How Wide Are Your Ranges?

I think that this is a great blog post! I love meta-game discussions.

Ed,

I have a general problem regarding how “widening my range” works: How will my opponent know that I have widened my range???

As you said, the point is to be less readable. But say I reraise in your example above (Tc6c in BB) and get called. How do I continue if I miss the flop? Widening my range will only be visible to my opponent if we get to a showdown, right? So should I bluff this hand until showdown quite often (folding a few times won’t hurt either I guess)?

Or should I show my hole cards to the table in case everybody folds?

Or should I fold after the flop unless I have a strong draw, 2 pair or another good hand that I can surprise (and beat!) my opponents with?

Thanks for a clarification!

Greyzy

Great stuff Ed. Can you expand on this concept for postflop deception. Specifically, let’s say I check-raise flop in position with air. I need this to be sets and 2 pair and 8-9 out draws more than air right? I know it’s opponent dependant, but I’m thinking in terms of GTO not exploitive, which is a basis for modifying for exploitive play. So let’s say I’m offering 2:1 when I raise, I need to have the goods 2/3 of the time on average right? Since the goods are so rare, it would seem that my bluffs would be very very rare. Which means I am back to playing more transparent. When I watch yours and others stox videos, it seems like the “moves” are done with more frequency than you would have those hands based on preflop ranges (say 16-21 pfr). In NLHE, there seems to be such a fine line between not letting yourself get run over and spewing by over comitting postflop. I probably rambled a little incoherently, but hopefully you get the jist of my question. Thanks!!

Do you think there is this progression of thinking of poker and some people just get caught in the way of thinking?

What I mean is, a lot of people get into poker having a relatively surprisingly accurate view of how to play the meta-game. “I’m going to play a few hands, then bluff him out because he won’t expect me to bet big without the nuts after playing so many hands that i should expect my big bet to be called and so i must have the nuts blah blah blah.” Maybe not that accurate, but something like it.

And then you read some books. And then you go through swings. And then you actually try and get the best hand range for a particular action so as to make the most money. And then you get caught in the pleasurable habit of analyzing individual hands. I mean, seriously, just like you said, when poker players talk about hands, they go into great detail and obviously like doing so (I do anyway :]). And they get so addicted to that, they don’t realize their initial idea of what poker was all about is more or less true.

Instead, they look at their past poker selves in a more or less negative light. “I used to make so many mistakes and now I’m so much better and, boy, I wonder what it would be like to look at myself now and think “Man, what a retard” …” I wonder if this has a lot to do with the unhealthy lifestyle attitude they have about poker. Much in the same way addicted World of Warcraft users might be.

I definitively agree with your post, Ed. Your analysis is especially true in mid-stakes or high stakes NLHE. But what about micro stakes?

I used to play at Full Tilt NL50 and it is definitively +EV to play a wider range because a looser pf game in position also has a good folding equity. But currently I play at a very fishy site (NL50) with VPIP’s of 50-60% surrounded by calling stations. In this environment it is very difficult to survive with an aggressive pf strategy with a wider range including speculative semi-bluff hands, because opponents are not capable of folding.

I recognized that I almost stopped raising with T8s like hands from the button because there is almost no FE on my c-bets if I miss the flop. I understand that it can be very profitable to give action in order to get paid off but in fishy environment this is difficult to play because opponents have an extremely wide range and you can’t put pressure on calling stations.

My 2 cents: For people playing micros, you really shouldn’t worry about widening your ranges, 3betting light, etc. etc. because for the most part your opponents won’t notice, and will pay off your big hands anyway. I’d rather play every hand in a vacuum really (except against the occasional good regular perhaps), whether or not poker “works” that way. Metagame is something you shouldn’t worry about too much until small stakes at least

and Mike, how do you check-raise in position?

I definitely think that this stuff can get you in trouble with morons at low stakes.

If youre playing at a crazy table you just have to do enough so that they think youre in the idiot club too.

