THE BLUE BOOK:

An Advanced Strategy Guide

for No-limit Hold'em Cash

Games

By

Reid Young

Copyright 2010, Reid Young

THE BLUE BOOK: An Advanced Strategy Guide for

No-limit Hold'em Cash Games

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TABLE OF CONTENTS

PLAYER TYPES 24

PRE-FLOP PLAY 28

FLOP PLAY 86

RIVER PLAY 139

TURN PLAY 166

TURNING HANDS INTO BLUFFS 177

OVER-BETTING AND UNDER- BETTING 209 ALL

YOUR OPTIONS

LEADING (INTO THE PFR) 226

QUANTIFYING LEVELING 236

MISCELLANEOUS CONCEPTS 243

MOVING THROUGH LIMITS 255

FOREWORD

My experience with Reid has been a positive one.

While he was a student of mine, Reid demonstrated a

thirst for learning. He quenched that thirst by asking

the right questions to the right people. As a result, Reid

has become someone to whom people ask questions.

Off the poker table, Reid has been great towork with as

a part of Leggo. He has shown ambition, punctuality,

and responsibility- qualities that most pokerplayers lack

severely. I wish him and this book nothing but success.

- Aaron "Aejones" Jones, high stakes poker professional

PREFACE

I regret that there will he a few odd

soundingintroductions to the various subjects in this book.

The subjects on which I write are quite interconnected, a

flaw inherent of the subject matter, so there frequently will

be oddly arranged ideas. I apologize in advance for any

confusion this causes you as a reader and a student of the

game.

There will also be a number of oddly placed questions,

mostly rhetorical and colloquial, within this book. The

reason for this stylistic choice is to attempt to grasp the

active attention of the reader, just as your attention should

be engaged in a poker game. I want you to actively consider

every single thingl write about just as you would consider

every single perceivable tendency of your opposition and

every option available to you in a game. Eventually, when

these questions have been properly addressed by both of

us, you will become

a better player and a better poker thinker than your

competition and that means more poker success for

you.

Finally, I'd like to say that there are few joys as great

for me as a student's success. I wish you all the best and

great success in your poker endeavors unless we are in a

hand together.

And for the 48456th time..

THE BLUE BOOK: An Advanced Strategy Guide for

No-limit Hold'em Cash Games

INTRODUCTION

The Blue Book isn't aiming to teach you what to think,

but rather how to think. This book is aimed at poker players

of all skill levels and I truly believe that it is a text that could

and should be revisited throughout a poker player's career.

The nuanced nature of the game offers near infinite faceted

approaches and observations to the game. As your game

changes, so will your responses to the questions herein

asked. The questions in the text are designed to stimulate

the growth of any level of poker player, from intermediate

to advanced player.

When I first started playing poker, I would frequent

the gambling section of many bookstores only to be

disappointed to find the same introductory books and a lack

of a volume truly reflective of the online player's approach

to beating the games as they've developed in the last few

years. The information that fills the

bookshelves has become outdated and less valuable to

those intermediate players seeking continued growth for

their game. The problem is that these poker books, often

filled with over-simplified and outmoded thought

processes, were mostly systematic in attempts to teach a

casual player the art of survival in the average poker game.

Nothing available comes close to touching on how to

decisively win in a tough game, a daunting thought that

now plagues many professional players as the general

public and other players have become more educated. If

information is power, I felt powerless playing poker once I

moved past my first few limits and I didn't know where to

go to imporve. With more people selling the same

mass-produced and watered- down poker systems, the

masses are able to absorb them. That is how I got stuck and

bundled in as part of that group of stagnant-minded

players. I have learned the systems that don't work in tough

online cash games and I have since moved past them and

onto working on the thought processes that you will need

to engage in order to beat the higher games that are almost

always entirely comprised of professional poker players.

his book will help to bring to light the fact that a

uniform poker system cannot be applied to different

types of players because each player is unique with his

or her own playing style. My goal is to teach you the

adjustments that you need to make based on reads you

glean by playing with each different person. Every play

you deconstruct and every adjustment you learn to

make is going to add to your win rate. We're also going

to delve much further into topics less explained by other

poker literature in order to better understand our

opponents' mistakes and our own mistakes.

- Reid Young, LeggoPoker.com coach "SHOOTAA"

Note: He recently announced that he is no longer part

ofLeggo.

GETTING STARTED:

A HAND EXPLAINED

I will be covering lots of topics in this book. As I've

said, the topics are all interconnected. Below is a sample

hand that shows how the ideas connect and how I constantly

ask myself questions having to do with many different

subsets of general poker theory and how these ideas often

lead to a well informed and logically based decision given

the limited information we have in a situation. Once you

learn to see the game as a multidimensional playing field, a

new world of poker will be at your fingertips. Let's start by

taking a glimpse into my mind during a strategic hand.

Hand info:

Type: Cash Games Game: NL HokTem Table: Buddy Blinds: $10/$20

Posts big blind $20 Seat 3: VILLAIN($ 1,970) Dealer, Posts small blind $10 Seat 6: HERO ($2,030) Dealt to HERO [AsJd]

Pre-flop: (Pot: $30) RAISE HERO, to $60 CALL VILLAIN, $40

Here, I make a standard raise pre-flop to three times

the big blind with AJo and my opponent calls. He had

been re-raising me a decent amount pre-flop, so I

expect his range to include:

• Several suited and connecting hands

• Medium-to-high broadway hands

• Occasional slow-played big hands

Flop: (Pot: $120)[6d,8d,Js]

BET VILLAIN, $100 RAISE HERO, to 320 CALL VILLAIN, $220

My opponent leads into me on the flop, which is

strange given how much he had been check-raising flops as

draw heavy as this one in the recent past. He should realize

that my range of hands for c-betting and calling a raise

should widen to combat his high check- raising frequency

and so I would expect his stronger hands to attempt a

check-raise most of the time. Concurrently, there are many

draws with which I might also raise his flop lead bet, so I am

not expectim him to fold. As I do not see him taking his line

with many legitimate hands, I expect him to at least call a

raise or re-raise me with a weaker hand, if I elect to raise his

flop lead. Given our recent history, I elect to raise with my

top pair, top kicker. He calls, which, to me, represents the

weak hand I believe him to have. This hand would be either

some weak draw that he isn't comfortable getting all-in on

the flop by calling an all-in bet after he

3-bets my flop raise or a slow played monster trying to

induce a turn bet from what he views to be a range

comprised mostly of draws and bluffs. There are several

straight draws and a flush draw on the board and it's likely

in his eyes that the combinations of my hands that are draws

and pure bluffs that raise this flop are far more prevalent,

combinatorically speaking, than the hands that I'm able to

raise for value.

Turn ($760) [6d,8d,Js,5h] CHECK VILLAIN BET HERO, $500 CALL VILLAIN, $500

I bet the turn large enough to get value with what I

believe to be the best hand and to charge his likely draw.

The off-suit five coming on the turn brings some

combinations of hands that are now a pair and gut shot,

hands like 98 s, that he might play this way, and so I can bet

a larger amount of money because he expects to have more

equity against my range and is therefore able to put more

money in the pot. Once I bet $500 into a

$760, he'll be getting 1260/500 or about 2.5-1 on a turn call.

This makes it pretty easy for him to call with a lot of his

range while leaving me a credible looking river bet that I

could be using to bluff or to value bet. Remember, a larger

portion of my perceived range is still draws. Once he just

calls the turn, I'm expecting him to have either a flush

draw that paired the turn or picked up a gut shot and now

has enough equity to call, a weaker made hand that he

wants to induce more action from the air portion of my

range, or a pair and gut shot type hand.

River: (Pot: $1,760) [6d,8d,Js,5h,4d] BET VILLAIN, $1,090 and is ALL-IN

Immediately when I see the river card, I'm expecting to

lose the pot to what I thought to be his very strong range

and I'm feeling very frustrated with the deck for making me

miss what I thought was going to be an easy value bet all-in

on the river. Almost every single hand I thought to be in his

range just hit! Flush draw, check.Pair-plus-straight-draw,

check. He shoves

into me though, which is odd given our above analysis. This

can only leave him with the pair and straight draw portion

of his range, and I'll explain why. When he simply called my

raise on the flop every single hand in his range with a seven

or a flush draw that could make it to this river without

making a turn mistake is discounted because I know he's a

great player, so I know he won't be making the mistake of

calling the turn without showdown value against me. If he

were to continue with a flush draw like KdTd, I would

expect him to get the money in on the flop or to check-raise

me all-in on the turn because he's priced out of a turn call

and might be uncomfortable check-calling the still unknown

river on an already scary board with king- high.) If he has

5d7d, 9d7d, Td9d, Qd9d or QdTd I'm expecting him to get

those all-in on the flop because of the massive equity those

hands have against my range and with how often he should

expect a three-bet on the flop to take down the pot, given

how weak he is perceiving my range of hands. I would also

expect him to check-raise most of his combination hands

(flush draw plus pair or flush draw plus straight draw)

because

I might bluff three-bet him on the flop given his high

check-raising frequency over the last twenty hands. Also,

I have the Jd in my hand, so there cannot be any hands in

his range.

Next, let's consider the 7x hands that could possibly get

to the river by taking his line of lead and call the flop and

check and call the turn. He doesn't play 57 off-suit,

abbreviated as 57o, 97o, J7 suited (abbreviated as J7s) type

hands pre-flop out-of-position 100 big blinds effective

(-$2000 effective stacks in this game) unless he's re-raising

me pre-flop as a bluff. It's even less likely that he would bet

and call those hands rather than check-call or check-raise

with them. If he led into me and called my raise with a

straight draw like that, then his outs might not be clean if he

makes a straight on a diamond turn and I know he realizes

this is a bad play and that he, being a skilled player, would

not make it. Also, if he doesn't hit the turn in some way, he'll

have to be either check-raising me without much equity if

called or check-folding a lot of turns, and I know he knows

he

can't win by folding. So the 7x hands are also out of his

range, or at least extremely discounted.

We've narrowed his entire range down to weaker made

hands. So now why is he shoving all in on the river,

especially one he should expect me to bluff with my air

almost always? From conversations we had about three

months before this hand took place, I realized that he

understands the value of turning made hands into a bluff.

This board ran out in such a way that it looks like it heavily

hit his range and I think that he's capable of realizing that if

I'm going to give him credit for flushes and straights here

that it's very unlikely, especially with how wide a range he

perceives me to raise this flop and to bet on this turn, that he

thinks I can call here. He's betting $1090 to win $1760, so if

he's bluffing, it only has to work -38.2% of the time.

Given all of what we've considered during the hand

and that I think my particular hand beats the few weak

made hands he might play this way (J9, JT, perhaps QJ and

KJ). I decided to call.

CALL HERO, $1,090

Showdown:

VILLAIN SHOWS [Jh, Tc] HERO SHOWS [As, Jd] HERO wins the pot of S3,939.50 with a pair of Jacks

The above is the explanation of a $2,000 buy-in

heads-up no-limit hold'em hand that I played against a

friend of mine not too long ago. Does all this happen in my

head every single hand of no-limit hold'em I play? Yes it

does. In one's mind, you're obviously not writing

paragraphs like you're trying to explain the hand in detail.

If you're a smaller stakes or new player, this particular

hand might not be a mental cake walk either. My goal is to

get you to the point where it will be easy for you to go

through these thoughts in every step of every hand that

you will ever play after actively reading this book. By active

reading, I mean that you should be doing some

calculations in the margins, asking yourself questions

about similar hands you've played, and

exploring the possibilities. Poker is a game of near

infinite permutations. So limiting yourself to only the

example in this book would be a serious mistake if

you're seriously trying to take your game to the next

level.

A Note on Ego

The first thing that I discuss with all my students is

how the presence of your ego may affect your poker game.

If you can't admit to yourself that you're just a person, just

like any other player, who will make mistakes in a game of

mistakes, then much more likely than not, you're in big

trouble.

However, ego can also be a good thing. It may help

you to squelch fears about taking shots when you should,

to face tough competition, and to give you the drive to

better yourself to feed your need to be the best. Of course,

let's not go overboard with this mentality if

we're always playing the best-of-the-best, we're going to

lose money or win far less than we could be in easier equally

available games at similar stakes. There's something to be

said for grinding a smaller stake to build a bankroll to be

able to play in a potentially softer and higher stakes game.

There's also something to be said about spending a stagnant

poker career bum hunting and only playing the weaker

competition with every day filled with waiting for a

recreational or bad player to take a shot at playing in your

regular game. If all you do is wait around for soft

competition, you will not improve as much as the other

guys fighting in the trenches, and the money you can make

in your poker career will be much less than the harder

working players

So I propose that we practice a little balance with our

respective egos. It's tough to say what the best mix of the

two cases presented will be, but we can be sure that it's

certainly not all of one or of the other.

CHAPTER 1:

PLAYER TYPES

This book has been made to show you that there is not

a system for beating poker. There is no one move or play

that will act as a panacea for all your poker problems. The

reason that a system cannot be applied to poker is that the

variables in the game are near infinite and always

changing. This book has been made with the intention of

teaching you how to actively think in order to adapt to

those variables, not how to robotically respond to them

with one of a few choices.

At first, the pessimists out there might be depressed

about the above statements. However, I hope that you

realize how this actually is fantastic news! This means there

are almost infinite decisions in the game that give

you the opportunity to play better than your opponent.

And as we know from other poker theory, causing our

opponents to make mistakes and playing better than our

opponents in a given spot are tiny steps taken on the way to

winning. If we can make better decisions than the

opposition in every spot, we'll be at the top of the game,

continuously pushing the limits and bringing online poker

to levels never before achieved by average, system-centric

players.

If someone's betting frequency in a certain spot is too

high, we will heighten our bluff-raising and calling

frequencies. If an opponent always over-bets all in on the

river, we will adjust and widen our river calling range and

our range of made hands that we check to him. It will

surprise you how long this list could go and how long your

list will go after reading this book. For the reason that all of

these dynamics feed off of each other, this book may seem

slightly disconnected. Unfortunately, as above-stated, it's

an unavoidable drawback about writing about the subject

and one that

we'll have to get through together. For this reason, in some

sections of the book I have written instructions to turn to

another section in attempts to alleviate confusion caused by

the interconnectedness of the subject matter when the

surrounding theory has yet to be explained.

Our goal, as aspiring poker geniuses, is to be able to

explore as many of these possible dynamics in such a

detailed and thorough manner that we will play better and

adjust better than the opposition. We will be able to dissect

a player not as one of a few types, but as an agent of his or

her exact actions. Our reads will become more than the

usual phrase-long description per player and we'll win

more as a result of our efforts. Each decision will be based

on our opponent's range in an exact spot, not on a loose

idea of his general image, which is nearly useless. Because

poker is a game of imperfect information, the nature of our

decision in each spot may be based on extrapolated data we

have gleaned from other tendencies. The better we become

at

extrapolation and observation, the better our decisions

will be and the more we will win.

CHAPTER 2:

PRE-FLOP PLAY

re-flop play isn't the battleground for high stakes play.

The edges are too small and the variance is too high. If it

were the case, you would see the nosebleed players getting

hands like A4o all in pre-flop and being ecstatic. So why

doesn't this happen? It is because there are bigger skill

edges and more variables to interpret better than your

opposition post-flop. That said, pre- flop play is important

because the decisions you make pre-flop will often impact

how the largest hands you play will be played post-flop and

because so much of getting out of tough spots where you

are mistake-prone in poker is simply knowing how to avoid

them. In order to avoid difficult spots, it will help us to

know the general theory about the foundations of our

pre-flop decisions.

Raising Pre-Flop

I'm not going to go too far into specific hands to use

in every instance pre-flop. Charts are frequently irrelevant

or incomplete and so I'll just be giving you some food for

thought so that you can make your own decisions that will

work for any pre-flop situation, regardless of stack sizes

and opponents. The game of No- Limit Texas Hold'em is

very dynamic and so you need to be equipped to make

your own decisions in different spots and to learn how to

weigh and interpret the many different factors we will

want to consider before choosing to raise a hand pre-flop.

Domination

Generally, if we're raising pre-flop, we want to be

called by dominated hands. For example, the case is rare

that you would want to raise hands like K9o under the

gun in a 6-max game. If you flop top pair with a hand like

K9o after you've raised first to act in a tough game and

get multiple streets of action, you're likely to be behind.

The decision to choose which hands to open are

largely dependent on your opposition's pre-flop calling

ranges. If we are playing at a table with a weaker player

who calls 80% of his hands, then there will be more

opportunities to open K9o. Why is this not a hard-set rule

that we could add to a reasonably sized chart of some sort?

A chart under thousands of pages long would be

unintelligible because you still have to worry about

players yet to act, all of whom may play in very different

ways and have different mind-sets based on

previous hands played in the game or session. Will they

often times re-raise your opens and play back at you with

good (difficult to interpret) bluffing frequencies? Will they

be calling with hands that dominate you so often that

raising your particular hand will be a mistake? Will they be

floating your flop continuation bets often and making

post-flop difficult for you? Will you be out of position

versus potential callers? If any of these are answered "yes,"

then it is likely your best play with K9o to fold pre-flop.

As stack sizes go up, domination becomes less

important because your implied odds go up. For instance,

the choice to call with suited Ax hands, often with position,

will have a very dynamic value depending on stack sizes

and how likely you are to get paid if you do make the nut

flush. Hands like Q8s may make unlikely straights or two

pairs for which an opponent may not give you credit,

whereas 50 big blinds effective, the main concern by far is

being on the bad end of a top pair versus top pair situation.

Specific stack sizes with

which to call weaker hands vary based on the

opposition's tendencies, the players yet to act pre-flop,

and so many other factors that an attempt to quantify a

correct stack size with which to begin calling such

hands is almost certainly a non- fruitful exercise. The

more imprecise variables that we attempt to quantify

the less certain and the more general our idea of hands

to play pre-flop in these spots become. The decision

becomes one rooted more in theory than in a

mathematically quantifiable objective choice.

Adjusting to the opposition's

Pre-Flop aggression

If everyone at the table is re-raising you often, then

you will want to take steps to adjust to your opponent's

pre-flop aggression. You should probably widen your

four-betting range pre-flop and/or tighten your pre-flop

opening range. Instead of having to fold hands like 64s

in a spot, we will have more hands like 99 that we may

choose to four-bet with the intention of calling an all-in bet

as a result of a tighter pre-flop raising range. Instead of

folding our weaker hands, we might also choose to four-bet

as a bluff. We will elaborate on these two specific

adjustments later in the chapter, but before continuing to

read, try to figure out why four- betting a hand as weak as

99 and calling an all-in is quite often a good play versus

many people with the level of aggression in today's games.

How many reasons can you think of before continuing to

read?

The same logic that applies to raising pre-flop applies to

re-raising pre-flop. Imagine a case where it is extremely

likely that if you call with AQo, that you will be squeezed.

Next, imagine a case where if you re-raise AQo pre-flop, the

original raiser will fold hands like AJo and ATs. Finally,

imagine both of these cases being true of the same hand and

that player who we believe will fold AJo and ATs type

hands raises and we haveAQo on the button. AQo is

usually a clear call in this instance.

After calling the three-bet, you may choose the best of

many ways to play back at a squeezer based on the

squeezer's pre-flop and post-flop tendencies.

If the squeezer continuation bets missed hands every

single time and will bet the flop and turn oftentimes on Axx

and Qxx boards, then perhaps calling is the best option

pre-flop with the hopes of seeing such boards or of trying

to get your ace high hand to showdown. If he is squeezing

hands like AJs and KQo and he is squeezing so often that it

is hurting your ability (lessening your implied odds) to call

with speculative hands such as small pocket pairs pre-flop

in similar spots, you may want to shove as a way of

balancing with the times you decide to re-raise hands like

small pairs. Additionally, if he plays very well post- flop,

then perhaps re-raising (usually all-in, unless you are so

deep that you imagine him to be folding only worse hands)

is the best play. The decision is going to be made based on

your opponent's calling range when you re-raise, how often

he will be folding to your re

raise, the money in the pot before your re-raise, what

you must risk to re-raise, and your equity against his

calling range with your specific hand. After a simple

math calculation, you should know the weakest hands

with which this play will be profitable at a specific time

with a specific set of circumstances. There are examples

of the math describing this type of play later in the

book.

By going all-in, we will realize our equity against

his weaker made hands like AJs and 88, as well as

discouraging him from bluffing in the future, an often

over-looked positive externality for when we shove and

the squeezer folds. Even if we are called by a better hand

in the specific hand we choose to back-raise this AQo,

he will realize our ranges in this spot are balanced and

well- suited or adjusted for his style of play. These

adjustments will force him to readjust his pre-flop

tendencies and allow us to call with more of our speculative hands in- position pre-flop knowing that he will have a more polarized range of hands for squeezing pre-flop. If he does not feel the need to adjust, we are

obviously content in taking his money by exploiting his pre-flop over- aggression in this instance.

Calling Pre-Flop

(In-Position)

When considering a call pre-flop, we should apply

the same concepts that we believe our opposition is

considering when choosing hands to open in single-

raised pots pre-flop. Always ask yourself if you're

dominating your opponent's raising range with your

hand and how often you think you'll be able to take the

pot away through some combination of floating and

bluff-raising (see chapter 3 on flop play).

Other questions to ask when considering a pre-flop call

include:

• How often you will flop something deceptive

enough to win a large hand?

• How often your opponent will pay you off when you

have a deceptive hand?

• How well do you know your opponent's post-flop

tendencies? (the better you know them, the better you

can play marginal hands in position with more

information and the more mistakes you are able to

force him to make against your range)

We talked about dominating hands already, so let us

move to our next question: are there a lot of boards I'll be

able to float using randomization by equity with this

particular hand and will this opponent allow himself to be

bluffed on later streets?

First, let's define what I mean when I say "randomization

by equity." The term itself is something I believe Aaron

Jones coined, but the concept is one familiar to all

successful poker players. The idea is that at certain times

every player should be bluffing in order to balance the

times that he is betting for value, or in this case, the reverse,

floating when we have made hands in our range of hands.

