Ask me Anything - mbml

1)RFI: A9s-A6s or A5s-A2s?

My opinion: Wheel probability is quite low, I think Janda mentioned somewhere you're actually more likely to hit oesd/gs with A9s-A6s. Plus A9 on 9xx > A5 on 5xx for example. And opening from EP/MP they play quite similarly. Although the higher grouping is better when there's a fish on the blind - you might have a better kicker. So A9s-A6s.

Or do you think a combination would be better than playing linearly: A9s/A8s/A5s/A4s?

2) Working out EV on multiple streets. For example we open sb, but bb calls A LOT, so how much does he need to fold flop for us to be able to profitably open any2 and cbet.

SB 0.5
BB 1
OR to 2.5 (2bb)

FE required pre = (2/0.5+1+2) = 57.14%

EV(pre)

= (%Fold)(Pot before bet) + (1- %Fold)(Bet)
= (57.14)(1.5) + (1-57.14)(-2)
= 0

Villain calls.

Pot = 5bb
Cbet = 3bb

FE required by CB = (3/3+5) = 37.5%

EV(flop)

= (%Fold)(Pot before bet) + (1- %Fold)(Bet)
= (37.5)(5) + (1-37.5)(-3)
= 0

EV(pre) + EV(flop) = 0

Then to solve for my question I can just play around with the FE% in excel?

I'm creating a spreadsheet (and I might move to HM2 to use this info for notecaddy badges) so I just want to make sure my method is correct...

Thanks for the answers.

Originally posted by HansaImperator
Hi mbml,

I have watched your video on "constructing preflop ranges" and have a question regarding the creation of a defendingrange BB vs BU.

Therefore I merged some similar opponents to an Alias in HM2 to get some stats.
This Alias: - openraises the BU with 39,2%
- folds vs a BB-Resteal 62,7%

So I started to make my gameplan for BB vs BU according to your instructions in the mentioned video. I took the factor 0,3 to multiply it with the openingrange. Does this factor include equityrealisation? I have some trouble to figure out, what it symbolizes.

3betting-Range: 39% * 0,3 = 11,7%

Bluffpart: 11,7% * 62,7% = 7,34%
Valuepart: 11,7% * (1 - 62,7%) = 4,36%

Valuehands
TT+,AQs+,AKo, 8 Komb. AQo
(58 Hands; 4,37%)

Bluffhands
A5s-A2s,K9s-K6s,Q9s-Q7s,J9s-J8s,T8s+,98s,87s,76s,A9o-A8o
(96 Hands; 7,24%)

Callingrange
99-88, AJs-ATs, KTs+, QTs+, JTs, AJo-ATo, KJo+
(92 Hands; 6,94%)

==> Defendingrange: 4,37% + 7,24% + 6,94% = 22,92%

Spoiler

Is this too tight? What would you change?
I think I would give my opponent an autoprofit-spot with this Range since I'm folding 77% when I am in BB vs BU-opening. Should I loose up my Range, especially in the calling-part?

Kind regards from Germany

1. What's the raise size? 2.5X? 3X? This will change your defense frequencies by a lot

2. If they are stealing so tight, there is no need to defend loose. They are not profiting when they fold 60% of the time in BU

3. The Value:Bluff ratio formula isn't exactly accurate. I would just stick to 1:1 to have more of an unexploitable range by default, and adjust it accordingly against different opponents. In BB vs BU I use a 0.25 multiplier instead, so I'll probably be 3betting like TT+/AQ+ for value, and around 6% of bluff hands. That's approximately 10-11%

4. Calling range: I'm defending all pocketpairs vs 3BB or less. People like to say that low pocketpairs aren't profitable but you probably just need to be willing to call a second barrel more loosely than you otherwise would, even when it's second or third pair. Equity wise, pocketpairs are always great as they are a favourite vs all non-paired hands

Originally posted by holmeboy
1)RFI: A9s-A6s or A5s-A2s?

