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I don't see why that is bad though. When we flop TP against someone so aggressive, we can get more money in.

This is only true if villain is not adjusting to our leak (is totally unaware of our unbalanced flop-play, i.e. a maniac donk). Otherwise the contrary is the case. He will not put any money in once we c-bet and take away from us all the other pots. So it is "bad", bacause we adjust exactly like villain wants us to.

If you tighten your preflop range, you will still end up in flops where there are over cards and you are still being raised and you don't have a TP hand.

True, but less often. And if there are overcards, no problem, our c-bet should be a function of our perceived strength anyway, and because we tighten up preflop and widen our value range we don't have air here often enough to make his bluff-raising a profitable play.

If you tighten your preflop range, you will still end up in flops where there are over cards and you are still being raised and you don't have a TP hand.

By tightening up your preflop range you have less air in your range on the flop by default and thus you are bluffing less often.

This is only true if villain is not adjusting to our leak (is totally unaware of our unbalanced flop-play, i.e. a maniac donk). Otherwise the contrary is the case. He will not put any money in once we c-bet and take away from us all the other pots. So it is "bad", bacause we adjust exactly like villain wants us to.

OK, I see what you are saying. Thanks for the explanation. So you are saying we shouldn't change how we play postflop since we will have a naturally stronger range?

Question 4 is a very broad question. I think it has become clear that the answer to the question is not simple - there are a lot of well it depends involved. I did it that way because I wanted to highlight that there are a lot of things we need to consider to get the correct answer.

Let's talk about a player who 3-bets us a lot in CO vs BTN situation. We are obv. in the CO.

With no other information we need to tighten up preflop.

What hands do you want to call with against the player types below and how do you want to play postflop:

Player A: Rarely c-bets as a bluff on the flop

Player B: C-bets all flops but never bluffs the turn

Player C: C-bets flop and turn with a wide range

Player D: Plays a varied style postflop.

As we learn more about him 4-bet bluffing preflop is also an option.

What hands do you want to call with against the player types below and how do you want to play postflop:

Player A: Rarely c-bets as a bluff on the flop.

We are reasonably happy to be playing a lot of pots against this guy because he is not going to be bluffing us off many pots on the flop at least. We should be considering calling with the majority of our CO opening range.

When he checks back the flop he rarely has anything (depending on slow playing tendencies) so we can bluff him off a lot of pots by donking the turn.

Because he bets flop pretty much only we he has a made hand, we should reduce the frequency of flop check raises with air/ as a semi bluff. At the same time, we should check/ raise strong made hands and very strong draws aggressively on the flop because he will often call with worse with weaker made hands that he is cbetting the flop with.

Player B: C-bets all flops but never bluffs the turn.

With this guy, we are going to get to a lot of showdowns after calling just one street. Accordingly, our preflop calling range should be weighted towards hands that have good showdown value 77-JJ, AQ, AJ. We should be folding hands like suited connectors, low pp, and other Ax type hands we would be raising from CO.

We should check call a lot of flops, and then check turn. If he checks back turn, we should generally value bet river. If he bets turn, we need to make a decision whether or not to continue, because he has a hand and is likely to be following this bet with a further bet on the river.

Player C: C-bets flop and turn with a wide range.

It is not going to be cheap to get to showdown with this guy with hands like 77-JJ because we are going to have to call 2 or 3 streets to do so. Accordingly, preflop, we should think about 4 betting hands like TT and JJ for value.

The flip side of the coin is that where we flop a strong hand, it is going to be pretty easy to get a fair bit of money in against this guy. Do we have enough implied odds to set mine?? That I don't know and will have to do some thinking about....

Post flop, when we do have a made hand, check call, check call should be the default line. With really strong made hands slowplaying and check/raising turn can be a good option, because he will be double barrelling with all his range. Small check raises with air on the flop can be good to try and push him off his cbet bluffs.

Player D: Plays a varied style postflop.

We really don't want to be playing many hands OOP against this guy, so we should tighten our preflop range considerably. Maybe just move to another table!

One concept that is stressed in the book and which I am very interested in discussing is the concept of calling with low pps vs late position openers.

My standard play with these types of hands (and one that I have always gathered was favoured across DC) has always been either to 3 bet/ fold unless there was a strong reason to play differently (such as fish behind still to act).

In a couple of places, the book mentions that while this is not a bad concept per se, it does mean that we end up in situations where we make sure that we will be unlikely to be playing against the top of the villian's range when we have the best implied odds. This assumes, obviously that the villain will 4 bet a lot with the top of his range and we will be forced to fold.

As I read the relevant sections on this in the book (pages 44 and 57-58 in my version), the justification for calling seems to be that although there may not be enough implied odds to justify set mining (the "-Set Mining EV"), the -Set Mining EV plus:

(i) IP – the positive EV of being able to bluff a player with a wide opening range off many pots postflop; or

(ii) OOP – the positive overall EV of improving our check-raise line against good opponents when we bluff K64tt type boards,

is greater than the EV of turning our hand into a bluff by 3 bet/ folding.

IP the case is that there can be a better EV based on the way [i] that [\i] hand is played, whereas OOP the argument appears to be that although the call itself is –EV (on account of there being insufficient implied odds) the benefits of balancing ranges for later hands more than makes up for it.