Ed, I know you play mostly at full tilt and you should know that a “crazy” table at full tilt would be downright nitty compared to other sites. As far as low stakes go its absolutely retarded to play on full tilt and stars if you arent american, it would be like trying to survive in the desert just for the hell of it.

yo SuperNit, why you steal my name

people would get this concept more if you were to tell them never to squeeze if its your last hand of the night

For you bad play means “not extracting enough value from marginal hands” “playing suited connectors too much oop” “limping on the button”

For me its reraising all in with air in a limped pot, calling all ins on the turn with a 6 high flush draw, limping with aces then autoshoving a 678 flop……

Ed’s post is of course interesting an on-target. Actually I’m trying to think of my play less in terms like, “Should I have continuation bet in that hand?” and more like, “What % of the time should I be CBing in that position?” or “What should my range be?”

But VegasSocrates makes a really solid point IMO. Sometimes we do get in the habit of approaching hand histories like chess problems, where every position has a “right” answer. Of course, that’s absolutely not true, whether you want to call it metagame or multi-hand strategy or whatever.

And yes, sometimes a naive but highly intuitive player can outplay a “sophisticated” player lacking that same gut feel for psychology. In fact, knowing that makes me want to get an analog watch (see Harrington I) and start randomizing instead of trying to go by feel — although sometimes I think I could become a good intuitive player too.

Mike,

Although I’ve read comments by Ed to the effect that he’ll sometimes make a flop check-raise (or other play) with air, I don’t see the point.

The whole theoretical point of semibluffing is this: if you’re going to make bets and raises that you’d rather not be called, you may as well make them with hands that have some equity if called rather than hands with no equity if called.

In fact, a 9-out HE draw with two cards to come is never close to even money, so I disagree with your classification of such a hand as “having the goods” rather than “bluffing.” Semibluffs are bluffs! Just that they’re bluffs with some equity when called.

So back to the “air”. I can understand why I need to [semi]bluff at a dry flop on occasion to keep an opponent from correctly inferring that aggression on such a flop indicates two pair or better. What I don’t get is what value there is in picking total misses instead of rather weak semibluffing hands. A dry board may not present strong draws by definition, but it represents all sorts of weak draws — backdoor flush and backdoor OES draws, middle and bottom pairs, etc. Why not choose those for our bluffs?

To put it another way, if my range for say C/Ring the flop is [a tiny bit of equity..a monster] rather than [no equity whatsoever..a monster] am I really guilty of a significant informational leak? If my opponent infers, “Hmmm, AKQJ10 must have at least a backdoor flush draw here,” and folds more often as a result, is that really hurting me? I want the fold when I semibluff with 33% equity, let alone 4% or something silly.

Perhaps you and Ed are calling the 4% “air”, in which case it’s just a semantic misunderstanding. Otherwise, I don’t get why you’d choose to make a stone cold bluff before the river.

Everybody is lyric about this article but isn’t it just an extensive way of saying that you should mix up your play otherwise you become too predictable? That is not ground breaking in my opinion.

I don’t believe in intuition. But i do believe in the power of forgiveness.

Is ‘how wide are your ranges’ your way of asking me if I have a big one? If so, the answer is yes.

Isn’t this just Shania?

“Everybody is lyric about this article but isn’t it just an extensive way of saying that you should mix up your play otherwise you become too predictable? That is not ground breaking in my opinion.”

No one was saying this was a ground-breaking article imo

Supernit: Check raising in position is my innovative way of mixing up my play. Good callout though. I need to proof my stuff.

AKQJ10: I appreciate the feedback. I guess I don’t raise with air often because but I think it is OK if done sparingly against the right opponent with the right stack sizes and board texture. There are just certian times that your opponents hands can’t take the heat so they dump it before making a commitment bet or call. I’m pretty tight and solid. So when I make big bets, I have a big hand 90+% of the time. But this allows me to make some daring straight up bluffs once in a while.