Because we are able to choose the hands with which we

will bluff and because we will be playing against observant

opponents, it's sometimes necessary to randomize these

bluffs in order to not give away information about how we

play. It's important to distinguish between a "mandatory

bluff spot," a time when you have one of the hands you

have chosen to use as a bluffing hand in a certain spot, and

a great situation to bluff. Consider

Qcjh o n a K c T h 3 s 4 d board when your opponent called

your flop bet. This example shows what we mean by

"randomization by equity." You'll notice that Qcjh has a lot

of equity against a flop calling range on this particular

board, whereas a hand like 9s8s would have less equity

because the cards are both below middle pair and there are

no

draws that the river card will complete for this hand.

However, against certain opponents, if the turn is an ace,

you might do well enough betting your entire air range to

show a profit given the large portion of a certain opponent's

range that may be folding. For our floating example, we

should choose hands that have the best equity to use to call

flops and bet turns. Obviously, there are exceptions to the

rule, including times when you believe your opponent is

very likely to check-raise the turn and you have a lot of

equity and do not want to fold your hand to a raise. This

idea will be better explained in Chapter 3, which focuses on

flop play, especially the sections on barreling and on

floating.

JTo is a hand a lot of my students seem hesitant to call

with in position, but it works out very well for our floating

ranges as there are a lot of flops with which we connect and

are subsequently able to float, especially against looser and

more passive opposition. Now, choosing hands pre-flop

partially based on their floating merit is a pretty involved

and complex situation to

dissect, so we'll start out with a brief examination of a few

boards on which we will play different hands in the same

manner in order to emphasize the reasoning of both

floating and of protecting our floats. By protecting our

floats I mean that we will also be calling flops with made

hands to mask the times when we choose to float. Calling

with made hands and calling with weak draws play off of

one another because one helps the other in ways I will soon

discuss in a more in depth way in the chapter on flop play.

Essentially, a hand like JT has a much longer list of

boards on which one may find oneself wanting to call with

a made hand or to float. Some examples include 794, T83,

Q83, KQ6, and KT3. Notice how even a hand as weak as

Q8s has much more value than Q7s, not only due to its

obviously superior high-card value, its ability to make

higher top pairs, but also because of the vast amount of

boards that may facilitate a profitable float against

particular opponents. For Q8s, there are more boards with

similar textures to T94 and J93 that might

roll off compared to a hand like Q7s and the more obvious

458 boards for Q7s to float or to check-raise. Q8s has the

obvious gut shot to the four-straight flops, as in the Q7s

example, in addition to the less obvious, and therefore,

more valuable, two-card straight draws. Considerations

like this are a significant part of determining profitable

hands pre-flop.

With the knowledge that playing back on certain boards

is more profitable when your hand has some added equity

or outs to improve, caution should be exercised. If a board

like J96 comes and we call our opponent's continuation bet

with any hand, as a float or with a made hand, it is

important to realize the perception of our range and how

wide it will seem to many opponents. With such a wide

perceived range, perhaps as wide as any gutshot in our

pre-flop calling range, our opponent's betting frequency

should increase, if he is in tune with the dynamics of such a

board. The higher betting frequency from our opponent

means more bluffs and thinner value bets on future

streets. It also means that we should adjust accordingly.

We can out-manoeuvre our opponents who might

consider expanding their ranges against a wide

perceived floating range by incorporating a number of

effective strategies such as:

• Double-floating (floating again on the turn)

• Calling down lighter

• Raising turns and/or rivers both for value and as a

bluff.

In order to successfully double-float, the best

tendencies of an opponent to see that makes the play

profitable are going to be that opponent rarely check-

calling rivers with made hands, which is almost always

the case on such draw-heavy boards, unless he has seen

us double-floating in the past, and not three-barrel

bluffing as often as he should be. It's quite intuitive that

the more air in our opponent's checking range on the

river, the more successful a bluff will be after a double-

float. Our opponent should be less likely to check and

call a river with a made hand because when several

draws miss, our opposition's main concern will be

balancing thin value-betting with his bluff range. He

should want to value bet instead of bluff catch with his

made hands in order to get called lighter by us and to make

more money from the times that we call with worse hands,

which will happen quite often when many draws in his

range miss the board. Additionally, over a general range of

poker players, it is extremely unlikely that our opponent

will view us as someone who is double-floating compared

to the times that we will call down lighter because of all the

missed draws on a given board, which means that most

opponents will be giving up on blank rivers because they

figure to be called too often to have their bluff show a

profit. We will see in the chapters on turn and river play

why giving up because you think you will be often called

by better isn't necessarily a great idea (see Chapter 4).

In this more passive river scenario against the opponent

who will give up his bluffs on a blank river, a double float

becomes much more profitable. You have no more to do

than a "simple" math equation determining how often a

certain opponent will be

giving up by the river and if that percentage of times will

warrant a double-float and a river bluff plus the

consideration of the expected value of your gutshot or

whatever weak draw with which you chose to continue.

Note that when you are calculating the value of the play in

its entirety that our turn play is independent of our flop

float, which we already determined to be profitable, and so

the flop float should not be part of your double- float

equation. The word simple is in quotations because you

will have to account for his change in bluffing frequency on

certain river cards and therefore attempt a somewhat

complicated calculation to obtain an accurate success rate

for the play for all possible different river permutations.

For example, the same opponent is probably extremely

likely to bet flop, turn, and river with T8s on a J946K board

as the opponent who check-folds the river on a J9469 board.

These permutations, the specific cards on which a certain

player continues a bluff or gives up are often going to cause

a small error in calculation. However, if you find the

correct opponent against whom to employ this play, you

won't have to worry so much about the smaller

mistakes in your calculations because your profits should

be quite large relative to the small adjustments or

mistakes in the estimation of his bluffing range for

certain river possibilities.

The best way to find the answer to how profitable a

double-float is will be to do a few G bucks calculations (see

chapter 4) in order to determine how often we will get to a

river with the hand we decide to float the turn and our

opponent will be checking that river, presumably always to

fold his hand.

Another important consideration is if your perceived

range after calling a turn is wide or full of stronger made

hands and the relevance of this perception on your

opponent's river bluffing frequency. If you decide to try to

double-float on a drawy board, even the more passive

opponents with the betting lead will realize that your turn

call indicates a lot of pair-plus-draw type hands that might

now be forced to fold on the river to another bet. If your

range is perceived as such, it's less likely you

will induce a river check often enough in order to give

yourself a profitable turn float followed by a river bluff.

Still another consideration is if your hand has any value

in deception and if it will hit often and hard enough for this

value to be realized. This consideration goes hand-in-hand

with the above consideration because the more deceptive

your draw is, the more disconnected the board will be. For

example, floating twice with K8o on 567A and then rivering

a 9 has little value in deception, whereas floating twice with

a hand like Qh8h on Jh9s4c2h and then rivering a Td has an

obvious increase in value, which is referred to as implied

odds.

If we know we are playing an observant opponent,

simply having our opponent know that more hands are in

our pre-flop range in some spots will give us more credit for

value hands when we choose to float because we are able to

credibly represent a wider and more believable range of

made hands. If we miss a draw when

calling down in-position, for example, with a small pair and

a flush draw, there is nothing that says betting when

checked to on the river or raising a river bet will be bad if we

think our showdown value is no longer strong enough and

as long as our opponents perceive that we are bluffing in

close proportion to the frequency of us having the hands

which we are representing and our opponents have a river

bluffing range, or more specifically a folding to a river raise

range (see Chapter 6 on Turning Hands into Bluffs). If things

get too out of hand with our bluffing frequencies in these

types of spots, we will be called down too lightly to show a

profit with our bluffs. It's important to note why I said

"having our opponent know" about our pre-flop range,

especially before attempting to represent an unlikely hand.

If he is not aware of our calling range in a particular spot, he

might ascribe a different range to us and therefore give a

bluff or value bet more or less credit than our actual ranges

should dictate, depending on his thought process for the

particular spot. People often assume that their opposition

plays like they play and they interpret bets as their

opponents would

interpret them, especially with no access to other

information to the contrary and this false assumption is the

cause of many mistakes. The idea that our range is different

than what our opponent thinks it is the difference between

an actual range and a perceived range. Getting the two

confused is often costly and false assumptions are often

avoided by avoiding fancier plays that require strong reads

or evidence about an opponent's range to show a profit

when no such information is known. Always keep in mind

the difference between your perceived range and your

actual range in every spot of every hand that you will ever

play and you will be a lot more successful.

Calling Pre-Flop

(Out-of-Position)

If an opponent has an extremely tight raising range

from a certain position or just in general, then calling out of

position with hands like KTo and QTo may not be a part of

a good game plan. The positive externalities of future bets

you induce, or pots you are able to take away by

representing wider ranges for value, may not be enough to

offset the reverse implied odds of the situation. In other

words, the idea of our pre-flop hand selection goes back to

dominating hands. If we are always dominated or even

often dominated in a spot, folding and sometimes

three-betting the hand pre-flop may be the best way to play

the hand against a particular opponent. The best way to

avoid tough spots is to avoid putting yourself into the

situation where they will often occur. However, it's

important to distinguish between a tough spot and a

non-profitable spot. Sometimes, a spot will foster so many

difficult decisions

against a well- playing opponent that the expected value of

the situation will plumet because our opponent will use

position to outplay us, making sure we win the minimum

and lose the maximum at all the right times. Difficult spots

don't always mean money-losing spots; however, the two

often go along with each other because the more mistakes

someone makes in poker, the more money they will lose.

Large and difficult decisions with a semi-face up range on

the river after checking and calling flop and turn is a fairly

common example of the quintessential "tough spot" in

No-Limit Hold'em. Without position, our opposition

controls the frequencies of betting as the board changes and

so it's very difficult to play well versus someone who has a

solid read of your range and who is able to exploit that read

by three-barrelling and over-betting effectively, by which I

mean your opponent will bet in a way that induces you to

make a mistake by either calling or folding too often.

Another consideration when calling with weaker hands out

of position is your opposition's barrelling frequencies. In

other words, if we check and call a flop continuation bet on

a board of Qh9s3c with KcTs, are the chances of the

following scenarios taking place going to make the flop call

profitable: our opponent giving up and we win by bluffing

a river or by showing down the best hand, plus the implied

odds of us turning either a king or a jack, and plus the

chances he barrels us lighter in the future when we have a

made hand, having seen us check-fold the turn in a similar

spot with what should be assumed to be a draw, given the

draw heavy nature of the board and the unlikelihood that

we would hold a made hand of respectable strength, one

that is unlikely to be sucked out on on such a board.

If your opponent is betting every turn or at least with

great frequency, a better plan for the hand could be to

check-raise his flop continuation bet in order to stymie our

opponent and take away the initiative. A flop check-raise

allows us to take down the pot immediately

some of the time, bluff the turn some of the time, and

improve to the best hand if our opponent is not prone to

three-betting the flop. The more likely an opponent is to

three-bet a flop, the less profitable a check-raise bluff or

semi-bluff will be on the flop.

The flop check-raise is a bit different of an approach

than my default strategy to playing poker, but it is also an

effective plan of attack in the right situation. Let your

particular opponent be the determining factor of which

default game-plan is best. By default, I prefer mostly the

check-and-call method in these spots because I find it lower

variance and easier to balance. However, a deceptive mix of

the two is necessary at times to keep adjusting good players

confused. By easier to balance I mean that it may be more

difficult to start check-raising medium strength hands, like

98o in the instance of a Qh9s3c board and expect to be able

to show down as often and as confidently (making less

mistakes) than if you check-called it and avoid turning your

range as faceup on future streets. There may be

times you check-raise 98o, the turn is a king and you decide

to turn your hand into a bluff to fold out Qx and worse

hands, only to run into Kx or a two-pair or better type

hand, whereas, checking and calling the flop avoids

putting in a lot of money out-of-position and without much

confidence in your hand or knowledge about where it is

relative to your opponent's range.

Whichever choice you are making about your strategy

for playing a given hand, make sure that you are also

making other choices to disguise your range in that same

spot. For example, check-calling KJo on Qh9s3c and

check-raising KJo on Kh9s3c might be bad against some

people, mostly good hand-readers because of how weak

future check-calls will seem and will be. Balance in these

spots is extremely important, otherwise, you're running the

risk of being exploited by good players. Choosing the

hands to play pre-flop in order to balance these spots will

strongly affect how your range appears to the competition

when you call out-of-position.

I know that some people have commented on

instructional videos that f vemade about how they

wouldn't call hands like KJo out-of-position. Hopefully,

this section sheds some light on my reasoning and shows

how being able to balance my out-of-position play justifies

the tougher post-flop spots.

Re-Raising Pre-Flop

(In-Position)

Generally, the best choices of hands to use to re-

raise in position are hands with which you would like

more action (premium pairs, AK, etc.) and hands that

are slightly too weak to call (hands you're relying on

getting your opponent to fold). This strategy is more

aptly described as three-betting a polarized range pre-

flop, and it's the best way to play against a lot of

opponents, especially ones from which we do not have

much information.

The strategy behind using hands that are slightly

worse than our calling requirements in order to bluff reraise

pre-flop is that they will be the strongest hands we can use

without "wasting" the value of our calling hands.

Three-betting often with these types of hands will

eventually create an image of re-raising lightly pre-flop to

induce more action when we do happen to have good

enough hands to take more action. The occasional bluff

helps to balance our pre-flop re-raising range because

sometimes we will actually have good hands for which we

want action. If we are not bluffing some of the time, we

become very easy to read and easy to play against, both of

which are detriments to our win rate. Our expectation with

a given hand, say 44, if we call pre-flop in position, may be

higher than it would be three- betting that specific hand.

The idea that other hands may have more value post-flop

than by re-raising pre- flop as a bluff goes for similar

speculative hands like suited connectors or weaker

broadway hands.

Re-Raising Pre-Flop

(Out-of-Position)

We all know the importance of position in poker. If we

do not have position, then our opponents have more

information with which to make their decisions and they

have an easier time deciding what to do with draws,

especially weaker ones. They have the ability to float more

often and to make cheaper raises as bluffs because we will

often be put in situations where we would have to risk a

significant percentage of our stack in comparison to their

risk.

Though not a crucial consideration with 100 big blind

stacks and below, when we three-bet out-of- position, we

will be less able to call a four-bet from our opponent, given

our positional disadvantage. For this

reason, most of the time we should still be using a polarized

range to three-bet. Of course, there are always departures

from the "rule." I say "rule," because without the necessary

information on how to adjust, I believe a polarized

three-betting range to be the most profitable way to

construct a three-betting range. The point of this book is to

show you that, in poker, the rules are not set- in-stone. So

now the question is, how do we go about adapting to

different re-raising tendencies of our opposition? Let us

examine a few case studies to illustrate possible pre-flop

adjustments to different player styles in order to eventually

realize an overall game plan.

First, imagine an opponent who never four-bets

pre-flop. He calls all three-bets in position and has been

seen to call three-bets often over a large sample of hands.

For someone like this, we should depolarize our range of

hands we choose to three-bet for value. We can depolarize

our range because now we are expecting to be called by

more hands that we dominate. For example,

now we can three-bet hands like AJ and KJ because we

believe him to be calling with hands like QJ and JT. The

times that we will both make top pair and the money goes

in are going to favor a depolarized range for us because

those times will occur more often given our opponent's

wider calling range, thus we make more money by

adjusting to our opponent's pre-flop tendencies.

Next, let us examine someone who only four-bets us

or folds to our three-bets pre-flop. If someone chooses to

play all their hands pre-flop this way, unless he's

four-betting and or calling all-ins so often that we would

want to get AJo all-in pre-flop (if he's bluffing about 41 % of

the time with lOObb with a semi-wide range for value,

four-bet calling hands like 99), then there is no reason to

depolarize our three-betting range here as we would be

putting ourselves into situations to get blown off of the best

hand pre-flop where we would make more bets on average

by calling the same hand pre-flop. Having to fold a good

hand pre-flop against

this opponent type also means that we are never going to

have the advantage of dominating his range unless we

adjust by calling those good hands like AJ and KJ pre- flop.

Another consideration when choosing hands with

which to three-bet someone pre-flop is their raise size. The

smaller the raise size your opponent chooses, the deeper the

effective stack-to-pot ratio is, which means the more hands

they should be able to defend, expecting more implied odds

and, therefore, more profit when they make deceptive

hands. The dynamic that a deeper pot-to-stack ratio creates

is often extremely aggressive because of the nature of how

profitable having a lighter calling range in this spot can be

and how much more likely one is to get action by

four-betting a big hand pre- flop. A lighter calling range for

the opposition means that our three-betting range should be

lighter, which means his four-betting range should be

wider. This means that our opponent will be calling with

hands that we'll be dominating more often should we

choose to

depolarize our three-bet range. Because we are

depolarizing our three-betting range, our opponent's

four-bet bluffs will have a greater success due to the

extremely unlikely nature that we are three-betting enough

combinations of value hands strong enough to comfortably

withstand action given our depolarized three-betting

range. There simply aren't enough combinations to balance

our three-betting range in that way in this spot; therefore,

we have to widen our five- betting range, which usually

means an all-in bet with lOObb stacks, or begin calling

four-bets lighter, which can be tricky, especially when we

are out-of-position. Calling four-bets sets us up for a tough

spot because with the sizing of a smaller open, our

three-bet and his four-bet will also be smaller, meaning that

our five-bet shove will be risking a full buy-in while we

expect to win significantly less bets if our opponent folds

his hand. The dynamic that is present with good players

when other good players are raising smaller pre-flop shows

why a smaller pre-flop raise size is such a powerful weapon

and certainly one with which I would recommend

experimenting.

Notes on Small Pairs

Sometimes you won't be able to call profitably with

smaller pairs out-of-position against a good opponent.

Your flop check-raise bluffs and lead bluffs won't work

often enough to show a profit and you'll miss the flop too

often. For these reasons, three-betting with your smaller

pairs instead of folding them may enable you to squeeze a

tad more value from the hand and make the play more

profitable than a fold. If you make a set after your opponent

calls, it will be extremely well disguised, and so you have

great implied odds. If you have a problem barrelling weak

draws too often against an opponent with good calling

frequencies, with smaller pairs you will miss the flop about

88% of the time and avoiding a situation where you may be

forced to barrel off a lot of your stack in order to have a

chance at winning a hand may be the best plan of action. A

positive part about playing weaker pairs out-of-position is

that it's very easy to get away from the hand once you

miss a worrisome flop because there will usually be at least

two over-cards on the board and your equity against your

opponent's range, not to mention the decisions you will be

forced to make on later streets will likely both be poor. In

this pre-flop spot out-of-position against an aggressive and

capable player with a wide and disguised range of hands

where we are considering three-betting smaller pairs, this

subset of hands follow our earlier discussed guideline of

"hands that aren't quite good enough to call with are

therefore the best hands to bluff with pre-flop."

Using the next best hands from the hands with which

we may profitably call ensures that our three- betting range

is as strong as possible. Smaller pairs, depending on our

opponent's four-bet/calling range, can be great hands with

which to five-bet shove as a semi-bluff. A lot of the time we

are called, we'll be up against AQ or AK and will be racing.

Try doing a few expected value equations and adding or

taking away a few pocket pairs from our opponent's calling

range and

notice how relevant it is to know with which pairs he's

capable of calling an all-in bet after he four-bets pre-

flop.

Four-Betting Pre-Flop

If you are noticing that your opponent is

employing a strategy involving three-betting pre-flop

with more than his fair share of hands that would like to

get all-in before the flop, there are many adjustments

you will need to make in order to avoid being run over

by him. As often as you want to steal the blinds to

bolster your win rate, good players aren't going to lay

down their hand every time for you and give you what

could be their pots.

We already discussed calling more hands in

position in order to play post-flop in such a way that

negates as much of your opponent's re-steal equity as

possible. Another way that one is able to negate this

edge is by having a balanced four-bet range, both with

value hands and with bluffs.

Choosing a four-betting frequency is going to be

dependent on the three-bettor's three-betting range at the

time of the hand in question and his five-betting range

given the game flow and the player's tenancies. Many

dynamics can come into play that will affect your

opponent's decision to three-bet, all of which were

explained earlier in the 'Re-Raising Pre-Flop' section, and

most of which will be more important than looking at his

statistics in order to solve for a 'perfect' four- betting range.

Again, the meta-game considerations, especially in any

spot where your data-mined statistics are often over too

small of a sample size to be significant, are going to

out-weigh the information given by hands played in

previous sessions.

Another, and somewhat odd, type of four-bet to work

into your game is a four-bet shove. The only time I think

using this play has merit is when you have called

an opponent's opening raise, either with a weaker hand or

with a slow-played hand, and another opponent after you

squeezes the two, or more, of you with around 100 big blind

effective stack sizes. If the first opponent, the original

pre-flop-raiser, folds, then deciding whether or not to shove

a hand like pocket 3 s is as simple as solving an easy

expected value problem based on how often the squeezer is

bluffing and with what hands he has in his value range. For

example, take the following case at 5/10 no-limit with $1,000

effective stack sizes: the cutoffraises to $30, we decide to call

with TdTh on the button, the small blind folds, the big blind

squeezes to $120, and the cutoff folds. We are now

presented with three main choices, assuming we've ruled

out folding: call the squeeze, make a small re-raise, or go

all-in. If we call the big blind's squeeze then we turn our

range somewhat face-up due to the fact that we'll have

speculative hands in this spot more often than slow- played

hands simply because of the more combinations of

speculative hands compared to premium hands. Our range

also appears weak if we choose to call the big blind's

squeeze in light of the the fact that we'd usually

re-raise our premium hands in order to balance with the

times we'd re-raise as a bluff pre-flop. Re-raising small

pre-flop also causes problems by failing to cause our

opponent to make some mistakes because a smaller four-bet

allows our opponent to play better against our range. For

example, our opponent might five-bet shove something like

AJ with which he expects to have some folding equity that

he might also fold to our shove because with hands such as

AJ he expects to be dominated or racing against our shoving

range. Given the flaws in the other two choices with which

we are presented in this spot with around 100 big blind

stacks. I'm of the opinion that making an all-in bet is the

easiest way to balance the range of hands with which you

choose to continue as well as the best way to force your

opponent to make mistakes against your range. Here's how

the math works out in this particular spot with TdTh,

assuming this player squeezes 12% of the time in this spot

on average and that he's planning on calling a shove with

99+, AQ+, which is 5.2% of hands.

