New Idea for HS forum- Weekly (or monthly etc) Theory Thread

Most "poker theory" (2p2) forums are just filled with trolls. The only other venue that deals with in depth poker theory are books. However, most dwell only on the basic (pot odds, implied odds, zzzzzzz) but there are far more intricate and specific situations to consider which can improve all of our winrates. Here's a few things I've been thinking about-

Should we be 3betting a polarized range or a balanced one?
- Does this change by the position of the opener?
- How much does this depend on the wide/narrowness of our expected calling range for the opponent.
- Does this change if opponent is a fish?
-FWIW, there doesn't seem to be a "right" answer here- if you watch the cardrunners videos it seems aba 3bets a very wide, balanced range, while players like CTS and Jman 3bet a more polarized one. All are very successful doing this at the highest stakes....

Why (exactly) does a loose-aggressive style seem to succeed more often as we move up in stakes?

What frequencies should we be either 4bet/folding or 4bet calling as semibluffs? (pre)

ETC...

Anyways, I think almost any "narrow" topic if explored with/without stove, using different villains, images and stacksizes and if people stay interested, could add a lot to this forum and potentially expand our player/poster pool as well...

post if your interested or if you have any ideas...

-Sauce

weekly would be so awesome, although i think monthly is more realistic. I feel like FTR's theory content has gone up quite a bit in the last 3-4 months and its much appreciated on my end.

Weekly please.

We should have a rotation of players each week to come up with an idea.

i.e.

Week 1. Sauce
Week 2. zook
Week 3. ISF
Week 4. Gabe
Week 5. p4's
etc.


This week lets do 3 betting theory as sauce has suggested.

"Should we be 3betting a polarized range or a balanced one?"
-I'm big on the polar idea versus opponents with tight calling ranges. There a parts of your game that become exploitable if your being strictly polar. If your strictly polar your opponent may figure out that you're showing up with low cards and draws way more often than high pairs and play accordingly. This is only a minor problem, as we can adjust the same way (although its hard to figure out if our opponent figures it out).
I just hate the idea of threebetting a hand like QTs, KJ, QJs, JTs, KTs in position because they play well in non threebet pots and horrible against opps calling range. If you're OOP though I like threebetting any cards really. I think it gives a really impossible to read factor of your game and opps have to just go by frequency's. If he's not calling loosely though, again I just don't see theoretically how a non polar range is good.

Although I have only talked about calling ranges of opponent, one really REALLY big factor in determining threebet frequency is how much do they give up postflop? If they literally will never fold you need to tighten up your threebet range because all you do is play into their game by having air a lot (theoretically really -EV). IF he is giving up a lot pre and bluffing very little I town the mother fucker! OOP, In pos, it doesnt matter, if he's not going to play against you without a pair he's going to go down hard.

"Why (exactly) does a loose-aggressive style seem to succeed more often as we move up in stakes?"

It's because ultimately we want as much as possible in our range balanced with bluffs or in another way we want the ability to take away the pot at any time without a hand. Ultimately, the better aggressor is going to win. When you aren't in control you are forced to play predicatbly and "counter play" your opponent. What your left with is a gigantic guessing game where you are the one guessing and not your opponent. The only way you're going to beat a more aggressive player than you is if he's bad.

Good players know this, which is why you see a guy like CTS limping his BU to take back aggression in the match (although CTS said in the video to reduce variance, tbh I think that's only part of it).

Take this situation for instance. Opp is threebetting like a monkey and is good hand reader. You raise preflop, opp threebet you call with AA. Flop comes 56K, he leads.

A lot of people tend to call here. But in reality a majority of the time you can't. What if you have 78, air, or another hand and you want to play back? You can raise yes, but good players are going to take you to town light because your range isnt balanced.
You can call, yes, but opp can always take you off your hand with a two barrel. Eventually, you are going to have to RAISE an aggressive player of a hand, and you can't always do it with the essential nuts or your going to get killed. You have to find ways to take control of the match again, or your lines are going to be unbalanced and you're going to suffer.

Which brings me too....

"What frequencies should we be either 4bet/folding or 4bet calling as semibluffs? (pre) "

4 betting/calling is so sick versus light threebetting opponents for a few reasons.
1. By doing so we force our opponent either to widen his calling range with a hand that he'll at best have a 60/40 edge against you post flop. Because if he doesn't, we just forced him to tighten his light threebetting range.
2. We don't have to play without initiative.
3. It takes away position from our opponents.

I think fourbet/folding only have value versus certain opponents really, only the ones who aren't going to widen their fourbet calling (shoving) ranges and are only going in with the super strong hands.


I'm interested in a response from Cocco Bill in this thread because his style is so non aggressive yet he kills the games. I just don't understand how you can do that and win the kind of money he does without sick game selection and really soft websites.

Interesting thought on aggression from my ISF theorem post, I'm still not sure what to make of this...

Quote:

---

Oversimplifying it, we are playing holdem with no flop, best two cards win period, with one betting round. There are antes.

We are only dealt KK or QQ and we know our opponent is only dealt AA or 72o. The player with AA seems to have a huge advantage.

If we are first to act we can never value bet because we allow him to play his hand perfectly. He will never call and only raise or fold. He will always raise AA, and maybe even sometimes 72o. To what frequency we can only guess. Even if we check he is again left with the upper hand because he alone will know the frequency he will bluff.

If we are second to act we will never raise his bets, but rather be forced to call sometimes, most likely an inaccurate amount.

The guy with AA or 72o knows whether he is ahead or behind at all times, and therefore his decisons are much much easier. I don't see why this would be any different with a flop turn and river, but I'm not positive.

