Ring Game Hand Analysis: Required Reading

c9h13no3

c9h13no3

Is drawing with AK
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This is a giant poker literature bomb. You can't read it all at once, but even if you could, your head would surely asplode. However, I found each one of these articles particularly instructional, and hopefully you guys will make use of them as well.

These are mostly articles on "playing skills". Since this is the Hand Analysis forum, I left out information on bankroll management, tilt control, ect.

Now duck & cover, cuz the info-bomb is about to go *KABOOM*!


Basic Overall Strategy


Microstakes Full Ring Guide by ChuckTs - A solid guide on full ring, also quite long.


Theorems
Yes, there are other theorems than these. However, in the interest of saving space, these two are the ones you need to care about.

Zeebo's Theorem - No one folds a full house, no matter how crappy it may be. Example Hand

Baluga's Theorem - Turn check/raises should scare you. Below is the original post describing Baluga Theorem.
BalugaWhale in "The So-Called Baluga Theorem" said:
no, I didn't name [the Baluga Theorem] after myself. Somebody suggested it and I guess it caught on.

I've gotten a few questions about [the Baluga Theorem] and there have been some threads recently, so I thought I'd clarify some examples where I think it applies and some where it doesn't.

You (100bb) have A♦ K♣ in MP at a 6max game. UTG (100bb) limps, you raise to 5xBB, Button (100bb) calls, UTG calls.

Three to the flop (pot ~15bb), which is:

A♣ 4♠ 6♠

UTG checks, you lead out for 12bb, Button folds, UTG calls.

On to the turn (pot~ 36bb)

8♥

UTG checks, you bet 25bb, he raises all-in.

We fold. One pair is not good here. A draw does this about never. We have to bet this turn because we can't let spades draw, and we need value from worse A's, but now that he raises, we can rule out worse A's and draws.

However, to slightly alter Isura's example, lets say we have A♣ A♠, same pf action as before and the flop (pot~15bb) comes down:

K♣ 2♥ 2♦

UTG checks, we bet 12bb, Button calls, UTG folds.

the turn (pot ~36bb) comes:
J♠

We bet 25bb, Button raises all in.

Here, I think we should call. We are very likely to see KJ here, as well as AK or KQ. Occassionally we see a random 2, but we are ahead of his range more often than not.

Basically, the whole point of the "Baluga theorem", as I see it, is to strongly reevaluate one-pair hands facing a turn raise.

A few notes to remember-
turn checkraises are more frightening than turn raises

big turn raises are rarely pure draws-- occassionally they will be draws that pick up a pair, or pairs that pick up draws, but most of the time you can count on a strong made hand.

when playing against a goood TAG, particularly a 2p2er, most especially me, raising the turn with a draw is a powerful (but risky) play.

This post was originally posted here.




Light 3-betting & 4-betting Preflop

4-bet shoving preflop by CTS - A great strategy post on combating light 3-bets, by one of the best high stakes online players.

The Squeeze Play by Ed Miller - A great poker author makes a great article about this particular preflop play.

C9's Guide to 3-bets & 4-bets preflop - A basic guide for using HUD stats for preflop re-raises.

3-betting light by Dan Bitel - Good introductory post on light 3-bets.
Dan Bitel in "uNL Concept of the week: Week 2 said:
What is 3-betting light?

Firstly, I guess, we have to establish what a 3-bet is. Its a term used here to describe preflop (although can also describe post flop). And it is basically just a reraise. So an example is if UTG raises to 4BB and I then in UTG+1 reraise to 12BB, that would be a 3-bet.

OK, next, what is the "light" part about? Well, most players when they start to play poker to a decentish level tend to only reraise (3-bet) very strong hands preflop. Something like QQ+ and sometimes AK and that's about it. 3-betting light means that you do it with some weaker hands as well, like AQ, 66, 78s etc etc.


Why do we 3-bet light?

Theres a few reasons here. The main 2 though are for image/shania/metagame and b/c cbets = $$$$$$.

