Few questions about polarized 3betting and balance.

Fknife · May 1, 2014

First of all, I'm aware that at the limits I play, pretty much everybody is depolarized as far as their 3betting goes. That being said, my questions will be mainly about polarized 3betting. Maybe I will never reach that limits but since it looks like I really embrace 'theoretical' side of poker, I hope somebody who has any experience with/idea about this kind of stuff can help me

1. How to recognize a polarized 3betting range? My first guess was a higher 3Bet% stat (so it includes both 'poles') over a decent sample size but on the other hand somebody 3betting a bit wider while still being depolarized will also have high 3Bet%. Is there any other way?

2. What about balance in a polarized range? Lets say I know somebody is polarized with 3Bet% of 9%. Standard value range consists of about 3% of hands, so that leaves him with 6% bottom of his polarized range. How can I be sure he is unbalanced here (maybe his polarized range is 4.5% value and 4.5% air)?

3. And finally, how to exploit an unbalanced polarized range? Suppose he is heavily unbalanced towards air. If I start 4bet-bluffing him alot, I will make my own 4betting range unbalanced, right? Can he exploit it (I dont know, he magically switches into 'unbalanced towards value' mode and starts to 5betting me for value or just starts to 5bet-bluffing...)?

Any input is welcomed!

Matt Vaughan · May 2, 2014

1. This one is actually pretty easy to answer, but I'm not sure you'll like the response, haha. Pretty much, you won't know that someone has a polarized 3betting range until you see them show down some hands in pots where they've 3bet. Since it seems you have a decent idea about what polarized actually means, I think this should be enough to get the idea, but here's a quick example: If you see someone 3bet AA, it tells you nothing. If you see them 3bet KJs, it's likely their range is depolarized. If you see them 3bet A2s or 76s, it's likely their range is polarized. DUCY?

2. Again, probably the best thing here again is to pay attention to showdown (PT4 has an auto-note taker now that keeps track of hands shown down after 3betting pre which is pretty useful). That being said, you're right that a standard value 3betting range is pretty narrow, but I'd say it's probably going to be something like JJ+/AK for most players at low stakes. TT-QQ may vary for some players, as will hands like AQ and AJs. So still around 3-4% value, with maybe a % or two of "thin value," if you want to call it that. At that point you can start thinking about what types of hands he's 3betting.

3. This is a really good question to ask, and one that not enough people think about regularly enough (myself included). Okay, so let's say we have a pretty decent idea that villain's 3bet range is pretty air-heavy. You jumped toward one possible way of exploiting him, which is turning more of our "fold-range" into 4bet bluffs. This is a solid start. Another option is to start flatting more of his 3bets in position with medium-strength and some pretty strong stuff. This will be particularly effective if he tends to continue aggression postflop OOP in 3bet pots.

You're correct that if you 4bet bluff a lot, you'll be air-heavy yourself. So it's still important to have some value hands in your 4bet range. What I would almost NEVER do is start 4betting all my air, and flatting all my value hands. Even many fish will pick up on this. We want to adjust and exploit him, but we don't want to wave a red flag in his face and tell him we're adjusting - because then he can change his strategy too easily.

Yes, he can exploit it, one way would be to stop 3betting his trash for a while and just print money off of us by 5bet-jamming all his value hands. He could also take most of his trash 3bet range and 5bet-jam it, while starting to flat some of our 4bets with his monsters and fairly strong hands. But think about the kinds of adjustments you're talking about for a second. What do you think happens the first time we 4bet with air and villain gets caught when he's 3bet A4o? Most likely, he's folding, and he doesn't see our hand. So our adjustment isn't viewed as an adjustment from his perspective.

Hope that was kind of what you were looking for!!

Aces2w1n · May 2, 2014

So typically either A. Flat in pos and ley him burn his own money heh... or 4bet with 99 or tt hands eve n Ats hands ? And steal some pots unnoticed well thats the goal

maybe im a bit wide but nice post guys

psy0nyd3 · May 2, 2014

Something I will probably never have to worry about, but is a really interesting idea. Polarizing your 3bet range at 5 NL and 10 NL is not a good idea is it?

