Range construction breakdowns

Thanks Gingerkid, a good note that blockers matter and if villain has a tonne of them in his bluffcatching range, that's something we need consider when building our betting range.

Lets get back to trying to build some ranges.

This weeks goal here for me is to try and build some continuing ranges in 3b pots with BB v BTN. When BTN calls hero's 3b IP.

One flop each for A,K,Q high and then for each of them rainbow, twotone. So a total of 6. If I can get them down decent, I'd like to do some mono textures too afterwards.

So, some things I want to consider:

- value hands bet for 1 street, 2 streets, 3 streets
- flop x/c range
- flop x/r range
- flop bet, turn x/c range
- flop bet, turn x/r range
- playability in each line

Try to build balanced ranges. Ignore any exploitable things that may be applicable and a good idea in the majority of games.
I'll try to get something up in the next couple of days. Anyone else is welcome to do the same and we can compare our ranges and try to work towards something ideal.

Sticky this thread plz.
Very good job guy's.

Originally posted by jules97
Thanks Gingerkid, a good note that blockers matter and if villain has a tonne of them in his bluffcatching range, that's something we need consider when building our betting range.

Lets get back to trying to build some ranges.

This weeks goal here for me is to try and build some continuing ranges in 3b pots with BB v BTN. When BTN calls hero's 3b IP.

One flop each for A,K,Q high and then for each of them rainbow, twotone. So a total of 6. If I can get them down decent, I'd like to do some mono textures too afterwards.

So, some things I want to consider:

- value hands bet for 1 street, 2 streets, 3 streets
- flop x/c range
- flop x/r range
- flop bet, turn x/c range
- flop bet, turn x/r range
- playability in each line

Try to build balanced ranges. Ignore any exploitable things that may be applicable and a good idea in the majority of games.
I'll try to get something up in the next couple of days. Anyone else is welcome to do the same and we can compare our ranges and try to work towards something ideal.

Hi, cool that you started 3bet range, also that you will analyse Turn play. Why ingoring river play? I think it is important to analyse whole hand, because if you ingore river it can be that you made leaks on turn and you dont notice it.

Want to ask, what is your approach when you construct range with initative, in order to be balance, I mean what is the value-bluff ratio on flop on drawy board, dry board?

My approach is to count on flop number of combos that I want to bet bet bet for value (value_3_streets), and count combos that I want to bet flop c/x turn (cx_turn), then the number of bluffs on flop I make:

num_bluffs_flop = value_3_streets + cx_turn

This way I will fold on pure blank card on turn around 40%, in order not to let villian float me, and also I will fold exactly 50% on flop vs raise. On turn I use the number of bluffs the same as value_3_streets, and river standard. Thats just all my idea what I calculated to try to be balanced, but I didnt read anything on this topic, so I would like to hear if you know some approach?

Originally posted by GingerKid

My approach is to count on flop number of combos that I want to bet bet bet for value (value_3_streets), and count combos that I want to bet flop c/x turn (cx_turn), then the number of bluffs on flop I make:

num_bluffs_flop = value_3_streets + cx_turn

I would like to hear if you know some approach?

It very depends on your bet sizing. Let's assume we 3bet 9 BB and the pot is ~20 BB
we bet all streets about 60% of pot

so in such sizing
my betting ratio:
river: 27% bluffs , 73% value betting hands river
turn: 27% bluffs (will give up on river) , 73% won't check river
flop: 27%, bluffs (will give up on turn), 73% won't check turn
Let's say we have 73 combos for value on the river

We bet 164 combos to have 73 combos value OTR
how I got it:
on river we have 100c (73c value and 27c bluffs)
we now add turn bluffs:
x --> additional bluffs on turn
100/(100+x)=0.73
x=20
on turn: 100+20=120c

now we add flop bluffs:
x --> additional bluffs on flop
120/(120+x)=0.73
x = 44
so we bet on flop: 120+44=164
value are the same 73 combos and 91 combos bluffs
73/91
0.8/1
for 4 value ---> 5 bluffs

Let‘s say we have one street value hand and we IP (we check back the turn), it will be very simple:
river we defend ~66% so we can have 66% value and 44% folding hands (let‘s say it will be bluffs)
66/44=3/2
For 3 value hands we can have 2 bluffs on flop

if we check flop, bet turn and bet river:
we would have 100 combos on river (27c bluffs and 73c value)
x --> additional bluffs on turn
100/(100+x)=0.73
x=20
turn betting: 100+20=120
73:47
So 0,65 bluff for 1 value
5 value --> 3 bluffs

Hope it is clear and correct, I didn't explain anything, just calculated.

Note: this calculation is not true because the hand strength will change on later streets

Originally posted by jules97

Originally posted by GingerKid

Against someone who is capable of overbetting blank turns with a wide range after a drawy flop, if we don't have some strong hands in our x/c range, we're going to be in a tough spot.

