Originally Posted by Massimo

ok it's not really fundamentals. I mean i got into a position where my range crushes someone elses and it became unprofitable because he outthought me.

Originally Posted by bigspenda73

Uh what if I shove a flop with any two, my range is balanced, but something seems exploitable....

Originally Posted by Jager

What is wrong with folding if we are not comfortable stacking off?

Originally Posted by Pelion

Something Ive been thinking about for a little while (and it relates to my previous post and sauces post) is that the whole purpose for balancing ranges is misunderstood by alot of people, and consequently balenced ranges are overused.
Ideally you want to be playing an unbalanced range to exploit the tendancies of your opponents. Verses an opponent with static tendencies you will use static ranges and tendencies to exploit them. Against a calling station you will value bet "too much" and bluff "too little". Against a rock you will value bet "too little" and bluff "too much". Against an opponent who is trying to adjust to you you must oscillate your ranges so that when he is folding too much you will bluff too more and when he is calling too much you will bluff less. You oscillate your ranges to take advantage of his tendencies oscillating between rocky and stationy, but your ranges remain unbalanced to fully exploit his tendencies at that time.

It is only when someone sits down at the table who can predict your gear changes and remains one step ahead of you that you have to start balancing your ranges against them in order to defend against them exploiting you.

So yea, I think balanced ranges are a defensive tool that we should use when we are at a table with a decent number of players worse than us, but also with a decent player capable of "getting inside our head" at the table. Without this player at the table a balanced range becomes less than optimal, but if we left our ranges unbalanced with him there, he would be able to play against us too easily and would ruin us.

It would be nice if some of the high stakes players would jump in on this. (nice to see sauce here already )

Originally Posted by Irisheyes

Yeah but ISF would stack off with J4o there.

Originally Posted by IowaSkinsFan

I wouldn't be surprised if i saw a hand where this happened.

Speaking on the point though Max, you are inheritently ahead of my range preflop if you raise preflop and i just call on that board. Most of the time when this happens you are going to be winning and im going to be losing, so its dumb to play this scenario on my part very aggressively.

Originally Posted by Massimo

Ok so here's the thing. If you try to outplay someone on that flop by widening your range, if he out-thinks you and you will lose the advantage of ranges you have with that flop.

It's important to keep this range advantage. So vs a thinking player who realizes that you're very aggressive in this spot, you should not widen your range.

but that's obvious

Originally Posted by Roel

isn't the clue here that if we are willing to stack off just because our range is ahead of his range and he knows this, he can just pick his spots and stack off when his hand is ahead of our range?

I mean to say that if we are willing to stack off just because of the theorem, then he knows our stacking of range is basically our whole preflop raising range from the cutoff.

Originally Posted by gabe

if he can adjust to you, you can adjust to him.

Originally Posted by Chopper

you can be so far left, you are right. you can be so smart, youre stupid. and vice versa.

Originally Posted by Pelion

neither of these make any sense, and neither does loosening up so much you become tight

Originally Posted by Chopper

always on my jock, pel. i swear, you must think my head is about to implode.

Originally Posted by Fnord

The better you read your opponent, the less the cheap streets matter. Lots of stuff we take for granted goes out the window. This is how some technically terrible players can do absurdly well in juicy live games.