Our read of his range in this spot means that he's calling

(5.2/12)* 100% = 43.33% of the time and folding 56.67%

of the time.

TdTh is 44.2% vs a range of 99+,AQ+.

EV(shove) = (percentage of times we take down the pot) (the pot if villain folds) + (percentage of times our opponent calls) (total pot when villain calls * (our equity when called - the amount we risk to shove)

EV(shove) = 0.567 (185) + 0.433 (2035 * 0.442 - 970) EV(shove) = 104.83 + (-30.56) EV(shove) = $74.27

As with all the expected value calculations and

scenarios we examine, I recommend running them

many times with different numbers that represent

different assumptions about our opponents' play in

order to familiarize yourself with different possible

situations that may occur while you're playing poker.

Five-Betting Pre-Flop

Let's first examine the simplest scenario in which we

might find ourselves five-bet shoving, a heads-up five-bet

all-in. Assume we're against a reasonably aggressive and

balanced player who will be four-betting us as a bluff 60%

of the time as we are considering five- bet shoving with

pocket 3s. The other 40% of the time, he has his value

range, which consists of 99+, AQs+, and AK. PokerStove

shows us that pocket 3s is 30.594% to win against this

particular balanced heads-up opponent's value range.

Assuming that our opponent will four-bet us to 240 over

our 100 three-bet, our expected value equation looks like

this in our fictitious heads-up match:

EV(100bb) - (percentage opponent folds) (pot we win when opponent folds) + (percentage opponent calls) (total pot * our equity when called - what we risk) EV(100bb) - 0.60 (340) + 0.40 (2000*0.30594 - 900) EV(100bb) - 88.752

Our expected value equation shows that we should

make just over $88.75 on average with our five-bet shove

against this opponent at this time in a heads-up match.

Let's change the stack sizes and the pre-flop sizing a

bit and see what happens as stacks get a bit deeper, at

150bb effective stacks. We'll keep the same hand and

assume that he has the same range for calling a shove. We

are also changing our three-bet size to 110 and our

opponent's four-bet size to 250.

EV(150bb) = 0.6 (360) + 0.40 (3000*0.30594 - 1390) EV(150bb) = 27.128

150bb effective, we would win just under $27.13 by

five-bet shoving pocket threes. The reason our expected

value changes so much is because we are risking more to

win very close to the same amount that is in the pot

pre-flop. What this means is that our opponents should

realize this situation and be four-betting as a bluff more

often and thereby making more money, expecting us to

tighten our five-betting range significantly. If that is the

case, well have to change our expected value equation a bit.

Obviously, filling the pages of this book with expected value

calculations would show how to adapt and adjust in all the

different spots, but doing the calculations is something

relatively simple that you should be able to do and to get

used to doing. Experimenting with different calculations

will make you remember the numbers you calculate and

teach you how to work with expected value calculations if

you're unfamiliar with them.

Due to the aggressive nature of today's games and the

fact that there is so much dead money in the pot, you'll find

that the option to five-bet the pre-flop four- bettor presents

itself regularly and from many different positions. First of

all, let's see how often our opponents have to fold here to

make a bluff profitable.

Full Tilt Poker Table (6 max) - $5/$10 - NL HE

Seat 1: HERO ($1,053) Seat 2: VILLAIN 1 ($1,067) Seat 4: VILLAIN 2 ($863.10) Seat 5: VILLAIN 3 ($1,057) Seat 6: VILLAIN 4 ($1311), is sitting out VILLAIN 2 posts the small blind of $5 VILLAIN 3 posts the big blind of $10 The button is in seat #2

*** HOLE CARDS *** Dealt to HERO [Ac,3c] HERO raises to $30 VILLAIN 1 has 15 seconds left to act VILLAIN 1 raises to $105 VILLAIN 2 folds VILLAIN 3 has 15 seconds left to act VILLAIN 3 raises to $250 HERO?

I have played with both VILLAIN 1 and VILLAIN

3 for many hands and both view me as mostly

straightforward, but aggressive and capable of making

crazy plays at good times; although, bluffing here might

be a bit optimistic!

I know that VILLAIN 1 three-bets about 8% of his

hands on the button and that he's probably calling with JJ+,

AK if I shove, which accounts for 3% of hands. That means

he'll be folding [l-(3/8)]* 100 percent of the time, or 62.5%.

We also know that VILLAIN 3 is a very aggressive regular

capable of recognizing that VILLAIN 1 and HERO will both

be folding enough of the time to bluff some percentage of

the time, let's say pessimistically 60%, since it's likely more

often than 60% of the time since it's such a good bluff spot

and there are few combinations of value hands relative to

how often VILLAIN 3 is likely bluffing. For value, let's

assume that he's raising 99+, AQs+, AKo and that he will

fold 99 and half his TT combos to HERO's shove, because it

looks so strong. So we'll give VILLAIN 3 a total range 40%

comprised of half the combos of TT, JJ+, and AK and 60% of

his range comprised of bluffs. Simply put, we believe he will

fold to our raise 60% of the time and call with the top 3.2% of

total hands the other 40% of the time.

In order to calculate the expected value for this situation

we have to break down the calculation into a number of

smaller equations and add them. The formula for this

expected value calculation is:

[ calculation missing from the book ]

This expected value equation shows that the

expected value is the sum of a number of situations, i

situations, multiplied by the probability of that situation

occurring. All the probabilities summed should be equal

to 100% because we're calculating the expected value of

a particular situation in full.

First, let's outline the four situations that are taking

place.

1. The button folds and the big blind calls.

2. The button calls and the big blind folds.

3. Both the button and the big blind call.

4. Both the button and the big blind fold.

Now that we've defined the four values that we'll be

adding, let's calculate the probability that each occurs and

then the value of each of the four possible outcomes.

1. BTN folds and BB calls. The button's folding

percentage facing a five-bet shove, given all the hands he is

three-betting, is 62.5%. The big blind's calling percentage is

40%, the amount of the time we estimate him to be bluffing.

In order to get the likelihood of both events occurring we

have to multiply the two and by doing this, we get 25%.

We'll use the same methods for the rest of the calculations.

2. BTN calls and BB folds. Because the big blind's calling

range is now affected after the button calls, we must

recalculate his new folding range in order to get

the proper probability. The probability of the button calling

is still 37.5%. Given a button call, a showing of extreme

strength, we're narrowing the big blind's calling range to

half the combinations of QQ, KK, and AA. So if at first the

big blind is calling with the top 3.2% of hands, half of the TT

combinations and JJ+,AK, and his new calling range is 1.1%

of hands, that means he'll be folding (2.1/3.2)* 100% =

65.63% of the 40% of the time he was going to call, calling

34.38% of the time of that 40%. So again, we multiply the

probabilities and to get the likelihood of the big blind

calling, 0.34375*0.40 *100% = 13.75%. So he folds 100%

-13.75% of the time, or 86.25%. The probability of the button

calling and the big blind folding is therefore:

0.375*0.8625*100% = 32.34%.

3. BTN calls and BB calls. We have already determined the

big blind's new and tighter calling range given a button call

and the probability that he calls after the button has called

to be 13.75% of the time. So the

probability of the button and big blind calling is

0.375*0.1375* 100% = 5.12%

4. BTN folds and BB folds. The probability that both

villains fold is simply the respective likelihoods of them

folding multiplied together. 0.625*0.60*100% = 37.5%.

Just to check if we have all the events' likelihoods

correctly calculated, we'll add up all the probabilities.

5.12% + 32.34% + 37.5% + 25% = 99.96%, which is an

acceptable error given rounding throughout our

numerous calculations.

Next, we should calculate the probability that Ac3c

wins versus each of the calling ranges that we have

constructed in scenarios 1-4.

1. Ac3c vs 1/2(TT), JJ+, AK

30.2% vs 69.8%

2. AC3c vs JJ+, AK

29.9% vs 70.1%

3. Ac3c vs JJ+, AK vs 1/2(QQ), KK+

19.8% vs 27.5% vs 52.7%

4. We win the pot 100% of the time.

As shown before in our expected value calculation,

we need to multiply the probabilities of each event

happening by the expected value of each event.

EV(1) = 0.25 (2244 * 0.302) - 1037 = -89.83 EV(2) - 0.3234 (2389 * 0.299) - 1037 = -104.36 EV(3) = 0.0512 (3206 * 0.198) - 1037 = -20.59 EV(4) - 0.375 (105 + 250 + 5) = 135

EVtotai = EV(1) + EV(2) + EV(3) + EV(4)

EVtotai = "$79.78

So we have shown this particular five-bet shove to be

slightly negative expectation, but with slightly different

circumstances, with more aggressive players

involved or a different hand that does better against our

opponents' calling ranges, this play, although high

variance, could certainly have positive expectation. The

perception of your ranges after you are called making this

play will get you much more action on your stronger

hands. While it's difficult to factor a specific value for this

perception into an expected value formula, it should

certainly be mentioned and a consideration if the

parameters for this play end in a neutral or even slightly

losing expected outcome.

Slow-Playing

There are times when slow-playing a hand pre-flop

may be more advantageous than re-raising it for value.

Simply put, when you think your opponent or players yet

to act will make a bigger mistake against your specific

holding than if you re-raise with it, then it could be better to

slow-play.

Other advantages to slow-playing pre-flop include the

fact that it makes you less predictable not only pre- flop, but

also post-flop. Firstly, if you call with large pairs some of

the time pre-flop, especially in late position, you will be less

susceptible to light re-raises, squeeze plays, because your

opponents will have to be wary of your slightly stronger

range. If your opponents are not wary, then they are

making more of a mistake against your range by re-raising

with the same frequency pre-flop, which means you will

win more money from them. Additionally, you will be

given a bit more credit if you choose to bluff-raise a

continuation bet on a board like 2d3d8h because your

opponent will have to include some slow-played large

hands in your range.

Obviously, the benefits to slow-playing pre-flop are

many, but when should we slow-play and how often? The

'when' is a bit more complex than the 'how often,' as it is

essentially a function of the 'how often.' So let us first

examine the 'when.' An example of a likely

profitable time to slow-play pre-flop is when you have been

three-betting so often that you can tell somebody is about to

do something about it by four-betting you as a bluff or with

a wider value range with the intention of calling an all-in

bet with something like AQo. Because people are expecting

you to three-bet all of your good hands due to your

aggressive pre-flop image, when you call with a strong

hand pre-flop you will appear extremely weak to observant

players. If your range appears weak, good, aggressive

players will attack with a wider range of air and believe

you less often when you do end up playing back at them.

Before you choose to slow-play a big hand pre-flop, you

should weigh the value of a slow-play against the

possibility of somebody four-betting your three-bet and

going with their hand if you move all-in. Even if someone is

folding pre-flop, a four-bet is usually around twenty-two

through twenty-seven big blinds, which is a lot to win

without a showdown. You should compare those numbers

and the chances of an opponent four-

betting and folding to an all-in to how often someone is

squeezing and calling a back-raise all-in. Alternatively, if

you choose to call, you should use how often your

opponent continuation bets after squeezing and how often

they follow through on the turn when called on the flop as

a basis for your comparison. When considering the two

pre-flop options, its interesting to see how squeezing

combined with continuation betting, when sized by a good

player, is going to be about the same amount of big blinds

as a pre-flop four-bet. The similarity in sizing makes it

fairly simple to compare the two scenarios with certain

opponents.

Another good time to slow-play pre-flop is if you

are against an opponent who folds too many pre-flop

re-raises. If you are not getting action on your good

hands versus this particular opponent, then you may

want to start calling with your strongest hands in

attempts to induce more action post-flop and re-raise

more often with bluffing hands. We have already

touched on this topic when examining re-raising pre-

flop. We can summarize the above by saying that if it is

unlikely that our opponent will call our re-raise with a

worse hand when we have a premium holding, then it is

usually a better play to call pre-flop with that hand and

to slow-play in order to maximize the hand's value.

The same strategy of how to determine if this reason to

slow-play is more profitable than re-raising pre-flop applies

as in our first comparison about our two different choices of

whether or not to slow-play. We should compare the

likelihood of someone stacking off lightly post-flop

compared to how often they are giving us action on our

re-raises with their worse hands pre-flop. For most people,

this comparison will become a function of how often you

have been seen re-raising pre-flop by the player(s) in

question, but you will find that some players will not adjust

and they will simply wait for JJ+ or AK before continuing

pre-flop. It's also important to realize that our two examples

are not mutually exclusive, meaning that both can possibly

happen at the same time.

You should be careful not to slow-play too often,

especially if you are liberal with your re-raising pre-flop.

The more often you slow-play pre-flop, the weaker your

re-raising range will be perceived as a direct function of the

amount of slow-playing that is taking place and shown

down. In other words, if your opponents know that you

never re-raise with A A, then they do not have to put AA in

your re-raising range, and it becomes a bit weaker and you

become a bit easier to read.

It would be somewhat difficult to notice that you were

completely without a particular hand in your pre- flop

re-raising range, only a near unrecognizable drop in your

pre-flop all-in percentage that could be attributed to any

number of other dynamics. The sample size of this event

taking place with showdown would be extremely small,

even over a large amount of hands. Also, any competent

opponent would assume that slow-playing such a strong

hand pre-flop isn't your standard way to play that

particular premium hand.

However, assessing a single hand is not the point of

considering this example. We are talking about a game of

ranges, not one of hands, and if your opponent sees a single

hand slow-played pre-flop, he will likely, and probably

should, extrapolate this slow-play sighting to the fact that

your re-raising range is a bit weaker than he would have

thought had he not previously considered you to be

slow-playing hands pre-flop.

The dynamic created by slow-playing pre-flop is a

good example of how everything in poker balances and

how dynamics always play off of one another. If you

choose to play a hand a certain way, then it should

probably be less likely you're playing it the same way in a

similar situation later against observant and capable. Each

time you show down a hand your ranges become more

divulged to your opponents and your knowledge of their

views of your ranges become more divulged. Almost

every time you choose to do something in poker, your

choice is going to affect your later actions and your

opponents' perceptions of those actions. So

the better you learn to adjust and to play according to your

opponent's adjustments, the better your ranges will do

against your opposition's ranges.

CHAPTER 3:

FLOP PLAY

Many of the ideas written in this section will also

apply when the same concepts are considered for play on

the turn. For example both floating and raising as a bluff

will be touched on in the chapter on turn play, but the

majority of the theory herein discussed for those types of

plays will hold true for play on later streets.

The Anatomy of a

Continuation-Bet: Betting

the Flop as the Pre-Flop-

Raiser

For those of you who are newer to poker and are

unfamiliar with the definition of a continuation bet, a

continuation bet is a bet that follows a pre-flop

aggression in order to represent a strong range of

holdings post-flop.

There are many questions that surround the

anatomy of a flop continuation-bet in a single-raised

pot (ex. we raise pre-flop UTG and the button calls).

Here are the questions that we plan to examine every

single time we ever consider a continuation bet along

with their respective explanations:

1. How does my range rate against my opponent's range?

In general, and depending on many factors, the

pre-flop-raiser will be able to represent a stronger range

before the flop than a caller. There are several reasons for

this perception of strength compared to a caller's range

including our opponent's pre-flop ranges and tendencies.

A simple example is that if our opponent always re-raises

with hands QQ+, then we can take those out of his range

when he is unable to do so with our range. Our opponent

also has to worry about being in a dominating situation

with reverse implied odds. Basically this means that our

opponent will sometimes fold hands like K9o pre-flop

when we're raising with hands like JTs that he actually

beats at the time because he's playing against our range,

not our specific hand,

and the same worry will occur post-flop if he re-raises

hands like AQ and AK most of the time in a certain

position. For example, this fear of pre-flop domination will

give us more folding equity on king-high boards and allow

us to win the pot with a simple continuation bet versus

many of our opponent's holdings, as his range will be less

rich with Kx hands.

2. What are the effective stack sizes and how will this affect

action on future streets considering our flop continuation bet

sizing?

Often in a hand, our goal will be to set up an all-in bet

by the river or a least the threat of an all-in bet if we are

bluffing. The first step is choosing a flop bet size that works

for this purpose if stack sizes are such that your flop bet size

will be a determining factor. 300 big blinds deep, we aren't

going to start by betting four times the pot as a continuation

bet. It's important to note that if you and your opponent are

deep-stacked that continuation betting a large amount,

something like

three times the pot. is a terrible idea for a myriad of reasons.

In fact, we'll want to choose a standardized flop

continuation bet in most spots against most opponents. One

important departure from this norm is if we are called by

someone playing a stack significantly shorter than the

somewhat normal lOObb buy-in. If we can threaten their

stacks at a lower cost, why not do it? Our bluffs are cheaper

and our ability to threaten our opponent's stack by the river

remains while we risk less money. A word of warning is that

any change in bet-size may have an unpredicted effect

against a certain opponent, so be sure of whom you're

dealing with first and their possible interpretations of your

changing bet size.

3. How often will my flop bet force me to continue on the turn?

See Chapter 5 on turn play and barreling

4. How does the recent history of our match effect the

credibility or lack of credibility, of my continuation bet?

If your opponent perceives you to be continuation

betting a large percentage of hands, he or she will be more

likely to widen his or her calling and/or raising ranges. The

proper readjustment to the type of opponent who calls more

often is to value bet thinner and to bluff less often. You may

also be bluff-raised more often, which means that you may

want to pot control your medium strength hands to avoid a

tough decision later in the hand, especially if you're out-of-

position against your opponent(s) and he/they are capable

of raising flops with a well-balanced range, making it tough

to make a good decision against their flop-raise. By

polarizing your flop continuation bet range against this type

of opponent, you avoid the tough decisions that come with

playing marginal hands in large pots against a

well-balanced range.

5. What types of boards are better to induce more or less

folds?

The percentage of times that your opponent folds is

largely dependent on the board texture and his pre-flop

position. Generally, the drier the board, the more often

most of your opponents will fold. The quintessential

example of a dry board is Ad9s3h. There is no connectivity

and so it is unlikely that you will be called by a draw, in the

conventional sense of the word, as 5d4d or JsTs are

basically the only reasonable "draws" to be had on that

board. Compare this board to something like Qs8h4s where

there are tons of straight draws and a flush draw your

opponent may hit. It's also a bit more likely that your

opponent would just call you pre-flop than re-raise you

with a hand containing a queen. This makes his range

slightly richer in Qx hands than it may be in Ax hands.

Obviously, these examples are speaking in generalities and

each player's ranges will be different, the idea is that there

are few or no examples or cases to examine that will hold

for every single player. I'm

simply teaching you what to think about as you consider a

continuation bet and you're the one meant to apply these

many considerations to a particular player on a particular

board texture at a particular time in- game.

Your opponent's position pre-flop is also going to be a

major factor in how often a continuation bet will take down

the pot and how well his pre-flop range will connect with

certain board types. If your opponent is in position and

you're opening in late position, his calling range should be

fairly wide given the position from which you have opened

and the position from which he has called. The earlier the

position you open from, the less likely you will be to win

the blinds outright and this means that your opponent's

calling range should adjust to your stronger pre-flop range

from early position. Your opponent should be calling less

often for fear of being dominated and having poor reverse

implied odds post-flop. The later the position of your

opponent, the less people he has to worry about re-raising

pre-flop and so there should be more speculative hands his

range that expect to see a flop fairly regularly with less of a

compounded worry of each individual behind him re-

raising. In short, we have determined that you will see

more folds to your continuation bet the less connected the

board

6. How should I react against a flop raise of my

continuation bet?

Generally, if you have to ask yourself this question and are

legitimately confused about the answer after having

continuation bet a given hand, you have made a mistake by

continuation betting in the first place. Ideally, we want to be

able to predict our opposition's raising frequencies well

enough, bet hands with which we know how to react, and

check hands with which we know how to react to a bet in

order to check-raise, to check-call, or to check-fold. Against

a very good player who balances his flop calling and raising

ranges well for bluffs and for value, there are inherently

going to be tough decisions for his opponents after they

continuation bet. You're just going to have to outwit people

here, or "soul read,"

as we like to say, usually based on some combination of the

opponent's tendencies, meta-game considerations, and

stack sizes.

For other considerations on raising flops and what to

do when raised, such as how your opponent, history, flop

texture, certain hands, and position should affect your

decisions, see the below section on bluff-raising and how to

react to frequent flop raises.

7. When should I not continuation bet? What should I do with

my hand if I check the flop as the pre-flop- raiser?

This is a question for which the answer will be

dependent on your history with your opponents and your

reads on their tendencies when the pre-flop-raiser checks to

them. Your decision here is somewhat based on what your

actual hand is and has a lot to do with how you think your

opponent will view you at this

point in the game. On very connected boards on which

you may often give up, it may be a good time to check-

call as a trap, and likely continue to do so on future

streets depending on the board if the following criteria

are met:

• Your opponent bets when checked to very often

• Your opponent is capable of betting all three streets

for thin value, thinner perhaps than he might call

you down with

An example of a questionable continuation bet could be

if you raise As2s and the flop comes AdTs8d and you

feel you'll be confused if your continuation bet is raised.

This board on which your opponent's range may play

aggressively and trickily may be a good time to check

and represent a slightly weaker hand like JTo. You'll

also get more value if someone is trying to bluff you off

of a Tx hand and believes that they need to bet the flop,

turn, and river with a bluffing hand to fold out the

weak-made-hand you're representing with a flop-check.