Matt Vaughan · May 2, 2014

Aces2w1n said:
So typically either A. Flat in pos and ley him burn his own money heh... or 4bet with 99 or tt hands eve n Ats hands ? And steal some pots unnoticed well thats the goal

maybe im a bit wide but nice post guys

Well 4betting 99 or TT is usually going to be kind of bad unless we know he's gonna 5bet jam so much air that we can stack it off profitably.

Matt Vaughan · May 2, 2014

psy0nyd3 said:
Something I will probably never have to worry about, but is a really interesting idea. Polarizing your 3bet range at 5 NL and 10 NL is not a good idea is it?

Idk what you mean about saying that a move isn't a good idea at a particular stake level? Like, it's a decision based on a number of factors. If someone's opening super wide and folding a ton to 3bets, then it would be super bad to only 3bet value hands. That's not to say this player type is abundant at 5nl and 10nl, but certainly plenty of micros players know how to open wide on the button and will fold too much to 3bets out of the blinds.

Fknife · May 2, 2014

Scourrge said:
[..]If you see someone 3bet AA, it tells you nothing. If you see them 3bet KJs, it's likely their range is depolarized. If you see them 3bet A2s or 76s, it's likely their range is polarized. DUCY?

I was afraid of that answer

I guess it can take sometimes a long time (and money) to figure out if he's 3betting range is polarized (unless eg. he quickly hits full-house on a flop with his 32o and I will pay him off...then I will know it on the Showdown). And right after I figure him out, he goes depolarized and the fun begins again

Scourrge said:
2. [...]At that point you can start thinking about what types of hands he's 3betting.

Approved!

Scourrge said:
[...]
You're correct that if you 4bet bluff a lot, you'll be air-heavy yourself. So it's still important to have some value hands in your 4bet range. What I would almost NEVER do is start 4betting all my air, and flatting all my value hands. [...]

So basically I polarize my 4betting range to keep myself from going unbalanced. I flat medium-strength hands and sometimes top of my 4betting range for 'deception' (or like you said: when he's aggressive postflop).

Scourrge said:
[...]But think about the kinds of adjustments you're talking about for a second. What do you think happens the first time we 4bet with air and villain gets caught when he's 3bet A4o? Most likely, he's folding, and he doesn't see our hand. So our adjustment isn't viewed as an adjustment from his perspective.

Wow. That sounds amazing (I guess those are higher levels of poker thinking, some people like to talk about

). But there will be also times when our top ranges collide, right?

Assuming his 3betting range is polarized, how does it affect his postflop play? If he cbets 100% of the time, his cbet is not polarized anymore, right? What I mean is that, if his preflop range consists of [nuts|trash], on most flops trash will remain air and preflop nuts will usually transform into good hands (TP, some strong draws), postflop nuts (sets etc) and well...sometimes even AA gets crushed on the flop (bluffs). Same with 2nd and 3rd barrel. Is it in his interest to remain polarized postflop?

Cafeman · May 2, 2014

Loving Scourrge's responses here, but I want to add one thing. If you see me show down 97s after 3betting pre, do not necessarily assume I always 3bet polarized. It just might depend on the villain I was 3beterizing in that particular spot.

As for postflop, assuming you have stats on him and an idea of his range (and how he perceives you, if indeed he even pays that kind of attention), you're just gonna have to play some poker. You know, call, raise and fold and stuff lol

Matt Vaughan · May 2, 2014

Cafeman said:
Loving Scourrge's responses here, but I want to add one thing. If you see me show down 97s after 3betting pre, do not necessarily assume I always 3bet polarized. It just might depend on the villain I was 3beterizing in that particular spot.

Excellent point, and one I kind of swept under the rug. Good catch, Cafe

Cafeman said:
As for postflop, assuming you have stats on him and an idea of his range (and how he perceives you, if indeed he even pays that kind of attention), you're just gonna have to play some poker. You know, call, raise and fold and stuff lol

God, who DOES that?!

