Preflop ABCD range practice

hello. lately i have been considering preflop tendencies with the idea in mind that if i can form good "ABCD" ranges preflop, the margin for postflop error is less because the street before it was played well - obvious example is carelessly cbetting 100% of your range on 100% of flops. it's clear in this example why having such a weak range is going to cause lots of margin for error on turn cards. especially if your opponents are aware enough to exploit it. so in a way this ties in with what daven posted in "planning hands". it seems that every error on a previous street becomes compounded on a later one because the later the street, the bigger the pot, and the bigger betsizes can obviously be expected to be. no-one likes to find themselves on 5th street facing a check/shove UNLESS they already planned for what they would do against a c/shove and why they were going to do it. anyway, i have decided to do some preflop ABCD exercises against the tendencies of some opponents at my stakes for the sake of improvement. i will give you every piece of information i have on this guy so we can all be on a (relatively) level playing field. please critique/comment on the ranges i give him and how i form my range as a result. or on my whole thought process, or anything. lets talk ranges.

i have 2k hands on this guy, he's a not so good reg that plays exclusively 250bb deep tables and is a goldstar (at 10nl that's a decent amount of monthly volume imo). relevant stats are as follows:

villain is 26/10/2.2 (3bet)
PREFLOP
PFR by position is
EP 10%
MP 13%
CO 13%
BU 14%
SB 5%
BB 3%

fold to 3bet 7% (14)
hasn't 4bet

ATS by position
CO 31% (68)
BU 43% (53)
SB 27% (26)

POSTFLOP
cbets 63%
folds to cbet 44%
raise cbet 9%

checkraise 6%
donk 3%

aggression frequencies are
flop 24%
turn 29%
river 21%

cbets 52% of turns (29)
folds to 22% of turn cbets (37)

i also have the following notes on him (all prefaced with 10nl FR deepstack table):
- limp/calls suited aces any position
- C/C flop and turn w/top pair no kicker vs preflop aggressor
- B/C turn w/top pair top kicker on wet board, bloated pot (this was AJ on Jxxx, ie loses to overpairs)
- call overbet on turn w/2nd nut flush draw + 2 overs (this wasn't against me so maybe he had a read on the particular villain, but spew imo nonetheless)

ok so now i plan to run some different scenarios of playing against this guy preflop. 2 people limp to him in the CO, and he opens for 6x. i'm on the BU. the blinds are both 0/0 over an infinite sample and we'll say the limpers are like 26/14ish because those are common at the deepstack tables. what's my range?

first, what's his range? well, despite his ATS being 30% over a decent sample from this position, as best i know ATS is only when he OPENS, ie has been folded to, in this scenario he is raising after two guys who aren't superfish have limped to him. i'm more inclined to look up his PFR% by position for this one, which is 13%. which 13%? this guy likes to see flops, especially with "drawing" hands that have big hand potential like Axs, Kxs and suited connectors (hence his 26% total VPIP). based on my reads that he limp/calls Axs from any position, and the fact that he only opens 10% on average - i imagine his iso range is mostly for value - strong broadway hands and mid-high pairs. at this stage i'll guess 66+,ATs+,ATo+,KJs+,KJo+QTs+,QJo+,JTs. this comes to 13.1% in stove.

at this point i'd like to preface the rest of this post with "i become uncomfortable at this point, in that i don't really know how to best form my ranges, but i am going to attempt to do so for the sake of analysis and improvement etc etc"

now to me. my ranges (i think) should breakdown as follows:

Range A - profitable to 3bet for value vs this guy's 3bet calling range (he hasn't 4bet once over 2k hands)
Range B - profitable to smooth call vs this guy's opening range
Range C - hands which aren't strong enough to call, but have value as 3bet bluffs (preferably ones which weaken the strength of his calling range, ie have blockers to it)
Range D - the rest which i fold because it sucks to call or 3bet it.

