Poker by The Book - Polished Poker Vol I

An Ace Poker Solutions LLC Publication
Polished Poker
Cash Games Volume I
© 2013 Ace Poker Solutions LLC. All rights reserved.

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Table of Contents
Introduction ............................................................................................................................................................................ 4
About The Author .................................................................................................................................................................. 5
Chapter 1: Why are you playing? .......................................................................................................................................... 6
First Goals ......................................................................................................................................................................................................................... 7
Blog About It .................................................................................................................................................................................................................... 7
Make Poker Friends .......................................................................................................................................................................................................... 7
Chapter 2: Know Thyself ...................................................................................................................................................... 8
Aggression ........................................................................................................................................................................................................................ 9
Aggression (too passive) ................................................................................................................................................................................................... 9
Aggression (too aggro) .................................................................................................................................................................................................... 10
Rational Deduction / Logic ............................................................................................................................................................................................. 11
Psychological Control / Understanding ........................................................................................................................................................................... 14
Tilt................................................................................................................................................................................................................................... 14
Being a good quitter (Tilt) ............................................................................................................................................................................................... 16
Self Awareness ................................................................................................................................................................................................................ 17
Perceptiveness ................................................................................................................................................................................................................. 18
Chapter 3: Get it Together ................................................................................................................................................... 20
Bankroll Management ..................................................................................................................................................................................................... 20
Poker Software ................................................................................................................................................................................................................ 21
Preparation and Diet ........................................................................................................................................................................................................ 22
Diet ................................................................................................................................................................................................................................. 23
Chapter 4: Glorious Poker Math .......................................................................................................................................... 25
Combinations .................................................................................................................................................................................................................. 25
Probability ....................................................................................................................................................................................................................... 26
Equity .............................................................................................................................................................................................................................. 27
Expected Value (EV) ...................................................................................................................................................................................................... 27
Fold Equity...................................................................................................................................................................................................................... 27
Chapter 5: Metta World Peace ............................................................................................................................................ 29
Tension Count ................................................................................................................................................................................................................. 29
Reads and Notes .............................................................................................................................................................................................................. 32
List of Abbreviations (Brief Overview)........................................................................................................................................................................... 33
ATC (Any Two Cards) .................................................................................................................................................................................................... 34
FC (Flush Chaser) ........................................................................................................................................................................................................... 37
SOOT (Likes to play any two suited cards) ..................................................................................................................................................................... 37
AK (Will bet turn unimproved) ....................................................................................................................................................................................... 39
CRW (Calls raises with weak hands) .............................................................................................................................................................................. 40
LAF (Will lead into pre-flop raises and fold to a raise) ................................................................................................................................................... 41
SVB (Slim Value Bettor) ................................................................................................................................................................................................ 42
Ax (Will play an ace from anywhere) ............................................................................................................................................................................. 46
NPR (Will raise a non-premium hand) ............................................................................................................................................................................ 46
CBB (Continuation Bet Bad Boards) .............................................................................................................................................................................. 47
LA (Look-up Artist) ........................................................................................................................................................................................................ 48
Chapter 6: In the Beginning ................................................................................................................................................ 50
Starting Decisions ........................................................................................................................................................................................................... 50
Flat Calling...................................................................................................................................................................................................................... 51
Blind Play........................................................................................................................................................................................................................ 53
Optimal Big Blind Play ................................................................................................................................................................................................... 55
Defending from the Big Blind vs Early Openers ............................................................................................................................................................. 55
Defending from the Big Blind vs Steals .......................................................................................................................................................................... 58
Defending from the Big Blind vs Button Steals .............................................................................................................................................................. 58
Squeezing from the Big Blind vs Open Buttons .............................................................................................................................................................. 61
Defending from the Big Blind vs Cut-off's ...................................................................................................................................................................... 62
Squeezing from the Big Blind vs Open Cut-Offs ............................................................................................................................................................ 64
Defending from the Small Blind vs Steals ....................................................................................................................................................................... 66
Defending from the Small Blind vs Button Steals ........................................................................................................................................................... 66
Defending from the Small Blind vs Cut-off Opens ......................................................................................................................................................... 68
Squeezing from the Small Blind vs Open Cut-Offs ......................................................................................................................................................... 68
Out of The "Norm" Lines to Take Against Steals............................................................................................................................................................ 69
Chapter 7: 3-Betting ............................................................................................................................................................ 73
Value Range .................................................................................................................................................................................................................... 73
Bluffing Range ................................................................................................................................................................................................................ 74
Quasi Range .................................................................................................................................................................................................................... 75

3-Bet Sizing .................................................................................................................................................................................................................... 76
Standard 3-bet Strategy ................................................................................................................................................................................................... 76
Applied Pressure 3-bet Strategy ...................................................................................................................................................................................... 76
Applied Pressure vs Standard 3-bet Strategy ................................................................................................................................................................... 79
3-Bet Calling Ranges ...................................................................................................................................................................................................... 80
Easy Folds to 3-bets ........................................................................................................................................................................................................ 80
"Easy" Calls to 3-bets ...................................................................................................................................................................................................... 81
Marginal Spots vs 3-bets ................................................................................................................................................................................................. 83
Being 3-bet by a short stack ............................................................................................................................................................................................ 85
Chapter 8: 4-Bet Bluffing .................................................................................................................................................... 87
Why 4-bet Bluff?............................................................................................................................................................................................................. 87
Good 4-bet bluffing hands ............................................................................................................................................................................................... 87
4-bet Bluff Sizing ............................................................................................................................................................................................................ 88
Ideal 4-bet Bluffing Spots ............................................................................................................................................................................................... 90
Chapter 9: Perceived Range ................................................................................................................................................ 91
Balancing Your Range .................................................................................................................................................................................................... 91
Balancing Flop Textures ................................................................................................................................................................................................. 93
Balancing on Dry Boards ................................................................................................................................................................................................ 94
Balancing on Coordinated Boards ................................................................................................................................................................................... 98
Balancing on Paired Boards .......................................................................................................................................................................................... 100
Balanced Deception ...................................................................................................................................................................................................... 104
Putting It All Together ....................................................................................................................................................... 109
More Tools of the Trade ..................................................................................................................................................... 110

Introduction
I'm not going to bullshit you, poker isn't an easy game. It's fairly easy to learn the
rules, and beat some weak players that aren't really sure what they're doing. However, if you
want to be really good at this game, then you're going to need to put a lot of work in. Just
like anything in life, if you want to be really good at something, you need to prepare, train,
take your lumps, learn from your mistakes, know when to walk away and wait for another
day, and have good mental discipline. If you aren't prepared to work hard, then be prepared
to not be very successful at poker.
I say this having coached for over seven years, played for over nine on a
professional and semi-professional level, and having my own share of success and failure.
Fortunately I've had much more success, and not much failure in my poker career, but this
didn't come without hard work and dedication to the art of poker. The truth of the matter is,
very few people are successful at poker long term. I've seen studies that say that less than
5% of players are winners long term. Some people may have some short term success, but if
you want to make it long term you're going to need to have a level of dedication and
discipline that few people do.
My hope is that this book serves as a guide for you. Something you can go back to
again and again, and learn something new from as you grow in your poker career. My goal
is to make this material accessible to anyone, but it's not aimed at absolute beginners. I'm
assuming you've found this through a friend or poker link somewhere, and you've already
had some success or failure at online poker. There's going to be a lot of common online
poker lingo used, and the glossary may not be enough help if you aren't already playing
online. Don't let that dissuade you if you aren't already playing online. If you have any
questions about the content of references, I'm an open book. :) Let's begin.

Poker by the Book: Polished Poker – Volume I v1.2
About The Author

Just like most of you, I gravitated towards poker for a lot of reasons. If you get good
at this game, it offers a lot of flexibility, but like some have said, "It’s a hard way to make
an easy living." Whatever the reason you are deciding to play poker, I wish you much
success at the tables and in life. We truly only recognize our own greatness, when we assist
and help others to reach theirs.
I started playing poker in the latter part of 2004, as poker was just beginning to
really boom. I was swept up in part of the "Moneymaker" effect of amateur Chris
Moneymaker winning the WSOP main event in 2003. I was working in corporate America
at the time making a comfortable six figure salary, but not satisfied with the career path I
saw in front of me. I'm honestly not entirely sure how poker found me, but I began playing
limit poker, and like anything I do in life, I studied everything I could get my hands on
about the game and ate it up.
I made one $50 deposit on Pacific poker back in 2004, and I've never busted or
looked back since. Since that time I've won several hundred thousand dollars in cash games
and some nice tournament scores as well. I didn't and haven't played a ton of tournament
poker over my career simply because of time commitments, but I do have WSOP cashes,
and have won other local and online tournaments. Most of my study and time have gone
into no-limit Texas Holdem 6-max, full ring, and heads-up cash games. I've played and had
some decent success at pot-limit Omaha and Razz as well, but don't enjoy those games
nearly as much.
I eventually turned my poker wins into a successful online poker business, where my
company, Ace Poker Solutions, develops software such as Leak Buster, Ace Poker Drills,
Ace Poker Coach, and training material from sites like PokerZion. Here are some of my
recent database snap shots post black Friday. I don't put the same volume in as I used to
simply because a bulk of my time goes into running my business, but I do stay current and
active and play a good amount.
I've also played as low as 50NL and 100NL in small samples for a honeymoon
challenge. You can read about that and see stats HERE.

Chapter 1: Why are you playing?
T his should be a simple question really, but I seem to stump a lot of students when I
ask them. Are you playing for money? For competition? For vacation money? To
put the kids through college? Put yourself through college? As a full-time job
(grinder)? To win a WSOP bracelet? For fame? To be a balla and have lots of
women/men? Knowing why you are playing is important so that you don't end up wasting
energy during your poker career on things that aren't very necessary.
For example, if you're playing to win some extra vacation money, you don't want to
spend your time constantly looking to play against the best players at the table. Conversely,
if you're playing to win a WSOP bracelet someday, you don't want to spend most of your
time bum hunting tables.
Secondly you want to make sure you have a poker goal in mind. Goals and
motivations can easily get blurred, and with many people they can sometimes even conflict.
A goal can of course change over time, but knowing what your
initial goal(s) are can quickly let you know how in alignment
they are with your motivations. If your motivation is to play for
vacation money, but your goal is to win a WSOP bracelet, it's
going to be rough going to take small winnings and purchase
high stakes tournament buy-ins. Not that you can't satellite in
for cheaper, but the motivation and goal won't be in complete
alignment and you'll mostly working against yourself. Just make sure you're clear in your
own mind.
Once you understand your motivations and goals, then you can begin to make a plan
for how to achieve your goals. If you've noticed your motivation isn't completely in
alignment with your goal(s), then be honest with yourself about what you think you need to
change. Set realistic achievable goals to begin with, and then expand those goals into bigger
goals as you achieve each goal. It's great to have a goal of becoming the best poker player in
the world, but don't make that your first primary goal. Set something realistic like ―win my
first 5k online.‖ Then once you reach that, and have some taste of success, expand that to
win 20k, and/or win a $20 buy-in tournament.
―Shoot for the stars, but aim for the moon,‖ they say, and for good reason. You want
to have your big lofty goals always as the primary objective, but you don't want your goals
so big that they function as a point of discouragement when you don't reach them as fast as
you think you should. Have your goals listed out, and make it a habit of checking them off
and continually moving your goals posts closer to your ultimate goal.

First Goals
Take some time now to write out what your initial goals in poker are. If you aren't
sure, then start with something small and expand as you think of more things you want to
achieve. Ideally write them down on a sticky note or something small that you can pin to
your monitor or the place where you’re primarily playing online poker. Carry them in your
wallet if you play a lot of live poker, take them out and read them before you sit down at the
table. It may sound cheesy, but this will keep them fresh in your mind and help keep you
focused and motivated.
Blog About It
If you aren't afraid of writing, find a place where you
can make a poker blog. State what your goals are, and spend
time each week or two updating your blog with your
progress. It's an easy way to help keep yourself accountable
to your goals if you have others reading and encouraging you
on. If you don't think you are a good writer, try any ways.
There are tons of places now-a-days to do this; I'm going to
plug my favorite place that has lots of friendly
encouragement from others: http://pokerzion.com/Poker_Forum/blog.php
Make Poker Friends

Find other poker players that have similar goals to your own and become friends
with them. Even if it's a distant online friend, find other people that can assist and help keep
you accountable to your own goals. Make sure your
poker friends know what your goals are. If other poker
players are checking in with you and asking frequently
how poker is going, it's going to motivate you to want
to have good reports to give back to them. Make sure to
ask how your friends are doing as well, and make it a
mutually beneficial relationship.

Chapter 2: Know Thyself
Y ou won't be able to play your best poker if you don't know your strengths and
weaknesses. Just because a particular play works well for one player, doesn't mean
it's going to consistently be the best option or line for you to take as a poker player.
Make sure you understand what some of your strengths are, and do everything you
can to utilize them every hand you play. Conversely, minimize areas that will play to your
weaknesses. This sounds simple in theory, but a lot of players attempt to fit their game in a
mold of someone else, only to be left frustrated and lighter in their bankrolls.
Here are some examples of Aspects of Poker Score 1–10

common weaknesses and strengths Hand Reading (R)
for players. Go through this list and
Post Flop Bluffing (R/A)
rank how you think you do in each
Anticipating Opponent Reactions (P)
area based on a score of 1 to 10, with
10 being the absolute best. You can Light Value Betting (R/A)
then formulate a plan on how you'll Tilt Control (P)
improve in these areas if you deem Calling Down Light (R)
them important to your overall game Bet Sizing (R)
plan. Proper Aggression (A)
Capitalizing on Opponent Weaknesses (A)
If you look at these primary Inducing Bluffs (R)
aspects of poker you may notice a
Math of Poker (R)
commonality in many of them. This is
because there are really only three Starting and Quitting Sessions (P)
main areas of poker that permeate all
aspects of the game. These areas are Aggression (either the lack of or too much), Rational
deduction/logic (using incomplete information and math), and Psychological
control/understanding (ability to control one's psyche and understand psychology).
Once you look over your list, is there a theme occurring for you in certain areas? Do
you need improvement in the aggression areas because you're not being aggressive enough?
Is there a need to control your emotions better so that you can have better psychological
control? Let's take the
Aggression Total Score: /4= different areas and average
Rational Deduction / them out so you can see
Logic Total Score: /7= what area is causing you
Psychological Control Total Score: /3= the most concern, and
focus on improving that
area first.
Note: Post Flop Bluffing and Light Value Betting are counted in both the Rational
Deduction / Logic areas and Aggression.

Aggression
If you scored a 5 or less in this area, then you're going to want to spend some
significant time on these next sections. Nearly everyone in every major aspect of their lives
tends to be on one extremity of a polarity or the other. Finding that "sweet spot," that
balance that can yield the best life results, is usually
easier said than done. It's that same way with
aggression at the poker table for most players. Most
players tend to be too passive, or a bit too aggressive.
The intriguing thing about poker though is that

it's ok to be too aggressive, and sometimes too passive
as well, as long as you know and can properly
anticipate how your opponents will react to your play.
In general though, it's much better to err on the side of
too aggressive in poker, rather than too passive. This
is why the mantra, "If you don't know what to do, then
bet," gains credence. Because in poker, when a player
folds their hand they give up 100% of their equity. It's rarely a bad thing to bet, as opposed
to checking, which can create a plethora of issues for you now or on later streets.
Aggression (too passive)

If you believe you are being too passive in your poker game, then you're usually
correct. It's something a lot of beginning players struggle with. A lot of times it's an aspect
of a person's personality which translates onto the poker table. If you're a naturally more
passive, person pleasing individual, it may be more difficult to put yourself in situations to
be aggressive, and be betting and raising to make your opponents fold. If you believe this is
the case, then the best thing for you to focus on isn't about artificially trying to become more
aggressive. Really the best way to improve in this area is to improve the math area of the
rational deduction/math aspect of your game.
Since the goal in poker is to get your opponents to make the biggest mistakes
possible, and get your good hands paid off as much as possible, understanding hand ranges
and equity is paramount in being successful at poker. Once you understand hand ranges and
equity really well, betting, checking, folding, and raising become much clearer with each
decision you have to make. Each decision is like a mini-goal. You want to achieve each
goal with excellence, and in order to do that you need to bet or raise when the hand ranges
and equity dictate to do so.

For example, if you have a slight equity advantage with middle pair on the turn
against an opponent's hand range that will be mostly draws, and you check instead of bet,
then you are not achieving your goal. If you get to the
When you are surer what the
river and have almost no showdown value versus your correct decision is in a situation,
opponent’s hand range, then you need to look to bet or then you won't lapse into your
raise in situations that make sense for a hand you can default psychology decision-
reasonably represent. making process.
Looking at each situation from a more mathematical perspective and focusing on the
goal at hand with each decision will make becoming more aggressive a lot easier to
incorporate. You're betting or raising because it's the absolute best decision given the
situation. Until this becomes nearly crystal clear, your natural lack of aggression and more
passive personality will take reign in the decision-making process instead of the more
mathematical / rational side. And if you don't think you excel at math, hyper focusing on
hand ranges and working on equity using an equity calculator will improve this area for you
over time. It will take work, but if your goal is to make the best decision possible in each
situation, this is the area that will most improve the problem of not being aggressive
enough.
When you are unsure which play is the correct play in a given situation, you'll lapse
to your default psychology, which if it's too passive you're going to check too often. And as
we said earlier, it's better to default to being too aggressive then too passive in poker.
Naturally aggressive people tend to do better initially at poker than naturally passive people,
as long as they don't go too over board. However, once you have the proper understanding,
and know which decision is the correct decision, you won't lapse into your default
psychology.
Aggression (too aggro)

There are worse things in poker than being too aggressive. As said early in this
chapter, if you're unsure what to do, it's generally better to bet than to check. That being
said, being too aggressive can become a serious problem, especially if you're playing
opponents that know how to properly exploit it.
If it's part of your game plan to be hyper aggressive in order to make your opponents
react, and you feel you can properly anticipate and read their reactions, then you'll likely
have an adequate poker strategy to work from. However, if you're commonly in situations
where you aren't sure how to react to your opponents, and you're making lots of desperate
bluffing attempts that are being picked up, then you're going to want to work on bringing
down your aggression.
10

Your goal should be to find that "sweet spot" in your aggression if you're in too
many situations where you're unsure what to do once you take an aggressive action. Finding
more balance in your game will make it much more un-exploitable if done correctly. One of
the primary aspects you're going to want to focus on is the psychological control /
understanding area of your game. Asking yourself a few questions so that you can gain
more insight into why your game is so aggressive can help you achieve more balance.
1. Do you get a "rush" from making aggressive moves at the poker table?
2. Do you get an elevated since of self from being perceived as "table captain"?
3. Do you enjoy watching others agonize over their decisions?
The bottom line with all of the answers to these questions is, is it your primary goal
to achieve this high at the poker table by your aggressive play, or are you looking to win
money? If your goal is to win the most money possible, then you'll have to look for other
areas of your life to achieve this same high, or look to balance your emotional state in
several aspects of your own personal life. This is of course much easier said than done, but
this is a key starting place for understanding and examining your motivations for playing
the game of poker.
Rational Deduction / Logic

Since poker is a game of incomplete information,
using our reasoning abilities to come to the most logical
conclusions about our opponent’s hand range and
intentions takes a lot of practice to refine. This is
typically an aspect of poker that eludes most players, or
they make some progress in this area, but never
completely get "over the hump" and put it all together.
There are generally several reasons for this, and I'll list
out a couple of them:
1. People can tend to be lazy, and don't want to put the necessary work in to really have
a complete understanding of this aspect of their game.
2. Some success is made in this area, but then people are psychologically blocked from
achieving a fuller understanding.
3. There's no definitive goal or learning plan created. Since there's no one to keep you
on task or create learning plans, people tend to take a scattered "shot gun" approach
to learning, and never fully learn.
4. People can be intimidated by the math aspect of poker, and block themselves
psychologically from learning.
11

5. Ego, and the need to be correct, can prevent people from considering different
reasoning and approaches to how people think about poker, and thus limit hand
range reasoning.
A lot of the above reasons are going to relate to each other. Being lazy (Point #1
from above), and not having enough drive to complete a goal (which in this case would be
to become good at poker), is usually an indication of a block (Point #2 from above), but not
always. Point #4, can also be a psychological block similar to Point #2. The bottom line is
that if you know what you need to do to get better at something, but you're not doing it, then
you have a psychological block preventing you from moving closer to your goal (more on
this later).
If you don't feel you are currently blocked, but need to learn more about how to
reason through situations so that you can improve your hand range estimates and decision
making, then you need to formulate a learning plan first. Here's my suggested learning plan
for improving this aspect of your game:
1. Get a poker equity calculator. There are several free ones on the market. You will
need one that can weight hand ranges, and is
easy to use. I recommend using Ace Poker Drills
Calculator, for many reasons, but it also comes
with a free odds and outs trainer if you need to
improve that area of your game as well. You can
download it from here: ACE POKER DRILLS
WEBSITE
2. After every session you play, review all of your
biggest winning and losing pots. Replay them
and especially pay attention to hands that go to
showdown so you can see how people at your stakes are playing certain
hands/situations. Mark any hands that you have questions about. Most poker
tracking databases have an easy way to mark (usually by right clicking) a hand and
saving it for later quick review. If you are playing live, make sure to write down or
make any mental notes about hands you saw so you can review them and think about
them later.
3. While reviewing your latest session, go back to some very old sessions you've
played and filter for any hands that have gone to showdown. Re-play as many hands
as you can for the day, and hide your opponent’s hole cards. Grab a piece of paper
and pen, or open up a notepad type application. On each street that is played, make a
rough guesstimate for what you think your opponent’s equity is against your hand
and write it down. On the river, make a guess at what you think your opponent’s top
3 hands are. Open up your equity calculator and put in your hand and the board and
enter in what you think your opponent’s hand range is. Note what the calculator
shows is the actual equity versus what your written guesstimate was. Do this for
each street, and on the river reveal your opponent’s actual hand and see how close
you were to the three hands you listed for your opponent.
12

4. Take any hands you have questions about, and post them for review by other poker
players on your favorite poker forum(s). Make sure to add any notes and reads you
have on players, and your own thought process. Remember, it's ok to be wrong, this
is how you learn. If you don't like posting on forums, call up some of your poker
buddies, or talk to them on chat applications and ask their opinions. Get your mind
engaged in these poker situations and make sure to pay attention to how your
friends and others think about poker. This is critical in gaining insight into how
other personalities reason through situations. It's invaluable information. How you
think about poker and situations will not be the same as someone else, and learning
to reason through someone else's poker lens is a key part of becoming really
successful at poker.
5. Answer questions by other poker players about hands they've played on your
favorite poker forum(s), and/or ask your friends about tough poker situations they've
been in recently. Give as many reasons as you can about why you think one decision
or play is better than another. Don't just say, "Hey, you should raise!", and definitely
don't say, "What the hell are you thinking, donk?!? That's an easy fold!" That
approach is not conducive to learning and it won't win you any poker friends.
6. If there's an area of the math part of poker that you know you struggle with, find
material in the form of books, articles, and/or videos that will help you understand
this aspect better. If you are unsure where to find such material, go on a poker forum
and ask. If there are several areas that you know you struggle in on the math side,
pick on topic a week or every two weeks, month, whatever time frame is realistic for
your schedule, and commit yourself to learning about it. Do it one area at a time.
7. Repeat steps 2–5 for your entire poker career. Never stop reviewing and analyzing.
Approaching poker in this manner and providing an outline for a lesson plan will
help you stay on task and reach small attainable goals consistently. Understanding hand
ranges, equity, math, and why opponents take particular lines will take some time to master.
However, if you don't have a plan set with goals, they will never be mastered unless you're
able to read minds or see through the backs of cards.
Parts of point #4 bear repeating because it's an important point. Learning to reason
about opponent lines and hand ranges has very little to do with how you would play a
particular situation, and everything to do with how that particular person thinks and reasons
through a situation. I mention this again because I can't tell you how many times in my
poker career I've heard good winning players say something to the effect of, "I can't believe
he'd play his hand this way, he lost so much value against my perceived range," or "He can't
possibly have this or that hand, I'd never play those in that spot." Yes, we agree you never
would, or it may not even be the best way to play a situation, but it's irrelevant. It's all about
how our opponents are reasoning, and you become better at that by understanding
personalities and the psychology involved in poker.
13

