Article 5 - Discussion

[Ajax]

EDIT: I think I made a mistake when I first made this post. See post #15 for a clearer statement of the question. Post #14 is good too.

You give an example with a player who folds to 3bets only 17% of the time. Because this is a big leak, your strategy would be to 4-bet/call a shove with a wider range, and possibly call some 3bets if you had seen him play 3bet pots poorly. I have a few questions about this example.

You did not give his fold-vs-steal%, but because it is in the examples with TAG players, we should conclude that he is folding 75%+ versus steals. Is that correct?

Your strategy is to 4-bet/call a shove with a wider range. How wide is your calling range against this player?

How wide would your calling range be if he folds to 3bets 24%?

How wide would your calling range be if he folds to 3bets 30%?

[B-Money]

Responses bolded below:

Originally Posted by Ajax

You give an example with a player who folds to 3bets only 17% of the time. Because this is a big leak, your strategy would be to 4-bet/call a shove with a wider range, and possibly call some 3bets if you had seen him play 3bet pots poorly. I have a few questions about this example.

You did not give his fold-vs-steal%, but because it is in the examples with TAG players, we should conclude that he is folding 75%+ versus steals. Is that correct?
Steal % is an unknown here. If someone is only folding to a 3-bet 17% of the time, my guess is they also defend their blinds much more than the average person.

Your strategy is to 4-bet/call a shove with a wider range. How wide is your calling range against this player?
Depends on the situation. The advice is to open up your range, there is no defined range because there are still too many unknown variables.

How wide would your calling range be if he folds to 3bets 24%?
Depends on the situation. There is no exact range set. Only folding 24% to a 3-Bet is still 3X more than it should be so open up your range.

How wide would your calling range be if he folds to 3bets 30%?
Same as above. Fold to 3-Bet should be 75-80% Anything in the 40% plus range is someone who calls way too many 3-bets.

[Ajax]

EDIT: I made another mistake here as well when I made this post. See post #15 for a clearer statement of the question. Post #14 is good too.

I think I made a mistake. He needs to fold to 4bets (not to 3bets) 17% of the time, and 24% of the time, and 30% of the time. Sorry about that.

Also note that the player we are facing usually does not call our 4-bet. He tends to usually shove or fold (but he does call sometimes of course).

What I want to do is make some comparative statemets. In other words, is it accurate to say that if he folds to 4bet 30%, we open up our calling range when he shoves; if he folds to 4bet 24%, we open up our range even more if he shoves; and if he folds to 4bet 17%, we open up our calling range even more than that if he shoves? That would be the general pattern, correct?

[Ajax]

In order to be clear, here is some more information.

As stated in Article 5, opponent 3bets 10% from the SB. So we steal from the button, he 3bets 10% from the SB, and then sometimes we 4-bet. Because he usually does not fold to our 4-bet (only 17% or 24% or 30%) there is no reason for any of our 4-bets to be bluffs. My guess is that we should probably 4-bet only with the hands that we are willing to get all-in with.

The basic goal here is to determine, given how the player reacts to 4-bets (folds 17% or 24% or 30%), what range of hands that we can 4bet profitably with the intention of getting all-in for 100bb. This is the same question that was posed in Article 4. If we are playing 100NL, then our initial raise is to $4, SB reraises us to $14, and then we sometimes make a pot committing 4 bet (so we call if SB pushes). I indicated in my previous post that opponent does not call very often, but I guess that is not necessary for this example, because that restriction was not put on our opponent in Article 4. I also indicated that our opponent was shoving with his 3bet, but that would be a large overbet, and that is not how Article 4 is set up, so we need to remove that restriction as well so that the conditions are the same as they were in Article 4.

Is it correct to say that if opponent folds to 4bet 30%, we open up our 4bet range; if he folds to 4bet 24%, we open up our 4bet range even more; and if he folds to 4bet 17%, we open up our 4bet range even more than that? Is this correct, or is it wrong?

[Ajax]

I am going to make another post just to make sure that my questions are stated clearly. (I hope this will be answered sometime soon.)

We steal from the button and opponent 3-bets from SB 10% of the time, and then sometimes we 4-bet a pot-committing amount. There are three cases of this. Opponent folds to 4-bet 30%, opponent folds to 4-bet 24%, and opponent folds to 4-bet 17%.

For each case, what range of hands can we 4bet profitably with the intention of getting all-in for 100bb? It is 100NL, stacks are $100, we open-raise from button to $4, and then 10% of the time SB reraises us to $14. Sometimes, when our hand is strong enough, we make a pot-committing 4-bet, but we base that decision on whether opponent folds to 4-bet 30%, or 24%, or 17%.

If the exact calculations for our three ranges cannot be made right now, then I would like to at least know this: Is it correct to say that if opponent folds to 4bet 30%, we open up our 4bet range; if he folds to 4bet 24%, we open up our 4bet range EVEN MORE; and if he folds to 4bet 17%, we open up our 4bet range EVEN MORE THAN THAT?

The calculations for determining our range in the above three cases would be similar to the calculations that were done in Article 4. I put this question in this discusstion for Article 5, however, because Article 5 deals with opponents that have more extreme stats. When an opponent 3-bets 10%, and then folds to 4-bet only 30%, or 24%, or 17%, he has extreme values for his preflop stats.

[B-Money]

I'd love to help you out with the questions more but I am no poker god myself. If I was, I'd be playing poker and not working full-time.

I can answer this with confidence:
"If the exact calculations for our three ranges cannot be made right now, then I would like to at least know this: Is it correct to say that if opponent folds to 4bet 30%, we open up our 4bet range; if he folds to 4bet 24%, we open up our 4bet range EVEN MORE; and if he folds to 4bet 17%, we open up our 4bet range EVEN MORE THAN THAT?'

