Thoughts?

[seven-deuce]

It folds to a 22/19 with a 35% ats. Villain opens for 3bb, SB folds, and the action's on Heroin the BB. How would you play your range here?

My attempt at seeing whether 3bet bluffing will be profitable vs Villain.

Villains pre-flop range: 22+, A2s+, K2s+, Q9s+, J9s+, T9s, 98s, 87s, 76s, 65s, 54s, 43s, 32s, A2o+, K9o+, QTo+, JTo, T9o

Total 462 combos ~ 35% of hands.

If Hero 3bets to 10bb villain has to continue with 34% to avoid being exploited.

If villain continues with: TT+, ATs+, A5s-A2s, KJs+, QJs, JTs, AQo+, KQo

Then he's continuing only 0.246 or ~25% of the time and folding the remaining 75%. Does this seem reasonable? Would we not be able to exploit a villain with 35% ats very easily then?

So once we figure out that we can gain an advantage on someone by 3bet bluffing, how do we figure out what our 3bet bluffing frequency should be in relation to our 3bet for value range?

So would 3betting JJ+ AK for value and some 3bet bluffs be a decent strategy ( I don't know how to get an estimate of how many). Then stack off with like KK+ only.

Sorry for the disorganised post.

[slumpy]

Sorry for my reply (but this is the Beginner's Circle!) - what does this mean?

It folds to a 22/19 with a 35% ats.

Thanks

[OngBonga]

slumpy - 22/19 means he's playing 22% of hands, raising 19%, which means he's probably not limping, and is rarely calling raises. His pre flop strategy should be considered solid.

ats means attempt to steal... so he's attempting to steal 35% of the time... this is how often he's raising the button when it folds to him.

To answer OP - it depends. I'm no longer in the habit of playing my range in any static way... I can 3bet AA here and I can flat it... same with 89s... much depends on dynamics, in particular how often I've 3b him in similar spots so far. If I've been folding a lot, my 3bet range is gonna be a lot wider than if I 3bet him light last time he attacked our blind. There's so many more factors that might influence how I play my range, many that probably shouldn't be of influence but they are. How much sleep did I get last night? Is it hot? Am I hungry? Am I running good? Am I in a good mood? etc

Sorry I can't answer your question properly.

[spoonitnow]

If someone wouldn't have stolen our stickies for the gets-no-traffic SSNL forum, then you would have been able to just look at what those numbers mean in an easy "read this before posting" FAQ type post.

[spoonitnow]

slumpy - 22/19 means he's playing 22% of hands, raising 19%, which means he's probably not limping, and is rarely calling raises. His pre flop strategy should be considered solid.

ats means attempt to steal... so he's attempting to steal 35% of the time... this is how often he's raising the button when it folds to him.

To answer OP - it depends. I'm no longer in the habit of playing my range in any static way... I can 3bet AA here and I can flat it... same with 89s... much depends on dynamics, in particular how often I've 3b him in similar spots so far. If I've been folding a lot, my 3bet range is gonna be a lot wider than if I 3bet him light last time he attacked our blind. There's so many more factors that might influence how I play my range, many that probably shouldn't be of influence but they are. How much sleep did I get last night? Is it hot? Am I hungry? Am I running good? Am I in a good mood? etc

Sorry I can't answer your question properly.

Most useless answer ever. The idea is to actually come up with a good way to play your range so that you can get better at poker.

[B-squared]

It folds to a 22/19 with a 35% ats. Villain opens for 3bb, SB folds, and the action's on Heroin the BB. How would you play your range here?

My attempt at seeing whether 3bet bluffing will be profitable vs Villain.

Villains pre-flop range: 22+, A2s+, K2s+, Q9s+, J9s+, T9s, 98s, 87s, 76s, 65s, 54s, 43s, 32s, A2o+, K9o+, QTo+, JTo, T9o

Total 462 combos ~ 35% of hands.

If Hero 3bets to 10bb villain has to continue with 34% to avoid being exploited.

If villain continues with: TT+, ATs+, A5s-A2s, KJs+, QJs, JTs, AQo+, KQo

Then he's continuing only 0.246 or ~25% of the time and folding the remaining 75%. Does this seem reasonable? Would we not be able to exploit a villain with 35% ats very easily then?

So once we figure out that we can gain an advantage on someone by 3bet bluffing, how do we figure out what our 3bet bluffing frequency should be in relation to our 3bet for value range?

So would 3betting JJ+ AK for value and some 3bet bluffs be a decent strategy ( I don't know how to get an estimate of how many). Then stack off with like KK+ only.

Sorry for the disorganised post.

I would like to have a stab at forming a range to 3bet bluff with. I think an important factor would be how regularly you had been 3bet bluffing into villain in the past, it probably isn't a good idea to do it for the fourth time in a row unless you have hit a hand you are 3betting for value.

