Dynamic Full Ring Poker

by James Sweeney

  When thinking about the rest of the hand we want to consider some things:

  Is this pot size favorable?

  While we are on the flop we don’t know exactly what the pot size will be by the river, but we can make an educated guess. If we are OOP against an aggressive bettor, we can logically assume we are heading towards a relatively large final pot size. If we are OOP against a passive bettor, we can logically assume that we are only heading towards a large final pot size if he has a nuttish hand. If we are IP and made a CB that got called, we will usually dictate the final pot size. We may be able to check back the turn which makes the hand a simple two street hand. Or we can bet the turn again which threatens a larger final pot size to our opponent. We should always make sure that we are considering the pot size we are venturing into and ensure that our hand strength lines up with the pot size which will be created.

  What are possible turn/river cards?

  A major leak among most players is in hands that go like this: 2 limps from MP, the SB completes and we check the BB with 84s. The flop comes 875 and we c/c a bet. In doing this, how are we going to get to SD? Our improvement cards are terrible, we are OOP, and most every card that hits the turn is either an overcard or bad card. We need to make sure, especially from OOP, that we are considering the cards that can come on the turn and that we have an idea on how to handle them. Especially when we think we are going to face future bets, there is no reason to call this kind of hand on the flop because there is so little chance we can get to SD in a pot size this hand does well in.

  Do we have flexibility?

  As we’ve talked about a lot in this chapter, flexibility helps us a ton. Having multiple ways to win a pot is always a great thing, especially with bluff and semi-bluff hands. However, flexibility is really useful IP, and not so much OOP. From OOP we would have to introduce donking into the flow of the hand, whereas IP we can simply stab or double barrel. The more ways that we can win pots with low risk at high frequencies, the better our strategy will be. And again, this all boils down to position. This is why we always think about logical happenings from PF, and choose a range of hands that allows us to have solid and profitable spots later in the hand.

  Can we handle pressure?

  Somewhat related to flexibility, is can we handle more pressure? If we are OOP and expecting to face more bets later in the hand, do we really want to call the flop bet? If we are IP and faced a CR, can we handle a turn barrel? If we raise a draw on the flop, can we handle a 3-bet? We always need to be aware of pressure, even if it happens rarely. Before we raise a bet we want to ask ourselves what we will do if we get re-raised. Before we bet, we should ask ourselves what we will do if we get raised. While this isn’t as important when we are bluffing (because we bluff when we expect the folding frequency is high enough to be profitable), it becomes extremely important with value, SDV, and semi-bluff hands. If we expect pressure now, or later, we might consider taking different lines. Often times these lines include a lot of check and/or folding when we think about minimax.

  Minimax

  Again, minimax is that game theory decision focusing on minimizing loss and maximizing value. We have talked a lot about minimax so far, and it gets exponentially important as we think about the turn and river. We have also discussed the “reverse parlay,” which is effectively the same thing as minimax. If we are in a situation where we never make anything more when we are ahead, but always lose more when we are behind, we are getting crushed in the minimax game. It is important that we not only focus on staying away from being on the bad side of minimax, but that we focus on being on the good side of it as well. If we call TT on a 9 high board knowing that we never pay off another bet when behind, but we occasionally get a VB when we are ahead, then we are doing well in the minimax game. It does get a bit odd when we consider our opponent’s range as being less black and white (VB or c/f only), but it can be one of the more important factors, especially as raises start going into the pot.

  Poker is effectively chess, but with cards instead of pieces. We need to be thinking moves ahead in order to get better and to create lines that are more optimal. While this can be very complicated at first, especially for players who have never considered thinking about river lines while on the flop, it gets easier in time. With experience, and after we’ve seen the same kind of spots over and over, planning and executing becomes more efficient and effective. Just keep working through lines, thinking about possible happenings, and asking yourself what your plays accomplish.

  17. Barreling

  Barreling is a bluff bet made on the turn or river. It is an important part of our game as it gives us extra ways to win pots with weak hands. Because our average hand strength is usually not very strong postflop, being able to use the board and our opponent’s frequencies will help us pick up extra money.

  The Barrel Texture

  When considering barreling we are usually looking at a few things. Of course we look at our opponent’s range (if we are on the turn, what they have after the flop action is completed), but we also look at the board texture to see how their range is doing. In doing this we can see if their O-Range and C-Range would be far enough apart that a barrel could show profit. However, there is more to it than just the basic math.

  When looking at textures we need to make sure that we are using textures that are logically strong for us and weak for our opponent. Let’s take a hand where we open XX from MP. The SB, a TAG, calls and we see a HU flop of 763. He checks, we CB, and he calls. The turn is a K and he checks again. If we bet here, we either are representing that we hit the K, or that we already had a strong hand. The K is a believable card and acts as a scare card to our opponent.

