shinmenkami
Rock Star
Silver Level
eetenor
Legend
Platinum Level
Thank U 4 Posting
We want to be playing a range of hands -so we want to be raising with AK in position but also with 87 suited. The key to playing a full range of hands is post flop skills. We need to be able to read board textures and player tendencies.
You gave two examples of hands AT KQ if we are in a pot with a player that only plays AJ or better than neither of the hands you choose are premium holdings.
Funny enough if we are up against villains who play small cards and connectors and no weak Ax or Kx again AT and KQ-off are not premium hands as they do not dominate anything.
Which means if we are in a pot with 1 TAG and 2 LAGS- AT and KQ are very difficult to realize our equity. So building a pot preflop by 3 betting or even raising limpers may not be the best strategy if called by the above player types.
What that means is if we are raising 3 bb preflop out of a 100bb stack-that means we do not want to get the other 97bb's in the pot with one pair with either of those hands.
Therefore JTs has more all streets value than A10 off. 87s is much easier to play post flop than KQ off as we would seldom incorrectly stack off with top pair only on an 8xxx board
Hope this helps
shinmenkami
Rock Star
Silver Level
Thanks for the in depth answer!! Yeah, youre right, it depends on the oponents. Im trying to create a solid strategy and your imput helped alot.Thank U 4 Posting
We want to be playing a range of hands -so we want to be raising with AK in position but also with 87 suited. The key to playing a full range of hands is post flop skills. We need to be able to read board textures and player tendencies.
You gave two examples of hands AT KQ if we are in a pot with a player that only plays AJ or better than neither of the hands you choose are premium holdings.
Funny enough if we are up against villains who play small cards and connectors and no weak Ax or Kx again AT and KQ-off are not premium hands as they do not dominate anything.
Which means if we are in a pot with 1 TAG and 2 LAGS- AT and KQ are very difficult to realize our equity. So building a pot preflop by 3 betting or even raising limpers may not be the best strategy if called by the above player types.
What that means is if we are raising 3 bb preflop out of a 100bb stack-that means we do not want to get the other 97bb's in the pot with one pair with either of those hands.
Therefore JTs has more all streets value than A10 off. 87s is much easier to play post flop than KQ off as we would seldom incorrectly stack off with top pair only on an 8xxx board
Hope this helps
I dont like to raise pre flop only with premium hands (even tho yourr helping me adjust what premium hands are) to keep my frequencies in check.
C
Criminal Bizzy
Rock Star
Silver Level
Here is an example that might help you understand better why its best to play your range instead of play your hand.
Andrew Brokos speaks about this extensively under the subject of game theory. He talks about a game called the Ace, King, Queen game. In this game you have to post an ante and then you are dealt one card. After you are dealt one card, if you are the out of position player you have the decision of check or bet. If OOP bets then the in position player can call or fold. If OOP checks then the IP has the decision to check or bet.
If you are OOP what should your strategy be if you have a Q?
If you are OOP what should your strategy be if you have K?
If you are OOP what should your strategy be if you have A?
Andrew Brokos speaks about this extensively under the subject of game theory. He talks about a game called the Ace, King, Queen game. In this game you have to post an ante and then you are dealt one card. After you are dealt one card, if you are the out of position player you have the decision of check or bet. If OOP bets then the in position player can call or fold. If OOP checks then the IP has the decision to check or bet.
If you are OOP what should your strategy be if you have a Q?
If you are OOP what should your strategy be if you have K?
If you are OOP what should your strategy be if you have A?
shinmenkami
Rock Star
Silver Level
If the 3 people knows theres only those card variants the queen would fold, the king would check/fold and the ace would bet.
Theres no situation where king or queen would do different because the ace would aways win.
But if the A folded OOP, letting the king win, he could try a bluff when he was in position with the A.
Yes you play your range not the hand itself, but how about the times you cant define your range and are going for playability? If you raise suited connectors preflop, your opponent will place you in a wrong range out of the bat, but the hand becomes dangerous because you can end up with just mid pairs and flush draws
shinmenkami
Rock Star
Silver Level
Ah, in this case is i know you know situation.
If i have the ace i will bet 70% of the time and slowplay 30% of the time OOP.
IP i would bet 100% of the time
C
Criminal Bizzy
Rock Star
Silver Level
When the in position player, is facing a bet, and has the Q they are obviously going to fold every time because they have the nut low. When they have the A, they are obviously going to call because they have the nut high. The king is interesting because sometimes the OOP has the nut high and sometimes OOP has the nut low. There are two approaches that the IP player can take.
1. They can take the exploitative approach where they try to guess the OOP players strategy and play accordingly
2. They can take the equilibrium approach where they create a strategy so that there is no right play for OOP
Knowing this we can come to some conclusions about what to do when you are OOP.
When OOP you want to play a mix strategy with your A. If you decide to check your A 40% of the time then you want to bluff with Q 60% of the time. Basically you are playing what Game Theory refers to as balanced strategy. If you have the K OOP you can check 100% of the time but know that when IP bets you will be calling some of the time to bluff catch because if OOP checks to IP then they have more incentive to bet and try to steal the pot. Sometime they will have an A and sometimes they will have a Q.