IP, we can work out how much we need to win on pots where we don’t hit to work to break even when calling with low pps (separate to the question obviously of working out how much more we need to win to make it higher EV than bluffing). If the sample size is big enough, we can even use HEM to review how we have performed in such situations.

OOP – I am really struggling to work out how we can justify the preflop call. How do we work out the +EV of having a more balanced range in later situations. Is it even possible given the multitudes of assumptions we would need to make?

Sorry if a bit rambling but I think this may be a discussion others will find useful.

PS

Player A

We are reasonably happy to be playing a lot of pots against this guy because he is not going to be bluffing us off many pots on the flop at least. We should be considering calling with the majority of our CO opening range.

He is not aggressive which means that a lot of hands will go to show down. Does that change your answer?

When he checks back the flop he rarely has anything (depending on slow playing tendencies) so we can bluff him off a lot of pots by donking the turn.

He has a good chunk of hands that he could not c-bet on the flop for value. I like the bluff on the turn if we are also betting the river. Villains range is capped on the turn.

Because he bets flop pretty much only we he has a made hand, we should reduce the frequency of flop check raises with air/ as a semi bluff. At the same time, we should check/ raise strong made hands and very strong draws aggressively on the flop because he will often call with worse with weaker made hands that he is cbetting the flop with.

Yes bluffing on the flop is often a bad idea.

With this guy, we are going to get to a lot of showdowns after calling just one street. Accordingly, our preflop calling range should be weighted towards hands that have good showdown value 77-JJ, AQ, AJ. We should be folding hands like suited connectors, low pp, and other Ax type hands we would be raising from CO.

We should check call a lot of flops, and then check turn. If he checks back turn, we should generally value bet river. If he bets turn, we need to make a decision whether or not to continue, because he has a hand and is likely to be following this bet with a further bet on the river.

Player B:

We like hands that flop bluff catchers, draws and hands with good showdown value.

It is not going to be cheap to get to showdown with this guy with hands like 77-JJ because we are going to have to call 2 or 3 streets to do so. Accordingly, preflop, we should think about 4 betting hands like TT and JJ for value.

The flip side of the coin is that where we flop a strong hand, it is going to be pretty easy to get a fair bit of money in against this guy. Do we have enough implied odds to set mine?? That I don't know and will have to do some thinking about....

Post flop, when we do have a made hand, check call, check call should be the default line. With really strong made hands slowplaying and check/raising turn can be a good option, because he will be double barrelling with all his range. Small check raises with air on the flop can be good to try and push him off his cbet bluffs.

Player C
Any pair is a call. We get paid by a super wide range. But but. We need to play fit or fold on the flop.

With good bluff catchers we c/c, c/c.

With draws we c/c, c/shove

OOP – I am really struggling to work out how we can justify the preflop call. How do we work out the +EV of having a more balanced range in later situations. Is it even possible given the multitudes of assumptions we would need to make?

Thinking about this some more, it seems to me that calling OOP where we don't have the implied odds to set mine will only be of benefit where either we get to showdown very cheaply (ie checked through or maybe just a check-call on flop, then check turn and river) or if all of the following conditions are met:

(i) we hit our set (13% or so);
(ii) villian doesn't fold to our cbet (guessing but maybe half of that?)

If so, that is about 6% or 1 in 20 times that we call that we will have the benefit of "expanding our range" in the eyes of the villian. Maybe we will get to showdown cheaply 1 time in 10 - if so he is seeing our line only 3 times out of every 20 we call.

Are we going to get enough value out of that in the long term? I am not convinced, at least at 100NL (what I play atm). I would love to be convinced otherwise so feel free to shoot down my logic!

Thinking about this some more, it seems to me that calling OOP where we don't have the implied odds to set mine will only be of benefit where either we get to showdown very cheaply (ie checked through or maybe just a check-call on flop, then check turn and river) or if all of the following conditions are met:

(i) we hit our set (13% or so);
(ii) villian doesn't fold to our cbet (guessing but maybe half of that?)

If so, that is about 6% or 1 in 20 times that we call that we will have the benefit of "expanding our range" in the eyes of the villian. Maybe we will get to showdown cheaply 1 time in 10 - if so he is seeing our line only 3 times out of every 20 we call.

Are we going to get enough value out of that in the long term? I am not convinced, at least at 100NL (what I play atm). I would love to be convinced otherwise so feel free to shoot down my logic!

We dont make money against a wide range by hitting hands. That is true both IP and OOP.

We win money by bluffing and getting to cheap showdowns. Understanding when to do what is not super easy.

Think of the situation like this: You are the PFR (I know you are not.. but pretend) and you are up against a 40% range in the CO. Do you want to play fit or fold poker in that spot? All I can say is that I will be bringing a bat. I'm just not sure aluminium or wood?

We dont make money against a wide range by hitting hands. That is true both IP and OOP.

We win money by bluffing and getting to cheap showdowns. Understanding when to do what is not super easy.

Think of the situation like this: You are the PFR (I know you are not.. but pretend) and you are up against a 40% range in the CO. Do you want to play fit or fold poker in that spot? All I can say is that I will be bringing a bat. I'm just not sure aluminium or wood?

so you think this applies equally in position and out of position?