I'm sure every1 says that pushing a combo draw is so good because now you can play your sets the same way and get looked up light. Now I'm sorry, but this is really a bit of BS. Good players realise exactly what you were doing, so they will think nothing of it. And bad players don't fold TP+ anyway. Not to mention that people are still too scared to play their sets mega fast a lot of the time anyway.

BUT when you 3bet light, it REALLY REALLY affects the way villains view you. When you showdown 79s after 3betting preflop, it make you look like a maniac, BUT they still have no idea how to respond. They start to call you down a lot lighter (so obv you have to readjust your frequencies)

Now onto the cbet=$$$ point. You know how when you raise preflop and cbet the flop normally, you get looked up by bottom pair, gutshots etc. All sorts of trash, after all, you have AK, right? BUT, in rr pots, things work differently. Every1 puts you on AA all of a sudden. So, they call preflop b/c they think they have implied odds and they try and get a good flop with their 78s or their 22. But they c/f the flop all the time unless they flop a set or 2pair or whatever.

Important note on cbeting in reraised pots:

DO NOT BET AS MUCH AS YOU WOULD DO IN A NORMAL POT! Your cbets in reraised pots should be between 1/2 pot and 2/3 pot, NOT more. The reasons for this is that normally you either have air as you're 3-betting light and so we dont have to take it down as often if we bet less. OR we have a very good hand, and due to pot/stack size ratio, we can get AI very easily by not betting all that much.

Who to 3-bet light, with what hands and in what position?

I can't stress how important reads are when 3-betting light. You firstly need to know how light some1 is raising. Theres not point 3betting light, if the guy who raised is a 11/3 preflop type, or even a 60/5 preflop type. The typed you want to go for are the 30/20 types, or even the 22/17 TAGs. Although a 70/50 player will raise too lightly, he'll also be calling raises to light and not folding to cbets, so he's not a good person to 3bet light.

Also, try to get a read on what their calling ranges of 3bets are and how they play postflop after calling. If they call a lot preflop and play fit or fold postflop, 3bet these guys. If they 4bet light and c/r bluff a lot of flops with a good frequency, dont 3bet lighgt these guys.

This is mainly common sence, but is SOOO important.

The hands you should be 3betting with are ones that CAN win you a big pot. So 78s, 33 etc. Also, hands that have good showdown value, like AQ, KQs etc.

Position is also quite important. Remeber that people raise way looser on the button that UTG etc. Also, when you have position, you can check behind some flops for pot control etc.

Anything Else?

One of the keys to 3-betting light is playing well is rr pots. This needs reads. You need to understand pot control and your image well. I really recomment that you just have a go and practice makes perfect. Maybe drop down a level if you're a bit scared. And if you need some help on hands in rr pots, just pots them, or PM a few to some1 you respect, and I's sure they'll help you out


__________________________________________________


Here is where we are supposed to put example hands. But the beuaty of 3betting light is that we make most our money when every1 folds preflop or when they fold to a cbet on the flop, so theres little point me posting those. Instead I will post a few hands that I won BECAUSE I 3bet light. But all, feel free to post hands you won or lost:

This guy is a 23/16 TAG, who I had been 3betting light the whole time, and had finally tilted him:

Full Tilt Poker
No Limit Holdem Ring game
Blinds: $1/$2
6 players

Stack sizes:
UTG: $214.90
UTG+1: $142
CO: $218.55
Button: $343.10
SB: $147
Hero: $484.30

Pre-flop: (6 players) Hero is BB with 10♥ J♥
UTG calls, 2 folds, Button raises to $9, SB calls, Hero raises to $38, 2 folds, SB calls.

Flop: 5♥ 10♠ 8♣ ($87, 2 players)
SB checks, Hero bets $109, SB calls all-in $109.