i'll start with my 3betting for value range. while it is only a small sample where he has been 3bet and folded, it seems clear that he doesn't like doing it very much. i think 7% of a 14 sample means he's folded to 3bets once? (does fold to 3bet only count the times villain has raised, been 3bet, and folded? or just any time they folded their hand in a pot that has been 3bet before the action came to them preflop?) so he is continuing with a large percent of his opening range to a 3bet, i'll guess:

66+,ATs+,AJo+,+,KJs+,QTs+,JTs

because villain hasn't 4bet once over a reliable sample, it seems that a good 3bet for value range is one which has >50% equity versus his 3bet calling range. i'm going to say TT+,AQs+,AQo+, which has 60% versus his calling range. by 3betting this range i feel like i am exploiting his inability to fold to 3bets, simultaneously making the pot bigger while maintaining an equity edge in that pot (ie my range is stronger than his)

now i want to determine a calling range. because this guy has shown me that he has troubles folding top pair postflop, i think i can profitably call a pretty wide range of hands because my implied odds are pretty high. he also doesn't like folding to flop or turn cbets, meaning i can call with a wider range of hands expecting to exploit his postflop tendency to check/call lots. i should add in here that i auto-top up to 250bb and so does this guy, so we're always at least 250bb deep. now to the range. i definitely want to be calling all pairs 22-99 for obvious aforementioned reasons. now i consider it, my calling range should perhaps mostly be dominated by hands that make big/disguised hands postflop. i don't really feel like flatting AJo when villain's range contains 24 combinations of stronger aces, and only 4 combinations of worse aces. that seems odd that i don't feel like i can profitably call hands directly below the range i am 3betting for value (ie i'm 3betting AQo for value but don't feel comfortable flatting AJ), so i'd like to hear some peoples thoughts on that. anyway. i think i can definitely flat 34s-JTs because they can flop shitloads of postflop equity, i also want to add in 75s-QTs because they can flop quite well and deep-stack play tailors itself towards implied odds etc etc. seems really weird but i honestly don't want to be flatting many other hands than those.

as for 3bet "bluffing" i think we can find a far better person to be doing this against. this guys inability to fold against 3bets, or cbets on postflop streets make me want my 3bet range to be strong. wider than usual, but strong. anyway, as i said, please comment on my interpretation of his ranges (you have as much info in him as i do) and the way i went about planning my range based on the HEM numbers and the notes i have. or anything else that's interesting and beneficial for improving at poker.

equity win tie pots won pots tied
Hand 0: 53.244% 50.22% 03.03% 10249640820 617858504.00 { 99+, ATs+, KQs, AJo+, KQo }
Hand 1: 46.756% 43.73% 03.03% 8925305852 617858504.00 { 66+, ATs+, KJs+, QTs+, JTs, AJo+, KQo }

so if you really think he is calling 3b's that wide then you should REALLY widen up your 3b value range from TT+,AQ+

also he is going to have a shit load of worse Jacks according to you so you need to consider that, not just the worse aces calling when deciding to just fold AJ (TERRIBAD IMO)...obviously deep you can flat a lot of crap and try and hit a monster, and you hit the nail on the head as far as the 3b bluffing goes, DONT DO IT lol

i'm not saying they are his exact ranges. that's just my attempt at creating and dissecting his preflop ranges based on how he plays them. if you think my ranges for him opening or calling 3bets are off then by all means speak up.

if you are 3betting { 99+, ATs+, KQs, AJo+, KQo }
what's your flatting range and why?

good stuff. everyone in the BC should do an ABCD exercise or two over their micro career 'cause it's the best way to get a solid theoretical, exploitative perspective on the game.