You might be asking yourself, what does this have to do with my question? Allow me to explain further the point that I am trying to illustrate here.
In your original question you asked about focusing on specific hands. First lets apply the A, K, Q game to poker...
The A represents the nutted part of your range
The K represents the merged part of your range
The Q represents the weaker part of your range
Yes, we want to make sure that we have a good opening range in poker but the concept I am talking about is more about what to do with our range than what our range is. Your range will change based on position and the opponent you are facing. Your range should be elastic and adjustable depending on the situation. Regardless of what your range is, the decisions that you make on how to play them should be focused on making the situation difficult for your opponent to find a correct play. This is the reason why I said earlier that you should focus on playing your range and not your hand. Because if you are playing an equilibrium strategy where you are balanced then in the end your hand is not going to matter all that much because you are making the most +EV decision in that scenario.
Your range should always be defined pre-flop. So in my opinion the question isn't which hands should you focus on more because of playability. The question should be how can you force your opponent to make a mistake because there is no correct play? Where is the equilibrium? When you play your range in this manner, the importance of your hand is not as significant as before. What is most important is that you are making the correct decisions that give you the advantage over your opponents. You are theoretically playing your range in the optimal way.
1. They can take the exploitative approach where they try to guess the OOP players strategy and play accordingly
2. They can take the equilibrium approach where they create a strategy so that there is no right play for OOP
Knowing this we can come to some conclusions about what to do when you are OOP.
When OOP you want to play a mix strategy with your A. If you decide to check your A 40% of the time then you want to bluff with Q 60% of the time. Basically you are playing what Game Theory refers to as balanced strategy. If you have the K OOP you can check 100% of the time but know that when IP bets you will be calling some of the time to bluff catch because if OOP checks to IP then they have more incentive to bet and try to steal the pot. Sometime they will have an A and sometimes they will have a Q.
You might be asking yourself, what does this have to do with my question? Allow me to explain further the point that I am trying to illustrate here.
In your original question you asked about focusing on specific hands. First lets apply the A, K, Q game to poker...
The A represents the nutted part of your range
The K represents the merged part of your range
The Q represents the weaker part of your range
Yes, we want to make sure that we have a good opening range in poker but the concept I am talking about is more about what to do with our range than what our range is. Your range will change based on position and the opponent you are facing. Your range should be elastic and adjustable depending on the situation. Regardless of what your range is, the decisions that you make on how to play them should be focused on making the situation difficult for your opponent to find a correct play. This is the reason why I said earlier that you should focus on playing your range and not your hand. Because if you are playing an equilibrium strategy where you are balanced then in the end your hand is not going to matter all that much because you are making the most +EV decision in that scenario.
Your range should always be defined pre-flop. So in my opinion the question isn't which hands should you focus on more because of playability. The question should be how can you force your opponent to make a mistake because there is no correct play? Where is the equilibrium? When you play your range in this manner, the importance of your hand is not as significant as before. What is most important is that you are making the correct decisions that give you the advantage over your opponents. You are theoretically playing your range in the optimal way.
C
Criminal Bizzy
Rock Star
Silver Level
AFAIK this game is not discussed in any poker books. If you google the Ace King Queen game you can find some academic papers on this game where they discuss game theory in general.
shinmenkami
Rock Star
Silver Level
So by my previous answer yoy see im more inclined to what you called equilibrium play. And i guess that in the equivalent line of tought the correct decisions would be called frequencies.
The problem i face when i try to play exploitive is that even by playing a range in the showdow you dont have a range, you have a hand. So your oponent can adjust to your exploitation: when the villain play exploitation as well, its a i know you know i know you know game, and when he is facing a player that is playing GTO or close to GTO, he will have problems because players will ofteb flip a coin in situations to decide if they will call or not.
So my original question, as badly explained as it was by me, was if i should include suited connectors as a part of my pre flop raise to increase my raise frequency. But i understand your point and its pretty valid.
C
Criminal Bizzy
Rock Star
Silver Level
Using the same example we can start to look at bluffing too. A couple things to remember about bluffing:
1. It is better to bluff when your hand no equity at all
2. bluffing is a skill that needs to be learned
The reason I brought up the Ace, King, Queen game is because when you look at the strategy, bluffing is included. Remember that when betting an A you need to balance it by betting your Q when you have it in a balanced way. This means that when you bet your Q you are bluffing. Notice though that you do not bluff with anything but the worse card.
How does this translate to ranges? Its a bit more complicated than the game that I used as an example but the idea is that when you bluff, you are playing your entire your range. Since you can't control what your opponent thinks then trying to represent a specific hand is not as important. All that matters is that your opponent think that they are beat, let them decide what part of your range that is.
If you opponent has something like pocket Q on a board with flush and straight out there. There may be lots of hands that beat them such as over pairs, two pars, 3 of a kind, straights, and flushes. The goal here is to find a spot that is good for your range and will allow you the opportunity to logically represent something that you do not have.
All of this goes back into playing your range not worrying about specific hole cards. When the opportunity arises, you will be able to bluff because your opponent is not willing to play for stacks and they have a marginal-weak hand.