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Sliggy Australia. Mar 04 2009 21:43. Posts 742

Hello all. Couple more concepts I'd like a few (very) general answers too.

Polarized Range: As far as I understand this means that your opponent either has the total nuts or complete air. This means that your question of whether or not to call with TPTK on a flush / paired board is basically a matter of figuring out whether your opponent has the absolute nuts (quads or fullhouse) or absolutely nothing (bottom pair / busted draw).

1. When do you define an opponent's range as polarized?
2. What factors aid in deciding if he has the nuts or air?

Isolation: This is basically the art of entering a pot with position by raising in LP when there have been a couple of limps before you. By doing this you push out the dealer / cutoff (hopefully) and are hoping to enter a pot with initiative and position, thereby increasing your chances to win the hand (especially HU).

1. Who are the best targets for isolating?
2. Why isolate? (I may have answered this already if I'm right but I could be wrong / need some elaboration).

Balancing your range: As far as I know this basically means making sure you don't polarize your own range. Things like flat calling small pocket pairs but also raising or reraising sometimes, calling raises with suited connectors on occasion but also flat calling AQs or AJs, openraising your premiums as well as your speculatives, and shoving over 3bets with AA and KK, but also at times with JTo and KJs type hands.

1. When is your range in need of balancing?
2. What are the cheapest ways to achieve this?

I know being a microstakes player none of this knowledge is essential, but I plan to make poker a pretty serious hobby (ie, trying hard to get very good at it). I've downloaded some DC / CR videos and I just basically want to make sure I'm clear on poker aspects and terminology that I'm not yet needing to use, but know about anyway. This also makes looking at highstakes hands more interesting just for pure entertainment value / interest / i actually understand what myth is talking about :D

0 votes

sup

SpasticInk Sweden. Mar 04 2009 21:57. Posts 6298

polraized range: usually when the board comes out really bad, people don't make thin value bets. so when they bet, they either have it or is full of shit (of course this is an extreme generalisation)

an example would be a pot size bet on Jc9cQc8xKx or something. it's obviously read dependent, but i think it applys more to the regulars in the game (they often polarize their range more compared to fish who can do all sorts of random stuff).

but it's you who have to figure out what frequencies they have etc.

im not sure if you play full ring or 6-max, but i think you isolate mostly from the CO and the button. because you don't really wanna play a pot OOP in case someone after you calls. i think against the random fish, who limp-calls a lot, it's all good raising it up w/ a lot of suited cards, and also cards like QJo goes up a lot in value because they call w/ Qx Jx worse kickers all the time. same about hands like AJ/AT who can be played almost like the nuts on a Axx board.

you pretty much explained why you should isolate: you get HU with the fish a lot of the time which is great. cause you wanna get his money before the others. also winning the pot directly preflop is also great. winning his limp + blinds increases your winrate a lot.

balancing your range: don't as long as you are not playing higher than nl 100 or something. with tables full of fishes it's not really neccessary. so i would strongly advice from starting to playing too fancy.

Sliggy Australia. Mar 04 2009 22:12. Posts 742

Yeah I'm not really planning on applying these concepts yet (or soon for that matter). I just want to understand them all because I love this game and I find high stakes hand discussions extremely interesting even though they are way out of my league.

Thanks for the answer

sup