A RANGE- i agree with your conclusion, but not necessarily everything you wrote about it. mainly, it's really really bad to give so much consideration to preflop equity in this spot. equity means very very little when you're in position 250bb's deep with 5 cards yet to come against a player with so many exploitable tendancies (i'll get into this more later).

basically we wanna 3b anything that will allow us to win big pots on many flops. that's not the most articulate way to word it, so let me give an example: if we 3b with AQo here, then we will be able to win big pots on Q-high flops as we will get tons of value from KQ/QJ/QTs and will even be able to win medium sized pots against a bunch of 88-JJ type stuff that might call a street or two. it's an added bonus that villain is unlikely to raise anything we have dominated, so we can often save our stack against sets when villain c/r's at any point in the hand.

i personally think we might be better off just flatting TT preflop, though both options are obviously profitable. villain is unlikely have a ton of 9's and lower in his range, and he's unlikely to stack off with the hands we dominate (66-99) unimproved, so it's gonna be tough to get a TON of value, even on the <50% of boards that we flop top pair on. it's obviously never a bad idea to get him to put in more money when his range is behind our hand, though, and 3b'ing is nice for our shania given our 3b'ing range against this player, so i certainly don't dislike 3b'ing here.

finally, noting the players left to act behind you can be huge in this spot as well. if there's a full-stacked 70/3 in the blinds or if one of the limpers is a 40/10 who doesn't limp/fold, then i would flat hands like TT and AQo, to keep them in the pot knowing that i can rake in a ton of value when my hands flop well against those players.

B RANGE- this logic is flawed:

Originally Posted by rpm

i don't really feel like flatting AJo when villain's range contains 24 combinations of stronger aces, and only 4 combinations of worse aces. that seems odd that i don't feel like i can profitably call hands directly below the range i am 3betting for value (ie i'm 3betting AQo for value but don't feel comfortable flatting AJ), so i'd like to hear some peoples thoughts on that.

this goes back to the whole preflop equity not mattering thing. basically we're in position on a player who plays to passive and let's pots get too big with mediocre hands, whereas we're in position, and have a strong grasp of villain's range and how he's going to play that range with a LOT of money left behind. in other words, we're in a spot where we can really own our opponent.

sure, if the flop comes A-high, then the majority of villain's top pair hands will have us beat (though i think he has more combos of AT, then you put in his range); however, we also know that villain is unlikely to fire two barrels as a bluff, so we can flat the flop and if he bets the turn on, say, an A82 two-toned flop and blank turn, then we can comfortably fold. whereas if he checks the turn, we can put his range mainly on hands that we have beat and figure out how we can get a second street of value out of his second pair type hands and draws. also, you didn't mention that we have him dominated when the flop comes J-high. also, since he plays predictably, we can play back at him in select flops like, we can float or raise flops like QTx. etc.

the other stuff you wanna flat wtih sounds good, and i like the reasoning. 43s sounds meh (i mean, durrr could prolly profitably flat with pretty much anything suited and semi-connected, but maybe you should stick with suited connectors and one gappers). also, Axs is a perfectly fine hand to flat with as it has nut potential and plays decently on A-high flops (see AJo discussion for how the fact that his Ax hands have us dominated doesn't necessarily make this hand impossible to play). I would certainly wanna play suited aces with straight potential: i.e. A2-A5s and ATs.

C RANGE- you nailed it. having a player with a weak range that he won't fold often is still super exploitable (if you can get him off his weak range on later streets), a player wtih a strongish range who folds everything but KK+ is still exploitable to 3b bluffs, but a player with a pretty strong range who isn't folding any of that range and then plays fairly stationy postflop, is just no someone you wanna be 3b'ing or floating as a bluff very often, even this deep.

and obv, D RANGE is just kinda everything else

hope this isn't tl;dr, and that it's helpful/sparks some good discussion

i agree with surviva, but i still think you can 3b for value a lot more because hes still calling when behind, bloating the pot and making it easier to play for big pots in the situations you both described. You are deep, he is a fish. You have a bunch of notes on him that he basically takes top pair crap too far although one qualm i have is that you have a note that he c/c top pair weak kicker on flop, so obviously you got to see a showdown, how come you dont have what he did on the other streets written down, did it just get checked down the whole rest of the way?

and as for flatting i think you have it right, lots of suited connectors, maybe some of the better suited 1-gappers...obviously you know with these hands (especially like JTs, QTs) you are not trying to hit top pair. It sucks that most of your flatting range is a draw so i guess it couldnt hurt to strengthen your B range and include some AJ, KQ ect

oh yae and im a complete moron just so you know, my responses are mostly for me trying to figure this out, rather than being critical of what you said

