[Jets12]

Hello degenerates. New here, just browsing the forum, sounded like a couple people were interested in discussing strategy. Figured I would contribute something simple to start it off and see if it gets the ball rolling. A few years ago when people would discuss poker on forums they would focus on how we should play our specific hand in that one situation. Now the way the best players seem to focus more on our entire range, and how we should be be playing different parts of that range. In gto poker we assume we know our opponents entire range and he knows ours. Our goal is determine how we get the most value from that range.

Take a simplified river scenario where the board is A9822. We have bet the flop, bet the turn, and get checked to on the river. Say our range is 12 combos of AK and 16 combos of JT. Obviously in real poker we will have gotten to river with many more hands, but the idea is that we want to look at a situation where we have a polarized range, (strong hands and bluffs), and our opponent has a likely bluff catcher. After betting large on two streets on a board like this, I think this will often be the case. So if we are trying to play balanced gto poker, we have to figure out how often we are allowed to bluff so that we give our opponent no good option between calling and folding. Our aim is to make him indifferent between the two. So we will want to value bet our 12 combos of AK. How many JT combos we are allowed to bluff will depend on our bet size. Say we are betting the pot, so assume there is $100 in the pot before the river, and we face him with a 100 dollar bet. He is now getting 2:1 on his call, he has to call 200 to win 100. So thats the ratio that we should be value betting to bluffing from a range perspective. We value bet 12 combos of AK, bluff 6 combos of JT, and check back and give up with the other 10 JT combos.

We can check and see if this works out by writing out the 12 AK combos, and the 6 JT combos, and see if he will do better by calling everytime or folding everytime. The answer is it doesn't matter, we will have made him "indifferent." Over the course of those 18 hands, we will win on average the 100 dollars that was in the pot before we bet, and we will nothing. This means we have put him in a zero EV situation, which is our goal. If we know he tends to call too much, or fold too much, we can adjust our strategy and do better than this.

This isn't to say that when we are in a river situation, we should only be focuses on our range and making sure we are perfectly balanced. If we employ this strategy, we cannot be exploited by him. In other words if he knew we probably bluffed less than this he could just fold every bluff catcher whenever we bet the river. If we bluffed more than this he should just every time. And in terms of our own approach, obviously we shouldn't bluff any JT combos VS calling stations, and we should bluff our balls off VS nits, or people who will arrive at the river with too weak of a range and not defend it. But this gives us an outline of how to play our range VS someone that we don't know how to exploit.

[daneblazer]

about .01% of posters here will understand what you just said

[Jets12]

Blah sorry. Maybe should back up a bit? Happy to try to explain myself better or answer any questions etc.

[RudyRuetigger]

i appreciate the effort but i dont get it

polarizing hands, we need to play a range of hands, etc etc....ok

but then we only put him on a specific hand... a bluff catcher

[PanamaBrad]

I will help you for when u face me. I don't bluff. If I am in the hand fold or..... wait for your rag to pair (SBR poker) and beat my AK.

[Jets12]

i appreciate the effort but i dont get it

polarizing hands, we need to play a range of hands, etc etc....ok

but then we only put him on a specific hand... a bluff catcher

Our range is every hand we will arrive in a specific spot with. Say we are first to act in a 9 handed game, our preflop open raising range will be something like 77-AA, AK,AQ,A2s-AJs, JTs,QJs,KQs etc. So these are all the possible hands we hold. Say we raise and get called by the big blind. Now we get that A98 flop. On the flop, we are probably betting most of that range when checked to. We would want to bet all our strong hands, all our hands that completely missed, and probably check back some medium strength hands. So once he calls, he does still have some strong hands in his own range that aren't just bluff catchers. On the turn we get a 2, he checks and we bet the pot. When I said our range is polarized, this means we are betting strong hands and draws, or bluffs if you want to call them that. We wouldn't want to bet say KK or A4s for a pot sized bet, because its likely he would only call us when he had a better hand, which is not good for us. So when I say our range is starting to become polarized, it means it doesn't include medium strength hands anymore. Once he just calls the turn, its becoming more and more likely he has a bluff catcher and not a 2 pair plus type hand. The reason is simply because he hasn't raised the flop or turn. The flop I used for my example might not have been best, this is especially true when the board is really draw heavy. He shouldn't be slow playing his big hands often because he doesn't want to risk us checking behind the flop or turn and getting a free draw. When he does have more strong slowplayed hands in his own range we might not want to make a pot sized bet on the river with AK, we would probably chose a smaller sizing.

