Balancing

[zachvac]

ok so interesting topic and I've seen so many people throw the word around and they have no understanding of what it really means. So first let me define how it is used in the most basic sense:

Balancing is the act of taking a line that will be sub-optimal in one spot to increase our expectation in other spots.

One example is preflop raise sizes. Say we're on the button everyone folds to us in an nlhe game and we have AA. Obviously we're going to raise for value. How much do we want to raise though? Hold that thought. Same situation, only now we have 34s. It's strong enough that we can raise and have some postflop value, but the raise is essentially a bluff. So against somewhat normal thinking opponents we can minraise the 34s to give us a cheap bluff and raise to 5x with AA for max value. Right?

Wrong, and this is the essence of balance. Even the most unobservent opponents will pick up if you raise to different sizes based on hand strength, and they can adjust to this and play better against you. Even though if you are an unknown and the first hand you sit down at the table you probably would be more profitable with a raise to 4 or 5 BBs because they'd assume it was your normal raise size. So you give up the value or give yourself worse odds on the bluff and take the action that allows you to take the best line with your overall range while not giving away information. This is the basics of balancing.

First thing, there is no point to balancing against unobservent opponents. If you're in a live game and everyone is absolutely horrible and drunk out of their minds not paying attention to anything but their own cards (sometimes) then why not raise to 5 BBs with AA and 2 with 34s? If your opponent will not notice or will not adjust to you taking an unbalanced line, there is no reason to balance.

Now everything up to this point I consider pretty basic and everyone I believe has at least a decent understanding of this. I just wanted to set the framework for when other balancing spots happen that are much more interesting. Say the flop comes JT9 rainbow. Even without flush draws there are a lot of hands that cbet this flop for value. QJ/KJ/AJ/JT/T9/J9/99/TT/JJ/QQ/KK/AA all bet this flop for value most likely. Why? Because they believe a worse hand will call them a lot. Keep that last sentence in your brain and see if you can spot the contradiction before I point it out. Then they think since their value range is so large they must have to bluff it a lot too. You see the contradiction? We value bet a lot of hands because we think there are a lot of hands they will call us with that are worse. Now when we bluff a lot we totally contradict the point of what our value bets accomplish. All of a sudden calling this flop very wide is not all that bad and it's no longer a mistake. Not to say you should never bluff this, just that if you balance your range perfectly on this board, it basically makes it impossible to make a mistake.

It may not be clear so let's go completely away from poker, to rock paper siscors. Now you're going to play this guy for a few hours. For whatever reason you know he is going to start out playing rock 100% of the time. What would you do? Well you could perfectly balance your range and go rock 33% paper 33% and siscors 33%. But then no matter what he does he's not making a mistake and his 100% rock strategy still wins the same amount as it loses. What about a 100% paper strategy? That's similar to cbetting the above board for value all the time and never as a bluff. It will probably work a few times, then he'll realize what you're doing and adjust. Playing 100% rock in RPS is a pretty big mistake so allowing him to realize it and correct it is definitely not good for us.

So what can we do? Seems like I'm saying balancing is bad but also playing unbalanced is bad, so which is it? Allow me to present an alternative. Against his 100% rock we instead play a 40% paper 30% rock and 30% siscoors strategy. All of a sudden we're still exploiting his mistake, but he may not realize it. He'll do thousands of matches, keep losing slowly and keep blaming the site for being rigged or think he just runs so bad when in reality he's being slowly exploited yet doesn't even realize how. This is how we want to play. We still want to be capable of cbetting a wet flop like that with air and we want our opponents to think we do it far more often than we do, because our exploitation comes when we bet and they call.

In fact here's a little something I read by a high-stakes HU player recently. He said that he will take a sub-optimal line some small percentage of the time and do his very best to show it down. So if he 3-bets 38o in the blinds and flops an 8 and thinks he has the best hand on the river, he may decide not to go for thin value because he thinks not many other worse hands will call but worse that most hands, better or worse, will fold. And after he has taken the slightly -ev play, he wants to make it pay off with the image/balance. For example who saw the Dwan hand where he 5-bet Howard Lederer with 68o? He certainly doesn't do that often but say you're playing him with a hand like 99 and he 5-bets you deep. Your thought process may be something like "**** it I have a good hand I know he can do this with 68o so his range is really wide I'm all-in". And even someone that aggressive is likely to have a hand the majority of the time he 5-bets, and you'll curse that he had the top of his range with AA and that most of the time you're good there.

So I guess these are the points to be made about balancing:

1. There is no use in balancing something against an unthinking opponent. If an opponent doesn't understand wet/dry flops there is no need to balance against him. If an opponent just plays his own cards there's no reason to balance cbets. We know he'll miss most of the time and he won't adjust so we can cbet 100% against this player.

2. The more observant/good an opponent is, the more spots we do have to somewhat balance. We just need to realize that if we balance 100% in a certain spot our edge in that spot is 0. Of course there are certain spots where this is fine but if our overall gameplan has an edge of 0 than we may as well quit.

3. While balancing is indeed used to avoid from being exploited, more specifically it's to disguise how we are exploiting another player. It is meant to make our opponent specifically make a mistake in estimating our range and thus allow him to think he's playing against one range when he's really playing against another which his strategy does not work so well against.

So this has mostly been theoretical up to this point, let's get into some situations:

The following is a hand posted on 2p2 that sparked a debate that actually got me thinking more about balancing in the first place:

Hand was posted by a pretty solid reg who said opponent was also a solid reg who was a bit on the aggro side:

$600.00 No Limit Hold'em - 8 players

Pre Flop: ($9.00) Hero is BTN with 7

4

5 folds, Hero raises to $12, SB calls $9, 1 fold

Flop: ($30.00) J

7

7

(2 players)
SB checks, Hero bets $18.00, SB calls $18

Turn: ($66.00) 3

(2 players)
SB checks, Hero bets $42.00, SB raises to $174, Hero calls $132

River: ($414.00) 8

(2 players)
SB bets $396.00, Hero ???

