Range construction breakdowns

Interesting. Im sure someone better would come along with a better analysis on this. I have a few questions though;

1. We assume BU raises 2.5bb?

2a. Is there a specific % of x/r you wish to achieve here? For you to have a 2:1 bluff:value on a wet flop.

2b. If we are assuming we are against unknown (so therefore this becomes our default lines), then we can usually assume that most of their cbets on this texture is going to be more value/draw heavy rather than air.
Having a 2:1 bluff:value is going to put us in a very problematic spot imo and I would disagree with it.

3. Do we have x/c ranges here. If not, there are better bluff hands to x/r like ATs/A9s etc (> A4s-A2s).
Or maybe you are adding those to your x/c range?

4. I think 17% is a bit high as a x/r% here. It is ~36.5% of the flops we see. And we are going to have a decent % of x/c. So to me, it seems a tad much on defending; dare I say, a tad spewy (simply because I would assume unknown's cbet range to have less air for us to get decent FE).

5. Y U NO update blog? One of the better blogs I've gone through tbh.

1.
I was assuming 2bb, but I don't think it really matters. The BB cc range doesn't really matters too much either. It's more about how to breakdown the range down later on, so as long as both are 'reasonable' it should be fine.

2a.

There is no specific %. I suppose overall I'd like to get it up, approaching 20% and higher if the population pool is cbetting too much.
But it certainly depend on the flop. Some flops won't have any x/r range and some wet ones I think will probably be pushing about 30%.

2b.
I don't think we can make the assumption Villains cbets are value heavy. If anything I'd guess the other way around. But it's unimportant for the analysis anyway. Here, I'm just trying to get some somewhat balanced default ranges, that can be tweaked for each scenario as needed.

2:1 is the ratio used so that, I can have somewhat balanced frequencies to barrel the turn and then barrel the river. Where on the turn about half bets are bluffs, and on the river only about 1/3 bets are bluffs. Obviously this also depends on raise/bet size.
To change this I'd need to hear a convincing arguement why I should change this ratio from the same ratio when being IP and making a raise? Intuitively, I think the only difference it makes is when OOP hero has to have a x/f range on river, where IP he can x behind and sometimes win at showdown. Significant enough to change the ratio? Maybe? tricky

3.
Yeah, I just ignored them by leaving them out of the x/r range. For example I didn't x/r top set in the above post, it was part of the x/c range. Same goes for all those other TP hands. They all go into the x/c range. One thing I have been thinking about, is when I should x/raising TP/TK or TP/GK hands on the flop in situations like this, BB v BTN where ranges are so wide? I don't know. On what boards, what runouts and from what hands can I expect to get value? I don't know. But I think with ranges this wide and with pretty much the many regs I see using high cbet strategies, they'd really have to be defending some pretty trashy shit.

4.
It's not 36.5%. I already did that calculation. It's 17%. The total x/r range as a % of all starting hands only 7.82% so 7.82/46.3(range that sees flop) = 17%

I'll probably start blogging again in a couple months. It's a bit hard right now for a few reasons.

BB cold calls BTN open and looking for a flop x/r range.

BTN opening 50%

Hero's BB cold call range 46.3%

Flop:A:h J:d 8:c

Value x/r range

88	3
J8o	7
J8s	2
A8s	2
A8o	7

Total	21

Bluff x/r range

Hand		combos	Reason

9To		12	worst OESD	
9Ts		4	worst OESD	
KTs 	 	4	nut GS
KTo		12	nut GS
Kh8h		1	nut bd/fd + 8 blocker
Kd8d		1	nut bd/fd + 8 blocker
85s w bd/fd	2	worst bd/fd with 8 blocker
86s w bd/fd	2	worst bd/fd with 8 blocker
J5s w bd/fd	2	worst bd/fd with j blocker
J6s w bd/fd	2	worst bd/fd with j blocker

Total 		42

Total combos raised
=63
=5.35%

5.35/46.3
=11.6% x/r range that sees flop

I think that % looks ok, flop is not only somewhat dry. But the double broadway flop contains a lot of our hands that 3bet preflop and don't make it to our flop x/r range, such as AA, JJ, AJs, AJo.