If the board turns out to be unfavourable by the river, then

check-calling again may become more of a read- based play

than a trap. As more and more of your opponent's perceived

range connects with the board, you should usually be more

likely to fold a marginal hand, especially in the cases when

playing an opponent you believe to be randomizing bluffs

by equity. If our opponent randomizes his bluffs with how

well his hand connects with the board, then the more draws

that hit the board, the stronger his range will be. However, if

our opponent simply bets when checked to every time, the

scarier the board gets, the more likely he is to keep betting

his pure air range and therefore over- compensate for how

often he is actually value-betting. When done properly this

play should induce an overaggressive opponent to have too

much air in their range by the river, making call downs

extremely profitable, especially as the board gets scarier,

which will induce your opponent's air combinations to bet

with extremely high frequency.

If your hand is as strong as JsJc on a Jh8d2d flop and

your opponent bets into you after you've checked the flop,

realize how likely it is that your opponent has either a bluff

or a draw because he likely would have reraised QQ+

pre-flop and you block most of the Jx combinations with

your specific hand. In this case, you should adjust your play

based on his likelihood to continue (semi)bluffs. If he'll call a

check-raise and bluff shove over a turn bet with all of his

draws, maybe check-raising the flop and belting the turn to

induce a raise is the best line. There are definitely many

different lines that could prove the most profitable against a

particular opponent at a particular time.

Some of you may realize that check-raising the turn

will likely fold out his weaker draws and pure air that

would continue to bluff if the board gets scarier. The reason

we raise here is that we may also choose to take this line

with a draw of our own. Hoping to fold out better high card

hands that are also drawing or even pure bluffs that our

opponent could have on the flop,

given our show of extreme weakness by checking such a

coordinated board. Raising also might induce lots of action

from a hand like a flush draw on the flop that may choose to

take a free card later on in the hand instead of continuing to

bluff on blank turns and-or rivers

If we are check-raising or check-calling in this spot

with only strong hands, an observant opponent will notice

and adjust his game plan. Think about how profitable a

play that check-raising as a bluff can be here if your

opponent is bluffing nearly 100% of the time when you

check, betting only his best hands for value for worry of not

knowing what to do if raised, and checking back everything

else. You win extra money from a lot of his range that

would have probably otherwise folded the flop. Even if

your opponent is only betting all his gut shots and flush

draws when you're checking, realize how much of his range

only those few hands make up compared to the value

portion of his range. Against other and more aggressive

types of

opponents, their range will be extremely wide in this

instance and will be comprised of mostly hands that will

fold to a check-raise.

To practice the effects of a check-raise versus different

opponent types, try the following:

1. Write out villain's flop range from the JJ example on a

piece of paper and list all possible outcomes for when we

check to him (note the fewer combinations of Jx hands,

which may influence our decision to bet or to check on the

flop).

2. Now write out his range of hands for when we

continuation bet below the first range you've written.

3. Compare the ranges and the combinations of hands

you've written to see the likelihood of a bet in each case.

Which is more profitable? How situational is your

comparison? How often will your opponent continue in

each case? Give yourself different "reads" on your pretend

opponents and manipulate his ranges accordingly. This

exercise will mimic how you should be thinking while

playing poker.

In position, especially when our opponent assumes that

we are going to continuation bet, we might want to balance

a checking back range in order to avoid the tough spots he'll

create by check-raising if he is assuming that the majority of

our air range will be betting a certain flop texture and not

continue after being raised. This worry can be compounded

on draw heavy boards on which many turns would be scare

cards for our specific hand. If our opponent has more

information about our frequencies than we have on him in a

certain spot, then we need to change something in order to

avoid him taking advantage of our tendencies. In this case,

continuation betting some boards textures too often may be

easily exploited by smart and aggressive opponents.

It's important to include some hands that would

almost welcome two streets of action in a check back range

in order to bluff catch confidently on the turn and on most

rivers and to have our opponent realize that simply because

we have checked back a flop that betting the turn and river

with his entire range isn't necessarily going to be profitable.

Because checking back stronger hands will make your

opponent more hesitant about bluffing you on the turn and

river, you should realize that your flop continuation bet

range will be perceived as more polarized, and probably

weaker on the boards on which you choose to check back

given that your best chance to win the pot may be by

continuation betting your air on the flop when it's very

likely you'll be bet into on the turn. If your opponent can

assume that you are continuation betting the majority of

your air and you are checking back most of your medium

strength hands, then it's not a far leap of logic to assume

that you will have air very often when you are continuation

betting certain board textures as it's extremely likely that

the air portion of your range will far outweigh the strongest

portion of your range in terms of which you

are combinatorially more likely to possess on the flop. For

this reason, it's important to mix in some delayed-

continuation bets, or checking back air that we plan to

bluff with if checked to again on the turn.

Checking back the flop as the pre-flop-raiser is a

useful play to utilize if you feel exploited on the flop or like

you're getting the worst of a continuation bet dynamic on a

certain board texture with a marginal subset of your

pre-flop raising range. Because you have the need to check

back marginal hands in your range, you should also have

stronger hands to balance with these marginal hands and

total air hands to strengthen your delayed continuation bet

range. If you don't know how to react to flop check-raises,

but feel comfortable against a turn and river leading range

on most turns and rivers, then checking back the flop is

almost always the obviously correct choice for the

situation. If you're mixing up your play with good and bad

hands, you'll have to be wary of how to navigate your

opponent's adjustments. His main weapons to combat

frequent

flop-checks instead of continuation bets would be leading

and check-raising later streets, both of which he should be

doing with a range of bluffs and a range for value. How

often and with what types of hands you should be checking

back the flop is dependent on how often you expect to be

check-raised on a given flop, your ability to withstand that

potential check-raise with your specific holding, and how

often you expect to be lead into on certain turns and rivers.

You will also have occasion to bluff-raise some turns and

rivers that hit your checking back range hard and that are

unlikely to hit your opponent's calling range. A common

example of this scenario is when we raise on the button and

we are called by one of the blinds. If we are lead into on a

draw heavy board on the turn, after the flop goes check-

check, on lower board pairing turn cards, say cards 2

through 9, those cards are still well within our range given

our well-balanced flop checking back range given how

smaller flop pairs are frequently vulnerable to heavy action;

whereas, our opponent will have a range mostly comprised

of stronger made hands, semi-bluffs, and pure air, all of

which become bluff-catchers to our

turn raise. Almost all of these hand types will also be put

into very difficult river spots, especially because we, as the

pre-flop-raiser, control the betting size and frequency on

certain river cards.

8. How does my position influence my continuation bet

frequency?

We touched on this question while explaining what to

consider after question 5. To elaborate, if you have position

on your opponent you will have more information to use

when making your strategic decisions post-flop. For

example, if your opponent has a strong leading range, then

you can discount his future value range that checks to you

because some of it should be leading into you to balance his

blurt leads. If your opponent rarely check-raises, you're able

to bet your weaker made hands and weaker draws on the

flop without fear of being put into a tough decision against

a well-balanced range of hands. These two examples

illustrate scenarios in which a continuation bet will

generally be met with less resistance by your opponents.

Also, realize that you're opening wider ranges from

later positions as there are fewer people who have yet to act

and there is a higher likelihood that you will steal the blinds

and antes uncontested. This means when you're called and

see a flop, your opponent may be smart enough to realize

that he may be able to get away with some bluffs if you're

opening very a wide range and continuation betting too

often for how much air is in your range. It's difficult to come

up with an exact number for the percentage of times you

should check back, either with made hands or to give up. In

order to balance your play due to the many dynamics one

should consider when you are thinking about checking

back.

9. Which of these considerations matter for this/these

specific opponent(s)?

The answer to this question is a concept that took me

quite a while to understand. Sometimes, your opponent will

allow you to do whatever is best for the situation you're

facing. In other words, due to lack of perception, monetary

attachment, or ability to make adjustments, your

opposition's tendencies will make it so that your flop

decisions as to whether or not to continuation bet will be

drastically skewed to one end of the betting or checking

frequency spectrum and you will have an easy flop decision

about whether or not you should continuation bet. There are

times when you can routinely bluff and your opponent will

fold everything but top pair or better. Other times, your

opponent will never fold, so you just have to wait until you

make a hand to value bet and maximize value when called.

Better opponents are going to use a hybrid of these two

cases to make it difficult for people to play well against

them. However, if you spot a person who plays closer to one

of these ways, adjust accordingly and you will be doing

much better than using some default well- balanced range.

It's tempting to romanticize the idea of balance and being

more balanced than your opponent

means that you will win more money than they will.

Balance is an extremely important idea, but against

someone who isn't paying attention to how you play

certain hands, it's nearly or completely irrelevant to

balance, assuming playing an exploitative style will net

the most profit. Remember, poker is not a game based on

systems and set ranges in certain spots. Almost

everything in the game should be adjusted at some point

or another based on the information at your disposal.

Flop Texture

During the section on continuation betting I briefly

mentioned flop texture as a determining factor of how to

react on certain boards. It is an important factor because

some boards play differently than other boards and you

need to know why they are different. The most important

takeaway from a discussion of flop texture is the fact that

different boards foster action with different combinations of

hands. Some boards give many combinations of hands

enough equity to call or semi- bluff raise, to continue in

some way, while other boards that are more disconnected,

are likely to foster straight forward play for a few reasons:

1. Disconnected boards do not present many possible value

combinations and therefore, are generally bad boards on

which to bluff (or at least with the same frequency with

which you'd bluff a more connected board).

2. Your bluffing frequency should be a function of how often

your opponent will fold to your bluff. How often a good

player will fold is based on how often both of your

perceived range hits a given board, along with meta-game

considerations and several other factors.

All other things being equal, flop texture is going to have a

lot to do with how often someone will give you credit for a

hand and so very connected boards require a different kind

of balance than less connected boards. Your opponent

should be checking the more connected boards, anticipating

being played at if he elects to continuation bet. Because he's

checking to give up some of the time, he should also be

checking some good hands and the adjustments continue.

Floating

Floating is a call on one street typically, not

necessarily, with decent equity against an opponent's range

in order to take the pot away on a later street by bluffing.

Floating is a more specific type of call because the play will

only be profitable in terms of future expected value and in

terms of how often you'll be able to take the pot away from

your opponent if he makes some display of weakness and

you are better able to bluff on a later street. Let's clarify our

definition a bit more and examine how to employ floats in

our game plan in order to win more and to make our

strategy difficult to combat. The idea of a float is that it is a

multi-street play, so it cannot be discussed in full in one

chapter of this book the way I have chosen to order the

chapters. So for the reader's ease of comprehension, I will

herein discuss floating in full detail of its implications for

multiple streets of play and for future hands.

Future Expected Value of a

Float

Obviously, we might hit our weak draw and stand to

win a large pot because of both the deceptive nature of the

draw and the likelihood of its connectedness with our

opponent's range of hands if he continues to bet into our

newly strengthened hand and range. Something that may

be less evident about the theory and reasoning of floating is

how the image of these floats will garner us more action in

the future.

Consider the following scenario:

• The cutoff opens and we elect to call with Qcjd on

the button

• Flop is Kd9c4s

• We call a flop continuation bet

• We decide to fold to a turn bet on the 2d

Next time we're in a similar turn situation, realize

how much more likely it is that we will be further ahead

of our opponent's range with a hand with vulnerable

showdown value. If we call on the turn with a hand like

8s9s, especially against the right type of opponent who

is adjusting to what happened in the Qcjd hand, then

our equity versus his range should be significantly

higher. If our opponent perceives our range to be

comprised of a lot of floats and not many kings, given

our passive pre-flop play, he should adjust his turn

barrelling range to one that is extremely wide in order

to fold out our queen high and jack high floats. If we

know that our opponent is making this adjustment and we

may assume he's a thinking player, then we should widen

our calling range, expecting to be bluffed on the turn and

possibly the river more often given our recent history of

our earlier "failed" float.

The above example shows that the results of floating

are much more than a hand-by-hand expected value

calculation. We'll be making money from folding turns we

miss with our floats, even though we lose that specific

hand, because we'll be fostering action against observant

opponents on boards on which we have hit against their

increasingly wide turn and possibly river barrelling

ranges.

Displays of Weakness

If our opponent checks on a turn which misses our float, it

often brings up a question of whether or not it's best to:

A. bet as a bluff with our floats to balance with the

times we're value betting

or

B. take a free card to realize the equity of our draw

with 100% certainty and make a decision about bluffing

the river if we are checked to again.

The answer to the question of "should we bet?" is the

combination of many smaller questions that will often

corroborate one another to yield us a clear turn

decision.

Question #1: How often is your opponent check- raising

the turn or check-calling to induce you to betting from

your hands that floated the flop?

If the answer is "never," especially in regards to the

check-raise part of the question, then the decision to bluff

becomes a much easier one. A turn check from an opponent

likely to take this line with his entire range is the perfect

opportunity to make a very profitable turn bet because we

will always realize the equity of our draw since we'll never

be raised off of it, and we'll gain folding equity by betting

into our opponent the times he has chosen to give up on the

hand. However, most opponents who realize what's

happening when your bet frequency is high in spots after

you might float and bluff when checked to will incorporate

some type of balance in these turn spots, either by

check-calling or check- raising more often, in order to thwart

your attempts to exploit his turn tendencies.

The better and more balanced opponents you will

likely face will incorporate check-calling and check- raising

on turns following flops which have a large potential to be

floated because they realize the board texture and how it

will affect your turn betting frequency. In general, the

drawier the flop, the more often you should expect an

opponent capable of floating to bluff at some point later on

in the hand, assuming most people use hands that hit the

board to randomize their floats. The idea of a wider bluffing

range on draw heavy boards also means that this type of

player should be value betting thinner at some point in the

hand in order to balance his bluffing range and to avoid

being exploited by observant and capable opposition.

Given the conclusions we have arrived at about board

texture and turn play when we're in position, does this

mean our opponent should be barrelling these draw heavy

boards as a bluff with a wider range and/or higher

frequency when we are the out-of-position player? Perhaps.

We have to resolve the conflict of the

math problem of the likely positive expected value of

betting almost our entire range in a given spot to fold out

weaker draws with the worry of widening our turn range so

much that our river bluffing range includes too much air

when it is in fact perceived as tighter. For example, if a great

bluff card falls and we bluff after having bet the turn with a

hand that is totally disconnected with the board and we are

called by a better hand, which is much more likely given

our wider range, then our perceived range is open to a few

different interpretations by our opponent, specifically

either our opponent will consider if we will be bluffing too

often or we will be bluffing less often after the hand in

question is shown down, if you're being double floated or

semi-bluff-raised on the turn, your attempts at barrelling

even lighter than the default ranges you have constructed

that mostly rely on a combination of randomization by

equity and scare cards falling are likely to cost you money

in future hands if you cannot out-adjust the opponent who

sees evidence of your extremely wide turn betting range.

The problem with over-stepping the boundaries of bluffing

our fair share

of hands, ones that connect with the board, is that we

cannot be certain how the information we are transmitting

about a wider range will be interpreted by our observant

opposition.

Our opponent may counter our heightened propensity

to bluff the turn and to bet the turn for thinner for value by

checking turns in order to check- raise a balanced range of

bluffing and value hands, in this dynamic, our opponent

does not sacrifice balance for exploitation, at least in such a

memorable way that might help us to play better against

him in the future. He also does not turn his hand somewhat

face up by check-calling the turn, allowing us to play as well

as possible against the weak range of hands with which he

will be most likely to take this action. Of course, it's possible

to check-call strong hands on the turn, but if he chooses to

trap in this manner, then it's more likely he is sacrificing

value that he would get from betting the turn and then the

river or by check-raising the turn with such a strong hand. If

we are more likely to check back

turns and bluff the river when checked to, our opponent

will be able to make lighter river calls taking into

consideration our perceived range, his hand, and his pot

odds, but he will not be able to abuse the aforementioned

turn dynamic. So far we have outlined a few reasons both to

check the turn and to bet the turn on draw heavy boards.

Let's ask a few questions so we can weigh the value of each

option and so we can make the best decision about which

dynamic to exploit versus certain opponents.

Reasons to bet turn: If we're bet into by a tough and

well-balanced opponent on a river after checking back a

float without showdown value, we will have a pretty tough

choice for which the outcome is likely close to breakeven or

slightly losing for us. Our opponent controls the frequencies

with which he is taking this line and it is unlikely that we'll

be able to play very well against it, especially if he leads us

to make false assumptions on the river such as "he will bluff

all of his missed draws when checked to." Other reasons to

bet

the turn are that we aren't able to threaten stacks by

checking the turn against this opponent, unless we

check-raise the river. If we wait until the river to bluff, we'll

have to balance that by checking back some good hands on

the turn from which we'd like value, which we'd get by

betting the turn and river. Also, such a large portion of our

opponent's range on the river will be bluffs that we may

have gotten more value by betting the turn and inducing a

bluff-raise to fold out parts of our assumed-to-be draw

heavy range.

Reasons to check the turn: We should get more

information about our opponent's hand and learn how

successful a bluff will be given his reaction to the turn and

river cards and how they improve or hurt our opponent's

perceived range comprised of draws and weaker made

hands. Against a predictable opponent for whom we have

solid reads, our river decision will be easy and likely quite

profitable.

Question #2: When we are in position, will our opponent

check his entire range again on the river?

If your opponent will check his entire range on the

river to induce a value bet from your probable worse hand

that you chose to pot control on the turn or a float that

probably missed again on the river, then you should

probably lean towards betting the turn with your floats

more often when you can represent a wider and stronger

range of hands, especially if your opponent is capable of

employing the dynamic choices of using a balanced

river-check-raise range. Of course when we are bluffing a

wide range of hands, we should also be value betting a wide

range of hands. If your opponent picks up on the fact that

you're balancing your turn betting range by value betting

thinly, then you may want to readjust your turn betting

range, since you should expect to be called or check-raised

with a wider range on the turn given how wide a range your

opponent knows you have on some turns. Another

consideration in this dynamic has to do with our next

question.

Question #3: How many floats are in your perceived range on

certain turns?

On a board like Kc9c6h versus your late position

flop-call, there are many more combinations of floats than

strong value hands in your range. If you're against a

perceptive opponent, you should be increasingly wary of

bluffing later on in a hand and of his likely adjustments to

the board texture to thwart the profit margin of your wide

range of floats. You can also tailor your range to your

opposition's adjustments by floating fewer hands and

bluffing less often if he is playing back often on turns.

Therefore, you may choose to fold something as weak as

7s5s on this board, considering:

• Your pair outs are less likely to be good by the river and

those outs are less likely to be live and/or more likely to be

conditional

• You're going to be barrelled too often on the turn

compared to the times you're going to get paid if you

make your hand

• The times your opponent will check and fold this

very drawy board on the turn

• Our equity against our opponent's range with our

particular float is decidedly weaker than other floats in

our range such as QJ and JT

If our opponent is planning on check-calling turns

and/or some rivers to induce us to bluff when he has a

weaker made hands (ex: 98s) on the turn, then we have a

decent amount of equity with our stronger floats. If we

expect him to frequently check-raise our turn bet or to

check-call the turn and river if the river is a blank, we might

be best by avoiding a turn dynamic by checking back the

turn and bluffing rivers with what we determine to be an

optimal frequency against our

opponent's possible holdings and river check-raising

frequency. However, if we know he doesn't expect us to be

floating, then betting is generally going to be our best

action. These ideas obviously follow from our above

examinations from the opposite point of view.

In summary, betting the turn is advantageous when the

following are true:

• We have a high likelihood of folding out some hands

with very weak showdown value (such as ace high)

because we can usually better threaten stacks by

threatening multiple streets of action

• Our opponent is rarely checking and calling good

hands on multiple streets

• We do not expect to be check-raised on the turn

The more likely you are to be check-raised, the less

you should bluff a medium-strength draw for all the

reasons discussed. A medium-strength draw's value is

different for each opponent you play. The reason for the

varying value of a turn (semi-)bluff is that your equity

against your opponent's range of hands he could check-

raise your (semi-)bluff on the turn will change

depending on the range with which they decide to

attempt a turn check-raise.

A decision for your opponent to check-raise a turn

will mostly be a function of game flow, board texture,

and stack sizes. Examining the following will help you

to determine the likelihood of you being check-raised

on a turn against an opponent you may trust to play the

same way in similar situations:

Question #4: Has he check-folded a turn before?

If he has, it may be more likely you will be check-raised,

depending on the opponent, of course.

Question #5: Are there several combinations of possible

floats on the flop that he expects you to call with and then

bluff the turn?

If yes, then he will probably be check-raising the turn more

often than on a different board.

Question #6: Are stacks such that he can fold out your

medium strength draws?

If once you bet turn you are committed to calling his

raise, regardless of its size, with a naked flush draw for

instance, then it's most likely he'll bet the turn himself if

he wants any folding equity. Another consideration is a

short stacked scenario is that if his turn raise size is

straddling the border on committing

you to the pot with a lot of your weaker draws, then he

might not think he would be able to credibly represent a

bluff. In this one, his turn check-raise should be viewed as

very strong. This means that, in general, people should be

bluffing weaker draws to balance with their stronger value

hands (anything you would want to call a check-raise or

that would like to be check-called twice) on the turn. This

also means that stronger draws that are not strong enough

to bet/call the turn, like a baby flush draw, should be

checking back in most cases.

If you check-call a weaker made hand after

continuation betting a board with a highly connected board

texture (a dubious decision in many instances that will be

ignored for the sake of the point) and a strong draw hits the

river, you may want to check and call another bet if you

believe it's highly likely that the strong draw hitting will

narrow your opponent's value range and make him bluff his

weaker missed draws more often (probably close to 100%).

If he is only betting top pairs and better on the turn for

value, but all

gutshots as a bluff, then you should see that his river range

is probably very highly skewed towards bluffs on a large

number of rivers.

Betting also helps us to avoid being bluffed by a

bet-check-bet line. Say we call a Kd7h9c flop with 5c6c and a

turn 2d goes check-check. If we're betting into our opponent

as a bluff on a non-8 river, we have a pretty tough choice.

Our opponent controls the frequencies with which he is

taking this line and it is unlikely that we'll be able to play

well against it. We would also bet the turn if we aren't able

to threaten stacks by checking the turn and when we want to

avoid having to balance by checking back good hands on the

turn from which we'd like value.