Now here's the thing, hero has a pretty strong absolute hand in trips here but not a very good relative one. We need to think of the hands villain in this hand could have. He calls a minraise preflop which means his range is still pretty wide. Then he calls the flop bet oop which most likely eliminates all total air out of his range. He could possibly have a straight draw, a 7, a J, or even any pocket pair that doesn't raise preflop because he thinks it's good. Then we see a turn check/raise. Hero has bet twice when he could have basically all the nut hands including a ton of trips as we have in this spot along with jacks full, overpairs, Jx, etc. Yet he still decides to raise. We have trips so we call. Then an 8 rivers, hitting one of the gutshots. He then nearly pots it basically for basically his stack (think he had like a few bucks behind).

Anyway without going too far into it I think this is a river fold, as did the hero in this hand. There are not enough hands he bluffs with and no hand bets for value that is worse than hero's hand. But some people said this is super-exploitable, which is a code term for it's not balanced. If we bet a wide range on the flop/turn and then fold all but basically the nuts on the river, he can do this nearly 100% of the time profitably right? But that doesn't matter. What really matters is does he do it 100%? How often exactly does he bluff here? Unless he knows for a fact that we fold trips (and if we fold here it still doesn't give him that info, for all he knows we had QJ), he can't possibly expect us to fold them. This is an example of a spot that rarely comes up. He's not going to have thousands of hands like this to see what range we call with and what range we fold, so there is no need to balance in this spot just because all it does is spew money. Sure I agree he has a non-zero bluffing frequency here. But I don't think he is bluffing enough for us to have odds to call here. We beat 0 of his bluffing range.

I also mentioned and most people agreed, that if we have J2 in this spot we have the exact same hand. He never does this with a better jack or overpair and never has a worse kicker based on preflop. So people brought up this idea, that we can't be folding too much here, that J2 is the same as 47 here, so we call some percentage of the time with the hands between J2 and 47 just to counter being able to be bluffed all over the place, and what better way to do this by just picking the top of your range and calling with that? I certainly think this idea has merit and if your opponent is picking up on your tendencies and forcing you to balance these spots it is definitely the way to go. Even though J2 and 47 have the same equity maybe in this spot you call with QQ+/7x and fold all jacks. Maybe call with AJ too. It doesn't matter but it's a decent way to balance without worrying about actually staying balanced. But I still believe in this hand that balance is over-rated and that our opponent will never see how we act in this situation enough to realize we're actually able to lay down trips.

Which brings up another important point. When we make a river fold, what exactly are we exploiting? His range beats our hand, so we fold. So if he knows this it's not the end of the world he'll just start bluffing more and we can in turn adjust by calling more again. Basically I'm trying to say it's different from the 100% rock scenario because even if he does think we call with a wider range and not bluff enough against us it's not a huge mistake that's easy to exploit like the 100% rock was.

So basically my overall point is that balance is over-rated, and that many midstakes players do it way too much. Most likely they just want to make an action (most of the time bet or raise), so they do and they need an excuse so they use balance. Like I said, balance, especially against tough opponents, is certainly important, but some people go too far and strive to play a theoretically perfect game. And who can blame them for thinking it's good? It has the word perfect in it. You can't be exploited. The only problem is the reason your opponent can not exploit you is because all decisions are neutral. This means that your opponent can not make a mistake either and as a corolary you can't be exploiting them. No exploitation means no money, and this means you will lose to rake. So next time you're in a spot where you are tempted to make a play for balance and so you'll get paid off later, think about maybe passing on it and taking the sub-optimal play a bit less than you normally would. It doesn't mean you should start playing all hands in a vacuum, but it does mean you should think about what the best play is in a vacuum and attempt to take that line more often and only occasionally the other line. You want it in your opponents' minds that every time you 3-bet you could have 39o, but against opponents who call too many 3-bets and stack off too lightly 39o should be the exception rather than the rule. Because even if you 3-bet 39o and flop 2 pair to stack top pair only once, they will remember it for a long time and thus assign way too large a weight to you having it. You could do that once and then 3-bet only AA for the rest of the month and near the end of the month they'd still probably stack JJ off against you just because they think you could have 39o.

And that is how we profit from balance, not from taking a perfect GTO approach and adjusting our bluff percentage to the odds we offer our opponents so they can never make a mistake. But from taking a sub-optimal line a few times to convince our opponent we have a completely different hand range than we actually have and then using that to exploit them.

 

[Egon Towst]

Nice post, Zach.

Would you agree that it is nearly essential, in a heads up tournament against a decent opponent, to play a sub-optimal line some of the time ? I think that is a situation in which that would be most important.

 

[GunslingerZ]

Very nice, Zach, thank you.

I have a question. In the main chat thread, regarding his beautiful red line, Belgo wrote:

If villain balances his action decently so that his ranges remain unpredictable, there's not much you can do, but when they show strong imbalances and you can pretty much predict if they have nuts, air or medium hands, it's pretty easy to exploit.

Could you (and Belgo, please) expand on this? Maybe show some examples of how the line a villain takes really narrows his range down to one of those categories, and how you exploit that imbalance?

 

[S93]

Awsome post and this part i can really take to heart:
"Most likely they just want to make an action (most of the time bet or raise), so they do and they need an excuse so they use balance."

 

[eNTy]

Wow. That's some pretty deep stuff.

Can't say it has fully sinked in yet but it definitely sounds right to me.
Small question: In the example hand you say 'But I don't think he is bluffing enough for us to have odds to call here. We beat 0 of his bluffing range.'.

How can we beat nothing of his bluffing range ? That makes no sense to me.
We have trips how can we not beat a bluff. Typo ?

 

[ChuckTs]

yay long post from zach

I'm drunk now and won't get everything out of it so I'll read it tomorrow and comment.

 

[zachvac]

Wow. That's some pretty deep stuff.

Can't say it has fully sinked in yet but it definitely sounds right to me.
Small question: In the example hand you say 'But I don't think he is bluffing enough for us to have odds to call here. We beat 0 of his bluffing range.'.

How can we beat nothing of his bluffing range ? That makes no sense to me.
We have trips how can we not beat a bluff. Typo ?

Yeah replace the word bluffing with value there because you're right beating 0 of his bluffing range with trips makes no sense lol.

 

[zachvac]

Nice post, Zach.

