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 Plan Your Hand and Your Ranges! (600th Post)
Plan Your Hand and Your Ranges: Adjusting, ABCD Theorem and a bit about that acronym that FTR hates
INTRO
For my 600th post, I’m gonna pretend that I know something and have something to offer the BC. This is going to address a lot of the problems that I had, not only when I first started out at poker, but through the first half a year of leaking away in mediocrity. Why should you care, you might wonder. Because based on all of the posts I read around here, I think that like 50% of the BC suffers from the same problem of being stuck on level 1.5 (http://www.thepokerbank.com/strategy...evel-thinking/). I think that level 1.5 is considering “What does my opponent have” (in other words, ranges), but not using that information to its fullest potential; just using it to figure out which button to mash in an all in situation.
This isn’t really going to be a guide or tell you what you should do in what situations or anything like that. It’s moreso going to be a thread on thought process. It’s gonna start off slow with some things you’ve prolly heard a million times, but hang in there. It gets juicier.
IT DEPENDS
Something that blew my mind back in May when I started my turn around as a poker player was this post by Robb:
 Originally Posted by Robb
If any newbies are still readin' this, here's how I progressed through selecting when to open what hands:
1. Card value
2. Card value + position
3. Card value + position + postflop playability
4. Card value + position + postflop playability + stack sizes
5. Card value + position + postflop playability + stack sizes + reads on villains in the pot and those yet to act
Currently, the thoughts that go through my head preflop are:
6. Reads on villains in the pot and those yet to act + stack sizes + position + postflop playability + card value
I thought surely he was exaggerating with that step six there. How the F could something like stack sizes come before card value? At that point in time I was just starting to broach step five on that list, and I was DAMN proud of it.
Well now when I look back on it, I really think that this is pretty accurate, and that Robb (along with everyone else who says things along these lines) is not exaggerating or just tryin’ to make a point or be a high-and-mighty dick when they say “It depends” every five seconds.
I wish there were some sort of way to do this exercise at an online table: don’t look at your cards until the action gets to you. Read the notes you have on the villains. Look at how wide their VPIPs and PFRs are spread apart, look at how often they fold to cbets, look at how often they 3bet and how often they fold to 3bets, look at how often they cold call preflop. It should be automatic to you even in the most autopilotest of modes, but note your position. Note the stack sizes at the table, etc. Ok, so you’re in the CO and two people limped from EP, one is a short stack who has stats of 20/3 and has folded to 4/5 cbets and the other one is a 45/12 full stacker whom you’ve seen limp/fold on a few occasions and folds to 50% of cbets. The guy OTB is a nit and neither of the blinds have ever heard of 3betting. NOW (and only now) you are prepared to know what to do with your cards. Is it “standard” to PFR K9o from the CO? I wouldn’t think most “how to’s” would tell you to do this, but this might be a pretty damned good spot to do it. Now you can make an informed decision regarding whether you should limp or raise or fold SC’s and PP’s and you might even be able to adjust your bet sizing (though I never do this) or have a plan for what to do on certain flops if you end up in a 3-way pot. Now you’re playing poker. If all this seems excessive, then go play blackjack where there’s a standard move for every spot.
When I first started learning how to 3ball, I did the exact opposite of this exercise. For the first few days, whenever I got dealt K6s in ANY position, I begged for someone to PFR, so I could bluff their ass. Seriously, this is plain terrible poker, and my winrate sagged because of it (luckily I moved down to 5NL to try it out at first). Now, there are spots where I snap 3b K2o and snap fold J9s when facing a PFR.
THE ULTIMATE MOTIVE IS EXPLOITATION
Ok, so you read the whole beginner’s digest, you’ve posted HH’s and been given the “right” answer for what to do in certain spots, spenda’s told you that he oughta kick your mom in the uterus for being such a nit, you sit down at the table and you’re the only one who’s ever heard of reverse implied odds or the gap concept. I think that somewhere in all of our minds, there’s a logical fallacy that goes on that makes us subconsciously link all of these premises to the inevitable conclusion of “hence we win money.” This is wrong…like really wrong…like really really wrong. If you ever wanna make any money in poker off of anyone other than complete calling stations, then you have to move past this complex and understand where the money actually comes from. It’s exploitation.
