HUNLHE Cash - General Discussion

I remember a while ago a couple people made comments about getting a discussion going about this so here we go.

Not sure where to start, maybe we could start with the benefits of raising 100% from the button vs. not?

HU I like to open to 3xbb when 150 or less bb deep. So from the button you are risking 2.5bb to win 1.5bb meaning that if they fold greater than 63% of the time it shows an instant profit. Despite that, a standard 3/5th - 2/3rd size C-bet also only has to succeed about 40% of the time to be profitable. Between these two actions, you could easily never make an action past the flop and be a pretty large winner HU against most opponents.

Now other than the instant profitability of this move, the fact is that pretty much every opponent is going to adjust to this pretty poorly. The most common response I see is they start to call way too much, some even going as far as to call 100% of the raises. Anyone with half a brain knows this is pretty much the worst option imaginable. Anytime you can force them to play OOP with a sub-par range, it's easy money. Using this strategy, you force your opponent to adjust from the start of the match. If they can't adjust properly, the match is pretty much over from the start as they are just going to be bleeding money constantly.

Obviously using a strategy like this is going to put you in a lot of tricky post flop situations. So one downside to this is you need to be a pretty strong post flop player to use it effectively.

Another downside is that while most opponents may not notice exactly how tight or loose you are playing, pretty much everyone IS going to notice if you start raising every button. So you are announcing what you're doing and if someone knows how to, you give them the opportunity to adjust to you. I havn't found this to be too much of a problem, but I never face an opponent I would classify as "good". I'm sure as I move up in limits, this is eventually going to become somewhat of an issue.

That's all I got for now. Discussion started.

Been playing online for about a year and a half now. Mostly low limit SnG's, mixing in some Limit ring games to arrest the boredom in the tourney's. Recently went on a nasty downturn, and had to redeposit for the first time. I was having bad cards, but I was also playing sloppy. Pushing all in early in tourneys, not being patient, you all know the deal. Anyway, decided to give NL ring games a shot. I am amazed at how easy the money is there. I am playing a very simple tight aggressive, and there is at least 2 donks at every table who will gladly call you down. Does anyone else build their bankroll in NL ring games? I play on fulltilt by the way.

Thanks

Nobody? Come on Chuck and Zach, let's get some discussion started.

Yeah I love the %100 button range. I've only really played 50nl and 100nl heads up, and <2500 hands iirc, but not one person I've run into has adjusted anywhere close to enough. I do remember one guy going apeshit and eventually 3betting me every other hand, and in that case I did actually fold some trash hands, maybe 5 of them before picking up a good enough hand to stick him in with.

tbh I kind of gave up on moving to HU for at least a few months, maybe longer, but am of course still interested in the game. I posted a thread about HU button ranges over at stox and got some pretty interesting answers. Kyle Hendon, a ****ing monster HU, sounded a lot like he didn't necessarily like opening %100 of buttons.

I really can't see any reason not to at the lower stakes. Absolutely nobody adjusts properly to it.

I'd like to hear more on 3betting frequency and 4betting. Basically I think if your opponent 3bets more than %8 of the time it's profitable to 4bet bluff, but tbh I have no idea what frequency you should be 4betting. Obviously you can't 4bet profitably every time someone with an %8 3bet does so. So I dunno, I basically do it on feel. If I feel he's been 3betting me too often, I 4bet. Would love to hear the math behind it. Maybe I should review hunter's video :/

This is the biggest reason why I see this strategy being so effective at least until about 600NL, maybe higher. When you see Bryce just absolutely rape guys at 1000NL and 2000NL using this strategy, it shows how awesome it is when used properly. I got like 25k hands in my HU database, almost primarily at 50NL. I've yet to find one person who I would say found a decent way to prevent me from killing them from the button. Even in my (limited) endeavors of purposely searching out regs, they seemed to be more bothered by it than some of the fish, with the regs being much more likely to just get up and leave after ~20 hands.

Kyle plays like exclusively 5000NL HU and higher, so that's probably why he doesnt like the 100% button range. Obviously the better your opposition, the less effective it becomes.