Would you agree that it is nearly essential, in a heads up tournament against a decent opponent, to play a sub-optimal line some of the time ? I think that is a situation in which that would be most important.

HU is one of the most important forms of poker to balance (or pretend you're balancing as I wrote about above). If you're playing a 6max or FR game most opponents have a general strategy they stick to without reads. They have a fixed range they'll raise on the button. Sure if a blind is super maniac or super nit they may change that range a bit but generally they're not paying attention to what lines opponents take in specific spots. HU quite simply they do. Against good opponents you can get a feel for what kind of hands they're raising, what kind of hands they call vs. 3-bet from the BB, how they play mid pair, how they play draws, and a bunch of other specific stuff that you never will be able to keep a record on of everyone at your table if you're playing 6max or FR.

Very nice, Zach, thank you.

I have a question. In the main chat thread, regarding his beautiful red line, Belgo wrote:

Could you (and Belgo, please) expand on this? Maybe show some examples of how the line a villain takes really narrows his range down to one of those categories, and how you exploit that imbalance?

1. As mentioned in the thread, opponent is a bit passive, doesn't like to scare people off when he hits big hands. Flop is KK7r he bets flop we raise with air he 3-bets. Even though at every opportunity he has taken the aggressive action, if he has a hand like a K or 77 he is likely not going to want to scare us off. Also if he has a hand like JJ that he thinks is good he will probably only call our flop raise because he doesn't want to blow us off our hand. This is called the Baluga theorem but that's basically the gist. On an extremely dry board when someone 3-bets, it's almost always a bluff.

2. Player in the blinds has a 1% 3-bet over 20k hands. We raise button and he 3-bets from BB. He doesn't balance his 3-betting range at all because it is simply always the nuts, so we can fold almost 100% of the time.

3. We raise preflop and standard TAG BB calls. Flop comes JT6 2-toned. He checks we cbet he calls. He is never check-calling with complete air or the nuts on this board. He almost always has a draw or a weak made hand like AT or J9. Turn is a blank and we fire again and he calls. Is he really calling with KQ on the turn here oop? Calling with a flush draw? We can pretty much narrow his range to Jx/Tx hands. If he wanted to balance he would have to call draws on the turn as well and slowplay some big hands by check-calling 2 streets with a set on a really drawy flop. Now river comes completes the draw and we can exploit the fact that he is not balanced and almost always has a weak hand while we could legitimately have fired 2 barrels in position with the draw. We pot river and he folds heavy percentage of the time. Of course if we bluff too much in this spot and don't balance it so that range of value is similar to the size of our range of bluffs. In fact this is a perfect example of what I was discussing. This is the type of board where against a fish we may not even cbet it's just so drawy and fish don't like to fold draws or pairs. But if it's a TAG reg who we expect will fold if draw gets there and we keep putting pressure on we should keep our bluff range super-wide on this flop/turn just because we know he will be folding almost all the time the draw hits. So to exploit this mistake we want to have a ton of bluffs for when the draw does hit. In fact betting this flop/turn also helps us a lot on the other side in that if he sees us make this play with air he will call down a lot lighter and pay off our sets. Also although this would be a horrible board to 3-barrel bluff if turn and river are blanks, he will see us show down where we bet both flushes and air on this board and surmise that obviously we bet a busted draw on the river and may look us up very light even though our range for the river is purely sets/2-pair.

This make sense?

 

[eNTy]

This make sense?

Yes !
1,2,3 was very helpful, at least to me.

 

[GunslingerZ]

That is fantastic, Zach, thank you very, very much.

First example is Yeti theorem, though, right? Baluga is if villain c/c flop, c/r turn, then one pair is usually no good?

Third example is exactly what I was looking for. Learning how to accurately put decent players on ranges like this will help my game tremendously. Thank you!

 

[zachvac]

That is fantastic, Zach, thank you very, very much.

First example is Yeti theorem, though, right? Baluga is if villain c/c flop, c/r turn, then one pair is usually no good?

Third example is exactly what I was looking for. Learning how to accurately put decent players on ranges like this will help my game tremendously. Thank you!

Oh crap you're right yeah that was yeti not baluga.

 

[StormRaven]

Great strategy article Zach, certainly is a lot to absorb & think about!

I do have a few questions/comments if you don't mind (Apologies in advance if some of them aren't articulated well, still on pain pills from my surgery):

Even though if you are an unknown and the first hand you sit down at the table you probably would be more profitable with a raise to 4 or 5 BBs because they'd assume it was your normal raise size. So you give up the value or give yourself worse odds on the bluff and take the action that allows you to take the best line with your overall range while not giving away information.

How do you continue to exploit this with your raise sizes? Say you sit down and have the 38 os on the btn. Everyone folds to you, and you bet 4-5x bb. Then you get AA later on the btn, you bet 4-5 bb. I can see where making the same size bets with the differing hands is optimal to continue confusing your opp for balance as it would be difficult for them to put you on a range; is this what you continue to do? Like do you recommend using around the same pf range bets with the differing hands under the same circumstances? Or do you shake it up a bit. Like sometime I may pf 2.5x bb with AA, other times 5x bb with AA, etc; because I don't want my opps to be able to guess what my pf's mean & what range of hands they mean. So if on btn do I try for some sort of consistancy? I know you touched on this with your RPS example and the Dwan example but I'm very new to getting the guts to pf with a full table with a hand like 38 os and could really only see myself trying this on the btn. I play mostly full rings & mtt tourneys & some sng's. Sorry for any confusion in the way I've worded this. Now that I'm re-reading this before submitting perhaps it's better understood what I mean with my other questions below?

Say the flop comes JT9 rainbow. Even without flush draws there are a lot of hands that cbet this flop for value. QJ/KJ/AJ/JT/T9/J9/99/TT/JJ/QQ/KK/AA all bet this flop for value most likely. Why? Because they believe a worse hand will call them a lot.