Psychological Control / Understanding
You can be one of the absolute best poker players in the world, and have an
unbelievable grasp of the aggression and the rational deduction aspects of the game, and
still end up broke if you don't have a good understanding of your
own psyche. This is the one area where many people fool
themselves into believing they can have chaotic and unbalanced
lives, and somehow still be successful at poker. Generally
speaking, if you aren't very successful in "life" you're not going to
be very successful at poker. There are reasons why you're not
being very successful in your personal life, and those very same
reasons will carry over at the poker table at one point or another.
That doesn't mean that if you're young, for example, and

haven't had much success in other areas of life for
lack of life experience, that you can't have your first
major successes at the poker table. It does mean that
if you don't have adequate schooling behind you,
and other skills you can also be successful at, being
successful at poker will be much more difficult to
achieve. Nothing is impossible though if you want it
badly enough.
There are several sub areas in this aspect of

poker that we should explore and expand upon.
They include tilt and its many sub variants, self-
awareness, and perceptiveness. The ability to
understand, and, in most cases, control these aspects
of ourselves leads to greater success in life and at
the poker table. Let's take a look at each of these subcategories.
Tilt
I'm sure you've heard a lot of people talk about not letting the past affect your future
decisions, but realistically, this is going to happen quite a bit. You take a bad beat, get
frustrated, and then get involved in the very next pot, when you should have been "insta-
mucking" your hand to begin with.
14

Some of us are much better about controlling our emotions and ego at the table, but
most of us, no matter how good we are at this, could make dramatic improvements in
learning how to re-center ourselves, and be FULLY in the moment. The reality is, the day's
events, the current bad beat you took, the horrible fight you had with your partner, the cat
you ran over on the way to the casino, are all going to affect every decision you make at the
table. And, as you should fully understand, playing your most profitable poker has to do
with making the BEST decision possible as consistently as possible over a long period of
time.
So, consequently, your current state of mind when you sit down at the table is a
crucial factor in determining how successful you can really be at poker. This is poker at an
even higher level; this is the game you'll be playing against yourself your entire life. It
should make a lot of sense then that not only do you have to learn how to play against an
array of different personality types on the felt, but you have to learn how to play against
your ego, while balancing your emotional state.
There are really two important concepts to getting yourself in an ideal state where
you can be fully present in the moment:
1. Determining your current state of mind, and how recent past events may be affecting
you, and
2. Letting go of all of those past events, and focusing in with laser-like precision at
only the current decision at hand.
I recommend that you create a personal "ritual" for yourself before you decide to
play a game of poker. You don't have to light candles, burn incense, and chant to the holy
mother cow. It's just a matter of creating a repetitive set of actions that will prepare your
mind to let go of the past, and focus on the current task at hand. It can be as simple as
saying one sentence to yourself, such as, "I'm ready to play poker, so I'm going to let
everything else go, center myself, and focus my mind to play the best poker I can play."
Something that simple can make a HUGE difference in every session you play.
If you've noticed one thing about professional sports, you should be able to notice
who the truly great players are in any individual sport. They are deemed great, not only
because they perform extremely well, but also because they can do this very consistently. A
lot of professional athletes talk about "being in the bubble," where there's no crowd, no
winning, no losing, but instead just the pure action they are doing. Meaning there is no
weight put into whether they score a goal, make that basket, or catch that improbable throw
for a touchdown. It's "merely" the action and only the action.
This is the second part of being in the moment. If you're involved in a pot in poker,
and you begin to think about winning the hand, losing the hand, losing the money that's
already in the pot, then you've already begun to lose the hand. Don't worry about what you
invested into the pot in the PAST, don't concern yourself with victory, focus in and analyze
all of the available information, and make the best decision possible. The more consistently
you can do this, the more your poker bankroll is going to grow.
15

Being a good quitter (Tilt)

Poker is one of the few things you'll do where you want to proudly boast that you're
one of the best quitters. You may not think of it as an important skill, but it's extremely
important to have the self awareness to recognize tilt has set in,
and the self control to walk away and wait for another day. If
you recognize any of the following about yourself, then you
should take note, and look to take a break or call it a day:
1. Feeling a bit warm or hot. They don't call it steaming for

nothing, and when tilt sets in like this, you will notice a
rise in your body temperature and suddenly feel much
warmer.
2. You are berating someone else's "bad" play. If you need
to tell someone else how badly they played a situation,
your head isn't properly in the game. You want others to not play well, so there's no
reason to instruct them how to play better.
3. You find yourself looking for excuses to get into a pot. Usually starts with a hand
you wouldn't normally play pre-flop, and if you spot this, then take note.
4. You are folding in spots where you normally think you should be calling so that you
can preserve your winnings for your current session. It's a sure sign of "winners tilt"
and it's an indicator you're not going to be making the most profitable decisions
anymore.
5. You are calling too much and losing in spots where it's pretty clear you should have
folded. Another sign that you've lost your ability to properly reason through a
situation. This usually happens when you perceive you’re behind for a session and
need to win back some of your "lost" money.
The first step in getting a grip on tilt is recognizing it. If you don't have the self
awareness to know you're starting to tilt or are in full blown tilt, then you're not going to be
able to quit and end it. The second step is setting up some kind of talking down process for
yourself. Using something to the effect of reminding yourself that you are here to play your
―A‖ game, and be the best poker player you can be. Talking to yourself and reminding
yourself of this goal can help you take a step back and become a little more objective. Use
any strategy that you can employ that will help take you out of your current emotional state.
Some strategies you can use to pull yourself out of a tilting emotional state:
1. Remind yourself that your goal is to play your ―A‖ game.

2. Have a chip or some kind of card holder that has a saying that can remind you to get
into your best state of mind possible.
16

3. Sit out, take a bathroom break, and cool A. Meditation

yourself down. If you have any doubt about B. Journaling
your emotional state, don't return to the game. C. Counseling
4. Remind yourself that poker is a lifelong D. Analyzing Life Cycles
E. Listen to Friends & Families
game, one session or evening isn't going to Opinions about Yourself
determine any particular outcome. F. Read Spiritual Texts
5. Write a favorite quote or saying that will
bring you to a good state on a sticky note and
keep it on your monitor, your hand, or a piece of paper you can pull out and read.
6. Have a picture of your wife/girlfriend and/or children to remind you that you also
want to play for them.
It will likely take some practice, but try a few different strategies until you find
something that works best for you that you can go to when you need to. If you try one thing
and it doesn't work, try another. If you can't get yourself to properly quit, then you may
want to speak to a psychologist, or someone who specializes in gambling related
psychology. Whatever you do though, don't ignore it and pretend like it will eventually get
better, because it most likely won't. Be proactive and seek some solutions.
Self Awareness
There's nearly nothing more valuable in life, and at the
poker table, as self awareness. A serious lack of self awareness is
debilitating to one's goals for several reasons. First, you'll be blind
as to how and why you function the way you do which will
prevent you from making the best possible choices. Secondly,
you'll have much more difficulty understanding someone's
motivations, desires, and choices. The more self aware you are, the
more insight you'll have into not only these areas for yourself, but
also how and why others are functioning the way they are. This is
a huge bonus when you're deciding how to play the turn against an
aggressive gambling opponent with second pair.
Self awareness is a lifelong pursuit. It's obviously not going to be something where
you'll have instant ah-ha moments, and suddenly understand yourself and others. Even if
you have many enlightenment experiences, which are generally suddenly flashes of insight,
you'll need to take those insights and really test them and understand them in order to fully
integrate them into your life, and at the poker table.
Taking some time each week to reflect upon your actions, and be honest with yourself about
areas you need to improve will make you a better poker player, and a better person. Some of
17

the best and most recommended ways to improve in this area are, but aren't limited to, as
follows:
The biggest obstacle to self awareness is ego, as people usually call it. I personally
like to call it my "projected construct." It's the part of me that I constructed over many years
of life lessons, what people told me I was or was not, and the views and opinions I chose to
adopt about the world and how I got here.
It's a complete mental construct that we use to interface with the world, and connect
with others. And not to get too deep, because this is, after all, a poker book, it's ultimately
not who we really are. It serves a purpose, and can be a great asset, but can also be a great
hindrance. You ultimately make the choice in how you use it to obtain the dreams and
desires you have from this life. The self awareness trick is that you learn how to use it to its
fullest, and don't allow the bigger part of yourself to be used by it.
There are no instant answers in this area, but putting some time into this aspect of
your life will pay big dividends long term. It may take a decent amount of initial time
investment, but if you do it early enough in life, you'll reap many years of rewards from it.
That being said, it's never too late to reflect, and learn about yourself.
Perceptiveness
Perceptiveness goes somewhat hand in hand
with self awareness. Generally the more self aware
you are, the more perceptive you'll be because you'll
have a greater understanding of human psychology
and motivations. That's not always the case though,
and I've personally seen some very self unaware
people who were pretty perceptive. When you have well developed perceptiveness, you'll be
able to more accurately predict how others are going to act, or react to your actions at the
poker table.
The ability to read, react to, and anticipate your opponent’s actions is a huge skill to
have in poker. You want to be able to know that when you raise the flop with a bluff for the
second time, how you expect your opponent to react against your play. Being perceptive
enough to read into their thought process will allow you to force other players into poor
decisions and make big mistakes.
When you have well developed perceptiveness, you'll be able to see things that
others around you commonly cannot. If you couple this with self-awareness, you'll have the
proper insight to know how to act on what you're seeing. If you commonly have the feeling
that other good poker players at the table are making plays that you don't quite understand,
18

then you'll probably want to put some work into this area. A few things you can do to help
improve your perceptiveness:
1. Pay attention. It's easy in today's society to

find a million ways to distract yourself.
Everything from iPods to cell phones and
TV's will be an easy out to keep you from
paying attention to what's happening at the
table.
2. Watch what others are doing, and always
make an effort to figure out why they are
functioning the way they are. Keeping your mind thinking about reasons behind
actions will help you recognize when similar situations arise in the future.
3. Work on reading body language. Not a ton of work has been done in this area for
poker, but there are a few books on the subject. In general though, if you pay
attention and put A + B above together, you'll learn to form your own conclusions
about body language and how it relates to tells at the poker table.
4. Work on increasing your memory. Since you'll be paying attention more, and
forming more conclusions about your experience, you're going to want a good
memory bank to pull from and access that information.
5. Learn to trust your intuition and what how your body reacts to situations it
encounters. This is sometimes called "trusting your gut." There's some truth in the
expression since your stomach or heart tend to be organs that you can sense and feel
more readily when you're reading a situation and using your intuition to influence
your decision-making process.
Keeping your attention at the tables by making good notes will lead to good reads
and increase your perceptiveness against your opponents. Learning to blend and use your
rational mind to understand hand ranges and math, and trusting your intuition, will become
a deadly combination.
19

Poker by the Book: Polished Poker – Volume I
Chapter 3: Get it Together
F irst thing you need to do if you're going to play poker on any serious level is get your
bankroll, software (if you're going to play online), and preparation together. You
won't have the level of success you desire if you aren't prepared in these areas. There
are countless semi-professional and professional poker players that have extremely
poor money management skills, and very poor preparation. If you want to improve and
move up the poker food chain you'll need to take these areas of the game seriously, and put
work into them if you don't already excel at them.
Bankroll Management
There are some generally accepted rules on bankroll management for cash games.
Typically 30 buy-ins for the limit you're playing is a good enough cushion to absorb any
negative variance. Really though, if you haven't beaten a particular stake level ever before,
and you drop around 15 buy-ins, you should be
moving down until you can win.
Running bad is going to happen to everyone

multiple times throughout their poker careers.
However, let's have a moment of honesty. If you
knew what you were doing, and were skilled enough,
you could absorb most negative variance by making
the best play in many other situations. This holds
especially true the lower the stakes you are playing.
The higher the stakes you're playing, the less this will hold true because the average
potential skill gap between you and your opponent will be less. At micro and small stakes
though, the average potential skill gap can be gigantic.
Don't fool yourself into thinking you're just on a bad run. Take an honest look at
your game, and move down stakes if you need to. There's no shame in moving down, re-
gaining your confidence, improving your game, and then moving back up. It's worse to
continue to lose and blame it on bad luck.
STAKE LEVEL No. Buy-ins The general guideline for bankroll management may
Micro Stakes 25 not apply to you. If you've beaten a certain stake level over
Small Stakes 30
a decent sample size, then you may not need as many as 30
buy-ins. You can possibly get away with 20 or less buy-ins
Mid Stakes 30–40
depending on what stake amounts you're going to play. The
High Stakes 40+ higher the stakes, the more buy-ins you're going to want.
20

So a quick example is if you're going to play 100NL online, then it's suggested for a
$1 big blind game that you have at least $3k in your poker bankroll. If you haven't beaten a
particular game in a couple of years, don't expect to just jump back in and beat it at the same
level. You'll want to have some extra buy-ins, or possibly start a little lower than the
previous limits you felt you could beat. In general the games tend to get tougher over time,
and strategies and the amount of available knowledge change and increase.
When you decide to cash out and spend some of your poker winnings, make sure
you leave enough buy-ins left for the stakes you want to play. There's nothing worse than
cashing out, not leaving yourself adequate buy-in cushions, and then going on a losing
streak. If you're worried about the money, you're not going to make good decisions. So
make sure when you cash out you have a plan for your poker bankroll. Don't leave yourself
short.
Sometimes life issues may occur and you'll need to pull out larger sums of your
bankroll than you'd ideally like to. When situations like this occur, have a plan. Either find
someone to temporarily stake you, or play at smaller stakes until you can re-build your
bankroll. Always have a plan.
Poker Software
There's a lot of poker software out there now-a-days. Poker database tracking
software is just one aspect of poker software. Between equity calculators, hotkey tools,
training programs, poker AI, content manager, etc., there's a lot of software to check out and
see what adds value to your game. If you're
going to play online though, you'll without
question want a database program at the
very minimum.
Three of the top poker database

applications are Hold’em Manager, Poker
Tracker, and Poker Office. There are also
some newer free ones that are available if
you google around. All of them have free
trials, so I'd advise giving them each a try
and seeing which one makes more sense
for you. If you're playing online though, Hold’em Manager 2 is the leader in the poker database industry.
and not using one that can support a HUD
(heads up display w/ poker stats), then you'll be a big disadvantage. Most of the regulars
you're playing against are going to have one.
21

Poker databases are an online necessity for several reasons. Being able to track your
results, review your play, and analyze your stats are a great way to grow as a poker player.
Also being able to analyze your opponent’s play and make notes away from the game are a
huge advantage when you play against them again. A short list of some of the poker
software you should check out or own:
1. Poker database program. I'd recommend Hold’em Manager, but try them all.
2. Equity calculator. Mentioned in Chapter 2. There are many free ones out there. We'd
recommend Ace Poker Drills since it's free.
3. Poker database analysis program. It will make analyzing your stats and information
much easier. Leak Buster has a free trial to check out.
4. Hotkey program. It will make multi-tabling much easier with pre-defined bet sizing
and time banking.
5. Poker training applications. If you want to brush up on drills and things to improve
then there are several applications out there like the Equity Trainer in Ace Poker
Drills, and Ace Poker Coach.
6. Tilt management application. Applications that will close down your client if you
lose X amount of buy-ins. Handy if you want that extra protection and have
difficulty quitting games.
There are a ton out there, so check out as many as you can. Anytime something can
make you just a slight bit better, say .2bb/100 to your winrate, it will pay itself off and more
over the years.
Preparation and Diet

Before you even sit down at a poker table or virtual felt, you want to make sure
you're mentally and psychically prepared to be your best. Making sure you are in a good
mental state, and you've prepared yourself mentally for playing your ‖A‖ game is a must.
You might think it would be something obvious to state, but if you've had a recent fight
with your girlfriend/boyfriend, or some other major life issue, it's probably not the best idea
to sit down and play. Everyone handles things differently, and there might be the occasional
person that benefits from "getting away" from the life drama, and can play ok under those
conditions. However, they would tend to be the exception and not the rule.
Once you have yourself in a good mental state, make sure to have adequate supplies
around you including water, snacks, de-stressor tools, money, and a meal/break plan if
you're at the casino. You don't want to miss an important hand because you're dying of thirst
and could have easily solved it by having an adequate amount of water at your disposal.
22

Diet
As a poker player you're going to be in a lot of conditions where food and dietary
options are pretty poor. I've been in very few casinos that have good food options, but there
are some around. The vast majority of food option will be starchy, saturated fats that are
heavily processed. Those are not the kinds of food
that are going to keep your brain at its peak and your
body in the best condition, but a lot of them do taste
good!
We all eat these foods from time to time, but

finding a way to mix in healthier fruits, vegetables,
and complex carbohydrates will keep you functioning
at your best. As poker players, we want foods that will translate into a lot of energy, focused
and sustained energy, and are good memory boosters. When I know I'm in for a long
session, especially at casinos for high stakes tournaments that I'll be playing in all day for
several days in a row, I pack a couple of small containers of fruits, nuts, and vegetables. It
makes a noticeable difference, especially at the end of the day when others are clearly
growing tired, and I'm still focused and alert. Here's a short list of some great foods that
taste good and are fairly easy to keep close by:
FRUITS PRIMARY BENEFIT

Melons Help sustain energy by hydrating your body and fighting fatigue
Bananas Packed with carbohydrates and are a great and easy energy booster
Apples Great source of B and C vitamins and are slow energy releasers
Oranges Tons of minerals, phosphorus, and a high overall energy source
Blueberries High in vitamin E, fiber, and antioxidants. Great memory booster.
Strawberries Another high antioxidant, good for memory, concentration and vision
Raspberries High antioxidant, lowers blood sugar, and anti-inflammatory
Olives High in vitamin E and great brain booster
VEGGIES / NUTS PRIMARY BENEFIT

Edamame Great mix of complex carbs, fiber, protein and healthy fat to keep you sharp
Peanuts High in folate, healthy fats, and vitamin E. Great brain booster.
Pecans Loaded with beta sitosterol, good for prostrate health and sustained energy
Broccoli High in complex B vitamins, great for sustained energy and concentration
Carrots High in B vitamins that metabolize slower for sustained energy
23

A balanced diet is your overall best bet to have sustained energy, great focus, a sharp
memory and active mind. Realistically we're not all eating a perfecting balanced diet all the
time, so some of the above fruits, nuts and vegetables are easy ways to give an extra boost
while you're playing. There are tons more fruits, vegetables, nuts, and foods in general
which are great for energy and memory. The table above lists some easy examples that
travel well and are easy to grab on the go.
It may seem a bit trite, but making sure you keep yourself energized and focused
while you're playing will give you an extra edge against players who are eating heavier and
more processed foods. Find a few snacks from the table above, or do some research on
foods you like that can help you with long poker sessions.
24

Chapter 4: Glorious Poker Math
T here are several important math concepts to understand in poker. I'm going to
discuss some of the more applicable and math concepts I've noticed misunderstood
by a lot of players. You may already be familiar with most of these terms, but
hopefully this simplifies it in an easily digestible format. My goal is that you can
walk away from this chapter and fully understand these concepts. Even if you had some
idea and understanding of them before, they should be super clear after you read this
chapter.
Combinations
Counting card combinations at the table in most situations will be nearly impossible.
However, knowing and understanding about how many combinations of hands exists for
specific hands that you beat, and have you beat will help in the decision-making process. In
real time you will rarely be exact with this count, but you can get close, and in post analysis
it's helpful to know in analyzing and
reflecting on your play. Example No. Combos
Unpaired Hand AK 16
Total possible hand combinations for Paired Hand AA 6
any two card hand are multipliers of the cards TPTK on Q high Flop AQ 12
left in the deck. So pre-flop, there are 16 total Set on Flop 55 3
combinations of AK. Four suites of aces, and Two Pair on Flop KJo 9
four suites of kings, or 4 x 4 = 16. Anytime
you remove a card from the deck, you remove one possible combination of that particular
hand being possible. If you saw a flop of Qs9d4h, and you wanted to know how many
combinations of AQo someone could have, then we remove the Qs from counting. We'd
come up with 4 suites of aces times 3 remaining suites of queens, or 4 x 3 = 12.
Most really good combinational analysis will come post analysis after playing the
hand. However, there are some situations where knowing common possible combinations
that beat you can be helpful in decision making. If you have AdTc on a flop of AsQdTh,
you'll know that there are only 5 combinations of sets, 16 combinations of a flopped
straight, and 9 combinations of a higher two pair that beat you for a total of 30
combinations. There are only 9 combinations of worse two pairs that you beat, and 4 that
you split with. So if you bet and are raised on the flop, you can fold in most situations.
Although we'd discount some of the hand ranges such as a flopped straight that might look
to just call, there are still a lot of hands that have you beat, even if you add a good amount
of air hands to your opponent’s range.
25

Another helpful aspect of understanding

combinations is applied to pre-flop hand ranges. If
you're facing a tight pre-flop 3-bettor, say someone
who 3-bets only slightly over 2% of their hand
range, we'd safely say they are 3-betting KK+, AKs,
and AKo only. If we took those four hands, it might
seem as if they are 3-betting each about 25% of the
time. However, if we look at the total combinations
of hands, they are actually 3-betting KK+ about
43% of the time (6 combinations twice for a total of 12), and AKo, AKs the remaining 57%
of the time (12 offsuit combinations plus 4 suited combinations for a total of 16). Most of
the time they're going to have AK instead of AA or KK.
Probability
Probability is the estimate that something will become true or occur. It doesn't
however ensure that an event or outcome will happen though. Since each event is not related
to the prior event, probability theory states that there is X% occurrence for Y to happen, but
it cannot say that Y will ever happen if there's even a slight chance that it won't. This
sometimes confuses gamblers when probability is applied to expected value (more on this
later).
If you're running bad in poker, you are not guaranteed that you will not run bad for
very long extended time periods. This is what tends to lead many poker players, and
gamblers in general, to ruin or go bust. They begin to believe they are "due" to win because
their luck has been so bad, but this is not the case. If the probability of Y event happening is
consistently in your favor, then the odds of Y event will increase, but it also could never
happen.
There are a few popular probability theories, and one that is used quite often in
poker is Bayesian probability. The reason it's commonly used and applied is because
Bayesian probability theory takes into account prior information to help predict future
outcomes. This is highly applicable to poker situations since many situations we'll have
information about our opponents, their tendencies, and in some case HUD stats which will
help create a better probability that your opponent has Y hand given this prior information.
Using Bayesian probability in situations like this allows for a more accurate prediction of
the probability of many situations in poker.
26

Equity
Equity is the percentage of the pot that belongs
to you based on the percentage of the time you'll win
the pot over many large samples. This is not the same
as expected value, although the two are sometimes
interchanged in poker conversations often. Equity is
purely the percentage of the time you'll win, lose or
split the pot.
For example, if you saw a flop of: QcTd6h

which had $100 already in the pot, and you held AsKh and your opponent had KK, and then
went all-in and you called, you'd have ~28% equity in the pot. ~28% of the time on average
you could expect to win this pot. Whether this was a good play to call or not would depend
on our equity, in conjunction with our expected value.
Expected Value (EV)

