Dynamic Full Ring Poker

by James Sweeney

  Fold. Against players who would only bet the turn with a range of KK+/sets+, a fold would be best. Again, part of being a good player is knowing when to fold when we are behind. If we can fold sometimes when we are behind, and our opponent doesn’t have that discipline, we are going to crush them in the long run.

  Let’s take another situation. Say we raise to $5 with KT from the CO at 200NL. The SB calls and we see a HU flop of T92. He checks, we CB for $7, and he calls. The turn comes a Q, he checks and we check behind. The river is a 7 and he bets for $12. Let’s explore our options:

  Raise. We have a lot of SDV and a raise just turns our hand into a bluff that represents nothing.

  Call. Against most players this is a standard spot to call. We checked the turn to utilize our SDV, pot control, and induce because a bet wouldn’t accomplish much. We are getting an OK price, the pot is positional, and we have 2nd pair with SDV.

  Fold. Against a player who would never bluff here, we could fold. So if a tighter player would never bet here without a QJ or 22 type hand, we should just fold and give it up.

  If we think about both examples, we noticed that against looser players we valued these SDV pairs more. But against tighter players, or those that don’t bluff, these SDV pairs were usually too weak to give action with given the strength of their betting range. This is very standard and goes along with our normal FR thought process. A tight player won’t usually get involved in a larger pot without a stronger hand, and against a dumber player we need to be prepared to sometimes call them a little more liberally.

  The Balancing Act

  Most players, as they begin to improve and think about their hands on a deeper level, become obsessed with the concept of balance. The thought of their game becoming exploitable is painful, and thus they work on creating unexploitable strategies. While this isn’t bad, it just usually isn’t very necessary. Let’s talk about balancing and when/how to use it.

  When a strategy is balanced, it means that it is “unexploitable.” And many players try to ensure that their 3-bet ranges, 4-bet ranges, CB ranges, double barrel ranges, etc. are all balanced. They try to make it so their actions don’t turn their hand face up. There are a couple issues with balance though:

  Our opponent needs to care

  Because a bad player, or a player who thinks on a very basic level, doesn’t think about ranges, we don’t need to balance against them. In fact, balancing is usually a great way to burn money against bad players. We should play straight forward against players that cannot think about our ranges and what our actions indicate.

  We need to know their actions/frequencies

  An issue that arises when a player starts balancing is that they think so much about their own range that they forget about their opponent’s range. But there are times when we know our opponent’s strategy and take totally unbalanced lines anyway. For instance, if a player would only 3-bet us with KK+, we shouldn’t 4-bet anything but AA against them. This would make our 4-bet range against them very unbalanced, but it is still the best strategy if our initial assumptions are correct. If a player is very unbalanced in their approach (always making X action with Y hand), then we should just use that information to play totally perfectly, even if it makes us “unbalanced.”

  Especially at the micro and small stakes, we don’t tend to find many players that can think about ranges and the meanings of actions. Because of this, playing a totally straight forward game is usually fine. But when a good player starts fighting against us, we might have to change our strategy a bit. Here is a perfect example. Say we are playing and player BIGBALLER15 keeps 3-betting us. Pretty much whenever we open-raise, he is right there 3-betting us. He is playing very loose and aggressive. We have a few options against him:

  Tighten up our open-raise range

  What if we changed our open-raise range to only a range that we wanted to value 4-bet? This would be very unexploitable for us, assuming that he doesn’t catch on and stop 3-betting us because he realizes our range got stronger. This option is cheap, easy, and keeps us on the good side of minimax. It also injects lots of value into our value open-range which is perfect.

  4-Bet liberally

  Another option is to start shifting more hands from our “foldv3bet range” into our “4-bet bluff range.” If he is literally 3-betting every single hand then it is almost impossible for him to have a monster every time he does it. Because of this, we could start 4-betting more liberally and picking up his 3-bet. However, in order to do this well, we would need information on how he reacts to 4-bets. Does he only 5-bet the nuts? Does he 5-bet his whole range? Does he flat call 4-bets? These are all things that we probably wouldn’t have a lot of information on, and making mistakes in bigger 4-bet pots can be disastrous to our win rate. While 4-betting light can certainly be a valid strategy, we usually want more information before we start implementing such an exposed strategy.

  Keep raise/folding

  While such an approach probably seems silly, many players actively choose this strategy in real-time. They refuse to adjust and would keep feeding money to BIGBALLER15. This is usually the last option we would want to choose in this dynamic.

  Now neither of these strategies is very balanced. One of them tightens us up to the point of having only nuttish hands that we can feel comfortable with versus his range. The other has us making a large percentage of 4-bets. They are are extremes, and are relatively far from being balanced. Being balanced would involve creating a range that could 4-bet him X% of the time, fold Y%, and flat Z%, all without making our range face-up.