I noticed you left out KQ in your range of hands for cbetting. Is this intentional? When I read supersystems, it was mentioned to go ahead and lead a bet into a pot when you flop a set (especially if it's a drawing board). I don't recall now if it was mentioned for other hands like flopping a straight or a flush. But I would think in order to keep with a nice balance that we would include the KQ & cbet as our opps may not expect us to cbet the flopped nutz. Is this accurate or am I way off here? Like maybe have a % (33% or so ?)of the time that you would indeed bet to just to make it look like a cbet?

He said that he will take a sub-optimal line some small percentage of the time and do his very best to show it down. So if he 3-bets 38o in the blinds and flops an 8 and thinks he has the best hand on the river, he may decide not to go for thin value because he thinks not many other worse hands will call but worse that most hands, better or worse, will fold. And after he has taken the slightly -ev play, he wants to make it pay off with the image/balance.

I never do this. I am such a chick sh*t this way, really. If I get 38 os, even on the btn and its been folded to me & there is a TAG in bb, or a player that I have observed folding his bb to a 3xbb pf from co/btn, I will still fold out of fear he will call and I will have just thrown those chips or that money away. I'm starting to realize now that this sort of play must be done for +ev and to not be predictable. Maybe this is why I can't seem to take my playing to the next level. How often do you recommend doing something like you describe above? You said it doesn't take much as players will remember this for a long time, so do you have a % you like to try and achieve? And I guess the better ? is this: do you do this mainly during ring game play vs sng's vs mtt's? I can see why in a ring game & 1 table sng as you will be with the same players for a bit (unlike a mtt tourney where you're moved often). But what about like a final table of a 45/90/180 man sng? Would this be good strategy there as well?

Also pertaining to the above: is this where a good hud comes into play? Sounds to me like it is. I just finished my trial of HEM and having never used poker software before I can tell I did not pay attention to many of the stats just trying to get used to them. So would you recommend having HEM/PT3 before trying to make this sort of play? I can see where you are mtt'ing ring games it would be nice to have those stats, otherwise it's just a shot in the dark, right?

New question: I have just opened the book (in lieu of just staring at it since x-mas) "Harrington on Cash Games Volume I". Last night I stopped reading on page 119, which just finishes Harrington describing his theories on "Metagames". Please correct me if I'm wrong here, but is what I am reading now on Metagames a very similar concept to what you have just so elogantly written?

On page 108 & 109, I quote: "The goal of metagame plays is to create an image of a player who is dangerous and inscrutable. When you make a move, players don't know what you're doing. They've seen you make plays before with big hands and with nothing. They can't be sure what your bets, raises, and calls mean. That makes you a player they don't want to play against, and that image is a money-making asset."

If I am correct, and what you have written is a more detailed concept of the metagame theory, then your 38 os is an example of how to achieve this image? I noticed Gunslinger mentioned the concept of the "Yeti Theorem", I haven't heard of this before. Where does this come from & is it a book & if so which one? I'll try to google it later this weekend or early next week when my kids are in school. I want to reread what you've written & the metagame theory & am still working on a "one hand clapping" article.

Thanks in advance, and again, great article, it is certainly striking home with me that I have to shake my game up even more to take it to the next level.

 

[zachvac]

How do you continue to exploit this with your raise sizes? Say you sit down and have the 38 os on the btn. Everyone folds to you, and you bet 4-5x bb. Then you get AA later on the btn, you bet 4-5 bb. I can see where making the same size bets with the differing hands is optimal to continue confusing your opp for balance as it would be difficult for them to put you on a range; is this what you continue to do? Like do you recommend using around the same pf range bets with the differing hands under the same circumstances? Or do you shake it up a bit. Like sometime I may pf 2.5x bb with AA, other times 5x bb with AA, etc;

Nah preflop I think mixing it up based on hand strength is not a good idea, just because it is one of the few things people will pick up on and exploit. Now obviously you could mix up making some 5 and some 2.5 and some 3 some 4 and trying to get them guessing but I think it would be more trouble than it's worth. Preflop raise size is one spot where I don't mind basically staying completely balanced. You can't use raise size to exploit them based on your hand strength but they then can't exploit you based on your hand strength.

because I don't want my opps to be able to guess what my pf's mean & what range of hands they mean. So if on btn do I try for some sort of consistancy? I know you touched on this with your RPS example and the Dwan example but I'm very new to getting the guts to pf with a full table with a hand like 38 os and could really only see myself trying this on the btn.

ok a few things. Unless you are playing the same opponents a lot and they are picking up on your tendencies, balance simply is not important at all. If most opponents call too much and don't pay attention to what hands you are raising, raising trash is just suicidal. Just raise monsters and let them call too much and pay you off. If they are folding more and/or paying attention to your image (for example if I'm in the BB and a 2/2 with a 2% steal attempt raises, I know exactly what he has and am never going to 3-bet them light), then it's more profitable to mix in air hands. The biggest thing though is that if you raise 38o preflop and that's all you do with it, no one is going to think you are crazy. Now it's certainly possible that they'll assign a larger stealing range after seeing it and call wider or 3-bet you more than they should, but these are relatively small mistakes. You are rarely going to induce a mistake that gets a stack from an opponent by showing down a hand where you raised 38o on the button. And if you show it down I doubt anyone's going to remember it a week down the road. Now however if you raise it preflop, bet flop, bet turn, and shove river with absolute air and get called, they'll definitely remember that one. In those kind of spots I know my opponent is writing a note on me so I write a note on him basically saying what I did. I still have a note on a guy saying he thinks I 3 and 5-bet light because I 5-bet jammed 78s against his AK and sucked out to win. Obviously I don't know for sure he wrote the note or if he remembers it, but I think the odds are he does.

I noticed you left out KQ in your range of hands for cbetting. Is this intentional? When I read supersystems, it was mentioned to go ahead and lead a bet into a pot when you flop a set (especially if it's a drawing board). I don't recall now if it was mentioned for other hands like flopping a straight or a flush. But I would think in order to keep with a nice balance that we would include the KQ & cbet as our opps may not expect us to cbet the flopped nutz. Is this accurate or am I way off here? Like maybe have a % (33% or so ?)of the time that you would indeed bet to just to make it look like a cbet?

Yeah sorry basically I'm just making the hands up as I go along and you're right KQ is definitely in the cbet for value range.

