Range vs Range analysis

One of the things that stuck with me from ISF's article posts is that a beginner wanting to learn poker is much better off taking the time to learn some fundamental concepts rather than memorising a million scenarios, as the fundamental concepts will show him what to do in those scenarios, and take him far beyond where rote learning and mimicry ever could.

Originally Posted by ISF

At an extremely basic level poker is simply this: You have a range and your opponent has a range.

I'd always stayed away from thinking about hero's range, reasoning that villains at my stakes weren't thinking about my holdings, so my range didn't really exist. That is, of course, ridiculous as every time I mash a button with two cards there are a bunch of different cards with which I'd mash the same button. So I've been thinking lately about my own range and how it might be beneficial to, when analysing a hand history, rather than look at the possible decisions for hero's specific holdings, look at how each possible decision affects villain's range, and then identify all the holdings with which hero should take each action (ie. hero's range for each action).

What better place than the micros to start looking at how your range interacts with villain's range, when villain isn't even trying to make counter-adjustments, and one can get into the habit of thinking about one's own range before facing villain's who are actively thinking about what you are representing and making their decisions accordingly.

So starting today I'm going to try doing some Range versus Range analysis (this might not be the correct term for it, but it seems kinda fitting). I was originally just going to post this in my blog, but since I'm very unsure on most of this I thought I'd post it in the BC too to get more coverage, and to hopefully encourage other people to join in if they think it'll benefit them. I dunno how practical this'll be, but it should be interesting at the very least. I'll kick it off in the post below, and I invite everyone to try it out themselves or to point out problems with either this post or my analysis below.

The hand I'm going to analyse, without my holdings shown.

Villain is 18/11 with a 6% 3bet, a 67% fold BB to steal and a 0/3 fold to cbet over 90 hands

$0.05/$0.10 Ante $0.02 No Limit Holdem
6 Players
Hand Conversion Powered by weaktight.com

Stacks:
UTG ($28.46)
UTG+1 ($26.84)
CO ($21.33)
Hero ($25.08)
SB ($7.79)
BB ($12.66)

Pre-Flop: ($0.27, 6 players) Hero is BTN
3 folds, Hero raises to $0.30, 1 fold, BB calls $0.20

Flop: ($0.77, 2 players)
BB checks, Hero checks

Turn: ($0.77, 2 players)
BB checks, Hero bets $0.50, BB calls $0.50

River: ($1.77, 2 players)
BB checks, Hero bets $1, BB calls $1


Preflop: For my first hand I'm going to more or less ignore preflop, as I'm struggling to get to grips with this all in a HU pot, let alone having to take into account four other players. So I'm just gonna skip out this step and say that going into the flop hero's range is: {A2+, K2s+, K8o+, Q7s+, Q8o+, J7s+, J8o+, T7s+, T8o+, 85s-96s, 53s+, 43s+, 65o+, 22+} and villain's range is: {22-TT, 76s+, broadways except AK} since he has a low fold to steal, but a non-zero 3bet.


Flop: So here hero's choices are to bet about $0.50 or to check.

When hero bets $0.50, Villain...

...flats {AT, AJss-AQss, KJ+, QT+, JT, T9s, 76ss, 22-77, 99}, 120
...raises {KT, 88, TT}, 15combos
...folds everything else. 39combos 22.5% fold

When hero checks, Villain...

...checks behind {AT, QT+, JT, 87s-T9s, 22-77, 99}
...bets $0.50 with {KT+, 88, TT, AJ-AQ, 76s}

For a pure-bluff to be profitable we need Villain to fold about 40% of the time, and he's only folding a bit more than 22.5% since his range consists primarily of broadways which this flop hits. So at first I thought we shouldn't bluff at all, but it seems it's profitable to semi-bluff with as little as 20% equity against his flatting range.
We can also see that villain flats a wider range to a bet than he bets himself, so we should be looking to bet for value rather than checking to induce a bet.

So hero's betting range should be stuff that he gets value with (ie. greater than 50% equity vs villain's continuing range, so any King, any Ten, JJ-QQ, AA, two pairs and sets) and semibluffs with >20% equity (which is basically anything from a GSD or even AJo right through to OESD+FD)

From there if raised I can stack off with 88, TT, KK, and maybe like AsTs, QsJs

Hero's check/calling range should be hands like {22-77, 99, random 8's} which have a bit of equity but also have showdown value so I don't need to semibluff with them. Maybe hands like AQ/AJ should be moved from hero's semibluffing range and into this check/calling range as well, for the same reason.


I'm gonna leave this here 'cause it's making my head asplode, but I should hopefully come back later and do turn + river analysis on a similar vein, taking into account any comments people have.

Its kind of hard to say if i agree about the bluffing portion's conclusions without the turn and river analysis. It seems accurate if we assume that the 50cent bet puts us all in, but the aspect of future bets seems really important, at least in this example. Reason being is that Villains flatting range seems really wide and weak, including hands such as Middle Pair and pocket pairs that make like 3rd or 4th pair as well as spade draws with very few hands he'd likely be willing to stack off with (the better spade draws, and the Top pair types..maybe even less). So it seems an easy way to attack this is to double barrel, or even triple barrel depending on how station-y he is, which is gonna directly affect how profitable a bluff is...unfortunately that also leads to 5 part or more EV calculations which are fairly tedious and sometimes dont tell us enough to justify the work.

