LD1977
Legend
Silver Level
John A
Poker Zion Coach
Silver Level
I think someone already addressed this, but you should always be building ranges. Someone gave a limped pot example. I'll give a similar. The player in MP limps, the button limps, the SB folds and you check in the BB with A3o. The flop comes: 3c8h9h. You have bottom pair out of position against two limpers range will include a lot of hands that will have a pair, straight and gutshot draws, and flush draws. Without any reads, it's not a pot you're going to want to get too involved in because you'd likely have to fire more than one bullet at the pot, and make a blind check/call against an unknown with bottom pair to pick off a bluff.
Live or online, with no HUD, you're simple paying attention to how often someone opens the pot, 3-bets, isolates other players, 4-bets, etc... Say you've been playing 5-6 rotations, and you've noticed the player to your right open a decent amount of pots when it's been folded to him. He's probably some kind of regular, or someone who understands basic opening ranges. You've also seen him raise a limper in position as well. Now you're in the SB with K8s, and MP limps, and the player on your right raises on the button. You can assume his ISO raising range is going to be pretty wide based on your observations. He'll probably raise 45%+ of his range, so it's a great spot to re-steal with K8s since he'll be folding such a large portion of his range.
Building a range is just about observation, and assumption based on reason. Someone limps, probably a weak range with a lot of hands that will hit mid boards more often (but it's not limited to that, you need to see if they are limping hands like A3o, etc...). Someone is open raising and 3-betting a lot, then you know there range is going to wider than a common regular at your stakes. And so on...
John A
Poker Zion Coach
Silver Level
The stakes you play will heavily effect this. The site you play, the times of day you mainly play all effect this. I honestly don't have a good answer for you, but I think based on what others have said, anytime you have a winrate above 5bb/100 at 100NL+ then you're doing really well. I'm not sure about smaller stakes, but I've seen a good amount of 8bb/100+. Like I've said before though, winrate isn't an exact equivalent to skill level. Just focus on making good decisions, and reviewing your play and the winrate will take care of itself.
John A
Poker Zion Coach
Silver Level
Well, loose passives play more hands, but they usually are some of the most predictable of players by nature. Good TAGs, LAGs, are the players who's ranges you should have more difficulty in assessing, if they are playing well.
With loose passives, you just bet/bet/bet, and if they raise you pretty much insta fold. Every so often you'll have a loose/passive that will call/call/call with a huge hand, but that's fine. Most of them will overplay a lot of second best hands because they are playing poor quality hands in the wrong situation, and not playing them aggressively.
John A
Poker Zion Coach
Silver Level
Can you try rephrasing this, I'm not sure I entirely understand.
But one point I'll make based on what I think is your second question. I think a big mistake of most people is they assume people play like they do. I think it's partly in our nature to do so, and people also tend to project how they see things onto others. Now with most TAG's and LAG's in poker, there will be a good amount of similarities because a lot of people are reading the same material and approaching poker in a similar way. However, there are generally a couple of major differences, and I've talked about these for years. People who have taken the Pokerzion courses know this as the believer/ non-believer concept.
Generally most people will tend to believe someone when they are betting and raising, and give them credit to an array or believe most of the time to believe more than half the time. They can fold to pair in a good amount of situations, and they can be pushed off some slightly bigger hands to shoves and really big bets. Non-believers tend to find a reason to call, and usually tend to bluff more, so they assume others bluff a good amount as well. They won't tend to believe quite as often and are always justifying a reason to call a bet or raise.
That tends to be a divergent point, even for regulars in your games. It's something you want to pay attention to and it happens at all skill levels. I've played high stakes games with some good players that I would heavily categorize non-believers. It was just how they approached the game, and when you realized it, it was easily exploitable. Large over bets with big hands, shoves, etc...
John A
Poker Zion Coach
Silver Level
LD1977
Legend
Silver Level
This is fine if I have a TPTK+ hand, but what if I raised with lets say AJs in MP and Ace falls while LAP is behind me? I absolutely hate these situations since I can't know if I am out kicked or not. They mostly don't 3bet AK/AQ from the BTN.
