Dynamic Full Ring Poker

by James Sweeney

  If we think he would only continue versus our CB with a set, then we know he would fold 90% of the time, making this an extremely lucrative bet.

  While things like texture and size will certainly change the way we approach the CB game, there is a simple way to start thinking analytically about this spot. Start by building a pie chart. This pie chart is simply our opponent’s range. Once we have this pie chart, we just need to chop it up into the correct pieces. Say we are at 100NL, we open raise to $3 from the CO, just the SB calls, and we see a heads up flop of Q86r. He checks to us and it is our option. We know he is a tight player and assign him a range of 22-JJ/AQ/AJ/KQ/KJ when he calls preflop. We think he wouldn’t bluff and would only continue with something like TP+, maybe float some 99-JJ as well, and of course continue with sets. Now we have all the information we need.

  We see his range hits this flop roughly 44% of the time. Now we can chop the pie chart into two pieces. The piece that would continue if we bet, and the piece that would fold if we bet.

  When we are bluffing this is all we care about. If a player will fold enough of the time, then we want to bluff. If a player will not fold enough of the time, then we probably do not want to bluff. Simple. If we look at the CB size tool for a static 44% C-range, we see this:

  We see here that if he would fold 56% of his range, regardless of the size, that any bet size up to 120% pot makes a profit here. Of course, the smaller we bet, the more profit we expect to make with this bet. And all of this is done simply by looking at our opponent’s O-range, C-range, and bet size.

  Now this is a very simple approach to continuation betting. There are some factors that change our approach though. The dynamic nature of the game will have certain features that change how this pie chart gets created:

  Texture. Different textures will create more or less floating, and also more or less bluffing. In the following section on textures we’ll see how they tend to get approached by players.

  Size. The size of our CB will create more or less floating and/or bluffing against elastic action ranges. The bigger a bet is, the less action it will tend to get, especially from weak hands. The smaller a bet is, the more action it will tend to get, both in the call and bluff sense.

  Image. Our image will tend to get us action in different ways. Player’s that pay attention to image might give our CB more respect if we have been very tight, and might float us more if we have been very loose. Lots of players do not pay attention to image and only care about their own hand, so make sure we know who we are dealing with in a particular hand.

  Tilt. This could mean our own tilt level, or even the tilt level of our opponent. If a player is tilting, they will tend to give action more liberally, either by peeling or bluffing. This increases their C-range, and makes bluffing more difficult and usually less profitable.

  Idiocy. Our opponent's level of idiocy is very important. The dumber they are, the less they will care about the complexities of our plays. Do not bluff idiots unless their C-range is incredibly small. The dumber a player is, the more straight forward we should approach them.

  8 It should be noted that if our opponent is calling with lots of second best hands, a CB with K9 is still good. Checking becomes more valid when our opponent starts to play closer to perfect against a bet.

  9 The C-Range changes a bit as we take our hole cards into consideration

  We could come up with a hundred other factors that change how we assign the pieces of our pie chart, but these are the major ones. When we consider a CB we need to quickly analyze these factors and create a plan based on our analysis. Always make sure that we give ourselves some buffer as well. The buffer adds to the C-range to increase our global profitability in a play and takes into account the times we are incorrect in certain analyses. There will always be unknowns, or even totally random actions made by opponents, and we need to be cognizant of them. The tighter a player is, the less buffer we need to assign as they will bluff and float less often due to being straight forward. The looser a player is, the more buffer we should assign because they will bluff and float more for random reasons. If a bluff would still be profitable even with a buffer added, we should certainly make it.

  The Textures

  We could look at the three card flop in a very complicated way and look at each card individually versus the others. But the nice thing about poker is that only so many different kinds of flops can come up; in other words we can simplify the boards into certain textures. We should always be looking for simple ways to process information efficiently, and compartmentalizing textures can help.

  The texture of a flop is simply what the flop looks like. Certain textures appear more comfortable and allow for more peeling, and other textures are scary and make people fold more. Let’s look at some basic flop textures, and talk about how people tend to approach them:

  0 Broadway Card: (8♠6♣2h or 9♦8♣5♦). These boards have no broadway cards (T/J/Q/K/A) on them. These boards tend to allow lots of comfortability for single pairs, and thus peeling frequencies increase. Non-broadway card boards do not look like they hit the preflop raiser (as players heavily assign hands like AK and KQ to open raising ranges). These boards also tend to get attacked more often as well. Players love to “bluff the raiser off their AK” and raise more liberally on these types of boards. While a good player wouldn’t choose this board type to attack a CB as often, bad players love them.

  1 Broadway Card: (A♠9♥7♥ or J♣6♦5♠). These boards have a single broadway card on them. These boards tend to look like they hit the open raiser’s range. There is peeling happening on this kind of flop, but less than the 0 broadway card board. Good players tend to attack these boards more liberally, especially on A or Q high flops, and bad players will attack them occasionally.

