S
sidgucci
Enthusiast
Silver Level
Thank you!
I downloaded the e-book when it first came out. I am extremely grateful for all the time that has been invested putting this material together and all the additional LeakBuster videos that accompany the LeakBuster software. I am excited to join the group and continue to improve my Holdem game skills.
I downloaded the e-book when it first came out. I am extremely grateful for all the time that has been invested putting this material together and all the additional LeakBuster videos that accompany the LeakBuster software. I am excited to join the group and continue to improve my Holdem game skills.
dj11
Legend
Silver Level
Question 1;
You talk about balancing our hand ranges and being able to play a variety of hand ranges the same way.
If we can do that, don't we just look like we have a very wide range and it singular? And that might go for how we perceive villains range(s).?
You talk about balancing our hand ranges and being able to play a variety of hand ranges the same way.
If we can do that, don't we just look like we have a very wide range and it singular? And that might go for how we perceive villains range(s).?
dj11
Legend
Silver Level
More q's;
You then talk about adding another range or two. Which brings up the question, what are these mini ranges that we can add? And when do we add them?
In the past I would be thinking about villains range (and my own) as a total opening range, so this sort of confuses me.
You then talk about adding another range or two. Which brings up the question, what are these mini ranges that we can add? And when do we add them?
In the past I would be thinking about villains range (and my own) as a total opening range, so this sort of confuses me.
John A
Poker Zion Coach
Silver Level
Alright, so welcome everyone! I know there's going to be a ton of questions. I'm going to do my best to keep up with all of them.
Like I said in my original post, the goal of this workshop is to give anyone wanting to learn NL Holdem cash games better, a place to focus on a specific topic and explore it with everyone interested. I'm not going to pretend to have all of the answers, but any questions put towards me or the material in polished poker I'm going to do my best to answer. If anyone else thinks they have a relevant answer, don't be shy. In fact, I'd encourage it since that's really the best approach to learning imho. Don't worry about being "wrong", or putting yourself out there. I want this to be a supportive group, so however tempting it might be, if someone does give what you may deem a "stupid" answer or question, we don't want snarky comments back to that person, or personal attacks of any kind. If something like that happens, I will ask one of the mods to take appropriate action.
Quick announcement as well. Everyone who participates here is going to have first access privileges to our workshop as well. We'll be covering an array of topics on NL holdem, and it will be an exciting event. Some of my poker friends and colleagues instructing will include: Jay "Krantz" Rosenkrantz, Jared Tendler, Nate "Raskolnikov" P, David "OMGClayDol" Yan, Josh "sthief" Plotkin, Ryan "YourDoom", and myself. More to be announced soon.
So hopefully everyone read chapter 9. I did notice one or two errors when I was going back over it (every editor will miss some stuff after first run). I'll correct those as we go.
I'd like to start off and make sure everyone who will be participating understands what perceived range is, and what balancing your range means. I'm sure you've at least heard it a ton over the last few years, especially if you've posted on CC or any of the other major poker forums. It's especially important in today's games that you are balancing your ranges well. However, against really weak players and fish, you want to focus on exploitative play, and should pretty much never concern yourself with balancing your ranges. Balancing only comes into play when you're going to be playing against someone multiple times. Hypothetically, if you knew someone was a solid regular, but you knew you were only going to play against that person for one session, then you wouldn't want to concern yourself with really balancing your range at all either. Which brings up my first point about balancing, especially for those players who are primarily playing micro stakes. Don't start focusing on balancing your range until you have several hundred hands with your opponent, and/or you've seen them at the table more that one session. You should focus on mostly exploitative play, trying to glean any weaknesses that you perceive in their play and focus on exploiting that.
A simple example would be, you are playing a 6-max cash game, and a 25/20 regular you're playing against after ~80 hands seems to not fold to 3-bets. Then maximize your value against his calling tendencies when you have a big hand. If you pick up KK, don't 3-bet your normal raise size thinking, well I want to keep my sizing consistent because I want to have a very balanced range with this sizing. Worry about that after you see him again, or after he's seen a showdown with some alternate sizing you've done. For now increase your 3-bet by about 1-2 bb's. Get more value from your hand whenever you can, even if it's only about couple of bbs, it will add up exponentially post flop and it your winrate.
That's a simple example, but something else might be c-bet sizing which you'll be doing a lot more of within a single session. If you hit top two pair on a fairly draw heavy board against a regular, don't think, well I need to c-bet 2/3rd pot and keep that consistent with all of my c-bets. Alter it in some spots like this and make it 3/4 or near pot until you have some showdown hands. I guarantee no regular within a single session is going to put together your sizing and know that you are weaker in X spot or stronger in Y spot. Once you build some history, or you've gone to showdown against them, then concern yourself with balancing and more consistent sizing.
So we'll start with that, and then go through some of the examples in the book about balancing and how that really looks. Then we'll get into some of the funnier stuff about balanced deception, and how to trick some of the regs at your table into completely misreading your range.