So when we pot the turn, we should have very strong hands and some draws. I can more into exactly how many bluffs we should have on the turn from a game theory perspective later if anybody is interested, (its more than the river.) Anyway with other hands I had bet the flop with, say A7 suited, Im going to bet for a smaller size now on the turn. This is because I don't want to bet so large that he's only calling me with a better hand. So when we pot, in reality our range is probably something like, AA,99,88, AK, J10s,QJ.

Now the river. There are 12 possible ways for us to hold AK. There are 16 ways to make J10. I just tried to simplify it and assumed we only arrived with AK and JT, which is obviously not the case, to show how often we should be bluffing in general when we bet the pot. The takeaway from this on the river is all whatever odds he is getting to call our river bet, thats the ratio of value bets to bluffs we should have. So whenever we bet the pot he will always be getting 2:1 to call. 1 dollar in the pot, we bet a dollar, so he has to call $2 to win $1. So we should be value betting twice as often as we are bluffing when we bet the pot on the river.

This is just a toy game type of example where we only arrive at the river with AK and JT. If we went through our entire range we arrived at the river with, it would look something like:

AA- 3 combos
99- 3 combos
88- 3 combos
AK- 12 combos

So that means we have 21 value betting hands we would get to the river with. So if we bet pot we could bluff 10 or 11 combos. Remember this is just looking at our STRATEGY as whole. When I play poker I'm mostly making decisions based on my opponents tendencies, but it can be interesting and helpful to try to figure out how we should play all our hands to get the most value from our entire range. This means we could tell our opponent, hi, so I have AA,99,88 and AK, and 12 bluffs, call or fold I don't really give a shit, and there is nothing he can do about it. And if we are playing an expert who we have no idea how to exploit by bluffing more, or less on the river, this is going to be our best strategy.

[RudyRuetigger]

thanks for the long post

but im asking why are we putting ourselves on a range and putting villain on a specific hand (bluff catcher)

and how are we creating 0EV for him. what about him raising.

[Slanina]

I suck at poker. That is all.

[Jets12]

thanks for the long post

but im asking why are we putting ourselves on a range and putting villain on a specific hand (bluff catcher)

and how are we creating 0EV for him. what about him raising.

No prob good questions. We aren't really putting ourself on a range, thats just the reality of what we hold, or something close to what we should hold when the hand plays out this way. You are right as far as his own hands, I probably should have said, against his range of probable bluff catchers. Once in a while we will definitely run into a slow played set or something, this is just an a rough outline of what our own strategy should look like in these spots. When he takes a line like check call flop, check call turn, check river, we will be up against a range of mostly bluffcatchers. What this means is that we will be able to value bet the river "thinner", with hands as weak as AK because we assume most of his stronger hands would have raised on a previous street. If he is the type to play many of his strong hands passively on these boards, then we probably can't pot the river with AK. Our strategy gets more complicated once he starts to slowplay a lot so I tried to keep it simple.

As for the 0 ev question. As long as we value bet to bluff at a 2:1 raitio when we bet the pot he will have zero EV. Instead of 12 combos AK and 6 JT, lets say we have 2 AK combos and 1 combo of JT to keep it simple. Nothing will change with the math. So there is 1 dollar in the pot, he checks, and we bet a dollar. Lets first assume he has a bluff catcher and calls every time. I realize in real poker this wont be the case but this is just a model.

AK- $1 in pot, we bet a dollar, he calls and loses $1.
AK- $1 in pot, we bet a dollar, he calls and loses $1
JT- $1 in pot, we bet a dollar, he calls and wins $2.