Expected value is the average money won or lost based on your equity and odds of
the call or raise you are making. Using the above example, if our opponent bet $60 on the
flop, and we called, we'd use the current equity we have in the pot to determine our
expected value. In this case 28% of the time we win $160, and 72% of the time we lose $60.
(160(.28)) - (60(.72)) = +1.6
So calling the all-in on the flop will net a positive expected value of $1.6 on average.
Our equity is low in this situation, so a majority of the time we will lose, but based on the
money in the pot, and our opponent’s bet, the expected value net is positive.
Fold Equity
Fold equity is the equity gained in your hand if you bet or raise and get your
opponent to fold. It's an estimation of how often you believe your opponent will fold
multiplied by your opponent’s current equity. So if you opponent has 75% equity in their
hand, but you estimate that if you bet, you can get your opponent to fold 50% of the time,
then your fold equity would be:
27

75% x 50% = 37.5%
So your new hand equity if you bet in this situation would be 25% (your hand equity
if you both saw all five cards) + 37.5% = 62.5%. You've increased the equity in your hand
from 25% to 62.5%, just by betting. This is why aggression pays off so often in poker
because every time you bet, you give your opponent the chance to completely forfeit their
equity in the hand. Opponents are rarely drawing completely dead, so when you can get
them to fold when they have an equity advantage, it's a huge +EV situation for you.
28

Chapter 5: Metta World Peace
P utting pressure on your opponents is a great way to force them into making mistakes,
and hopefully, big mistakes. When you're making an aggressive action at the table,
you want to have an understanding of how you think your opponents are going to
react to your actions. Some opponents will continue to step out of your way no
matter how much pressure you apply, and some opponents will over react after one or two
aggressive actions. It's important to understand who these players are, and the plan of attack
you have for table you're currently seated at.
There are really three main styles of play in no-limit holdem, and variations of those
in between. You can play a more passive style, and trap your opponents, reacting to how
they play the game. You can play a more aggressive style, and attempt to force your
opponents to react to you with the hopes they will react incorrectly and make a big mistake.
Finally, you can play a more balanced approach where you strive to be aggressive in the
most ideal spots, trap in some situations, and overall are aggressive, but not to the extent
where your opponents are forced to react to your play.
There are variations of these three styles, but the main points are clear. Are you
looking to play a more balanced game, a trapping game, or a very aggressive game? It's
generally best to find a game strategy that fits your psychology the best, and become really
good at it. That doesn't mean you can't at some point learn all three approaches, but it's good
to have a go-to mode that you feel you'll excel at the most. Then as you learn the other
approaches, you adapt and play those styles based on how the tables and your opponents are
playing.
In Chapter 2, if you scored really low in the aggression part of your game, then
trying to play the more aggressive game strategy is not going to be a good initial fit for you.
You're much better off either figuring out a more passive and trappy game strategy,
especially if you excelled at the logic / reason part of the scoring from Chapter 2, or
learning to create more of a balanced strategy. If you scored really low in the psychological
parts, and struggle with tilt, then a more aggressive game plan might initially come more
natural for you, but it won't be an ideal because you'd have a tendency to "spew" chips away
with over the top aggressive play and tilt.
Tension Count
If you're struggling to understand the proper amount of aggressive action to take at
the table before your opponents are likely to react and attempt to adapt to your play, then
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you can keep a mental note of the Tension Count at the table. The tension count is the ratio
of aggressive action to rounds of poker played. The more aggressive you are within a round,
the higher the tension count becomes. Conversely, the less aggressive you are, the lower the
tension count becomes. The purpose of the tension count is to try and find that ideal balance
so you are being aggressive enough and adapting your play to the circumstances
appropriately. It's easy to say that if you become more aggressive, then of course your
opponents are going to eventually react and adapt. But knowing about how far you can push
each of them is a bit of an art. If you feel you already have a good handle on this, then
you're probably already aware of how tension is built and released at the table and you can
skip over this section. If however it's still a bit of anomaly for you, and you'd like to become
better at knowing how to take advantage of tension counts at the table, then forge ahead.
Tension counts range from -6 to +6 on average. When playing a full ring cash game,
your tension count is going to start at 0. When playing a 6-max game, it's going to start at
+1. Other games, such as 4-handed and heads up, depend a lot on flow and other dynamics;
if you aren't aware of how tension effects your opponents, then those games aren't generally
recommended to play in. The tension count is somewhat like training wheels and will give
you an idea of how to adjust your play until it becomes more natural for you.
Action TC Action TC
Every Raise (pre-flop and post) +1 Every Round Completed -1
Pre-Flop 3-Bet +1 Raise Pre-flop, but no C-Bet -1
Double Barrel +1 Fold to a C-Bet -1
Triple Barrel +2 Open Fold in small blind -.5
Probable River Bluff +1 Open Fold on Button -.5
Possible Float +1 Fold to Double Barrel -1
Every action you take at the table you add or subtract from the tension count. If
you're online and you're playing multiple tables, it's going to be a bit hard to track of course.
So one to two tables is recommended when first trying to learn and understand this concept.
Once you've done it a bit, and see how it works, then you can take the training wheels off
and drop the tension count.
TC Strategies when you have a good hand
+4 Bet on your slightly larger post flop bet sizing
+5 Increase open raising size, and post flop bet sizing
+6 Increase even larger, sometimes look to over bet post flop
As the tension count becomes high, your opponents are more susceptible to "looking
you up" and paying you off. So you want to make sure you're getting the most with your big
hands.
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So for example, you raised before the flop in a 6-max cash game with AcQc and got
one caller on the button (relative stack sizes 100 BBs). Your tension count is now at +5 at
the table. You flop the nuts, and you should bet on the largest side of your bet sizing scale.
Somewhere between near pot size and a pot sized bet. Either your opponent is going to have
a hand in this spot, or they aren't, and the size of the bet won't impact them as much since
they will be more susceptible to calling you down lighter than normal.
When playing online, a lot of your opponents will be playing multiple tables on
average. However, some won't and some will be able to keep track of how aggressive
players are becoming, and most of them multi-tabling will at least have HUDs. Since you
don't know how well your opponents are paying attention when playing online, assume that
they are when you do have a big hand and you've been aggressive. If you've played super
tight, don't expect them to let you bluff because they should have noticed you've played
really tight. That doesn't mean you shouldn't bluff, but don't make a big move and then be
surprised when you're bluff is snapped off. When the tension count does become really
negative, then look to make a few more moves, but again, don't overdo it and don't force it.
The tension count is just a guide and doesn't mean you have to make a move.
TC Strategies when you don't have a hand

-3 You can look to squeeze a little more pre-flop
-4 Double barrel in slimmer spots
-5 Look to bluff or make bigger moves
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You can make some general assumptions that, if you haven't done much in a long
period at a poker table, most players will have taken some kind of note or their HUDs will
reflect this. In those situations when the tension count becomes really highly negative, then
against other non-station type players, you can look to make a decent size bluff, or even
something as simple as a pre-flop squeeze in a spot that might be normally deemed more
marginal to make a play on.
When the tension count becomes really high on the positive side, and you don't have
a hand, this is generally the time to slow down unless you have some kind of specific read
on an opponent. These are the more likely times that you will be looked up lighter, so you
want to minimize the damage in these spots and make smaller sized bluffs in situations
where your opponent may have very little or nothing, or have a decent hand. If they have a
decent hand, something you may be able to normally push them off of, you won't be able to
get them to fold at the same frequency, so sizing your bluffs smaller to move them off the
really low end of their range, or not bluffing at all, is best.
Reads and Notes
One of the biggest advantages of playing online for the good poker player is the
amount of data and notes you can take on an opponent seemingly instantly. Most
sites offer an area where you can click on an opponent's name and type in some
notes about that player. If the site you play on allows HUDs, then it's usually best
to add your notes to the HUD note section. It’s not quite as easy to do in live
play, and when you do this in live play people know that you are aware of that hand and
how it was played. In online play, no one knows if you’re watching TV or intently watching
every hand and making pages of notes.
It’s best to view taking notes on your opponents as the ―work‖ aspect of playing
profitable poker. While it’s possible to play profitable poker without taking notes, it will
inevitably be more profitable to take as many notes as possible for the following reasons:
1. When a similar situation or hand arises, you’ll have more information available that
can help you make the best decision possible.
2. It will help you in getting an overall read on how your opponent is playing.
3. Even if you never play against that particular opponent again, it will help you in
understanding how to play against a similar player in the future.
We’re going to begin by outlining some of the general things you should look for
while playing poker. Each type of play will have an abbreviation that you can use which
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will help if you are multi-tabling and only have a couple of seconds to jot in a note. You can
expand these and/or type in the entire meaning of the play when you actually make your
own notes during play.
List of Abbreviations (Brief Overview)

ATC (Play any two cards) – Whenever a hand goes to showdown it’s always
good to note what hands your opponent was playing and from which position.
This always provides a lot of insight into how they think about the game. When
you see someone play 95o from middle position, you can label them as ATC.
The more you see this from them, the more solid your read will be.
FC (Flush Chaser) – A lot of opponents love to chase flushes. When you see
someone calling large flop and turn bets with an obvious flush draw, but they
fold to a small river bet, you can be pretty sure they were chasing their flush.
Also if you see an opponent calling large bets and then connecting with his flush,
you’ll want to note this. It’s also important to note whether they CHECKED
their flush on the end or bet it.
SOOT (Likes to play any two suited cards) – This is similar to FC except
there are some players who also like to play any two suited cards from nearly
anywhere. You’ll see opponents play K4s from early position, or J6s from
middle position, you can be pretty sure they’re a suited player. This is good to
know if there’s a flush draw on board and you have a marginal hand, but they’re
still calling large bets. It’s also good to note if they call raises with these hands
too. Some people will call large raises with Q8s thinking that they will bust you
if they hit their flush. We love to play against these types of opponents.
AK (Will bet turn unimproved) – Nearly all people will bet the flop with any
two cards if they raised before the flop. Not everyone however will bet the turn
unimproved. This is very good to know if you’re holding a marginal hand and
your opponent is still firing. This read will be a bit harder to make because you
definitely need to see a few showdowns to confirm this for sure.
CRW (Calls raises with weak hands) – This opponent will call large raises, for
example, with QT out of position, or perhaps even a re-raise with KJ or some
other dominated hands. They could also call a large raise with A4o or even a
more speculative hand like J8o.
LAF (Will lead into pre-flop raiserand fold to a raise) – Some opponents will
call raises out of position with the intention of betting the flop to steal the pot.
Some opponents will do this with small pocket pairs, and some will do it with
air. If you get a chance to make the distinction between the two, it will be very
helpful with your flop play. However, when you see someone do this, then you’ll
want to make some generous raises on the flop when you don’t have a hand.
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SVB (Slim value bettor) – You'll see these guys often betting middle or weak
top pair on scary boards for value. Really important to note bet sizing in these
spots because a lot of these guys will have betting tells in these situations, such
as betting marginally weak in these spots (especially at micro and small stakes).
It's typically better to raise some of your bluff catchers against these guys instead
of call since their bet / calling range generally isn't very good unless they are
extremely good hand readers and have a good read on you as well.
Ax (Will play an ace from anywhere) – A lot of opponents fall in love with the
ace. If you see someone playing A3 from early position or A8 to a raise, or a
hand like A9 out of position to a raise, then you have an Ax player. This just
adds more insight for you as to how your opponent understand the game and you
can also get away from your pocket kings if this opponent is sticking around on
an ace high flop because they’re not folding their weak ace.
NPR (Will raise a non-premium hand) – Some opponents will raise a non-
premium hand from anywhere. The extreme to which they take this will let you
know how loose and aggressive they are. It's a worthy note to take if they are
showing up with hands like J7o from early position, Q9s from UTG, or 37s from
middle position. Some opponents will just about never do this, some will
occasionally, but NPRs will do it anywhere from semi-regularly to regularly.
CBB (Continuation bet bad boards) – Some opponents like to continuation bet
no matter what. They raise before the flop, and they want to fire the flop no
matter how bad the flop texture is for their hand. I like to take a note of these
guys because it will help me to know spots I can float and represent a big made
hand on draw heavy flop textures that most missed over cards should be check/
folding on.
LA (Look-up artist) – This is a very profitable opponent to play against. They
will typically call nearly any flop bet you make, but will fold to further
aggression. They tend to like to see how you’ll react after they call your first bet,
but tend to fold a large percentage of the time to a second bet.
Now that we have an idea of some of the things to look for, let’s look at how to use
this information in a real money game. We’re going to take the above abbreviated notes,
expand them a bit more, and show how they’ll apply in actual hands.
ATC (Any Two Cards)

Players who literally play any two cards are divided into three types of players and
you need to be aware of the differences between these players. The frequency at which you
see these variations depends on the stakes you are playing. Typically you will only see ATC
1 & 2 at small and mid stakes.
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 ATC 1 (No grasp of hand strength) – The first group of players who play any two
cards really has no solid grasp of hand strength, position, or why to play certain
hands in some situations and not others. These players are typical also called ―fish‖
because they’ll put in too much money with weak hands and pay off against
dominated hands. These are players you should like playing with, but you need to be
aware that if you miss the flop, they may have hit it and they may also call you down
with any piece of it. So you don’t typically want to bluff players in this category
unless you see them folding a lot to a second bet (or third). You do however want to
value bet your made hands against them as they will nearly always pay off with
weaker hands or dominated hands.
 ATC 2 (Some grasp of hand strength) – You’ll see a lot of these players primarily
in short-handed games, but they do also show up in full ring games. These players
will play any two cards, but they typically won’t invest too much into the pot unless
they have a good hand after the flop. They’ll commonly call raises with a hand such
as K6o on the button (note this is different than CRW – see above) with the
intention of either bluffing you out of the pot OR nailing a big hand hoping to bust
you with your large pocket pair. These players will be very visible because they’ll be
involved in a lot of pots, and they’ll usually be fairly aggressive. If they have some
grasp of hand strength, then they are getting involved in a lot of pots for a reason,
and that reason is usually because they believe they can bluff you out of the pot, or
bust you with their unusual T4o hand. These opponents can be more dangerous, but
a lot of times they will still go too far with a top pair hand thinking you’re bluffing
(even though you have a better kicker then they do). You want to bet into them when
you have a strong hand and hope they don’t believe you and make a move in the
wrong spot. Make your bets big and strong against these opponents, because they
tend to not believe people betting into them. You really don’t need to slowplay
against these opponents.
 ATC 3 (Good grasp of hand strength) – These opponents are almost non-existent
at small stakes, you will sometimes see them at 50NL/100NL and above at 6-max.
This player can legitimately be called a solid LAG (loose-aggressive) player. They
play nearly any two cards because they know how to read situations well and win a
lot of hands even when they have the worst hand. They can also read well when they
have a good second best hand and minimize their losses. Playing this style requires
excellent hand reading and making a lot of difficult decisions. For these reasons
you’ll typically run into a lot of people that are of the latter two types of ATCs
described. Some will be ATCs that have some concept of hand strength that think
they are good LAG players, but really they aren’t.
So when taking notes make sure you know what type of ATC you are facing. Make
the appropriate additional note. When you are playing against an ATC 1, you know this
opponent is just basically ―fishy‖ (bad player). When you are against ATC 2, this player
tends to be more on the aggressive side. They are usually in a lot of pots because they are
impatient and are ―action junkies.‖ If you happen to be unlucky enough to see an ATC 3,
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just try and stay out of pots with them unless you have a good hand or until you’ve
developed your post flop skill to a high level.
In the above example both you and your opponent started with effective stacks of
100 BBs in a full ring cash game. Everyone folded to you in middle position and you raised
3.5x the BB with AcQc. The action folded to the button who called the raise and the blinds
folded.
You look at your notes and you notice that you put down that your opponent was an
ATC 2. You don’t have any other notes beyond that and you’ve only played 8 rotations with
this opponent. The flop comes: 7c3dTc and you make a ¾ size pot bet with your nut flush
draw and two over cards. Your opponent then mini-raises you on the flop and you call the
raise. The turn comes the 6c giving you the 2nd nuts. Do you slow down? No, you should
continue to bet this hand aggressively against this type of opponent. It’s very likely that they
may try and represent the flush by raising your bet. You don’t however want to bet too
aggressively in THIS particular situation. A half size pot bet will invite a possible raise
which is what you want. Give your aggressive opponent a little room to hang themselves,
but don’t get fancy and check. Just continue to bet into these opponents.
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FC (Flush Chaser)
A lot of no-limit Texas Holdem players just love to make flushes. There’s something
about looking down at J8s that looks so much better than J8o to a lot of opponents at small
and mid stakes. We know however that the suited cards only out perform their off suit
counterpart by 2% when going to showdown, but our opponents don’t seem to mind, or
more accurately, don’t know that.
Now let’s not get confused between the FC player and the SOOT player. The FC
player likes to chase his flush, but that doesn’t mean that he’ll play any two suited cards.
You may have an initial read of FC, and then later find out that the player is really more of a
SOOT, but make sure that you make the distinction because it matters.
Most FC players will still play reasonable cards, but they’ll call large flop bets (pot
size or more) with their flush draws, which isn’t terrible on the flop. But they will also
typically call large turn bets with their draws, which is bad. It’s bad for them but good for
you. When you see a person checking and calling and then check/folding the river to a bet,
you can be pretty sure they were chasing and you can make a note of it (and I suggest
putting a question mark next to the read meaning it’s not confirmed yet, but you suspect this
to be the case).
If you are lucky enough to get to see a showdown and their cards, then also make a
note whether they chased with a flush that had likely over card outs, or they chased with just
a flush draw that likely had no over cards. An example of this would be if they held 8d9d
and the board on the turn read AcTd4d2h. If they are calling large bets on those kinds of
boards when they only have as many as 9 outs, then you can put an exclamation on their FC
note because they are a definite flush chaser.
SOOT (Likes to play any two suited cards)

You’ll run into these opponents a lot at micro and small stakes, but
there are some at every buy-in level. These opponents have so fallen in love
with the flush that they’ll play any two suited cards, and often from any
position. If you happen to see someone showdown a J4s from early position,
you can rest assured you’ve found one of these opponents.
If you get involved in a hand with a SOOT, and there are flush draw possibilities,
bet the hand hard. Sometimes even over betting the pot (on flop and turn) is appropriate if
you have a strong hand. Don’t be afraid of chasing them away, they’ll continue on if they
have any hope if hitting their flush. If you have a marginal hand, bet the flop and turn harder
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than normal, but always make sure not to go too crazy. Just because you’re in a hand with a
SOOT and there’s a flush draw doesn’t mean they absolutely have a draw. Make sure to
always exercise caution, but look for the tell tale signs of a draw, such as your opponent
checking and calling.
When you have position on a SOOT with a good hand and they’ve limped in front of
you, make sure you isolation raise them pre-flop with a wider range of hands than normal.
You want to make them pay as much as possible for trying to hit their improbable hand (you
flop a flush less than .08% of the time). SOOT players are always fairly loose, so you want
to maximize your advantage by getting in a nice raise before the flop.
Also if you’re involved in a hand with a SOOT and a flush draw comes in, don’t pay
it off. They won’t know that you have this kind of read on them, so they likely won’t be
bluffing you. Again, if your opponent is checking and calling and a flush draw completes,
and they suddenly bet, or check-raise, you should fold. Same thing if you’re out of position
and they’ve been calling your bets and a flush draw completes on the river, it may be best to
consider folding unless they bet a very small amount.
In the example both players start with 150 BB effective stacks, a noted SOOT limps
into the pot and you pick up AdQh in the CO and raise to 5 BBs. Everyone folds back to the
limper who calls the raise. The flop comes as shown: 2c9hQc. The SOOT checks to you and
you bet 10 BBs. The SOOT calls and the pot is now 21.5 BBs. The turn comes the 7d. The
SOOT again checks and you bet 18 BBs. The SOOT calls and the pot is now 57.5 BBs. The
turn now comes the 3c and the SOOT bets 50 BBs. You should fold.
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If this were any other kind of player, you may consider calling. Since you know
however that this opponent plays a lot of suited cards and he was checking and calling the
entire way until the flush hit on the river, you should let it go. It’s very unlikely that he's
aware that you know he plays a lot of suited cards. It’s also unlikely that he checked and
called all the way with some weak hand like QJ or worse and now decided to just represent
the flush and lead the river. When you make a read, trust it and go with it. You will save
yourself money, and also make much more money in the long run.
AK (Will bet turn unimproved)

Nearly all opponents who raise before the flop will follow it up with a continuation
bet on the flop. Not all opponents however will fire the second bullet with an unimproved
hand. When you get a rare chance to see a showdown when someone bets the turn with an
unimproved hand, you should make a note of this and most important, write down what the
bet size was in proportion to the pot size.
Noting that your opponent will fire multiple bullets with a non-paired hand is
important, but it will be rare that you’ll be able to see them showdown a hand often enough
to know the rate they do this. Of course if they are fire multiple bullets in nearly every pot
they’re involved in, then you can be quite sure they make this play often. The more
important thing that you can take away as a read within a short session against an opponent
like this is how he bets his made hands versus his bluffs.
Some opponents will have a very definitive pattern here. So if you

get to see an AK opponent go to showdown with an unimproved hand, and
then get to see them go to showdown with a made hand, you want to note
the differences in how they bet these two hands. A lot of opponents
(especially at micro and small stakes) are not very balanced in how they bet
their bluffs versus their made hands. Note everything you see about the
differences, and try and relate their betting pattern to a ratio of the pot size.
For example, if you see someone bet an unimproved hand on the flop for a ½ sized
pot bet on the flop, but they bet a made hand for slightly larger or 3/4ths the pot size bet on
the flop, this will likely be a pretty reliable betting tell. If you get to see it more than once,
you can almost ink it, and assume it is. Most of the better players won't vary their bet sizing
much or at all, as you're told in most books and by other players not to, but you will spot
some that do. You’ll know in this example when your opponent is betting weak, they’re
weak, and when they bet strong, they’re strong. You might see the opposite of this, or any
other combination of betting patterns, and different ones also on the turn. So don’t only note
that this opponent is an AK, but how they bet their hands as well (you should do this with
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all opponents of course, but especially true when you see opponents who are firing multiple
bullets).
The best thing to do is you are up against an AK player is to raise the flop if you
miss, since raising the turn can get expensive. Also if you have some kind of modest
holding like a small pocket pair that doesn't have much improvement equity (ability to
become an even stronger hand) when behind, you're sometimes best to raise as well. This
way you don't find yourself in a spot calling multiple bullets with a really marginal hand
that will rarely improve. Also this will allow you to take initiative back in the hand if they
do just call, and then you can check the turn or later turn your hand into a bluff with more
credibility. Just because someone is an AK doesn't mean they won't have a hand sometimes.
You don’t want to invest too much with mid pair or an under pair to the board, unless you
feel very confident in your read. If you hit the flop hard and have position it’s best to call
their flop bet and raise the turn or call when they bet again.
CRW (Calls raises with weak hands)

