BB defend vs BTN minr

Hi there

Farmarchist and me just had een interesting discussion about this topic. We found out that we were playing to tight against btn minraises and needed te stretch our game a little bit. We have constructed the following ranges to get started with. The range Imfromsweden posted seems really nice, but we feel like the adjustment is just to major to implement at once.

Total:

3bet range:

5bet range:

3bet-fold range:

We our looking for some thoughts on these ranges, please let us know!

Originally posted by Sjors777
Hi there

Farmarchist and me just had een interesting discussion about this topic. We found out that we were playing to tight against btn minraises and needed te stretch our game a little bit. We have constructed the following ranges to get started with. The range Imfromsweden posted seems really nice, but we feel like the adjustment is just to major to implement at once.

Total:

3bet range:

5bet range:

3bet-fold range:

We our looking for some thoughts on these ranges, please let us know!

Hey guys,

I think your guy's 3bet range is too much. In terms of being unexploitable, you guys have achieved that but this causes too much variance fest imo. I think 3bet/5bet range should be something like TT+ AQ+. That's like almost 5% or so, and then we can 3bet bluff 5%. I would not 3bet 22-55 and think calling is way better. Also 87o is pretty crappy and I rather use 85s and 95s in defending. As far as 3bet range I don't want to comment too much on that cus my thoughts on it may or may not be good so I will let someone else post on it.

I think in general it's pretty good to have a range that can attack every board but like I said I will let someone else post about that.

Good effort guys.

being balanced does NOT equal 1:1 ratio.
we have to look at how often villain needs his reraise (4bet here) to work vs our action.
so suppose it goes : bu minr, we 8bb he 21bb.
aka he needs us to fold 65%.
so long we 3bet/ call or ship >35% this is fine.
so to take our TT+, AQ+ play back range = 5%, this means we can 3bet balanced 5%/0.35 = 14%. and not 10%.
should you include 5bets bluffs like sjors did then we can go even more bananas.

@Sjors: yeh agree with you; starting by calling more but still a tigther range than ifs sounds better for the moment.
regarding the hands u choose to 3bet i think its a bit of a waste to 3bet baby aces, j8 t8 98 97s etc.

Originally posted by BC1989RF
being balanced does NOT equal 1:1 ratio.
we have to look at how often villain needs his reraise (4bet here) to work vs our action.
so suppose it goes : bu minr, we 8bb he 21bb.
aka he needs us to fold 65%.
so long we 3bet/ call or ship >35% this is fine.
so to take our TT+, AQ+ play back range = 5%, this means we can 3bet balanced 5%/0.35 = 14%. and not 10%.
should you include 5bets bluffs like sjors did then we can go even more bananas.

@Sjors: yeh agree with you; starting by calling more but still a tigther range than ifs sounds better for the moment.
regarding the hands u choose to 3bet i think its a bit of a waste to 3bet baby aces, j8 t8 98 97s etc.

Yea you are right mathematically, Although I think most guys are not 4betting so big in position, more like 16-18bb (I think you see this size way more) and therefore he needs us to fold less so the 14% is a bit over doing it. I think it comes out to like 12% vs 16bb, but if we are 3betting that much then we have a weaker range postflop when we get called. Also I'm not a huge fan of going too crazy with the 3b/5b game so I prefer defending more by calling but obv that's up to you and your style.

Thanks for the comments.

I think it's true that people will 4B less than 21bb but like BC19 says:

should you include 5bets bluffs like sjors did then we can go even more bananas.

So I think that we can still 3B like ~15%.

- We did include baby pairs and weak Ax in our 3betrange because these hands are great to put into our 5B-bluffrange. We also can up our 3B-freq a bit thanks to this.

So my question is, why would we not 3B/bluff a hand like 78o which doesn't have too much SD value? What hands do you advice to 3bet? Don't forget to pick them from our overall defending range ;). I won't really play looser since this is already a pretty big change to my previous gameplan.

Ty

think the ranges you constructed are fine tbh.
i would go sth like:

but i defend close to all the suited combos so id prolly call the above range but 3bet the T4s, 63s, j2s type of hands.

I wonder if our flatting range should change significantly vs minraising villains with less than 100BB stacks - especially when we get to the lower stacksizes 40BB to 20BB range

Originally posted by yegon
I wonder if our flatting range should change significantly vs minraising villains with less than 100BB stacks - especially when we get to the lower stacksizes 40BB to 20BB range

I would guess you wanna defend passively less, exspecialyl with speculative stuff and 3bet more...
widening your 3b-valuerange and as well your bluff3b-range (but here preferably hands w blockervalue -> so here imo K5o>86o when it some to 3betting...)

This is btw. vs. shorty-regs, not vs fishes...l

Originally posted by yegon
I wonder if our flatting range should change significantly vs minraising villains with less than 100BB stacks - especially when we get to the lower stacksizes 40BB to 20BB range

The shorter you get the less the positional disadvantage weighs.

This means at shorter stacks than 100bb you can flat wider. The shorter stack means hands with high equity but low playability, such as K5o or Q2o, go up in value. Whereas low equity but good playability hands go down in value, such as 74s or 54s. How much wider you can call at a specific stack size is hard to say. But generally you flat more vs short stacks than vs full stacks, assuming you are equally matched postflop vs either.