I think if you call flop with e.g. half strong combos, you still don't make things much better vs overbet because the % of strong hands is still low in your range when ranges are so wide. If opponent is bluff heavy (since you are afraid of being exploited), you can still continue defending GTO % with your blocker hands, who cares if it is overbet or normal bet if it is +ev.
If villain is value heavy, you can always fold no exploit by him, and if you think he is balanced, you can still call +EV with your blocker hands and defend GTO.
So if he is balanced, the EV of calling with sets or 2 pairs is higher than with blockers, but EV of calling blocker hands is still +EV.

If villain 2x pot on the turn, with the threat to 2x pot the river. He only needs 36% (.6*.6) of his turn bets to be for value. Or one value bet for every 1.75 bluffs. And that is only if his bluffs and value bets are perfectly polarized. In reality those bluffs will have equity.

BB cc BTN RFI
Flop 9:dT:d8:s
You x/c the flop OOP. You are capped at KT
Turn comes blank 3:h

A balanced reg here will have about 142 'nut' combos > KT beating your best hand. Which is about 1/4 of the range he sees the turn with. So then give him his bluffs. And he can have a balanced overbet range of 72% of the range he sees the turn with. A chunk of his range will play better not overbetting too.

When villain overbets the turn he doesn't have to be bluff heavy.
Because anything better than top pair/2nd kicker or above is the nuts. Overbetting does not have to be exploitative. In this case its balanced and optimal because the more money that goes into the pot the better for someone betting perfectly polarized.

Yes you can call down with a balanced frequency which will no doubt be very wide and have a lot of trash and be very tricky.

hmm you're wrong if you think that everyone will cbet JJ+ all the time. Many people will check back overpairs sometimes and they are not wrong to do so especially if you are raising flops a lot

Originally posted by GingerKid

Originally posted by jules97
Thanks Gingerkid, a good note that blockers matter and if villain has a tonne of them in his bluffcatching range, that's something we need consider when building our betting range.

Lets get back to trying to build some ranges.

This weeks goal here for me is to try and build some continuing ranges in 3b pots with BB v BTN. When BTN calls hero's 3b IP.

One flop each for A,K,Q high and then for each of them rainbow, twotone. So a total of 6. If I can get them down decent, I'd like to do some mono textures too afterwards.

So, some things I want to consider:

- value hands bet for 1 street, 2 streets, 3 streets
- flop x/c range
- flop x/r range
- flop bet, turn x/c range
- flop bet, turn x/r range
- playability in each line

Try to build balanced ranges. Ignore any exploitable things that may be applicable and a good idea in the majority of games.
I'll try to get something up in the next couple of days. Anyone else is welcome to do the same and we can compare our ranges and try to work towards something ideal.

Hi, cool that you started 3bet range, also that you will analyse Turn play. Why ingoring river play? I think it is important to analyse whole hand, because if you ingore river it can be that you made leaks on turn and you dont notice it.

Want to ask, what is your approach when you construct range with initative, in order to be balance, I mean what is the value-bluff ratio on flop on drawy board, dry board?

My approach is to count on flop number of combos that I want to bet bet bet for value (value_3_streets), and count combos that I want to bet flop c/x turn (cx_turn), then the number of bluffs on flop I make:

num_bluffs_flop = value_3_streets + cx_turn

This way I will fold on pure blank card on turn around 40%, in order not to let villian float me, and also I will fold exactly 50% on flop vs raise. On turn I use the number of bluffs the same as value_3_streets, and river standard. Thats just all my idea what I calculated to try to be balanced, but I didnt read anything on this topic, so I would like to hear if you know some approach?

Folding 50% is a little too high vs a Flop raise, look to fold around 40-45%

Hi, Galvin !
can you check my post about 3bet pot value : bluff ratio, please?

Hi Galvin,

I wished you were in this conversation, and you just came.

We discoussed here about if villian can overbet 2x turn and 2x river balanced profitable. Jules said that we cant defend vs it, and I said that we can defend without problem even though we are cappt on weak Kx hands.
My main argument is that we block with all Kx big number of his value combos, and each of our calls will be +EV.
So would like to hear your comment. The same I said if villian bets infinity bet size, I said we need 50% pot odds, and we call 1 combo which blocks his value hands and villian burns money this way?

Folding 50% is a little too high vs a Flop raise, look to fold around 40-45%

I am not sure if I understand gto. If villian needs 60% FE with his raise e.g. on Flop,
why would we defend 40-45%? GTO should be 60%.

I guess you want to make all of his semi bluffs EV=0, but as I understood, the idea of GTO is not to make all of opponents bluffs EV=0, but only the pure bluffs, which means preventing him to bluff us whole range.
It looks to me if we defend so much as you suggested, that we pay off too much his value range.