Turn: 2♥ ($305, 1 player + 1 all-in - Main pot: $305)


River: K♠ ($305, 1 player + 1 all-in - Main pot: $305)

Results:
Final pot: $305
SB showed 9♦ 8♦
Hero showed 10♥ J♥


Note quite how bad his preflop call is. If I have a big hand, he's screwed, if I have a badish hand, I can still flop better than him and if he doesnt hit the flop (he only hits 1 in 3 times) he's folding to my cbet.


This one is also vs a 22/16 type TAG. I think even a 2p2er. This is a classic example of some1 playing badly in rr pots. Sure I have AA here, but if I wasn't rr 56s and 22 all day, I doubt he would play his hand the same way:

Full Tilt Poker
No Limit Holdem Ring game
Blinds: $1/$2
5 players

Stack sizes:
UTG: $42
CO: $254.90
Button: $59.10
SB: $198
Hero: $201.70

Pre-flop: (5 players) Hero is BB with A♦ A♠
2 folds, SB raises to $6, Hero raises to $18, SB calls.

Flop: 10♦ 4♦ 7♣ ($36, 3 players)
SB checks, Hero bets $25, SB calls.

Turn: 6♣ ($86, 3 players)
SB checks, Hero bets $65, SB calls.

River: 2♠ ($216, 3 players)
SB checks, Hero is all-in $93.7, SB calls all-in $90.
Uncalled bets: $3.7 returned to Hero.

Results:
Final pot: $399.7
Hero showed A♦ A♠
SB mucks J♥ 10♣

This post was originally posted here.


Flop Play (C-betting, WA/WB concept, ect.)

The Art of Continuation Betting by Kyle Hendon - This is a free Stox Poker classroom video on C-betting, and its by far the best free online resource on the topic.

The Way Ahead/Way Behind Concept by Dan Bitel - A great post on playing medium strength hands on dry boards.

The Barely Ahead/Way Behind Concept - A similar post about playing medium strength hands on wet boards. Not as universally applicable as WA/WB, but still a good read.

 
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c9h13no3

c9h13no3

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And it keeps going...

Why am I C-betting this again? by bilbo-san

bilbo-san in "Why am I C-betting this again?" said:
In SSNL, conventional wisdom is that the pre-flop aggressor should always C-bet in a heads-up pot. There have been a lot of "When should I c-bet?" threads, and I can recall that in many of them, the standard answer was Heads-up? Always. 3-ways? Sometimes, in position." I was definately one of those posters.

I think there are a couple of reasons this is popular. First, it makes for easy decisions. Raise, C-bet, scoop pot or fold to C/R, move on, until we get to a big hand/big pot situation, in which case decisions are also usually easy. Second, the fact that many C-bets with made hands win the pot convinces many players that their bet was, indeed, the correct move. After all, they won the pot, right? But on this forum, we should by now know that it's rarely that simple. Maybe you could have won a bigger pot. Maybe you just got lucky, and your move that is wrong 90% of the time just won the pot because this is one of those other 10% holdings.

I couple of things have changed my mind about C-betting. Part of it is that, as you rise in stakes, players get a lot more tricky (note that this is a separate attribute than "good": bad players can be tricky, and good players can be tricky). They check-raise more, and with a wider variety of hands. Bad players might check-raise with hands that they really shouldn't check/raise with, like underpairs, or TPNK, or middle pair, and good players will tend to balance it out more by check-raising monsters, semi-bluffs, and big overpairs. But the range of hands players will play aggressively changes as you move up.

I think there are a few factors to think about when you are deciding whether to C-bet your hand in a heads-up pot. To reduce the complexity of the decision trees involved, let's (for the moment) assume 100 BB stacks, and a potsize of approximately 7-10BB.

1) The value of your hand
2) Whether or not you opened in a steal position
3) Whether or not being check-raised will present you with a difficult decision
4) Whether or not betting presents your opponent with an easy decision, or betting will make your opponents turn/river decisions easy
5) Your position
6) Whether or not the pot is re-raised

1) The value of your hand

First, let's consider whether you have a made hand, a draw (weak or strong), or complete air.