Our x/c range would be capped at something like ATs, but we'd also have some gutshots, OESD's & bd/fds that can turn and river ok. I don't think it's the end of the world to be a little capped here as it's a small pot in a pretty horrible flop. If someone was capable of overbetting a blank turn we could always strength our x/c range.

Originally posted by jules97
2b.
I don't think we can make the assumption Villains cbets are value heavy. If anything I'd guess the other way around. But it's unimportant for the analysis anyway. Here, I'm just trying to get some somewhat balanced default ranges, that can be tweaked for each scenario as needed.

I still do think he will not cbet 100% of his range into this texture. The lesser he CBs here, means the lesser he has cut down on air. Even if he goes as far as CB 90%, it means he has cut down on ~6-7% of air ->he may xb w some value hands.

Well to go for a balance default range, I would look at villian's CB frequency on this flop; which you and I probably disagree on
Unless ofc you are looking at it GTOish.

Originally posted by jules97
2:1 is the ratio used so that, I can have somewhat balanced frequencies to barrel the turn and then barrel the river. Where on the turn about half bets are bluffs, and on the river only about 1/3 bets are bluffs. Obviously this also depends on raise/bet size.

Ok I get that. You are trying to be unexploitable as possible.
My issue here is, aren't there a lot of cards on this texture which could come on T/R which will negate most of your barreling (board pairing/4 card GS on board. A/K should be alright with your barreling range)

Originally posted by jules97
To change this I'd need to hear a convincing arguement why I should change this ratio from the same ratio when being IP and making a raise? Intuitively, I think the only difference it makes is when OOP hero has to have a x/f range on river, where IP he can x behind and sometimes win at showdown. Significant enough to change the ratio? Maybe? tricky

I thinking more in terms of flop and turn. You raising flop puts villian in a very uncomfortable spot imo. It will be difficult for him to continue w a smaller SD value hand. Even if he does call flop once, your T barrel is going to make him fold a lot more hands -> it could be a blank T or a scare card T.

OOP, the villian is in a more comfortable situation on those streets w the holdings he has.

On 3. Hmm. Our x/r range is obv also very much dependent on our x/c range. Too lazy to do my own ranges on this. Atleast I can (wrongly?) critique

4. Yeah my bad. I thought it was 17/46.3

Originally posted by jules97
There is no specific %. I suppose overall I'd like to get it up, approaching 20% and higher if the population pool is cbetting too much.

I guess from your line of thought on this topic, we can look at our MDF on his cbet sizing and then tweak our ranges.
70% CB -> minimum to defend - 59% (which we could use as a default as the general cb on this texture should be higher)
50% CB -> MDF 66.6%
etc

Hope my math was right this time ♠_frown:

If villian does bet 70%, our minimum defending range goes to ~60% (x/r + x/c), then I guess you aren't too far off w your x/r range.

Having said that though, I'd look it at a in a combo aspect i.e. This is BU vs BB. We can also take a similar situ with SB vs BB. We are IP and OOP.
Lets say we are going to only defend 60%. So maybe IP, I might go 70% and OOP 50%.

This is really fascinating for me so far! I'm just starting to learn about this sort of structured approach to exploiting population pools.

Do either of you guys know of some good resources to help me learn more?

What I'm trying to do doesn't really have anything to do with population reads or exploitable reads. I'm just trying to become familiar with some solid ranges, assuming a perfectly balanced opponent, away from the tables so I can do it more automatically at the tables.

Widening and narrowing ranges to fit exploitable reads is the easy part imo. Knowing what's a deviation from ideal to find the exploitable read is the tough part.

So lets do another one.

BTN opening 50%

Hero's CC range 49%

Flop: A:s Q:s 5:s

Equity 54.6% : 46.4% BTN:BB

Hands			Combos

Value

55 			3
K2ss:K8ss 		6
All lower flushes	15	

Total			24

Nut FD

Ks5x:KsJx 	21

Bluffs

Js7x:JsTx	12
QxJs 		3
KxJs 		3
Qx6s 		3
Qx7s 		3
Qx8s 		3
Ax2s:AxTs	24

Total		51

Total combos raised
=96
=7.24%
=15% of total range

I think this one is pretty straight forward. I took the nut flushdraws raised out to the side because given their equity the can just be mostly value, but not quite 2 bluffs per hand I think.

For value only raising 1 set and flushes, leaving a few of the nut flushes for later streets.