@ surviva, thanks. that was exactly the kind of info i was after, and hopefully others will jump on and we can get some more profitable discussions going on

@ philly the note says that he C/C'd the flop and C/C'd the turn w/TPNK vs the preflop aggressor. i'm pretty sure i checked the river behind that hand, so i can't tell if he was C/C'ing, C/R'ing or C/F'ing, so i didn't note his river play. also, no need for the "moron" disclaimer, pretty much everything i post in these forums i assume to be prefaced with "i suck at poker so don't necessarily take this advice". might make that my signature actually, a permanent disclaimer. haha. thanks for your time and thoughts.

shitty thread bump. i'm interested again.

pretend a person on the BU with the following stats:

16/13/2.6 (3bet)

ATS avg = 34%
CO = 26%
BU = 41%
SB = 40%

vs steal SB BB
Fold 94% 88%
Call 3% 4%
3Bet 3% 8%

is folded to on the BU and raises to 3x (which he does with his whole raising range) and the SB folds, you are on the BB. what hands are you

-3betting
-flatting
-folding

and why?

It seems like he would fold the vast majority of his range to a 3bet, making a 3bet steal massively profitable. In a vacuum (where he will never adjust if we start massively exploiting him):

call: the stronger part of our range { 22+,ATo+,ATs+,KQo,KTs+,QJs,JTs,T9s }
3bet: all of our other hands (fold to 4bet)
fold: none

Since he will probably quickly adjust if we start 3betting or calling him every time, I would only 3bet with about the top 20-30% of our weaker range (Ax, suited connectors/gappers, etc.) with the intent to fold to a 4bet.

Once we think he's adjusting (calling 3bets light or light 4betting), eliminate a lot of your bluffing range and start 3betting with your strongest hands.

One more note -- this assumes that he isn't super weak tight on the flop. The reason we're calling our stronger hands is so that we can get more value from either loose calls or bluffs postflop.

we cannot just fold none, then we are going to be getting in a ton of shitty situations with 72o oop and the opponent will adjust SUPER fast

it would help alot if we knew his fold to 3bet

also i think someones steal % depends greatly on who is in the blinds, you said in your blog that you fold 82% of the time, so until you started 3betting the shit out of me or defending your blinds more i would be stealing ATC, so even though my ATS is 40%, against you i would be opening 100% RFI assuming someone else was tight in the sb too.

that being said you know before posting this that you can 3bet bluff a shitload until he adjusts by 4b bluffing or just defending really wide to 3bets.

If he is really raising 100% of hands or even 40% of hands then a lot of garbage hands that you would usually want to 3bet (as per muzzards 3betting post) gain value (ie A8o has between 52% and 54% equity vs various combinations of 40% of hands) but maybe thats not enough of a card advantage to make up for the lack of position (and maybe skill????) so a8o might be fairly borderline between flatting and 3betting

heres a loose skeleton of ranges

vs someoen stealing > or = 40%


Flat- A9s+, ATo+, suited broadways, suited connectors greater than 45, suited gappers 97+, 77-JJ

3bet- QQ+, 22-66, Axs, Kxs, and some suited shit like 95s, T6s

if the person is like ALWAYS folding to 3bets then i would take away some QQ+ and throw in more trash hands like Kxo

the reason i 3bet most of the pps is because they are pretty much worthless for setmining when your opponents range is soooooooo wide, so unless they have some value (ie 77+) i think they are better served as a bluff.

Originally Posted by philly and the phanatics

we cannot just fold none, then we are going to be getting in a ton of shitty situations with 72o oop and the opponent will adjust SUPER fast

Right. My "fold none" was just the extreme strategy to exploit the villain, assuming he wouldn't adjust. I then explained that a more realistic strategy would be to only 3bet the top 20-30% of the range I listed for 3bets (implication: fold the rest).