Against opponents who will call raises with weak hands, you want to do your best to
see how much they’ll call before the flop and maximize your edge by raising as much as
they’ll call. You’ll see some players that will call 5xBB––8xBB and occasionally even more
with weak hands in the hopes of catching some fluke flop and busting you.
In order to make their play as unprofitable as possible, you want to raise
continually when they're in a hand with you, especially if you have position.
There are a lot of CRW players who will limp and call large raises with weak
hands like J9o, T7o, 56o, etc.
When you notice that a player is calling a lot of raises, pay particular attention to the
hands they show down and note how much they called with those hands. When you have a
big hand and raise, continually try an increase the size of that raise until you can find a size
that will fold them out. Then do your best to stay within the range that will keep them in the
hand with you.
Don't just go on auto-pilot with your normal pre-flop raise sizes. This is leaving
money on the table when you have fishy players that will pay off with weaker hands. Don't
worry so much about giving away the strength of your hand, because you're doing this
against the CRW player, and not against the regulars at your table. When there are only
regulars left to act, then do your normal raise sizing. But when isolating weak CRW players,
or open raising with good hands, don't be afraid to adjust your open sizing. Just make sure
to keep it consistent throughout that round at the table. Don't bump your open raise size up
to 7 BBs with KK against a weak player, and then isolation raise a CRW limper to 4 BBs
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with A7s. Keep the sizing consistent, and look to discourage the other regulars from getting
into the pot with you. If and when they adjust you can change your sizing again.
Most importantly, just make sure you are aware of this type of player and know that
they will have a wide range of hands that they’ll play in missed flops. That means that if
you raise with AK and miss, and the flop comes something like J95, it’s likely that it may
have hit your opponent. If they have position on you, it’s still ok (if it’s heads up) to take a
stab at the pot, but shut down if you’re called. On some even more draw heavy flops such as
Th9d6h, you'll often want to give up and not continuation bet when out of position.
Another major advantage you’ll have over this type of opponent is that they’ll
commonly go too far with top pair and sometimes middle pair hands. They tend to be
somewhat on the more aggressive side generally, and also don’t believe opponents have the
hands they’re representing. If you hit a nice flop, you can pummel them with big bets and
win a nice sized pot. Even top pair and weak kicker is good enough to get a good sized pot
formed against them.
LAF (Will lead into pre-flop raises and fold to a raise)

These opponents aren’t very easy to spot. You have to pay special attention to the
particular dynamics of the hand that’s occurring and note why they might be making the
play they’re making. Generally however there are two types of LAF’s if you are keen
enough to spot them. They are:
 LAF A – These opponents tend to be somewhat aggressive and like to apply the
pressure by leading into their opponents and seeing if they can ―steal‖ the pot from
them. They tend to know that since most opponents will miss the flop a majority of
the time, they’d rather take the initiative being out of position and see if they can
take down the pot with a bet. They are only somewhat aggressive because they will
nearly always fold to a raise unless they have a big hand.
 LAF P – These opponents tend to be a bit more passive, but will take stabs at the pot
with their mid pocket pairs or middle pair type hands. However, they will fold
instantly to a raise fearing the worst of their opponent’s hands.
Both of these opponents present a unique opportunity for you to pick up some extra
big bets. When these players bet on the flop, you should raise with a lot of hands you
missed the flop with. You don’t want to completely overdo this concept, but you do want to
apply as much pressure as possible to these opponents. If you have no over cards and no
draws or strong back door draws, then giving up in these spots is fine. Since LAFs tend to
be able to fold their weak hands, you want to test them as see how much they really like
their hand and how far they’ll be willing to go with it. If you do decide to stay ultra
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aggressive in these situations, make sure you're aware that your opponent will tend to take a
stand at some point. Use the tension concept to try and time it so that you'll have a big hand
when your opponent does take a stand against you.
Anytime you see someone put a bet in on the flop and fold to a raise, make a quick
note of it. Just because someone does it once or twice doesn’t make them a LAF. That’s
why these types of opponents’ tendencies are much harder to pick up on. In one session,
you may not really know for sure if someone is a LAF. This is much more of a long term
read that you may have to make against a regular player. There are times however when you
will be able to make this read within a session, and it will be quite obvious when that time
occurs.
SVB (Slim Value Bettor)

It will take some time to make this read, but when you do you want to make sure
you're exploiting your opponent’s play properly. Most of the time you'll eventually find this
in the regulars you're playing against. Sometimes within a short session you'll pick up on
this on players that may not be regulars in your game. You want to keep a sharp eye out for
players that are betting slim on the turn and river. This means weak top pair on bad final
boards, second and sometimes third pair. Sometimes it can be two pair on really draw heavy
boards that have four to a straight and flush possibilities. The bottom line is that it's pretty
narrow considering how the hand played and the final board.
Typically you'll be in a spot with a marginal hand as well since on average these
opponents will be more aggressive and you'll be calling down a bit lighter. Instead of trying
to call down narrow against them, turn some of your weak made hands into bluffs on the
turn or river. In most situations since you caught them value betting light, they will be in
difficult spots to call a raise. Take note though that against some of your really good
regulars, if you do raise it needs to be consistent with some likely hand you could have, or
you may be looked up light.
To take advantage of the SVB, you'll want to focus on spots where your opponent is
still going to be betting a wide range and your equity when behind isn't that good. Also
situations on the river where your combo draw hand, or one time marginal top pair, has
minimal bluff catching ability against your opponent’s ability to slim value bet top, second
and third pair effectively.
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In the above example, a noted SVB open raised from the hijack (MP) in a 6-max
cash game with effective stacks around 100 BBs. You called in the CO with 7d7c. The flop
came 4dJh5c, your opponent continuation bet, and you called. The turn brought the Kd, and
your opponent bet again. At this point since
you know our opponent will bet the turn
pretty slim he's going to have a fairly wide
betting range of 99+, 44–55, J8o+, 5dAd,
67o+, KTo+, AQo, AdQd, QTo+, AdTd,
ATo+,T9s, A8s+, and probably a couple of
more hands. You probably have around
~25% equity against our opponent’s range,
and you know they are aggressive, since
most SVB's are, and you will likely face a
bet on the river.
It's a common example where of course you're going to call the flop with second
pair, but now you're in a spot facing a second barrel against someone who is aggressive, but
also value bets very slim. Your hand doesn't have much improvement equity when behind
(only about 5%). If you take a look at your opponent’s hand range though, you should
notice that they are going to have to fold at least half of that range facing a raise, and if they
come back over the top, it's a super simple fold since your equity will be nearly non-
existent.
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If there were say 17 BBs in the pot after you called the flop, and your opponent bet
12 BBs into you on the turn, and you raised to 29 BBs, you'll risk 29 BBs to win 29 BBs.
Your opponent will only need to fold half the
time, and you do have a miracle card you will
hit 5% of the time that won't improve your
opponent’s calling range. If your opponent folds
half the time it's a narrowly profitable play, but
if they fold more than half the time, which is
entirely possible against some SVB opponents,
then it's a solid +EV play. In this situation they
should only roughly continue with 45% of their
range or less on the turn.
Another fairly common example on the

river is when you call the flop with a draw, turn a pair, and are now facing a bet on the river
in a spot that against some opponents might be good to bluff catch. Against SVBs though
you should consider raising in a lot more of these situations instead of calling.
In the above example from a 6-max cash game (but this also applies to full ring),
both players start with effective stacks of 120 BBs. A noted SVB opponent open raises to 3
BBs in the hijack and you call on the button with 9h8h. Everyone else folds and the flop
comes: 6d7hQs. The SVB player continuation bets 5 BBs and you call. The turn is the 8d,
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giving you a pair and a draw. The SVB player

bets 12 BBs into a pot of 17.5 BBs, and you call.
The river brings the Kc, and the SVB player bets
25 BBs into a pot of 41.5 BBs.
At this point your pair of eights could be

a reasonable bluff catcher against some
opponents. Obviously some flush and straight
draws missed, as well as some turned draws.
Knowing your opponent can value bet light, he
can easily have Qx, 66+, Kx, 78, 67, 68, 9T, 45 SVB river calling range to a raise
as well as the previously mentioned flush and
straight draw misses and complete air. If you are
going to choose between a raise or a call, then you have to do a quick mental run through of
the number of combinations of straight and flush draws your opponent can have versus
better value betting hands. Meaning, are there enough bluffs in his range, versus better
hands he'd value bet that you can fold out?
In this case, there are definitely enough

Qx, Kx, and TT+ type hands that you can fold out
if you raise. Some two pair combos such as 67, 78
and 68 will also fold out a percentage of the time
(sometimes they will call). The other part of our
decision is of course how much to raise, since we
are primarily looking to fold out Qx, Kx, TT+ and
some of the weaker two pair combos. The stronger
two pairs, sets, and straights obviously aren't
going to fold. Something in the realm of 70 BBs
(or a raise of 45 more BBs) would accomplish
SVB river value betting range this. You would need your opponent to fold just
over 51% of the time to be profitable.
Only including their river value range, we should be able to fold out about 56% of
that range. So if we evaluated the EV of call versus raise, the EV of raise would be slightly
higher in a scenario such as this. An important note is that if you are playing mostly micro
stake games, your opponent’s calling range is going to be a bit wider on the river. You
won't be running into a lot of good SVBs though, and you can look for many spots to move
some of the regulars that are in your games off of better hands when you suspect they are
value betting slim a good amount.
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Ax (Will play an ace from anywhere)

There are many opponents at small and micro stakes that will play an ace (and any
other card) from any position. They’ll limp A4o from early position, or call a raise with A6o
out of position. They’ll also tend to be ―sticky‖ to these top pair hands if an ace flops. These
players you want to note for a couple of reasons.
1. It will give you some insight into how they think about the game. Meaning you
know this opponent is over valuing hands that really aren’t that strong. So when you
have a modest hand, and they are still involved in the pot with you, there’s still a
very good chance you have the best hand.
2. If you’re in a pot with them and have a high pocket pair, but an ace flops and they
give you action, you can be nearly 100% sure you’re beat.
3. When you flop an ace with a good kicker, you’ll know that they’ll pay you off with
a weaker kicker, so get a lot of value bets in.
Be aware of these opponents and make sure to steer clear of them if there’s an ace
on the flop. At the same time, if there’s an ace on the flop and you hit a nice hand like two
pair or better, make sure to do your best to formulate a plan to get all the money in the
middle. Remember, opponents who play weak aces a lot tend to be in love with these hands.
They are playing them for a reason, and that reason is primarily because they believe that if
they flop top pair they’ll have the best hand.
NPR (Will raise a non-premium hand)

An opponent who will raise with a wider range of hands makes it a bit more difficult
to put them on a hand. This is primarily the reason you should look for situations that you
can also raise some non-premium hands so that your open raising range isn't too predictable
to your opponents. There are typically three different types of NPRs, so let’s take a look
them.
 NPR (maniac) – This opponent will just raise any two cards from anywhere at any
given time quite excessively. These opponents will have little rhyme or reason to
what they’re doing, but they believe that this will benefit them when they do have a
real hand and can get someone to ―stand up‖ to them with a weaker hand. These
opponents will be quite easy to spot and you need to make sure that whenever you
have position and a decent hand against them that you are re-raising them. The thing
an aggressive opponent hates most is someone who comes back over the top of
them.
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 NPR (fish) – I say this opponent is a fish because they will raise a non-premium
hand such as A8s, or K9s, A3o or a similar hand out of position because they just
don’t understand hand values or that usually only a better hand will call them. They
aren’t really playing to be overly aggressive and outplay opponents, they are just
raising because they believe this is the correct thing to do. Against these opponents
you just want to make note what hand they raised, what position they were in, and
how much the raise was for. In future hands, you’ll know that if you’re in a raised
pot against these opponents, the flop texture is much wider for how hard it will hit
them in general. So you’ll either have to be cautious OR make them pay for their
weaker hands.
 NPR (ISO) – These opponents will occasionally switch up their game and
incorporate some non premium hands in profitable situations for them. For example
they’ll raise a hand like Q9s with the button after a couple of limpers. They may also
raise some connected cards in early position, or occasionally re-raise almost any
hand from the blinds. They'll also expand their squeezing range in profitable spots.
Just make note and be aware that you have an opponent that’s capable of making
such a play. Most of these opponents will be somewhat knowledgeable regulars in
your games. If you spot them, then make sure to 3-bet when it's obvious they are
isolating light, or call their squeezes with a wider range when you have position.
Basically they offer the opportunity to re-steal lighter if you're paying attention.
With any kind of NPR, the first thing to do is just make a note that you saw them
raise a non-premium hand. The second identification stage will be to see if they are smart
(an ISO), not so smart (a fish), or just plain crazy (maniac). The maniac will be noticeable
pretty quickly. The other two will be a bit more subtle, so you’ll really have to analyze the
situation and decide if the raise made sense considering the circumstance.
CBB (Continuation Bet Bad Boards)

Creating a likely hand range for your opponent start with really paying attention to
what they are doing, and gaining insights into how they are thinking about situations, or in
some cases, not thinking. Opponents that will continuation bet out of position on draw
heavy boards with over cards are one of those players you want to note. Better opponents
will tend to slow down in these situations. If you see even one showdown hand where an
opponent continuation bet on a really "wet board" with over cards, or even worse, no over
cards, then take note and get ready to float.
These are opponents when you're in position that you'll want to float and represent
some of the draws that do come in. You should continue in a lot more spots against these
opponents, especially when you have position. When they have position, look to call down a
little lighter, or check-raise when you have decent improvement equity in your hand.
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In the above example, when facing a noted CBB who has open raised UTG and now
continuation bet, calling with an under pair and gutshot is reasonable. Against most
opponents though, you'd typically want to dump this hand since they shouldn't be betting
this board unless they have a good hand or really good draw.
Not only can your hand be best, but being in position you also have some option to
turn your hand into a bluff if say the Ah or Kh comes on the turn and your opponent
continues to bet. Taking careful note and finding opponent who will bet unimproved on
draw heavy or "wet boards" is a helpful note to have to maximize every hand’s expected
value.
LA (Look-up Artist)
One of my favorite opponents to face is the look-up artist. They’re an
opponent who will call a flop bet (usually in position) in the hopes that you
will check the turn for them so they can steal the pot. This is sometimes also
referred to as ―floating‖ the flop. These opponents will not be readily easy to
spot, so they take some concerted effort to pinpoint. You’ll have to pay attention to the
opponents who are calling a LOT of flop bets, but they’ll fold to a second bullet (or they’ll
bet when checked to them nearly always).
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Once you believe you have discovered a look-up artist, try and exploit their
weakness by doing the following:
1. If you raise with an unpaired hand before the flop and miss the flop, you can make a
standard continuation bet, but try and make it on the smaller side. Then be prepared
to fire a second bullet—but make sure that you are always thinking about how the
texture of the flop fits your opponent’s hand, and whether you can represent
properly the hand you’re trying to represent.
2. Secondly, if you flop a big hand, make a continuation bet, this time on the slightly
larger side, and then check the turn to them (if they have position). If you have two
pair or better you can either call their bet on the turn, or if the flop texture has some
probable draws or potentially could get ugly, then come in for a decent sized check-
raise.
Make sure that if you’ve made these plays more than once against the same
opponent that you occasionally mix up your play because they’ll obviously start to become
aware of what you’re doing. This is particularly true with how you are sizing your flop bet.
If you bet on the light side with your missed hand, and larger with your connected hands,
then make sure one time you switch these up. Obviously if opponents are looking to call a
lot of bets (particularly in position) on the flop, then they are thinking about the game and
what you’re doing. Thinking opponents are aware and may get a read on your play. More
importantly some of these players may even make a multiple street bluff by raising the turn
with a wide range. So you need to pay careful attention and make sure to target most of the
players that are calling the flop, but folding the turn.
A majority of LAs will be making these plays when they have position on you.
Sometimes though there are some really bad LAs that will do this out of position with
almost any two cards (usually with ace high). If you notice that an opponent will also call
flop bets out of position, but fold to a turn bet, then make sure you fire second bullets
liberally when you have position.
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Chapter 6: In the Beginning
M ost poker players have huge holes in their pre-flop strategy, but aren't aware of it.
Some of this is out of a lack of knowledge, and for others it can be because of too
much ego. Believing you can play almost any two cards and outplay your
opponents ends badly in a lot of situations. In some situations that may be
absolutely true of course, but in many cases it's not. Everything begins with pre-flop play,
and mistakes made in this part of the game only get compounded on later streets. So having
a solid strategy is paramount in long term success in no-limit Texas Holdem.
Starting Decisions
Based on my observations and conversations with students, and fellow poker
players, it seems that most players got their understanding of what hands to open raise pre-
flop, cold call, and 3-bet mostly from starting hand charts, poker discussion, and some trial
and error. A lot of players I've asked started with some sort of hand chart to begin with, and
slowly weaned themselves off into a pre-flop strategy they feel works best for them.
There's absolutely nothing wrong with referencing starting hand charts, and talking
to your poker friends about starting hands from different positions at the table. What you
want to do as a successful poker player though is make sure you're really taking in all of the
relevant and available information about any decision you're making at the poker table, and
making the best decision possible. Having a process, or poker thought algorithm PTA, as I
like to call it, is a great reference for successful decision making. A poker thought algorithm
for pre-flop play looks something like this:
What is my hand?
Your actual starting hand and its general strength no matter what position you open from will
sometimes trump all other questions. Mainly when you hold AA/KK.
What is my starting position?
How many players will have position on you, and how wide can you open considering the positional
advantage or disadvantage you will have post flop.
Who opened in front of me?
If your opponent is opening really wide this should expand your calling and 3-betting ranges, or vice-
versa if they are tight. How good is the opponent who is opening?
Who is left to act behind me?
Are the opponents left to act really aggressive? Do they squeeze or 3-bet a lot? Are they passive and
cold call a bunch? Can they outplay me if they have position?
What are the effective stacks of players in the pot?
Is there potential for a really big, small or average sized pot? How good are the players who have the
50

deep, average, and shallow stacks?

How often do they fold to a raise, re-raise or 4-bet?
If your opponent folds to a re-raise a high percentage of the time, widening your 3-bet bluffing
range is ideal. Can you steal a lot from this player just by opening?
How aggressive is my opponent post flop?
Knowing how aggressive your opponent is on the turn and river will help you know what kinds of
hands to come along with or dump.
Can I outplay my opponent post flop a decent amount?
This is always a tricky question because of course we all want to believe yes. Just be honest, and if
you're not too sure, then it's usually no.
Is there any relevant recent history?
Do you have some recent information about some hands your opponent has overplayed that can
help you widen or tighten your range? Have you been 3-betting and 4-betting your opponent
recently and expect them to react soon?
How do others likely perceive me?
How active or tight have you been at the table? Have you showed down some big hands or very
marginal hands?
You should be asking yourself these questions every time you're making a pre-flop
decision. If you're missing any of them in your thought process, it's important to take note
and make sure you starting asking yourself. Most of the time your decision will be easy;
You'll look down at Ks4s and muck it. However, in some situations this same hand could be
a call or a 3 or 4-bet if the questions are all answered properly.
It's always best that if you're unsure about a hand based on how you've run through
your own poker thought algorithm, that you err on the side of caution. It may be over stated,
but most players’ mistakes in no-limit Texas Holdem come from playing too many hands,
not from playing too few. One of the easiest ways to correct a losing approach to poker is to
start tightening up your starting range. If you're losing money or around a break even
player, then generally something as simple as playing fewer hands can move you into the
winning column. This ensures that when you are in a hand you'll generally have the stronger
of the two hands and win more from second best hands calling you down then vice-versa.
Flat Calling
Flat calling, sometimes also called smooth calling, or burning money as I like to call
it, is when you decide to call an opponent's raise, or call the blind. It's part of poker, and you
want to have a flat calling range, but for almost all players their flat calling ranges will not
yield positive results. There are a couple of simple reasons for this.
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1. Some people play too many hands, and hands in the wrong situations that are easily
dominated.
2. Players who flat call don't have the initiative.
3. Most players don't understand hand ranges and equity well enough to properly call
down in the correct spots.
4. Most players don't bluff in the most profitable spots.
Add it all up, and in most cases you have complete spew. In all fairness, if most
people who played online poker ran the proper filter for this area, or used software like Leak
Buster, they would see anywhere from bankroll sucking spew to minor winrate draining
spew. There are some players that can and will have a positive winrate in this area, and this
is what you should strive for too. If you suspect that you may have a leak here though,
check your results, and then come up with a game plan for correcting it.
One of the keys as to why most people don't do well with their flat calling range is
because of statement #2. Statements #3 and #4 are usually also a problem, but one of the
easiest ways to start to patch this kind of leaks is to focus on the first two to begin with.
Tighten up your flat calling range by not flatting as much, especially out of position. Turn
some of your flatting range into a 3-betting range so that you can take initiative back in the
hand.
Ideally you want to strive to be able to have a marginal flatting range and
confidently call down your opponent in the correct spots, and find highly +EV bluffing
situations. Those concepts take a lot of time and experience to pull off successfully. It's
definitely something you should experiment with and work on as part of your long term
goals about your game. In the short term minimizing losses here, and slowly taking some of
those flatting hands and turning them into +EV
post flop bluffs and value call downs is a
reasonable plan. You can't continue to improve
in poker if you don't have money to play with.
Here's an example of a typical range

you may flat call within a lot of different
situations. To improve your results, stop
flatting 22–66 from the blinds to a steal
attempt if you're doing it now, unless you're
nice and deep and against a really weak
opponent. Don't flat off suited hands in
position against strong opponents. Even with position, if they are decently good it's going to
be hard to play them profitably unless you have some very specific read. Don't flat AT–A9,
KT––KJ, QT–QJ type hands from early and middle positions. You'll often be dominated
and you'll still have a lot of players left to act. Don't flat suited connectors out of the blinds
unless there are really weak players in the pot with you that have decent stack sizes.
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Take some of that very same hand range and turn many of them into 3bet bluffs, or
in some case 3-bets for value against certain opponents when in position. 3-bet or fold 22–
66 from steal attempts when in the blinds. 3-bet or fold AT–A9, KT–KJ, QT–QJ type hands
in latter middle position instead of flatting. Experiment with different hand ranges based on
the stakes you're playing. In some games you can 3-bet KQo for value and still get calls
from worse hands, and some games you can't.
Create a situation where you'll be taking initiative more so you'll give yourself more
opportunities to win the hand. Sometimes you'll 3-bet and your opponent will fold, and
often even fold a better hand. Sometimes they'll call and you'll both whiff, but you'll have
initiative and a simple continuation bet will take the pot. And sometimes you'll out flop your
opponent’s 3-bet flatting range. Having initiative will also allow you to control the pot size
more often than not, so if you do flop top pair and there's a lot of action you can check the
turn or river.
As you begin turning your flat calling range into a more profitable hand range, begin
to slowly widen your range again. Experiment with different scenarios by starting with a
slightly wider range in position, and add a few more hands out of position. Keep it slow and
steady and know that most players struggle badly with this area of their game. Make it an
area you're a master at and you'll have a huge advantage on most opponents.
Blind Play
Similar to flat calling, players tend to
struggle heavily when playing out of the
blinds. It's understandable of course, since
you're out of position almost always (except
when defending against an open small blind
raise). Almost everyone posts losses from the
blinds, but you can minimize your losses, or
even show profit with some smart decision
making and solid poker thinking algorithms. If you are bleeding heavy money from the
blinds, then there are a couple of specific areas you should look at first to make some
adjustments.
1. Your cold calling range from players who open raise from early and middle
positions. If you are primarily playing full ring, then your cold calling range from
the blinds really needs to tighten up. That means folding hands like AJ, KQ, QJs,
etc., against most regulars and tight players. If someone is opening roughly 9% of
their range from early position in a full ring game, and you call with a hand like AJo,
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you're already at an equity disadvantage. Plus you'll be playing out of position

against a hand range that when you both connect, you'll mostly flop the second best
hand more often than the better hand. It's not a profitable situation. In 6-max games,
if someone is opening roughly 16% of their range, on average you're going to be in a
50/50 equity situation, but out of position. So unless you think you can really
outplay your opponent a lot, folding these hands is ideal. Also, avoid flatting suited
and off suited connectors. Again, you're at a big equity disadvantage. Unless there
are fishy or weak players that have also called, and effective stacks are somewhere
slightly over 100 BBs, then folding is more profitable. True, a lot of your money is
going to be made by making strong hands with these kinds of starting hands, but the
low frequency you do that, combined with not being in position will be a drain on
your bankroll.
2. Making more definitive decisions against steal attempts, and reducing cold calling
range. This basically means 3-betting or folding more instead of flatting. Ideally
flatting can be much more profitable since you'll be ahead of most of your opponents
opening range, especially if you're defending against an open button raiser. Let's
take a common example of you holding KcJs in the small blind and your opponent
open raises from the button, and let's say opens 48% of their hands from there. Even
with KcJs you are marginally ahead of their opening range with almost 54% equity.
That doesn't tell the whole story of the value of KJo of course. Most of the value is
in the "flopability" of the hand, and the fact that your opponent will flop more
second best hands than better hands when you both connect with the flop. However,
if you aren't outplaying most of your opponents post flop, then 3-betting or folding
will be more profitable for you at this point in your game. Your goal should be to
continue to improve in your hand reading, board texture understanding, and
profitable bluffing opportunities so that you can profitably flat call with a hand like
KJo from the blinds.
Look at the pre-flop decision out of the blinds as a problem. How are you going to
solve the problem? Are you going to flat call, and look for spots to outplay your opponent?
Are you going to 3-bet and try and solve the problem by getting your opponent to fold pre-
flop? One solution might be more correct for one player, and completely incorrect for
another. You have to know your own game. If you are struggling with bluffing in the right
spots, or aren't confident calling down against your opponent’s range of hands, then mix in
more 3-bets and folds to eliminate scenarios where you're playing more of a check / guess
game without positive results.
A lot of players watch top pros in an online training videos talk about optimal play
in a lot of different scenarios, and try and mimic that play. There is an optimal play for any
given scenario given the limited information we have as poker players. That's what you
should strive to achieve. Yet at the same time there are steps you can use to build yourself to
playing optimally instead of putting yourself in situations where you have to make more
decisions about your hand and compound a scenario that leaves you losing consistently. In
scenarios like that, make more definitive decisions and put the onus back on your opponent
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to make the most optimal play. The reason you'd consider taking sub-optimal, but
profitable, lines as you learn, is the same reasoning why people will generally tell you to
play tighter pre-flop (tight TAG or even NIT) when you first start playing poker. It's higher
EV to play slightly LAG or very LAG, but it's not the best plan to just throw yourself into
the fire. You'd consistently lose, and probably not have a chance to move up the poker food
chain.
Optimal Big Blind Play