Like I said in my original post, the goal of this workshop is to give anyone wanting to learn NL Holdem cash games better, a place to focus on a specific topic and explore it with everyone interested. I'm not going to pretend to have all of the answers, but any questions put towards me or the material in polished poker I'm going to do my best to answer. If anyone else thinks they have a relevant answer, don't be shy. In fact, I'd encourage it since that's really the best approach to learning imho. Don't worry about being "wrong", or putting yourself out there. I want this to be a supportive group, so however tempting it might be, if someone does give what you may deem a "stupid" answer or question, we don't want snarky comments back to that person, or personal attacks of any kind. If something like that happens, I will ask one of the mods to take appropriate action.
Quick announcement as well. Everyone who participates here is going to have first access privileges to our workshop as well. We'll be covering an array of topics on NL holdem, and it will be an exciting event. Some of my poker friends and colleagues instructing will include: Jay "Krantz" Rosenkrantz, Jared Tendler, Nate "Raskolnikov" P, David "OMGClayDol" Yan, Josh "sthief" Plotkin, Ryan "YourDoom", and myself. More to be announced soon.
So hopefully everyone read chapter 9. I did notice one or two errors when I was going back over it (every editor will miss some stuff after first run). I'll correct those as we go.
I'd like to start off and make sure everyone who will be participating understands what perceived range is, and what balancing your range means. I'm sure you've at least heard it a ton over the last few years, especially if you've posted on CC or any of the other major poker forums. It's especially important in today's games that you are balancing your ranges well. However, against really weak players and fish, you want to focus on exploitative play, and should pretty much never concern yourself with balancing your ranges. Balancing only comes into play when you're going to be playing against someone multiple times. Hypothetically, if you knew someone was a solid regular, but you knew you were only going to play against that person for one session, then you wouldn't want to concern yourself with really balancing your range at all either. Which brings up my first point about balancing, especially for those players who are primarily playing micro stakes. Don't start focusing on balancing your range until you have several hundred hands with your opponent, and/or you've seen them at the table more that one session. You should focus on mostly exploitative play, trying to glean any weaknesses that you perceive in their play and focus on exploiting that.
A simple example would be, you are playing a 6-max cash game, and a 25/20 regular you're playing against after ~80 hands seems to not fold to 3-bets. Then maximize your value against his calling tendencies when you have a big hand. If you pick up KK, don't 3-bet your normal raise size thinking, well I want to keep my sizing consistent because I want to have a very balanced range with this sizing. Worry about that after you see him again, or after he's seen a showdown with some alternate sizing you've done. For now increase your 3-bet by about 1-2 bb's. Get more value from your hand whenever you can, even if it's only about couple of bbs, it will add up exponentially post flop and it your winrate.
That's a simple example, but something else might be c-bet sizing which you'll be doing a lot more of within a single session. If you hit top two pair on a fairly draw heavy board against a regular, don't think, well I need to c-bet 2/3rd pot and keep that consistent with all of my c-bets. Alter it in some spots like this and make it 3/4 or near pot until you have some showdown hands. I guarantee no regular within a single session is going to put together your sizing and know that you are weaker in X spot or stronger in Y spot. Once you build some history, or you've gone to showdown against them, then concern yourself with balancing and more consistent sizing.
So we'll start with that, and then go through some of the examples in the book about balancing and how that really looks. Then we'll get into some of the funnier stuff about balanced deception, and how to trick some of the regs at your table into completely misreading your range.
E
eBuddy
Enthusiast
Silver Level
Some more questions as I finish reading the chapter:
1) I learn best by actively figuring out all the numbers given by the author, unlike my friends who PASSIVELY read a lot of poker material but still don't know how to win. Can you please tell us which software and the steps you used to calculate the equities and other numbers, e.g., 55.08% equity on the bottom of page 92, & "~39% equity" Check/Call with Gutshot on p. 94? I put in Player 2's range [QJs, QJo, AJs-AQs, 87s, 87o, 76s, KJs+, A9s] into PokerStove and it came up with different numbers. Even when I just chose the suited hands to be just diamonds & other changes, I could never come up with the same numbers on pp. 92-93.
2) Exactly which "23.4%" of hands did you use for villain? I entered 23.4 in PokerStove and came up with: [66+, A8+, K9+, QT+, JT; Axs, K7s+, Q8s+, J9s+, T9s].
3) In the examples, after villain raises with 23.4% of hands, what exactly are the hands in your "common calling range"? I assume that it's NOT any two cards?
4) There is a mistake on p. 99 of the "Broadway" flop being 6h-5h-3d ("Low" example). I think it should be something like K - 8 - 2.
Thanks for this great learning opportunity.
1) I learn best by actively figuring out all the numbers given by the author, unlike my friends who PASSIVELY read a lot of poker material but still don't know how to win. Can you please tell us which software and the steps you used to calculate the equities and other numbers, e.g., 55.08% equity on the bottom of page 92, & "~39% equity" Check/Call with Gutshot on p. 94? I put in Player 2's range [QJs, QJo, AJs-AQs, 87s, 87o, 76s, KJs+, A9s] into PokerStove and it came up with different numbers. Even when I just chose the suited hands to be just diamonds & other changes, I could never come up with the same numbers on pp. 92-93.