With bluffs, we use all the blockers to the 2nd nut flush. Some Ax:X:s hands to block top pair & flushes.

Then to fill up the bluffs we use some Qx:X:s which block a few QQ sets (very very marginal help)and some weaker flushes.
We could just use some T:sXo hands instead of the Qx:X:s, but it gets a bit confusing to think about as we've already used about half of these anyway and it's just easier to think about starting from a different location. The difference I'm sure is pretty close to insignificant.

Nice thread jules, hopefully you will keep on doing this, I am interested also.

For the draw heavy board, 87J I agree with ZeDawning that most of villians will not cbet pure bluffs, but only draws and showdown value hands.
In that case, since hero is agro regg, with balanced raise range and barreling frequencies (assuming you play disciplined most of the time), villian will not fold much on flop at least. So heros value hands will have more EV than on other boards, and very bad ev for bluffs. So I agree that it makes sense to exploitatively reduce number of bluffs.

However, if you have balanced barreling frequency as you described, villians hands like overpairs will have -EV call down (how ever he plays them) even if all your bluffs have 0 equity on flop vs his hand. On the other hand, his combos that block your combos like Jx, 7x, 8x, 9x, Tx have profitable call down vs your range, because you have in that case more bluffs (nuts combos blocked). So I think it comes to the question what combos are mayority in villians range, the ones he blocks your nuts, or the others. On this board, I would say most of his defend combos are blocking your nuts, so you will play whole range vs his whole range -EV. Because of that I think it makes sense to reduce number of bluff combos.

For example, if the board is 457, villians defend range will mostly be draws and overpairs, so his mayority of combos are not blocking your nuts and you can keep 2:1 ratio imo. If board is A89, again, most of villian hands are blocking your nuts.

I didnt read this anywhere, thats just my opinion, and would like to hear other opinions about that because it seems very important and logical to me, but I am not sure.

epic thread

You are x/r hands as a bluff that are way too strong

Originally posted by Dublimax
You are x/r hands as a bluff that are way too strong

agree, imo doesnt make sense to turn into bluff 2nd pairs that are good vs villians BU cbet range. Maybe makes sense vs early positions where so low 2nd pair needs more protection and opponent has strong range.

Just saw this thread jules,

really nice idea

Will be following this for sure.

Kind regards,
Fran

Originally posted by FFRRAANNKKIIEE
Just saw this thread jules,

really nice idea

Will be following this for sure.

Kind regards,
Fran

Would be nice if some coatches would comment on this. It is the best thread I found in forum, but maybe the coatches are writing down the notes on the ranges defined above and ideas so that they can use it in games

Originally posted by GingerKid
Nice thread jules, hopefully you will keep on doing this, I am interested also.

For the draw heavy board, 87J I agree with ZeDawning that most of villians will not cbet pure bluffs, but only draws and showdown value hands.
In that case, since hero is agro regg, with balanced raise range and barreling frequencies (assuming you play disciplined most of the time), villian will not fold much on flop at least. So heros value hands will have more EV than on other boards, and very bad ev for bluffs. So I agree that it makes sense to exploitatively reduce number of bluffs.

This may be an accurate read about an average player in a certain player pool. But I'm assuming villain is defending balanced. If this read was accurate, it's still ok for hero, it just means villain will be over calling flop raises and then over folding later streets or over calling later streets. So hero would make more money regardless. Ofcourse, if this read was accurate, it would be better off just stacking ones raising range (either bluffs or value depending on his later streets fold/call) and barrelling a tonne of turns and rivers. But that defeats the purpose of what I'm trying to do for the moment.

However, if you have balanced barreling frequency as you described, villians hands like overpairs will have -EV call down (how ever he plays them) even if all your bluffs have 0 equity on flop vs his hand. On the other hand, his combos that block your combos like Jx, 7x, 8x, 9x, Tx have profitable call down vs your range, because you have in that case more bluffs (nuts combos blocked). So I think it comes to the question what combos are mayority in villians range, the ones he blocks your nuts, or the others. On this board, I would say most of his defend combos are blocking your nuts, so you will play whole range vs his whole range -EV. Because of that I think it makes sense to reduce number of bluff combos.

For example, if the board is 457, villians defend range will mostly be draws and overpairs, so his mayority of combos are not blocking your nuts and you can keep 2:1 ratio imo. If board is A89, again, most of villian hands are blocking your nuts.