I never do this. I am such a chick sh*t this way, really. If I get 38 os, even on the btn and its been folded to me & there is a TAG in bb, or a player that I have observed folding his bb to a 3xbb pf from co/btn, I will still fold out of fear he will call and I will have just thrown those chips or that money away. I'm starting to realize now that this sort of play must be done for +ev and to not be predictable. Maybe this is why I can't seem to take my playing to the next level. How often do you recommend doing something like you describe above? You said it doesn't take much as players will remember this for a long time, so do you have a % you like to try and achieve? And I guess the better ? is this: do you do this mainly during ring game play vs sng's vs mtt's? I can see why in a ring game & 1 table sng as you will be with the same players for a bit (unlike a mtt tourney where you're moved often). But what about like a final table of a 45/90/180 man sng? Would this be good strategy there as well?

This is actually a different issue from balancing, but I'll address it anyway. Against most players I play against I believe it is directly profitable in a vacuum to steal with 38o from the button. So I do very close to 100% of the time. If you have calling stations in the blinds, it may not be so profitable and I wouldn't do it. Unless your opponents are adjusting to you and even then I like calling 3-bets/mixing up 4-bet range more than stealing less.

Also pertaining to the above: is this where a good hud comes into play? Sounds to me like it is. I just finished my trial of HEM and having never used poker software before I can tell I did not pay attention to many of the stats just trying to get used to them. So would you recommend having HEM/PT3 before trying to make this sort of play? I can see where you are mtt'ing ring games it would be nice to have those stats, otherwise it's just a shot in the dark, right?

Well you need a read of some kind. If you're 1-tabling I don't think you need a HUD or anything just try to keep note of how everyone is playing in terms of tight/loose, aggressive/passive, how they defend their blinds, etc. If you're multi-tabling I think a HUD is pretty essential yes.

New question: I have just opened the book (in lieu of just staring at it since x-mas) "Harrington on Cash Games Volume I". Last night I stopped reading on page 119, which just finishes Harrington describing his theories on "Metagames". Please correct me if I'm wrong here, but is what I am reading now on Metagames a very similar concept to what you have just so elogantly written?

On page 108 & 109, I quote: "The goal of metagame plays is to create an image of a player who is dangerous and inscrutable. When you make a move, players don't know what you're doing. They've seen you make plays before with big hands and with nothing. They can't be sure what your bets, raises, and calls mean. That makes you a player they don't want to play against, and that image is a money-making asset."

Actually basically I'm saying that this view is not the whole picture. We still need to think about what we are exploiting. If we play perfectly unpredictable than no matter what he does he can't make mistakes against us. So while he's right we want to have an image like that we also want to know how our opponent will react to the image and be able to exploit him when he does react in that way. Like if we do create the crazy image we want to know that he will call us down light thus we want to have less bluffs in our range but the small amount of bluffs we do play we want to stick in our opponents' minds if they don't work. If on the other hand their mistake is that they fold too much we want to create an image of someone who always has the nuts. This is a little tougher to do lol.

I noticed Gunslinger mentioned the concept of the "Yeti Theorem", I haven't heard of this before. Where does this come from & is it a book & if so which one?

Basically the yeti theorem says if there is a dry board and someone 3-bets the flop it is always a bluff. It's not always the case, especially as more and more people know this theorem and try to exploit it the other way, but most of the time if someone re-raises a flop it's not with the nuts because they'd want to trap with the nuts on a dry board.

 

[StormRaven]

Thank you very much for taking the time to answer my questions. This has been very helpful and I am going to attempt to implement this discussion into this weekends play. I like to try something new every week and see if I understand new concepts I've recently read/learned about. In particular I like this response you wrote:

Actually basically I'm saying that this view is not the whole picture. We still need to think about what we are exploiting. If we play perfectly unpredictable than no matter what he does he can't make mistakes against us. So while he's right we want to have an image like that we also want to know how our opponent will react to the image and be able to exploit him when he does react in that way. Like if we do create the crazy image we want to know that he will call us down light thus we want to have less bluffs in our range but the small amount of bluffs we do play we want to stick in our opponents' minds if they don't work. If on the other hand their mistake is that they fold too much we want to create an image of someone who always has the nuts. This is a little tougher to do lol.

After reading about the metagame I was planning on practicing showing down air in a spot I could pick that would cost me the least amount of $$. With your explanation I now realize that is not enough; I have to make sure my opp is paying attention or the move is useless & more importantly (I say this because I hadn't thought of this part until you mentioned it) I need to know how my opp will react. Picking your spots, having a good read on your opp and exploiting them isn't enough, knowing how they will react to you is important as well.

I do have a couple more questions if you don't mind: what do you mean by:

Against most players I play against I believe it is directly profitable in a vacuum to steal with 38o from the button. So I do very close to 100% of the time.

What does the term "Vacuum" mean?

(for example if I'm in the BB and a 2/2 with a 2% steal attempt raises, I know exactly what he has and am never going to 3-bet them light)

I think I understand the gist of your statement: 2% steal means he rarely ever attempts to steal the blinds? So if you are in the bb and a player like this raises you then you aren't going to reraise them unless you have a premium pf hand as that player probably is tight and only raising with premium hands? What does the "2/2" part mean? I'm assuming it's a stat of some kind?

I still have a note on a guy saying he thinks I 3 and 5-bet light because I 5-bet jammed 78s against his AK and sucked out to win.

I make a lot of notes on my opps, mostly about their style, their range, etc; I had not thought too much about making notes on their image of me or plays I have made against them. This is great stuff here. It seems to me like a whole nother article could be written on this concept.

Basically the yeti theorem says if there is a dry board and someone 3-bets the flop it is always a bluff. It's not always the case, especially as more and more people know this theorem and try to exploit it the other way, but most of the time if someone re-raises a flop it's not with the nuts because they'd want to trap with the nuts on a dry board.

Thank you, I definitely will put this theorem next on my list of what I'd like to research more. I apologize again for the noob questions, but I want to make sure I'm completely understanding a lot of the lingo that is used so here's another:

By "Dry Board" is that basically an uneventful board? No flush or straight draw, rainbows with cards that seem non-consquential to the pf action? Like maybe with 2 players hu that have raised pf and end of with a flop like: 2d 7s 10h?