  An important thing when playing is appearing balanced. If a player thinks that we are balanced, it means he will be making mistakes against us if we contort our range correctly. Take a situation where we are on the flop with XX. We steal PF, see a HU flop of K73, and our opponent checks to us. If we would check the flop behind with hands like KT/KJ/QQ/TT, and only CB with hands like 77/54/A9/etc., then our CB range isn’t very balanced at all. There are so many more combos of air than combos of nuttish hands, that our betting range is actually very face up. By that same token, our checking range is also very face up. However, is this a bad thing?

  If our opponent couldn’t care less, and would continue making mistakes, we can continue on with our strategy. It is when our opponent begins to figure out that our check is done with SDV hands and a bet is polarized that we need to adjust and “balance.” But we don’t necessarily need to balance in the game theory sense. We just need to adjust until we figure out how our opponent is adjusting. If he starts CRing every CB because he thinks we are betting light, then we can create an optimal strategy. If he starts floating every single CB from OOP, then we can create an optimal strategy. When we have information that we can use against our opponent to create exploitative plays, we should always use it. We should never balance for the sake of balancing. We should balance because we are in a situation and against a player that necessitates balancing as the optimal play.

  The Leveling Game

  Many players consider this aspect of the game “real poker.” Leveling is what creates the cool plays we see on TV, and is very usable in every poker game. Leveling is about which plane of thought process a player is on. Here are the basic levels in poker:

  Level 0: I am not thinking

  Level 1: What do I have?

  Level 2: What does my opponent have?

  Level 3: What does my opponent think I have?

  Level 4: What does my opponent think that I think that they have?

  Level 5: What does my opponent think that I think that they think that I have?

  Most beginning players are somewhere on level 0 or level 1. They are unable to think about their opponent’s range or what their opponent’s actions mean. These are very easy players to play against. We can play totally straight forward against them and use our ABC poker strategy. Our play gets interesting when we start playing against players on higher levels.

  One of the best ways to win the levelin
g game is to remain one step above our opponent. Being too many levels above our opponent will have us making plays that are unnecessary against a particular villain (which creates FPS). If we are playing against a calling station on level 1, we just need to be on level 2. We shouldn’t run complex bluffs on them because they will not understand what we are representing and we will just be burning money.

  As we move up and grind into higher levels, we will eventually start running into players that can and will think on higher levels. There are two major ways to combat them:

  Think a level over them: This can be very tricky, especially against players that are playing on level 4 and 5. It will be hard to figure out when they are adjusting, and will make our life pretty difficult. It will often times result in having to risk a lot of money in more uncertain situations (as that opponent would be able to make more correct plays against us).

  Think two levels under them: If we can figure out which level they are playing on, playing two levels under them is relatively simple. It actually brings us back to playing more ABC poker, which exposes less of our stack and puts us in fewer situations where we could make really expensive and bad mistakes. Now if we are just one level under our opponent, they will crush us. But if we can constantly stay two levels underneath them, we can make some serious money with relative ease.

  At this point we can really see how balancing and leveling go hand in hand. Take a PF situation where a player steals from the CO and it folds to us in the BB. If our opponent is on level 3 and thinks we can think that high, he probably thinks “OK, this player understands that I am stealing. I thus expect him to resteal me more liberally, which means I am prepared to increase my 4-bet % to combat that.” So because he thinks we are balanced to an extent in our restealing frequency, we can actually play more straight forward. We could actually make it so our resteal range is purely for value (only hands we would stack off preflop with). Or, we could try to jump up a level and resteal/5b shove our entire range thinking that his 4b range is wide enough. Which option is easier and safer? The option that has us only 3-betting for value? Or the option that has us risking our entire stack with only a hazy idea as to how correct it is?

  What if after time we figured out that our opponent was adjusting and starting to fold to most of our 3-bets? This means we could use that information to start 3-betting more of our range until he adjusts. Then we just need to figure out if he is adjusting by stealing less, steal/4-betting more, steal/defending more, or not adjusting at all. All of these things are very easy to see, and they are things we should be taking notes on. While this kind of dynamic doesn’t happen often, it can put us a helpful step ahead of our opponent. A default way to handle this situation is to play tighter at first, take the information we have, take notes on how they respond when we use our strong range (is he folding? 4-bet/folding? 4-bet/stacking? Etc.), and then adjust to how they are responding.

  The Hero Fold

  A “hero fold” is a big, in the relative sense, fold. Usually folding trips and flushes tend to fall in this category. Being able to hero fold well can be a very important part of our game. If we are able to fold sometimes in spots where our opponent never could, then we will crush that situation versus him in the long run. Let’s first explore what goes into making a hero fold:

  Our Opponent

  Certain opponents are more apt to bluff than others. When we are considering a hero fold we usually do so against players that don’t have large bluff ranges. So if we have a strong hand, but are facing a bet from a player that has no real bluff frequency, we have a spot where we can consider making a big fold.