One thing im wondering about is if it would be easier to start with a river decision and then work backwards? This would be a way to counteract the problem of the above, as we could think as if we didnt have future bets somewhat reliably, and villains range is gonna be smaller. From there, we can widen or tighten his range based on different perceptions of Hero's range (or...equivalently...alter which villain we're playing), and proceed to turns and flops and preflops that are characteristic of that villain. We'd have a fail safe of finding if we made an error as well if we arrived at a conclusion that he had a hand he wouldnt normally have preflop. Idk, i think im rambling now.

all in all, its a good thread and im def gonna add to it with my own analysis later on...maybe even using your own hand with a different villain or finding a random one of my own.

im still a newbie and this is a very good exercise. on a practical note, how can we really take all this into account in the short time we have to act in online poker. i have been trying to practice this very thing and would like to hear not only the way folks determine such ranges but also how they do it with the speed and accuracy needed online.

Originally Posted by villagenut

im still a newbie and this is a very good exercise. on a practical note, how can we really take all this into account in the short time we have to act in online poker. i have been trying to practice this very thing and would like to hear not only the way folks determine such ranges but also how they do it with the speed and accuracy needed online.

The idea isn't really to go through the steps when you're actually playing cards, but rather to do enough practice and analysis away from the table that you develop an intuitive "feeling" for what to do in certain situations, because you're unconsciously scanning all the analysis you've done and identifying patterns.

chances are you already have, but checking out renton's ABCD theorem and application threads will shed some light on the ideas behind this stuff as explained by someone far better at poker than most of us BCers could hope to be. i really like your thread idea, kiwi. definitely keen to have some input here when my workload and sleeping patterns allow

Originally Posted by rpm

chances are you already have, but checking out renton's ABCD theorem and application threads will shed some light on the ideas behind this stuff as explained by someone far better at poker than most of us BCers could hope to be. i really like your thread idea, kiwi. definitely keen to have some input here when my workload and sleeping patterns allow

Work hard enough and who knows?

Yup, one of the neat things about this is it allows you to think about applying Renton/ABCD theorem way more easily than if you were looking at a single hand in isolation.

good point. i was speaking for myself there, really. didn't mean to drag y'all down. sorry

Awesome, thanks for the input JKDS. Had a good chat in IRC with settecba too, which we decided to paste here. I'll hopefully get some later street analysis done today, and make any adjustments to the ranges I've had so far, based on the current discussion.

[10:36] * settecba slaps kiwiMark
[10:36] <settecba> you there???
[10:36] <kiwiMark> yessir
[10:36] <settecba> i was reading your range vs range thread
[10:37] <kiwiMark> cool
[10:37] <settecba> have you read JKDS post?
[10:37] <kiwiMark> Yeah, he raised some pretty good points
[10:38] <settecba> hes right in saying villains calling range is very weakç
[10:38] <settecba> a
[10:38] <settecba> AND
[10:38] <settecba> that makes your BET range have some semibluffs you are gonna double barrel
[10:38] <settecba> like AQ and AJ
[10:38] <settecba> also: something you might wanna notice
[10:38] <settecba> take a look at your c/c range
[10:39] <settecba> its AWFUL WEAK
[10:39] <settecba> vs a reg that pays attention youre folding a lot to a 2barrel
[10:39] <kiwiMark> Hmmm truly
[10:39] <settecba> so, its probably a good idea to strengthen that range a bit by adding better hands
[10:40] <settecba> what do you think?
[10:40] <kiwiMark> Yeah I guess I'm guilty of really not looking further than the current street
[10:42] <kiwiMark> So maybe pull the weaker part of my betting range (stuff like QQ, JJ, tens) and put it in my check/calling range you think?
[10:42] <kiwiMark> So that I can profitably stand up to aggression on the turn
[10:42] <settecba> exactly
[10:42] <kiwiMark> Nice, that makes sense
[10:42] <settecba> and some of the Kx with weak kickers
[10:42] <kiwiMark> Right

lolfail, hero is in position, so it's fairly hard for Villain to do anything once hero's checked.

Originally Posted by kiwiMark

lolfail, hero is in position, so it's fairly hard for Villain to do anything once hero's checked.

ya was reading the analysis and started getting confused!

goood analysis to come hero so drunk but hasa villin rninfe pwt

Originally Posted by kiwiMark

goood analysis to come hero so drunk but hasa villin rninfe pwt

nh sir

lmao.. kiwidrunk=funny

Drunken interlude aside, this is still happening. I am, however, struggling quite a bit- in thinking about, for example, double-barelling, it feels like so much depends on the turn card which I can't know at the flop when deciding to fire a single barrel.

Originally Posted by kiwiMark

Drunken interlude aside, this is still happening. I am, however, struggling quite a bit- in thinking about, for example, double-barelling, it feels like so much depends on the turn card which I can't know at the flop when deciding to fire a single barrel.

luckily there are <50 cards in the deck, so it's not impossible to consider what types of cards can come and how they may affect your bluffing range/value range/trying to get showdown range/etc.

also, why are we so certain that he always c/c's with all of his draws? it seems like he will c/f or c/r them a fairly substantial amount of the time.

Alright well this has kinda been a failure, but has highlighted a bunch of smaller things I need to work on before I can do an analysis so...all-encompassing. Which I suppose is good. Look forward to normal hand analysis from me again, hopefully focussing for a week especially on double-barrel spots as, as boog pointed out to me in our last sweat, I just don't ever double barrel.

Thanks for playing along at home, those who did, and hopefully one day I'll be back to own the shit outta this thing.