Whereas a "Wet Board" might be what is sometimes referred to as a drawing board or scare cards? Like maybe: Ac Kc 10h? or 9c 9 s 10 s?

* I don't mean to go off subject at all if it appears I might be, I am the type of person who does not feel embarassed to ask questions, even if they seem basic or noobish, I'd rather have a complete understanding of the subjects at hand than an assumption or a misunderstanding.

Thanks again, really appreciate it!

 

[zachvac]

What does the term "Vacuum" mean?

It means just that one single hand. For example you're in the small blind, big blind thinks you're a nit (don't raise many hands), you can in a vacuum profitably raise 38o. But the hand is not the only one you play against him and in the future if you always raise 38o he will no longer think of you as tight and the play will no longer be profitable. Basically in a vacuum is at the one point in time what is the most profitable play, but as I mentioned in this thread we don't always want to make the single most profitable play at a point in time or it will cease to be the most profitable play because our opponent will adjust.

I think I understand the gist of your statement: 2% steal means he rarely ever attempts to steal the blinds? So if you are in the bb and a player like this raises you then you aren't going to reraise them unless you have a premium pf hand as that player probably is tight and only raising with premium hands? What does the "2/2" part mean? I'm assuming it's a stat of some kind?

x/y in poker generally means he sees x% of flops and raises with y%. So 2/2 means he never calls, and raises 2% of hands. This equates to approximately KK+/AK or JJ+. So against a 2/2 if he raises we assume he has a premium hand.

I make a lot of notes on my opps, mostly about their style, their range, etc; I had not thought too much about making notes on their image of me or plays I have made against them. This is great stuff here. It seems to me like a whole nother article could be written on this concept.

The biggest thing though of importance is that the opponent has to be taking notes or at least noticing the way you play. If they are just a moron playing their own 2 cards and not getting reads on anyone at the table you doing this will just confuse yourself and think about things that are not important. We want to try to always be 1 level ahead of our opponent. If they're playing their own cards, we see how our cards stack up against theirs. If they're playing their own cards and our cards, we need to think more about how our perceived range of hands stacks up against his range of hands and how we can exploit that with the single hand we have. That's where poker gets tough/fun.

Thank you, I definitely will put this theorem next on my list of what I'd like to research more. I apologize again for the noob questions, but I want to make sure I'm completely understanding a lot of the lingo that is used so here's another:

There is no such thing as a noob question. Everyone started from scratch so definitely feel free to ask away. I'll answer as best I can but of course I'm not perfect and I'm still learning as well. Also putting this into practice is much harder than grasping it conceptually .

By "Dry Board" is that basically an uneventful board? No flush or straight draw, rainbows with cards that seem non-consquential to the pf action? Like maybe with 2 players hu that have raised pf and end of with a flop like: 2d 7s 10h?

Exactly. Generally when we talk about dry/wet flops we look at how they connect to our opponent's range. People in general like to play pairs, high cards, suited cards, and connectors. A dry flop is one we can assume they will not hit very often and a wet one is one where they will hit one peice very often. Like the JT9 2-toned there are so many hands that at least hit part of that board, whether it's a gutshot, a pair, a flush draw, a strong hand, or a combo of pair+draw. Whereas boards like T72r like you mentioned is a pretty dry flop although something like A72r is even drier, just because hands like J9/89/68 all have straight draws on T72. But I would consider that a dry board.

Whereas a "Wet Board" might be what is sometimes referred to as a drawing board or scare cards? Like maybe: Ac Kc 10h? or 9c 9 s 10 s?

Exactly.

* I don't mean to go off subject at all if it appears I might be, I am the type of person who does not feel embarassed to ask questions, even if they seem basic or noobish, I'd rather have a complete understanding of the subjects at hand than an assumption or a misunderstanding.

Thanks again, really appreciate it!

I'm exactly like this as well, definitely don't feel embarassed about it, and also it helps me to understand it more explaining things. No problem at all .

 

[eNTy]

If we play perfectly unpredictable than no matter what he does he can't make mistakes against us.[/QUOTE]

I still don't really grasp this sentence/concept.

Can you explain/elaborate ?

 

[zachvac]

I still don't really grasp this sentence/concept.

Can you explain/elaborate ?

It's like the RPS example. A perfectly GTO strategy would be to play rock 33%, paper 33%, siscors 33%. He couldn't exploit us, he'd never beat us. But if it was a raked RPS game no matter what he did (even if just did 100% of one) we couldn't win either and we'd both donate to the rake. Anyway I believe as you move up you need to start balancing more and playing more GTO against other regs and make the money from the fish, although this only applies against opponents you feel you have no edge on. For example like I said if you're playing RPS against someone who just has your number and is one step ahead of you, the good defense to that to ensure you at least break even is just randomly pick rock, paper, or siscors each 1/3 of the time. Now obviously it's a bit more difficult than that to play GTO poker, but that's the theory behind it.

 

[Four Dogs]

Very good post Zach. A+. I'm not sure I took it all in so I'm printing it so I can take it in to my reading room with me. That's where I digest deep thoughts and deep six what I've digested.
:toilet:

 

[nugsmoke]

wow....very detailed and useful info.....ive always thought about this but never would of taken the time to write all this info down....thanks alot by the way,,,,im new to the site by the way....my name is kenneth g. cya round

 

[BelgoSuisse]

It's like the RPS example. A perfectly GTO strategy would be to play rock 33%, paper 33%, siscors 33%. He couldn't exploit us, he'd never beat us. But if it was a raked RPS game no matter what he did (even if just did 100% of one) we couldn't win either and we'd both donate to the rake.

ok, that is true for RPS, but not in most situations you encounter in poker.

You should read this paper by Tom Fergusson for examples. http://www.math.ucla.edu/~tom/papers/poker2.pdf It's a simple HU poker model where each player gets dealt a real number between 0 and 1 and he explores the GTO strategies with different number of bets allowed. And obviously when one player plays GTO, the other can still make mistakes that let the GTO player profit.

 

[allndave]

my head hurts!! great post zach , lots to think about. i'm commenting so i can come back and read this again.