When you have a reasonable amount of confidence
in your post flop game, look to take more flops. This is
always within reason, but look for marginal regulars you
think you have an advantage on, and look to outplay them
post flop. If you have the slightest bit of doubt though,
consider using a strategy like the one on the previous couple of pages. Slowly work yourself
to optimal play.
Defending from the Big Blind vs Early Openers

When defending your big blind against early open raisers, you need to pay very
close attention to a couple of things assuming you can see the flop heads up:
1. How tight are they? Are you talking about nit tight and opening 6% of their hands or
less in full ring, or 10% of their hands or less in 6-max? Are they somewhere in
between or are they loose, opening over 14% at full ring and over 21% at 6-max?
a. If they are tight: How often are they continuation betting? Some tight players
have a really small or large continuation bet percentage. Very few are
somewhere in between. If they continuation bet a smaller percentage of the
time, then looking to take a flop with some strong suited or single gapped
connectors can allow you to see four cards often enough to hit a big hand or
make a move. If they continuation bet a lot, but are passive on the turn, you
can call with a similar range and some broadway suited hands like QJs for
example, and look to either lead the flop in spots where you completely miss
and take their play away from them, or check/call and lead a lot of turns on
flops that have potential. This would be "floating out of position" and isn't
very profitable unless you're very confident in your post flop play and reads.
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If your opponent is tight and a high continuation bettor and aggressive on

later streets, then folding most of your hands is ideal unless there is another
really weak player in the pot. Then you can widen your range slightly, but
not much.
b. If they are loose: You can widen your calling range to include some more
marginal broadway hands like AJo, KQo, ATs, etc., and drop more of the
suited connector hand ranges since they will go down in post flop value
versus your opponent’s more marginal hand range. Mix in a good amount of
leads and check-raises on the flop against these players with made hands and
whiffed hands. Since their range is wider, they will have a made hand less
often, and you can re-steal a ton against them if you mix in a good amount of
value bets and bluffs that have good equity. Most opponents won't fight back
against this strategy, but some will. Make notes on who is being aggressive
back, and don't jump to conclusions too quick about your opponents.
In the above example, your opponent open raises from UTG+1 to 3 BBs with
effective stacks of 120 BBs. Your opponent is fairly tight from this position, opening ~10%
of their hands. They have a high continuation bet percentage of around 80%, but they are
pretty passive on later streets. You are in the big blind with 8s9s, and call the raise.
You check to your opponent, and they continuation bet as expected. The initial plan
when deciding to call the raise to begin with was to call or check-raise certain flops
depending on how hard they likely hit our opponent, or how hard we expect them to
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perceive it hit you. In this case with a gutshot and backdoor flush draw, and stacks being
deep enough that if your opponent does have a hand, you can win a reasonably sized pot,
calling is the best option. You also know your opponent slows down on later streets. So
unless they have Kx+, which will be a fairly small combination of hands, albeit a larger than
normal portion of combos for most opening ranges because of their tighter play, they will
slow down on the turn and allow you to potentially see all 5 cards.
Calling is preferable over check-raising because unless you're in a leveling war with
your opponent, there are not a lot of hands in our range we'd want to check-raise on this
kind of texture. Calling also ensures that you at least see the next card, and won't get blown
off your hand with a re-raise in case your opponent does have a big hand.
You also allow for more options to check-raise the turn if the turn doesn't supply a
helpful card, and it adds a more credible story to you having a strong hand. Depending on
the stakes you play of course, how hand strength is perceived to a turn check-raise will vary.
For the most part at micro and small stakes games it will be perceived very strongly. Your
range won't be weighted very much at all to having check / called the flop with a gutshot.
The important points about calling and taking a flop out of the blinds versus a tighter
player is that you have to have the proper information. You need to have stats with a
reasonable sample size or a very good read that fits the criteria. Otherwise, you're much
better off folding pre-flop.
2. How aggressive are they post flop?
a. If they are passive: As said above, you can play more suited and gapped
connectors, and when deep enough (over 120bbs) some off suited connectors
as well. Don't overdo it of course. You can look to lead a good amount of
flops as well, but lower your check-raising semi-bluff range since they will
slow down on later streets if you call the flop and usually allow you to see
more cards for free.
b. If they are aggressive: Fold a lot more hands. Don't try and be a hero. There
are a ton of better spots to be in than with a marginal hand out of position
against an aggressive opponent. You can mix in some 3-bets against the
looser opponents however.
3. Does your opponent have a low WTSD (went to showdown), or you suspect they
can fold big hands?
a. Low WTSD: If your opponent has a low WTSD percentage, or you

suspect they can fold big hands, then there's a lot of room to outplay
or bluff them post flop. If you're using a HUD, then just make sure
you have a fairly large sample size on your opponent. Something in
57

the range of 5k+ minimum unless it's a really absurdly low number in
a reasonable sample (500 hands or more): Something in the range of
less than 23% in 6-max games, and slightly lower than that in full
ring games.
b. High WTSD: You can really open up your calling range here
depending on how high their WTSD and how deep stacks are. When
stacks get over 130 BBs against these kinds of opponents, your
calling range should really widen. Just kind in mind that you aren't
looking to play a big pot with top pair or slightly better. If there are
others that are in the pot as well, then it should incentivize you to
widen your range even more. Playing off suited gapped connectors,
low suited aces like A4s, etc. You want to put yourself in position to
win the big pots as much as possible against your weaker opponents.
The important aspect of big blind play against early opening raisers is paying extra
close attention to the opponents that have opened or are in the pot. Don't look down at 97o
and auto muck it because someone opened from early position. Make sure to scrutinize your
opponent and have a plan for how to envision the hand to be ideally played.
Defending from the Big Blind vs Steals

Defending from the big blind to steal attempts is one of the funnest (yes, that's an
example of language in flux) and most common situations in poker. You both know you're
going to be full of crap a lot of the time, so the leveling war and stand-off begins.
Defending from the Big Blind vs Button Steals

Now obviously we know, and we know
that our opponent knows we know, that their
opening range on the button is going to be wide.
How we play each situation is primarily a matter
of several things:
1. How often is our opponent opening? Are

they on the very loose side (over 52%),
on the tight side (less than 35%), or
somewhere in between?
Opponent opening 58.4% from the button
58

When they are opening wide: In the example to the right, it should expand
your flatting and 3-betting ranges. This opponent is opening 58.4% of their range
from the button. Assume effective stacks of around 100 BBs, a reasonable flatting
range would be something like the following: 77+, A2s+, A9o+, K9s+, KTo+,
QTs+, J9s+, QTo+, T9s, JTo. This would be roughly 20% of our total range. Now
obviously hands like TT+, AQ+ you'd want to 3-bet a majority of the time.
Occasionally, when your opponent is not good post flop, flatting with a lot of these
hands can be quite profitable, since they'll flop second best hands so often.
Also, hands like 77/88, A9o, K9s, T9s, JTo depend on how confident we feel
about playing our opponent post flop. If
you think if you have a reasonable
advantage, flatting with these hands is
fine, mixing in some 3-bets. Otherwise
look to 3-bet or fold these hands.
Now polarizing some of this

range while adding more hands so you
can 3-bet some hands that have decent
equity when called, and flatting some of
the bigger hands like AQo, AJo, KQs, Polarized 3-bet range of 28.2% of hands
etc., a percentage of the time as well,
will keep your opponents defense more off balanced. Of course, most opponents will
know that you will defend lighter and 3-bet lighter. So how much, and with what
kinds of hands, is important.
Add in some hands to our initial range to create a strong overall defending
range: 3-betting hands that won't play very well if you flat, but that can out flop
some of your opponent’s 3-bet calling range. Mix in flatting some of your fairly
strong to very strong hands some of the time (exact percentages vary depending
upon opponent; baseline percentage would be 20/80 flat to 3-bet). With this range
your opponent can't be extremely confident in your strength when you're flatting or
3-betting. Most of the uncertainty is going to come with them not knowing which
hands you're polarizing exactly. Some people 3-bet a lot of suited connectors, and
offsuited connectors. Some don't at all, and some people do a percentage of the time.
For the most part I don't advocate 3-betting suited connectors from the blinds
for several reasons. One, there are just better hands to 3-bet, and two, when I am
called I'd prefer to have a hand that plays well against my opponent’s 3-bet flatting
range. For example, my opponent who opens wide on the button raises to 2.5 BBs,
and I have K4s in the big blind. My opponent plays pretty aggressive on later streets,
so flatting isn't a good option. Folding isn't bad, but if I 3-bet, I can get my opponent
to fold X% of the time, and Y% of the time they will flat with hands like 55+, A9o+,
JTs+, A5s+, etc., hands that I'm only at a slight disadvantage at pre-flop (around
59

45/55), and I have initiative. If I flop a king, I have really good showdown value
versus their range, and I have semi-bluff potential when I flop or turn flush draws.
AK will be 4-bet a majority of the time, so that only leaves KT–KQ, and the combos
of those hands are reduced because I have a "blocker" card holding one king.
If you do 3-bet suited and offsuited connectors it's a bit more difficult to
navigate post flop when you do flop a hand. Say you're in the same situation as the
previous example except this time you have 6s7s and you decide to 3-bet. The flop
comes and you flop a 6, you continuation bet and your opponent calls. The turn
brings no help. You have a pair of 6's, but you could be quite a bit behind since your
opponent’s flatting range is going to have a lot of 77+ hands in it. Your opponent
could have floated, and you could have a good equity advantage, but are you check /
calling at this point? This situation is still manageable of course, but it's going to
consistently put you in a lot more difficult situations, when there are better situations
to really master first.
All of this reasoning is irrelevant if your opponent opens really wide, and
folds to a 3-bet a high percentage of the time. Keep in mind, that if you're using a
HUD, an opponent's fold to 3-bet will be much less when re-defending their open
button in most cases. Typically speaking, the time for a situational stat like fold to 3-
bet from button defend will take too long to normalize. However, it may provide
some clues if it's an extremely high or low number in a reasonable sample.
If your opponent is opening to 2.5 BBs, and you 3-bet from the big blind to
8.5 BBs, then if your opponent calls 32% of the time or less, it's neutral EV to +EV.
That's not even considering that when they call you will have equity in your hand,
and it's irrelevant how often they are 4-betting since we're only looking at folding to
3-bets. To really see if any 3-bet is +EV you'd want to factor in X% of the time your
opponent is calling, Y% of the time they are 4-betting. But if X% is already neutral
or better, then Y% only becomes relevant when determining exact positive expected
value. Again, it will be positive because we already know just based on our
opponent’s fold percentage the play is break even or better.
(4 (.68)) - (8.5 (.32)) = 0 EV
When your opponent is calling more than 32% of the time you'll want to
make sure you feel confident playing out of position when you're 3-betting with a
marginal hand. Some opponents rarely fold to 3-bets from the blinds, so you'll want
to avoid 3-betting too liberally with the weaker part of your polarized range.
Opponents who fold 50% or less tend to be opponents who are either reasonably
good post flop, and don't mind taking a flop in a re-raised pot, or opponents who are
generally stubborn and bad, and just can't fold. Look for opponents with low fold to
3-bets and high WTSD percents, and you'll generally be able to sort the stubborn
opponents from the reasonably decent opponents.
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2. What are stack sizes? As stacks get deeper this will expand your flatting range, and
contract your 3-betting range since your opponent will have more incentive to call
your 3-bets with a wider range. As stack sizes get narrower, this should have the
reverse effect of widening your 3-betting range, and narrowing your flatting range.
3. Is your hand more of a drawing hand or top pair hand? So hands like 78s, JTo, T8s,
etc., would be considered more drawing hands versus hands like KJo, ATo, QKs,
etc., would be considered more top pair hands. Some hands are both, like KJs, QTs,
etc. These hands have good drawing potential, but also good top pair value as well.
Top pair only hands usually will make top pair as their best hand most of the time,
and these hands are easier to get to showdown versus having a hand like 78s and
making top pair. What kind of hand you have will help you decide, based on your
stack size, if you should be 3-betting or flatting.
Squeezing from the Big Blind vs Open Buttons

When the small blind decides to come along and flat call your opponent’s open
buttons raises, it should really widen your 3-bet range as a squeeze, unless your opponent on
the button is extremely stubborn, or decently tricky post flop. It's best to use caution against
these kinds of opponents. In general, most of your opponents are going to know that you'll
be squeezing a bit wider, but that shouldn't prevent you from doing so if you 3-bet a smart
range of hands, and keep your 3-bet sizing good.
In general anywhere from a pot-sized raise to about 4.5x your opponent’s opening
raise is a good size to enable a high percent of fold equity. You want a high percentage of
fold equity to make up for times when your opponents really have a hand, or you get called
and have to shut down because of a poor flop texture.
You should already know what most of

your 3-bets for value will be, and some of the in-
between hands like AJo, KQo, ATs, etc, will
highly depend on how you think both your
opponents play. You will be in a sandwiched
position post flop. It will make your opponent on
the button play slightly more honest, but you
won't know until after flop betting has happened
if you'll have position, or you will be out of
position. For that reason in some spots against
Squeezing 21.7% of hands with marginal hand range
weak opponents, overcalling with suited
61

connectors can play well if you think the small blind will have a decent hand more often
than a speculative hand, or flatting with AJo can have value against weak opponents with
poor post flop skills.
Some of the hands you won't be flatting almost ever, but have great squeeze EV
(shown in picture to the right), are hands like: A2o–A9o, A2s–A8s, K3s–K9s, K8o–KTo,
Q6s–QTs, Q9o–QTo, J8o–J9o, J7s–J9s, T8s+, T9o. Hands like small pairs can become a
flat or a squeeze. If one or both opponents are deep, flatting can usually be more ideal, or if
both or one of the opponents is really weak post flop, you don't want to push them out of the
pot by 3-betting. If facing two decent regulars, or at least one reasonably tough opponent,
squeezing or folding is usually a higher EV line.
You always want to keep in mind that if you build history with any of your
opponents or you are squeezing a lot, that your small blind can and should look to trap
occasionally with his stronger hands, knowing you will squeeze wide. This shouldn't
prevent you from squeezing, but it should reduce some of your range so that your opponent
isn't looking to exploit you.
Defending from the Big Blind vs Cut-off's

There's a significant drop in most opponents’ open raising range from the cut-off
than the button. For that reason, you need to tighten up your 3-betting and flatting range
against most opponents. Most opponents will open raise from the cut-off about 24-33% of
the time. Both 6-max and full ring tend to have similar averages, with full ring actually
having slightly higher cut-off opening ranges to about 34.5%. It's reasonable to assume that
because it's usually opened more often before it gets folded to the cut-off at full ring, that
people seize the opportunity slightly more often. In either case, opening ranges in both
games are very similar.
When deciding how you will respond to an opponent who opens from the cut-off
with no callers in-between you, the same poker thought algorithms need to be applied as in
previous situations.
1. How often is your opponent opening from the cut-off?

a. If they open on the lower end of an opening range (24% or less): Keep your
3-betting range a bit tighter, unless they have a really high fold to 3-bet
percentage (67% or higher). Keep your flatting range even tighter since they
will tend to have decent hands more often than most opponents and you don't
want to be stuck flopping second best hands against them.
b. If they open on the wider side of an opening range (31% or higher): Have a
decent 3-betting range, but still much tighter than defending against an open
62

button raise. Something in the range of: A2o–ATo, A2s–A9s, K8s–KTs,

K9o–KTo, Q9s–QTs, Q9o–QTo, J9o, J9s. Don't always 3-bet every one of
these hands. You want to increase or decrease this range also based on how
often your opponent is folding to 3-bets. The ideal being someone who is
opening too loose, and not re-defending enough with a reasonably high fold
to 3-bet percentage (somewhere over 65%).
2. How aggressive are they post flop?

a. Against more passive opponents (general aggression under 3AF): If they are
passive on later streets, then you can expand your flatting range. Again, the
more they open, the more you should expand this, and the tighter they are the
tighter your flatting range should become. Something in the range of: J9s+,
QTs+, KTs+, A9s–AJs, ATo–AQo, KTo+, QTo+, 77–TT. Sometimes
consider 3-betting AQo/TT and any other hands that are on the bottom of this
range that you don't feel comfortable playing out of position. In general
though you will be ahead of most of your opponent’s range. Against
someone who is opening about 34% of their range, you'll have a 52.3% pre-
flop advantage. Take a couple of hands out at the bottom of your range and
you can get it closer to 54%, which is reasonably good pre-flop. Take that
same flatting range above, and tighten your opponent’s range to opening
about 27% of hands, and your equity drops to about 49.5%. So the bottom of
the above range needs to be tightened to account for this to something like:
KTs+, A9s–AJs, ATo–AQo, KTo+, QJs, 77–TT.
b. Against more aggressive opponents (3AF or greater): You need to eliminate
some of your baseline flatting range and turn those into 3-bets or folds
simply because you will be outplayed too often post flop. So something in
the following range: J9s+, QTs+, KTs+, A9s–AJs, ATo–AQo, KTo+, QTo+,
77–TT. Hands like J9s, JTs, QTs, A9s, KTo, or 77 should be 3-bet or folded.
You can tighten that up even more against really tricky opponents. The more
aggressive and the tighter your opponent is, the more you're going to want to
tighten, polarize, and eliminate situations where you're out of position with
marginal hands.
Consistently put yourself in the highest EV situation, and you'll stay a step or two
ahead of your opponents. There are a ton of post flop lines you can take against some of
your better opponents to keep them off balance. Some of them also work really well against
weak opponents who don't know how to properly react (see more on this later in this
section—out of the "norm" lines). If you are unsure about a situation when you're out of
position, it's always better to fold then to put yourself in a spot where you aren't confident.
At some point though, you will want to push yourself to take more flops, flat, 3-bet, and
experiment with your game in order to grow. Just make sure you're doing it in small steps.
63

Squeezing from the Big Blind vs Open Cut-Offs

One of the most profitable squeezing situations in poker is when your opponent
opens raises too wide from the cut-off, and another opponent flats, and you're in the big
blind. You get to close the action, and you know that your opponents won't have decent
hands most of the time. Of course most opponents are going to know that you know this as
well.
There are pros and cons to what is the best situational squeeze when your opponent
opens from the cut-off. If you have an opponent flat on the button, then you know their
flatting range will be tighter than someone flatting from the small blind (which is good for
you), but then they have position on you if they call (bad for you). There's a higher
probability of your opponent trapping you in a situation like this (or thinking they are
trapping the CO), and there's a higher probability that they could simply look to outplay you
(bad for you).
On the other hand, squeezing when an opponent flats from the small blind puts you
up against a tighter range, which will reduce folding percentages (bad for you), but when
you are called by the small blind you'll have position (good for you). There's less of a
chance that your opponent will trap or will be looking to call to out play you post flop (good
for you).
64

In the above example, you are in the big blind with KcTc (110 BBs), and a losing
regular opens in the cut-off for 3 BBs (100 BBs). The player on the button is a decent
winning regular and calls (135 BBs). The small blind folds and the action is on you. Let's
use our poker thought algorithms to think through the situation to make the best possible
play.
1. How often is our opponent opening from the cut-off? Our opponent is opening
about 28% of his hands from the cut-off. Right about in the middle of the road,
but on a slightly more tight side of the opening scale. In a reasonable sample size
it's also nice to see how often our caller flat calls. Obviously being on the button
his flat calling range will be widest. His VPIP overall is somewhat high at 30%,
so we can assume he takes a good amount of flops. Overall our cut-off
opponent’s opening range, along with our button opponent's probable slightly
looser flatting range makes the situation for 3-betting slightly positive, and the
situation for flatting fairly neutral since we won't have position on a tough
opponent.
2. How aggressive is our opponent? Our opponent in the cut-off is reasonably

aggressive, but shades slightly more to being passive with an aggression factor
of 2.7. Our opponent on the button is slightly more on the aggressive side with
an aggression factor of 3.8. Since you’re squeezing, you need to take into
account that there's a possibility one or both might call. The fact that our most
aggressive opponent has position on everyone is a negative in this case for both
calling and squeezing.
3. What are stack sizes? Effective stacks are 100 BBs, but could be as high as 110
if the button calls. Pretty reasonable stack sizes for both squeezing and flatting.
4. Is our hand more for drawing or flopping top pair? In this case it's a bit of both.
Most of the value in our hand will be from making a straight or flush, but with
the king, it has reasonable top pair showdown value as well. Again, somewhat
neutral overall for both situations.
All things considered it's close between flatting or squeezing. Folding doesn't come
up as an option too much when we go through the hand, and between flatting or squeezing,
squeezing has slightly more value since if we flat we'll have to play well against two decent
players out of position. If we squeeze, the worst case scenario is that our opponent on the
button calls, and we play slightly deeper in a re-raised post against them. However, stacks
aren't deep enough for them to warrant calling with a lot of their drawing hands unless they
really love taking flops in position, which is a possibility. However, we still have a strong
hand that has big hand and top pair potential.
65

Defending from the Small Blind vs Steals

Defending from the small blind is very similar to defending from the big blind with
the obvious exception that the big blind is still left to act. This slightly complicates your
flatting range, but doesn't change your 3-betting range too much. In some higher stake
games it will affect your 3-betting range, and better opponents’ 4-betting range will widen
on occasion, but even this doesn't happen very often. Overall it's going to be a lot of the
same dynamics, so we'll focus on highlighting the differences.
Defending from the Small Blind vs Button Steals

