difference between merging and balancing

I've come across these terms "merging" and "balancing" a bunch lately, and I'm not quite sure I understand the actual difference between the two, though I think they are closely related. Here are two definitions (of many out there) from pokerstrategy.com:

Merging

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The term merging refers to the process of adjusting your range in a way that prevents it from appearing polarized. This means that the range of the player has to contain more than only two opposing hand strengths. By merging your range, you make it impossible for your opponents to put you on an accurate range in the long term. This in turn will inevitably force them into mistakes.

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Balancing

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For advanced poker players, who are often up against other advanced players, it is important to balance their range. Balancing your range is a process where you manipulate the frequency with which different hands occur in the range. The goal here is to stay unpredictable for your opponents. This means that there may not be any hands in the range that occur much more frequently than others.

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Arrg. I sort of get this, but I'm not really seeing how having a merged range isn't the same as having a balanced range, and vice-versa. What am I missing? Thanks!

Merging is a term used in contrast to polarizing. A merged range has all value hands and no bluffs in it. A polarized range has high value hands and some bluffs in it. Whether you use a merged or polarized range depends on the calling frequency of your opponent.

These things come up because the pot odds dictate a certain action with a certain %-age of hands. However, Villain's may be calling too wide or too tight. So you may want to avoid bluffing by betting with a merged range, or bluff more with a polarized range. Both ranges would have the same number of combos in them. It's not about playing loose or tight, it about which hands you choose to play.


Balancing is many things depending on the context.

In the context you quoted, an example might be that you usually play { KK+ } aggressively, but you don't want Villains to be able to obviously cap your range all the time, so you balance that by occasionally slow-playing AA and fast-playing (??) something else.

Note that this is not recommended at the micros. Almost no one is thinking about ranges and how yours might be capped. If they are, they wont be at the micros for long. They move up and out. Be one of them.

This is great, MadNojo. Thanks! :)

So you're saying a merged range is only value hands? I was under the impression that it a mix of medium strength hands as well monsters and air. I guess not? Also, is merging mainly used to define preflop hands? It seems like that's when I've read about it mostly.

A merged range is not the opposite of a balanced range. Merged is another way of saying depolarized. I actually talk about this in the most recent part of the free NLHE foundations course (part 6) with a very instructive example.

How balanced a range is basically works on a spectrum from being completely exploitative (optimal exploitative) to being unexploitable (game theory optimal). The more balanced a range is, the closer it is to the unexploitable end of that spectrum.

Example: We're playing paper-rock-scissors, and I notice that you're throwing paper 90%, rock 5% and scissors 5% of the time. The most exploitative strategy I could do would be 100% scissors, and the unexploitable strategy is 33% paper, 33% rock and 33% scissors.

In this example, a strategy of 50% scissors, 15% rock, 35% paper would be more balanced than a strategy of 80% scissors, 5% rock, 15% paper. It's more balanced because it's closer to the unexploitable strategy than being completely exploitative.

Sorry. I got a tooth pulled and I'm on pain killers today. Not a pity story, but I want to say that I deleted a response by accident and I'm simply beyond caring.

Spoon taught me most of what I know about this subject, anyway.

Basically merged is this
<-- top --|-- mid --|-- bot -->
XXXXXXXXXXXXOOOOOOOOOOO

X means continue, O mean don't. All the continue hands are at the top of the range, with no holes.

Polarized means this
<-- top --|-- mid --|-- bot -->
XXXXXXXXOOOOOOOOOOOXXXX

The continue hands come from the top and the bottom, leaving more "showdown value" hands in the middle.

Notice that in both cases, the same number of X's was used. This represents the same %-age range of hands in both situations.

Thanks Spoon, as always. You should start your own training site -- you're knowledge of the game & teaching abilities are ridiculous. :) And that's MadMojo. Hope you're enjoying the pain killers at least. ;)

I think I've the difference bet these terms down now. Cheers!

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Originally Posted by rowhousepd

Thanks Spoon, as always. You should start your own training site -- you're knowledge of the game & teaching abilities are ridiculous. :) And that's MadMojo. Hope you're enjoying the pain killers at least. ;)

I think I've the difference bet these terms down now. Cheers!

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I'm glad I could be of use.

Also, I'm a ghost writer for a very popular training site that's often mentioned on here. I'm not really interested in taking that any further.