My understanding is that:
EV of Semi-Bluffing = (fold %)(pot size) + (call %)(our equity)(pot + bet size) + (call%)(villain’s equity)(-bet size). So I will use an example from 2NL because its the easiest numbers for someone who is bad at maths like me to work with. If villain is folding 75% of the time to a 3bet:
EV = (75%)($0.09) + (25%)(Equity)($0.29) + (25%)(Villain's Equity)(-$0.20)

I think ideally, the bluffing range needs to be wide enough to exploit villain's high folding frequency, but tight enough that we have some equity if he calls. To be honest, because the range in which he continues to a 3bet is so low, I think its possible to 3bet pretty damn wide into this opponent and for it to remain +EV. But after playing around in equilab for a while, a range like {TT-77,AQs-A2s,K9s+,Q9s+,JTs,AQo-ATo,KJo+,QJo} looks pretty nice to 3bet bluff with, because although it is fairly wide it holds about 41% equity against his continuing range of {TT+, ATs+, A5s-A2s, KJs+, QJs, JTs, AQo+, KQo}.

Please spoony or one of the more experienced players pick this post apart.

EDIT: I just realised its probably better to be calling with some of these hands then 3betting. So in conclusion, I'm a donk

[seven-deuce]

@B-Squared cheers for the reply!

I don't think you can analyze the EV of 3betting as you have in your post because what happens post-flop will affect the EV in a considerable way. I don't know how to do it either. Yeah some of the stronger hands in the range you have provided I would call as well such as AQ KQ JT TT etc because you will have a lot of the hands in villain's range dominated and you just wanna have a stronger range in general when you're OOP.

There's a way of working out the optimal bluff:value ratio regarding 3bets I think it has something to do with the Alpha Value. Anyway when you look at things from villain's perspective he has to continue a certain % of the time to avoid getting exploited. If you figure out he's playing exploitably by either continuing too little or too much you can deviate from your optimal 3bet bluff:value ratio in order to exploit him.

Bear in mind, once you've spotted a weakness that you can take advantage of you don't wanna alert Villain to the fact that you're exploiting him. So it's better to adjust in a measured way as opposed to 3betting some insane amount of bluffs, which will tip villain off almost immediately as to what you're doing.

[B-squared]

@B-Squared cheers for the reply!

I don't think you can analyze the EV of 3betting as you have in your post because what happens post-flop will affect the EV in a considerable way. I don't know how to do it either. Yeah some of the stronger hands in the range you have provided I would call as well such as AQ KQ JT TT etc because you will have a lot of the hands in villain's range dominated and you just wanna have a stronger range in general when you're OOP.

There's a way of working out the optimal bluff:value ratio regarding 3bets I think it has something to do with the Alpha Value. Anyway when you look at things from villain's perspective he has to continue a certain % of the time to avoid getting exploited. If you figure out he's playing exploitably by either continuing too little or too much you can deviate from your optimal 3bet bluff:value ratio in order to exploit him.

Bear in mind, once you've spotted a weakness that you can take advantage of you don't wanna alert Villain to the fact that you're exploiting him. So it's better to adjust in a measured way as opposed to 3betting some insane amount of bluffs, which will tip villain off almost immediately as to what you're doing.

That makes sense... yes I didn't consider the post-flop stuff on EV! Donkies gonna donk :P. I feel like to form a the optimal range for the villain you would need a lot of information :S. I understand the idea of the optimal ratio and deviating from it conceptually, but arriving at a range mathematically sounds 2spooky4me. Anyway sorry for hijacking your thread

[spoonitnow]

So what you're normally wanting to do here as you get started is break up your range into four general parts. In order from weakest to strongest, it should go: fold, 3-bet bluff, call, 3-bet value.

Here's another way to look at it:

<----- fold -----|----- 3-bet bluff -----|----- call -----|----- 3-bet value ----->

What you want to notice is the structure of your range here. All of your 3-bet bluff hands should be worse than your calling hands, and all of your calling hands should be worse than your 3-bet value hands. This is the basic structure that your range should tend to fall into here, and understanding this structure is really important. To get you started, you'll want to start from the strongest end of your range and work your way down by putting all of the profitable 3-bet value hands into one bucket, all of the remaining profitable calling hands into another bucket, and all of the remaining 3-bet bluff hands into a third bucket. Each of these buckets tells you your range.

For example, with a hand like QJs or ATo, you'll tend to want to call since these hands are profitable to call with. These hands go in the calling bucket since this comes before the 3-bet bluff bucket. With something like A5o or J8s that isn't profitable as a call, you'll be more likely to want to 3-bet as a bluff as long as those hands are profitable when doing so.