---

The theory thread is a great idea Sauce! I hope other 3/6+ FTR members feel inspired to post their thoughts as well. The thread will probably work best if you guys just post ideas as you think of them, though. I doubt people will volunteer to contribute if they are obliged to do so on a timeline...

Quote:

---

Originally Posted by Vi-Zer0Skill

The theory thread is a great idea Sauce! I hope other 3/6+ FTR members feel inspired to post their thoughts as well. The thread will probably work best if you guys just post ideas as you think of them, though. I doubt people will volunteer to contribute if they are obliged to do so on a timeline...

---

yea if this receives interest i will use my mod powers to change theory topics once one seems stale...

doesnt need to be on a schedule

Very nice idea, and I also like ISF's idea of taking turns posting the topics. I at least volunteer, but of course some other arrangement might be more practical.

Sauce, I think this is a great idea as well. I hope this comes to fruition.

me too

ME 4

I of course suck at this game, but I hope it goes ahead and wait in anticipation!

Ill have a sam adams too please

ISF got to a good start with the theory already. Could we get a new thread where we could continue what he started? This topic is already too 'polarized'... :)

Sauce/ISF, could one of you could explain shortly what you mean exactly by a polarized or balanced 3-bet range?

It's probably partly due my arrears in the English language because I'm from Holland that I don't completely get them, or I'm just not well enough into the terminology. But it would be nice if someone could clear it up for me, so I'm positive we're talking about the same things.

Quote:

---

Originally Posted by minSim

Sauce/ISF, could one of you could explain shortly what you mean exactly by a polarized or balanced 3-bet range?

It's probably partly due my arrears in the English language because I'm from Holland that I don't completely get them, or I'm just not well enough into the terminology. But it would be nice if someone could clear it up for me, so I'm positive we're talking about the same things.

---

polar, meaning like oposite. Like the north and south poles, the positive and negative poles on a magnet. When a 3-bet range is said to be polarized, it contains the reg 3-bets of TT+/AQ+ but then also contains small PPs and small SC's. A non polar range, or balanced range, has the same range but also adds things like 9Ts, TJs, 88/99, AJs, KJs, JQs, etc. So with the polarized range, you know you are getting 3-bet by a large pair, AK/AQ, or small PP/SC. The balanced range is much harder to put on a specific hand, or specific "type" of hand.

im pretty sure thats right, someone correct me if im not.

This is a great idea, Sauce. We need some sticky-worthy content in this forum, so we can eventually make a HSNL Digest sticky. Response has been great to the Digest stickies in the other forums and they keep the good discussions going indefinitely. Your Month One: 3-Betting topic is a good start.

Are there any strat guides or other great high-quality topics in this forum yet? I could make a HSNL Digest now if there are enough topics worthy of it.

Quote:

---

Originally Posted by Xianti

This is a great idea, Sauce. We need some sticky-worthy content in this forum, so we can eventually make a HSNL Digest sticky. Response has been great to the Digest stickies in the other forums and they keep the good discussions going indefinitely. Your Month One: 3-Betting topic is a good start.

Are there any strat guides or other great high-quality topics in this forum yet? I could make a HSNL Digest now if there are enough topics worthy of it.

---

give it some time imo

Quote:

---

Originally Posted by bode

polar, meaning like oposite. Like the north and south poles, the positive and negative poles on a magnet. When a 3-bet range is said to be polarized, it contains the reg 3-bets of TT+/AQ+ but then also contains small PPs and small SC's. A non polar range, or balanced range, has the same range but also adds things like 9Ts, TJs, 88/99, AJs, KJs, JQs, etc. So with the polarized range, you know you are getting 3-bet by a large pair, AK/AQ, or small PP/SC. The balanced range is much harder to put on a specific hand, or specific "type" of hand.

im pretty sure thats right, someone correct me if im not.

---

I think it's more like this.. let's say we reraise 8% of the time. A non-polar range would mean we are reraising the top 8% of our hands then (pokerstove can tell you what range that is). If your range is polar however, you would have a mix.. let's say your 4% top hands, and the other half it's random crap. (or atleast not top winning hands)

Benefit of non-polar reraising: you'll always be doing it with a pretty strong hand, but still not a too tight range that is too readable. Downside is that you might get to the flop being up against a dominating hand.
Benefits of a polar reraising range: you're either reraising with a real premium hand, or a wishy washy hand that you can get away with easily should you not hit.

Are there any ideas for new topics?

Personally I would be very interested in a theory thread about calling from the blinds vs 3-betting, and follow up plays on certain flops and beyond.

I don't play high stakes though and I don't know how interesting this subject would be to high stakes players, so maybe I should start a thread about in the shorthanded forum.

Quote:

---

Originally Posted by minSim

Are there any ideas for new topics?

Personally I would be very interested in a theory thread about calling from the blinds vs 3-betting, and follow up plays on certain flops and beyond.

---

Meh that was covered a lot in the last thread tbh, I'd read through it again because I know it's there (I guess not follow up on postflop play).

Man! I had such a good idea for the next one and I forgot it, maybe ill AIM sauce and discuss one.

how about one on river c/rs, we all just post the ones we've done and talk about how sweet they are

Quote:

---

Originally Posted by gabe

how about one on river c/rs, we all just post the ones we've done and talk about how sweet they are

---

Sounds cool i need help on my late street play neways.

- 4betting and dealing with 4bets
- double/tripple barreling
- improving our blinds play when we don't RR (vs a LP raiser)

shit I had a bunch of stuff in my head that I wanted to talk about but I can't remember now. Lemme think about it.

I'm not playing HS, but I'm enjoying the thread. Thanks - keep up the good work.