Originally posted by lnternet
way to derail the thread, this was the top winner hand on last 100 of those, had to lol

Spoiler

$3/$6 No Limit Holdem

CO ($173.65) 29bb
BTN ($895) 149bb
SB ($603.45) 101bb
Hero (BB) ($808.30) 135bb

Pre-Flop: ($9, 4 players) Hero is BB Q♦ 2♥
1 fold, BTN raises to $12, 1 fold, Hero calls $6

Flop: 9♥ 4♣ 8♦ ($21, 2 players)
Hero checks, BTN bets $18, Hero raises to $36, BTN calls $18

Turn: 2♦ ($75, 2 players)
Hero checks, BTN bets $68, Hero raises to $167, BTN calls $99

River: 9♣ ($341, 2 players)
Hero checks, BTN bets $162, Hero calls $162

Final Pot: $665
Hero shows Q♦ 2♥
BTN shows 7♠ 10:diamond:

Hero wins $754 (net +$383)

Omfg ♠_o:

Originally posted by lnternet

Originally posted by yegon
I wonder if our flatting range should change significantly vs minraising villains with less than 100BB stacks - especially when we get to the lower stacksizes 40BB to 20BB range

The shorter you get the less the positional disadvantage weighs.

This means at shorter stacks than 100bb you can flat wider. The shorter stack means hands with high equity but low playability, such as K5o or Q2o, go up in value. Whereas low equity but good playability hands go down in value, such as 74s or 54s. How much wider you can call at a specific stack size is hard to say. But generally you flat more vs short stacks than vs full stacks, assuming you are equally matched postflop vs either.

Interesting - I get your handselection here, but wonder if you have rly still moreof a coldcall-game vs. shorty-regs than a 3b-game?
Do not say that this is not good or aynthing, just do not know a lot of ppl, if any who have such an approach vs. shorty-regs...

Shorty regs are strong preflop, so if you raise him, you play his game. He will make no mistakes, at least less than postflop. So calling seems to be a good option.

so you are basically saying that in extreme cases, like MTT where there are antes and no rake is paid we should defend a 100% range to BTN minraise in BB???

I see a big problem in shorter situations, that I feel commited when I hit something and SPR is low - that makes it a RIO spot more often than deeper - might be only a bad approach on my part

you don't need to defend 100%, you can defend maybe 60-70% of hands, flatting those J2/Q2/K2 and 3betting those slightly weaker hands like T2 T5 96 etc.

Hey guys. Its a very interesting thread. I think we have to discuss another important situation - SB vs BB steals and defends (not HU. sb - oop).

for example I steal 45% sb (3bb raise) and my loose rate when Im SB (unopened) is -10bb/10
and my BB loose rate when sb steal is -80bb/100 (I call 27% and 3bet 13%)

BC1989RF (or smb else) can you create a new thread please (I think u can do It much better, than me). Or we can discuss it here...

Hey, I'm trying to understand this from the concept of alpha (mathematics of poker)
At 100nl, if the BB is opening to $2 and the pot is $3.50
Alpha is $2/5.50=64%
and if he is opening 50% of hands we should defend 64% x 50% = a range of 31% to correctly prevent him from exploiting us.

Is this correct or did i totally misunderstand the concept?

Can you tell me which page of the book? I just got it.

What bothers me is that with this logic, if we open to 2x otb, and that bb 3bets (to 7bbs) the top 10% then α=7/(7+2+0.5)=0.665. Then it would mean that we have to defend 0.665*0.1 meaning 6.65% to prevent villain from exploiting us, and that's very little.

cutegoldfish, you have to be very careful using minimum defense frequencies for anything but symmetric heads up single street analysis, as they do in MOP.

For instance, you have two people here preflop from the Button's perspective, you can't just say the BB must 'defend' 43%.

(regarding the numbers, Button is risking 2 to win 1.5 --> 2/(2+1.5) = 2/3.5 = 4/7 = 57% folds = 43% defends. As the pot is 1.5 not 3.5, and the result is not the defend but the difference to one. The second thing you did, multiply by the opening range, makes no sense at all. When thinking of preventing exploitation we of course have no knowledge of what the other is doing.)

While the concept is good, you need to be careful where you can apply it.

(iirc \alpha was for limit holdem, where the bets are always 1? You can convert to NL easily of course but make sure you do. I actually have a simple video out on minimum defense frequencies here and I have a follow up to it almost ready, maybe check it out)

Originally posted by lnternet
filter to the weakest hands you typically cold call. if you are > -1bb/hand you are too tight.

(facing 1 raiser; position 1st raiser: BTN; hero position: BB; did cold call preflop = true; holecards {K7o, T8o, ... }) or similar filters

very great idea lnternet, i just checked my db and realized despite defind like 40% bb vs bu i was still like be with my bottom range, which is so far away from -100bb/100

so i'll try now to defend 60% instead of 40%, thx u for all ur posts, and imfromsweden for his degen defense at 66% ♦