  2 Broadway Card: (K♠J♣4♦ or A♦T♦8♣). These boards have two different broadway cards on them (so ATT is a two broadway card board, as well as a paired board). Having two broadway cards on the flop makes it look like the preflop raiser really smashed the board. These boards are not peeled very often, as players have no real interest in trying to get 66 to showdown on an AQ3 board. Bluffing also tends to go down on these textures due to players assuming, and usually correctly, that players are less willing to fold pairs in the broadway range.

  3 Broadway Card: (A♦Q♠J♣ or K♥Q♦T♥). These are very dangerous boards. They look like they hit very strongly for the preflop raiser, making him some sort of two pair, set, or even straight. Due to the perceived strength of hand for the preflop raiser, these boards rarely get peeled on. Players tend to respect these boards, and also rarely bluff them.

  Monotone: (A♥J♥6♥ or 9♣3♣8♣). These flops have possible flushes made already. They are super wet and also very dangerous. Players tend to play very variably on them as well. Some will shutdown everything but flushes and sets, and others will peel any flush draw or decent pair. The tighter the player facing the CB, the less hands they will usually continue with on these boards. Most players will not choose these boards to attack very liberally, but due to the dangerous nature of them, they can be perfect to attack due to the tight continuance range generally associated with them.

  Paired: (J♦J♣8♣ or 6♦2♠2♥). On paired boards people peel more because they don’t believe the original raiser hit it often due to card removal. Most players will not bluff raise this board, but will peel liberally. So if we are going to bluff CB on paired boards, we usually need to be prepared to fire multiple barrels.

  Bingo: (J♠J♥J♣ or 3♦3♣3♥). These flops are extremely rare, and tend to create odd action. Players don’t tend to attack these boards often, but many call more liberally with most pairs and lots of ace high type hands.

  While board types can be easily classified with any of the above, they can be classified even more simply as “dry” or “wet.” A monotone board will always be a wet board, but a single broadway card flop can be either dry or wet. Simplifying board textures gives us the ability to create lines
quicker and categorize our hand strength accordingly.

  10 We can still CB here for balancing purposes from time to time and to get outright value from hands like 99-JJ/98/87/etc. that peel us. We never want to ALWAYS take the same action and become exploitable against players that are paying attention.

  Dry: (A♠7♦2♣ or 9♦5♥2♠). These boards have ranks that are usually very spread out with minimal draws on them. A “dry” flop is just a descriptor of one of the other flop types. Dry flops with a single broadway card are usually perfect for continuation betting. They look like they hit the original raiser’s range and the dryness means there are fewer drawing hands that could continue facing a bet.

  Wet: (8♦7♦4♣ or A♠J♥9♠). These boards are usually very coordinated and have multiple draws on them. A “wet” flop is just a a descriptor of one of the other flop types. Certain wet boards are very good for a continuation bet, while others can be terrible. A KhQs8h board can be a good CB, while a 7s6s5h can be a bad spot to continuation bet with air. Everything is relative and revolves more around our opponent’s range than our hand, but it is still important to classify flops correctly.

  The Polarized CB

  Again, a polarized range is one that is a ‘nuts or bluff’ type range. Say we steal from the button, just the BB calls, and we see a heads up flop of K54r. The BB checks and it is our action. Let’s say we have five possible hands: AK, K9, JJ, 98, 55. Let’s categorize each hand:

  Bluffs: 98

  Value Hands: AK/K9/55

  Semi-Bluffs:

  SDV Hands: JJ

  If we were polarizing our CB range we would CB the 98 (the bluff) and the AK/K9/55 (the very valuable). We would check the JJ behind in an effort to get to showdown and not get check-raised off our hand. But if we ask ourselves the question we always should ask when betting the AK/K9/55 part of our range, “what does our bet accomplish?” we get an interesting answer.

  As it turns out, not too much. Of course, there is a tremendous difference between 55 and AK/K9 here. We should bet 55 in order to make the biggest pot possible when our opponent has the KJ or sticky pair part of his range. (We could check if our opponent is for sure going to make a ton more (and bigger) mistakes if we check as opposed to if we bet) But why should we bet AK/K9? Do any worse hands continue? Sometimes we get called by 66+/KT/KJ/KQ/76, but that is pretty much it8. Let’s start by assigning a range for BB and then get to working out this problem.

  Let’s assume the BB is a fishy 24/6 player. We see from his stats that he calls a lot preflop, and raises very rarely. For all intents and purposes, let’s say he has something like 22+/AT-AQ/KT-KQ/QJ/QT/JT/SC. We see this range hits the flop about 40% of the time he continues with 66+/OESD/TP/sets. This means if we bet, we should expect a fold about 60%9 of the time.

  While we do get some value by betting, we should always ask ourselves if checking could possibly show a better profit. If we look back at where the density of this player’s range is on the flop, we see he has ‘nothing’ and ‘ace high’ a very large percentage of the time. We also want to take conceivable actions into consideration as well. Do we get bluff check-raised a lot if we bet here? Do we want to face a check-raise here? Do enough worse hands continue if we bet? Do other hands make more mistakes if we check as opposed to bet here?