  Say in this hand that we had JT. The K would be a much better card to bet in general than a 3. A 3 doesn’t improve our perceived range and doesn’t look very believable to our opponent (This is why we might bet this turn card with AA for value, but not with JT as a bluff.)

  There are a few different kinds of turn/river textures that we tend to deal with:

  Overcards

  These are cards that make new top pairs available, for example, a Q turn on a T72 flop, or an A river on a T883 board. These are usually good cards to represent because they apply pressure to what is now second pair, and usually look like they hit the PFR’s range.

  Bricks

  These are cards that don’t really change the board at all, such as a 3 on a QJ7 board or a 6 on an AJT4 board. These are usually bad cards to bluff on because we can’t represent hitting them well.

  Board pairs

  These are cards that pair the board, for example, a Q on a Q73 or a 5 on a K635 board. A board pair tends to make it harder for our opponent to have stronger hands as it reduces combinations.

  Draw fillers

  These are cards that fill draws. A 7d on an Ad6c4d board fills a flush draw while a 9 on a 8TJ3 board fills a straight draw. These cards are often times scary to our opponent, assuming of course that they themselves didn’t just improve.

  Through cards

  These are cards that are less than the top card, and higher than the lowest card, such as a 9 on a Q75 or a K on an AJ54. These cards are usually not the best to bluff on as they don’t provide much pressure.

  While these kinds of turn/river cards can certainly overlap (a draw filler that is an overcard, a through card that is also a brick, etc.), these categorizations get us thinking about cards that are either good to represent and bluff on, or terrible to. They can also help us plan hands. If we think about CBing with intentions of double barreling, we should think about how often a good barrel card will hit the turn/river.

  The Bluff Double Barrel

  As a player begins to improve they become interested in improving their double barrel game. A double barrel is simply a situation where we raise PF, CB the flop, and then bet the turn again. This section will talk about the bluff double barrel, as the value turn bet is covered in Chapter 18.

  This play gives u
s extra ways to win the pot. Since we will usually not have super strong hands by the time we get to the turn (especially as our PF range gets wider and wider), we like having extra ways to pick up pots. Part of being able to bluff double barrel well is being able to choose the right opponents, textures, and sizes.

  Opponent

  Our opponent is by far and away the most important piece of the puzzle here. If our opponent is a player that doesn’t like pushing the fold button, then we shouldn’t really be bluffing him, regardless of the texture. This means trying to bluff double barrel against P-Fish, A-Fish, and unknowns isn’t usually going to be great. Of course, if we knew that our opponent in a certain hand was a P-Fish that would fold to the turn bluff, then we could run it. But often times fish aren’t players we want to be running more expensive bluffs against.

  Our ideal opponents to bluff like this are players that can think, to an extent. For instance, a player that can look at a turn card and say “that could have hit my opponent and makes me not feel comfortable with now second pair” is great. But it can become ugly when our opponent can look at a turn card and say “that card makes his betting range very polarized and I understand how to play that kind of situation well.”

  Texture

  Because we are bluffing, we like textures that are good to bluff on. So cards that create folding pressure on our opponent are great for us. We usually want to veer away from cards like bricks and through cards, unless our opponent would peel the flop and fold a lot versus the turn bet. Against players that can think about our range we need to think about how our range logically hits that board. If we raised from EP and never have KQ in that range, then trying to rep the straight on an AT7J board can get ugly.

  Sizing

  Many players mess up the sizing of double barrels a ton. In an ideal world our size with our bluffs would look exactly like the size of our VBs. And because the opponents we are usually going to be bluff barreling into can think, it is even more important that we don’t make our sizing telling of our intentions. Because we are bluffing, we want to give ourselves the best price while soliciting the most folds. Usually our size is going to fit right in the 50%-75% PSB range, but we should bet the most +EV size whenever possible.

  Let’s take a standard hand. We open AQ from MP, our opponent calls in the CO, and we see a HU flop of T73. We CB and he calls. The turn is a K and it is our action. Let’s explore our options:

  Check. If a bet wouldn’t solicit enough folds, then checking is the default play. So if the CO were a fish, our standard line would just be to check and hope we get a free card. However, against a more logical opponent, the K is a scare card and could be worth a double barrel.

  Bet. A bet could be great. We just need to ask ourselves a few things:

  What is the O-Range? As usual, our plays boil down to ranges. So if our opponent would only call the flop CB with hands like TT/77/33, it is pretty safe to say that he wouldn’t be folding to a double barrel. But we also need to go back to PF and build a logical range. Let’s say this opponent would call PF with 22-QQ/AJ/KQ/65s-QJs. And we think he would call the flop CB with 33-QQ/76s-JTs. This is the starting point of every hand that we play.