We bet 164 combos to have 73 combos value OTR
how I got it:
on river we have 100c (73c value and 27c bluffs)
we now add turn bluffs:
x --> additional bluffs on turn
100/(100+x)=0.73
x=20
on turn: 100+20=120c

This is not correctly calculated.

100/(100+x)=0.73
x = 37

Just to make it simpler to calculate this stuff without losing much time, you can do it faster this way:

combos_turn = combos_river / (1-pot_odds)
combos_turn = 100 / 0.73 = 137
combos_flop = combos_turn / (1-pot_odds)
combos_flop = 137 / 0.73 = 187

So lets say, you want quickly to calculate combos on flop, and you know on river you will value bet 73 combos:

combos_flop = 73 / 0.73 / 0.73 = 187

OK, I already knew that approach, but it is very simple scenario, where we bet on flop only value hands that we bet on turn and river.

But what if we have cbet flop for value, and then c/c turn with those? Or cbet flop and turn, and plan to c/c river?
Thats what I was asking, because in reality you have ranges like this.
If you bet 100 combos on flop for value, but from that you c/c 40 combos on turn, then you can't use approach that you described, because you have less value combos on river.

Thats why I said, I would make ranges:

1) 3_streets_value
2) bet_flop_cc_turn
3) bet_flop_cr_turn
So we need to take care when we construct ranges on flop:

a) opponent can't float us +EV with each hand
b) opponent can't raise flop +EV with each hand

So we can make bluffs on flop:

bluffs_flop = bluffs_bet_turn + bluff_c/r_turn + give_up_turn
bluffs_bet_turn = 3_streets_value
bluff_cr_turn = bet_flop_cr_turn

Now we need to estimate "give_up_turn" range, so that we can't be exploited by floating on flop. We can choose to fold 40% when we check which means

defend_turn = bet_flop_cc_turn + bet_flop_cr_turn + bluff_cr_turn
give_up_turn = (defend_turn / 0.6 - defend_turn)

Now on river is standard, as the process you described.

Example:

3_streets_value = 20 combos
bet_flop_cc_turn = 20 combos
bet_flop_cr_turn = 10 combos

then we get bluff range:

bluffs_bet_turn = 20c
bet_flop_cr_turn = 10c
give_up_turn = (40c / 0.6 - 40c) = 26c

so it turns out that if we want to bet 50 combos value on flop, we can bet 56 bluff combos.

Comments on this?

hi again, I have no time constructing ranges but one spot here:
CO opens, BTN flats:
flop: 8 7 6

red is bet call (38c)
blue is bet fold (42c)
yellow check back (42c) (I check back KcJx,KxJc, QcJx, QxJc)
total 122c

What would you play differently?

Originally posted by wealthybrainer
hi again, I have no time constructing ranges but one spot here:
CO opens, BTN flats:
flop: 8 7 6

red is bet call (38c)
blue is bet fold (42c)
yellow check back (42c) (I check back KcJx,KxJc, QcJx, QxJc)
total 122c

What would you play differently?

I am not sure, you play with BU, and CO checked flop?

Well, this one looks the toughest to balance over all examples.
Wenn you bet, there are not many hands that are comfortable calling.
I think 55, as well as 99 without club should be -EV call vs raise range.
Also with KcJo, QcJo, we have reverse implied odds, but I guess you would flat once and fold turn.

So I would say +EV bet/calls should be only made flushes, T9s, sets and two pairs.
Well, sets and two pairs are kind of pure bluff catchers since we cant expect villian to check/raise those. So, maybe to cbet only value hands which we can +EV defend vs raise, together with bluffs like KJo, QJo with clubs.

Then the problem is that you check back big % of your range, and is very weak on the turn, you dont have flush draws or made flushes, basically you have to fold almost entire range if not on turn then on river. I guess if you want to be maximally balanced, you have to check back the whole range.

But, this is the spot where I would rather like to be agressor than defendor as we can see how tough it is to defend (exploitatively looking), and in reality I would cbet whole range here, value to protect and bluffs because I expect enough folds.

Also what is very important here is that CO has much stronger range here, because he has many overpairs with draw, and also all Ax hands, all Ac2c+, more suited connectors, so basically he is crashing your range, and I guess in that situation it is the best to check back if we are crashed (similar to reasoning why we are not donking flop, because we have weaker range).

Yeah, we are btn and Co checks.

We have the same or little better equity than CO vs my expected range vs 28%, we have 50.40 equity.

I like this range. I think it would be more profitable to have a checking back range because he would check back many medium pocket pair hands with a club, high cards with a club and call the flop. On the turn he could fold high cards with a club vs a bet and bet himself with a pair. I would like to make a maximum profitable ranges (not always balanced).

