance of understanding....

Hello spoonitnow

Did this ever happen?

Pls. point me at it, as i am in dire needz.

[am still working thru rpm's list of everythreadthatwaseverstartedonftrever, so apologies if it's on there and i just haven't got to it yet]

Originally Posted by DoubleJ

Hello spoonitnow

Did this ever happen?

Pls. point me at it, as i am in dire needz.

[am still working thru rpm's list of everythreadthatwaseverstartedonftrever, so apologies if it's on there and i just haven't got to it yet]

Long story short, put your opponent on a range after for decision they make in every hand, starting at the beginning of the hand and narrowing down their likely range as the hand goes on. Practice doing this a lot, learn general theory, and then win lots of money.

Originally Posted by spoonitnow

Long story short, put your opponent on a range after for decision they make in every hand, starting at the beginning of the hand and narrowing down their likely range as the hand goes on. Practice doing this a lot, learn general theory, and then win lots of money.

mmmmm! I likes that story... especially the ending.

minimal yet emotionally charged. very kierkegaard

did spoonitnow just post in a BC thread?

Originally Posted by Penneywize

did spoonitnow just post in a BC thread?

Must be because of the rapture and all that tomorrow.

Should give me lots of +rep and I might do it more often.

Originally Posted by supahaole

Must be because of the rapture and all that tomorrow.

lol blue monday prediction! props!