 

[zachvac]

ok, that is true for RPS, but not in most situations you encounter in poker.

You should read this paper by Tom Fergusson for examples. http://www.math.ucla.edu/~tom/papers/poker2.pdf It's a simple HU poker model where each player gets dealt a real number between 0 and 1 and he explores the GTO strategies with different number of bets allowed. And obviously when one player plays GTO, the other can still make mistakes that let the GTO player profit.

ok maybe I was wrong, will definitely read it. I mean I guess a perfectly balanced strategy can profit because if someone shoves their entire stack in with 23o no matter what strategy we are playing we always call with aces and obviously it's not possible for us to call with worse but I always thought in spots like I was talking about with bluffing frequency that if you take the Sklansky model where you bluff a certain frequency given the odds you offer your opponents (ie if they get 2 to 1 you should bluff 1/3 of the time) like they can't make a mistake most of the time. I guess the assumption there is they have a bluff catcher that is better than all your bluff hands and worse than all your value hands. So I guess they can still call with hands that are worse than both to make a theoretical mistake but then again if they have hands better than our value range our initial bet was a mistake. Anyway I'll read the article thanks.

 

[PattyR]

omg that is a super long post.

im gonna comment so i can also come back and read it again

 

[Jack Daniels]

im gonna comment so i can also come back and read it again

In the future there are two other alternatives for you:
1) Bookmark the page in your browser favorites, or
2) At the top of the page above the OP there is a dropdown menu called "Thread Tools". In there is a option to subscribe to this thread. If you click that, then in the future you can find your subscribed threads in your User CP.



P.S. - BTW Zach, awesome thread sir.

 

[damon789]

vn Brella

ok so interesting topic and I've seen so many people throw the word around and they have no understanding of what it really means. So first let me define how it is used in the most basic sense:

Balancing is the act of taking a line that will be sub-optimal in one spot to increase our expectation in other spots.

One example is preflop raise sizes. Say we're on the button everyone folds to us in an nlhe game and we have AA. Obviously we're going to raise for value. How much do we want to raise though? Hold that thought. Same situation, only now we have 34s. It's strong enough that we can raise and have some postflop value, but the raise is essentially a bluff. So against somewhat normal thinking opponents we can minraise the 34s to give us a cheap bluff and raise to 5x with AA for max value. Right?

Wrong, and this is the essence of balance. Even the most unobservent opponents will pick up if you raise to different sizes based on hand strength, and they can adjust to this and play better against you. Even though if you are an unknown and the first hand you sit down at the table you probably would be more profitable with a raise to 4 or 5 BBs because they'd assume it was your normal raise size. So you give up the value or give yourself worse odds on the bluff and take the action that allows you to take the best line with your overall range while not giving away information. This is the basics of balancing.

First thing, there is no point to balancing against unobservent opponents. If you're in a live game and everyone is absolutely horrible and drunk out of their minds not paying attention to anything but their own cards (sometimes) then why not raise to 5 BBs with AA and 2 with 34s? If your opponent will not notice or will not adjust to you taking an unbalanced line, there is no reason to balance.

Now everything up to this point I consider pretty basic and everyone I believe has at least a decent understanding of this. I just wanted to set the framework for when other balancing spots happen that are much more interesting. Say the flop comes JT9 rainbow. Even without flush draws there are a lot of hands that cbet this flop for value. QJ/KJ/AJ/JT/T9/J9/99/TT/JJ/QQ/KK/AA all bet this flop for value most likely. Why? Because they believe a worse hand will call them a lot. Keep that last sentence in your brain and see if you can spot the contradiction before I point it out. Then they think since their value range is so large they must have to bluff it a lot too. You see the contradiction? We value bet a lot of hands because we think there are a lot of hands they will call us with that are worse. Now when we bluff a lot we totally contradict the point of what our value bets accomplish. All of a sudden calling this flop very wide is not all that bad and it's no longer a mistake. Not to say you should never bluff this, just that if you balance your range perfectly on this board, it basically makes it impossible to make a mistake.

It may not be clear so let's go completely away from poker, to rock paper siscors. Now you're going to play this guy for a few hours. For whatever reason you know he is going to start out playing rock 100% of the time. What would you do? Well you could perfectly balance your range and go rock 33% paper 33% and siscors 33%. But then no matter what he does he's not making a mistake and his 100% rock strategy still wins the same amount as it loses. What about a 100% paper strategy? That's similar to cbetting the above board for value all the time and never as a bluff. It will probably work a few times, then he'll realize what you're doing and adjust. Playing 100% rock in RPS is a pretty big mistake so allowing him to realize it and correct it is definitely not good for us.

So what can we do? Seems like I'm saying balancing is bad but also playing unbalanced is bad, so which is it? Allow me to present an alternative. Against his 100% rock we instead play a 40% paper 30% rock and 30% siscoors strategy. All of a sudden we're still exploiting his mistake, but he may not realize it. He'll do thousands of matches, keep losing slowly and keep blaming the site for being rigged or think he just runs so bad when in reality he's being slowly exploited yet doesn't even realize how. This is how we want to play. We still want to be capable of cbetting a wet flop like that with air and we want our opponents to think we do it far more often than we do, because our exploitation comes when we bet and they call.

In fact here's a little something I read by a high-stakes HU player recently. He said that he will take a sub-optimal line some small percentage of the time and do his very best to show it down. So if he 3-bets 38o in the blinds and flops an 8 and thinks he has the best hand on the river, he may decide not to go for thin value because he thinks not many other worse hands will call but worse that most hands, better or worse, will fold. And after he has taken the slightly -ev play, he wants to make it pay off with the image/balance. For example who saw the Dwan hand where he 5-bet Howard Lederer with 68o? He certainly doesn't do that often but say you're playing him with a hand like 99 and he 5-bets you deep. Your thought process may be something like "**** it I have a good hand I know he can do this with 68o so his range is really wide I'm all-in". And even someone that aggressive is likely to have a hand the majority of the time he 5-bets, and you'll curse that he had the top of his range with AA and that most of the time you're good there.

