Theory Question 8/28

We raise pre-flop and a very loose, very aggressive player post-flop who 3-bets about 4%, calls in the blinds. We see a very dry A-high flop. Villain checks. He folds to c-bet 70% over a large sample.

How should we play our range?

<Penneywize> anyhow I was going to post
<Penneywize> that we should bet a polarized range and check our medium strength hands

Wish I had more time on this one but at first glance seems it seems good to go with polarizing our betting range. Perhaps we do not capitalize enough on our opponent's high fold to cbet, assuming our 'polarized range' is balanced and therefore fairly smallish, but I think it leaves us mostly unexploitable to villain's potential aggression i.e. he may play back at us with a wide range.

Have at it boys

1. for me i have to define my range to effectively put thought into this question
-i assume were in LP
-22+, a2s+, 34s-t9s, jts+, at+

in my A range("made" hands)

-At+, sets, two pair
-value bet psb villain is contuining w/ worse

B range
-a2s-at*, middle pair, mid pocket pairs
-check back for pot control, reevaluate turn
*A8s-at i would value bet some percentage of the time as not to be predictable

c range
bottom pair, backdoor draws, backdoor combo draws
- cbet/f, if flatted and no help on turn-check back for free river

d range
air
check back, see turn, no help fold

For value, bet AQ+ and two-pair or better, maybe even AT/AJ

He folds enough to a cbet to make that profitable: bluff with all missed broadways and any hand that that has backdoor draw potential, making it easier to double barrel if he calls and checks the turn

To keep his range wide and weak against our weaker hands with value, I would check our other pairs.

Rest of our range: check

You mention that he is loose but also aggressive. How often is he c/r our cbet? What are his thought processes like? Is he the type of player who won't give us credit for much on an A high dry board and expect us to bet our entire range and therefore play back at us lighter? Or is he the type that is just looking at his cards and will c/f anything that misses and c/c when he has a piece? Or does he know that we know its a good board to cbet and we're likely to get played back at so he'll give us credit when we do make a bet here?

With the info given he has a loose range and is going to miss this flop often. He is also folding to lots of cbets over a large sample. So I think we should be betting our entire range here except for anything with SD value that is less than a pair of aces. So basically what penney said I think we should be betting everything except these hands because he's folding so often. It might even be better to check back A8-A2 as well dunno.

Raise our air
Raise our tpgk+ hands
check everything else

Which I guess is what penney and gizmo said. Although I gotta think about it more. If he folds 70% to cbet, isn't it profitable to always cbet him?

i strengthen my B range against someoen who is goign to bet a lot when i check behind so it looks something like this

A. 2 pair+
B. TP,MP, mid PPs
C. Draws
D. Air + low pps

also some of my TPTK hands would still fall into the A range depending on the board texture (leaning towards checking behind on dry boards to encourage spew, and betting on wet ones cause tis more likely he will call and give values)


so i am Betting ACD
Checking B and calling a bet on most non scary turns

If he's folding 70% of the time to cbets, then I cbet him every time with my entire range. If we have AA here, checking is going to look rather suspicious if we've been firing 70% cbets at him every other time he sees a raised flop with us. If we have a strong hand, then hopefully he loses patience with us now; if we have air, then hopefully he won't. But if he raises our air, fine, we're still running at a profit if he carries on folding 70% of the time. If he folds to our nuts, whatever, he had junk and was folding it as soon as he could.

is he calling or raising the other 30%?

check back nuts - let him hang himself with his turn aggro - and some air/mid-value (2nd pair/K high)
c-bet some of our mid-value range (2nd pair/K high) and air.

also, we have a big sample on him -> chances are he has the same on us. What's our image?

When you say he is 'very aggressive' post flop do you mean he likes to check/raise OOP, or that he's aggressive with the initiative regardless of his position, or that he plays against weak ranges aggressively...? ie does he fire multiple barrels, semi-bluff, overbet...what? Is he 3'Bing 4% from the blinds vs a button open or overall? We need more info in order to come to a correct way to play our range here.

If he likes to c/r with air then I like to c-bet the top of our range and check back more medium strength hands that have decent showdown value in order to give him a chance to bluff/v-bet worse on turns/rivers if he's aggressive.

If he doesn't c/r with air, and is folding so much to c-bets then checking the nuts/top of our range is obv best since it gives him a chance to believe he is ahead/can get us off the hand. We should be c-betting most everything else and fold our medium strength hands to his c/r's in this case.

Check big hands

1/2 pot shit hands

I'm betting big hands and air and checking back tpnk, 2nd+3rd pair,medium PP's.

A lot of people want to play a polarized betting range here. But should we? Why or why not?

check back nut hands, 2nd pair stuff, and mid pp's.
c-bet air and draws and weaker pp's.