I believe the dynamic created on the turn by floating, on

both sides of the aggression and both in position and

out-of-position shows why the spot is so interesting from

both points of view. Because both players have so many

considerations in order to exploit their opponent and to

avoid being exploited, it's a dynamic on which it

is well worth spending the time to anticipate adjustments

and to quantify the adjustments your reads lead you to

make with mathematics. Turn play is still an unsolved

ground in No-Limit Hold'em. After this section on floating,

it is easy to see why there is much work to be done

considering the dynamics of turn play!

Question #7: Do we have showdown value with our

float?

Let's say that the cutoff raises and we call with AdQd

on the button. The flop is JhTd4c. And we call our

opponent's continuation bet hoping for a turn diamond,

ace, king, or queen. We also intend to continue on some

other turns that miss our opponent's semi-bluffing range

because we have good equity against a lot of his turn

betting range, hands like Jc9c. Because we are ahead of

most of our opponent's semi- bluffing range, we deduce

that we have some showdown value with our hand.

The answer to this is also a function of how likely your

opponent is to check the turn and/or river in order to

induce bluffs from you when your range has a lot of draws

in it. If he checks the turn, he'll likely be checking a blank

river to induce a bluff with his weaker made hands. When

considering a bluff when checked to on the turn or on the

river, you're getting the worst of both worlds as it's unlikely

you fold out anything better by betting as a bluff and the

fact that you'll have the best hand often enough in order to

show down profitably makes inducing a bluff on the river

the likely best play. Because your opponent is expecting

you to bet air like 9d7d, KdQd, and 9h8h, if he checks the

river with a weak made hand, then he will almost always be

calling your bet. If he is checking the river, it's with a plan

to either call or to fold and because we beat all of our

opponent's failed turn bluffs, we should just take the

showdown with our AdQd.

Bluff-Raising

Sometimes boards will come down that hit your

perceived range very hard and you will have a hand that

has completely missed the flop, if you have a very marginal

hand and you're against an opponent who is capable of

barrelling as the board gets scarier for the range of hands

you're representing by calling a flop continuation bet, you

may want to raise the flop as a bluff.

Generally, a flop call, especially on a drawy board,

represents a range with marginal strength because many

players will give lots of action with a draw on such a board

if they think they have good equity versus a calling range as

well as some folding equity. Against players who

continuation bet and barrel too often, but often enough that

you will make mistakes on future streets, you may be best

off choosing to raise the flop as a (semi)bluff.

As far as sizing goes, assuming 100 big blind stacks,

you do not have to raise to a very large size to put your

opponent to a test for a large portion of his range of

borderline hands. A borderline hand is a hand like JsTd on

QsTs4h that your opponent continuation bets, expecting

you to call with almost all of your range. A large benefit of

having a flop-raise dynamic is that you take away his ability

to get value in spots like this one with marginal hands and

force him to play a more pot controlling style or a guessing

game in which you control the frequencies on future streets,

which, if you play well, shouldn't end well for him. Let's say

we call a $30 raise pre-flop in position and decide to raise a

flop continuation bet of $50 to $150. Immediately we are

risking $150 to win $140 (assuming we aren't either of the

blinds) and so our bluff only has to work slightly more than

half the time in order to be profitable. If we assume that

after our opponent three-bets the flop that we have an easy

decision to fold or to continue (note: by an easy flop

decision that I mean we would almost never raise a hand

like KhQh on QdTd3h and subsequently

fold to a flop three-bet or ever raise 8c7c and shove over

a three-bet), then we won't be put into tough spots that

may lead to larger post-flop mistakes. Typically when

we are in position, we will be able to play better after the

flop action should our opponent elect to call our raise

and so raising in position as a bluff should be more

profitable than out-of-position.

Ways in which our opponents will combat our

flop-raises have been touched on when I mentioned the

pot-control method of polarizing continuation bet

ranges. Other methods our opponent may use to

combat this certain flop dynamic include:

• Check-raising flops, both for value and as a bluff

• Three-betting our flop raises, both for value and as

a bluff

• Stop raising as much pre-flop with marginal hands,

thereby attempting to avoid marginal spots post-flop

Check-Raising Flops

Once our opponent realizes that we are raising flops so

often that it's unlikely that we are always holding a good

hand, he should be mixing up his play and include some

flop checks with both good and bad hands. If he can't win in

one dynamic, he may try to exploit another dynamic in the

same spot. A part of this different dynamic could include

checking hands that he wants to check-raise bluff. Hands

like gutshots that have some equity, but not enough to

continue if raised after a continuation bet, might be best

used for this play because we don't mind folding them if

three-bet on the flop. To add to the efficacy of our

flop-check-raise-bluff, if our check-raise is called on the flop

when we are using a gutshot to bluff, then we have many

turns which we may credibly represent when our perceived

range is strengthened in addition to the times we hit our

gutshot and make a strong hand. Different players will

induce flop-bluffs to check-raise-bluff on different board

textures and so it's important to pay attention to your

opponent's range in these types of spots because it will

directly affect the range of value hands that you will be

comfortable with when facing heat if you do choose to

value bet a flop when checked to by the pre-flop-raiser.

Three-Betting Our Flop-

Raise

As a bluff or for value, our opponent should start

three-betting, or re-raising, our flop raise because our

flop-raising range should be wider given that we're

widening our flop bluffing range. By anticipating that

our opponent will eventually make a play against our

flop-raise with a wider range, whether it be with a bluff

or with a made hand with which he's taking a stand, our

value range should be widened accordingly.

Not Raising as Often Pre-

Flop (Polarizing Pre-Flop)

If our opponent is anticipating being put into marginal

spots post-flop with his marginal made hands, then he can

choose to raise a more polarized range pre- flop. This will

assure that he will more often hit a flop either hard or not at

all, rather than hitting something mediocre. A key strategy

for dealing with difficult spots in poker is to avoid them in

the first place.

CHAPTER 4:

RIVER PLAY

Note: I have chosen to discuss river play prior to a

discussion of turn play for reasons that will be evident

after the reading of this chapter.

The concepts presented within this chapter will help

you to:

• Call people down more profitably

• Understand how much of someone's range you're

attempting to fold out on a given turn or river

• Understand whether or not a certain bet size is

more profitable with a bluff or with a value bet

Like turn play, river play is going to be an extension of

the previous street of play. By the river, we'd like to be able

put our opponent on a fairly narrow range of hands based

on the way that he played pre-flop, on the flop and on the

turn. Narrowing down our opponent's range is going to be

important for value-betting and for bluffing. It is a process

that is going to improve with experience and by paying

close attention to the examples and questions that I am

giving and discussing in each chapter.

It's important to remember the general theme of this

book: there is no one answer to beating No-Limit Texas

Hold'em. Everyone plays differently, often in-line with

their personality or temperament. Therefore, your reactions

to their perceived ranges, predicted reactions, and

adjustments against your ranges will certainly impact the

best strategy for playing each hand. All of these ideas rolled

into one equation may sound a bit optimistic, but Galfond

Dollars will allow us to do just

that if we have the correct data to enter into our

expected value calculations.

Galfond Dollars Explained

In order to understand what we mean by Phil

Galfond'sGalfond Dollars, or G Bucks, we should first

define Sklansky Dollars, or Sklansky bucks. Sklansky bucks,

as first defined by David Sklansky in his book The Theory

of Poker, shows us the expected value of a single hand

against another hand. For example, if we are all-in pre-flop

with Acjs versus KhKd in a $2000pot, $1000 of which is our

money, we expect to win $572 on average. The expected

value equation for this hand versus hand match-up is

EV = (% win of A J) (total pot) - (what we risk) EV = (0.288)(2000) - (1000) EV = $576-$1000 EV = $424

The calculation shows that on average we expect to lose

$424 of our original $ 1000 investment into the pot.

Galfond Dollars are more applicable to an actual poker

game because with G Bucks we consider an entire range of

hands against a specific hand. The information we get from

G Bucks calculations is a lot more applicable because we are

attempting to put our opponent on a range of hands and

not a specific hand. This process of hand-reading will allow

us to make better plays against well-balanced players. Well-

balanced players will make certain plays with more than a

single hand, some as a bluff and some as a value bet. A G

Bucks calculation will allow us to decrease our margins of

error as well because our calculation is set up in terms of

combinations of hands better than a specific hand.

Usually, it is advantageous in practice to choose our

lowest and "purest bluff-catcher." A pure bluff-catcher is

a hand that meets the following criteria:

• weakest hand with which we get to a certain point

in a hand

• does not block any of our opponent's semi-bluffs

• only beats a bluff

When we use pure bluff-catchers in our G Bucks

calculations, we create a starting point in our minds on

certain boards from which we are able to adjust based

on a number of factors such as card removal and

bluffing frequencies. If we have 8c8d by the river on a

2c6c7hKdQd board facing a river bet we can take a club

out of villain's range as well as the 8c and 8d and which

lower his bluffing frequency due to card removal and

how many 8x hands villain has by the river that were

semi-bluffs continuing river aggression hoping to

induce a fold from a hand below Kx. We should also

account for the fact that our opponent may not continue

bluffing the river each time he gets to the river. These

points will be expanded, but first let us go over a simple

example of a G Bucks calculation.

Our Hand: JhTs Board: Jd8h3d8d2c

Play History: We have been bet into on every street,

including a $200 bet into the $300 river pot.

Current Action: We are on the button versus a cut-off

pre-flop-raiser; we were heads-up to the flop and are now

facing a $200 river bet.

The scenario gives our opponent a good incentive to bluff

because he should suspect that we are still drawing and he

will be able to make us fold with a river bluff a good

percentage of the time. We will assume for this example

that he will bluff the river with 100 percent of his turn

range.

We can deduce Villain s range to be:

• all straight draws, including gut-shots

• all diamond hands he'd open pre-flop

. KJo+

. 88 • JJ+

. Ad

Against this range, we win about 33% with JTo. It is

actually a bit more, but we will use 33% for the sake of

simplicity

If we win 33% of the time, we will lose 67% of the time.

Now we have the information needed to create an

expected value (EV) equation

EV(Call) = (percentage we win * 0.01)(total pot) - (percentage we lose * 0.01) (what we risk by calling) EV(Call) - (0.33)(500) - (0.67)(200) EV(Call) = 165 - 134 EV(Call) = 31

So by risking a river call of $200 into this $500 pot against

the range we assigned to Villain, on average we expect to

win $31.

What if Villain chooses a different bet size with this

range than $200 in our example? How should we react? We

can set our EV equation equal to zero and solve for X in

order to figure out the maximum bet size we are able to

profitably call because the EV of calling and folding will be

the same at the point of indifference, the breakeven point

between calling and folding. The calculation here is

assuming that the EV of raising as a bluff is less than zero.

EV(Call) = 0 0 = (0.33)(300 + x) - (0.67)(x) 0 = 99 + 0.33x - 0.67x 0 = 99 - 0.34x 0.34x = 99 x = 99 / 0.34 x = 294.12

Check:

0 = (0.33)(300 + 294.12) - (0.67)(294.12) 0 = 197.06 - 197.06 0 = 0

These calculations show that the maximum bet size

we are able to profitably call is $294.12. Does this mean

that if Villain bets enough on the river, we should be

folding our entire range, or at least JTo? That depends

on a number of factors and a calculation of a range-

versus-range analysis that I will not be explaining in this

book because it is extremely tedious and inaccurate

given small mistakes we make with our opponent's

range and our range in a given spot. It would be like

trying to calculate the probability of an outcome step-

by-step where we were not even sure of the likelihoods of

the other events involved. I would recommend taking the

time to consider adjustments to make to someone

over-betting their entire range on a given river, especially

when a lot of your range will be somewhat face-up

bluff-catchers. Over-betting, for this reason, and the nature

of the unpredictability and the timing of the play, becomes

something difficult to play well against.

Because these calculations are somewhat tedious and

complicated, it is very difficult to do them in the middle of a

game, especially if you are multi-tabling and have other

decisions occupying your time and concentration. I have

found that the best way to get a grasp on when you should

call and fold in certain spots, other than intuition gained

from playing thousands of hands, is to do some calculations

away from the table. I have provided a few examples that

deal with common spots and that show how slightly

different cards may

significantly affect the choice of the best river play in a

given situation.

For all the following G bucks calculations, we will

assume that we are playing 5/10 NL and that we are in the

BB and the SB is raising us to $30 pre-flop, continuation

betting $50 on the flop, betting $135 on the turn, and betting

$280 into us on the river for a total pot of $430 ($710 with

our call). We are also not concerned here with calling the

turn bet, we are only looking at these calculations as

independent river decisions (numbers may differ slightly

from rounding error and pre-flop range assigned to the SB).

When "Board A" is part of a different board's range, that

just means that you should append the earlier board's

range to that example's range. Notice what changes from

board-to-board. One board may be the exact same except

for an added flush draw on the turn or a third card of a suit

on the river. The idea is to show the relative impact of each

board change to our specific hand, assuming our opponent

is using a randomization

by equity to determine his turn and river bluffing

frequencies.

Board A = 2s3sQcAsJc Hero's hand = 8h8d

Villain's range = KQ+; 45-46; 56; JT+; Ks5x+; spade hands; Ax; 22-55; 4x; 5x; 3 off-suited pure air hands. 8h8d is good on Board A 23.5% of the time and bad 76.5% of the time.

EV (Call) = (%win) (total pot) - (% lose) (the bet to call) EV (Call) = (0.235)(710) - (0.765)(280) EV (Call) = 167.1 -214.1 EV (Call) = -47.0

Board B = 2s3sQcAcJh Villains range = Board A's range without air hands; club hands; 8h8d is good on Board B 29.1% of the time and bad 70.9% of the time.

EV(Call) = (%win)(total pot) - (%lose)(the bet to call) EV(Call) = (0.291)(710) - (0.709)(280) EV(Call) = 206.3 - 198.7 EV(Call) = 7.6

Example 2

Board A = 4h9dQcKs3h Hero's hand = Tc9h Villain's range = T5+; J5+; Kx; AQ+; 44; 99; QQ+ Tc9h is good 42.1% of the time and bad 57.9% of the time.

EV(Call) - (%win)(total pot) - (%lose)(the bet to call) EV(Call) - (0.421 )(710) - (0.579)(280) EV(Call) - 299 - 162 EV(Call) - 136

Board B = 4h9dQdKs3d Hero's hand = Tc9h Villain's range = Board A; diamond hands Tc9h is good 35.7% of the time and bad 64.3% of the time.

EV(Call) = (%win)(total pot) - (%lose)(the bet to call) EV(Call) = (0.357)(710) - (0.643)(280) EV(Call) = 253 - 180 EV(Call) = 73

Board C = 4h9dQdKs3s Hero's hand = Tc9h Villain's range = Board B Tc9h is good 46.5% of the time and bad 53.5% of the time

EV(Call) = (%win)(total pot) - (%lose)(the bet to call) EV(Call) = (0.465)(710) - (0.535)(280) EV(Call) = 330 - 150 EV(Call) = 180

Board D = 4h9dQc8s3s Hero's hand = Tc9h Villain's range = 48s-49s; 98; Q5+; 44; 99; QQ+; KT-KQ; Tx; Jx; 75-76 Tc9h is good 53.2% of the time and bad 46.8 of the time.

EV(Call) = (%win)(total pot) - (%lose)(the bet to call) EV(Call) = (0.532)(710) - (0.468)(280) EV(Call) = 378 - 131 EV(Call) = 247

Example 3

Board A = 3s4sTdJh8c Hero's hand = 9c9h

Villain's range = spades; A2; A5; Q9+; AT+; 52s-62s: 56-57; 67; 3c4c; T3s-T4s; J5+; T8; 33-44; TT+; QT-KT 9c9h is good 42.4% of the time and bad 57.6% of the time.

EV(Call) = (%win)(total pot) - (%lose)(the bet to call) EV(Call) = (0.424)(710) - (0.576)(280) EV(Call) = 301 - 161 EV(Call) = 140

Board B = 3s4sTdJh8s Hero's hand = 9c9h Villain's range = Board A; 8sXx 9c9h is good 34.9% of the time and bad 65.1% of the time.

EV(Call) = (%win)(total pot) - (%lose)(the bet to call) EV(Call) = (0.349)(710) - (0.651)(280) EV(Call) = 248 - 182 EV(Call) = 66

Board C = 3s4sTdJs8c Hero's hand = 9c9h Villain's range = Board A; Some one card flush draws 9c9h is good 43.5% of the time and bad 56.5% of the time.

EV(Call) = (%win)(total pot) - (%lose)(the bet to call) EV(Call) = (0.435)(710) - (0.565)(280)

EV(Call) = 309 - 158 EV(Call) = 151

Example 4

Board A = 2sTc9h2d2c Hero's hand = 9d5d Villain's range = 86-87; JK-JK; 99+; J8-Q8; J7; Txs; T5o+ 9d5d is good 48.7% of the time and bad 51.3% of the time.

EV(Call) = (%win)(total pot) - (%lose)(the bet to call) EV(Call) = (0.487)(710) - (0.513)(200) EV(Call) = 146.1 -102.6 EV(Call) = 43.5

Board B = 2sTc9hAd2c Hero's hand = 9d5d Villain's range = Board A; Ax hands 9d5d is good 34.2% of the time and bad 65.8% of the time.

EV(Call) = (%win)(total pot) - (%lose)(the bet to call) EV(Call) = (0.342)(710) - (0.658)(200) EV(Call) = 102.6-131.6

EV(Call) = -29

Board C = 2sTc9hKd2c Hero's hand = 9d5d Villain's range (1) = Board A Villain's range (2) = Board A; Qx; Jx

Range (1) 9d5d is good 23.6% of the time and bad 76.4% of the time.

EV(Call) = (%win)(total pot) - (%lose)(the bet to call) EV(Call) = (0.236)(300) - (0.764)(200) EV(Call) = 70.8 - 152.8 EV(Call) = -82

Range (2) 9d5d is good 42.7% of the time and bad 57.3% of the time.

EV(Call) = (%win)(total pot) - (%lose)(the bet to call) EV(Call) = (0.427)(300) - (0.573)(200) EV(Call) = 128.1 -114.6 EV(Call) = 13.5

Board D = 2sTc9h6d2c Hero's hand = 9d5d Villain's range (1) = Board A; 66; -6X

Villain's range (2) = Board A; 66; -6X; 7X; 8X

Range (1) 9d5d is good 44.7% of the time and bad 55.3% of the time.

EV(Call) = (%win)(total pot) - (%lose)(the bet to call) EV(Call) = (0.447)(300) - (0.513)(200) EV(Call) = 134.1 -110.6 EV(Call) = 23.5

Range (2) 9d5d is good 60.8% of the time and bad 39.2% of the time.

EV(Call) = (%win)(total pot) - (%lose)(the bet to call) EV(Call) = (0.608)(300) - (0.392)(200) EV(Call) = 182.4 - 78.4 EV(Call) = 104

To break away from the purely theoretical instances in

which our opponent may be assumed to be betting 100% of

his turn betting range on the river for value or as a bluff

like in the above examples, we may choose to discount our

opponent's river range for certain cards and quantify it in

an expected value equation using mathematics. For

example, it is intuitive that most

people will not bluff blankrivers as often as rivers that

complete some sort of draw on the board. The type of G

Bucks calculation in which an opponent's river range is

discounted is what will most often mirror reality and the

betting describe problems faced in actual poker games.

In order to make such a calculation, let's arbitrarily

assume that our equity is 31.3% against an opponent's river

betting range of 100% of his hands which bet a certain turn

card. On a blank river, let's assume that our opponent is

only bluffing with half of his air hands and so we must

discount his river betting range to account for his

assumptions about our calling frequencies when all draws

miss on a certain river. Let's say that if we call when our our

opponent isbetting 100% of his turn range, we are beating 62

combinations of hands out of a possible 198 combinations,

which is where we got that we are 31.3% to win against

100% of his turn range on the river. Because we have a pure

bluff catcher, we know that he will never be value-betting a

worse hand than

the one which we are holding. Therefore, we may

simplydivide the 62 combinations of hands we beat in half,

so now we only beat 31 combinations of hands, given that

he's giving up with his bluffs on a blank river half of the

time. We then subtract those 31 combinations from our

total of a possible 198 combination to get 167 combinations.

Now when we call the blank river, accounting for a

discounting of his bluff range, we will win [(31/167)*100%]

= 18.6% of the time.

This idea of discounting our opponent's river bluffing

range is an extremely relevant and important one because

the rivers on which our opponent bets 100% of his turn

betting range are not as frequent as timeshe will choose

smaller amount of his turn range with which to continue

bluffing. However, counting combinations of hands can be

tedious, especially when ranges are wide and there are

many combinations. Let's look at another example to show

us how to circumvent the tedious nature of this EV

calculation.

Let's assume that we will win when we call a certain

river bet 136/428 times, or that we beat 138 of our

opponent's possible 428 combinations of hands for which

he isbetting the river. In other words, we will win 31.8% of

the time if we call the river. Again, our opponent may not

necessarily bet certain rivers with 100% of his turn betting

range. Let's again discount our opponent's range and

pretend that he is giving up half of the time, in order to

make the math easy to follow. After discounting his river

betting range as we did in our above example, we have

determined that we will win 68/360 times (18.9%). For an

actual hand, counting out all of these combinations is

extremely time consuming. Here's a little tip to avoid

wasting time counting hand combinations. In this example,

we know our hand's equity against the 100% of a player's

turn betting range is 31.8%. Let's treat this number like

318/1000. Now let's say we would like to discount his river

betting range and assume that he's only betting with half of

his bluffs, making this number 159/841. Now we will win

18.9% of the time if we call the river

bet. Does our answer look familiar? Now you know a

simple way to short-cut the time-consuming nature of

counting individual hand combinations when doing such a

calculation.

I'd like to stress the point that I made at the beginning

of this book: Poker played against thinking and adapting

players cannot have a system to follow that will always

make you a winner.