I have lost a bunch in these situations (either they outdraw me or I was outkicked from the get go)
Both bet/bet/bet and bet/check/bet lines are equally uncomfortable, especially since some of these guys LOVE betting after every check (nevermind that they have anything from TPTK+ to MPMK).
dj11
Legend
Loyaler
{I wanted to make that clearer but ran into the time limit for editing problem when I realized it was close to gibberish.}
John A
Poker Zion Coach
Silver Level
This is fine if I have a TPTK+ hand, but what if I raised with lets say AJs in MP and Ace falls while LAP is behind me? I absolutely hate these situations since I can't know if I am out kicked or not. They mostly don't 3bet AK/AQ from the BTN.
I have lost a bunch in these situations (either they outdraw me or I was outkicked from the get go)
Like I said, they will just call/call/call in situations, but they will also call/call/call with weaker hands more often than they will have stronger hands. Me thinks you's are having de case of selective memory my friend.
John A
Poker Zion Coach
Silver Level
Gotcha... so basically you've been saying X player opens 25% of his range from Y position. And from that 25% you're trying to fit that to how it hits the flop, is that correct?
If so, more or less X% of hands in relation to the flop isn't a static process. You kind of throw out most of what you would consider a normal opening range at say 25% from Y position. It's something you use as a guide to begin constructing a range, but the issue always is, you don't know what 25% that actually is, and you don't know when and if your opponent has deviated from his standard opening range.
So you'd take a certain percentage of hands you know someone would open as a base, such as:
Ace Poker Drills Poker Equity Calculator
Board: [ 22+(100), AJo+(100), ATs+(100), KJo+(100), KJs+(100), QJo(100), QJs(100) ]
Then you're adding and removing some of the other hands, like 78o, 65s, etc... based on the flop texture and how they are playing the hand. So if someone is opening 25% of hands and we see a flop of:
5h7c9h
We start with the above range and a common 25% opening, but once they c-bet (lets say they are OOP), assuming they are competent we'd eliminate some of the Ax hands from their range. Once you get to the turn, if they bet again, then you're narrowing the range that much further and shifting what might have been your original 25% opening range to have included more 79o, 57s, and 57o hands, draws, etc... which wouldn't be in a typical 25% opening range.
The opening range is primarily only helpful in determining if you should be flatting or 3-betting and so on. Once you get to the flop and turn, even someone who is tight, say 16% opening, can have the same range in the above example as someone who is opening 25 or 30%. It will help to some degree with postflop range construction, but the problem always is that you don't know when someone is deviating from an "acceptable" X% of hands as an opening range to include hands you wouldn't normally include in that initial range.
Hopefully my assumption on your question was correct.
Aleksei
Legend
Silver Level
Nah he seems to just run like shit, based on hands and tracker data he's posted.
John A
Poker Zion Coach
Silver Level
Ha...
Well, even if that is the case, I'm sure there's something we're missing about the whole picture here. Either that, or the players are not really LAP's.
Matt Vaughan
King of Moody Rants
Bronze Level
This is fine if I have a TPTK+ hand, but what if I raised with lets say AJs in MP and Ace falls while LAP is behind me? I absolutely hate these situations since I can't know if I am out kicked or not. They mostly don't 3bet AK/AQ from the BTN.
I have lost a bunch in these situations (either they outdraw me or I was outkicked from the get go)
They're not going to bet betting every time you check if they are loose passive, no??
LD1977
Legend
Silver Level
I am pretty sure I understand this as far as balancing our own ranges goes. For example I chkraise such boards with sets, all FDs and monster draws and usually but not always with OESDs since OESD is not drawing to the nuts (neither is non-nut FD but flush over flush is rare).
Not sure how can I apply this if I am on the other side and get chkraised, except against player I have a huge sample on? It is very tricky to guess, which is of course the point here - so what would be the default "most correct" reaction?
As for the other thing, yeah, I am actually losing money in showdowns with TPTK (not just TPGK) with these lines... but lets stick to the book and ranges.
Scourrge - Someone who never ever bets unless with absolute nuts and heads up in position after a check is pretty passive but both of these are highly profitable betting situations and they are not all total idiots who can't recognize opportunities. Yes this is ideal for checkraise trapping but how often do I have a powerhouse hand to trap with?
Y
yimyammer2
Rising Star
Bronze Level
That's me & my problem, I cant ever seem to find a way to build a big stack in MTTs, every time I get reckless I pay for it. Hoping to learn something here I can bring to my tourneys
In cash games, I am pretty aware of my image and start bluffing/stealing. I don't think I do it enough cuz I don't get caught much
E
eBuddy
Enthusiast
Silver Level
On page 93, example 2 where villain check-raises with 2-pair 50% of the time, why did his equity increase to only 54.47% (from 44.92% in example 1)? With the range of T9 (2-pair), I calculated villain's equity to be 87.58% vs. our 88.