Have you downloaded the Stoxsheet? It basically solves PF 3/4-betting entirely. I'll get around to posting some stuff tomorrow regarding this. Not enough ambition left in me today to dive in to that.

I just sort of see this as the natural progression of a poker player :

FR > 6-Max > HU

FR started as the preferred form of poker. 6-max then slowly took over and became the dominant variant. And now HU is quickly becoming the new 6-max.

And the more you think about it, the more sense it makes. With HU, you obviously have to be better than the other guy. But once you have that edge, it becomes much easier to exploit given that 100% of your hands are played with that edge. With multiple opponents edges change, and fluctuate and altogether disappear depending on the limitless variables involved. The less variables involved, the easier it becomes to maintain an edge.

Ok, let's talk about 3 and 4-bet dynamics, in particular, 4 bet bluffing.

I guess we could start out with some immediate profit calculations for a bluff. This is just for bluffs in general, but is best applied to what we're talking about.

Since we know our opponents 3-betting range, we need to figure out how much of it he needs to fold before a bluff shows an immediate profit.

Let's say for example our opponent has a 3-bet% of 10%. You open to $3 on the button and opponent 3-bets to $10. Now we are thinking of making a 4-bet bluff to $28. How often does opponent need to fold for this to succeed? A simple risk/reward situations figures this out. Since we are risking $25 to win $13 we can find the break-even point using this equation :

Risk / (Risk + Reward)

25 / 25+13 = 65.8%

So he has to fold 65.8% of the time, meaning that the hands he WON'T fold to a 4-bet can not constitute more than 34.2% of his entire 3-bet range. 34.2% of 10% is obviously 3.4%. So he has to continue on a 4bet with less than 3.4% of all hands in order for our 4-bet bluff to show an immediate profit. 3.4% of all hands looks something like this :

TT+,AKs,AKo

Obviously these calculations are assuming 0% equity when called, and don't take in to account meta game considerations. But knowing how to work these types of problems out is always handy.

Ok, so now that we know how to solve for what % of their Range has to be folded for an immediate profit from a bluff, let's reverse it. Let's learn how to solve for how wide their total range has to be for a bluff to work based on what hands we think they won't fold. To solve for this we need some data :

(A) % of total hands they don't fold
(B) Cost of Bluff bet (Not the total size of the bet, but how much more you need to put in the pot)
(C) Money in the Pot

using this formula :

A / 1-(B/B+C)

We can solve for how wide their total range must be.

A little more complicated than before, but not much. Example time :

Again we open to $3 on the button and again Villain 3-bets to $10. And once again we are thinking of 4-bet bluffing to $28. We assume he isnt going to fold 99+ AQs+ AKo which constitutes 4.2% of hands. So we plug the numbers in and get this . . .

0.042 / 1-(25/13+25) = 12.2%

So based on our assumption of his non folding range, he would need to have a total 3-betting range of 12.2% for a 4-bet bluff to show an immediate profit.

Edit : don't worry, there's more coming on this topic. My head just hurts lol

here is one of the hands from one of the 12 tables that i played today

Its not a big hand or anything I was just wondering how someone else would play it.
I'm in the small with AQ off


Full Tilt Poker Game #3610035926: $2 + $0.25 Sit & Go (Turbo) (27548909), Table 1 - 50/100 - No Limit Hold'em - 12:21:30 ET - 2007/09/19
Seat 1: krystal22 (2,100)
Seat 2: krzjay (1,410)
Seat 3: squeezes (2,180)
Seat 4: gnrsggs (1,305)
Seat 5: netovsky (1,915)
Seat 6: silkland (1,195)
Seat 7: WillHK (1,500)
Seat 8: U Got Rob (1,145)
Seat 9: smacking apple (750)
krzjay posts the small blind of 50
squeezes posts the big blind of 100
The button is in seat #1
*** HOLE CARDS ***
Dealt to krzjay [Ac Qd]
gnrsggs calls 100
netovsky folds
silkland raises to 200
WillHK folds
U Got Rob folds
smacking apple calls 200
krystal22 folds
krzjay calls 150
squeezes calls 100
gnrsggs calls 100
*** FLOP *** [9d 8s 4h]
krzjay checks
squeezes checks
gnrsggs bets 100
silkland folds
smacking apple calls 100
krzjay folds

The rest of the hand is irrelevant.
These stupid min raises really grind my gears.
My question is, is it even worth calling the small blind, there is almost guaranteed going to be 5 people in the pot,
unless gnrsggs is slowplaying huge hand.