Matt Vaughan · May 3, 2014

Fknife said:
Assuming his 3betting range is polarized, how does it affect his postflop play? If he cbets 100% of the time, his cbet is not polarized anymore, right? What I mean is that, if his preflop range consists of [nuts|trash], on most flops trash will remain air and preflop nuts will usually transform into good hands (TP, some strong draws), postflop nuts (sets etc) and well...sometimes even AA gets crushed on the flop (bluffs). Same with 2nd and 3rd barrel. Is it in his interest to remain polarized postflop?

This is starting to get into kind of tricky territory imo, simply because there's only so much you can gather about a player's overall strategy from their 3betting range. We've pretty much been ignoring player type so far, and when you get into more depth by talking about postflop, I think this is impractical for the most part.

vinylspiros · May 3, 2014

in for the read.

Stretch84 · May 3, 2014

Scourrge said:
1. This one is actually pretty easy to answer, but I'm not sure you'll like the response, haha. Pretty much, you won't know that someone has a polarized 3betting range until you see them show down some hands in pots where they've 3bet. Since it seems you have a decent idea about what polarized actually means, I think this should be enough to get the idea, but here's a quick example: If you see someone 3bet AA, it tells you nothing. If you see them 3bet KJs, it's likely their range is depolarized. If you see them 3bet A2s or 76s, it's likely their range is polarized. DUCY?

2. Again, probably the best thing here again is to pay attention to showdown (PT4 has an auto-note taker now that keeps track of hands shown down after 3betting pre which is pretty useful). That being said, you're right that a standard value 3betting range is pretty narrow, but I'd say it's probably going to be something like JJ+/AK for most players at low stakes. TT-QQ may vary for some players, as will hands like AQ and AJs. So still around 3-4% value, with maybe a % or two of "thin value," if you want to call it that. At that point you can start thinking about what types of hands he's 3betting.

3. This is a really good question to ask, and one that not enough people think about regularly enough (myself included). Okay, so let's say we have a pretty decent idea that villain's 3bet range is pretty air-heavy. You jumped toward one possible way of exploiting him, which is turning more of our "fold-range" into 4bet bluffs. This is a solid start. Another option is to start flatting more of his 3bets in position with medium-strength and some pretty strong stuff. This will be particularly effective if he tends to continue aggression postflop OOP in 3bet pots.

You're correct that if you 4bet bluff a lot, you'll be air-heavy yourself. So it's still important to have some value hands in your 4bet range. What I would almost NEVER do is start 4betting all my air, and flatting all my value hands. Even many fish will pick up on this. We want to adjust and exploit him, but we don't want to wave a red flag in his face and tell him we're adjusting - because then he can change his strategy too easily.

Yes, he can exploit it, one way would be to stop 3betting his trash for a while and just print money off of us by 5bet-jamming all his value hands. He could also take most of his trash 3bet range and 5bet-jam it, while starting to flat some of our 4bets with his monsters and fairly strong hands. But think about the kinds of adjustments you're talking about for a second. What do you think happens the first time we 4bet with air and villain gets caught when he's 3bet A4o? Most likely, he's folding, and he doesn't see our hand. So our adjustment isn't viewed as an adjustment from his perspective.

Hope that was kind of what you were looking for!!

Nice read I had trouble with this last night at 25 nl

Fknife · May 4, 2014

Scourrge said:
This is starting to get into kind of tricky territory imo, simply because there's only so much you can gather about a player's overall strategy from their 3betting range. We've pretty much been ignoring player type so far, and when you get into more depth by talking about postflop, I think this is impractical for the most part.

Looking back I see I stated my question wrong (as always). For example: a raise/check-raise (cbet) on a flop A82r makes someone's range polarized, while the same on a flop e.g: AdQdTs is clearly indicating a depolarized range. Same can be probably constructed for paired/monotone flops. That's why you can sometimes hear poker commentators saying: "oh ooooooh with this river overbet he polarizes his range ^^". I guess we can also talk about balance (and exploitation) in that kind of postflop polarized ranges.

Anyway I found an amazing book on this subject for those who are interested: "Analytical No-Limit Hold'em: Crushing mid-stakes short-handed games" by Thomas Bakker. It has everything I was looking for so hopefuly after I read this I wont be asking those pathetic questions anymore.

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Few questions about polarized 3betting and balance.

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