My checking back range could be bluff catchers vs a normal bet on turn and river.
I check back the flop:

with a club hands: KcJx, KxJc, QcJx, QxJc, 99, 5c5x, 4c4x,3c3x, 2c2x, 98s (33c) (I would call on the turn)

QJs-Q9s,JTs,J9s,97s,55(without club) (21c)

on river I would bluff catch (just vs aggro): 99, 5c5x, 4c4x,3c3x, 2c2x, 98s (21c)

vs bet turn, check river, I would just bet bluff KJ,QJ, he wouldn't think I could have many bluffs here or I should I just fold them on turn vs bet?

I think I wouldn't flat 55-22 preflop so I will change this range tomorrow

Let's keep this thread alive!

BTN opens 2bb, SB 3bets to 7bb, BTN calls 5bb

flop: A J 5

SB has an equity edge*
SB: 52.64%
BTN: 47.36%

*if I use my own ranges how I would play

THIS IS EDITED CHART:
SB range chart:

Red is bet for value:
one pairs,two pairs (AKs-A5s(without flushdraw), AKo-AJo);
set JJ;
FDs without Ace(12)
(53c -> 31.93%)

Green is bet bluffs:
weak pairs (Jx, TT)
GS(KTo)
backdoor one card flushraw crap
(42c -> 25.30%)

Yellow is x/c :
A4s-A3s, other Axs w/ FD, other medium pairs.
(38c ->22.89%)

Orange is x/r: AA(3c ->1.81%)
I think having just x/r value is best because villain will often have hands which would want to defend because of drawy board. Also we cannot slowplay AA, it blocks A pairs and villain will have mostly drawy hands which is why it is nice to x/r.

Blue is x/f:
all the crap (24c ->14.46%)

Considering: should I x/c: TT,Jx,A8s-A6s as GingerKid would do?

Everyone feel free to say what you think and correct my range!

Also if someone ( a decent reg) like this kind of analysis, can write me to pm and we could discuss personally this kind of ranges through skype and making maybe a group

If I were to use your ranges on that flop, Id go;

Bet - 2p(9) Axs.w/o.FD(34) JJ(3) KT,KQ(15) 5xs(6) = 67 c

x/c - AA(3) Axs.w.FD(8) FDs(13) Jxs(21) KK,QQ(12) = 57 c

x/f - 42 c

Originally posted by ZeDawning
If I were to use your ranges on that flop, Id go;

Bet - 2p(9) Axs.w/o.FD(34) JJ(3) KT,KQ(15) 5xs(6) = 67 c

x/c - AA(3) Axs.w.FD(8) FDs(13) Jxs(21) KK,QQ(12) = 57 c

x/f - 42 c

looks good and short. somehow I can read easier this one, than visualised one, it is too much colorfull

Mine:
bet : AK, 2 pairs (only 3 streets value hands, polarized range), GS, fd.
c/r JJ, 6 combo GS
c/c AA, AQ, other Ax, QQ, KK, TT, Jx

Interesting, we all have quite different ranges...

Originally posted by GingerKid
bet : AK, 2 pairs (only 3 streets value hands, polarized range), GS, fd.
c/r JJ, 6 combo GS
c/c AA, AQ, other Ax, QQ, KK, TT, Jx

Why do you x/c AA? (isn't it too risky?)
Also why do you think betting hands for 3 streets of value only? I assume we could also bet A6s just on flop and start check calling on turn and river if the board is good. Also we could bet flop medium made hands which will be folded on turn or river but we wouldn't be exploitable because we would be calling with low kicker Aces. Isnt Flop too drawy for polarisation?

What did you "mean other Ax"?
As I understood you don't x/c any flushdraws?

Originally posted by GingerKid

Originally posted by ZeDawning
If I were to use your ranges on that flop, Id go;

Bet - 2p(9) Axs.w/o.FD(34) JJ(3) KT,KQ(15) 5xs(6) = 67 c

x/c - AA(3) Axs.w.FD(8) FDs(13) Jxs(21) KK,QQ(12) = 57 c

x/f - 42 c

looks good and short. somehow I can read easier this one, than visualised one, it is too much colorfull

I will try to sum up my hand ranges to look more readable
will edit my range

Originally posted by ZeDawning
Bet - 2p(9) Axs.w/o.FD(34) JJ(3) KT,KQ(15) 5xs(6) = 67 c

x/c - AA(3) Axs.w.FD(8) FDs(13) Jxs(21) KK,QQ(12) = 57 c

x/f - 42 c

Do you x/c all your flushdraws? why?

Originally posted by ZeDawning
If I were to use your ranges on that flop, Id go;

What is your 3bet range by default? I play not on those limits that regs 3bet a lot from BB so I have flatting range on SB