Quote Originally Posted by XTR1000
Guys, don´t bother "balancing" your ranges anywhere below 200NL and even there you should only do it vs a person who can read your hand (those are few!)

The idea of balancing simply means to have a range made up of different kinds of hands, for the sake of being less "readable" and to gain from a game-theory pov (if u haven´t yet, read this)

This whole balancing thing plays on the second level, so as long the villain is only concerned about his cards and which button to click on, you´ll actually own urself. Also note, that it´s all about, what the villain perceives to be your range, so u could flip it upside down and exploit a villain who perceives u to be balanced by being not.

For example, I 3bet a 20/16 CO´s open in position. On level one, I´d 3bet all those hands, which happen to have 50% equity+ vs his range when called. "Balancing" would mean, that I add hands like A4s or 56s to that range, which don´t play particularly well vs his continuing range, but are part of a range which is perceived to be at least moderately strong and can gain a profit from folding equity. After 1k hands vs me he looks at his HUD and thinks "OMG hes 3ballin me 10% in position, thats not that strong a range" and has to adjust his former call 3bet/4ball ranges. Until he properly adjusts, we gained a lot from the mistakes he made, due to us being balanced, ie not calling a hand like KQs or AQo, not 4balling JJ or whatever it may be.


"Merging" a range refers to having ur range made up of hands, that are located on a steady interval over ur pot equity (??) {88+,KQo, KJs+, AQ, AK} would be a merged range to say 3bet from the blinds, opposed to a "polarized" range, which looks like {QQ+, AK, 22-44, A2s-A5s}.

We merge our range, to have more hands for value, we polarize a range to gain folding equity on the weak part and stimulate action for the stronger ones in that range.
Yeah that Shania post is one of my favorites..

I just never realized that's what balancing your range is.

Hmm I think I got it.. so basically we occasionally add 34s etc to our early range which polarizes it and in doing so increases the value we get out of hands like AA/KK. The amount our big hands make increases and even though our weaker opening hands aren't necessarily profitable(even if we do win some monster pots occasionally with them), our AVERAGE profit theoretically increases because we get paid more when we have the nuts.

Is this right in a nutshell?

So typically we want more of a merged range against weaker players and a polarized range vs thinking players?