Made Hands

Every time you have a made hand, you should be thinking of how to extract the most value from it vs. worse hands. In some cases you may decide that this isn't very feasible (always trying to showdown 22 unimproved on any board is probably not a great idea).

With strong hands, the best way to get value from it is to bet it. AK on an A97 flop, for example. Sets on just about any flop, but especially A-high and drawy flops.

However, there are some strong hands that you should really check (at least some of the time). If you have AK on an A72 rainbow flop, potting the flop is a pretty good way to make just about any one-pair hand without an Ace fold. If you have KK on the same flop (yes, this is a strong hand), you have the same problem. Many times, the best way to get value from these hands is to check the flop, especially if you have position.

With medium strength hands, the best way to get value is never very obvious. For example, 88 on a 459 board with two diamonds. Obviously, there are some worse hands that might call a flop bet (67, any diamond draw), and there are also many turn cards that you will not want to see. But, in genaral, if your opponent folds to this bet, it was almost always a hand that you were a 2 or 3:1 favorite over. An additional problem is that many of those "worse hands" will not just call your flop bet but will raise (see point 3). Whether or not you bet a medium-strength hand should depend on the board texture and your opponent's tendencies with the range of hands that you are ahead of, especially if those tendencies are identical to when he holds hands that you are behind.

Draws

There's a very good section on playing draws in Miller and Sklansky's NLHTaP, and I will not repeat all of it, but important points are that the if your draw is not to the nuts, or is very weak, you should be more inclined to bet. With these holdings, the value of winning the pot outright becomes much greater than simply hitting your draw, because if your draw is very weak, you won't hit it very often, and if your draw is not to the nuts, you might lose a lot of money if you hit (or gain very little from worse hands).

Examples of weak non-nut draws that you should be inclined to bet are: bare overcards (these are sometimes the best hand, yes, but if you are called, you are essentially on a 6-out draw), gutshot straight draws (if you can pick up the pot a good percentage of the time, this makes up for winning big pots the rare times you hit, because you just don't hit very often), low flush draws on paired boards (if you hit, you won't get a lot of action except from the nut flush or full houses, unless players are very loose), and open-ended straight draws on two-tone flops (again, if you hit on a flush card, you probably won't get a lot of action).

You would also, of course, be inclined to bet very strong draws, like the nut flush draw with two overcards, or open-ended-straight-flush draws, or pair+flushdraw combos (although if your "pair" is the Ace, then you should be more inclined to check because it is often the best made hand and is not vulnerable to the flush draw for obvious reasons).

With non-nut draws, you should be aware of the possibility of making your opponent sometimes fold a better draw by firing two (or sometimes three!) barrels, which, depending on your opponent, can make you more inclined to bet.

Complete Air

Unless you are giving up on the pot entirely, or have some reason to believe that a delayed bluff will be more successful, I think you should just about always C-bet with complete air -- it's one of the reasons raising a wide variety of hands pre-flop is profitable at all.

2) Did you open in steal position?

Players will give you less credit for a hand. This might mean they are more likely to call you lightly (so you can get more value from moderate-hands) or it may mean that they are more likely to c/r lightly (making it hard to gain value from weak/moderate hands by betting).

Also, your opponents range for calling you preflop is wider when you steal from the CO and Button. Again, depending on how the player plays with his hand range, and his perception of your hand range, should influence your decisions on whether to C-bet, whether you welcome a C/r, etc.

3) How much does getting check-raised suck?

If you have 3♣3♥ on an A♥ 3♠ 6♥ board and get check-raised, you are probably doing a little jig in front of your monitor.

If you hold A♣7♦ on the same board, that's not so hot. How about K♣K♥?

Notice that all those hands have very strong equity vs. the naked flush draw, but the A7 hand and especially the KK hand suck vs. most Aces.

In general, you really don't want to be put in positions where your hand is probably the best hand, but you will have to fold because you might be crushed.