You want to use the same kind of poker though algorithm to break down your
flatting and 3-betting ranges versus opponents who are open raising on the button. The only
major added factor in this situation is you need to consider your opponent in the big blind.
1. How wide is your opponent on the button opening?
a. If your opponent is opening wide (over 52%), then this should expand your
flatting and 3-betting range. However, your flatting range should slightly
tighten, and could tighten greatly depending on your opponent in the big
blind. A range we listed for flatting in the big blind: 77+, A2s+, A9o+, K9s+,
KTo+, QTs+, J9s+, QTo+, T9s, JTo, would need to tighten to: 88+, A9s+
ATo+, KTs+, QJs+, QJo+, JTs. Some hands slightly above this range can be
removed in some spots, or some just below can be added when your button
opponent is weak, and there's no large threat of being squeezed from the big
blind. Example, add QTs, JTo, 77, etc.
b. If your opponent is fairly tight (opening 35% or less), then you'll need to
tighten your flatting range since they'll have reasonable hands, and you'll be
in a dominated situation more often than most opponents. Again, use the
range on the previous page as a baseline, and eliminate from the bottom of
that range to something like: 88+, ATs+, AJo+, KJs+, QJs+, KJo+. This way
you'll have about 60/40 equity advantage pre-flop going to the flop. Also,
hands like QQ+, AK, etc., you'll normally 3-bet, but occasionally flatting for
deception can also be profitable.
2. How good is our opponent in the big blind?
a. If your opponent is a pretty good regular, then you'll want to tighten up your
flatting range, and slightly tighten your 3-betting range. You don't have to
adjust your 3-betting range too much, unless you're playing higher small
66

stake games against really good opponents. In general, if your opponent on

the button is loose, but your opponent in the big blind is good, then you
should use a similar flatting range as if your opponent opening on the button
was tight. Consequently, also occasionally flatting some of your big hands
can be quite lucrative against opponents that are known squeezers in the big
blind. It's a more risky line pre-flop, but can turn into some good size pots
post flop if you call their squeeze with a hand like QQ+ for example.
b. If your opponent is a bad regular, or a fishy bad player, then expanding your
flatting range, and providing a good price for them to call and stay in the pot
can be ideal in a lot of situations. Even though you'll be at a positional
disadvantage, any reason to allow a bad player to come into the pot can be
very +EV. Slightly reducing your 3-betting range because of this, and
turning some of your 3-bet value hands into flatting hands can achieve this
goal. So hands like AJs, AQo, KQs, etc., can be some hands you look to flat
to allow your weak opponent in the big blind to call with worse hands like
A2s+, KJ, etc.
Flat with AQo from the small blind against weak BB and marginally decent regular on the button.
3. How aggressive is the opponent on the button post flop?
a. If they are more passive (AF of 3 or less), then you can widen your flatting
range a little more. You'll have more of a chance to get to showdown, and
you don't have to be as concerned about being bluffed or blown off your
hand.
b. If they are more aggressive (AF over 3), then you should tighten your flatting
range, and turn some of those hands you might flat against a more passive
opponent into part of your 3-betting range. If your opponent is aggressive
and doesn't like to fold pre-flop, then you should tighten both your flatting
and 3-betting range.
67

Keep your range in the small blind polarized enough so you don't give good players
that are in your big blind incentive to re-steal against you. Keep your flatting range a little
tighter in general, and look to occasionally trap by flatting some strong hands in tougher
games against good opponents.
Defending from the Small Blind vs Cut-off Opens

Similar to playing from the big blind, most opponents open far fewer hands in the
cut-off. Their range is still wide, but not quite as wide, so you'll get slightly more respect
from your 3-bets, but your flatting ranges need to pretty tight not only because you're
against a tighter range, but because of your opponent in the big blind. As said earlier, it's a
great squeeze situation for players in the big blinds. Most of your competent opponents are
going to know this, so you need to adjust accordingly by 3-betting some of the range you'd
normally flat with if you were in the big blind.
You'll want to use the same or similar poker thought algorithms as above, and use a
baseline flatting range of: 77–JJ, ATo–AQo, KJo+, KTs+, A9s–AJs, QJs, QJo. You'll have
a 57–52% equity advantage against most opponents’ opening range. Remove some of the
bottom range against your tighter opponents. Sometimes 3-bet some of the higher end of
this range against some opponents, and the bottom end of this range against tougher
opponents (or folding).
Squeezing from the Small Blind vs Open Cut-Offs

Squeezing from the small blind versus an open cut-off is very similar to squeezing
from the big blind. The only major difference is that against some better big blind players,
you are more susceptible to a 4-bet re-steal. You won't have to worry about this at micro
stakes and most small stakes games.
You want to walk yourself through the exact same poker though algorithms (pgs.
62–64) and add one more question:
1. How often is our opponent opening from the cut-off?

2. How aggressive is our opponent?
3. What are the stack sizes?
4. Is our hand more for drawing or flopping top pair?
5. How tricky is our opponent in the big blind? If they are capable of 4-bet
bluffing, you'll want to cut off some of your polarized 3-bet bluffing range so
68

you won't be squeezing quite as often with weak hands and forced to fold. In this
same vein, if they are capable of 4-bet bluffing, then they'll surely be capable of
3-bet squeezing an open cut-off and two callers with a fairly wide range.
Occasionally flat with QQ+, AK, looking to trap your tricky opponent in the big
blind.
Just make sure that when you are squeezing as a bluff you aren't committing
yourself against shorter stacks. If there's a short stack in the big blind, it's something to
consider, but it's also not likely they will have a hand worth shoving often enough unless
they are a really good short stacker. Most short stackers are not.
If the cut-off and button are short though, make sure you won't leave yourself in a
spot to have to call off more money getting 2:1 on your money or better. With any Ax hands
you'll be forced to call if your opponent on the button shoves, and you are getting 2:1 on a
call with a hand like A5o. Even a hand like K7o you'll be slightly priced in to call versus a
button's likely shoving range.
Equity Win Tie Hand Range

33.68% 33.04% 0.63% [K7o(100)]
66.31% 65.679% 0.63% [ATs+(100), AJo+(100), 22–QQ(100), KJs+(100), KQo(100)]
Against an open cut-off with a short stack, you can get away from more hands since
their shoving range will be a little tighter on average since the button is still in the hand.
There will always be exceptions, but you should assume that most short stacking opponents
that open in the cut-off won't shove as wide as the button will who is closing the action.
Equity Win Tie Hand Range

27.12% 26.84% 0.28% [K7o(100)]
72.87% 72.58% 0.28% [AJs+(100), AQo+(100), 88+(100)]
Out of The "Norm" Lines to Take Against Steals

When you are facing really good opponents, you shouldn't look to just concede the
pot. However you want to temper this with making sure
you are putting yourself in the best possible situations as
much as you can. There are some lines you can take
against aggressive opponents who are opening fairly wide
from the cut-off or button.
1. Stop and Go: Check and call a lot of flops where

you have gut shots, back door outs, and then lead the turn. A majority of opponents
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will have difficulty adjusting to this line, and when executed properly will give up
on a lot of pots. Mass multi-tabling regulars will look to move on to the next hand,
except for the very few really good opponents.
2. Donk Lead: Against a decent amount of opponents this is all you'll have to do to
take down the pot. You just want to look to do a donk lead in situations where you
have maybe an overcard or two, almost no back door equity. Use hands that have
very little equity to improve, and there are a reasonable range of better hands that
you can get your opponent to fold out.
3. Lead Small Over Bet: This works well on paired boards, or hands where you have a
lot of backdoor outs. You get your opponent to define their hand a little more, and
then make them make a difficult turn decision by slightly over betting the turn. Most
people don't have to deal with overbets often, so unless they have a big hand, usually
opponents will give up.
In the above example, a weak regular open raised in the cut-off to 3 BBs with
effective stacks of about 100 BBs. You decided to call in the big blind with As5s because
your opponent seems pretty weak and not too aggressive post flop. The flop comes Qh4s7c.
With 7.5 BBs in the pot, you bet under half the pot with a 3 BB bet. If your opponent just
calls, you can assume they don't have much of a hand, and with back door nut flush draws, a
backdoor wheel draw, and likely an over card that is good you can over bet most turns and
get folds from most of your opponent’s range.
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If you get raised on the flop, you can 3-bet the flop and represent a monster looking
to induce a raise. There's really little reason for your opponent to raise on such a dry board,
and the small bet and flop 3-bet will confuse most opponents. Depending on your stakes,
and what kind of weak regular your opponent is, you can get a lot of Qx hands to fold out as
well.
4. Check Min-Raise Lead: A slightly more risky line, but one that works well against a
fairly wide range of opponents, except absolute fish who can't fold hands. A decent
percentage of opponents won't fold to min-raises, but when they do it's a cheap way
to re-steal. When they do call, you have setup your hand to look like a monster, so
you can fire a reasonably sized turn bet of 2/3rds to 3/4ths of the pot and expect to
get folds from a lot of your opponent’s range on most board textures.
In the above example, your opponent opens on the button to 2.5 BBs, and you flat
call out of the big blind with KcQd with effective stacks of 110 BBs. The flop comes
Jc7c3d. You check to your opponent, and your opponent fires out a continuation bet of 4
BBs into a 6 BB pot. You check min-raise to 8 BBs and your opponent folds.
Your opponent will be getting 4.5:1 on a call, but it will be extremely difficult to call
with Ax, 66–44, 22. These are hands that have very good equity against you that you can
get to fold out. There are some hands you beat that you will get to fold out, but there are a
good amount of drawing hands they could pick up on the turn that won't fold if you
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check/call and lead the turn. But most importantly you will fold out Ax hands that will have
over 70% equity against you, and some hands that will have trouble continuing like small
pairs that have almost the same equity.
If your opponent calls, then you can lead the turn for 2/3rds the pot. You have
possibly 1–2 over cards, a back door straight and 2nd nut flush back door as well. There are
plenty of bad cards for your opponent’s range so that you can shove a lot of rivers as well if
you miss hitting anything of showdown value.
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Chapter 7: 3-Betting
T he games today are becoming increasingly aggressive. 3-betting, and 4-betting,

something that only 4–5 years ago was not very common, is part of the norm now-a-
days. Players are applying more pressure pre-flop, and becoming increasingly
aggressive post flop. It's for that reason you're going to want to be an expert in how
to play in re-raised pots pre-flop, since you'll likely be playing in a lot of 3-bet pots. We'll
take a look at three primary 3-betting hand ranges and how you'll use them in common
situations.
Value Range
Just about everyone knows that when you re-raise pre-flop with QQ+, AK, you're
doing it for value against your opponent’s raising range. What is considered value, of
course, depends on your opponent and their opening range and calling range from each
position. What is considered value is a mixture of these two elements.
Some people get confused and think that 3-betting with AQo isn't for value because
your opponent won't call with worse in certain situations. It will be for value, but not by
much because you'll have only a slight equity edge against a standard cut-off open raising
range (say of 30%). And your opponent’s 3-bet calling range isn't that great against you
either, even though their calling range from the cut-off will likely be slightly higher,
especially if they have position on you.
What a lot of people tend to not consider is that there are a ton of small pairs that
you will typically fold out when playing with effective stacks around 100 BBs. This ends up
dropping your equity versus their calling range, but only slightly.
AQo versus calling a CO open of 29.5% of hands AQo versus CO 3-bet calling range
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Let's contrast this with a hand like JJ that you'd typically 3-bet for value in most
spots. Sometimes you might look to flat. The exact opposite becomes true with a hand like
JJ. You crush your opponent’s equity pre-flop versus the exact same range as above, but
your pre-flop equity decreases versus their calling range, and doesn't increase like in the
AQo example.
JJ versus CO open of 29.5% of hands JJ versus CO 3-bet calling range
Removing a lot of your opponent’s small pairs and marginal hands increases your
equity with a high un-paired hand like AQo, but decreases it with a big pair. So really the
argument should be that you should be 3-betting AQo more, and flatting JJ pre-flop more
often. Of course poker isn't this simple. The flopability of your hand and how many streets
of value you can get with a particular hand matter. Not to mention that 3-betting decreases
your effective stack to pot ratio so that you can comfortably play a slightly bigger pot with a
big pair, and reduces your opponent’s hands that can create big pots, like 87s.
The point here though is that certain hands actually gain equity when you 3-bet them
versus lose equity. But there are other things to consider besides just equity. There's fold
equity, decreasing the stack to pot ratio, and initiative. All of these will factor into whether
3-betting for value or calling is better.
A baseline for a value 3-bet range is 4.2% of hands, which looks something like this:
JJ+, AQs+, AQo+. Now clearly if you only 3-bet about 4% of your hands, you're not going
to get much action when you 3-bet, and you're going to be leaving money on the table.
You'll want to add in some more hands as bluffs, and also find ways to add more value
hands against certain opponents.
Bluffing Range
You may have heard some of your poker friends talk about 3-betting a polarized
range. This is where you 3-bet hands that are more towards the bottom of your hand range
that you wouldn't find profitable to call as a bluff, and at the very high end of your range
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(top 4.2%) for value. Then some of the remaining hands you leave in your range to call
with. So a typical polarized 3-bet range would look something like this:
For Value: JJ+, AQs+, AQo+

Bluffing: A2s–A8s,A2o–A8o, K2s–K9s, K5o–K9o, Q5s–Q9s, J5s–J7s, Q8o–Q9o, J7o–J8o
Calling Range: KJo+, KTs+, ATs–AJs, ATo–AJo, QTs+, QJo, JTs, 22–TT
These are some example ranges, and while of course you can 3-bet bluff some other
hands, these are more profitable on average to do so. You can also call with a wider range
as well, and include suited and unsuited connectors, as well as gapped connectors.
Using an example from above, you call with a hand like AJs instead of 3-bet with it
because your equity versus your opponent’s opening range is good, and you keep in
dominated hands like KJ, JQ, AT, A9, etc. If you 3-bet AJs your equity drops, and you keep
in more hands that will dominate your range like AQ, JJ, etc.
AJs versus CO open of 29.5% of hands AJs versus CO 3-bet calling range
So if you add some of these bluffing hands to your 3-bet value range, you'll increase
your 3-bet range to a percentage that will properly polarize your total 3-bet range. This
means that if you get your total 3-bet percentage to around 8%, your opponent won't know
when you're 3-betting for value, or when you're 3-bet bluffing. They'll have to risk calling
and playing a re-raised pot without initiative against you, folding their hand and giving up
their equity, or 4-betting you.
Quasi Range
There will be times when you will want to turn some of your range you might
normally call with, like AJs in the example above, into a 3-bet quasi-value range. You
might do this against opponents who don't like to fold to 3-bets, or when you want to 3-bet
isolate a weak player to keep other regulars out of the pot. It's quasi because sometimes it
can be for value, and sometimes it will be a bluff. An example of a 3-bet quasi range is
many of our calling hands from the previous examples.
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Quasi 3-bet Range: KQo+, KJs+, A9s–AJs, ATo–AJo, QJs+, 99–TT
Against players who are opening fairly wide, and don't fold to 3-bets, re-raising a
hand like AJs or KQs has a lot of value. You'll have your opponent calling with a lot of
suited and unsuited connectors, dominated hands, and small pairs that don't have good
flopability. There are a lot of hands where you'll put your opponent in a defensive position
with an inferior range often enough.
3-Bet Sizing
Standard 3-bet sizing tends to be 3–4 times your opponent’s opening raise, and
sometimes slightly more out of position. In position you'll tend to want to 3-bet slightly
smaller (3–3.5x), to keep your opponent in with a weaker range out of position against you,
and slightly larger out of position (3.75–4.5x) to cut down your stack to pot ratio and
increase your fold equity. What you size your 3-bet to heavily depends on your opponent,
your actual hand, and whether you're looking to increase or decrease your opponent’s fold
percentage.
Standard 3-bet Strategy

Against most regulars you should create a standard 3-bet sizing range for being in
and out of position. 3-betting 3.5x your opponent’s opening size in position, and 4x out of
position. Against fish or really weak players, you should deviate from your standard raise
sizing and focus on a max size you think your opponent will call when you have a big hand.
Typically speaking you're going to depolarize most of your range against a fish, so a bulk of
your raises will be for value, or to isolate with a quasi range. And you can deviate and
change those sizes until you have some history with other regulars at your table who may
begin to seize on your changed sizing. Then you'll have to keep it more consistent, or
occasionally flip-flop your value and quasi range sizing.
Applied Pressure 3-bet Strategy

For several years now players haven't really adjusted well to their opponent’s
opening ranges. When 3-betting became more popular, it was one of the first major
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adjustments to counter how wide a lot of opponents were opening from certain positions,
and especially in 6-max cash games. It makes sense to try and fold out some of your
opponent’s range and take down a pot without seeing a flop. There are rarely situations
where you're so much of a favorite pre-flop, so any time you can get your opponent to
completely abandon the equity in their hand without further play is good.
Now of course you'd prefer to keep them in the pot when you have some equity
advantage, but having initiative in a hand is a difficult thing for most opponents to
overcome. It's less difficult to overcome in limit holdem, but in no-limit when a player can
make any sized bet, it's not as easy to call down versus someone's range until you know
their bluffing frequencies at least a little bit. It's one thing to put an opponent on a range of
hands; it's another to understand their weighted frequency distribution of each hand. That's
when reads, notes, and other statistics about an opponent can help sway a fold to a call or
vice versa.
That's when applied pressure pre-flop can drastically alter the dynamics of how your
opponents respond to your 3-betting game. Most players still don't respond well to 3-bets,
so creating a table dynamic that keeps the pressure on, builds more pots in position against
your better opponents, takes initiative in the hand, creates a lower stack to pot ratio, and
allows you to isolate weaker players more often can be a very profitable strategy.
Instead of 3-betting 3.5–4x your opponent’s open raise sizing, you 3-bet 2.67x your
opponent’s open size in position, and 3.5–4x out of position. To keep it simple, if your
opponent opens 3x the big blind, then you'd 3-bet to 8 BBs. If your opponent opens 2.5x the
big blind, then 3-bet to 6.7 BBs. The sizing will take some getting used to depending on the
stakes you play, but you can easily work that out and make a cheat sheet if you need to.
This means that all of your value range and quasi range you're going to be 3-betting
2.67x your opponent’s opening amount. The reason you're going to do this is because it's
going to keep a bulk of your opponent’s range still in the pot against you. Additionally it's
going to place your opponent in a situation where they're going to have to make a lot of
moves against you post flop to make up for situations when they call with the weaker part of
their range and whiff the flop. They're going to have to do this out of position without
initiative. There are very few opponents capable of doing this consistently at micro and
small stakes games. If you are playing against one you think is capable, then just don't use
this strategy against them.
Let's take a simple example with 100 BB effective stacks. Your opponent open
raises 3x the big blind from MP and is currently opening 21.6% of hands from that position.
You are on the button with KJs and you 3-bet your opponent to 8 BBs. Your opponent calls
and you see a flop heads up. First of all, let's look at the pre-flop equity versus your
opponent’s opening range and calling range.
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KJs versus MP open of 21.6% of hands KJs versus MP 3-bet calling range
First thing is your pre-flop equity doesn't really change that much. Yet now you
have a re-raised pot, in position against your opponent’s 3-bet calling range, and you have
initiative. Combine that with the fact that with two unpaired hole cards, your opponent is
whiffing the flop 68% of the time, you've put them in a tough spot. Of course your opponent
isn't going to have two unpaired hole cards all the time, but between draws, and hands that
can continue, you're going to win the pot with a continuation bet more than half the time.
Most opponents fold to continuation bets in 3-bet pots between 50%–60% of the time. If
you make a slightly over 1/2 pot sized bet, it's printing money in this situation. Of course
the total expected value of this play also depends on how often you're folding to a 4-bet.
Let's take a look plugging in some expected percentages:
F = (4.5(.20), B = (8(.20), C = (9.5(.60) - (10(.40)

F - B + C = EV
F = How often your opponent folds to your 3-bet. We're saying conservatively 20%. A good
number is between 20–30% depending on your opponent.
B = How often your opponent is 4-betting and you'll have to fold. 15–25% is a fair number
and against better players who will start 4-betting as their adjustment this will get to ~30%.
C = How often a slightly over half pot sized continuation bet will be called. 60% is a rough
fair number, but against some opponents this will be lower or slightly higher.
.9 -1.6 + 1.7 = 1 / EV = +1
This isn't even accounting for the equity you have in your hand when your
continuation bet is called, which will jump this number up quite a bit. This is just the raw
EV of a play until the continuation bet on the flop. Consider when you continue to do this
against an opponent, and they decide to adjust at the incorrect time and you have a big hand
(either a big pair pre-flop, or you flopped a big hand). Having position is huge in this
situation and you can control the size of the pot post flop.
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To be fair, let's compare this against the EV of calling KJs in position. That's a fine
hand to call with and take a flop in position against most opponents. So let's take a look at
the hand against the same range, and same situation.
EV = (5.5(.47) = (3(.53) = +1
Looks like it's just about the same EV if we take the hand to the flop, but this time
our opponent has initiative, and they are continuation betting. We're also saying we're only
folding to a continuation bet in position 47% of the time to a roughly 3/4ths pot sized bet
(5.5). Again, this doesn't take into account equity when you call versus your opponent’s
range. Everything is the same, except that it's a single raised pot, and now you don't have
initiative and you're not continuation betting. You're also not applying much pressure to
your opponent beyond calling and perhaps floating a decent amount of flops against them.
Both plays are pretty close in EV, and exact in the case of using our numbers, but the goals
are slightly different.
The primary reason you'd employ this 3-betting strategy over flatting a hand like
KJs is to apply pressure, keep your opponent on the defensive and in re-raised pots out of
position against you. You're not going to be 3-betting this same hand nearly as often out of
position. This is purely an in position strategy to use against certain opponents, and in
certain games.
Applied Pressure vs Standard 3-bet Strategy

Either the applied pressure or the standard 3-bet strategy will be the optimal
approach to take based on the specific table you're at. If you fall in love with an applied
pressure 3-betting strategy, employing it every time you sit down at a table will generally be
a mistake. The kinds of players you have to your immediate right and left should be the
primary determining factor as to which kind of strategy will yield the highest EV.
For example, if you have a bad loose aggressive player on your immediate right, and
a bad fishy player on your immediate left, employing an applied pressure strategy won't be
ideal. You'll end up pushing the fish out of the pot far too often if they keep seeing re-raises
in front of them. Having the bad loose aggressive player on your right is ideal, but the weak
fishy player on your immediate left trumps the bad LAG player. If the fishy player wasn't
on your immediate left, and you had decent regulars to your immediate left, then the applied
pressure 3-betting strategy would work great. Some better regulars might start to adjust after
awhile, but in general it's a great approach to take to isolate the bad LAG player.
In general, it's best to use a standard 3-betting strategy until you have players at your
table identified. Your goal with an applied pressure 3-betting strategy should be to isolate
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the weaker players, and force your better opponents into making mistakes, or reacting
poorly against your 3-bets. If you do this effectively you'll have a wider 3-betting range in
these situations and at the tables where it makes the most sense. An ideal 3-betting
percentage when employing a standard 3-betting strategy with a polarized range should be
somewhere between 7–9%. When using an applied pressure 3-betting strategy, your 3-bet
percentage can be anywhere from 10–15% on average.
3-Bet Calling Ranges

As I'm sure you know, defending against 3-
bets can be quite difficult in a lot of situations. It's
especially true when you hold a hand that would be
in a quasi 3-betting range itself. Calling, folding, or
4-betting can all be close decisions at times. How
you properly vet out which decision will the highest
EV line can be the difference between being a
marginal winner/loser, and crushing the games.
Typically speaking, we'd all prefer to play in a re-raised pot, or any pot, when we
have position. In a re-raised pot with marginal hands it's not as simple as saying to fold most
of your hands out of position, and call in position. Typically most opponents will have a
wider 3-betting range in position, and quite a bit tighter out of position. So like most poker
decisions, where you open from (and how often), and where your opponent 3-bets from
(and how often) will be of the upmost importance in determining a 3-bet calling range.
Easy Folds to 3-bets

