In depth hand analysis

[surviva316]

flatting may be better for balance, but its important to know 3betting is the most +ev play.

something about the way you worded this intrigues me. didn't know if you wanted to elaborate on why exactly it's important to keep this in mind?

[sauce123]

something about the way you worded this intrigues me. didn't know if you wanted to elaborate on why exactly it's important to keep this in mind?

Ok, so assume first of all we are playing against an opponent who can't see our cards, but can see our range.

we now get deal XY in the BB and villain opens.

we have to choose a range of hands with which to call, a range to 3bet and a range to fold.

our 3betting range will be most profitable if it includes the top X% of hands, (small caveat here: it might be better to have hands like 87hh in there and not A9o b/c of domination issues but this will mostly be true) imagine first a 3bet range of KT+, AT+ JT+, 55+ vs a more polarized range. we can still fold the bottom of our (linear) 3betting range to a 4bet, then call some and raise some, but overall the bottom of our 3betting range is going to do better than say, 63hh, just because of the raw equity we hold.

however, we only get dealt KT+, AT+, JT+, 55+ some % of the time (say 15%, tho this isnt exact). and we dont want to let our (range-seeing) opponent open 100% of btns and win 85% of the time. So now we have to call some too maybe. But then our calling range consists of perhaps the next 15% of hands, call it A5-A9, A2s-A8s, suited connectors, some medium strength high card hands etc. The problem now is that our opponent is going ot be able to barrel us extremely effectively on many high card boards, and many low card boards and value bet 2-3 streets with hands as weak as AJ. This may make our calls -ev or neutral ev.

therefore, it is usually better to play two balanced, polarized ranges for calling and raising, with the raising range containing most of our nut hands but not 100%.

(i skipped a few steps here, and this an idealized scenario obviously)

(this is put qualitatively, but there is strong basis in game theory for playing a strategy like I just described)