Note that in many cases, the turn action changes things greatly. For one, players very rarely try to c/r twice, and if they do, they generally don't c/r bluff the turn with naked draws (most players would bluff by betting after the turn was checked through). So if it is checked to you on the turn, you can safely value bet, and you can usually fold to a c/r without feeling the least bit bad about it.

If it is bet to you on the turn, your hand is still often best (because your opponent will be bluffing a good % of the time, or "value betting" a weaker hand thanks to the weakness you showed on the flop), but notice how very often your equity vs. most draws has gone way up.

By the way, if you check a hand like KK on the above flop, resist the temptation to slow-play if you hit your 2-outer on the turn. This is because the villain will sometimes be semi-bluffing, and will sometimes be betting an Ace, and he is pretty unlikely to put you on a set given the flop action, and in both cases he will very likely call a big raise.

4) Are you making it easy for Joe Tag or Mac Donkey to play this hand?

Let's go back to the A72 rainbow flop. You're making it pretty easy for both players to play this flop if you pot it. They'll probably just fold anything less than an Ace here. Unless you are holding complete air or a set, this is making things too easy for them, especially if you have position (almost regardless of what made hand you hold).

There are certain made hands (33-55 being the prime examples) that benefit greatly from a flop like this, but other made hands (like 99-KK and weak Aces) that really don't want to make things that easy for Villain, as they are way ahead of villain's non-Ace holdings.

5) Are you in position?

All things considered, in a heads-up pot, I'm much more inclined to bet out of position than in position with my made hands. It's much harder to extract value from medium strength hands (and easier to be bluffed off of them), and the value of simply winning the pot goes way up in comparison to the value of extracting another bet from worse hands.

6) Is this a re-raised pot?

You shouldn't always bet in a re-raised pot. If you have a monster, the pot is big enough to get the money in on 3 streets. And often in re-raised pots, your bets are only going to be called by a very narrow range of hands, which is fine if you hold air, or if you have a set, or AA on 743 flop, but not so hot if you hold KK on a QJx flop, or QQ on an A72 flop.

This post was originally posted here.


Min-Raise Data Analysis by ddagt
ddagt in "Min-Raise Data Analysis" said:
Introduction:

I always have trouble knowing what to do when min-raised. There are many hands of this type posted in this forum by others as well. Not all, but a lot of replies tell the poster to fold to the min-raise, probably because the replier assumes the poster lost the hand, which is why (s)he is posting it in the first place. But it cannot be correct to always fold to a min-raise, as others have pointed out. How often are you really behind?

To help figure this out, I wrote a program that parsed all the hand histories that I have, which are all from 25NL and 50NL. Any flop or turn min-raises that went to showdown were analyzed. I'm not sure how many hands that covers (would love to know where to find that in pokertracker), but I do have history on 33,000+ players. The sample size should be suffice.


Data:

Total minraises: 12277
Total showdowns: 6475
Showdowns that min-raiser saw: 6425

What this is showing is that 53% of hands that had a flop or turn min-raise went to showdown. This is important for the min-raiser to know; half of the time you min-raise, you will have to showdown.

But look at the showdowns that the min-raiser saw - 99%! This is important for the min-raisee (is that a word?). If someone min-raises you, if you play back, they will go to the bitter end with you.

Straight flushes: 8
Four of a kinds: 61
Full houses: 565
Flushes: 351
Straights: 524
Three of a kinds: 839
Two pairs: 1838
One pairs: 1595
High cards: 165

These are the hands that the min-raiser had at showdown. One thing to keep in mind is that these are not the hands that the min-raiser had at the time of the actual min-raise (flop or turn). But it still shows some interesting things.

76% of the min-raisers had 2-pair or better hand.
97% had 1 pair or better.

The min-raiser obviously improved a lot of times after they did the min-raise, but not enough to invalidate the data (enhancements could be made to the program to figure out the hand at time of min-raise but hey, this is my hobby not my job).

For instance, for the 3-of-a-kind hands, ~80% of the time the min-raise was done with 3-of-a-kind made. The other ~20% were with overpairs or to a lesser extent top-pairs that improved.