My opinion: Wheel probability is quite low, I think Janda mentioned somewhere you're actually more likely to hit oesd/gs with A9s-A6s. Plus A9 on 9xx > A5 on 5xx for example. And opening from EP/MP they play quite similarly. Although the higher grouping is better when there's a fish on the blind - you might have a better kicker. So A9s-A6s.

Or do you think a combination would be better than playing linearly: A9s/A8s/A5s/A4s?

2) Working out EV on multiple streets. For example we open sb, but bb calls A LOT, so how much does he need to fold flop for us to be able to profitably open any2 and cbet.

SB 0.5
BB 1
OR to 2.5 (2bb)

FE required pre = (2/0.5+1+2) = 57.14%

EV(pre)

= (%Fold)(Pot before bet) + (1- %Fold)(Bet)
= (57.14)(1.5) + (1-57.14)(-2)
= 0

Villain calls.

Pot = 5bb
Cbet = 3bb

FE required by CB = (3/3+5) = 37.5%

EV(flop)

= (%Fold)(Pot before bet) + (1- %Fold)(Bet)
= (37.5)(5) + (1-37.5)(-3)
= 0

EV(pre) + EV(flop) = 0

Then to solve for my question I can just play around with the FE% in excel?

I'm creating a spreadsheet (and I might move to HM2 to use this info for notecaddy badges) so I just want to make sure my method is correct...

Thanks for the answers.

1. Wheel possibility is better vs tight ranges, and pair value is better vs loose ranges.
A9o > 67s vs wide ranges, 67s > A9o vs tight ranges

Vs tight ranges, you want to crack top pair with a straight or a flush
Vs loose ranges, you just want to make a pair and showdown

2. OR to 2.5 or 2? if it's 2 then 57% required FE to instant profit makes sense.
As for calculating it over multiple streets you can only do some guess work. It's impossible to calculate the exact EV cos of the various flops which can appear.

you need to make assumptions on how often you are getting folds vs Flop cbets. Get a population read or something (my guess is 50% at low limits). So calculate the EV of a flop cbet (you risk 3 to win 8, but you get folds half the time) and this allows you to see your Flop EV if you do get called.

You also need to take into account whether you are facing a 3bet or a call or a fold preflop. Folds are great, you instant profit. 3bets are bad, you instantly lose (since we are talking about the bottom of your opening range and you should always be folding these hands).

Calls are more complex as you need to think about future streets.

Hello again

I wonder against what kind of oponent you dont ever bluff raise flop, assuming you have a great sample of hands, what would be his fold cb to raise for you to not bluff raise him?

I guess we can bluff even against guys that folds 30% cause some of them they're gonna fold later if there are many good turn cards or just stats say so, but then our bluff combos are very few compared to value, like 1:6, arent they?

So lets say we have good sample on regs fold to flop raise and it is 35%, but we dont have that good of a info on later streets. In this situation do you think bluffing is good only with best hands on best kind of flops and on best positions like not earlier than buton vs cut off which probably means rare bluffing frequency? If yes, could you made up some nice example on that?

Thank you very much

it really depends on what you mean by bluff, and what you mean by fold 30%. If he folds to 2 barrels, I'll often just raise and 2 barrel.

Another adjustment to make is to raise for thin value. So with stuff like top pair decent kicker. Cos you gain value from someone who bet/calls with 2nd pair for example.

Basically the lower the number gets, the more you want to weight your range towards value, and less towards bluffs (bluffs should start to have more equity as opposed to just raising pure air or with very low amounts of equity)

I can't really give you an answer, it's kind of similar to the preflop spot vs 3bets where the more someone folds, the more you want to add bluffs.

Nice thread !

1.: How would you start constructing your postflop ranges (actually the overal Gameplan) ?
2.: How do you know what value/bluffratio you should have in certain spots ?
3.: Could you recommend any articles about this topic ?

Thanks in advance !