Another vote for polarized (but really unbalanced). My thinking is that against a "very loose very aggressive" opponent on a dry board I don't really want to fold to his bets too much. So my plan is for one of four things to happen in this hand:

a) bet flop with A range, he continues, call and keep calling (or betting if he checks);
b) check behind flop with B range, call turn and river;
c) bet flop with C range, he folds;
d) bet flop with C range, he continues, don't put any more money in (ok maybe sometimes if he surprisingly just calls the flop, checks turn, leads river or something).

Here C is going to be a big majority of my range because it's every hand I don't want to call two bets to see a showdown with (this could include some pairs). Which hands exactly are A/B/C needs more detailed reads, that's the part I find pretty tough.

Okay I'll ask the same question a different way. Has anyone considered a non-polarized betting range?

Polarized Range - Poker Dictionary Definition

Originally Posted by spoonitnow

Okay I'll ask the same question a different way. Has anyone considered a non-polarized betting range?

yep:

Originally Posted by daven

c-bet some of our mid-value range (2nd pair/K high) and air.

I just typed out another response to this but decided to delete it.

Dunno if anyone has answered the question correctly but seems like there are a lot of good answers so far. I think we need better reads to make a decision thats better than some of the ones already posted.

Originally Posted by daven

Polarized Range - Poker Dictionary Definition



yep:

There's a big gap between 2nd pair and K high. Sooo...

Originally Posted by spoonitnow

There's a big gap between 2nd pair and K high. Sooo...

they're both vulnerable made hands vs villain as described

Originally Posted by spoonitnow

Okay I'll ask the same question a different way. Has anyone considered a non-polarized betting range?

I've been thinking about this a lot since the discussion in IRC yesterday, and it's making more and more sense to use a non-polarized betting range. Since this guy's f-cbet% is 70% and the board is super dry, we can afford to check all of our value hands hoping that he will bluff away some chips on later streets.

So, my revised answer is:

Bet: all air
Check: all pairs or better

Originally Posted by kfaess

I just typed out another response to this but decided to delete it.

Dunno if anyone has answered the question correctly but seems like there are a lot of good answers so far. I think we need better reads to make a decision thats better than some of the ones already posted.

While there's probably one or more perfectly correct responses, the point of the thread is just to get people thinking about playing their range.

Originally Posted by NightGizmo

I've been thinking about this a lot since the discussion in IRC yesterday, and it's making more and more sense to use a non-polarized betting range. Since this guy's f-cbet% is 70% and the board is super dry, we can afford to check all of our value hands hoping that he will bluff away some chips on later streets.

So, my revised answer is:

Bet: all air
Check: all pairs or better

Some of it also depends on information we don't have, like how long we expect to play with this player, how observant he is, and how likely he is to make a correct adjustment if we exploit this to the max. Something that's interesting is that on average if we checked every hand that hit the flop in some way and bet every hand that completely missed, then we'd end up with something like a 65-75% c-bet percentage, which alone would make it difficult for him to see what we're doing. Typically when you see someone with a c-bet percentage in that range, you assume they're betting most/all of their strong hands with some draws/air.

I love popping into BC and seeing these posts from spoon!

Bet: All air, draws, vulnerable made hands
Check: all good pairs+

Also if its a wet board I'm more likely to value bet weaker holdings since villain will end up drawing more often.

I can't help feeling that checking here is basically telling him we've got a hand. He's aggro post flop but folding 70% to cbet, so what, he's raising the other 30%?

b/f the flop is going to run at a profit if he's folding 70%, so we can bet air all day long against this guy, slowing down if he continues.

But if he has hit the flop, are we expecting him to call or raise? Ok maybe hands that can't take much heat are better checked, such as 2nd pair or even TPGK, if only to see another card, but anything we're happy to stack off with should be bet, because he's aggro and will likely raise most of his 30% of hands he's not folding. Sure, checking might encourage spazz, but that might just be a cheeky punt at the turn before shutting down. We've probably lost value.

I don't like checking the nuts here against an aggro donk. You can pass him rope by betting...

I think checking our nut hands might be a good thing at higher stakes, hopefully I'll find out someday. Everything I've learned about beating the micros comes from this forum and the rule has always been to bet for value.

I think it's good to be thinking at a higher level but, from a 2nl-5nl players perspective, don't we want to stick to the plan?

Originally Posted by OngBonga

I don't like checking the nuts here against an aggro donk. You can pass him rope by betting...

Bonga hits it on the nose for me, how many times is this guy gonna shove middle pair or some crap at our nuts at 2nl? A shit ton. How else are we gonna get value from this guy?

If we check and he checks back we lose one street of value.

If we check and he bets do we c/r? I guess if we don't want any more streets of value from him since we're pretty much telling him we have the nuts. Maybe he continues sometimes, but not as often as when we just bet in the first place.

We may as well fire our air here because he's obv folding enough to make it profitable.

Our middle pairs and shit probably fall into the air bracket for me since we don't bet for thin value at the micros. Checking is probably ok here but I think he's gonna bet us off with his air alot so we might as be the ones controlling the situation.