Mersenneary Video 6 - Advanced End Game Play - The Small Blind (Part 2)

To Balance or to Exploit?

• One of the central questions in poker strategy.
• Against bad, static players, you'll be wanting to exploit as much as possible. Forget balance.
• Against Phil Ivey, you want to play an equilibrium strategy that cannot be exploited.
• Your opponents, in general, will be somewhere in the middle of these two extremes. We'll talk about ROFL for both cases and how to practically apply it.

Exploitative Play

• Adaptive and Standard.
• Adaptive exploitative play: Changing your strategy based on villain tendencies divergent from population norm.
• Example: Your particular opponent is 3-bet shoving close to ATC, far wider than average, so you tighten up your raising range.
• Standard exploitative play: Standard non-equilibrium play taking advantage of leaks the population has in general.
• Example: In general, villains tend to play too fit-or-fold in limped pots, so you stab at a lot of them OOP with no showdown value until reads tell you villain is surprisingly competent.
• Knowing how the general population plays is extremely important and profitable. This is an area I lack proper knowledge in that could instantly increase my win-rate significantly. I have made it a priority to observe  population leaks but am having trouble identifying the less obvious ones.
• population plays too fit-or-fold in limped pots.
• population tend to be too loose on the first hand.

12bb Sample Case

• I'm going to propose a ROFL range you might use against a decent but not Godlike player at 12bb from the SB. Throughout, we'll talk about how you might adjust to exploit different BB leaks. This isn't meant to be a perfect equilibrium range, just a launching point to get you thinking.
• Raise (2x)
• Example Range (48.3%): 77+,A8s+,K2s+,Q4s+,JTs,J7s-J5s,T6s,96s,86s,75s+,64s+,54s,A8o+,K2o+,Q6o+,J7o+,T6o+,96o+,86o+,76o

• In this Range:
1. Hands that are raise/calling and dominate wide 3-bet shoving ranges (19.3%: 77+, A8+, K9+, Q9+).
2. Hands that are raising to steal but do decently post-flop if we get flatted (the rest).
• Sample 2x Raise Range Balance Properties
• Example Range (48.3%): 77+,A8s+,K2s+,Q4s+,JTs,J7s-J5s,T6s,96s,86s,75s+,64s+,54s,A8o+,K2o+,Q6o+,J7o+,T6o+,96o+,86o+,76o
• This is 48.3% of all hands.
• Raise/call range depends on opponent. Let's start with what might seem like a reasonable range 12bb deep: all pairs, all Ax, K8+, Q9+ (20.5% of all hands, ~42% of raising hands). However, 3-bet shoving is profitable with 32o if that's your calling range!
• From experience, people usually aren't shoving 100% over min-raises 12bb deep, even if they know that's your calling range. You probably have that leak yourself against players who min-raise a healthy percent 12bb deep.
• This is what we mean by standard exploitative play: You can exploit the fact that most people don't 3-bet shove enough at these blind depths.
• Raise (2x) - Adaptive Exploitation
• What do we do if...
• Villain is 3-betting a high frequency?
• Raise/call more frequently when you raise, both by folding or limping more junky hands and by raise/calling with more marginal hands.
• Villain is 3-betting infrequently?
• Add more air hands to 2x range (often, all of them). Figure out openshove calling range to know whether to openshove (for value) certain hands instead.

Mersenneary Video 6 - Advanced End Game Play - The Small Blind (Part I)

Benefits of NASH

1. Equilibrium: There is no strategy BB can use to "cheat" away from NASH calling range and exploit you.
2. Provides a guide to <15bb play that makes you competent from the SB.

Problems with NASH

• Assumption #1: Villain is playing perfectly. 
• Reality: There is money HU, not everyone's solid.
• Assumption #2: All-in and Fold are the only two options. 
• Reality: No.
• Assumption #3: Nash is the best you can do. 
• Reality: It's -EV in position from small blind >7-8bbs deep and we can do better than that.
• Did not know that it is -EV to shove NASH >7-8bbs deep. Need to look into this.

R.O.F.L

• Raise (2x)
• Openshove
• Fold
• Limp

Properties of Raising 2x

1. If BB plays fewer than 50% of hands, it's automatically preferable to folding.
• Example: ATC against tight player.
• I need to continually attack players who fold too much to raises. There is no reason to slow down until opponents gives me reason to. When they do, I should immediately adjust my all my ranges, especially my raise/call range.
2. It can induce jams from hands that would fold to an openshove.
• Example: Premiums, K9-KQ, QT-QJ vs T8s type hands.
• I need to raise 2x more between 7-10bbs instead of just openshoving. It is very important for me to induce at this stack size.
3. Plays well post-flop against people who 3-bet shove too little or have post-flop leaks.
• Hands vary depending on size of leak.
• Relative to point 2, raising 2x with more hands allow me to play in position and take advantage of the population's post-flop leaks. This is a huge edge even when stacks are short.

Properties of Openshoving

1. Keeps us from losing our equity post-flop.
• Example: 44 12bb deep. Min-raising generally only induces shoves from hands that are flipping against us or calls from hands that can do better than -1bb expectation from folding pre-flop.
2. Ensures certain BB hands will get all-in.
• Example: Some villains will flat A4 to a min-raise 12bbs deep but call an openshove.

Properties of Folding

1. As usual, folding is the default strategy when EV from all other options is worse.
2. That said, we should acknowledge when min-raising and limping (and sometimes openshoving) are better than folding, even when NASH calls for a fold.
3. NASH only calls for so many folds because it doesn't consider min-raising ranges.
• Some hands NASH folds at 12bb: K2o, Q7, J7, T7, 97.

Properties of Limping

1. Keeps us from raise/folding hands with good equity.
• Example: QJ 20bbs deep.
2. Exploits very common leak of being bad at playing limped pots OOP.
• Example: Limp/stab postflop with ATC against fit or fold BB player.
• I really agree with limp/stabbing against a lot of weak players. The general population plays very poorly versus limps.

I need to actively think about and compare the EV of all available pre-flop actions. STHUSNGs are largely a pre-flop game and failure to consider the EV of all actions relative to each other can mean the difference between a mediocre and a solid player.