2) Exactly which "23.4%" of hands did you use for villain? I entered 23.4 in PokerStove and came up with: [66+, A8+, K9+, QT+, JT; Axs, K7s+, Q8s+, J9s+, T9s].
3) In the examples, after villain raises with 23.4% of hands, what exactly are the hands in your "common calling range"? I assume that it's NOT any two cards?
4) There is a mistake on p. 99 of the "Broadway" flop being 6h-5h-3d ("Low" example). I think it should be something like K - 8 - 2.
Thanks for this great learning opportunity.
I'm trying to pre-read Chapter 9 and noticed some errors/typos. For example, on page 97, shouldn't the pot be 6.5 BB, not 7.5? Villain open raised to 3BB, SB folded his 0.5BB, & hero called in BB. I also don't understand where the ".57" folding % and "42/58 equity dog" numbers came from.
John A
Poker Zion Coach
Silver Level
That's excellent that you do that. I'll try an address a couple of your questions, since I know you're trying to understand the material. Overall for right now, I want to attempt as best we can to stay on topic, otherwise we'll end up all over the place. I'll definitely open it up to questions on the overall material as we go, but want to try and stay as focused as possible. I do appreciate your questions and that are aren't a passive learner. That's good!
If you put in a % of range of hands in pokerstove, it's not a good estimator of ranges. Peek at your ranges. Is someone who is opening in MP going to be opening Q8 all the time? You're going to have pocket pairs, suited connectors, and hands like that first. So it would be something more like this, so that you can use it for other examples:
Ace Poker Drills Poker Equity Calculator
Board: 2c 5d 9s
Equity Win Tie Hand Range
39.0526% 38.0612% 0.9914% [ 76s(100), 76o(100), 87o(100), 86s+(100), A3o-A4o(100), A3s-A4s(100) ]
60.9474% 59.956% 0.9914% [ 22+(100), A2s+(100), A7o+(100), KTs+(100), KTo+(100), QTs+(100), JTs(100), QTo+(100), JTo(100), T9s(100) ]
Thanks on your error with the included blind. I'll have to go back and change that. Think the EV is about the same, but I'll check the rest and get back to you.
Y
yimyammer2
Rising Star
Bronze Level
geez, my head hurts. I haven't played much in the last few years and when I did, I've mostly played MTT's & STT's. I'm embarrassed how clueless I am when thinking in terms of ranges.
I guess I'll keep rereading and hope it eventually starts to stick.
Great stuff, thanks for doing this
I guess I'll keep rereading and hope it eventually starts to stick.
Great stuff, thanks for doing this
Y
yimyammer2
Rising Star
Bronze Level
When you're playing live or online without a HUD, how do you go about determining an opponents range?
I play @ Bovada and the best you could do is try to estimate a range based on the time you get to play with an opponent. Then that info is useless since everyone is anonymous (which I think may be better for the overall health of the game, but I could be wrong).
I play @ Bovada and the best you could do is try to estimate a range based on the time you get to play with an opponent. Then that info is useless since everyone is anonymous (which I think may be better for the overall health of the game, but I could be wrong).
Aleksei
Legend
Silver Level
Honestly I don't think it's possible to determine exactly. The best you can do is try and see if villain does anything out of the ordinary you can use.
4BlaBla
Rising Star
Silver Level
I've read the chapter an is good understanting range, but like you said for microstakes players (like myself) is not necesary until you build a history with the opponent. Thanks for doing this, I've created my account on CC just for this. nice community
blackplanet
Rock Star
Silver Level
No one on this thread needs the training more than I do but I think I'm alittle late. John if I can get you to message me maybe we can set something up next time. I'm willing to do anything to become a winning poker player.. Great post keep up the good work!
Matt Vaughan
King of Moody Rants
Bronze Level
You can never develop an "exact" range even given accurate HUD stats. HUD stats represent averages, and we can never accurately account for a villain's play on a given day, at a given time, in his given mood, etc. That being said, not having a HUD makes things more difficult for sure. For live play, you should be watching every hand, and pay special attention to showdown so you can try to understand how a player is playing certain hand types, whether they are passive or aggressive, and what their understanding of relative hand strength is.
I also play on Bovada, and while you can't categorize players by type, even during a long session sometimes, you can take profitable default lines. And sometimes action from within one can give you some important clues on villain tendencies.
For example, it's my first hand at a cash table. I have AK in the BB. It folds to the CO, who open limps. It folds to me and I raise to 5 bb's. The CO calls. The flop comes K87hhx, and we don't have any hearts in our hand. We cbet 2/3 the pot and the CO calls. At this point, based on the play of the population, we think villain can have Kx, flush draws, and straight draws. The turn comes the 2h, and we think that most villains on Bovada (the "average" opponent) will keep calling with worse kings, and maybe straight draws, so we bet about 60% pot. CO raises roughly 2/3 the pot.
Even though I've only played one hand at the table, and I can't put villain on a super specific range combo-wise, I think this will usually be an easy fold. We can generalize how most players on Bovada are playing post flop, and use the fact that villain limp-called the CO preflop to assume that villain is loose, passive, and probably pretty bad. When he just calls the flop and then comes out raising the turn, I suspect he has a flush a lot of the time.
