A A A

Home Forum MTT Poker Strategy How to become more confident that w…

Topic Rating: 0 (0 votes)

How to become more confident that we have ranged a villain properly?

derSchwartz

Sunday Major

Members

Forum Posts: 258

Member Since:
November 4, 2013

Offline

February 25, 2015 - 3:58 pm

This is a general question that I have had recently, but I do have a specific hand that illustrates it pretty well.

I love math, and I understand that we can do these equity calculations and other math problems that give us + or – EV results and therefore correct moves, especially at shallow stacks and in single table situations, etc.

But what seems to me a large variable in the actual functioning of these calculations is the degree of accuracy with which we range our opponents. If we have a critical decision to make at the FT, and we interpret someones move in a very wrong way, our correct math problem based on our incorrect range for villain does very little for us.

I have seen it said a few times now that one problem students have is assuming that they ranged a villain correctly simply because the villain flipped over cards that were in that range. As an overthinker, I feel overaware of this, and also worry that, if I never do get to see the villain's cards, I may have been wrong about the range. This could easily happen in situations where I'm actually right.

The reason this happens (or one reason) is because I'm actively reminding myself that the cards themselves in this one instance don't matter as much as the range. But if that's the case, how do we attain our confidence in the ranges we've chosen?

I could see the answer being purely experience. But if there are videos for this I would greatly enjoy seeing them. I have seen Faucault's Hand Reading series and that has helped with the procedure of building ranges. How to test them though?

As a side note, I can see that if a Hero is making thousands of dollars a week playing poker, that is another way he might achieve confidence. I invite readers who have this source of reinforcement to imagine not having so much of this reinforcement.

The hand info I am choosing as an example isn't converting anywhere (not only on TPE's converter) so I'll post manually.

It's a 5$ MTT on Merge, 3000 chip starting stacks, a few hundred entrants, and 7 remained. 1st place takes about $350 and 7th takes about $40. Blinds are at 3500/7000/700

Current stacks are:

UTG) 85k

UTG+1) 91k

MP) 86k

CO) 191k

BTN) 236k

SB) Villain, 74.5k before posting SB. After just 46 hands, plays 36/20/9.1 with 44% steal, 50% call resteal, 67% VPIP from SB, 17% open limp. Notably for this situation, he has opened to over 4x in recent history, achieving folds and not showing down. He has opened to 3x from the CO then after being reshoved on by me with about 15BB, he folded this 3BB open.

BB) Hero, 104k before posting BB. I have a rather nondescript, reasonably tough image (yeah, that's right, my image was tough, maybe?) In any case I have been pushing myself to be more fearless, had been chip leader at one point and have sustained at least one suckout at the final two tables thusfar.

Hero is dealt A heart J club

When I see this hand I decide I will be shoving a high percentage of the time.

5 players fold, SB opens to .. anything at all and I shove?

SB opens to 35,000k leaving 39,000 behind. Hero thinks.

I believe this would be an easy math problem and an easy call if he had shoved, because it's standard for people to shove tons of AX and KX with his stack. But this type of raise seemed to say either that he was very much looking for folds (so his range includes plenty of junk, JT, AT and all the way up to strong hands), or that he fast plays a specific strong range (and his range is AT+, and 99-QQ, perhaps with KK-AA and perhaps without it).

When he flips over his cards: Suppose they're AT, what can I really take from it? I can't say he was wide because perhaps his range really was AT+ and 99-AA – ie I just got really lucky and dangerously reinforced by being awarded a 70% favorite situation. And of course suppose it's JJ, I can't really exepct to feel confident that his range didn't also include a bunch of junk .. or can I in this case? Hard to tell.

If a player can be confident about what this raise means, it's an easy decision. If this is a matter of experience, I am ready for that. But for whatever reason, I find myself often concerned that what math I will do and what calculations I might make even with the best software will be hindered by incorrect applications of ranges.

And of course, for now, what do you guys think about villain's range here?

Thanks for reading.

Foucault

TPE Pro

Members

Forum Posts: 2067

Member Since:
December 6, 2012

Offline

February 25, 2015 - 4:41 pm

You can't. It's always a guess. Practice, experience, and studying videos like my series can give you an idea of how people TEND to play, and the more you understand about poker, the more you will be in a position to understand what someone's range SHOULD look like in a given situation. But it's hard to have a lot of confidence in a very specific read. Usually what you're looking for is a way to proceed with your hand that will do well against a variety of ranges your opponent might be on.

This is why I think it's so important to have a strong understanding of what unexploitable play in a given situation would look like. Then you can ask yourself questions like, “Do I think I have the opportunity to exploit my opponent by deviating from that strategy? How confident am I about that? How bad is my play if my read is wrong?”

In the example that you post, jamming a hand that performs badly when called would require a very specific read. Obviously you would almost always fold 42o in this spot, because if your opponent plays in an even remotely correct way than jamming is terrible for you. You would need quite a lot of confidence that your opponent will fold before you shove a hand like that.

I imagine that's obvious to you. What I think should be equally obvious to you, but perhaps isn't right now, is that folding AJ is the same sort of mistake as jamming 42o. It's a fundamentally losing play that could only be justified with a very specific read on your opponent. You don't HAVE to have confidence in a read to stick it in with AJ. That should be the default. You need confidence in a read to fold it.

This is because there is nothing your opponent can do to exploit the fact that you will jam AJo. You could tell him “Hey, buddy, I haven't looked at my cards yet, but if I have AJ, I'm gonna get it in,” and what can he do about that? He can raise whenever he can beat AJ, but probably he was going to do that anyway. And of course it's very hard to be dealt a hand better than AJ.

He could fold all hands worse than AJ, but that's a great outcome for you! Most of the time you'll be dealt a pretty weak hand, so if your opponent folds to you 90% of the time, that's nothing to complain about. It's true that if you knew your opponent would only raise AQ+ and pocket pairs here, you could exploit him by folding AJ. But that's a hard thing to know, and because folding AJ is such a huge mistake if you're wrong in that read, it's not something you should do unless you have a really, really high level of confidence. I mean, I can barely even construct a scenario where I could be sure enough to fold AJ.

That's because, if you told your opponent, honestly, that you were going to fold AJ and all worse hands to a raise, then he COULD exploit that information. He could raise you with any two cards and win the blinds and antes so often that it wouldn't matter that he'd be drawing thin on the rare occasion that you wake up with a big hand.

So basically, you don't need to concern yourself with gaining confidence in making reads that enable highly exploitive play. It's a near-impossible task that pays off rarely even when you master it. You should concern yourself with understanding how to play in situations where you don't have good reads, and then learn how to deviate from that default when you do have a read.

NeverAA

High Stakes Shark

Members

Forum Posts: 164

Member Since:
August 4, 2014

Offline

February 26, 2015 - 11:42 am

Great subject. Gone crazy about talking about these details as I am a math guy as well. Learnt to take it easy. When I lose myself in these kind of thoughts and details, I remind myself about that chance factor and we need some kind of luck at some point to win a tourney.

This maybe less players, inexperienced players, being lucky enough to find a person to get it in early in a tournament etc.

Thanks for the information guys.

Forum Timezone: America/New_York

Most Users Ever Online: 2780

Currently Online:
65 Guest(s)

Currently Browsing this Page:
1 Guest(s)