Also, even if the min-raiser only had an overpair that turned into 2-pair, it still beats your top pair hand that turned into a smaller 2-pair.


RapidEvolution's recommendations:

Probably the best response to a post on min-raised hands that I've seen was from RapidEvolution (I'm not trying to pick on you, trust me). I'll list his/her recommendations here and give my thoughts on them. They are typically dead on (RapidEvolutions, not mine).

a) Take notes on players (especially regs) and get an idea of what a flop/turn raise means from that specific player. Some players love to coldcall hands like JJ/QQ out of the blinds and then attack postflop. If they start getting aggro, there's a larger chance that you're ahead with KK/AA.

Definetely take notes on the regs tendencies. The data shows that maybe ~20% of min-raises are with an overpair or top pair, so some people do min-raise without 2-pair or higher.

b) Consider the flop and villains AF. On wet flops, there are many more hands that villain can be raising you with. ... If it's a dry flop and you're getting action from a tight player, consider folding.

c) The c/c flop, c/r turn line is almost always a set. Most draws prefer to get money in on the flop where they have the most pot equity.


I totally agree that line is almost always a set. I think RapidEvolution meant draws want to get money in when they have the most FOLD equity, not pot equity, but I could be wrong. At any rate, I initially thought the villain would do a bigger raise than just a min-raise with a draw to increase their fold equity.

However, looking through the data, for the flush hands, ~40% of the min-raises were done with a flush draw (a lot of times with a pair as well) and not a made flush. This was a lot higher than I expected.

d) Be aware of the effective stack size and be less willing to get all-in with one pair hands as the effective stacks get bigger. Obv, you're not gonna fold AA against a shortstacker ever, but if you're 150BB deep you may want to consider alternate lines such as checking behind on the flop if the boards dry.

Spot on, you have to keep stack sizes in mind always. I have a hard time checking behind on flop with an overpair since my continuation-bet percentage is so high, but thats maybe a story for a different day.

Summary:

Take notes: Always important, but top pair would be easy to get away from if villain only min-raises with sets and you have no other draws. (Now I just gotta find the time to enter all this data into my player notes).

Not best hand: It's probably safe to say that when min-raised, your top pair hand is behind 75% of the time, or will be by the river without any draws. Maybe a little less than that for your overpair.

No Fold Equity: 99% of the time the min-raiser will go on to see a showdown, so don't try to bluff him/her out unless you have a good read/notes.

Great Implied Odds: This does give you GREAT implied odds if you have a good draw.

This post was originally posted here.

....And going....
 
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c9h13no3

c9h13no3

Is drawing with AK
Silver Level
Joined
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Total posts
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Last page, seriously...

Other Miscellaneous Topics

Firing the Second Barrel by Ed Miller - A solid article on barreling.

Value-Betting the River by Ed Miller - Another good article that I think addresses a legitimate leak of many beginning players.

HUD Stats & How I use them by ChuckTs - A nice thread that gets a bit more in depth on some alternative HUD stats used in NLHE cash games.

G-Bucks by Phil Galfond - A really in depth article about hand ranges by one of the top high stakes online players.

ISF Theorem by IowaSkinsFan - Admittedly thought up while he was stoned, this post is quite insightful, and it should make a lot of sense to you if you're thinking in ranges.
IowaSkinsFan in "ISF Theorem" said:
...Lets just say [we're] in a HU match since its easiest), to an outside observer the holding of each player is based on probability. I.E. player 1 can have AK, a flush, AQ, player 2 can have 44, 55 etc.

Sound familiar? Yeah it does because all im talking about is that each opponent has a range.

What many players do however is never look at the hand from this perspective. In your eyes there is only one player with a range, when that is in fact far from the case.

All this is is 2nd level thinking. We're thinking of not only what our opponent have, but what we could have and how that will effect the hand.

Now at this point you may say "Yeah well I understand this concept so what?" Well here's the application.