While G Bucks calculations will help you to derive

your own turn and river betting ranges in order to

maximize value from bluffing and from value betting, the

ranges you derive will not be set ranges you play with

against everybody or the ranges that your opponents will

use when attempting to bluff or to value bet you. It's

doubtful that you will even be able to have the same range

against one opponent from one hand to the next because of

how he will adjust to what he sees that you show down.

The point of learning these calculations is so that you

realize the implications of

bleeding off bets when someone is three-barrelling too

often and of ideal spots for thinner value bets. You will get

a better grasp on three-barrelling and how often it should

work in certain spots and which hands to use in order to

bolster an aggressive image that will get you paid in the

future. All of these adjustments are not static. The

adjustments are dynamic and each one will add to your win

rate when you learn how to adjust better than the other

players with whom you are playing. You'll realize that

almost everybody's ranges are constantly changing from

different happenings in the poker game and that your goal

isn't to solve their game given a single hand in a single

situation. Your task in becoming a better poker player is to

out-adjust and to out-think the opposition, therefore

causing you to make fewer mistakes and consequently, win

more money in all situations.

When determining how often a given opponent is

bluffing on the river, it's often helpful to assume that his use

of a "scare card," often one that also improves his

semi-bluffing range, usually ensures that he will be

bluffing with the part of his bluff range that missed the

scare card. Usually, the scarier a card is for a caller's

perceived range, the more of a person's range that will be

bluffing that card in a given spot because that person is

expecting you to make a mistake on that card with your

range by folding too often.

Sometimes you will bet so thinly in a given spot that

your opponent will call you with a better hand. At first

thought, this may seem like a bad result. In actuality the

play is going to be great for our bluffing range because

our opponent will make two key realizations about our

ranges:

1. Our ability to bet such a wide of a range of hands for

value.

2. The number of hands with which he gets to a

certain spot that are considering a call that are in

jeopardy of becoming bluff catchers on a later street

because of how thinly we are able to bet for value.

The knowledge of our thin value bet makes it very

difficult for our opponents to adjust to our barrelling range.

The definition of a value bet is "betting a hand that when

called wins the pot at least half of the time. There are times

when you will have a hand that when called you win more

than half of the time, but when you are called some of your

range will overlap with a few hands that are better hands

than your hand in your opponent's range; however, this

should not deter you from a value bet just because you

might lose the pot when called.

The most important takeaway from this chapter, other

than general knowledge of how to calculate people's ranges

and how they do against your specific hand at a specific

time, is that some people have different bluffing ranges

from street to street. One person's flop-bluff range might be

significantly wider than his turn-bluffing range and his

turn-bluffing range much wider than his river-bluffing

range. Against this

type of person, folding hands as strong as top pair by the

river could be a good play due to his very small

river-bluffing frequency compared to his river-value-

betting frequency. These player types are less common in

the highest games and more common at smaller stakes

games because good players realize the implications of

balancing thin value bets with bluffs.

A transitional experiment into our next chapter is to

attempt G Bucks calculations for the turn. While a specific

turn spot in itself may seem interesting, the problem itself

becomes much more dynamic when we consider our

opponent's varying interpretations of what to do on

different river cards with the different parts of his range.

All of the different possible river cards may inspire our

opponent to choose to give up with bluffs, value-bet thinly,

over-bet for value or as a bluff, or choose a certain bet size.

A slightly negative expected value turn-call may lead to a

highly profitable river scenario if we can correctly assume

100% of our opponent's turn betting range may bet on

certain rivers

that fall often enough to offset our slightly bad turn call. We

may also be able to make a slightly bad turn-call if we have

reason to believe that our opponent will give up a bluff on

most blank rivers. Much like our river calculations, practice

with the calculations will help you to intuit decisions in

these varying and close spots that come up on certain turn

cards when you are considering a call of an opponent's bet.

CHAPTER 5:

TURN PLAY

Having extensively explored flop play and river play,

we'll move on to our next challenge: turn play. Our turn

play is going to be an extension of our flop play in many

instances, particularly when we have the initiative. Our turn

plays are also going to be derived based on the assumptions

gained by the way our opponent's pure bluff catchers

should react given certain rivers, covered in chapter 4. We'll

have the initiative on the turn if (1) we continuation bet as

the pre-flop-raiser and were called, (2) we bet-three-bet the

flop and are called, (3) if we check-raise the flop and are

called, or (4) if we lead the flop and are called. So let's go

through each of these scenarios and see how our turn play

should change based on a number of factors.

We continuation bet as the

pre-flop-raiser and we are

called

This is probably the simplest scenario to analyse;

although, it will change based on your opponent's flop

tendencies. For example, if your opponent raises all of his

flush draws on the flop, but calls your continuation bet

when you bet into him, then a flush isn't likely to be in his

range if a flush draw hits on the turn with three cards of a

single suit out on the board. This read on our opponent

means that our turn barrel, a continuation of our flop

aggression, will be scarier to him because our perceived

range will improve more than his range. This read-based

example sets the foreground for a general rule of

barrelling the turn, although we'll see that sometimes

there are exceptions to the rule and that reads may be

taken too far, especially if our opponent is capable of

varying his play.

It is advantageous for us to continue to barrel the turn

if our perceived range improves versus what we view our

opponent s range to be. This idea is especially true if the

turn improves our equity by giving us a gut shot, a flush

draw, or a weaker pair that we expect to be behind our

opponent s flop calling range because we now may append

the chances of our hand possibly improving on the river if

we are called on the turn to the success of our turn bet.

Our aim is to construct an estimate for a turn betting

range based on what we have determined our river ranges

should be in the certain spots in order to show a profit while

preserving a balanced range against the more observant

opposition we encounter. By using G Bucks, we are able to

decide in a fairly accurate way how often and with what

hands we should also be betting the turn. I used the phrases

"loosely construct" and "fairly accurately" for a few reasons.

The first reason I use these phrases is because we will not be

able to

predict with 100% certainty in what way a given player will

play his range in a certain spot or in what way that player

will adjust to some glaring (in his perception) tendency or

something that we have shown at a showdown. The second

reason is because we should be adjusting our ranges on

certain turn cards because they will force our opposition to

make more mistakes given how his imperfect knowledge of

our ranges will coincide with how a scary turn card

improves our perceived range over his own range. The

consideration of a turn scare card being in our range

compared to considering a non-scare card skews the math

of a turn call to the negative in many cases, especially in the

cases where our opponent's hand is likely to improve to a

hand that bests our possibly turned hand.

An easy example for a spot that many people like to

use a slightly wider turn betting range is when a scare card

comes that rarely improves our opponent's range for

example, consider the following scenario:

Pre-Flop: We raise 5h6h UTG The cutoff (a very aggressive pre-flop player) calls our raise, we are heads-up

Flop: The flop comes 2h2s9c We continuation bet We are called

Turn: Turn is the Kc, bringing a flush draw to the board

We decide that betting again will fold out enough

of our opponent's range on the turn to show a profit.

The turn bluff combined with the fact that we have the

added possibility of a scary river card falling means that

we can again bluff and induce a mistake by our

opponent, possibly adding value to our turn bluff. I say

that it is possibly adding value to our turn bet because

our opponent may decide that if we are bluffing the turn

king and club draw that we will continue our bluff on a

club river 100% of the time; therefore, his turn call

commits him to a river call. We almost never expect our

opponent to have a Kx hand given his pre-flop and flop

play and because of the fact that the king helps our

perceived range, it should give pause to most of his range.

If we are intending to barrel hands like QJ and turned flush

draws in addition to 9x hands and better on this turn, our

opponent will see that any 33-88 hand is close to drawing

dead or, at best, a small favourite against the hands we are

representing on the turn. Additionally, our opponent will

realize that he'll have to navigate a lot of tricky rivers if he

is somehow ahead on the turn.

For those rare times that we are caught using this play

it actually helps us to get thinner value in the future which

is always nice. With every piece of information that our

opponents pick up from us, we also have the ability to

react, both to our play as well as to our opponent's

responses and actions. Keep in mind that everything your

opponent notices gives you an opportunity to better

readjust than your opposition and therefore play even

better and make more of their

money more often. However, if it gets to the point where

your opponent thinks you are going to barrel such scare

cards with your entire range and you actually are, against a

good hand reader, you're going to lose a lot of money and

quickly. A better opponent may adjust to your adjustments

better than you adjust to his adjustments. For these reasons,

I caution you to use this adjustment sparingly.

Unlike the above example where we expect to have

more folding equity because of our strengthened perceived

range, there are times where we will rarely have folding

equity because of our unimproved perceived range on the

turn. Consider the board Th9h7c2c. If we have the same

pre-flop action as in the previous example and our flop

continuation bet is called with a hand like Qcjc, we have a

fairly standard and clear turn second barrel; although, this

bet probably does not have as much folding equity as a bet

on the Ac turn. For the reason that we expect to be called

more often on a blank turn, we may have a few hands in our

range given the flop action with which we could adjust

our ranges a bit and choose not to barrel this turn blank.

Pretend on this board that we have Acjd and that we

continuation bet the flop because we rarely expect to he

raised by our opponent. If we check and our opponent bets,

then we might expect to have to make multiple streets of

difficult calls on a very coordinated board that is likely to

become even more coordinated in such a way that the

board would allow our opponent to better bluff us off our

ace-high hand. Because we have determined our perceived

turn betting range to be extremely wide and it is not likely

to contain many hands that will check on the turn and

expect to continue, we might decide to check Acjd to induce

bluffs from draws. Since we do not expect to fold out many

or any better hands by betting the turn and we have fairly

good equity going into the river, this is a good hand to

choose to check-call the turn. If we double barrel on this

board with any (semi)bluff in our range,

we are probably going to be relying on a river scare card or

a river card that improves our hand to either fold out or to

get value from our opponent's hand, given the high

likelihood of our opponent putting in more money on such

a draw heavy board on the turn.

These two examples are not considerations in what I

would call a "standard G Bucks calculation". In other words,

I would assume that for most players that their 5h4h does

not bluff the turn in the first example and that Acjd does bet

the turn in the second example. However, small deviations

from the normal perceived ranges an opponent would

expect from you are the definition of how you win money in

poker. The previous two examples illustrate how we cannot

actually derive or solve a turn betting range solely based

upon our above discussed river ranges calculated using G

Bucks. The examples also illuminate the fact that some

small deviations are actually going to be better for your win

rate. These deviations are solvable if we assume we have

perfect knowledge of our opponent's adjustments

to our perceived range on a given turn in addition to his

likelihood of making a good play on certain rivers when

certain cards come, meaning his ability to predict accurately

the nuanced variances in our chosen range of hands.

You are certainly welcome to attempt the multiple

equations to figure out a range of hands to use in a very

specific spot against a very specific opponent, stack size,

and position, but the truth is that these calculations are so

convoluted and involved that they are essentially pointless,

other than their ability to give us, as players, a general idea

of how often and with what hands we should continue in

certain spots. So many unquantifiable factors have to be

considered that you are probably best off learning the

implications of certain rivers and guesstimating the best

turn play given your hand, the board, meta-game, your

opponent, and your perceived range. You can fairly well

analyse turn bluffs and valuebets in a vacuum, apart from

every other factor. However, considering the implications

of getting

to the river with too little or too many hands will likely

overcomplicate things and bring up glaring mistakes to

which your opponent will easily adjust once you attempt to

take on the permutations necessary to calculate the value of

a certain barrelling opportunity or call-down in its entirety.

You can also use these same ideas when you are

facing action from another player on the turn. If you have a

good grasp on your opponent's ranges on the river, you

will likely have a good grasp on when to call and when to

fold the turn if you have studied G Bucks enough.

However, making a close turn decision, especially

out-of-position, will lead to many tricky river decisions,

which means a lot of mistakes. Even if we know our

opponent's turn range for betting hands, we may not know

how often and with what hands he bets the river. For that

reason, our turn decisions, especially those made

out-of-position, should warrant more caution.

CHAPTER 6:

TURNING HANDS

INTO BLUFFS

In order to understand the seemingly complicated

concept of turning hands into bluffs, we first need to

debunk the definition of the term 'showdown value'.

There are two quite different definitions of the term in

the poker community. One definition is correct; the

other is not, because it describes a very limited case.

Showdown value (n.)

Definition 1: A pair or ace high that will win sometimes if

your opponent is bluffing or gives up.

This term is absolute in nature, meaning that if your

cards connect with the board, you have showdown value.

Definition 2: A hand that is rated ahead of your opponent's range

often enough to dissuade you to bluff

This is a relative term and can change based on your

range of hands you 're able to represent and the range of

hands that your opponent can represent. For example,

having As2s on Ks9c2dQh4h after you check and call a flop

bet, the turn goes check/check, and you're considering your

river action is much different to floating a continuation bet

on JhTc4d with AdQd, checking back a turn 2c when your

opponent (the pre- flop-raiser) checks and you are

considering whether or not to bet when you are checked to

on a 5h river.

The difference in these two definitions is that the first

one is going to give you the wrong impression about the

value of your hands and of your opponent's likely hands in

a given spot. Sometimes you should be turning a made hand

into a bluff (i.e. a worse hand is extremely unlikely to call

your bet) for the reason that your hand has no showdown

value (in the sense of the second definition) and that the

range you represent by betting is extremely strong for this

reason. Now that we have the definitions out of the way,

let's rewind and simplify things a bit.

Let's assume that we can rank our range on a given

board from 0-10, 0 being absolutely nothing and 10 being

the nuts. Sometimes what we're ranking 0 is going to be a

paired hand and sometimes what we're ranking 7 (say top

pair with a good kicker) will rarely be called when we bet.

Are you starting to see where this is going?

Sometimes when we bet our weakest hands in our

range (what we're ranking 0-2), our range is not only

lacking air, but also is perceived as much stronger when we

bet. This heightened perception of strength is because now a

bet represents a stronger part of this non-air range, one that

is often ahead of our opponent's checking range on the turn.

This dynamic is another positive externality to all of our

out-of-position floating. The cards that might come on the

turn or river to improve our perceived range against our

opponent's range that allow us to bluff some of the time

either by raising our opponent's turn or river bet or by

betting the river after he checks the turn. Notice how the

hands with which we are choosing to bluff, those ranked

0-2, are actually made hands. This idea might be confusing

because of how some people wrongly define showdown

value, but by looking at ranges and not at absolute hand

values, the matter becomes much simpler.

If an opponent catches onto our strategy of betting all

of our 0-2 (bluffs) and all of our 7-10 (value bets) ranked

hands, then he will realize that checking rivers turns our

hand face up as something in our 3-6 range.

Our opponent will be able to use this knowledge to his

advantage and it will allow him to value bet very thinly

and effectively. If we check and call some of our

moderately good hands, hands we would rank close to 7

(those that beat some hands that our opponent would

value bet into us when we check the river, especially

given our 'turning hands into bluffs' dynamic), then we

might even get more value from the "7" ranked hands in

our range than if we lead out on the river with a bet

given our opponent's interpretation of our river range.

An example of the idea of checking moderately

strong hands on the river to induce a value bet from

worse while keeping worse hands from folding if we

lead the betting on the river can be illustrated by the

following scenario:

• We are in the big blind

• A very loose and predictable player opens on the

button

We call Asjs

• We check and call a Kc9s3h flop

• A turn 4s checks through

• We check a river Jh. expecting our opponent to

value bet any Jx hand in his range as well as some non-

zero amount of bluffs from his air range in attempts to

fold out 9x and below

Given our earlier analysis of this player's range, we

expect him to fold almost all hands worse than Asjs if

we bet the river ourselves. By checking we will

maximize the value of our hand as well as balance our

river checking range with the times we are checking

weaker hands with the intention of folding to a river

bet. Another important question that you should be

asking when considering balancing a river checking

range is when and with what parts of our range should

we check raise rivers?

In order to be able to check and decide to call, to fold,

or to check-raise when faced with a river bet with some of

our hands, we should choose to use the weaker of our

hands to check-raise the river as a bluff because the

stronger ones will possibly beat some of our opponent's

value betting range. With our strongest hands, say those

ranked 10, we may choose to go for a check-raise for value

if we determine it to be more valuable than simply betting

the river. So when check- raising the river in spots where

we'll typically bet with the very bottom of our range, we

should use our extremely strong hands to check-raise for

value and use the weakest hands in our river check-raising

range as bluffs.

Hand 1

To explain the hand below, I'll break it down into a

street-by-street analysis and explain why I took each action

and the theory behind the actions starting with the flop

play. These examples will help you familiarise yourself

with 'turning hands into bluffs' examples.

Seat 1: VILLAIN 1 ($1,015) Seat 2: VILLAIN 2 ($1,207) Seat 3: VILLAIN 3 ($1,045) Seat 4: HERO ($1,985) Posts small blind $5 Seat 5: VILLAIN 4 ($2,000)Posts big blind of $10 Seat 6: VILLAIN 5 ($970)

Dealt to HERO Thjh Pre-flop: (Pot: $15)

FOLD VILLAIN 5 FOLD VILLAIN 1 FOLD VILLAIN 2

RAISE VILLAIN 3, to $30 CALL HERO, $25 CALL VILLAIN 4, $20

Flop: (Pot: $90) 9s3cKh

CHECK HERO CHECK VILLAIN 4 BET VILLAIN 3, $60 CALL HERO, $60 RAISE CILLAIN 4, to $180 CALL VILLAIN 3, $120

CALL HERO, $120

On the flop, the button pre-flop-raiser continuation

bets a somewhat disconnected king high flop, which he will

do with most of his range, expecting to induce folds often

from the other two players in the hand.

Because I know this and because I have a gutshot and

back-door flush draw, I decide to make an out-of- position

float and call his continuation bet hoping to turn a queen,

jack, ten, or heart or that the turn will check through and I'll

have the opportunity to bluff the river if I'm still

unimproved.

However, the big blind raises both of us and after the

button calls I have another decision. A raise represents a

very strong and narrow range of hands where my perceived

range is quite wide, which generally makes it a bad time for

a bluff. Because the big blind is raising in such a spot, where

his range is extremely wide

compared to the hands that he's representing. I decided to

make another float with my hand.

Also, the button's flop call is going to help me to

represent strength because I know he's capable of floats

with similar hands as well as calling with many weaker

made hands and my over-call on the flop looks that

much stronger given both of the other player's

perceptions of my range given the perception of their

respective ranges. In other words, the big blind is

mostly going to give up with his bluffs and the button is

going to pot control almost all of his hands on the turn,

since his range is largely weaker made hands, and allow

me an excellent river bluffing opportunity.

Turn: (Pot: $630) 9s3cKhTc

On the Tc turn I get what I was hoping for because

my perceived range improves again and both players

elect to check. This turn play, a show of weakness by

both players, means that on the river, even if the big

blind had something as strong as KJ, given everything that

has happened in the hand so far, if I bluff, he'll have a very

tough call, and probably a losing one against my actual

range.

River: (Pot: $630) 9s3cKhTc8s

BET HERO, $460 FOLD VILLAIN 4 FOLD VILLAIN 3 RETURNED TO HERO, $460

On the river the button knows that if I bet that I have

done so with the knowledge of what has happened in the

rest of the hand and he will also have to give me a lot of

credit for betting into two people when their ranges look

strong and probably also fold nearly his entire range,

making this river bluff an extremely profitable and creative

play

Hand 2

A street-by-street analysis of the following hand

will show a very important concept about turning hands

into bluffs and how there are good and bad times to put

the theory into practice.

Seat 1: VILLAIN 1 ($1,045) Seat 2: VILLAIN 2 ($1,849.25) Posts small blind $5 Seat 4: VILLAIN 3 ($3,135) Posts big blind $10 Seat 5: HERO ($2,137) Seat 6: VILLAIN 4 ($400)

Dealt to HERO AdQc Pre-flop: (Pot: $15)

RAISE HERO, to $30 FOLD VILLAIN 4 FOLD VILLAIN 1 CALL VILLAIN 2, $25 FOLD VILLAIN 3

Flop: (Pot: $70) 8dAh9s

CHECK VILLAIN 2 BET HERO, $50 CALL VILLAIN 2, $50

On the flop, my opponent check-calls, which is no

surprise given the drawy nature of this board and with the

fact that I expect him to play almost all the hands that

would connect with this board given our deep stacks and

his increased implied odds with his drawing hands post

flop.

Turn: (Pot: $170) 8dAh9s4c

CHECH VILLAIN 2 BET HERO, $120 RAISE VILLAIN 2, to $400 CALL HERO, $280

I get check-raised on the turn, which doesn't make

sense for many hands given that we're so deep and that

raising the flop in order to begin building a pot is usually

the best way to make money. Because my opponent knows

this and I assume he likes money, his turn raise appears

incredibly weak to me and I'm often expecting to see some

sort of weak straight draw that is attempting to fold out a

similar type of hand of mine.

River: (Pot: $970) 8dAh9s4c2s

BET VILLAIN 2, $810 CALL HERO, $810

The river blanks off and it's very conceivable that he's

bluffing again in order to fold out hands that I may have

floated on the turn against what he thinks is a strong line

and the implied odds that he thinks I would think I would

have to make a light turn call profitable. Villain shows

bottom pair, which is a poor way to play his hand in my

opinion and shows a very important

concept you should always consider when you want to

turn a hand into a bluff. My opponent didn't realize

how wide of a range of hands he was representing on

the turn and used a hand that was actually closer to the

middle of his range in his bluff range, rather than use a

hand at the bottom of that range like a missed straight

draw. Not only is the fact that he's representing a wide

range of hands make his bluff suspect, but also it's

unlikely that he would play a strong hand this way,

especially with deep stacks.

Results: VILLAIN 2 SHOWS 7s8s HERO SHOWS QcAd HERO WINS POT $2,587

Hand 3

In this hand, I am turning a hand into a bluff that

will be forced to navigate some tricky rivers and may be

well-behind our opponent's turn value-betting range.