  What is the C-Range? While knowing the O-Range is helpful, we want to think about what he would logically continue with if we bet the turn. Given the range we assigned we can see that the K doesn’t improve his range at all. At this point we just have to start making some assumptions about his range. Let’s look at the Flopzilla analysis. If he would only continue versus a turn bet with sets or better, then we would get a fold 86% of the time. If he would always continue with sets and draws, then we would get a fold 74% of the time. The tricky part is whether he would fold JJ/QQ type hands. But even if he never folds them, we still get folds 60% of the time.

  Does our bet look real? If our opponent looked at our bet and said “well, it’s unlikely he would bet AK here because it has SDV and I wouldn’t call with a second best hand. And it is unlikely he has JT or QQ for the same reason, then his betting range must be sets and air, with a large weight towards air” then we might not bet. However, against most opponents that are base level thinkers, the K is a scare card that should solicit folds and make our bet look “real”. How real a bet appears is relative and based on our opponent’s ability to think about things like polarization and SDV.

  Like usual, we notice that our play is heavily influenced by our opponent’s O-Range and C-Range. If the two ranges are very close together, it can make a bluff very unprofitable (because we won’t get enough folds to show profit). If the two ranges are very far apart, we can have a very profitable bluffing opportunity (because we will be getting folds more often and can show solid profit). And for our size here, we just want to bet big enough that it shows we are serious, small enough so that we give ourselves a good price, and in a size-range that it looks like a VB size. Thinking back to sizes, we remember that:

  1/2 PSB: Needs to work at least 33% of the time to show profit.

  2/3 PSB: Needs to work at least 40% of the time to show profit.

  1 PSB: Needs to work at least 50% of the time to show profit.

  So if a 1/2PSB would get a fold as often as a 2/3 PSB, we should make the 1/2 PSB. Of course, the smaller the size of the bet the larger the C-Range usually becomes. We always need to be thinking about selecting a size that keeps the C-Range favorable for us.

  This entire section is also the basis behind good triple barreling as well. We just think about how O-Ranges and C-Ranges changed (based on board texture, bet size, etc.) throughout a hand. If our bluff could solicit enough folds, then we can consider taking it. If our bluff couldn’t get enough folds outright, then we cut our losses and don’t bet unless we could make a profitable bluff later in the hand.

  The Semi-Bluff Double Barrel

  There are times when we have a draw, or picked up extra equity, and we need to decide whether to double barrel or check. This decision can be quite difficult, but if we break it down, the decision gets simplified. Our goal in this situation is to figure out what a check accomplishes, what a bet accomplishes, and which of those should be more profitable. Let’s talk about some of our considerations:

  Will we get folds?

  Because we still don’t have a hand (this section is not talking about having AhQh on an As7h9h3c board), folds are always appreciated. We just need to think about O-Range vs C-Range and ask ourselves if a bet would get enough folds to show an outright profit. We also want to keep the turn texture in mind. If the turn is a scary card that should solicit more folds, then we might consider betting it more often. If it is a brick that would allow our opponent to feel very comfortable, we probably can’t get enough folds to justify betting it for outright profit.

  Are we IP or OOP?

  Draws are always easier to play IP versus OOP. IP we can just decide to check behind and take our draw for cheap. But OOP, a check might induce bets that make taking our draw cheaply nearly impossible. As a default, we can check behind our draws and semi-bluffs IP. OOP, it becomes a game of figuring out if our bet would create enough folds and favorable situations.

  Do we have flexibility?

  Whenever we are drawing, or considering running bluff lines, we always want to consider flexibility. If we have extra ways of winning the pot, either by improving or having bluff cards, we can make a good play even better. When drawing, especially from OOP, it is always nice to have cards other than just our draw fillers that we can win on. Either overcards that we can bluff on, or fillers of other draws that we can represent.

  This play can be very easy on certain textures. Say it folds around to us in the SB with 9s7s. We steal and the BB calls. The flop is Th6s2s. We CB and he calls. The turn is a Qh. Against a player who won’t call with weak pairs, this can be a great spot to fire a bet. If we give him an O-Range of 22-QQ/T9s/JTs/76s/65s, and think he would only continue with Tx or better, we have him folding about 58% of the time. Even if we made a PSB we still get enough folds to show an
outright profit.

  Even if we thought he continued to the turn bet with a range of 77+ we are still getting folds 48% of the time, which makes a ½ PSB very profitable. The bet also acts as a blocker and allows us to choose the price for our draw, rather than checking and letting him bet a number that might offer us less than ideal odds. And the bet also folds out enough hands that we can show outright profit. While it does suck when we get raised, we just make a math decision there and call if we are getting good odds, and fold if we aren’t. (It should be noted that there is a fringe benefit in getting a call and having a bigger pot size on the river when we improve).

  However, not every spot will be quite so simple. Let’s take a situation where we raise with AhTh from the CO, and the SB calls. The flop comes Jh7s4c. He checks, we CB, and he calls. The turn is a 4h and he checks again. At this point we can check or bet, so let’s explore our options: