Preflop ranges
Posted by Akame
Posted by
Akame
posted in
Low Stakes
Preflop ranges
Hy, I'm looking for some solid preflop gto ranges, I mainly play zoom on partypoker where hud's are banned so it's hard to play without some default ranges. Where can I get/buy them?, Also what do you think of pokersnowie (PreflopAdvisor) ranges, are they okay, or should I get some other.
Thanks.
Loading 6 Comments...
The ranges of snowie are not GTO but practillay proven by an AI. So they are totally fine for practical purposes. If you are really looking for GTO-solved ranges i would recommend preflopguru.com
But this tool is at 19$/ month i think. But if you play a lot, its really helpfull imo.
I like preflopguru conceptually, but keeping track of the randomization is damn near impossible without having it loaded to use as a reference. I would love for them to have some kind of simplified version that does randomization at 25% intervals or something like that. That having been said they get my money every month so I have it on hand if I decide to play a tournament or am sitting down two handed waiting for other players to join a table I opened.
Snowie does not attempt to find GTO ranges as the end goal. It evaluates every single possible preflop hand with various opening size and tracks its EV. Then it tries to maximize the EV of entire distribution of hands to create suggested preflop ranges. You will see different sizing for different positions, and different ranges depending on the stake.
Some would argue that this is clearly not GTO and exploitative, since GTO probably has one sizing for all and will not exploitatively tighten ranges to adjust for rake. Others will say its perfectly fine to have different sizings in GTO ranges and some exploitative looking things are natural consequences of balance.
My personal take is for players to find ranges they are both comfortable playing and understand why they are designed that way. Yes, I would recommend Snowie because I am a Snowie shill but its up to you to know where your threshold for your playstyle is. Are you going to be comfortable opening a 0.01 EV hand and calling 3bets with that hand for a 0.01 EV margin? Because advanced ranges will make you do that and make you uncomfortable. Coaching video ranges will probably only have you opening hands with at least double digit EV, hence playing tight in EP by folding most Axs that are marginally +ev. Are you trying to become the worlds best poker player? Then you GTO your ranges and make it difficult and learn all the difficult spots with very marginal hands, squeaking out every decimal of EV you can in high variance spots. If you just want to beat your stake fast then just literally pick the best hands and avoid the marginal ones.
I am pretty new, but I was just thinking about opening ranges and looking at PokerSnowie, so I will chime in. Go easy on me. For me, some knowledge of why GTO opening ranges are constructed the way they are constructed is essential; blockers, board coverage, sufficient "bluffs". By "bluffs" I mean hands which will generally fold to a 3bet but may sometimes be used as a light 4bet. Correct me if I'm wrong, but, from a GTO perspective, it is my understanding that the point of GTO range construction is to make Villain indifferent to continuing or folding, given our opening bet size. I have taken a hybrid approach between GTO and, for lack of a better word, an equity/ev approach to craft a dynamic sense of what to open from where. Each range is a rough sketch to which I will make adjustments at the margins , depending on the frequencies of the players behind. I don't have as much Axs as GTO suggests from EP, but I have some, understanding their value, and I can add more if appropriate. Same with small PPs. I don't open 55 until MP, understanding that 55 and lower blocks a weaker part of CO, BTN's calling range, but will, if both are weaker players with wider calling ranges who won't 3bet. But is also essential for me at this point to be comfortable with my opening ranges and by comfortable I mean knowing how I will defend them against 3bets and how I will play them post flop, especially if I am OOP.
Preflop is not about indifference, its about opening your best hands in a linear range. Yes there are 0 ev hands that you are indifferent to opening or folding and villain is indifferent to 3betting or folding, but that is not the point. The goal is to steal the blinds as much as possible while having hands that are playable postflop with positive expectation. when called while defending enough vs 3bets. These are the fundamentals of preflop and as long as you don't have negative EV hands in these ranges, you can construct a preflop range from whatever hands you feel comfortable with and be fine.
Also beware that the EV of hands will fluctuate depending on the table, so a marginal open on the BTN with positive EV in a passive game will become 0 to negative EV in a aggressive game with 3bet happy blinds. This is why trying to find the perfect preflop ranges is a waste of time for new players, cause most ranges posted online are just a rearrangement of hands that are good positive EV that are perfectly acceptable for most game states whether you have passive or aggro players. The swapping of Axs and small pp are just common exploitative adjustments because the EV of those hands compared to a hand like AK is exponentially smaller, so it feels fine to fold those if you struggle to play them or are facing aggressive 3bets. Until you are insane enough to assess the value of the exact hands in software to know the relatively EV of every hand in every position, most preflop ranges posted are going to be fine for practical purposes.
Snowie simply maximizes its EV, and it naturally incorporates the GTO knowledge you listed without actually forcing them into its ranges. It thinks Ax suited are better than suited connects when you 3bet your opponents early position raises and will increase its Ax 3bet range as opening sizes get smaller, but it has no idea what blockers are since it isn't doing combinatoric calculations as far as I know. Snowie also thinks when you face a 3bet, calling hands like 65s and 55/66 have more EV than 98s and 77/66. It's not calculating board coverage as a factor, but because of the EV difference, we interpret it as board coverage even though it may not be. It is just easier for our brains to understand principles to maximize EV and apply those when we play, meanwhile a computer has memorized the EV for every single spot and just recalls it to take the best line.
Yes! That was stupid of me. (I guess I was thinking about GTO strategy in general.) But ten minutes after I posted, I had the same thought, "Wait. We're talking preflop. Indifference doesn't matter." Otherwise, thank you so much for taking the time to confirm and refine my thinking here. I don't know about anyone else, but I truly appreciate your presence here, your willingness to participate and help those of us who are just starting out. It means a lot. Thank you
Be the first to add a comment