There are some very obvious spots to dump a hand, and some obvious spots to
continue. There aren't static rules to defending against a 3-bet, but some situations are clear
cut folds. Here are a few of them assuming roughly 100 BB effective stacks:
 You open a normal range UTG, action is folded to the small blind who 3-bets you and
has a normal to tight 3-betting range.
 Comments: If you open say 15% UTG, and your opponent has an overall 3-bet
percentage of 6%, then you're folding almost all of your hands except for: QQ+,
AKs, AKo. QQ may even be a fold if your opponent’s overall 3-bet percentage is
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smaller than 6%. Your opponent’s 3-bet percentage from the small blind is
irrelevant, and it's unlikely you'll have an adequate sample to have stats for 3-bet
from SB vs UTG. On average you'll be looking at an opponent with a 4% 3-bet
range or less. So you should be proceeding only with the very top of your range.
 You open a normal range UTG, action is folded to the big blind who 3-bets you and has
a normal to tight 3-betting range.
 Comments: Similar thing as in the small blind, except you can call with slightly
more of your range. Since the big blind is last to act, the 3-betting range will be
slightly wider on average, but not by much. That just means you can call with TT+,
AKo, AKs and sometimes AQs.
 You open a normal range UTG, and your opponent on your immediate left 3-bets you,
who has a normal 3-betting range.
 Comments: You should be folding most of your range except for JJ+, AKo, AKs.
Against some opponents, TT and AQs can be called. In general though they should
be dumped unless they are somewhat on the looser 3-betting side of a normal 3-
betting range.
"Easy" Calls to 3-bets

Defending your opening range is a must in
today's games. You just want to make sure you're
consistently doing it in the highest EV situations
obviously. Some spots that come up often that are
"easy" calls to a 3-bet with 100 BB effective stacks
are as follows:
 You open on the button, a normal open button range, and get 3-bet by the big blind who
has a fairly wide 3-betting range.
 Comments: You both know your range is going to be wider and lighter than normal.
This should be one of the spots you defend against most aggressively since you'll
have position and you have options between calling or 4-betting light. Assuming
your opponent is 3-betting about 15% of his range, you should look to call with
roughly an equal percentage of your range, or slightly more depending on how
confident you are in outplaying your opponent. All things being equal, having
position is your biggest advantage. If you assume a somewhat polarized range from
your opponent, then you should be calling with a range similar to this (assuming
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you'll 4-bet JJ+, AK most of the time): 88–JJ, A9s+, ATo–AQo, KJo+, KTs+, QTs+,
J9s+, QTo+, T9s, 98s, T9o, 87s. You'll have anywhere from 47%–52% equity
depending on how polarized your opponent’s range is.
 You open on the button, a normal open button range, and get 3-bet by the small blind
who has a fairly wide 3-betting range.
 Comments: Very similar to the above. You will both have wider ranges, but the
small blind will have a slightly tighter 3-betting range on average with the big blind
still left to act. You should still defend liberally, unless your opponent is on the tight
side of a normal 3-betting range for this situation. So assume a roughly 13% 3-
betting range, your defense range should look similar to defend the blind with a few
more hands cut out: 88–JJ, ATs+, ATo–AQo, KJo+, KTs+, QTs+, JTs, T9s, 98s,
T9o. The goal is to have yourself around the 47%–52% equity range against your
opponent’s 3-bet range.
 You open in cut-off, a normal cut-off range. The action folds to the big blind who 3-bets
a fairly wide range.
 Comments: Despite the fact that your range will be significantly tighter in the cut-
off, your opponent’s 3-betting range will be almost as wide as if you had opened
from the button. Somewhere between 10–13% on average for normal aggressive
regulars. So assuming a 3-bet range of about 11.5%, then a good defending range
would be: 88–JJ, ATs+, AJo–AQo, KQo, KJs+, QJs, JTs, T9s. Again, the goal is to
get between 47–52% equity versus your opponent’s range. In this case you'd be
pretty close to 50% equity.
 You open in cut-off, a normal cut-off range. The action folds to the small blind who 3-
bets a fairly wide range for this situation.
 Comments: Same as above, and your

opponent’s 3-bet range should be slightly
tighter as opposed to 3-betting from the big
blind, but not by much. A range of 8.5–12%
would be average for this situation. So
assuming a 3-bet range of 10%, a good
defense calling range would be: 88–JJ,
ATs+, AJo–AQo, KQo, KQs. This would be slightly over 48% equity versus your
opponent’s 3-bet range.
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Marginal Spots vs 3-bets

As you well know, you're going to be in a lot of marginal spots when facing a 3-bet.
How you react and play those situations is going to make a significant difference in your
winrate. Many of the decisions will be super close, so stat ranges and reads will be critical
in helping you to make the best decision possible. Some of the common marginal spots with
roughly 100 BB effective stacks are:
 You open raise in MP (or late MP in full ring) with a normal MP opening range of about
20%, and your opponent on the button 3-bets you who has a normal button 3-betting
range of about 12%.
 Comments: You aren't opening super wide, but your opponent is going to be 3-
betting from the button pretty wide and will have position on you post flop. If your
opponent is betting a normal polarized range, then you're going to be a slight dog to
neutral equity with your opening range versus their 3-betting range. You would be
looking at somewhere between 46–50% on average. Your opponent is going to have
a positional equity advantage bump on anywhere from 1.1–1.3x of their real equity.
So you'll need to fold enough of your range, turn some of those into 4-bluffs
occasionally, and call with a range where you can make up your positional
disadvantage. A good baseline starting range would be: 99+, ATs+, AJo+, KJs+,
KQo. This would give you anywhere between
57–60% equity versus their range. If you cut
out a few more of these hands like KJs, ATs,
KQo, you'll jump your equity a couple of more
points. So something like: 99+, AJs+, AJo+,
KQs for most players who may struggle with
out of position play a bit. You're going to want
to turn some of the bottom of your folding
range into 4-bet bluffs so that you can make up
for the times you're being 3-bet and have to fold. Calling with this range, you're
going to be folding roughly 70% of the time, so you'll need to mix in some 4-bet
bluffs to make up for the times you're abandoning your equity. The other options are
that you call with some of your suited connectors a higher percentage of the time,
and bluff shove when you hit some piece of the flop, which is going to be a much
higher variance strategy, but can still be effective.
 You open raise in MP (or late MP in full ring) with a normal MP opening range of about
20%, and your opponent in the cut-off 3-bets you who has a normal cut-off 3-betting
range of about 8%.
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 Comments: Very similar situation, except now your opponent has a tighter 3-betting
range. It's a bit more difficult to profitably turn some of your range into 4-bet bluffs,
but you still can turn a few. You might think your calling range would need to be
tightened up a bit in comparison to the previous example, but it's actually not the
case. A lot more of your opponent’s quasi
range will turn into a flatting range, and their 3-
bet bluff to value distribution will be more
evenly distributed. So a calling range of: 99+,
AJs+, AQo+, KQs is a good baseline and will
give you between 58–60% equity on average
versus your opponent’s range Depending on
your comfort level with out of position play,
eliminating KQs and/or AJs will jump your
equity a few more points and eliminate some "trouble hands." Most of the time
you'll be 4-betting KK+, AK, but flatting for deception in these situations adds a lot
of value to your hand versus your opponent’s range. Again, you will have to mix in
a couple of 4-bet bluffs, and you'll have to turn some of your weaker hands into post
flop bluffs to make this situation profitable overall. It's a marginal spot for good
reason.
 You open raise a normal range in the cut-off of about 28%, and an opponent on the
button with a normal polarized 3-betting range of 13% 3-bets you.
 Comments: Similar spot to the first example except our opponent’s 3-betting range
will tend to be slightly larger in this situation on average, and our opening range is
going to be wider. You'll be a slight dog versus his 3-betting range, so folding some
of the range without being exploitable, and turning enough hands into 4-bet bluffs is
a fine line since your opponent will know that you'll have a wider 4-betting range on
average. A baseline calling range would be: 88+, ATs+, AJo+, KJs+, KQo. This
would give you between 58–60% equity again, and keep you slightly under 70%
folding percent. Assuming you always 4-bet KK+, AK in this spot, with the
remaining hands you'll still have between 55–57% equity versus your opponent’s 3-
betting range.
In general, if you're not comfortable calling in a re-raised pot out of position, then
you need to be tightening up your opening range when you have reasonably aggressive 3-
bettors who have position on you. If you're normally opening say 28%, like in the above
example, but you have a player on the button who 3-bets 14% in that dynamic, you need to
considerably reduce your opening range. You'd need to cut off anywhere from 6–10% from
your open raising range to play the situation profitably. Make sure you're adjusting your
range, based on the opponents that have position on you.
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Being 3-bet by a short stack

There are a lot more short stackers in today's
games, and ones that are slightly more competent then
they were in the past. We'll define a short stack as
anyone with a stack between 15––35 BBs. On most
online poker sites the minimum buy-in is 20––30
BBs, so most short stackers will be around this range.
One of the most important things when facing a short
stacker is knowing what kind of short stacker they
are, because your calling ranges are going to vary
depending on this.
 The “leaking my stack” short stacker: This guy is slowing losing his stack and not
playing well. Their shoving ranges are not going to be optimal on average, so your
calling range needs to widen and adjust accordingly.
 The “just lost a big pot” short stacker: If he looks to be aggressive at all, he can easily
be tilting, so your range really needs to widen if their stack is 25 BBs or less.
 The “buy-in short” bad player: This guy is looking to keep it conservative, but likely
doesn't know exactly what he's doing. If you haven't seen him do anything yet, then
assume he's conservative and will have tight shoving ranges of: 77+,AQo+,AQs+. If he's
limped into some pots, or called some pots and been at all active, then he's likely bad
and you can assume a somewhat wider shoving range.
 The “pro” short stacker: You'll have your hands full as this person is looking to play
some fun break-even poker. Depending on your stakes, and if he's good at all, he might
make some money. You'll have to keep somewhat tight calling ranges against him
though.
If you are playing a competent short stacker, a general rule is that if you call about
45–48% of your opening range against a shove of 20 BBs, then you'll generally squeak out
a small profit. So for example, if you open 20.4% of your range from late middle position,
and a 20 BB short stacker shoves on you from the cut-off, then you should be calling 9%–
10.5% of your opening range. That would look something like this: You open: 22+, A3s+,
A9o+, KTs+, KTo+, QTs+, JTs, QJo, T9s, JTo. Your calling range would roughly be: 66+,
A9s+, KJs+, AJo+.
This is assuming of course they are competent and they aren't just shoving big hands
like 99+, AQs+, AQo+. In that case you're just going to call with an almost similar range
with a few more hands added like AJs, KQs, 88. The bottom line is you want to keep your
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calling range slightly under 50% of your opening range, unless they are just shoving big
hands only and not adjusting to your opening ranges by position.
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Chapter 8: 4-Bet Bluffing
L ike I've said earlier, the games are increasingly aggressive pre-flop and post flop. To
some degree at certain higher stakes, the 3-betting and 4-betting has mellowed out a
little, but micro and small stake players are still seeing effects of increased
aggression. In order to properly combat this increased aggression, you need to have
a solid 4-bet bluffing plan. 4-betting for value is pretty simple. You have a big hand against
someone who you think will stack off with worse and you 4-bet. Finding profitable 4-
betting spots is a little trickier, but possible to do if you are staying cognizant of the
opportunities that present themselves.
Why 4-bet Bluff?

There are several reasons to 4-bet bluff in today's games. In general, people at micro
and small stakes games will 3-bet a bit too wide in certain situations, and not re-defend their
3-bets often enough. Some people think it's a strategy that carries with it higher variance,
but if you pick your spots well, that's simply not the case. In some volume, of course, there's
going to be more variance, but in any reasonable sample you'll show profit if you're picking
your spots correctly. Some of the reasons to 4-bet bluff are:
1. Defend your opening raise. If you're opening a somewhat wider range, then you
should expect to get 3-bet more. If you simply fold only the highest end of your
range, you're going to get exploited pretty badly by even bad regulars.
2. Add depth to your 4-bet range. So when you do 4-bet, you may get your
opponents to react poorly and 5-bet shove with the wrong ranges against you. If
you're only 4-betting 2% of your range, then opponents can play near perfect against
you if they are at all competent.
3. Push people off better hand. If you pick your spots and hands well, you can get
people to fold hands like AQo, TT–JJ for example or even better depending on how
badly they adjust to your 4-bet range.
Good 4-bet bluffing hands

The primary goal with your 4-bet bluffing hands is to have some hands that have
decent showdown value if called, and can outflop your opponent’s 3-bet calling range. You
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also don't want hands that are going to commit you to the pot, and that you can dump if your
opponent 5-bet jams on you. So some good 4-bet bluffing hands are:
4-bet Hands Equity Reasons

A2s–A9s 29–30% Good if you happen to get called.
A2o–A9o 25–26% Can out flop some hands, and also easy fold.
K2s–KTs 25–27% You have some Kx blockers, and easy fold.
K6o–KTo 22–23% Very easy fold.
Q6s–QTs 26–29% Reasonable equity when called.
Hands with Ax and Kx contain blockers against your opponent’s range. So it cuts
down on the possible big ace and king combos your opponent will have. Additionally the
Ax and Kx hands can outflop or out turn your opponent’s 4-bet calling range since a lot of
these hands will be JJ+ depending on your opponent and their position. Some hands like
KTs and QTs can be profitable 3-bet calling hands, but in certain situations out of position,
they also make good 4-bet bluffing hands.
Small pairs like 22–55, for example, are not hands that you can 4-bet bluff and fold
with 100 BB effective stacks. You'll have anywhere from 35.7–37.3% equity versus your
opponent’s shoving range so you'll be committed to calling. As a rough rule, any hand that
has about 31–32% equity versus your opponent’s 5-bet jamming range, you cannot fold
once you 4-bet.
The bottom line with profitable 4-bet bluffing is that you want to ideally look for
opponents that 3-bet too wide, and don't re-defend their 3-bets enough. Once you start
getting over an 8% 3-betting range, you can find a lot of profitable 4-bet bluffing
opportunities. As your opponents get better, they will of course understand your 4-bet
bluffing range is going to widen and jam slightly wider or call accordingly. However, most
opponents at micro and small stakes don't adjust to this well. At micro stakes, you won't
have as many aggressive 3-bettors, but they are still there, and those are the people you need
to target.
4-bet Bluff Sizing

When effective stacks are close to 100 BBs, then between 22––25% of your stack
size is an ideal 3-bet bluff sizing. This will allow you to get away from most hands if you
are jammed on. When effective stacks are over 100 BBs to about 150 BBs, then 4-bet to
roughly 2.8––3.7x your opponent’s 3-bet sizing. When stack sizes get over that size, don't
look to 4-bet bluff very often since your opponent’s 4-bet calling range will begin to widen.
You should instead be widening your 4-bet value range, preferably in position of course.
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Also you can look to 4-bet ISO in position more to apply maximum pressure versus your
opponent’s range.
In the above example, in a full ring cash game with effective stacks of 100 BBs, it's
folded to you in late middle position (MP2) with QdTd and you raise 3 BBs. The action
folds to the button who 3-bets 10% of his hands from the button and he 3-bets to 10 BBs.
The action folds back to you, and you 4-bet to 23 BBs.
Is this a profitable 4-bet bluff?
1. He's 3-betting over 8% of his hands, so whether it's profitable or not is going to
come down to 4-bet sizing and how wide he will 5-bet jam or call. Most opponents
at micro and small stakes are going to play 5-bet jam or fold poker.
2. What your opponent’s 3-betting range is in a spot like this is actually irrelevant,
unless your opponent is calling a lot of 4-bets. Since this isn't the case a majority of
the time, you can take any range, polarized or depolarized with quasi ranges in it,
and just plug in what you think a reasonable 5-bet jam range is for your opponent.
We'll say something like roughly 3% of his hands or slightly less which equates to:
QQ+, AQs+, AKo. Swap JJ for AQs, and it won't make much difference since you
are not calling a jam. It will just slightly alter the fold percentages.
3. If your opponent is opening 10% of his range, and jamming only 3%, then they'll be
folding roughly 70% of the time to a 4-bet.
14.5(.70) - 23(.3) = + 3.3 BBs
4. 4-bet bluffing in this situation has a net profit of +6.3 BBs, since if you fold you're
losing 3 BBs 100% of the time.
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Is folding the correct play versus your opponent’s range if you are jammed on?
1. If we keep the above 5-bet jamming range of our opponent, and plug in the numbers
you'll end up having slightly under 30% equity versus your opponent’s range:
(100(.3)) - (77(.7)) = (30 - 54) = -24 BBs.
2. If you 4-bet to 23 BBs and fold, you're losing 23 BBs 100% of the time. (-24) - (-23)
= -1 BBs. So it's narrow but it would be a - 1 BB EV play.
Ideal 4-bet Bluffing Spots

Once you know what kinds of hands you want to 4-bet, and you have a good grasp
of the kind of sizing you want to keep, then finding the most profitable spots will become
fairly easy. Some of the criteria you'll want to have in place to make the most profitable 4-
bet bluffs are:
1. Your opponent 3-bets too much, and won't 5-bet shove or call wide enough to re-
defend. Typically speaking, most opponents’ 3-bet range will get wider in certain
spots, but their 5-bet jamming range or calling range won't widen. So this can
become extremely exploitable.
2. You have no significant recent 4-bet history. You haven't been 3-betting or 4-betting
your opponent a lot lately in a way that will get them to over react to a situation and
decide to 5-bet jam lighter than normal. Everyone has their breaking point, and when
4-bet shoving you really depend on fold equity to make it a profitable opportunity.
3. You haven't been super active for long stretches. You haven't been active in a lot of
pots, 3-betting and 4-betting other players a decent amount recently. Playing and
calling some pots or an occasional 3-bet is fine, but either because of a run of good
cards or as bluffs, if you've been pushing the table around a bit then this can create a
reaction by other players, even if they haven't' been involved with you.
4. You haven't 4-bet folded recently. If you 4-bet folded to an opponent, then there's a
much higher chance that they will play back at your lighter, even if they aren't a very
good player.
Keep your 4-bet bluff contained to the most optimal spots and you should be able to
easily get your 4-bet range over 3% and close to 4%. Something between 3–4.5% is optimal
without getting into an area where you may begin spewing chips.
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Chapter 9: Perceived Range
M ost of everything in poker really comes down to two things. What your opponent
thinks your range is, and what you think your opponent's range is. Based on those
two things, it's a matter of properly selling or deceiving what your range is to
your opponents, and properly reading what their range is without getting
deceived. Becoming a master of convincing
your opponent that you have a heavily
weighted strong range when you are bluffing,
and a weak range or bluff when you are strong
can become quite the art in no-limit poker.
With some practice and thoughtful execution,
it's an aspect of poker that can separate you
from the other regulars in the games you're playing.
A big part of your perceived range is going to depend on how you'd play a given
range of hands in a particular situation. When you're first playing someone at your stakes,
there's going to be a given "normal" way to play a range hands for the board that's in play.
There will be some general assumptions made about your opponent until you can glean
what their likely skill level is, and what level they are thinking about poker on. Then, based
on the history that you build with that opponent, and how you've seen them play past
situations, you'll start to alter what their likely range will be in a particular spot.
That's where making reads and taking good notes on your opponents really comes
into play. For example, if you've seen your opponent call two streets on a dry board, and
then turn a small pair or bottom pair into a bluff on the river, then you're going to know that
when you reach the river you're going to want to check/call a good portion of your medium
strength hands to your opponent on the river, or bet small on the turn and river to induce a
bluff.
Balancing Your Range

When you can play a variety of different hand ranges in roughly the same ratios, and
in the same manner, then you've balanced your hand range. You're doing this in order to
make it difficult for your opponent to narrow down your hand range. The wider and more
balanced your range is, the more likelihood that your opponent will make a mistake versus
your play.
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If you have an unbalanced range, then your opponent will be able to narrow your
hand range down easier, and consequently make the more optimal decision versus your
play. So, for example, if you only check-raise flops when you hold an open ended straight
draw or flush, then you'd have an unbalanced range. Your opponent will be able to narrow
down your range well enough to make good decisions. Now if you added in sets to your
check-raising range, and roughly 50% of the time you check-raised with a draw, and 50% of
the time you check-raised with a set, it will make your opponent’s decision more difficult.
But now let's say 25% of the time you check-raise in a given spot with top pair, 25% of the
time you check-raised with two pair, 25% of the time you check-raised with a set, and 25%
of the time you check-raised with a draw. Your opponent is going to have a lot of hands
they'll have to consider before continuing.
In the example above, in a full ring cash game with 100 BB effective stacks, you
open 88 for 3 BBs from early middle position (MP1), and the table folds to the small blind
who calls. The big blind folds and you see the flop heads-up. The flop comes: Td9c4d. Your
opponent checks, and you bet 2/3rds of the pot and your opponent check-raises. Let's take a
look at how an unbalanced range to a more progressively balanced range affects equity, and
should in turn affect your opponent’s decision if they understand your range.
1. Your opponent only check-raises open ended

straight draws and flush draws. Your equity versus
this range is going to be roughly 55%. With the
money already in the pot, you should either look to
get it in, or call and shove a blank turn card when
your opponent’s equity will really drop.
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2. Now your opponent check-raises OESD's /

flush draws 50% of the time, and two pair
50% of the time. Your equity is going to drop
all the way down to 45.5% versus your
opponent’s range. With the money already in
the pot, this will typically be a very narrow
+EV spot to get your money in against that
kind of range.
3. Let's now add top pair to your opponent’s

range, and say that 33% of the time they are
check-raising top pair, draws, and two pair.
Your equity is going to drop all the way down
to 38.3% against your opponent’s range,
making it a clear fold.
4. And finally, just to round it out, let's add that

25% of the time your opponent is check-
raising sets, draws, two pair, and top pair
equally. Your equity is going to drop down to
33.9% against your opponent’s range. The
wider and more diverse the range gets, the
more difficult the decision is going to be for
your opponent.
So the bottom line is that the more competent your opponent is, the more diverse
and balanced your range needs to be in an array of situations. The weaker your opponent is,
the more unbalanced your range can be simply because they won't be placing you on a
range of hands well enough to make good decisions to begin with. This consequently means
that if your opponent isn't thinking much beyond their own hand strength, you won't need to
worry about balancing your range. Most players in small stakes games and above today will
be thinking about ranges, but may not know how to properly balance their own ranges.
Micro stake players mostly won't understand either concept, except for the most competent
of regulars in your games. For that reason you can keep a mostly unbalanced range against
those kinds of opponents, and play as exploitative as possible.
Balancing Flop Textures

When you look to balance your hand range, there are two primary concepts you're
using in order to fool your opponents into making the worst possible decision. You're
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playing a range of different strength hands in the same way, and that consequently means
you'll have to play the same strength hand in various different ways in order to properly add
that balance. That means if you flop a set, you're not always check / calling. Some
percentage of the time you're leading at the flop (donking into the pre-flop raiser). Another
percent of the time you'll be check-raising. When you're first learning to balance your range,
you're going to be focusing on board texture, and your opponent’s likely equity versus your
hand in order to take the highest initial EV line. It's something you assume you'd always
want to do of course, but what the highest EV line is begins to change the more
sophisticated your opponents become.
There will be a variety of board textures where it will make more sense to have a
slightly narrower, but balanced, range for that situation. Against fairly competent
opponents, this is the approach you'll want to employ a majority of the time. However, like I
alluded to, the more sophisticated your opponents become, the more hand ranges for each
situation you'll want to add to your range distribution. It's easy on a really dry board to play
a number of hands in the same manner. As the board texture gets more draw heavy, and
paired, it's not quite as simple.
Balancing on Dry Boards

Balancing your hand range on a dry board is the
easiest to do. You won't have a lot of threats of bad
cards on future streets, and with your stronger range
hands you'll have tons of equity that often can't be out
run by your opponent’s hand. This allows for a bit more
freedom and creativity with the lines you can take.
There are two types of dry boards in general. Low to mid dry boards, and broadway
dry boards. If you take an opponent who is opening 23.4% of his range and compare it
against a common calling range for you where you whiff the board and don't have a pocket
pair in your hand, you'll see how much your equity rises as you add more hands to your
range. We'll say your opponent continuation bets the board almost 100% of the time, and
we'll use a flop of: 2c5d9s as an example.
 Dry Low Board
 Check/Call with Gutshot: ~39% equity versus your opponent’s range.