Seat 1: VILLAIN 1 ($1,000) Seat 2: VILLAIN 2 ($1,163) Seat 3: VILLAIN 3 ($1,969) Seat 4: VILLAIN 4 ($1,000) Posts big blind $10 Seat 5: HERO ($1,182) Seat 6: VILLAIN 5 ($1,005)

Dealt to Herojsjh

Pre-flop: (Pot:$15) RAISE HERO, to $30 FOLD VILLAIN 5 CALL VILLAIN 1, $30 FOLD VILLAIN 2 FOLD VILLAIN 3

Flop: (Pot:$95) Ah9c7s CHECK VILLAIN 4 CHECK HERO BET VILLAIN 1, $60 FOLD VILLAIN 4 CALL HERO, $60

Turn: (Pot: $215) Ah9c7s8h CHECK HERO BET VILLAIN 1, $160 RAISE HERO, to $1,092 and is ALL-IN FOLD VILLAIN 1 RETURN HERO, $932

In order to avoid making a mistake on this street

and on the river, I decided to bluff-raise the turn,

expecting to fold out most of his range because of my

pre-flop raise and my flop check-call, I'm not

representing any air. On the turn, I believe the range of

hands I'm representing, mostly turned two pairs and

straights, are well ahead of his turn value-betting range

in this spot and so he will be force to fold too often

given his assumptions about my range.

Hand 4

In this hand, I'm playing a smart and observant

opponent who has seen me turn hands into bluffs in the

past. Therefore, I know in some cases I can get value

from a wider range of hands on the river if he is

expecting alot of my hand combination that bet to be

both made hands and bluffs. In terms of shifting my

river betting range more towards the 6-10 portions of

my range and away from bluffing the 0-2 portions of my

range.

$5/$10 NL Hold'em Cash Game, 2 Players BTN: $2,183 Hero (BB): $2000

Pre-flop: JcKd dealt to Hero (BB) BTN RAISE, to $30 HERO CALL, $20

Flop: (Pot: $60) 4c6hKc (2 Players) HERO CHECK BTN BET $40 HERO CALL $40

Turn: (Pot: $140) 9s (2 Players) HERO CHECK BTN CHECK

River: (Pot: $140) Qc (2 Players) HERO BET $110 BTN CALL $110

Results: (Pot: $360, Rake $0.50) BTN MUCK 9c8s HERO SHOW JcKd AND WINS POT

Because this opponent assumed that I would be

bluffing my 4x hands and my missed straight draws on

the river, he decided to make a call with a weak holding

in terms of absolute strength, realising that my range

does not rely on absolute strength, but the perception of

absolute hand strength. In other words, because he

believed that I might check some of my 7-10 hands in order

to induce a bluff or a value bet from a worse holding from

him, this discounts the combinations in my perceived value

range. This opponent also knows that I will be betting most

of my hands worse than 9x on this river, the 0-2 portion of

my range, and so he makes an adjustment and calls with a

much weaker hand, hoping to catch me bluffing with a

worse made hand.

Unfortunately for him, I had a hand that is in my value

range this time. Having seen this adjustment my opponent

made against my range, I can value-bet the river more

thinly and more accurately because I know he'll be calling

me with a wider range. If he assumes I'm making this

adjustment, then he may realize that my river checking

range should appear extremely weak to him and he may

take the opportunity to bluff.

Hand 5

Here is an example of a good time to turn a hand

into a bluff where an opponent tried to bluff me.

Unfortunately for him, I made the nuts on the river.

$1000.00 USD NL Texas Hold'em 6MAX

Seat 1 is the button Seat 1: VILLAIN 1 ($1368.25) Seat 2: VILLAIN 2 ($1097.00) Seat 3: VILLAIN 3 ($1000.00) Seat 4: VILLAIN 4 ($650.00) Seat 5: HERO ($2153.25) Seat 6: VILLAIN 5 ($1015.00) VILLAIN 2 posts small blind $5.00 VILLAIN 3 posts small blind $10.00

Dealt to HERO: TcQc VILLAIN 4 folds HERO RAISE, to $30 VILLAIN 5 CALL, $30 VILLAIN 1 FOLDS VILLAIN 2 FOLDS

VILLAIN 3 FOLDS

Flop: 6sjc8d HERO BET, $50 VILLAIN 5 CALL, $50

Turn: As HERO BET $120 VILLAIN CALL $120

River: 9h HERO BET $280 VILLAIN 5 RAISE $815 HERO CALL $535

Results: VILLAIN 5 SHOWS Tdjd HERO SHOWS TcQc HERO WINS $2042 from the main pot

What makes this play interesting is that there isn't

really any air in either of our ranges. If he assumes that I

am randomizing my barrel range by equity, meaning

that I'm choosing the best hands out of my range with

which to semi-bluff the turn, then the only total air

hands I should have are KQ and missed spade draws, few of

which are not paired or better by this river. I should also

realize that he can't have any air by the river and so without

knowing what he's capable of, this would be an optimistic

call with something as strong as A8. Because my calling

range is so narrow compared to how wide my river betting

range seems to be, his shove seems like a fantastic play. His

raise may only fold out my air hands which he already beats

and not be worth the risk if I don't believe him to play his

strong hands the same way and if I know he is capable of

turning hands into bluffs. It's up to you to figure out if the

proportion of someone's air range and their made-

hand-folding range to the hands with which they will call a

raise and if risking the extra amount of your stack, often a

lot of money by the time you choose to raise a river bet as a

bluff is going to be a profitable investment. In order to

calculate the best play, you should set up a simple expected

value equation. Let's describe the set-up to our equation and

then look at an example.

When your bluff works, he folds and you win the pot

X% of the time. When your bluff fails, subtract your river

raise amount Y% of the time for when he calls and you lose

your river raise. For an example, let's assume that we are

facing a $200 bet into a $300 pot on the river and we go all-in

for $800 as a bluff, which will work 60% of the time. Is this

bet profitable? Let's follow our description and make an EV

calculation.

EV = (0.6*500)-(0.4*800) EV = 300-320 EV = -20

Our expected value equation, in which we win the $500

pot 60% of the time and lose our $800 raise 40% of the time,

shows that the expected value of our bluff is - $20.

Figuring out this expected value problem is going to

be paramount when you're deciding whether or not to

turn a made hand into a bluff. You can guesstimate

your opponent's calling range by looking at your

perceived range against his and factoring in any

outlying tendencies that may change things a bit. Like if

your opponent makes huge folds too often or calls too

often or if he's tilting and more likely to call or to fold.

The Combinatorics of

Turning Hands into Bluffs

Against better players, you will often find yourself in

tricky spots where your range is fairly defined and they

are able to exploit this by turning something into a bluff

some unknown % of the time in order to force you to

make a mistake in a certain spot. The following example

is a hand that I played against a very good high stakes

NL player. I posted this hand on the LeggoPokker.com

HSNL forum,feel free to go visit the forum and give the

hand your two cents.

Here is my post:

"I'm not sure if he knows who I am on stars, but I'd say

for the majority of my play on Full Tilt he regards me as

a decent/solid regular capable of doing some weird

spewy crap at times. I'm also about 80% certain he can

turn at least some of his hands into a bluff (I guess

multiply his bluff range by 0.8 or something, I don't

know)."

$1000 USD NL Texas Hold'em Seat 2 is the button seat 1: VILLAIN 1 ($1806.00) seat 2: VILLAIN 2 ($3155.00) seat 3: VILLAIN 3 ($2112.75) seat 4: VILLAIN 4 ($2108.00) seat 5: HERO ($2341.00) seat 6: VILLAIN 5 ($2346.00)

VILLAIN 3 posts small blind $5 VILLAIN 4 posts big blind $10

Dealt to HERO: KsKc HERO RAISES $30 VILLAIN 5 FOLDS

VILLAIN 2 FOLDS VILLAIN 3 CALLS $25 VILLAIN 4 FOLDS

Flop: 8d9s3h VILLAIN 3 CHECKS HERO BETS $50 VILLAIN 3 CALLS $50

Turn: 8h VILLAIN 3 CHECKS HERO BETS $140 VILLAIN 3 CALLS $140

River: 7d VILLAIN 3 CHECKS HERO BETS $380 VILLAIN 3 RAISES $1125 HERO?

$745 to call.

"What range do you give him by the turn and how much of

that is he turning into a bluff (if any) on the river? Iguess

that about takes care of my reads... Oh I'd also like to add

that I took a while to size my river bet and that he

check-raised somewhere between quick and relatively

quick.

I'm not sure how he's interpreting this river bet size

either or if that affects his check-raise range at all."

After posting, I then proceeded to read about 20 HSNL

regulars and other people say 'instafold', 'easy fold', and

'fold'. After getting all the responses that I had expected to

see I then felt it was time to add my opinion of the outcome

of this hand.

Pot on the river = $1950 To call his raise = $745 Pot odds -2.62:1 (I have to be good 27.6% of the time in order to break even on a call)

We'll give my opponent in this hand a single hand that

he could turn into a bluff, a pocket pair, for six

combinations. There are two combinations of A8s remaining

and one of the 87s (we'll say four just to discount offsuit 87,

which is very generous towards his value range) and three

combinations of 77. Even with these ridiculously generous

assumptions that help my colleagues to prove their

dissimilar point of view, there are still 10 combinations of

value betting hands versus six combinations of bluffing

hands (1.67:1).

If villain can get to the river with 77, 33-66, TT, and one

third of the JJ combinations also get there that can possibly

bluff, then he onlyhas to be using one of those hands to

bluff, out of 5.33 hands, which seems fairly reasonable if not

even too optimistic.

It is very unlikely that people often slow-play sets

200bb deep on this board. I think any non-zero chance of

villain slow-playing can be explained away by attributing

the pot odds equivalent possibility of him

turning another combo of a hand into a bluff here and so

it's a moot point. In other words, I am being generous with

how the math problem could be written in order to

alleviate any worry or rebuttal a sceptical person mayhave

about this hand.

If he's turning one of his missed (non-boat) pocket

pairs into a bluff on the river, it means that I will win (6/16)

* 100% = 37.5% of the time when I call his river raise.

The way that our assumptions set up the expected

value equation for this problem, is an extremely close spot.

I believe that the math is skewed to ease the minds of

sceptics, but VILLAIN 3 is an extremely good player and

good players will make your decisions very close and

difficult, attempting to force you into making a mistake.

While this spot is a close decision, it revisits an important

concept about turning made hands into bluffs: against

great hand readers, you would have to be able to credibly

represent value hands that you would

play the same way as the strongest hands in your range. In

these spots, balance is extremely important. I've probably

missed some value by checking sets three times to an

aggressive opponent in those specific hands. However, later

when I check-raise the river, that same opponent has to give

me credit for me having a stronger range than a lot of

people would have in the same spot because of the way he

saw me play my strong hand earlier. Turning made hands

into bluffs is not only an interesting concept, but also a

great help to your poker game against other thinking

players and a good lesson in balance. It also forces you to

play actively and to always consider your range in every

spot that comes up throughout every hand you play, which

will rapidly improve your poker play compared to

auto-piloting through matches.

CHAPTER 7:

OVER-BETTING

AND

UNDER-BETTING -

ALL YOUR

OPTIONS

It is very important that you are asking yourself

each time that you choose a play, "what options do I

have and which is the best decision for this spot and

what are the implications of my decision now on future

hands that I play?" These considerations apply not only

for the specific point in the hand that you are in, but also

for later on in that hand and for your game as a whole. If

you are caught in a bluff now, will your opponent call

every value bet you make for the rest of his life? If so,

your bluff is more profitable because of how your

opponent will interpret your range in the future in

similar spots.

Two options beyond to bet or not to bet in a certain spot that

people don't often consider or understand why they should

consider are over-betting and under-betting the pot.

Over-betting:

Betting over the size of the

pot.

Complex definitions aside, over-betting is something

that a lot of people do not have in their game. It's a complex

topic from a theory perspective. Mathematically, it's

difficult to play against for your opposition, especially in

the spots we will discuss. That's why I believe it to be a

good weapon that should be in your ever growing

repertoire of potential best play decisions.

When our opponent's range is capped, i.e. he likely has

a certain "best" hand from the way he has played his hand

to this point, an over-bet will make his future decisions in

the hand very difficult. Often when we decide to over-bet

into a capped range, the cap for our opponent's range will

be a relatively low strength hand compared to all the hands

we are able to represent on

certain boards. His decisions will be especially difficult

due to the fact that our range, because it's so balanced and

how the board has run out, will be uncapped. The way

certain boards run out mean that we can have the nuts and

a lot of hands close in absolute strength, while our

opponent is far less likely to have the nuts. Another

positive aspect of over-betting all-in mostly seen in re-

raised pots or on the river in single-raised pots, is that it

stops our opponent from bluffing us off a potentially better

hand (ex. his smaller straight draw raises our river bet with

a missed ace-high draw) and we make a mistake by

folding.

Hand 1

Seat 1: VILLAIN 1 ($2,481) Posts big blind $10 Seat 2: VILLAIN 2 ($470) Seat 4: VILLAIN 3 ($3,999) Seat 5: HERO ($2,634) Seat 6: VILLAIN 4 ($990) Posts small blind $5

Dealt to HERO Tcjs

Pre-flop: (Pot: $15) FOLD VILLAIN 2 RAISE VILLAIN 3, to $30 CALL HERO, $30 CALL VILLAIN 4, $25 CALL VILLAIN 1, $20

Flop: (Pot: $120) 9c9dTh CHECK VILLAIN 4 CHECK VILLAIN 1 BET VILLAIN 3, $70 CALL HERO, $70 FOLD VILLAIN 4

Turn: (Pot: $260) 9c9dTh5h CHECK VILLAIN 3 BET HERO, $180 CALL VILLAIN 3, $180

River: (Pot: $620) 9c9dTh5hKc CHECK VILLAIN 3 BET HERO, S2,354 and is ALL-IN CALL VILLAIN 3, $770 and is ALL-IN RETURN HERO, $1,584

Showdown: SHOWS HERO Tcjc SHOWS VILLAIN 3 KdKh VILLAIN 3 wins the pot of $2,157 with a full house, kings full of Nines

This hand ties together a few concepts and

introduces a new one: how over-betting a medium

strength hand turns the hand into a bluff and when to

make this play. Granted, this particular situation is

fairly rare as we must be making a thin turn bet that is

followed by a river card that hits our range so hard that

our perceived range becomes much stronger than our

opponent's range. Given our strength, we should then make

a bet in order to fold our opponent off of nearly all of his

holdings. The math for this concept is fairly complex and

variable for each opponent, and so I won't be going into it in

this book; however, it's intuitive that risking slightly more

than a pot-sized bet in order to win the pot 95+ percent of

the time is an obviously profitable investment. Much of the

reasoning behind this calculation being so convoluted and

probably meaningless is because when one over-bets, it's

often difficult to determine a near-exact calling range for

your opponent.

In the above hand example I am checked to on the turn

and decide to bet in order to balance with the times that I'm

betting my large amount of straight draws in this spot and

to get value from worse hands that are inducing my draws

to bluff. I can be expected to be called by many worse hands

because my opponent is a thinking player who is aware of

my range well enough

in this spot in order to make a light call on the turn after

he checks to me. Once my opponent called the turn and

from the way he had been playing, I was nearly certain

that his range was capped at AA and was most likely

another Tx type hand as I would expect most of his

premium hands to be betting or check-raising this turn

when he is planning to continue betting for value. I

would suspect that he would choose to use his weaker

hands to induce bluffs for the reasons discuss in the

section on floating in Chapter 3.

On the river, my opponent checked again and

rather than making a smaller bet like $280 that would

possibly open me to a check-raise bluff or that would

likely only be called by a slightly better hand, I decided

to over-bet shove the river, representing any hand better

than AT. I have all of KJ. KQ. 9x. and QJ combinations

in my range in this spot and given the way he played his

hand on the turn, my range of hands is significantly

ahead of his range of hands on the river. I felt that in

order to only represent the aforementioned range it was

necessary to over-bet, thereby polarizing my range.

Because the only air hands I could have had were the four

combinations of 87s. I also expected to get a lot of credit in

this spot. Unfortunately I ran into his rivered full-house

and I lost the pot. Aside from my loss of this hand. I think

that I make quite a bit of money on average from this play

versus this opponent in this particular spot.

If we bet larger than the pot, then our opponent will

have had to win a larger percentage of the time to make his

call profitable because he has worse pot odds. With a

semi-face-up weak range, this will be extremely difficult to

do for him because we are the ones who control the

frequency of our over-bets. It would be very difficult for

him to trap us or to have correct slow-play frequencies to

counter our over-betting strategy without losing value in

other spots when we decide to take a showdown with our

weaker hands or not to bluff the river.

Hand 2

Here's another example of a time that I over-bet

because my perceived range by the river is quite wide.

Because most of my opponent's range is Qx and so

many draws missed the board on the river, I need to

offer my opponent a worse price on his river call in

order to make my river bluff profitable. Try assigning

me a range in this spot and assume that I can over-bet

KQ+ for value while the rest of my air makes the same

bet.

Full Tilt, $5/$l0 NL Hold'em Cash Game, 4 Players LeggoPoker.com Hand History Converter BB: $680.25 Hero (UTG): $1,000 BTN: $2,104.75 SB: $1,756.50

Pre-Flop: Jc8c dealt to Hero (UTG) Hero raises to $30

BTN folds SB calls $25 BB folds

Flop: (Pot: $70) 3cQc9d (2 Players) SB checks Hero bets $55 SB calls $55

Turn: (Pot: $180) 6h (2 Players) SB checks Hero bets SI50. SB calls $150

River: (Pot: S480) 9h (2 Players) SB checks Hero bets $765 and is ALL-IN SB folds

Results: $480 Pot ($2 Rake) Hero showed Jc8c and WON $478 (+$243 NET)

Another great time to over-bet is when your bet is

only going to be called by a great hand regardless of the

amount you bet. This premise of over-betting works

especially well because most of the time a board runs out

in such a way that this situation arises, it is also quite

similar, perhaps the same, as when your range is

uncapped and your opponent's range is capped.

Eventually, in these situations, people will feel

obligated to take a stand with the top of their range and

make a call to avoid folding 100% of their range in these

spots.

Hand 3

It's important to over-bet for value as well as with

bluffs in order to balance your over-betting range.

PokerStars, $10/$20 NL Hold'em Cash Game, 5 Players LeggoPoker.com Hand History Converter

Cutoff: $475.00 Button: $497.00 SB: $915.65.00 BB: $1,688.00 Hero(UTG): $2335

Pre-flop: KcQc dealt to Hero Hero raises to $60 (UTG) 3 folds BB ll $40

Flop: (Pot: $130) 9dTd6h (2 Players) BB checks

Hero bets $100 BB calls $100

Turn: (Pot:$330) Jc (2 Players) BB checks Hero bets $260 BB calls $260

River: (Pot: $850) As (2 Players) BB checks Hero bets $1,915 and is All-in ($1,268 to call) BB folds

Under-betting: making a bet

that is very small relative to

the pot size.

Under-bets are primarily used for two reasons:

1. A cheap bluff.

2. When we're coaxing our opposition into making a

bad call with deceptively good pot odds against our

range and/or to induce a bluff-raise from him in the

same spot.

In both cases, this type of bet size is best used when

there is little or no air in our range and our opponent's

range is extremely weak in comparison.

For value, we want to choose a bet size that is almost

bordering on what anything might call, knowing it's almost

always beat. Our opponent might justify his call by telling

himself that he is getting information about our range and

that he will make money from the combination of his

marginal or bad call and his newly acquired information in

the long-run. He might also just be curious and call with

something that's almost never good.

Under-betting is not meant to be a blocker bet. The

difference between the two is that a blocker bet is meant to

get calls from weaker hands and to allow us to comfortably

fold our hand to a raise. We have already said here that our

opponents range should be extremely weak before we

decide to under-bet for value, and its quite unlikely we'll be

raised on the river for value. Also, if we are raised, the

matter of comfortably folding goes out the window because

we are now facing a very strange line that represents not

very many good hands, especially hands that most people

are capable of raising for value. This is fairly often a

desperate bluff from an opponent misinterpreting our small

bet size for

weakness. After you under-bet and call a raise, you might

get owned by a river check-raise here or there, but I've

definitely won some big pots with very marginal holdings

facing river raises that made no sense for my opponent's

range.

Realizing all your options is crucial. Consider, for

example, a scenario in which we're under-betting for value

and then three-betting as a bluff over someone's river raise

in order to fold out their entire range. Consider bluffing

someone's over-bet. There are many more possibilities than

you have likely considered in this game. Be vigilant and

mindful while playing poker and while you're away from

playing the game and you're sure to find different and new

spots to explore that may confuse your opponents.

CHAPTER 8:

LEADING (INTO THE

PRE-FLOP-RAISER)

Leading into the pre-flop-raiser, affectionately

known as "donk betting" or "donking", is a strategy that

has become more prevalent as people have started to

understand continuation bets a bit better. As we have

discussed, it is often a mistake, especially against a great

and well-balanced player, to continuation bet too often,

especially with weaker made hands that are going to be

put into tough spots if they get raised. If it is difficult for

us to have a clearly correct turn play after we check-call

the flop, then sometimes leading can create a clear turn

play when check-raising or check-calling the flop may

lead to confusing turn and/or river spots.

An examination on leading and literature surrounding

the topic are almost non-existent in the poker community.

Therefore, by working on your leading game, I think that

we all stand to up our win rates by quite a bit as

adjustments to leading are yet to be examined in full or put

into practice in many games.

It is also important to note that because our perceived

range is much stronger on these boards, on which we will

soon elaborate, it is reasonable to assume that a decent

hand reader will be folding quite a few hands if he believes

that we have a balanced leading range. In order to create

the perception of a balanced range, we cannot always lead

air and always check-raise the nuts. If we play our hands in

such an unbalanced way, we will become easy to read and

we will be called down too lightly to make our bluffs

profitable against perceptive players and good hand

readers.