I would say this is backwards. If someone only folds to a 4-bet 14% of the time you want to make sure your hand is better than theirs if you are raising a 3-Bet. If someone folds to a 4-bet 80-90% of the time, you can 4 bet them knowing they are only calling if you are crushed.

This is just my opinion, it has nothing to do with the articles and the theories talked about in them.

-B

[Ajax]

EDIT: Note that all of the ranges that I am referring to in this post are ranges for which we can get all-in profitably. I am not referring to bluff ranges (see post #19).

Originally Posted by B-Money

I would say this is backwards. If someone only folds to a 4-bet 14% of the time you want to make sure your hand is better than theirs if you are raising a 3-Bet. If someone folds to a 4-bet 80-90% of the time, you can 4 bet them knowing they are only calling if you are crushed.
-B

Thank you for your response. This is getting to the parts of Articles 4 and 5 about which I am confused. If we 4-bet someone who folds 80-90% of the time, and know that when he calls or raises he usually has us crushed, then it seems like the other player who folds to 4-bet 17% of the time will usually NOT have us crushed when HE calls or raises us. Therefore, it seems like we should be able to get all-in profitably with the widest range against the 17% player, and get all-in profitably with the narrowest range against the 80-90% player. In other words, it seems that:
+ if opponent folds to 4bet 80-90%, then we need to have a very closed range,
+ but if opponent folds to 4bet 17%, we can have a very opened range


But what you indicate above is that I had it backwards when I compared 30%, 24%, and 17%. Here is how I had it:
- if opponent folds to 4bet 30%, we open up our 4bet range
- if he folds to 4bet 24%, we open up our 4bet range EVEN MORE
- if he folds to 4bet 17%, we open up our 4bet range EVEN MORE THAN THAT

If that is backwards, then the correct way would be this:
+ if opponent folds to 4bet 30%, we open up our 4bet range
+ if he folds to 4bet 24%, we open up our 4bet range LESS
+ if he folds to 4bet 17%, we open up our 4bet range EVEN LESS THAN THAT

Now, take all five of the correct statements together (the five "+" statements are correct, and the three "-" statements are NOT correct, so we will look at the five "+" statements together):
+ if opponent folds to 4bet 80-90%, then we need to have a very closed range
+ if opponent folds to 4bet 30%, we open up our 4bet range
+ if he folds to 4bet 24%, we open up our 4bet range LESS
+ if he folds to 4bet 17%, we open up our 4bet range EVEN LESS THAN THAT
+ but if opponent folds to 4bet 17%, we can have a very opened range

Why do these concepts, related to Articles 4 and 5, seem to disagree? It is verry possible that I made an error somewhere above, and if so then please tell me where.

[Hit_or_Miss]

Originally Posted by Ajax

+ if opponent folds to 4bet 80-90%, then we need to have a very closed range,

In that case I want to 4bet 2.5x 100%. Even if you fold 100% to a 5bet it would still be profitable.

[Ajax]

Originally Posted by Hit_or_Miss

In that case I want to 4bet 2.5x 100%. Even if you fold 100% to a 5bet it would still be profitable.

Yes, that would be profitable, but you are referring to the bluff range. My above post (#17) is about getting all-in profitably. It is not about the bluff range, but rather the 4-bet range with the intention of getting all-in profitably. (For more detail, see post #15.) Also, I will edit post #17 to clarify this.

To answer post #17, you need to take all of the last five statements together. Just saying that one of the five statements is incorrect does not clarify the concept. If any of the statements are incorrect, then the goal is to determine at what point higher in post #17 the logical error was made. Also, because the five statments seem to disagree, I think one or more of them must be incorrect, so if you think one of them is not right, that's great, but more information is still needed.

[Ajax]

Hit or Miss,

It is great that you showed some interest in discussing this article.

I think this is a very good article. Since reading it, I have used its concepts many times to help me decide what to do while playing at the table. The odd thing though is that even though I use its concepts, there is something about this article, and article #4 too, that I do not understand. I made posts #15 and #17 above in an attempt to describe what it is that I am having difficulty with understanding. The last five "correct" statements in post #17 appear to disagree, but I do not know where I made any mistakes in arriving at those five statements. That is what I am trying to figure out. Where did I make the logical error?

I think there is another way that I could possibly figure out the part that I am having trouble with understanding. In Article 4, there is a series of grids that indicate the range for which Hero can 4-bet with the intention of getting all-in profitably (the grids are colored in red, orange, and blue). My impression is that all of the grids in Article 4 were developed using a systematic series of calculations.

The third row of grids in Article 4 is for when opponent 3-bets 10% of the time. The three columns in that row correspond to when opponent folds 58%, and 42%, and 30%. How would three more LOWER-FOLD grids look if we added them to the 10% row? Specifically, what would the 30% fold grid look like, and the 24% fold grid, and the 17% fold grid?

Furthermore, how would two HIGHER-FOLD grids look if we added them to the same 10% row? Specifically, what would a 70% fold grid look like, and what would an 85% fold grid look like?

The actual grids do not need to be created though; all that is necessary is the range information. If I could find this out, it would be very helpful.

EDIT: Actually, the more I think about it, I really do not need all of those grids calculated. Just two of them, the 24% fold grid, and the 85% fold grid, for the 10% row in Article 4, would probably be enough to help me figure it out (don't really need to see the grids either, just the range information that the grids would contain). Could the HEM people do that? No hurry though... I know you guys are busy. Either that, or some help with post #17 from anyone would be good too.