For the sum of these 3 hands, which makes up our total range, if he calls every time he wins nothing on the river. Which means we win the $1 dollar that was in the pot before we bet. Giving him 0 EV.

Now say he folds everytime.

AK- $1 in the pot, we bet $1 dollar and he folds
AK- $1 in the pot, we bet $1 dollar and he folds
JT- $1 in the pot, we bet $1 dollar and he folds.

So he folds every time and he still gets nothing on the river. Again that means over the total of these 3 hands, (our range) we will win the 1 dollar that was in the pot before we bet the river. I just quickly googled optimal bluffing frequency and this article was the first that came up, I'm sure there are better ones but maybe it explains things in simpler terms.

http://www.pokerjunkie.com/optimal-b...iver-in-holdem

[Lowly Oaftard]

I don't think we can uber simplify a spot like this by throwing an incompletely textured board like this, with no stated positions/effective stacks, and say its clearly a spot where we would have a polarized range against a range of bluffcatchers. What about a hand we might open from middle position, like 67s, where we could fire three barrels to fold busted straight and flush draws that would have showdown value against us? Or what about value betting AQ combos that we're likely to open from almost any position?

Having said that, when facing opponents that are overzealous in their bluffcatching, I think we can include strategies that would turn a hand like KK or A4s into a river pot sized bet. Merging our range here also has the added benefit of confusing our opponents and eliminating them from bluffcatching us easily in future polarized spots that are weighted towards bluffs.

[Jets12]

I don't think we can uber simplify a spot like this by throwing an incompletely textured board like this, with no stated positions/effective stacks, and say its clearly a spot where we would have a polarized range against a range of bluffcatchers. What about a hand we might open from middle position, like 67s, where we could fire three barrels to fold busted straight and flush draws that would have showdown value against us? Or what about value betting AQ combos that we're likely to open from almost any position?

Having said that, when facing opponents that are overzealous in their bluffcatching, I think we can include strategies that would turn a hand like KK or A4s into a river pot sized bet. Merging our range here also has the added benefit of confusing our opponents and eliminating them from bluffcatching us easily in future polarized spots that are weighted towards bluffs.

I don't really disagree with much of what you saying. I'm just trying to frame an example where I can show the game theory optimal river strategy in a spot where we have strong hands and bluffs, and he has a likely bluffcatcher. The point wasn't really to try to determine exactly what we should and shouldn't be betting on this specific board, just to point out the ratio of value bets to bluff we should have on the river is we dont know how to exploit our opponent. There is a toy game in Mathmatics of poker where we hold AKQ and our opponent always holds to the K. Our GTO strategy is the bet our A everytime, check back our K, and bet half our Q's. It's hard to find a perfect example in real poker because our own range will never be all nuts+air and his will never be all bluffcatchers.

For sure I agree we should bet AQ for some sizing, and if we have 67s in our opening range its our best bluffing hand since we have no showdown equity. As far as the range merging stuff, I remember the old AEJONES thread on 2p2 a bunch of years back that everyone took as gospel. Its pretty much all nonsense, you can easily show with some EV calcs that potting KK on the board isn't going to be part of a GTO river strategy. I don't disagree that exploitively based on your image and his tendencies or whatever it could be fine, but its not part if any optimal river strategy.

As far as position and stacks are concerned, when we are looking at spots where one range consists of strong hands and bluffs, and the other is bluff catchers, position is completely meaningless. The bluff catcher always has to check. In practice ranges are never made up exactly in this way but it's still an important point imo.

[Auto Donk]

about .01% of posters here will understand what you just said

"combos" around the Donk household generally means the wife and I are out on the prowl for a single babe "unicorn" for some hot threesome fun, ie, "combo" action.........

that, and Chimp loves the damn things....., ie. "Combos", a sponsor of Rowdy's No. 18, you know.... those pretzel tubes stuffed with some sort of artificially-orange-colored "insta-cholesterol" artery-blocking substance......

[Jets12]

Lol, I like your definition better. Is it too late to back and edit and replace the rambling with, make sure you bluff the river sometimes when you get there without a pair?