Originally Posted by philly and the phanatics

the reason i 3bet most of the pps is because they are pretty much worthless for setmining when your opponents range is soooooooo wide, so unless they have some value (ie 77+) i think they are better served as a bluff.

I was thinking about this, too, and I wasn't sure which way to go. I left the small pocket pairs in our call range, but I think you may be right that they just don't have enough value unless they hit a set. Plus, if he does call our 3bet then we're playing our small pocket pairs against a much more narrow range, which is exactly what we want when we hit a set. Good call.

i agree. flatting a hand like 22 from the blinds against someone opening that wide, i would imagine, would be fuckin' hard to show a profit from. we can only really continue on 1/9 or 1/10 flops (i'm assuming that someone opening so wide is probably cbetting a decent amount as well, forcing us to fold) and the 1/10 times we do flop a set, villain's range is so wide that we probably only win a cbet.

fwiw i think the "fold to 3bet" stat is pretty irrelevant here because "fold to 3b" refers to the TOTAL amount of times when the pot was 3bet and you folded your hand. whereas our situation here is a pretty isolated and villain-specific scenario (ie you guys are wanting to 3bet probably 10% of hands, i'd bet that both your "average" 3bet stats are below 5%).

we'll say for fun that he only continues to a 3bet (either 4b or call) with: 66+, AJs+,AQo+,KQs, which means, if he's opening somewhere between 45-50% of hands, that he's folding roughly 85% of his opening range to 3bets. does this change anything for you guys range-wise?

edit: philly, what's RFI?

stack sizes plz.

what type of player SB is isn't completely irrelavent either

good points. i typed it out assuming people would assume 100bb deep. we'll say SB is 10/9 nit who folds 89% of blinds to steal

EDIT: omfg, i misread the stats you gave and thought that his fold to resteal stat was 94% when we stole from BB and 88% when we stole from SB, lol. my ranges are completely wrong. I'll go back and adjust things assuming he has a more standard folding range.

ok, so the most +eV for ANY hand in your range is gonna be to 3b it (idk, maybe not JJ) in a vacuum. however, in order to exploit him by having a huge 3b bluffing range, we should flat any two cards that we can flat profitably.

i'd say A-range: QQ+, AK
B range: AT-AQ, Axs, KTs+, KJ, 76s+, T8s+, QJ, QTs, 77-JJ
C range: 54s-65s, 22-66, 64s+, 85s+, J7s, Q2s-Q9s, K2s-K9s, A2o-A5o

these ranges mean we're playing 31.2% of hands. you could maybe even widen it a little bit more, but that's a pretty good start (his ATS isn't HUGE anyway)

this range is gonna be super fluid as we try to stay ahead of the adjustment game. if he starts 4b'ing us a ton or we've 3b him a lot and his timing on his fold starts to slow, then we can merge our range by not having a bluffing range and just 3b/shoving 99+, AQ, etc

A Range: JJ+, AQ (though these are in our A range, JJ/AQ will be 3b/folds sometimes depending on gameflow)
B Range: TT-77, ATo-AJo, Axs, KTs+, KJ-KQ, 76s+, T8s+, QJ, QTs
C Range: 54s-65s, 64s+, 85s+, J8s, Q8s-Q9s, K2s-K9s

that's only having 3b bluffing 6% and 3b'ing 10.3% overall, but i think that that's plenty. he's not ATS'ing a ginormous amount and we can add hands in based on gameflow, reads we acquire on him, etc

i mean, what EXACT hands we're 3b'ing with is overrated, but i think this range properly demonstrates how to form a range and how restealing OOP is a little overrated. not like people are gonna be playing back at you at these stakes by min 4b'ing IP and raising a lot of flops in 3b pots or anything, but we should be building such an absurd image of ourselves by 3b'ing a TON in position against regs, so he should be frustrated by now

Originally Posted by surviva316

i mean, what EXACT hands we're 3b'ing with is overrated

by this do you mean that it's more important to know how much of our range we are 3betting?