AQ is a nice hand and I may have the best hand before the flop.
But, if I make a raise and get called I will have unfavorable position, especially if I missed the flop...
There are already 5 people in, there could be 1 or 2 people with A rag and hit two pair on me.
This is less likely, but it does happen and it actually happened to me on another table I was currently playing, and I busted out.
The blinds are not high enough in my opinion to push all-in. Some of these passive players will just call with AK before the flop and then will call you
when you push.

I think I was wrong in calling the additional 150 but the odds were right, it felt like I already knew I was just giving it away.

Anyone else have any opinions? Maybe I am thinking too much of the extreme cases, but I have been getting really unlucky with hands like these.

mitchellz start your own thread over in tournament hand analysis. This one is specific to heads-up cash game strategy. You'll get a lot more help that way too.

Ok, so now is where I got a little lost.

How do we use this information to determine a 4-bet frequency vs. certain 3-bet or non-folding ranges?

How much of our 4-betting range should be bluffs vs. monsters?

Do we need to consider the equity of our bluff hands since we get flatted so rarely?

let me get back to you on this when i'm sober, though I like where this thread is and where it's heading. A bit surprised it hasn't got any other posters yet aside from mitchellz who's a little lost...

ok personally when I play HU I'm looking for fish and I'm looking to stack them. If an opponent is adjusting properly, I did something wrong to be sitting with him in the first place.

That said, another big thing about HU cash is the huge rake. And while we're on the topic of rake, if they adjust by folding most of the time, we immediately profit, because we get the preflop blinds paying absolutely no rake. Remember if we're a 55-45 favorite in terms of ability (hard to quantify, but hopefully you get what I'm saying), we'll break even with 5% rake. So we can't exploit small edges, but have to exploit preflop folding where there is no rake, or else exploit large mistakes postflop. I think the 100% button raise range solves both of these problems. If we get an opponent who adjusts by tightening way up we just steal all day. Most likely though villain will start calling wider or 3-betting lighter. This means they'll be playing worse hands oop against us and with the premise that we are the better player we like this situation. I also like a lot of 4-bet bluffs HU, as this helps give the image of us being a total maniac as well as them folding some hands (again rake-free). Which comes to part 2, them making huge mistakes. We play slightly sub-optimally on the smaller streets to win more on the latter streets. A lot of people will see us raising 100% and 4-bet bluffing and assume we're total maniacs who will stack extremely light. As long as we make sure that's not true we are likely to get a stack down the road.

So I don't like all the math going on early in this thread to determine profitability, because we should be making these plays even if they are not profitable. The goal is to induce a huge mistake, and if we can break even the first part while we build an image, and then get our money in a huge favorite, we will be profitable in the long run.

Obviously a more entertaining game to watch would be a rake-less game between two excellent players, but if posters on CC are looking to win, I think there's money to be won in just finding fish and exploiting them when they fail to adjust properly.

Well of course, but we are searching for when 4-betting becomes too much or not enough and what range of hands we should be 4-betting vs. certain ranges. The goal for HU play should be to develop some sort of GTO/NE* base strategy, then stem from that to exploit specific opponents tendencies. In this way we can exploit small edges early as well as bigger later street mistakes.



*Game Theory Optimal or Nash Equilibrium

And now after some deliberating, I've decided that my opinion regarding optimal 4-betting frequency now is that it is an issue of balance rather than profitability. After running through some numbers it seems that as long as the opponent is folding some decent portion of their 3-betting range, the frequency at which you 4-bet is pretty unimportant other than meta-game considerations.