Hi,
I'm playing NL25 SH and really have problems against squeeze play.
Let's assume we are on MP. Our open range 20% of hands.
We open to 3BB, CO calls 3BB and BTN squeeze to 12BB. Co - weak player. BTN- reg.
What percent of our range we can use for 4-bet? Is something changes the both players are regs? What about 4-bet sizing?
How we can react if SB or BB squeezes?

This is a big issue for me as after this play, even with my TT;JJ hands i don't feel comfortable.
Any help would be great.

Many thanks.

Originally posted by xcEmUx
Nice thread !

1.: How would you start constructing your postflop ranges (actually the overal Gameplan) ?
2.: How do you know what value/bluffratio you should have in certain spots ?
3.: Could you recommend any articles about this topic ?

Thanks in advance !

1. i'll focus on river spots first, cos if you always start from the flop for every single hand, it gets way too complex and is extremely time consuming. only the best players put in a lot of work in this area, and I have not really done so myself.

2. Look at your bet or raise size. Then think about the pot odds villain is receiving. Then adjust your ranges accordingly by making him indifferent between folding and calling.

Example: River - You put in a half pot bet. He receives 25% pot odds. Thus to make him indifference between calling and folding, you use 25% of your range with air hands, and 75% of your range with value hands. The EV from his POV between calling and folding is going to be the same.

3. Matthew Janda's Application of No Limit Holdem

Originally posted by SpecialEdd
Hi,
I'm playing NL25 SH and really have problems against squeeze play.
Let's assume we are on MP. Our open range 20% of hands.
We open to 3BB, CO calls 3BB and BTN squeeze to 12BB. Co - weak player. BTN- reg.
What percent of our range we can use for 4-bet? Is something changes the both players are regs? What about 4-bet sizing?
How we can react if SB or BB squeezes?

This is a big issue for me as after this play, even with my TT;JJ hands i don't feel comfortable.
Any help would be great.

Many thanks.

This is dependent on BU's squeezing range. Firstly, opening 20% is probably way too wide. Unless you are against weaker opponents. You probably want to be defending at least 40%-50% of your range against a good opponent. Maybe 40% because you have another player in the hand.

So let's say you want to defend the top 8% of hands. You could just 4bet/call JJ+/AK, 4b bluff with some AJo/KQo type of combos, and call the suited broadways and mid pairs.

Size? Anywhere between 22-25BB should suffice, usually I'll just make it 2X by default. It's really hard for him to flat any speculative hands here - There's a huge difference between flatting a 4bet 7->16BB vs 12->24BB

hey mbml

already asked this question on pleno1 ama but for some reason he decided to ignore it twice
I am concerned that I might be loosing too much with one pair, so I filtred hands at showdown, but I couldn't find any info about what the standard range of winrate should be.
my overall sample is around 1 million and I am winning 6.84bb/100.

could you tell me whether my winrate with one pair is standard or am I getting stubborn too often?

i have similar loss rates to yours so i think it's fine

onepair = -450
highcard = -1500

Originally posted by mbml
1. i'll focus on river spots first, cos if you always start from the flop for every single hand, it gets way too complex and is extremely time consuming. only the best players put in a lot of work in this area, and I have not really done so myself.

Thanks a lot for your reply !

I´ve still got a question about 1.) though, I do not really get what you mean with focusing on the riverspots first..

Do you mean that you take hands you think you can still vbet on most rivers and take those into your vbetting (three barreling) range otf ?
What do you do with your bluffs then, do you also plan to multibarrel them ?

And how do you decide which valuehands to take to strengthen your checkingrange (mostly oop) ?

look at the river. Think about what hands you would arrive there with. Then count all of those hands, decide on your defense frequency and defend the top X% of them based on villain's bet size.

River scenarios are much easier than flop scenarios because ranges are narrower.

If you want to think about being the aggressor, then look at all your value combos. Decide on what bet size(s) you want to take with them. Then balance them appropriately with the right number of bluffs.