During any given moment in a hand, each player has a range. From an outside observers perspective, he can guess during any point of the hand which player is more likely to win, and a good hand reader would be able to do this 100% of the time. Therefore, the player who is most likely going to win the hand could be said in other words to be beating the range of his opponent (this actually isn't the exact same thing, but the point is is that a given range can be ahead or behind another range).

So let me give an example.

You are against a 17/12 who never raises low pp's or sc's preflop. You call his MP raise on the BU. Don't worry about your cards they don't matter.

Flop comes 765.

Now if we do a range of opponents "nut" (by nut i mean hands he will stack off with), we can think of 4 hands that are all only sometimes stacking off, AA/JJ (88 and 99 will likely find a fold somewhere else in the hand as long as we consider 88/99 non blanks) Our opponent lets say raises 10% of his hands from MP, this means that he is only taking 1 or 2% of his hands all the way. 80% of the time he will muck his hand on the flop if we raise, and probably 10% of the time he will end up folding on later streets. Our range on the other hand hit very hard. 89,76,75,65,77,66,55,43 (and pairs with straight draws that are marginal dogs to overpairs).

Since our range includes much more nut hands than our opponent, we actually have a much better probability of winning the hand than our opponent given only the action preflop, aka our range is ahead of our opponent.

Which brings me to my theorem.

ISF Theorem:
If your range is ahead of your opponents range, you should bluff more often. If your range is behind your opponents range, you should play tighter.

It's so stupidly simple, so stupidly simple it makes me wonder why a good player couldn't just explain it. But then I realized a few reasons.
1. It's so obvious they don't understand why it needs to be explained.
2. It's hard to put this simply
3. If they told people this everyone would become a much better player and they can't have everyone be that good.
4. I'm wrong

Earlier in the hand ISF theorem is pretty vague. Preflop it makes sense why we call hands like 45s in position because we're behind our opponents range and we should be playing more passive when we are. We threebet weak hands from CO raises because our own range is so far ahead of our opponents.

On the flop its a little less vague. We raise preflop and a tagg calls us on the BU. Flop comes KJ6. Here our range is way ahead of our opponents... If you didn't understand the first time here's the explanation again, We will stack off everytime with KK,JJ,66,KJ. Sometimes with AA/AK/KQ. Our opponent will stack off with 66 and KJ (except he wont show up with KJ a lot). Because our range is completey crushing our opponent, we should play the hand a lot more aggressively! This is why it can be really awesome to be the PFR!
On the turn since our ranges become a lot tighter, play becomes a lot easier. Hand ranges at this point normally consist of only a handful of hands, making it much easier to play more aggressively if we are ahead of their range, and easy to play more passive if we are behind it. The turn, and especially the river, are times where some super sick bluffs can take place because of how tight the ranges become. Lets say the board is KJ658 and a flush just completed on the river. We flat called two streets, which is easy to read as a FD. We actually have a pair of jacks. Our opponent has a huge range, including a flush, which he'll have maybe 15% of the time. Since we show up with a flush so much more than our opponent, which is the nuts, we can play the hand much more aggressively.
.......
There are of course some flaws in the theorem.

1. Our range is entirely dependent on what our opponent thinks our range is. Therefore a fish is not putting us on much of a range and all we can really do is think on the 1st level. We have a hand that is beating his range then we bet/call, if we dont then we fold/(call if we are drawing or since we are ahead of some and pot odds dictate).

2. Hands our opponents will stack off with becomes liquid. I actually will go on record in saying that these adjustments will come very slowly, but likely not at all at 600nl-. But as we become more aggressive or more passive our opponents nut hands (which i have defined for the sake of simplicity to be hands they will stack off with) will become wider or smaller. Yet, this doesn't break the theorem, rather it just makes us think harder about our opponents range.

3. Nut hands isn't all we should be taking into consideration. But "Strength of range" is extremely hard to define.
Let's say we put all hands on two opposing ladders. Each hands beats all hands below it, The higher up the better the hand. Is it the total "height" of all the hands on your ladder combined the determines strength (probably not) or is it also effected by outliers and clumps? Or do the variables completely change in different situations?
Oversimplifying it, we are playing holdem with no flop, best two cards win period, with one betting round. There are antes.

