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Constructing Balanced RFI Range full ring in MTTs

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Posted by posted in Low Stakes

Constructing Balanced RFI Range full ring in MTTs

Okay, guys. Some sort of a toy game here :)

Good friend of mine just come in poker and, after learning some basics, ask me for a departure point to actually start playing.
We decided to create good opening ranges and go from there.

When constructing UTG range, I talk a lot on overall importance to have balanced ranges, defending vs 3-bets etc and all over sudden realize I'm unable to put my words in reality from a very begining — creating "balanced" UTG range.
So here's what I do mean.

Just for a quick start we work out the following ranges (tight and loose):

So,basically, we do have 6% and 9% opening ranges for UTG, which I assume should be fine for the beginning.

Then, let's say we have BTN 3-bettor with 7% 3-bet and he is attacking our tiny vulnerable RFI, 40BBs deep eff.

Here it is where the problem arrives. Versus 2.5x 3-bet we need to defend at least 47% of our opening range to prevent villain from getting immediate profit. I assume we are 4-betting QQ+, AKo, AKs, and it should be 34 combos or 2.5% range.

The question are:
- what is — mathematically — the exact number of bluff combos we need to balance our UTG value 4-betting range?
- where we can get those combos, since for the tight 6% opening range, A5s are only 4 combos, which results very very poor value/bluff ratio for our EP 4-bets.
- what hands we can include in our bluff 4-betting range for the Loose range example?

Or just f* the idea of balancing and play with a gut? :)

Thanks in advance.

3 Comments

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q3timmy 8 years, 7 months ago
  1. You are playing MTT's, you don't need to balance anything at the ground levels, specially preflop and at low stakes. You should focus on teaching how to read game flow and how to adjust your opening range to your table. Forget about balance.

  2. Follows from 1.

  3. You don't need a 4-bet bluff range at the low stakes in most scenarios. If you really wanted to, you could include hands like AJo, ATo or some Axs.

Like you said at the end, fk the balance. In my opinion it not only unnecessary to be balanced, at most stakes it's just a really bad strategy.

steamer 8 years, 7 months ago

I don't see any harm thinking about these things :)

  1. The number of bluffs you would need depends on your 4B sizing.
  2. AQs/AQo/AJs/pairs pick whichever of those you would include in your folding range.
  3. Pick whichever you like - usual practice is to use the top of your folding range - but you might prefer the lower sc's. As you're folding them to a 5B their AI EV is not important only the number of combos.
yCavia 8 years, 7 months ago

UR trying to balance a 4bet range out of a RFI range that is very unbalanced in and of itself cuz its too tight.

U should think more holistically from a strategy EV perspective. Balance or MDF or indifference is not a fundamental property of the game. It just more of a byproduct in certain outskirts and configurations of the game.

So dont start to balance all of a sudden in an isolated spot in the gametree, if ur initial inputs are not incentivizing u to be balanced in the first place.

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