I do not recommend trying to work out your entire preflop->river game plan, it's way too time-consuming and it only makes sense if you are already playing at a really high level.

You'll probably get discouraged fast and give up. Have a rough idea on how you want to do those type of stuff first from videos/articles/coaching first, and experiment with them in-game, get some empirical data, instead of trying to work everything out mathematically.

OOP: I try to randomize it by looking at the suit of my cards. For example if my first card is a heart, I might start to check a hand I would otherwise value bet. Of course such a strategy only applies against stronger opposition, who may exploit my checking range with overbets and other aggressive strategies.

Note that you also need to check the nuts sometimes, not just some TP type of hand that you intend to call down. This would prevent villain from being able to value bet super thinly.

Example:
You 3bet in SB, BU calls with AJ.

Board is AK533 and you check/call the Flop. Villain knows you only do this with AT and worse. When he has AT/AJ, he is now able to fire thrice very confidently, knowing that he's virtually never beat unless you have AA (1 combo only) or if you turn/river some sort of 2pair hand. On the other hand, if you start checking AQ/AK sometimes, he is no longer able to do that.

How does it feel to be SNE?

Hello,how about preparing for new year?

My question is

1 How much should I learn to become player like you?(crush 1000NL)
I have played poker for 1.5 year seriously and still struggling at 50NL.

2 you suggested even I don't have enough confidence at 50NL, I should grind at 50NL with coaching.

Mathmatically, how should I manage to raise coaching fee?
I can play 6hour+, how much edge can I take with your coaching?

Moreover, is there way to pay from share of my monthly profit? it can substitute at 50NL?

Originally posted by metza
How does it feel to be SNE?

hmm I feel a sense of accomplishment, at the same time I felt a little lost and empty inside after getting the status at 4pm yesterday, such a strange feeling. I tried napping yesterday after I was done, since I had only slept for 5 hours before, but I think I was getting some sort of adrenaline high and couldn't sleep.

I'm glad I didn't give up half way and stuck to it. My plans from 2014 onwards is to get SNE for at least another 2 years in a row.

Originally posted by Gonchan
Hello,how about preparing for new year?

My question is

1 How much should I learn to become player like you?(crush 1000NL)
I have played poker for 1.5 year seriously and still struggling at 50NL.

2 you suggested even I don't have enough confidence at 50NL, I should grind at 50NL with coaching.

Mathmatically, how should I manage to raise coaching fee?
I can play 6hour+, how much edge can I take with your coaching?

Moreover, is there way to pay from share of my monthly profit? it can substitute at 50NL?

I'm just spending a few days in Thailand for a quick break during the new year. Then I'll make some new plans for 2014.

1. Hmm I have been playing seriously since Jan 2009 so it has already been 5 years. I don't know what you mean by "seriously" but I probably clocked it like 6000 hours (after going pro upon graduation from university in May 2013). My first suggestion would be to get some coaching from someone really good at poker + teaching. The two coaches who had the greatest impact on my game are TheLastNail and Internet. The second is to learn the right way to self-analyze your game. If you actually get to this point, then you don't really need that much coaching.

Active Learning (talking to others, self-analysis) > Passive learning (watching videos and reading articles/books)

2. I don't really get your question. You want to raise your coaching rates?

3. I don't intend to have any more long-term coaching deals for now. You're from japan right? I might want to go there in 2014 so if you can host me for a while I'll be glad to give you free coaching.

Do you drink? And if so what kind of alcohol?

Happy new year!

About active learning, I'm not sure how to self-analyze my game, In Japan there are few player to talk with poker(10% may know 5 draw poker and 0.5-% know holdem :f_mad:) especially when I live in country.I envy you about it.

About No2 question, I wanted to know how to make coaching fee.

For example, 100$ per hour is good for 50NL grinder? Is there large edge I still didn't find?

About coaching,I may host you when I'm free.

I'm living country side in Japan and there is no casino(it is still illegal..) but you can be relax here.

Biggest downswing in terms of buy ins and in terms of $$$?