If you play good hands in position with good discipline and use aggression when you hit something worth betting, then it’s a good start. But you’re only going to be beating the calling stations. But sometimes you run into a player who c/r’s 50% of cbets. Well, again, it’s natural to go “aha! I have PT3 and you don’t you LAgg FAgg idiot, so I know that you probably don’t have anything.” So you call with your split pair, and when he continues to bet into you, maybe you call, maybe you fold, but either way you end up losing an ass fuck of money.
Well where did you go wrong? The first one should be obvious. You cbet a hand that had SD value in position against someone who was going to bluff at you with a high frequency. But let’s ignore that for now. The problem was that you didn’t exploit your opponent’s very exploitable tendency. In fact, all you did was notice that he had an exploitable tendency. The rest of your thought process was just plain asinine. What you should do is…well how about that…plan your hand and plan your range in a manner that exploits his leak.
If you’re at a loss at the time, then I personally give you the allowance to be a nit for that hand and fold because that’s a 0 EV decision that might save you a lot of money. But don’t just fold the hand and be done with it. Here’s the important part: THINK! Mark the hand for review, but don’t just promise yourself that you’ll post it on FTR and get the “right” answer later. THINK! Back in the day, if I were smart enough to fold the hand in front of me in the first place, I woulda been to thick-skulled to actually think about how I’m going to exploit this player. I would fall back on that thought process I told you about: “he’s a bad player, I’m better than him, when I actually hit a hand he’s gonna get pwned…” and so forth, but never actually take advantage of his exploitable play.
This is one of the reasons why beginners shouldn’t massively multi-table because you need time not only to think about decisions that are in front of you, but also to think about your play in general. Think about how you can exploit in a similar spot WITH YOUR WHOLE RANGE! I put that in caps because it’s important, and this is where the ABCD theorem comes into play.
Let’s say that you had TT on a Qd5h4d board. Well the first step is to completely ignore the fact that you had TT in that particular hand because it’s irrelavent to how you should play your range as a whole. I won’t go into too much detail, but basically, you’ll find that your B range (your hands with value that you don’t want to play for stacks with) should be bigger than usual, and you should check this range behind to avoid giving him an opportunity to bluff you off your medium strength hands. I also think you should include hands that have a chance of improving like AdKx in this range because it’s such a bad spot to bluff unless your willing to bluff your whole stack. Your A range should also be pretty big (should probably even include KQ and should definitely include 76dd) and should obv be b/shoved (and your bet sizing should reflect this). Your C range should include a whole fuck ton of draws that you can profitably rebluff with. You may b/shove these or b/float them depending on which seems better. Your D range you can bet if he folds enough to make it +EV, but you might just be better off giving up or making a delayed Cbet. For that last reason, you should probably have a strong range to get involved in the hand to begin with against this player.
Here’s another example of exploitation using the ABCD theorem: http://www.flopturnriver.com/phpBB2/...ts-t88481.html
For whatever reason there’s something about the ABCD theorem that just makes it click for me and seems to make it click for people seriously using it for the first time.
Anyway, the point is that you should be making plays because they properly and maximally exploit your opponent. I think it’s really important to not only move past that logical fallacy of “I know more, hence I win money,” but also to move past that level one thought process of making plays. I think that a lot of players base a lot of their actions on this “making plays.” People 3bet a TAgg who PFR’s in the CO with Q8s because it’s a “play” that “works.” While that does just happen to be true, I think that it’s healthier to look at it as “this person opens wide in this spot and doesn’t continue wide enough to a 3b, so I can exploit this by bluffing with a certain, fairly high percentage, of my holdings.” This is why the BC ends up being littered with 1,001 threads on “should I cbet here?” Once you stop seeing Cbetting as a “play,” then you can stop simply worrying about when it “works.” If instead you consider the things that it accomplishes (manipulating ranges, taking down the pot, keeping the initiative so that we can keep bluffing, improving our Shania by bringing more profit to our A range hands, etc and so forth), then you can consider what a cbet will accomplish in a given spot and plan your hand around it. If it accomplishes NOTHING but folding out hands you beat, then it’s probably a bad play. But if you have, say, Jd8s on a 7d6d2c board, then you can cbet all day, even against opponents who aren’t folding the flop often (because you can profitably barrel more than half the deck). Now when you think of your hand like that, now cool things start to happen like you make your cbet size smaller, so that more of his vulnerable range can continue, and we can exploit THAT.