50% * (87.58% with 2-pair + 44.92% with OESD/FD) = 66.25%, not 54.47%.
Did I make a wrong calculation somewhere? Thanks.
50% * (87.58% with 2-pair + 44.92% with OESD/FD) = 66.25%, not 54.47%.
Did I make a wrong calculation somewhere? Thanks.
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Y
yimyammer2
Rising Star
Bronze Level
Good stuff, I'm trying to think in these terms but my mind tends to freeze up and go blank in the pressure of the moment. I seem to think in terms of a few hands vs a range so this is something I need to work on and think about.
I screwed up in a tourney last night when I was in the BB with KJ suited (17 BBs). All folded to one off the cutoff but the cutoff was disconnected so he was effectively the cutoff and raised 3x (with 22 BBs), everyone folded to me and I decided to push thinking he was stealing. He called instantly with AQ, flopped two queens and I was out.
I'm trying to decide if I made a good play that just didn't work out or if I spewed. In retrospect it feels like a spew but perhaps I'm being results oriented.
Y
yimyammer2
Rising Star
Bronze Level
I think I understand the concept but feel a little fuzzy on how to apply it at the tables. Against straight forward, tight players, I have an easy fold with all but my premium hands, against others, I'm not so sure.
Fuffufnick
Enthusiast
Silver Level
Originally Posted by LD1977
This is fine if I have a TPTK+ hand, but what if I raised with lets say AJs in MP and Ace falls while LAP is behind me? I absolutely hate these situations since I can't know if I am out kicked or not. They mostly don't 3bet AK/AQ from the BTN.
I have lost a bunch in these situations (either they outdraw me or I was outkicked from the get go) Both bet/bet/bet and bet/check/bet lines are equally uncomfortable, especially since some of these guys LOVE betting after every check (nevermind that they have anything from TPTK+ to MPMK).
If you feel ambiguous about the hand could you not throw a check into the mix to see how the villain reacts rather than go for 3 full streets of value?
This is fine if I have a TPTK+ hand, but what if I raised with lets say AJs in MP and Ace falls while LAP is behind me? I absolutely hate these situations since I can't know if I am out kicked or not. They mostly don't 3bet AK/AQ from the BTN.
I have lost a bunch in these situations (either they outdraw me or I was outkicked from the get go) Both bet/bet/bet and bet/check/bet lines are equally uncomfortable, especially since some of these guys LOVE betting after every check (nevermind that they have anything from TPTK+ to MPMK).
If you feel ambiguous about the hand could you not throw a check into the mix to see how the villain reacts rather than go for 3 full streets of value?
SofaKingCrazy
Rock Star
Silver Level
The example is referring to check/raises and I think I understand the part of the more hands they will play the less equity we have against them. Since we don't specifically know what hands they are playing in a particular hand a HUDless player as myself would have to judge this by what range of hands the opponent is willing to call open raises with pre-flop vs what they would re-raise over us with and what they would just fold vs a 3x raise pre.
Luckily I'm at the micro stakes currently but from what I've read in this chapter if I intend to continue up in stakes I will need a HUD or face a continuous battle that I can't win.
John A
Poker Zion Coach
Silver Level
A good sample size will help, if their checkraise%'s are high, then you know they are adding more air, gutshots, etc... into their range. That of course will take a while to normalize. But through observing and taking notes you can get an idea of what someone is adding to their range. If you see someone c/c with sets on not overly coordinated boards, but some connectedness, then they are likely doing this on dry boards, so if they do CR you can narrow their range a bit more. Basic example, but you can start getting a sense of how someone is playing most of their ranges if you pay attention - I know, that's a bad word.
They probably aren't LAP's then, they are more like rocks and you're not categorizing them correctly. True loose passives mean they are loose and will be playing too many hands pre-flop which = having dominated hands a lot, and then playing them passive post flop. Either you aren't reading them correctly, or you're playing too lose yourself if you are being out kicked.
John A
Poker Zion Coach
Silver Level
Yes, you calculated it incorrectly. The range I use is in the picture next to it. You can't just take one set of hands, get the equity, and another and then divide them together. The calculation is a little more complex than that. That's why equity calculators are handy.