[Article] Power Rangers

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PanoRaMa United States. Mar 13 2010 22:44. Posts 1655

This is my April metagame column I wrote for Baller Magazine (www.ballermagazine.com). If you want to read my other articles you can check out my previous blog entries. I originally wanted to name this POWER RANGERS but there might be copyright problems with that so in the actual magazine they're renaming it "Balancing Act" which isn't nearly as good. Since I don't have to fear anything on this blog I am gonna keep it as power rangers :D Remember to keep in mind that my target audience includes beginners, so this may not be entirely relevant to a lot of you. Cliff notes: I talk about why overbalancing is bad, then I talk a little about range protection.

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“Balance” is a word thrown around the poker community, often without much thought. On the surface, balance is as easy as making sure that whenever you raise a flop continuation bet, for example, you have a range with which you do it for value and a range with which you do it as a bluff. If you never raise as a bluff in this spot, and therefore your entire raising range is comprised of value hands (for instance, sets and two-pairs on an A 7 3 rainbow flop), you are considered unbalanced in this spot. Players like to think that optimal play and balance go hand in hand.

In an ideal world, this would be true, but often isn’t the case in practice. A great online high-stakes player once told me, “Think all you want about your line. Just remember that, in the end, you’re playing against a human being.” Your ranges might be unbalanced in a certain situation, but that doesn’t mean your opponent is cognizant of that fact; most players just aren’t as observant as you’d think. When it comes to balance, overcompensating can lead to suboptimal play.

To put this into a concrete example, consider this scenario: You’ve been playing for an hour now and have noticed a strange tendency that the player in Seat 3 has. Every time he calls a pre-flop raise out of position and then leads the flop, he has a hand that is at the very least two pair in absolute hand strength. He never considers folding after leading.

In the next hand, you raise pre-flop. Seat 3 calls out of position, and the flop is T 9 5 rainbow. Seat 3 leads. What is your range of hands with which you raise here?

Correct play dictates that the worst hand you raise here should be roughly 5-5—perhaps even T-9, but that may be dominated by sets. Balance would dictate that, if your value raising range in this spot is top two pair and better, you must also raise with air or draw-type hands. This would usually be true—if your opponent actually knew that your range was that strong. In this situation, however, raising a holding worse than T-9 would be a disaster for your stack. If you raise QJ (a very powerful draw on this board against most holdings), you risk putting yourself to an expensive decision if Seat 3 decides to re-raise. You have no hope of bluffing any two pair or better hand on this flop, so raising air in order to bluff would be a disaster as well. Even with pocket Aces, you’re never ahead of Seat 3’s range according to your read, so you should either fold or call, depending if you have sufficient pot odds and implied odds to “chase” with your aces.

There are other circumstances in which you can disregard balance. If you’re playing online and know your opponent is playing over 12-24 tables at a time, he probably isn’t paying attention and making intricate notes of your ranges in various spots. Likely, he’s just playing the strength of his hand and not bluffing very often. Thinking “this bluff should work because I can have a set here, too” is chip suicide if your opponent has no intention of folding. Counter his tight strategy by bluffing in spots where his range is weakest, e.g. when he raises pre-flop and checks a 9 8 7 two-tone flop to you. Stack him in spots where his range is strongest, e.g. when you make sets against his top pairs and overpairs.

How you balance depends on how your opponents perceive you. You do not need to balance against those who do not pay attention or care about critical hand reading. If you find yourself playing a high stakes game against some really tough regulars, your emphasis on balance should increase. Beyond how your table perceives you, consider the metagame, how every other player at your stakes or venue perceives each other to be playing.

I can’t speak for live casino games because the play styles vary tremendously and my expertise is in online cash games, so bear with me if you don’t play online. Mid-stakes online cash games are some of the most aggressive games in the world. Most regulars are rather competent, and most make enough to support a very comfortable living. Due to that, they know certain tricks, or common lines to take that are generally ways to make money in small pots through sheer aggression. A common line might be:

Aggressive regular (AR) opens from the button like he always does. Weak player (WP) calls from the big blind with a wide range of hands. The flop is 7 5 3. WP checks, AR bets, and WP calls. The turn is an overcard—let’s say an Ace. WP checks, AR bets, and WP immediately folds.

Being a competent player, AR knows that this is a spot where he’ll pick up the pot a very high percentage of the time. What’s WP’s range? It’s likely made up of mid pair type hands like 7-6, 6-5, 4-3, 22, 44, 66, 88, etc. He knows that the bulk of the made hands that can comfortably call the flop cannot stand additional heat on the turn ace as the strength of those mid pair hands dramatically decrease. Note that AR doesn’t even need to have a made hand at this point to take down the pot. He could just as easily have Q-2 for absolute junk. However, it’s the perception of the weak player (“He might have Ace-King! He’ll definitely bet again on the river, so I should fold my 88 now”) along with the perception of the aggressive player (“That card has got to make his entire range uncomfortable. I’ll bet again and take it down.”) that allows this to be such a profitable spot for AR.

You can use these perceptions to your benefit by protecting your range. How can WP protect his weak range here? Instead of check/raising his strong hands like two pairs and sets or straights on this flop, he can choose to check/call them. There are multiple benefits to this slowplay, but the one we’re most concerned with when talking about ranges is that WP now doesn’t have to fear a bad board run off like 7 5 3 A K, which would otherwise make a hand like 76 feel very uncomfortable on the river facing many bets. Slowplaying a big hand like a set allows you to put in a check/raise on later streets when your opponent thinks your range is weak overall. If you end up showing your hand down one way or another, it prevents an observant opponent from barreling you in the future, as he knows he may be barreling into a monster.

Protecting your range is actually a byproduct of balance. Although it’s not what people immediately recognize as balancing, I consider it to be more important because it’s your weak made hand range that tends to be the hardest to play. For those that weren’t happy with my examples, use your own experience to realize what common perceptions your opponents may have. Optimal poker isn’t necessarily balancing your ranges for balance’s sake, but rather knowing when you should and shouldn’t based on your opponent’s perceptions—or lack thereof. Remember that, in the end, you’re playing against a human being.