I didnt read this anywhere, thats just my opinion, and would like to hear other opinions about that because it seems very important and logical to me, but I am not sure.

I see your point about blockers in villains 3b calling range and have no idea just how important it is. I have a feeling that on wet boards, having bluffs with equity that hit a lot of turns and rivers can negate a big chunk of this. But yeah, I have no idea how much. For example, what makes a great blocker for villain on the the flop, might very well be useless on the turn and/or river.
Say, in th J:s8:h7:d, villain calls the flop raise with a J9 and is feeling pretty good, if the turn or river bring a 9,T,Q,K,A, flush or pretty much anything but 2-6 villains going to be in a pretty gross spot where his blockers don't really help too much.

I suppose some of those tools like propokertools and CREV could work this stuff out, but that's beyond me at the moment.

Originally posted by GingerKid

Originally posted by Dublimax
You are x/r hands as a bluff that are way too strong

agree, imo doesnt make sense to turn into bluff 2nd pairs that are good vs villians BU cbet range. Maybe makes sense vs early positions where so low 2nd pair needs more protection and opponent has strong range.

What hands are too strong?

Are these 2nd pairs really better than villains cbetting range?
I gave villain a cbetting range of about 58% on this flop 7:d8:hJ:s and 8:s5:s has 45% equity, 7:s5:s has 43% equity. And very rarely are they going to improve. Sure hero has good odds, but it's not going to easy to realize this equity. Even if we give villain a cbetting range of 70%, these hands only have 48% and 45% equity respectively. Hero could instead be floating with gutshot/overcard hands that have a good chance to improve and can also do something on turns & rivers.

Perhaps there are better hands to use as blocking bluffs. But losing these from a x/c range is no great loss imo. And it's not like there aren't plenty left anyway.

Originally posted by jules97
BB cold calls BTN open and looking for a flop x/r range.

BTN opening 50%

Hero's BB cold call range 46.3%

Spoiler

Flop:A:h J:d 8:c

Value x/r range

88	3
J8o	7
J8s	2
A8s	2
A8o	7

Total	21

Bluff x/r range

Hand		combos	Reason

9To		12	worst OESD	
9Ts		4	worst OESD	
KTs 	 	4	nut GS
KTo		12	nut GS
Kh8h		1	nut bd/fd + 8 blocker
Kd8d		1	nut bd/fd + 8 blocker
85s w bd/fd	2	worst bd/fd with 8 blocker
86s w bd/fd	2	worst bd/fd with 8 blocker
J5s w bd/fd	2	worst bd/fd with j blocker
J6s w bd/fd	2	worst bd/fd with j blocker

Total 		42

Total combos raised
=63
=5.35%

5.35/46.3
=11.6% x/r range that sees flop

I think that % looks ok, flop is not only somewhat dry. But the double broadway flop contains a lot of our hands that 3bet preflop and don't make it to our flop x/r range, such as AA, JJ, AJs, AJo.

Our x/c range would be capped at something like ATs, but we'd also have some gutshots, OESD's & bd/fds that can turn and river ok. I don't think it's the end of the world to be a little capped here as it's a small pot in a pretty horrible flop. If someone was capable of overbetting a blank turn we could always strength our x/c range.

Makes no sense to bluff jx 8x, what do you
Expect to fold worse? It is surely +ev call so why bluff with hands
Which are +ev. Imo it is better to bluff
All nut bdfd (until you reach 2:1 ratio) because you can at least
Barrel some turns and have descent equity.

Also t9o is imo better call because it is surely
+ev. If you bluff raise all your hands which would
Be +ev call, you probably have problem defending
60% range, and if you do defenf it, probably big
Part of call range is -ev

Originally posted by jules97

Originally posted by GingerKid

Originally posted by Dublimax
You are x/r hands as a bluff that are way too strong

agree, imo doesnt make sense to turn into bluff 2nd pairs that are good vs villians BU cbet range. Maybe makes sense vs early positions where so low 2nd pair needs more protection and opponent has strong range.

What hands are too strong?