  Let’s explore some reasons why checking could be a good play:

  Minimize loss

  There is always the chance we could be behind, unless of course we have the nuts. If we take economic principle into consideration, we know that minimizing loss is the same thing as maximizing value. We should always try to keep our loss in any hand to a minimum.

  Pot control

  Whenever we bet we increase the size of the pot. This is of course great when we have a hand that we want to make the pot bigger with. However, when we have mediocre strength hands, and even strong hands can have mediocre relative strength, we want to control how big the pot becomes to ensure we aren’t getting involved in too big of a pot with too weak of a hand.

  Induce bluffs

  Lots of players will assume a check signifies weakness. Because of this, a check is often times a great play to induce a bluff. When we check the flop in position, we give our opponent the chance to stab either the turn or river. If we can get our opponent to bluff a hand he would have folded to a bet on previous streets, we are allowing ourselves to make more profit from that part of his range.

  Induce comfortability

  In signifying weakness, a check can also induce some lighter calls later in the hand. Many players wouldn’t feel comfortable floating 55 on a K32 board, but might call a later street if the flop gets checked through. This correlates nicely with bet theory. Players feel more comfortable facing smaller bets, and less comfortable facing bigger bets. While this is true with bets, this is also true with bigger and smaller pot sizes. Players tend to make many more ‘loose’ calls in small pots than bigger pots. And again, the check creates a smaller pot size, one where these loose calls/bluffs can happen more liberally.

  Way ahead, way behind (WAWB) with minimal possible over cards

  Many times when we catch top pair we are in a ‘way ahead, way behind’ situation. Either we are drawing to a handful of outs, or our opponent is. In these situations, where few over cards can come on later streets, checking can be very beneficial. A check with KT on a K94 board is going to be better than with Q8 on 842. While both have top pair, there are many more over cards that can come on the 842 board, creating incredibly difficult spots later in the hand if we were to check the flop.

  Unsure of the raise

  We should always have some sort of plan in the event we are raised. Of course, this is easy with nut hands, but can be very difficult with marginal ones. If we are unsure what we are going to do when raised, especially check-raised, it makes checking a more viable option when we have a marginal hand. When we bluff CB, we know we are just going to fold to a raise (or possibly run a bluff 3-bet/float occasionally), but with a marginal hand we can become very exploitable if we make mistakes. Why should we get involved in a bigger pot with less of an idea how to proceed if we could create a smaller pot where we have more control?

  Usually in this example we’ll want to induce while keeping the pot smaller, and thus creating a more ‘mistake-rich’ environment. While all the factors are important and can lean us closer or further away from checking, we can only process so much information so quickly. In the example with the K54 flop, we might consider checking behind with JJ/AK/K9, and just CBing the 55 and 98. If our opponent would make many more bluff/calling mistakes later in the hand, and put us in a tough spot if we faced a CR on the flop, a check can be a very valid option.

  Polarizing our CB range is great against mistake-prone opponents. Opponents that amplify their mistakes, either by calling or bluffing, in smaller pots are perfect for this kind of check. This is also much better in position, as we can close action on future streets. While checking out of position is also an option, it is often times done with a different plan in mind. Say we raise QQ from EP, the button calls, and we see a heads up flop of A76. We check, he bets, and we call. We know a CB would just turn our hand into a bluff10, and thus we check to induce bluffs or crying calls later in the hand, while keeping the pot size smaller. We also call usually with the intention of folding to a double barrel, assuming that most players wouldn’t bet the turn without having us beat.

  We also need to be careful with polarizing our CB range. Doing so against solid hand readers will turn our hand face up and allow them to play very close to perfect. Tough opponents understand that our CB range is nuts and bluffs, and our check is just a SDV hand. Thus polarizing our CB range is best done against players that are dumb, and again, mistake-prone. Good players will make more mistakes when we CB, and bad players will make more mistakes if we check and allow them to bluff/call poorly later in the hand. Of course, if our opponent will call with many second best hands, we don't want to miss a bet with a strong enough holding. W
e always want to ensure that our actions exploit our opponent's mistake-propensities whenever possible.

  One final note on polarizing the CB range is the parlay the play takes. By checking behind with KQ on a Q64 board we give hands like 33 a chance to catch a 3 on the turn. Or hands like JT to catch a 9 on the turn and 8 on the river to beat us. By checking we are giving our opponent free chances to improve against us. Checking can still be good if our opponents will make more mistakes for more money than what we will lose on the times they improve. Remember, that just because we lose the pot (and we will a non-zero percentage of the time), doesn’t mean we made a mistake. When we take the best line possible against our opponent and their perceived actions, everything will work out for us in the long run.

  The Depolarized CB

  A depolarized CB can be a good play in certain situations. Let’s take a situation where we raise from MP, get a caller from the BB, and see a HU flop of J83r and he checks to us. A depolarized CB range would mean we CB hands like 88, J6s, 55, T7, and 54s. We CB the bulk of the range rather than checking the SDV parts. But why would betting the bulk of our range be a good thing?