I think that the best way to start to become competent at thinking this way is to wander outside of the BC. No matter how many times Spoon’s thread on Analyzing Calling an All-in gets linked, or how many times we do a stat check, the BC is going to be filled to the gills with “Where did my aces go wrong” and “what hands should I be playing from MP2” and “should I cbet here?.” That’s fine because FTR is here to help everyone with all their poker-related problems, but I urge you guys to go out and read HH’s in the SHNL and FRNL and even HSNL forums. When you’re sick of reading things in the beginner’s digest, then read some things linked in here: http://www.flopturnriver.com/phpBB2/...ight=operation. Read ISF’s strategy series. Post some HH’s of your own that are a little outside of the box. And, of course, THINK while you’re at the tables.
SUMMARY:
- Being better than everyone else at the poker table wins you zero money. You have to not only notice the areas of your opponents’ games that you can exploit, but you have to carefully consider how they can be exploited (and then of course follow through with that plan).
- Use the ABCD theorem. At the tables, in session review, in the forums, etc. I promise, it’ll help you get better at planning your hands.
- Stop “making plays.” Make plans instead.
- Seek out threads and articles that are thought-provoking and that actually challenge you.
A BIT ABOUT Es Pee Arrrrrrrrrrrrrrrr
The thread title and the first section are obvious homage to PNL, so I figured I’d address a little bit about FTR’s most hated acronym. (even more hated than ldo)
Robb started a pretty cool thread a few months ago: http://www.flopturnriver.com/phpBB2/...highlight=poll
I think the best part is the end where iopq and Robb argue about commitment to a pot. Basically Robb says “blah blah blah think about ranges” and iopq says “blah blah blah it’s a snap call ‘cause you’re commited.” Read for yourself if you want more detail than that.
Well where I stand on the issue, is that they’re both completely right in a way and both completely wrong in a way. I agree with Robb that you whenever you get 1/3 of your stack in you can’t just be like “oh well I’m committed now” and just call off or bet off the rest of your stack just ‘cause “it’s bad” to call one bet but not the next in that spot. You do have to think through ranges and be sure that you’re ahead of enough of their range to justify a call given pot odds (duh). At the same time, I think that iopq is ABSOLUTELY right to point out that it is flat out terrible, and I mean FLAT OUT TERRIBLE to make that raise on the flop only to fold when the 4d hits. As iopq explains, Robb was in fact committed to calling off the rest of his stack unless a real scare card like a 7 hit the turn.
So what the hell does this have to do with “planning your hand and your ranges”? Well that’s where we get to how they were both wrong in a way. I don’t think that the decision in this hand is the turn at all. Like I said (and like iopq pointed out) the turn is a complete ldo call. I think that the important part of this hand is the flop because that’s where we committed ourself. My point is that once 1/3 of your stack goes into the pot, you are at a crucial point in the hand. This is true not only from a commitment standpoint, but also from a pressure point standpoint (http://doubleas.blogspot.com/2005_05...96753669817010)
So when Robb sets it up so that he only has ½ a PSB left in his stack, then he should only be doing this if he is wiling to call off the rest of it on most turns. And if the 4 is not one of these turns he’s willing to stack off on, then he should not have committed himself (Q, K, A, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8 are all cards that improve his range just as much or more, so he would only be calling on a 9, T, J turn, which is obviously absolutely terrible.
I should put a disclaimer, though, that all of this is based on the reads Robb gave on the opponent (namely that the fact that villain bet the turn doesn’t really change his range all that much). I’m not saying that once you make a decision to put 1/3 of your stack into a pot, means that boom you HAVE to put the rest in under any and all circumstances. I’m just saying that it is a huge decision point in the hand, and you should recognize that you’re only one PSB away from all in, and act accordingly.
I think that all of this applies a lot more for pressure points, especially in semi-bluff spots. I don’t know how much you consider all the factors when you are dealt a draw, but it seems that a lot of people just start mashing buttons under the heading of “play draws aggressively” and “semi-bluff” and all that. I think I explain it best in this thread that came up about a week ago: http://www.flopturnriver.com/phpBB2/...er-t88533.html namely the parts toward the bottom where I talk about how villain should play his best draws. I don’t even know if I’m right about all that, but I think it fits neatly into my whole point that you should plan your hand, at least to a certain extent, around commitment, especially when you’re bluffing because you don’t want to give your opponent the opportunity to put you in a call or fold spot.
That’s all I got. I hope this thread helps you guys and that I’m not completely and utterly wrong about too much.
Now go out there and win some F’ing reg wars!!!!!
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