So with all the ideas we just examined we can begin to

construct a leading range. It is important to realize

that the boards on which we are choosing to lead are often

ones prone to changing quite a bit as the hand progresses,

so our perceived range may quickly become so strong

relative to our opponent's flop calling range that if we were

leading a weaker made hand, then there may often be

times we might want to lead our weak hand again as a

bluff. If we were leading with one semi- bluffing hand and

another draw in our perceived range gets there, we may

choose to lead again, continuing our (semi)bluff.

I think the best way to start thinking about leading

ranges is to look at some leading examples and then to add

other hands into our range on a specific board type in

order to balance bluffs with value bets. Remember how we

extrapolated our turn betting ranges, albeit somewhat

loosely depending on the specific turn card, from a good

river bluff range? We are going to use a similar technique

to determine good leading ranges.

Example

Pre-Flop: We call a button raise in the big blind with Qsjc

Flop: Ts8s3h

Notice how almost the entire deck is a scare card

for a significant part of our opponent's flop calling

range after we lead the flop. Any 7, any spade, 9, T, J, Q,

K, or A are scare cards that may hit the turn and give

our opponent pause with much of his flop calling range.

We also improve in terms of absolute strength on a lot

of these turn cards as well as improve our equity versus

our opponent's flop calling range. If our lead is called on

the flop we know that other than the five cards known

to us at the time that there are a remaining 47 cards in

the deck and of those 47 cards 25 of those cards (53.2%

of the deck) allow us to semi-bluff or value bet the turn

according to our plan of creating a range of hands with

which to continue on the turn based on improvements in

our equity. If we are called on the turn, the river will be a

scare card or a card improving our hand quite often as well

(24/46 cards or 52.2% of the time).

Even if our opponent has a hand as strong as 8x, he will

often be put in extremely difficult spots as the board and

our range appears to lessen the absolute strength of his

hand. If he has a straight draw we dominate J9o for

example, we could make a dominating hand which he may

give action to on the turn. When determining to continue

bluffing the river, assuming we continue to bluff the turn

the 53.2% of the time that we improve, we will have to

determine our opponent's likely worst hand for calling a

river bet of a given size and weigh the sizing with our

bluffing and value betting combinations of hands versus the

combinations of hands with which he gets to the river in a G

Bucks calculation (see Chapter 4: River Play).

Part of the problem of how amazing leading as a bluff

can be on some boards is that we also need to be leading

good hands in order to protect the times that we lead with

hands like queen high or a small spade draw, otherwise we

are able to be raised off of our hand too often and our

opponents will be able to adjust to our skewed frequencies

and exploit our play. Inherently, leading a balanced range,

as compared to a check- calling range, is going to be

difficult because leading medium-strength hands is usually

not advantageous against the range that gives our lead

action, especially across multiple streets. If we lead a

medium-strength hand, then our decision of what to do

when raised is a bit more complex and will likely lead to

mistakes against our opponent's hand. If we decide to call,

future streets can be difficult on coordinated boards out-of-

position. If we decide to three-bet the flop, it's unlikely that

our medium-strength hand does well against a range of

hands with which our opponent will commit his stack. The

problem in this case is that taking all of the medium hands

out of our range polarizes our leading range to very strong

value hands, or at least

hands with which we believe we are able to make the best

decisions on future streets, and semi-bluffs. Currently, a

leading game hasn't been explained or perfected by many

players and so people are still playing poorly against

leading when their opposition is probably leading far too

many hands as a bluff compared to the times that opponent

is leading for value. It's just like betting when checked to by

the pre- flop-raiser on certain boards, it works so often that

balance isn't an issue against 99% of people, and that's

something that we can exploit if we are in that enlightened

1% of poker players.

On the other side of the action, when facing a lead it's

important to realize the mentality of someone leading into

the pre-flop-raiser and their game plan and reasoning for

leading. To sum up the game plan we above outlined,

balancing for most players isn't necessary because their

opponents allow them to play in an exploitative way.

Assumptions by our opposition that we will react just

as poorly to leads as their average opponent gives us the

opportunity to force them into making a mistake.

Two ways we able to force such a mistake are by:

1. Widening our bluffing ranges on "scary flops" which

they will often lead

2. Widening our calling ranges on "scary" turns and

rivers which they will often continue to lead on after

we have called a "scary flop"

Both of these actions would be taken because we

expect our opponent's leading ranges to be unbalanced

and mostly composed of weaker semi-bluffing hands.

Adjustments made in a poker game should be based on a

function of how often our opponent's leading range is a

bluff and how often he is capable of three-betting the flop

as a bluff or floating out-of-position and bluffing a later

street.

You have already read how to calculate the expected

value of a play against a given range of hands

and I believe that leading ranges and folding ranges to

flop-raises or giving up on certain barreling cards is so

subjective that any sample exercises I could do here would

be almost entirely useless in the way that a single G Bucks

calculation is nearly meaningless. Now that you know

what to do try some expected value equations against

different leading ranges, what percentage of hands in that

range will fold to a raise, what percentage of hands in that

range will re-raise a raise, and what percentage will call.

By practicing the outcomes of several different plays

against several different ranges, you won't have to discover

in-game what the best play is after the chips go in the pot,

which is often the most pricy way to learn poker.

CHAPTER 9:

QUANTIFYING

"LEVELING"

Poker players love to talk about leveling one

another into a call or a fold in certain spots. By "leveling",

most people mean that they are trying to make an opponent

react a certain way based on the perception of a certain

action. People accept the mentality that they have tricked

someone if a certain outcome happens and think that they

have failed if their trick "does not work".

However, poker players should be thinking about

their opponent's possible range of hands and how their

ploy will skew their opponent's range in a certain

direction not just a specific hand. Leveling is like the

Sklansky Dollars terminology for what we come across

once we address the combinatorics and ranges involved in

one's interpretation of any given action, given previous

actions.

By breaking down the word leveling and by better

examining what it is meant to represent in terms of read

based mathematics, we are able to make better decisions,

ones that are more rational and more profitable rather than

superstitious and impulsive. Once an opponent reaches a

certain inflection point and we think that he is adjusting his

ranges in a way that allows us to make a different play more

profitably than another play, we should obviously choose

the latter play. This inflection point is what is often called

leveling by poker players, but the name for the inflection

point confuses some people into thinking that all

adjustments are spots on the other side of an inflection point

that should change how a range is played, instead of how a

range is adjusted. Over-adjusting to meta-game will cause

you to

lose money in some spots that might be avoided or even

more profitable by a smaller adjustment of your range.

Take the example of the beginning of a heads-up

match, the match begins and we know that our opponent is

capable of calling three-bets lightly, especially early in a

match, and so our plan is to start off three-betting a

depolarized range. We are dealt AJ and decide to three-bet

and our opponent folds to our raise. A few hands later after

some raising and folding pre- flop, no re-raising, we are

again dealt AJ. Again, we decide to three-bet, but this time

our reasoning is different because we believe that we have

come closer to an inflection point where our opponent's

pre-flop adjustment to our range might make our three-bet

more profitable than our first three-bet. Along with the read

that we have suggesting that he is capable of calling hands

which we dominate such as AT, A9s and KJ, we realize that

he is likely at some point to four-bet us lightly. This

pre-flop adjustment is inevitable given that we have

already three-bet him a few times at the very

beginning of the match and because we know he is a good

player who won't allow himself to be run over by re-raises.

Some players four-bet early as a bluff to set a tone for the

match and to send a message while other players do it out

of frustration, but the fact is that we expect this player to be

bluffing here more often than an average time when he is

re-raised pre-flop, and so for all the times we re-raise this

player, this situation may be one of the best times to

five-bet shove. At the beginning of the match, we were

uncertain of his four-betting range, but knew a bit about his

calling range. Now we are not only confident three-betting

this hand to get called by worse hands, but also fairly

confident in that we have a profitable five-bet shove as we

approach (or reach) the inflection point or the "breaking

point" when he decides to four-bet our three-bet as a bluff.

Let's say that away from an aggressive dynamic that

our opponent will be four-betting us as a bluff 35% of the

time and calling an all-in with a range of 99+, AQs+ and AK.

Our expected value for five-bet shoving Acjh here (after our

opponent four-bets to $240 over our $100 three- bet) lOObb

effective is:

EV (shove) = 0.35(340)+0.65(2000*0.30326-900) EV (shove) = 119 + (-190.762) EV (shove) = -71.762

After we have already three-bet him once in the match

and we expect him to adapt by four-bet bluffing about half

of the time and still call the same range of hands for value,

our EV of shoving with Acjh changes to:

EV (shove) = 0.50(340) + 0.50(2000*0.30326 - 900) EV (shove) = 170 + (-146.74) EV (shove) = 23.26

Notice how we're not calling the pre-flop situation

one when we are leveling our opponent into four-bet

bluffing us. Rather than thinking we are catching our

opponent bluffing pre-flop this exact time that we three-bet

we are adjusting the percentage that he bluffs a few points

higher given how we think our opponent thinks. This

adjustment to the percentage of times he is bluffing is the

best way for us to quantify his thought process and how it

will affect the hand. By imagining the dynamic as one

strictly based on leveling, we may incorrectly assume that

he won't be bluffing enough of the time here to shove or

that he is bluffing so often that we could shove a worse

hand that wouldn't do well enough against his calling range

to make a five- bet shove a profitable play in this spot.

I've already written about why trying to quantify

the expected value of a hand in which one or more of the

players in it over-bets is probably not worth the inaccurate

attempt, but I will write that the more often one over-bets,

the more likely an over-bet will be

called. If you are representing an extremely narrow

range of hands very often, an observant opponent will

realize that you're betting with more than just your

share of cards in a certain spot an capitalize on that

realization by calling more often. While it's difficult to

say how much more often and quite dependent on the

particular opponent in question, it is intuitive that the

more often and in succession that you are able to over-

bet, the more likely it is that one of your opponents will

take a stand and you will be called, and the more

expected value the play has when you're betting for

value.

By adding and removing combinations of

bluffs and value-bets from villain's range based on the

flow of the game we are able to make rational and more

profitable choices instead of going with an intuitive gut

feeling that may lead us astray. We want to escape the

need to play a guessing game and embrace a

mathematically supported plan based on our reads of

our opponent's (future) adjustments.

CHAPTER 10:

MISCELLANEOUS

CONCEPTS

Representing a Bluff

There are situations where calling a raise may actually

represent a stronger hand range than re-raising. Calling

may represent a stronger range because because in many

spots, you forfeit the illusion that you are trying to get

folding equity and you might be turning your hand face up

as extremely strong. Here is an example of a hand where the

value range that we are representing is extremely narrow

and so calling our opponent raise and failing to represent

air may be a large mistake that costs us lots of value.

Full Tilt, 6-MAX, DEEP $5/$10 - No Limit Hold'em

Seat 1: VILLAIN 1 ($1,000) Seat 2: VILLAIN 2 ($2,000) Seat 3: VILLAIN 3 ($5,253) Seat 4: VILLAIN 4 ($1,005) Seat 5: HERO ($1,958) Seat 6: VILLAIN 5 ($2,819) VILLAIN 4 posts the small blind $5 HERO posts the big blind $10 VILLAIN 3 is BTN

Dealt to HERO: 7h7s VILLAIN 5 RAISE, to $30 4 Fold. HERO CALL, $20

Flop: 3h3c7d Hero checks VILLAIN 5 bets $50 HERO raises to $180 VILLAIN 5 has 15 seconds left to act VILLAIN 5 has requested TIME VILLAIN 5 raises to $415 HERO has 15 seconds left to act

The important concept to realize by studying this

hand is thai we should three-bet in this spot both as a

bluff and for value. Because calling makes it so unlikely

that we have any air in our range, a three-bet will also

help us to get more value and build a pot versus our

opponent's non air range. He also may choose to float

because the range of hands that we're representing is so

polarized and fast played, something which many

people are not willing to do for fear of losing action.

There were my intentions when I decided to check-raise

the flop versus this particular opponent.

HERO raises to $720 VILLAIN 5 has 15 seconds left to act

VILLAIN 5 has requested TIME VILLAIN 5 calls $305

Turn: Ts HERO has 15 seconds left to act

Because we said that some of the time our

opponent will be floating and because we have

purposefully left just enough money for a pot size bet,

we should consider checking the turn in case he wants

to bluff us there or in case he has a weaker draw such as

56hh that could improve to a worse made hand on the

river Our turn check may also plant the idea in his mind

that we intended to give up on the turn if called on the

flop and widen his river calling range.

HERO checks VILLAIN 5 has 15 seconds left to act VILLAIN 5 has requested TIME VILLAIN 5 checks

River: 4s HERO has 15 seconds left to act HERO bets $1,235, and is ALL-IN

VILLAIN 5 calls $1,235

Showdown: HERO shows 7s7s VILLAIN 5 mucks KcKs HERO wins the pot ($3,972) with a full house: Sevens full of Threes

In this example of why it's important to represent air,

we are bet into by an opponent who isn't representing a

wide hand range for value given the combination of how

wide his flop check-call range is, the unlikelihood that the

turn 2h improves his specific hand, and the fact that this

opponent would be most likely to check-raise strong hands

on a draw heavy flop. We obviously have a profitable turn

call and possibly a profitable river call if our opponent

chooses to continue his bluff. Because calling should mean

to our opponent that most of the time we have showdown

value, he may be unlikely to continue blufiing on rivers that

don't improve any of his perceived semi-bluffing range. For

this reason, and to balance the times we would like to

bluff-raise this opponent when he takes a line that

represents nothing, we should raise our hand for value

and hopefully induce a larger mistake from our

opponent like a call without the correct implied odds or

three-betting the turn as a bluff. In this hand, we

successfully induced the latter and made much more

money while preserving a balanced strategy by

representing air with our turn raise.

Full Tilt 6-MAX $3/$6 - No Limit Hold'em

Seat 1: VILLAIN 1 ($1,318.50) Seat 2: VILLAIN 2 ($600) Seat 3: VILLAIN 3 ($444.90) Seat 4: HERO ($756.75) Seat 5: VILLAIN4 ($210) Seat 6: VILLAIN 5 ($975.95)

VILLAIN 4 posts SB $3 VILLAIN 5 posts BB $6 HERO is BTN

Dealt to HERO Qc9s Folded to HERO HERO raise to $15 VILLAIN 4 folds VILLAIN 5 has 15 seconds to act VILLAIN 5 calls $9

Flop: 3dQhTc VILLAIN 5 checks HERO bets $24 VILLAIN 5 calls $24

Turn: 3dQhTc2h VILLAIN 5 bets $54 HERO raises to $132 VILLAIN 5 has 15 seconds left to act VILLAIN 5 raises to $936.95, and is all in HERO calls $585.75. and is all in VILLAIN 5 shows 9hjh HERO shows Qc9s $219.20 returned to VILLAIN 5

River: 3dQhTc2hAd HERO wins the pot ($1,513.50) with a pair of Queens

Using other Players Perceived

Ranges to Strengthen our

Perceived Range

This hand shows how sometimes our opponent's

perception of how we should be interpreting how other

players react to our range may force them to make false

assumptions about the strength of our perceived range.

Giving us too much credit for a strong hand.

$2000.00 NLHE Seat 1: VILLAIN I ($2284.00) Seat 2. HERO ($3179.00) Seat 3: VILLAIN 2 ($2492.00) Seat 4: VILLAIN 3 ($3997.00) HERO posts small blind $10 VILLAIN 2 posts big blind $20

Dealt to HERO AcTs VILLAIN 3 raises $60.00 VILLAIN 1 folds HERO calls $50.00 VILLAIN 2 calls $40.00

Flop: Jd7d9c HERO bets $140 VILLAIN 2 calls $140 VILLAIN 3 calls $140

On the flop, this is a good board for us to represent a

strong range of hands and also one that our opponent's may

both check back a lot of the time so we lead with a gut-shot

and an over-card, with decent equity, but not enough to

make us comfortable getting stacks in on the flop. This hand

is a great example of the options to consider in the section

on leading

Turn: 4s HERO bets $420 VILLAIN 2 calls $420 VILLAIN 3 calls $420

On the turn, we can make a few assumptions given

the play of our opponents on the flop. The first caller is

very unlikely to have a hand like JJ+ because of pre-flop

and unlikely to have other strong hands of the strong

likelihood that we'd give him more action with the hands

in our range if he did raise the flop. We can also apply

similar logic to the pre-flop-raiser and therefore imagine

their ranges as fairly weak the majority of the time. They

both have to worry about a lot of scary turn cards killing

their action if they do have good hands. Therefore, we can

cap both of their ranges reasonably well at around AJ, and

so we lead again, predicting that weaker straight draws

like KQ will be forced to fold, we stop them from bluffing

us off of ace-high if we do decide to stop betting, and

hands like JT and 98 will begin to feel the heat of our

aggression and be

concerned about the threat of a large river bet. Whether

or not they fold on the turn is player dependent, but the

most important part of this hand is that the more action

each player gives us on our increasingly strong looking

bets, the tighter the range that they should assume that

we are bluffing. They know that we know our bluffs

shouldn't work against strong made hands often and so

we shouldn't too often continue with a bluff, especially

now that the turn doesn't improve any of our semi-

bluffing range.

River: 3s HERO bets $2559 VILLAIN 2 folds VILLAIN 3 folds Returned un called bet $2559 to HERO HERO wins $1858 from the main pot VILLAIN2 "so sick, 999?"

Finally, by the river, we are using our same logic

from the turn combined with the fact that the pot is so

big that both people would likely shove any hand on the

turn with which they were reasonably comfortable,

especially the second player to act. At the time of the hand,

I was also fairly confident that the pre-flop-raiser was

drawing, given his actions and timing, especially on the

turn. We go all-in for a slight over-bet, basically only

worried about making the non-pre-flop-raiser fold.

Because he knows that we have to consider the pre-flop-

raiser's range as tighter and slightly less capped, he then

has to give our third barrel more credit, knowing that we

should assume bluffs to be called more often. Also, because

our range probably included some air on both the flop and

on the turn, it's become increasingly unlikely that we are

still bluffing on the river, and more likely that we are

expecting one of the two players, especially the second to

make a call. As we predicted, the first player tank folded

and the second player folding instantly, making a missed

draw, as predicted, most likely. This hand shows how the

perceptions of other players' ranges within a hand can

change the perception of our range.

CHAPTER 11:

MOVING

THROUGH THE

LIMITS

Some things you'll likely be confronted with after

learning and experimenting with everything in this

book are the problems associated with moving up

through the limits. While it's a good problem to have,

there are certainly adjustments to be made and

misconceptions that could stunt your growth or cut into

your win rate upon entering into regular play in a new

limit. There are a few different mentalities that you may

adapt, sometimes wrongfully, and that your opponents

may assume that you adapt if they assume you're scared

money and over-adjusting to the players in the new

limit.

Shot taking

When taking shots at a limit, sometimes under-

rolled, it's important to realize that other regulars who

know you may think that you are a mark for some high

variance abuse. This thought process is because the

better players will realize that you should be variance

adverse when a higher percentage of your bankroll is on

the line. For this reason, I recommend a slightly snugger

style than your normal style of play, both to avoid the

variance when you cannot stand it and to avoid making

mistakes by making some incorrect assumptions about

your opposition. Playing w ith tighter ranges pre-flop

will also hurt your opponent's chances to make you fold

as often as they assume you will if they are trying to re-

raise you often as a bluff. Playing extremely tight in this

situation may even be more profitable than your normal

game plan because of how often some people will be

bluffing you. especially pre-flop when it is cheaper. Be

careful, those same assumptions about players bluffing

you more often may lead you to make mistakes based

on the idea that people are always making moves

against you or that all your bluffs will get much more

credit, since you're a new player to the limit. These

possible mistakes lead us into our next topic:

Fancy-play-syndrome (FPS)

A tempting over-adjustment many players make

when entenng a new limit is to think automatically that

everyone is omniscient and capable of seeing into your

soul and, therefore, what used to be your standard play

in a spot is going to be the wrong play or that the value

of the play is drastically diminished. Think about this

idea for a moment. Those plays are a large part of how

you made it this far to begin with, so why would you

abandon them now? If you're well-balanced in all the

spots we've been discussing, your value bets and bluffs will

still do well. They may not do quite as well, but this is

something that comes w ith mov ing into a more

challenging game. Your opponents will be more skilled

hand readers and your ranges will become more apparent

to them quicker than they will become evident to worse

players. Therefore, they are less likely to pay you off with

worse hands when you value bet and less likely to fold to

your bluffs when they have hands better than your hand.

Another way to say this is that they will be less likely to

make mistakes against your ranges in spots they've already

seen you play. Even though their reasoning might be

sounder, haphazardly debunking your game plan is more

often than not going to be a one-way ticket back to the next

lower limit.

Making it as a Poker Player

Once you are beating 1/2 online and are able to make

$4000 a month for about 8 hours of work per week, you may

feel tempted to feel like you have made it.

If you want to be the best, then you should avoid

complacency. It simply cannot exist for you. 1 know I've

spent parts of an organic chemistry class calculating how

much I can make a year by playing 6 hours of 400nl a day.

That was a few years ago now, but the great feeling that

washed over me when I saw that huge number at the

bottom of my chemistry notes still upsets me a bit. That

feeling will make you complacent and ambivalent to the

competition's efforts to improve. When this happens, forget

about being the best, you should be thinking about winning

at your regular limit! Poker is an ever evolving game and as

more training tools become available to the masses such as

video

producing sites, private coaching, and amazingly written

books, people will get better. Make sure you do not fall by

the wayside. I have never been one to be content with

mediocrity in a subject for which I have passion and you

will see that this is the one thing that the top players have in

common. Stylistically, some will differ from others Away

from the tables, some may spend more frivolously than

others. I will guarantee you that no matter who they are

away from the table, the best players have been obsessed

with the game and have put in the work alone or with a

close group of poker friends

Challenge yourself to realize that you should never

really "make it" as a poker player. To believe you have

made it is to accept your current set of standards for

your win rate, your game, and yourself and I believe it is

to fail. Put in the hours and keep working or you will get

passed by the pople who will not stop working in order

to better themselves.