Got the linky?

Exactly how SHOULD the big blind be adjusting to this button strategy?

It's in their private section, ie only for paid members. Even if I linked you it wouldn't work.

BB should basically be doing lots of folding. Playing too many hands out of position is a huge leak. It's a pretty general question you're asking, but in general you want to fold lots, and start 3betting light some.

How concerned are people about a 100% button raise strategy giving villain the "right of first bluff" (for want of a better term) on the flop in a raised pot?

Donking is such an exploitable 'strategy'. Shouldn't be worried at all. One of the main benefits of playing %100 of buttons is to encourage your opponent to make the mistake of playing too many hands oop. Like Tommy Angelo says:

Nuff said.

Well actually, not. I'm not sure how much that quote applies to someone who's clueless as to how to deal with a real aggressive donk bettor, but even then you can't go too far off track. If you're a player with a brain you'll realize he's doing it too often, and you can float and bluff raise with even a tiny frequency to counteract him.

Where the **** is dsvw by the way???

If you're standard raising every button then can't your opponent just re-raise with any two that beat a random hand?

I just see ALWAYS doing something to be an exploitable approach.

I think (and I use that term loosely) that you'd be better off randomizing your button a little. Say you, standard raise with any two that don't contain a spade. If you have a spade and can beat a random hand then you limp. You fold everything else.

This might be a little limp heavy so some tweaking is called for but...

Without the knowledge of what you're using to randomize your raises your opponent won't know what the hell you're doing.

Now that I'm re-reading my post it sounds kind of dumb but what the hell?

Well doing the %100 btn thing is probably exploitable, but it's REALLY hard to exploit it. If someone starts raising any two cards that beat a random hand, then you start 4betting light with the perfect range, as is easily solved by math or just referring to something like the stox sheet. People almost never take the next step properly (5bet shoving light) until you hit the 5000nl level (), so basically you're just one-upping them knowing they can't go any further.

Flatting a 3bet and getting tricky post is also an option. Someone who's raising any 'better than average' hand can easily be bluffed off Axx/Kxx and similar flops since they just won't have it very often. Even if they know you're rebluffing them, what are they to do then? Shove Kto on an Axx board after you raise them?


Well we could just raise any button as well and keep them completely lost as to what we have

Everything has it's place though. Minraising, limping and doing other unorthodox plays are definitely viable strategies, but on average against your typical unknown <400nl opponent (I assume most of us play below 400nl) your ideal strategy is going to be just raising. Something like limping is ideal only in specific (and uncommon) conditions, whereas raising is good almost always.

Quick question...

I know this is specifically for HU only games, but would this work in STT/MTT when you are HU?

Won 2 seperate NLHE-HU games this AM on PokerStars--1st one villain tied bluffing fom BB 5Xs BB-I called w/mid pair and got most of his cips---then he tried w/small pair but pushed all in, I called w/pr Qs and got him! 2nd one I just folded most of my BB calls until I got a REAL hand (at least a med. pair) and would raise maybe 3-4Xs BB--on the final hand villain pushed all in w/semi bluff of a small pair (5s, I think) and I called w/pair Qs again-and won it all for the second time! Now I have a question---what would be the advantafe of starting with 2000 chips opposed to 1500?? This would be in a 'no-blind escalation' situation??? Oh--I forgot to tell you----The 2 games I played in were $5/.50 buy ins.

Been doing some playing/working on my HU game and I am now down with the 100% button raise. That's word.

I've been using this strategy in SnG's/MTT's for a while now and it works more often than not. Like ChuckT said, it's very hard to exploit it, especially when you are only holding a medium hand and down in chips.

If they do play back at you by reraising all in two times in a row, you have to back off and play a tighter game for a couple of hands and then sneak it back in there every once in a while to drain them of their chips. But more often than not, they are afraid to play back at you.

Position matters a lot less in tournaments, since you usually have a very shallow stack...

right here

hallelujah he's back!