(76s, 76o, 87o, 87s, 86s, A3o–A4o, A3s–A4s)
 Check/Call with Air: ~40% equity versus your opponent’s range.
(ATs–AJs, ATo–AQo, KTs+, KJo+, QJo, QJs, JTs)
 Check/Call with small pair: ~54% equity versus your opponent’s range.
(33–44, 66–88)
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 Check/Call with Top Pair: ~68% equity versus your opponent’s range.
(A9o, A9s, T9o, T9s, J9s, 97s+, 98o, J9o)
 Check/Call with a Set: ~94% equity versus your opponent’s range.
(22, 55, 99)
 Combined equity of all ranges: ~42% equity versus your opponent’s range.
 Combined equity of made hands: ~73% equity versus your opponent’s range.
Check/calling with your made hands in this spot is fairly easy. You'll have high
equity versus your opponent’s continuation bet range, and you won't have a ton of bad
board run outs. You'll have a decent chance of some broadways hitting on later streets, but
not much beyond that. The question will become, can you add another range or two of
hands in this situation so that your opponent isn't giving up when he misses against you, and
only continuing when he has a big hand.
If you were out of position with a set in this spot, you'd want your opponent to
continue firing on the turn. So the question becomes, what will be the highest EV line for
you to take with a range of hands in a dry board situation against most opponents. Keep in
mind, the line you take with each range should also change based on your opponent, mainly
how good and aggressive they are versus how average or bad they are.
Most opponents will expect you to check/call with your sets, top pair, and small
pairs in this spot. They know that you'll expect them to continuation bet with almost their
entire range, so you'll want to give them that opportunity knowing that they won't have a
strong range often enough to handle much more pressure than a call.
What you'll want to answer for yourself is, in a situation where you’re out of
position to a pre-flop raiser, how do you ideally want to play each of these range of hands?
Your pre-flop hand distribution is going to be comprised mostly of unpaired hands that will
whiff the flop 68% of the time. You'll flop some gut-shots with suited and unsuited
connectors about 16% of the time. The bulk of your range, as you know, will be with air.
Your opponent will know this as well, so the line you take will need to take that into heavy
consideration.
If your opponent doesn't react well to aggression, then donking into them with your
air range that has over cards, gutshots, and sets can be a good line. You're not going to flop
a set often, and when you do, they usually won't expect you to lead into them until they've
seen you do it. If they have a hand, they're going to call or even raise. You just have to
make sure that if you're consistently donking into them, that when you do have a set you
lead into them as well. Mix in doing it with top pair occasionally as well.
If your opponent is aggressive and tricky, then check/calling and leading the turn, or
check-raising with gutshots and sets can be effective. Note that, again, because of hand
distribution it wouldn't be very balanced to check-raise with over cards and sets since most
of the time you'll have over cards. Your opponent still will be able to weight your range
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well enough to make good decisions. It's still more effective to have a hand in your range
versus not having it at all, but the frequency of distribution of the hands you do something
with is nearly as important as the range itself.
Let's take a similar situation to the above scenario except now we're looking at a flop
of: Qd7c3s with the same opponent opening range of 23.4%.
 Dry Broadway Board

(54s, 54o, 65o, 65s)
(A9s–AJs, ATo–AJo, KJs, KTo–KJo, JTs)
(22, 44–66, 88)
(AQo, KQo, KQs, QTs+, QTo+)
(77, 33)
 Combined equity of made hands: ~67% equity versus your opponent’s range.
Dry Low Board Dry Broadway Board

Check/Call with Gutshot ~39% ~30%
Check/Call with Air ~40% ~36%
Check/Call with Small Pair ~54% ~47%
Check/Call with Top Pair ~68% ~78%
Check/Call with Set ~94% ~94%
Combined Equity of All Ranges ~42% ~49%
Combines Equity of Made Hands ~73% ~67%
On a single broadway dry board your equity is going to drop a bit with your air
range, small pairs, and combined made hands. It's not significant, but it's a drop, so when
you're playing these boards check/calling with gutshots and air isn't going to be as profitable
as it will be on lower dry boards. You're going to have to turn those hands into bluffs a
higher percentage of the time to make them profitable.
Check-raising on these kinds of board textures with your air, gutshots, strong top
pair, and sets can be a profitable line since most of the time you're going to have air or top
pair. Check-raising on a dry board like this is going to look suspect for a lot of decent
opponents, but it's still going to put them in a tough spot on later streets with a lot of their
hands. Typically against regulars you can try making this play with your gutshots and air
and see how they react. If they are calling you down or re-floating you, then it's not going to
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be a good strategy out of position. A lot of mediocre regulars will just fold if they don't have
a strong hand here, and against those opponents it's a highly profitable play. When you can
get your opponent to fold some better hands and when they have the better equity, it's a very
big +EV play for you.
Let's take a look at an example where your opponent is opening 23.4% of their
hands. In a 6-max cash game, your opponent in middle position open raises to 3 BBs and
the action folds to you in the big blind and you call the raise with AsTs. The flop comes
Qs7c3s. You check to your opponent who bets 5 BBs into a 7.5 BB pot. You check-raise to
14 BBs.
First off, we know most good opponents will continue in this situation with a wider
range than mediocre regulars or weak players in general. Still, they'd have to re-float with a
significantly wide range for this play not to be +EV for you. If you're balancing your range
properly in these spots, your better opponents will begin to know that you can do this with
top pair, sets, and so on. Even before your opponents have a better idea of what your range
will be here, they'd have to continue with such a large portion of their range and call 48% of
the time or more for it not to be a profitable play. As it stands, if we say that roughly 8% of
the time they'll re-bluff you with their air range and you'll have to fold, the math would look
like this:
(-14(.43) + (12.5(.57) = -6 + 7.1 = 1.1 EV
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This isn't taking into consideration when you are called, and the equity you still have
in your hand with the two backdoor draws and possibly at least one over card. Compare this
line to when you'd check/call where you're a 42/58 equity dog against your opponent’s
continuation betting range, and it's a reasonable line to take in situations like this.
Balancing on Coordinated Boards

On coordinated or draw heavy boards, your hand range is going to automatically
expand in your opponents mind. How you play each hand range on a coordinated board is
going to be vital in getting paid off when you have a big hand, and increasing your fold
equity when you have a big draw. Check-raising generally increases fold equity. However,
it's not necessarily the most profitable line when you flop a big hand. Finding a proper
balance on coordinated boards can be a little tricky simply because there are lots of scare
cards for you and the perceived range by your opponent of your hand.
Let's run through the exact same scenarios as above for comparative purposes. Your
opponent opens a standard 23.4% opening range, and you call and see a flop of: 6h5h3d.
 Coordinated Low Board

(97s+, 98o, A2s, A2o)
(ATs–AQs, ATo–AQo, KJs+, KJo+)
(22, 44, 77–88)
(A6s, A6o, K6s)
 Check/Call with Over Pair: ~66% equity versus your opponent’s range.
(77–JJ)
 Check/Call with Two Pair: ~83% equity versus your opponent’s range.
(65o, 65s, 53s)
 Check/Call with Pair + Draw: ~68% equity versus your opponent’s range.
(A3s, 54s, 54o, 64s, 76s, 76o, 44)
(33, 55–66)
 Check/Call with a Big Draw: ~53% equity versus your opponent's range.
(A8s–AQs, KTs+, 87s, 87o, A4s, A4o, QJs)
 Combined Equity of made hands: ~72% equity versus your opponent’s range.
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Your equity with each hand range group in a situation like this won't be too bad in
general. This kind of board texture will allow for a bit more creativity in how you want to
balance your ranges. You will have a good amount of bluff cards on later streets if you
decided to check/call with some of the higher end of your air range. There's a lot of
opportunity to turn some of the weaker part of your made range into bluffs as well, and have
them be believable by your opponent if the turn and/or river bring some more coordinated
cards.
Let's now take a look at the exact same example, except this time on a broadway
coordinated board. Your opponent open a standard 23.4% opening range, and you call and
see a flop of: 6h5h3d.
 Coordinated Broadway Board

(A8s–A9s, A9o, 97s+, 98o, 87s, 87o)
(76s, 76o, 86s, A8s, 65s)
(22–88)
(AKo, K8s–K9s)
 Check/Call with Over Pair: ~70% equity versus your opponent’s range.
(AA)
 Check/Call with Two Pair: ~67% equity versus your opponent’s range.
(KTs–KJs, KTo–KJo, JTs, JTo)
 Check/Call with pair + draw: ~64% equity versus your opponent's range.
(KQs, KQo, QTs+, QTo+, QQ, ATs, T9s)
(TT–JJ, KK)
 Check/Call with a big draw: ~61% equity versus your opponent's range.
(A8s–A9s, QQ, 98s, 87s)
99

Coordinated Low Board Coordinated Broadway Board

Check/Call with Top Pair ~63% ~63%
Check/Call with Over Pair ~66% ~70%
Check/Call with Two Pair ~83% ~67%
Check/Call with Pair + Draw ~68% ~64%
Check/Call with Set ~90% ~80%
Check/Call with Big Draw ~53% ~61%
There will generally be more hand range groupings on a board like this that you'll
want to balance out and play differently depending on your opponent. Gutshots, air, and
small pairs will usually not have much equity versus your opponent’s continuation betting
range. Turning this portion of your range into bluffs is going to take a considerable amount
of fold equity to do profitably. It's going to generally be better to lead with some of these
hands, give up, or plan to make some big bluffs against the right opponents.
Some more viable lines on these kinds of boards are to lead with top pair+, and
gutshots. Sometimes mixing in some check/calling and leading the turn as well. Check-
raising generally isn't going to be a very profitable line against most decent opponents
because it's going to narrow down your range too much. If you look at the above table, and
make any kind of similar range of hands on a similar board, you're always going to be a
significant dog with anything but your top pair+ hands. Most opponents will narrow down
your range to two pair+ and big combo draws. It's still a decently wide range, and at micro
and a lot of small stakes games you can do this. As your opponents get better, check/raising
these kinds of boards won't be as viable.
Balancing on Paired Boards

Paired boards have increasingly become a game
of "chicken" for no-limit players. When players started
figuring out there were very few combinations of an
opponent’s hand that could withstand a lot of pressure,
paired boards became more heavily contested situations. A lot of pressure applied to an
100

opponent on a good paired board can cause a lot of opponents to fold out an incorrect range
simply because it's difficult to know someone's bluffing frequency in a given situation until
you know their game pretty well.
An example of equity on a low paired boards using the exact same opening hand
ranges for our opponent of 23.4%. Your opponent open raises, and you call and see a flop
of: 7c7d3h.
 Paired Low Board

(54s, 54o, 65o, 64s+)
(A9s–AJs, A9o–AQo, KTs+, KJo, QJs)
(22, 44–77)
 Check/Call with two pair (bottom): ~62% equity versus your opponent’s range.
(A3s, A3o, 43s, K3s)
 Check/Call with Over Pair (two pair): ~71% equity versus your opponent’s range.
(88–JJ)
 Check/Call with Trips: ~95% equity versus your opponent’s range.
(A7s, A7o, 87s, 87o, 75s+, 76o, 97s, K7s, 97o)
Since your equity for each hand range will be much better on a low paired board,
there are several profitable lines you can take. Check/calling with your air, small pairs, over
pairs, trips, etc., is a viable line. You can turn some of your air range into bluffs on later
streets. Leading at the pot is also a good line if you are against an opponent whom you don't
think will play back at you very often. Check-raising tends to polarize your range a bit too
much in spots like this, so in general it's not the best line to take unless you actually have a
hand against an opponent who cannot fold.
This is generally a way ahead or way behind situation. So unless you have a really
aggressive game, most of the time you're going to keep the pot somewhat smaller, or allow
your opponent to bluff when you do have a big hand. At the same time, you'll want to fight
for these boards, so in general, check/calling and then leading the turn is a very good line. In
situations where you are the pre-flop raiser, betting small on the flop with your entire range,
and then betting close to pot or slightly over betting the pot can be a very profitable line that
will apply maximum pressure to your opponents hand range.
101

In the above example, you are the pre-flop raiser from late middle position with
KdQd. You have one caller in the cut-off. The flop comes: 8c8d4h. Generally as the pre-
flop raiser you're going to want to continuation bet here, but it's opponent dependent. If you
do decide to continuation bet, you should generally continuation bet less than you normally
would. About 1/2 the pot or less would be a good size. If you are raised, you can 3-bet the
flop at a cheaper cost or call and lead the turn. If your opponent just calls your continuation
bet, you can make a large bet on the turn, forcing them to fold out their Ax hands and small
pairs. If you pick up a card that helps your hand such as any diamond, a king or queen, you
can continue with a normal sized turn bet.
There are several viable and profitable lines to take in a common spot like this, but
most of your decisions should rely on how aggressive and tricky your opponent is. The less
tricky and aggressive they are, a standard continuation bet and double barrel on improved
turns will generally be profitable. Against trickier opponents, betting small, over betting the
turn, and check/calling can all be profitable lines as well.
Let's take a look at general equity on a broadway paired board using the exact same
opening hand ranges for our opponent of 23.4%. Your opponent open raises, and you call
and see a flop of: QcQh8d.
 Paired Broadway Board

(T9s, T9o, J9o+, J9s+)
(AKs, AKo, A9s–AJs, A9o–AJo, KJs, KJo)
102

 Check/Call with Small Pair: ~42% equity versus your opponent’s range.
(22, 44–77)
 Check/Call with Two Pair (bottom): ~58% equity versus your opponent’s range.
(86s+, 87o, 98o, 98s, T8s, J8s)
 Check/Call with Over Pair (two pair): ~77% equity versus your opponent’s range.
(AA–KK)
 Check/Call with Trips: ~91% equity versus your opponent’s range.
(AQs, AQo, KQo, KQs, QTs+, QTo+)
 Combined Equity of made hands: ~65% equity versus your opponent’s range
Paired Low Flop Paired Broadway Flop

Check/Call with Two Pair (bottom) ~62% ~58%
Check/Call with Over Pair (two pair) ~71% ~77%
Check/Call with Trips ~95% ~91%
Again you can see that the overall average equity in each hand range grouping is
slightly lower on a broadway paired board versus a low paired board. If you check/called
with your air range and small pairs as your primary line, you'd have to turn these hands into
bluffs a good percentage of the time on later streets. So fold out a lot of your gutshot, air,
and small pair range when you're out of position, or look to lead with some percentage of
those hands. Check-raising generally won't be a good line because your equity isn't as good,
and your opponent believing you have a strong enough hand to check-raise won't work
often enough.
In general you're going to have slightly more equity on lower flops than on
broadway flops for most flop textures. This will allow for slightly more creativity if you
choose lines and balance them well with the style of poker that fits your game best. If you
prefer playing a more passive and trappy game, then you should have a better idea of which
boards to check/call with, and which ranges are best suited for this. If you have a much
more aggressive game, you can see which textures are best for check-raises and leading at
the pot.
Just keep in mind that your approximate flop equity versus your opponents
continuation bet range will be much different versus their turn betting range. Your flop
equity versus their range is not your realized equity until you can get to showdown. Having
an idea of where your hand grouping stands versus a typical opening range will allow you to
see profitable lines better, and balance your range accordingly. You should go through each
103

of these flop textures and make sure you understand what kinds of lines you will take on
average against most opponents. Once you're comfortable with your plan, and you've
practiced it a bit, you can add more and more deception into your hand ranges as your
opponents get more sophisticated.
Balanced Deception
One way of balancing your range is playing a board
and texture situation the same way with the widest range of
hand groups. Another way of achieving balance with your
range is playing the same hand differently on the same board
texture. So one time you check-raise with a set on a draw
heavy board, and another time you check/call with it. If you get to showdown against the
same villain with each hand, they are going to havea more difficult time knowing your
range the next time you check/call on a draw heavy board.
In a similar vein, there are slightly more ideal lines to take with particular hands on
certain board textures. Even as you're balancing your range, you'll note based on the
previous pages, there may be some lines you will take rarely. You'll take a particular line
with lots of different hand groupings, but rarely or almost never with some that won't make
for very profitable lines long term, especially against opponents you don't have much
history with.
As you begin to build history with an opponent, or you think you have an idea of
how your opponent is likely thinking about the game, you can begin to take some lines that
add deeper balance and deception to your hand strength. This will typically involve taking
lines on the flop and/or turn that against unknown opponents wouldn't typically be the
highest EV line to take. However, you're looking to make up this EV with large bets, check-
raises, or over shoves on the turn or river. Your opponent is so confused by how you played
your hand that they call bigger bets lighter than they would on average because they can't
put you on enough hands that would take this line and beat them.
Again, keep in mind that you need to have history or some sort of insight about how
your opponent likely plays. In online games this can be as simple as recognizing someone
as a regular who will likely open raise X range of hands from each position, and has some
grasp of hand ranges and common lines that opponents, especially other regulars in the
game, would take. Let's take a look at an example:
104

In the above example, we have 100 BB effective stacks in a 6-max cash game. An
opponent UTG opens to 3 BBs. Everyone folds to the small blind who calls, and we have
KhKs in the big blind. We squeeze to 14 BBs. The UTG player folds, and the small blind
calls. The flop comes 6s9sJc. The small blind checks, and we check the flop.
This is where balanced deception comes in, and normally in most situations you'd
bet this flop. We're trying to make it look like a botched squeeze play, or whiffed AQ, AK
giving up. The plan is to make all of the money by the river against a range that on average
couldn't handle more than one street of value. It can also be used as a pot control line
against hands like 99, JJ, where you can call the turn and river if your opponent bets, or
induce weaker hands to bet on the turn like TT, Jx. Neither of those hands will typically call
more than a street for value in a 3-bet pot unless there's some history.
105

There's 31 BBs in the pot and the turn brings the 4c. Your opponent bets 15.5 BBs,
and you just call. Lots of draws on the board now, and your opponent’s range won't contain
very many draws having flat called from the small blind against an UTG raise, and calling a
squeeze out of position. His hand is going to contain mostly middle and big pairs and a
couple of big broadway hands like AQs. Your hand however can very well look like a
turned draw, top pair, or botched squeeze that has middle pair.
There are 62 BBs in the pot, and your opponent has 71 BBs left. The river brings the
2h, your opponent checks, and you over shove. Your opponent thinks for a bit, and then
calls with TcTd, and you have successfully stacked him. If you had bet the flop, your
opponent likely would have called your flop bet. It's unlikely they would have called the
turn if you bet again since they would have been committed at that point. In a re-raised pot
they would have had to check-raise shove at that point.
Depending on your opponent and history, it's possible they would do this a
percentage of the time. However, if you think through their entire hand range, this was a
fairly safe line to take even though the board is fairly coordinated. We know a bulk of their
range is weighted towards hands you'd be crushing because it contains a lot of mid and high
pairs. In the event that they did flop a big hand, like a set, and they bet the turn and river
you can call. It's unlikely they would bet the turn and river with a hand like Jx or TT.
When you're contemplating taking a deceptive line to balance your range, in this
case, your flop checking range, you want to make sure you have enough insight into your
opponent’s game. If you don't, then it's going to be a very minus EV approach to take.
You're much better off just betting the flop and turn, or betting flop, checking turn and
betting the river.
106

This was an actual hand taken from a recent online 6-max cash game. Using
balanced deception can be an effective tool to use against the better regulars in your game.
You shouldn't be implementing it until you're confident in reading your opponents range,
and you know your opponent is a thinking player.
One of my personal favorite balanced deception lines to take is when I flop a set out
of position against a pre-flop raiser on a coordinated board. I will check/call the flop, and
then check-raise all-in on any blank turn. Sometimes even check/call both streets, which of
course is extremely risky, and if both streets brick reasonably enough, over shove the river.
Again, I'm only taking those lines against the better regulars. Even against average regulars,
I wouldn't advocate taking those lines very often, if ever. You have to get creative though
against the better regulars in your games if you want to get paid off consistently.
107

108

Putting It All Together

My goal in this first volume wasn't to tell you ―always do X in Y situation.‖ If
you've played poker enough, you know this isn't going to serve you well. There are
definitely some plays and lines you'd want to take more often than others, but having me, or
anyone else who writes about poker, telling you static lines of thought isn't really going to
cut it. Learning how to think through situations, and understand why you're taking the line
you're taking, and why you've formulated plan X over plan Y is much more powerful.
Continuing to add more tools to your poker tool box, sharpening them, and using
them with surgeon-like precision is the path to long term poker success. My hope is that
you’ve added some tools to your repertoire, or that you've sharpened some that already
existed, and added more clarity to your poker game. I wish you much success at the tables
and in life, my friends!
Much Love,
John Anhalt
109

More Tools of the Trade

There's lots of good poker software and training material out in the market today.
Much more than there has been in the past 9–10 years. I don't want to convince you that one
is better than the other. You should check them all out, and if you think they'll add value to
your game, then it's rarely a bad investment. Especially if the companies you purchase from
back up their products. I do want to introduce you to some of the products Ace Poker
Solutions has created, because I believe they offer real value to most players’ poker games.
LEAK BUSTER: I don't care how good you think you are, or how
much game you have, it's a must have for any serious poker player. If
you're just learning the game, or you've crushed the stakes you've
played like I have over the years, you're going to learn something
valuable from this software. Super easy to use, and works with the
leading poker databases out there.
Recommended For: ALL SKILL LEVELS Price: $49.99+ Website: Click HERE
__________________________________________________________________________
ACE POKER DRILLS: Having difficulty understanding your

equity on the turn? No other product exists that lets you drill yourself
on your equity versus your opponent’s equity in a quiz style format.
Work on your pre-flop game, odds, outs, and more. Also includes a
FREE equity calculator and odds and outs trainer. It's an ideal format
for beginners and micro stake players to improve their play quickly.
Recommended For: BEGINNER/MICRO Price: $24.99+ Website: Click HERE

__________________________________________________________________________
POKERZION.COM: Lots of training sites are out there, but not any
that deliver a structured course right to your inbox every week for 6
months. You'll have plenty of new lessons, plus lots of additional
content directly on the site for you to view and learn from at any
time. You’ll find a small community that's big on supporting your
poker growth and you’ll learn from top online pros who are proven
long-term winners.
Recommended For: MICRO–MID STAKES Price: $14.99+/mo Website: Click HERE

__________________________________________________________________________
110

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Poker by The Book - Polished Poker Vol I

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All rights reserved

 2013 Ace Poker Solutions LLC. All Right Reserved

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© 2013 Ace Poker Solutions LLC. All rights reserved.

About The Author

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Chapter 1: Why are you playing?

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Make Poker Friends

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Chapter 2: Know Thyself

Here are some examples of Aspects of Poker Score 1–10

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The intriguing thing about poker though is that

Aggression (too passive)

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Aggression (too aggro)

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Rational Deduction / Logic

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Psychological Control / Understanding

That doesn't mean that if you're young, for example, and

There are several sub areas in this aspect of

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Being a good quitter (Tilt)

1. Feeling a bit warm or hot. They don't call it steaming for

1. Remind yourself that your goal is to play your ―A‖ game.

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3. Sit out, take a bathroom break, and cool A. Meditation

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1. Pay attention. It's easy in today's society to

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Chapter 3: Get it Together

Running bad is going to happen to everyone

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Three of the top poker database

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Preparation and Diet

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We all eat these foods from time to time, but

FRUITS PRIMARY BENEFIT

VEGGIES / NUTS PRIMARY BENEFIT

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Chapter 4: Glorious Poker Math

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Another helpful aspect of understanding

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For example, if you saw a flop of: QcTd6h

Expected Value (EV)

(160(.28)) - (60(.72)) = +1.6

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75% x 50% = 37.5%

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Chapter 5: Metta World Peace

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