(Re: B-squared) Once you understand how this structure works and you're able to get a general idea of what your range should look like in these situations against certain opponents, then you can start deviating to do things like be more balanced, etc. If you want to be really close to perfectly balanced regarding the bluffing game and facing 4-bet bluffs with your 3-bet range with stacks around 100bb, then make your 3-bet bluffing range about twice the size as your 3-bet value range. This is a general guideline that's pretty close to being perfect in terms of the numbers, and it's close enough for our purposes.

[OngBonga]

Most useless answer ever. The idea is to actually come up with a good way to play your range so that you can get better at poker.

Ok, so I should play my range the same every time?

[Savy]

Ok, so I should play my range the same every time?

Given the information that you have, yes. Baring in mind that in a range you can do action A x% and action B y%.

[OngBonga]

I realise you'll just think I'm being a dick, I can assure you I'm not. I find it hard to engage in this kind of exercise, because I feel like what I'm being asked to do is play my range in a static manner.

Let's say button opens, well should I have a rigid 3bet range? Does it matter what happened last time villain was on the button? My point is there's so many factors that influence my decision, that I can't tell you how I play my range in any given spot, because we simply don't have all the information. Is this wrong? Is this retarded thought process? Should I ignore the dynamics between us and villain up to this point so that I can give an answer that you can give me a gold star for?

[OngBonga]

Given the information that you have, yes. Baring in mind that in a range you can do action A x% and action B y%.

Well then I can give an answer, and it would be a lie, because I don't play my range the same every time.

[spoonitnow]

I realise you'll just think I'm being a dick, I can assure you I'm not. I find it hard to engage in this kind of exercise, because I feel like what I'm being asked to do is play my range in a static manner.

Let's say button opens, well should I have a rigid 3bet range? Does it matter what happened last time villain was on the button? My point is there's so many factors that influence my decision, that I can't tell you how I play my range in any given spot, because we simply don't have all the information. Is this wrong? Is this retarded thought process? Should I ignore the dynamics between us and villain up to this point so that I can give an answer that you can give me a gold star for?

The "dynamic" and what happened the last time Villain opened are particularly over-rated pieces of information that should not change how you play very much at all once you've decided what you think their range is and estimated how you expect them to play it.

As far as "having all of the information" goes, you never have all of the information, and that doesn't keep you from making decisions about how you play your range any other time.

OP is a new player trying to get better by thinking about things that he hasn't really thought about before, and that was the point of his exercise. If you want to try to work through it yourself so that a group of people can compare ideas and share thoughts, that's awesome.

[Savy]

Well then I can give an answer, and it would be a lie, because I don't play my range the same every time.

Given you have the same information why wouldn't you? What makes you special? Do you have any results to back up you thinking that you're special?

Changing your range based on information is obviously something we do I'm not really sure why you're making such a big deal about it.

[seven-deuce]

@Ong

This is how I understand it currently. We have a 22/19 with a 35% ats pounding on us from the CO & BTN. First of all you need to consider why he's doing that, how you can shore up your range to protect yourself, and lastly how you can use it to your advantage.

Take a step back and look at the nature of attack and defence abstractly like in this post: http://www.flopturnriver.com/pokerfo...se-197718.html

What are the weaknesses here? Hero's weakness is that his folding range to an open from the CO or BTN is too large, so villain is capitalising on this by stealing more. The second weakness is the one villain has created for himself by exploiting hero's folding frequency: his opening ranges from the CO and BTN are too wide.

So in order to avoid being exploited hero has to decrease the size of his folding range. This can be done in two ways. The first way is to move hands from your folding range to your calling range, and the second is to move hands from your folding range to your 3-bet bluff range.

Now that we have spotted a weakness in our opponents game we can play our range a little differently in order to increase the overall EV of our range.

If hero 3-bets to 10bb here he needs villain to fold more than ~66% of the time. And for the sake of discussion let's assume my estimates of his ranges are fairly accurate, and he's folding 75%, we can gain an advantage here. Next step is to figure out what hands we can profitably 4-bet and get it in with, and once we have this info we can decide which hands to bluff with.

I'm not trying to come across condescending, I was working through it at walking pace for my own benefit as much as any one elses. After more than 200,000 hands of button mashing changing your thought process isn't easy.

And I agree with Savy and Spoon about the dynamic thing, it doesn't really matter that much. You've spotted a weakness and are trying to exploit it, as long as you don't go completely overboard trying to maximally exploit the guy what happened last time is largely irrelevant.

It's kind of like if you were on the BTN and both blinds were folding like 90% of the time, you've spotted a weakness. Are you gonna fold a profitable steal because "you stole last time" and "they might 3-bet me"?

[OngBonga]

I'm sorry I didn't mean to derail this thread with shit. I thought I was making a perfectly valid point, but it seems I'm just retarded.