Are these 2nd pairs really better than villains cbetting range?
I gave villain a cbetting range of about 58% on this flop 7:d8:hJ:s and 8:s5:s has 45% equi
ty, 7:s5:s has 43% equity. And very rarely are they going to improve. Sure hero has good odds, but it's not going to easy to realize this equity. Even if we give villain a cbetting range of 70%, these hands only have 48% and 45% equity respectively. Hero could instead be floating with gutshot/overcard hands that have a good chance to improve and can also do something on turns & rivers.

Perhaps there are better hands to use as blocking bluffs. But losing these from a x/c range is no great loss imo. And it's not like there aren't plenty left anyway.

45% equity is great when your pot odds
Are 25%. I dont think he
Bluffs turn with bdfd and maybe not all gs. What you
Will fold on flop by raising is about same hands
Which give up turn

Originally posted by jules97
What I'm trying to do doesn't really have anything to do with population reads or exploitable reads. I'm just trying to become familiar with some solid ranges, assuming a perfectly balanced opponent, away from the tables so I can do it more automatically at the tables.

Widening and narrowing ranges to fit exploitable reads is the easy part imo. Knowing what's a deviation from ideal to find the exploitable read is the tough part.

So lets do another one.

BTN opening 50%

Hero's CC range 49%

Flop: A:s Q:s 5:s

Equity 54.6% : 46.4% BTN:BB

Hands			Combos

Value

55 			3
K2ss:K8ss 		6
All lower flushes	15	

Total			24

Nut FD

Ks5x:KsJx 	21

Bluffs

Js7x:JsTx	12
QxJs 		3
KxJs 		3
Qx6s 		3
Qx7s 		3
Qx8s 		3
Ax2s:AxTs	24

Total		51

Total combos raised
=96
=7.24%
=15% of total range

I think this one is pretty straight forward. I took the nut flushdraws raised out to the side because given their equity the can just be mostly value, but not quite 2 bluffs per hand I think.

For value only raising 1 set and flushes, leaving a few of the nut flushes for later streets.

With bluffs, we use all the blockers to the 2nd nut flush. Some Ax:X:s hands to block top pair & flushes.

Then to fill up the bluffs we use some Qx:X:s which block a few QQ sets (very very marginal help)and some weaker flushes.
We could just use some T:sXo hands instead of the Qx:X:s, but it gets a bit confusing to think about as we've already used about half of these anyway and it's just easier to think about starting from a different location. The difference I'm sure is pretty close to insignificant.

Here is imo your raise range very strong and +ev
All hands but it is only 15% range and
You need to defend more than 45% more. Have are you
Going to do that, if you raised almost
All draws, so you probably fold on spade turn
Or river almost whole range.

So i would call nut fd 2/3 combos and 2nd nut fd,
And raise rest, also would raise kj, kt with
No spades because we can hardly float +ev and if we
Raise those we can give up on blank turns
And bluff spades, because we improved our fd combos and
Villian will fold many ax combos.

Originally posted by jules97

Originally posted by GingerKid

Originally posted by Dublimax
You are x/r hands as a bluff that are way too strong

agree, imo doesnt make sense to turn into bluff 2nd pairs that are good vs villians BU cbet range. Maybe makes sense vs early positions where so low 2nd pair needs more protection and opponent has strong range.

What hands are too strong?

Quite a few but the most obvious ones are the Ax on AQx mono board.
You have top pair why would you turn that into a bluff?

Hey man,

I'm curious as to your objective on this exercise. I assume this is to make your postflop plays as balanced as you can vs unknown player/villian who plays balanced.

I've been working at my postflop plays recently and I'm also looking at lines to take vs unknown/good reg postflop.

My question is; does this range breakdown really help you achieve w/e you are trying to achieve?
I mean, you are looking at specific board textures on specific positions and are looking to x/r and x/c specific combos.
Would you really be able to recall these once you are in that situation?

I would think that maybe it would be more useful to look at it in this way,
-Board? -Texture? -Position? -Initiative? -Villian range? -Our hand?
eg.
-Qh7c4d -Dry -No -Yes -SCs/Broadways/PPs -AJhh

Best line to take:
Barrel F/T and give up on R if no A/K. Maybe barrel R if T gave an undercard (like 8/6) and R was a blank for a SC.
Why? -> Villian calling F/T is unlikely to fold R. Probably has a Qx which might not fold to a third barrel after calling twice.

Something like this might make it easier to understand and remember when we are facing similar spots as these can apply to many positions.

Good thread anyways