QJo UTG opr vs HJ 3b

Before you think about balancing you should consider what you have to work with. In fact on a low flop like this your value checkraise range is pretty small. If you checkraise, your range will be very small no matter what, even if you balance your value raises with some bluffs. When your checkraise range is only a small part of your total range then the impact of any hands you balance your range with has to be even smaller. It might well be not worth it to give away a lot of information when your gain could only be minimal.

Consider this:

Board: 7♠4♥2♦
       Equity     Win     Tie
MP2    46.41%  46.41%   0.00% { 66 }
MP3    53.59%  53.59%   0.00% { 77+, ATs+, KQs, AJo+ }


Board: 7♠4♥2♦
       Equity     Win     Tie
MP2    55.28%  54.89%   0.39% { A7s }
MP3    44.72%  44.34%   0.39% { 77+, ATs+, KQs, AJo+ }


Board: 7♠4♥2♦
       Equity     Win     Tie
MP2    51.92%  51.40%   0.52% { 99 }
MP3    48.08%  47.56%   0.52% { 77+, ATs+, KQs, AJo+ }

Basically your value range begins with 99+, A7+. Depending on whether you cap anything preflop or whether you play a no cap strategy the number of your value hands is between 12 and 42 out of a total range of 171 hands. That's really a small part of your range. When you checkraise 12/171 = 7% of your range for value and add maybe another 3 bluffs for balancing your balancing range counts for less than 2% of your total range.

Add in the fact that you will have absolutely no fold equity on the flop and have to always follow up on the turn and it becomes clear that this probably isn't worth it.

So, what are the alternatives? The alternative is to check/call any hand you want to play on the flop. It is also balanced because you will not call a hand which has too little equity. You don't have to be afraid that you lose value because it is very likely that the opponent will follow up with another bet on the turn and you can exploit that. If you have a read that he doesn't bet the turn always that's not a tragedy because then you can call any hand on the flop for the possiblity of a free card on the turn. As your value range is small, a really big part of your range would profit.

QJo is near the lower bound of your Range. Your pot odds are 7,5:1, so will need 5,5 outs to call. QJo might not have it but you will have implied odds if you hit your pair on the turn. The opponent will usually bet the turn with nearly 100% of his range on the turn because cc flop doesn't represent a strong range (and he is right about it). If you hit a J on the turn your equity will be north of 60%.

Board: 7♠4♥2♦ J♠
       Equity     Win     Tie
MP2    62.41%  62.41%   0.00% { QdJh }
MP3    37.59%  37.59%   0.00% { 77+, ATs+, KQs, AJo+ }

You can add at least 0,5 BB implied odds for turn and river, which is another 1 SB on the flop. Therefore your total odds on the flop would be no less than 8,5:1.

I think you will need somewhere around 4,5 outs for a call on the flop or a little more. QJ has like 3,5 outs. 3 outs have 12,5% equity while 4 outs have 16,5% equity.

Board: 7♠4♥2♦
       Equity     Win     Tie
MP2    14.46%  14.46%   0.00% { QdJh }
MP3    85.54%  85.54%   0.00% { 77+, ATs+, KQs, AJo+ }

On the turn another card will come that your range can hit. That means usually your value range on the turn will be greater than on the flop. If you delay your play to the turn you will have more to work with.

There may be also a misconception about balanced folding (or GTO folding). Folding the bottom x% of your range as a GTO play only applies if you have no outs and every single hand in your folding range has showdown equity. For hands that don't have any showdown value and that don't have outs this does not apply.

Examples:

Imagine the opponent has a range which has 100% of your range beat on the river. It is then absolutely correct to fold 100% of your range no matter how the pot odds are.

Imagine you have a range where the opponents range has you 100% beat but every single hand of your range has enough outs to call. It would be incorrect to fold anything.

On the flop you usually have outs against at least some part of the range of the opponent while there may be also hands that have showdown value and hands that have no value whatsoever. Folding the no value hands can be absolutely correct even if this is more than the 1/odds+1 part of your range. When you look for balance you can still balance the other part of your range.

Yup fold

You have pretty much no worse hands in your UTG range and you're up vs a vey strong range

Just looking at a normal UTG range you'll have:

JTs and worse and I'd rather peel those hands with a BDFD rather than QJo because they give us an opportunity to bluff the turn

On a mid-club you have to work out how much in the way of value hands you have and pretty much take a "bottom-up" strategy to bluffing.

Ah, thanks! Never thought about delaying everything to the turn actually always felt like a no no oop will have to rework this now.

About the ranges, my 3b range vs UTG does have KQo in it... is this to loose? And can I consider AK a valuehand here, it does have good eq vs the range on a board like this. I dont cap in this spot.

66+, A5s+, KTs+, QTs+, JTs, A9o+, KTo+, QJo <-- this is my opr range from utg as standard

66+, A9s+, KQs, ATo+, KQo <-- and this is my 3b range against utg opr that plays ~like me, hes a bit tighter this one though... but not by much

Originally posted by Boomer2k10
On a mid-club you have to work out how much in the way of value hands you have and pretty much take a "bottom-up" strategy to bluffing.

So for JTs QTs and such hands I still bluff em but as purebluffs?

To be fair one of the things I've learned playing LHE throughout the years is there's no such thing as a "pure bluff" unless you're drawing dead

However you're right, you don't have an "obvious" draw but that doesn't mean you don't bluff, especailly if you have a value raising range (otherwise it's just a value raising range and your opponent can bet/fold very easily with his worst value hands)

If you mean your preflop play, you can't bluff anything against a raise, because no player would fold anything versus a 3-bet. KQo versus the range given is pretty close equity-wise, because you need like 47% equity to raise for value and you would have 44%. Position is of course a factor which easily can be worth 2-3%. Also you have a bit of implied odds because KQ can hit straights when you opponent hits his ace.

QTs and JTs have worse equity than KQo but have better implied odds because you can hit even more monsters. You might also have implied fold equity on the flop or the the turn because you represent a strong hand and can use position for leverage (the opponent will always lose more oop than win oop). This adds up so most players regard these hands as playable for a 3-bet.

I didn't, I was talking about on the turn where, if we have a flop x/r range, there are many turns which will give our flop calling range almost no value range at all

In this case there's no need to balance with bluffs as ou have no value raising range, however, if you take the x/c all line on the flop you will sometimes have to "pure" bluff the turn in order for your turn raising range to remain balanced because if you don't you have heavily value orientated range which is easy to play against.

Originally posted by cjheigl
If you mean your preflop play, you can't bluff anything against a raise, because no player would fold anything versus a 3-bet. KQo versus the range given is pretty close equity-wise, because you need like 47% equity to raise for value and you would have 44%. Position is of course a factor which easily can be worth 2-3%. Also you have a bit of implied odds because KQ can hit straights when you opponent hits his ace.

QTs and JTs have worse equity than KQo but have better implied odds because you can hit even more monsters. You might also have implied fold equity on the flop or the the turn because you represent a strong hand and can use position for leverage (the opponent will always lose more oop than win oop). This adds up so most players regard these hands as playable for a 3-bet.

Ah, you misunderstood me, never ment as a bluff pre-flop. Was more wondering about the range you had for 3b an utg opr, and that you didnt have KQo in the range you did the eq calculations from, because i've always felt it was a default 3b in any spot really. Perhaps its not in an utg opr when youre on the sb then... I usually dont 3b QTs JTs in this spot unless I know the opr is looser than average and/or a poor player, i dont even have QJs as default 3b in this spot... is that to nitty?

Noticed you were using the default opr range/3b range thats in equilab now

anyway, thanks for the help guys