So I guess these are the points to be made about balancing:

1. There is no use in balancing something against an unthinking opponent. If an opponent doesn't understand wet/dry flops there is no need to balance against him. If an opponent just plays his own cards there's no reason to balance cbets. We know he'll miss most of the time and he won't adjust so we can cbet 100% against this player.

2. The more observant/good an opponent is, the more spots we do have to somewhat balance. We just need to realize that if we balance 100% in a certain spot our edge in that spot is 0. Of course there are certain spots where this is fine but if our overall gameplan has an edge of 0 than we may as well quit.

3. While balancing is indeed used to avoid from being exploited, more specifically it's to disguise how we are exploiting another player. It is meant to make our opponent specifically make a mistake in estimating our range and thus allow him to think he's playing against one range when he's really playing against another which his strategy does not work so well against.

So this has mostly been theoretical up to this point, let's get into some situations:

The following is a hand posted on 2p2 that sparked a debate that actually got me thinking more about balancing in the first place:

Hand was posted by a pretty solid reg who said opponent was also a solid reg who was a bit on the aggro side:

$600.00 No Limit Hold'em - 8 players

Pre Flop: ($9.00) Hero is BTN with 7

4

5 folds, Hero raises to $12, SB calls $9, 1 fold

Flop: ($30.00) J

7

7

(2 players)
SB checks, Hero bets $18.00, SB calls $18

Turn: ($66.00) 3

(2 players)
SB checks, Hero bets $42.00, SB raises to $174, Hero calls $132

River: ($414.00) 8

(2 players)
SB bets $396.00, Hero ???

Now here's the thing, hero has a pretty strong absolute hand in trips here but not a very good relative one. We need to think of the hands villain in this hand could have. He calls a minraise preflop which means his range is still pretty wide. Then he calls the flop bet oop which most likely eliminates all total air out of his range. He could possibly have a straight draw, a 7, a J, or even any pocket pair that doesn't raise preflop because he thinks it's good. Then we see a turn check/raise. Hero has bet twice when he could have basically all the nut hands including a ton of trips as we have in this spot along with jacks full, overpairs, Jx, etc. Yet he still decides to raise. We have trips so we call. Then an 8 rivers, hitting one of the gutshots. He then nearly pots it basically for basically his stack (think he had like a few bucks behind).

Anyway without going too far into it I think this is a river fold, as did the hero in this hand. There are not enough hands he bluffs with and no hand bets for value that is worse than hero's hand. But some people said this is super-exploitable, which is a code term for it's not balanced. If we bet a wide range on the flop/turn and then fold all but basically the nuts on the river, he can do this nearly 100% of the time profitably right? But that doesn't matter. What really matters is does he do it 100%? How often exactly does he bluff here? Unless he knows for a fact that we fold trips (and if we fold here it still doesn't give him that info, for all he knows we had QJ), he can't possibly expect us to fold them. This is an example of a spot that rarely comes up. He's not going to have thousands of hands like this to see what range we call with and what range we fold, so there is no need to balance in this spot just because all it does is spew money. Sure I agree he has a non-zero bluffing frequency here. But I don't think he is bluffing enough for us to have odds to call here. We beat 0 of his bluffing range.

I also mentioned and most people agreed, that if we have J2 in this spot we have the exact same hand. He never does this with a better jack or overpair and never has a worse kicker based on preflop. So people brought up this idea, that we can't be folding too much here, that J2 is the same as 47 here, so we call some percentage of the time with the hands between J2 and 47 just to counter being able to be bluffed all over the place, and what better way to do this by just picking the top of your range and calling with that? I certainly think this idea has merit and if your opponent is picking up on your tendencies and forcing you to balance these spots it is definitely the way to go. Even though J2 and 47 have the same equity maybe in this spot you call with QQ+/7x and fold all jacks. Maybe call with AJ too. It doesn't matter but it's a decent way to balance without worrying about actually staying balanced. But I still believe in this hand that balance is over-rated and that our opponent will never see how we act in this situation enough to realize we're actually able to lay down trips.

Which brings up another important point. When we make a river fold, what exactly are we exploiting? His range beats our hand, so we fold. So if he knows this it's not the end of the world he'll just start bluffing more and we can in turn adjust by calling more again. Basically I'm trying to say it's different from the 100% rock scenario because even if he does think we call with a wider range and not bluff enough against us it's not a huge mistake that's easy to exploit like the 100% rock was.

So basically my overall point is that balance is over-rated, and that many midstakes players do it way too much. Most likely they just want to make an action (most of the time bet or raise), so they do and they need an excuse so they use balance. Like I said, balance, especially against tough opponents, is certainly important, but some people go too far and strive to play a theoretically perfect game. And who can blame them for thinking it's good? It has the word perfect in it. You can't be exploited. The only problem is the reason your opponent can not exploit you is because all decisions are neutral. This means that your opponent can not make a mistake either and as a corolary you can't be exploiting them. No exploitation means no money, and this means you will lose to rake. So next time you're in a spot where you are tempted to make a play for balance and so you'll get paid off later, think about maybe passing on it and taking the sub-optimal play a bit less than you normally would. It doesn't mean you should start playing all hands in a vacuum, but it does mean you should think about what the best play is in a vacuum and attempt to take that line more often and only occasionally the other line. You want it in your opponents' minds that every time you 3-bet you could have 39o, but against opponents who call too many 3-bets and stack off too lightly 39o should be the exception rather than the rule. Because even if you 3-bet 39o and flop 2 pair to stack top pair only once, they will remember it for a long time and thus assign way too large a weight to you having it. You could do that once and then 3-bet only AA for the rest of the month and near the end of the month they'd still probably stack JJ off against you just because they think you could have 39o.

And that is how we profit from balance, not from taking a perfect GTO approach and adjusting our bluff percentage to the odds we offer our opponents so they can never make a mistake. But from taking a sub-optimal line a few times to convince our opponent we have a completely different hand range than we actually have and then using that to exploit them.

Love the post mate, I wholeheartedly agree as we ascend into the higher limits our bets, checks, and raises. Must all include a mix of strong marginal and weak hands. Being too easy too read is my worst poker nightmare.

I think Harrington calls this the Metagame in his Cash Games book. some one correct me If im wrong here.