We are only dealt KK or QQ and we know our opponent is only dealt AA or 72o. The player with AA seems to have a huge advantage.

If we are first to act we can never value bet because we allow him to play his hand perfectly. He will never call and only raise or fold. He will always raise AA, and maybe even sometimes 72o. To what frequency we can only guess. Even if we check he is again left with the upper hand because he alone will know the frequency he will bluff.

If we are second to act we will never raise his bets, but rather be forced to call sometimes, most likely an inaccurate amount.

The guy with AA or 72o knows whether he is ahead or behind at all times, and therefore his decisons are much much easier. I don't see why this would be any different with a flop turn and river, but I'm not positive.

This post was originally posted here.

....phew. And I'm done for now at least. Hope you guys find at least something informative in there to cram into your brains. I'm gonna go play some guitar hero!
 
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orangepeeleo

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Just had a quick scan over this and it looks awesome, thanks, this should clear up a lot of areas for me, now just gotta spread the reading out over a few days lol
 
JimmyBrizzy

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just got an erection
 
ChuckTs

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Very nice list, I highly suggest those who haven't read this stuff to do so.
 
BelgoSuisse

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Great compilation. Never heard of the ISF theorem before, although i keep applying it to exploit the regs.
 
GeoffLacey

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Nice work c9, it's very much appreciated
 
ABorges

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Very nice, especially for someone who's beating 100NL but still looking to improve cash game play in a lot of areas like me. I'll be reading as most as I can! Thanks a bunch.
 
OzExorcist

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<3

The minraise one especially was a real eye opener for me - if that's correct (and the figures are hard to argue with) I've been including a much higher percentage of bluffs in minraisers' hand ranges than I should have been.
 
c9h13no3

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<3

The minraise one especially was a real eye opener for me - if that's correct (and the figures are hard to argue with) I've been including a much higher percentage of bluffs in minraisers' hand ranges than I should have been.
Yeah, I think this guy takes min-raisers a little too seriously. There are situations where its not a big hand, but I still think its certainly the exception for a min-raise to be a bluff rather than the rule.
 
Jagsti

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This is awesome stuff C9, thx m8.

This should be stickied asap!
 
Jagsti

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Actually WTF am I on about, I'm a guide I think I can do it myself. If I get into troublez shoot me :p
 
DawgBones

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This is excellent stuff and will be coming back to it often.Thanks for all your time and effort c9.:adore: I'll know exactly who to thank once my brain digests these articles and it equates to increasing my BR. So if you work this hard at your hobby your employer must absolutely love you!
 
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c9h13no3

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Actually WTF am I on about, I'm a guide I think I can do it myself. If I get into troublez shoot me :p
Argh, one more sticky. Stickies don't mean anything anymore because there's like 100 billion of them.
 
eNTy

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Head asploded.

Great collection there.
Will bookmark and read one at a time later.
 
S93

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Sick colection of info there.
Have read some but need to read them all as soon as possible.
 
bob_tiger

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Nice job C9, this is a really good thread and perhaps people can post more articles such as yours and just have a big collection of them or something.
 
Genso Hikki

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Thank you, C9. I've skimmed through these and there are many things that caught my attention. Going to go back now and study them in depth.

It's awesome that you took the time to compile and post these.
 
dg1267

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Haven't had a chance to read it all, but it looks great, C9. Thanks for putting all this together.
 
Jagsti

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Nice job C9, this is a really good thread and perhaps people can post more articles such as yours and just have a big collection of them or something.

Actually, this was something I was thinking about and was trying to sort out. I posted something about it in another thread.

So if you guys wanna trawl through some of the quality strat threads of CC and link them here, I can edit C9's OP and add it to that (with his permission ofc). So it will be like a 'Classic Cardschat Compendium of Posts' :D.
 
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