  Board Texture:

  The texture of the board is crucial when considering anything. If the texture allows for many second best hands to bet into us and valuetown themselves, then hero folding becomes less of an option. But if we are on a board that is more definitive, and our opponent has a minimal bluff range, a fold could be in order.

  Polarized Weight

  The weight of polarization is important. Say we are on the river and our opponent bets $42 into a $54 pot. We are getting 2.3:1 on the river, and we would need at least 30% of our opponent’s range to be worse hands in order for us to call. If we don’t see our opponent having that big of a bluff range on the river, then we can fold. When considering weighted polarization we need to think about how polarized they are (will they bet SDV hands because they misunderstand SDV? Or will they only bet with bluffs and the nuts?), their bluff range (do they have one? Or do they have a big enough one?), and what price we are getting.

  History

  With history a hand can shift from a call to a fold very quickly when facing a bet. If we called a big bet in a previous hand against them with a second best hand, it is somewhat unlikely they will make a big bet the next time with a weak holding. Because of this, if we see the big bet, we can lean more towards folding than calling. Usually we don’t have enough history to use it in such a straightforward manner, but we should take notes on how particular villains have played with us in the past so we can make better decisions in the future.

  Let’s look at an example. Say a nit opens to $2.5 in MP, a super fish calls in the CO, and we call on the button with 5d4d. We see a three way pot of Jd7d2c. MP bets $5, the CO calls, and we call. The turn is a 5h. MP checks, the CO bets $12, we call and MP calls. The river is a Td. MP bets for $48 and the CO folds. Let’s think about a few things:

  MP is a nit

  Being a nit it is very unlikely that he would bluff, especially like this. He has a fish behind him, plus it is a MW pot, so he’ll be rarely making a big bluff.

  MP’s range

  Because we don’t think he would bet this is a bluff, he must have a strong hand. The most logical holdings are something like AdKd, KdQd, or AdQd. If he had JJ he probably would have bet the turn (if he checked, it is rare that he would ever just c/c), and if he had TT it is unlikely that he would bet the river this large. While there aren’t many combos of hands that beat us, it is unlikely that he would take this line with a hand that we beat.

  River math

  On the river we are calling $48 to win $108, giving us 2.25:1. This means we need at least 30% of his range to be bluffs. If our analysis suggests that he has almost no bluff range, and that he wouldn’t bet a hand like JJ or TT like this, then this is looking like a great spot to hero fold our small flush.

  Let’s take another situation. Say we are in the SB with 43o and it folds around to us. The BB is a very nitty player and we steal for $.75. The BB calls and we see a HU flop of 844. We CB $1 and the BB calls. The turn is a 6 and we bet for $2.75 and he calls. The river is a 9 and we bet for $6. The BB shoves for another $14.5 on top. Let’s explore what we know:

  BB is a nit

  Being a nit, it is very unlikely that he would bluff. While this is a positional pot, nits are still notorious for not risking their entire stacks on bluffs, especially when their opponent seems very comfortable with their hand.

  BB’s range

  When the BB flats our raise PF it is very likely he is doing so with some of his pair range and some broadway combos. But after he calls not only the CB, but also the turn bet, it is rare that his range is anything but strength. He probably calls the turn with boats and some floating strong pairs like 99-QQ. However, most of that is SDV, and nits rarely turn a hand with SDV into a bluff postflop. Because of that, his shove range on the river becomes very polarized, and top-side weighted if we think that he wouldn’t do it with hands like QQ, TT, or 77.

  River math

  On the river we are calling $14.5 to win $39.5, giving us 2.7:1. This means that we need at least 27% of his range to be bluffs. If our analysis suggests that he wouldn’t shove a hand like JJ or TT here, then folding becomes a great option.

  Hero folds should be done more against nits and players with minimal, if any, bluff ranges. It’s the definitiveness of their actions that allows making big folds to become easier and profitable. However, if we are against players w
ith big bluff ranges when we are getting a good price, then making hero folds becomes less ideal. Everything is relative, and we need to pay attention to if players bluff and also how they bluff. Make sure to look for spots where we can dump second best hands and lose the least when we are surely behind.

  The Hero Call

  Lots of players love the concept of hero calls. Making that big call on the river with second pair and scooping a big pot is always a good feeling. However, we don’t often times put ourselves in that situation, and thus we don’t get many opportunities to do so. A hero call is simply a call made with a less than nuttish hand facing strong action. Let’s look at what goes into a hero call: