Declan McKenna

My mistake I meant to say 35%, I've got exploitable fold to 3bet%s stuck in my head. I've corrected it.
I went with 7bb/(2 + 1.5 + 7) = 0.66.

Assuming we open 100% of hands vs a huge nit HU we'd be defending a minimum 35% range against the nits {QQ+} 3betting range, making the minimum defence frequency an awful strategy in this scenario because it ignores villains superior equity.

I'm not arguing that equity is a perfect measure of who's range is the stronger, it's an estimation at best and get's worse the wider the ranges get. But an estimation with which we can tweak our defending ranges is far better than relying on minimum defending frequencies alone regardless of whether we crush or are crushed by our opponents range.

I'd argue there are many cases in which our range fairs badly against villains without poor range construction. My example above where we are playing exploitative against a poor opponent is one as are many postflop scenarios where we may face turn cards that unavoidably hit one of our ranges far better than the others.

Equity does matter. Your HU against a nit who folds his BB 80% of the time and only 3bets {QQ+}. Ignoring equity our minimum defending range to villain's 3bet would be around 35% of our opening range (which is going to be super wide). We'd be burning money to defend this much in thegiven scenario. When either our own or villain's range is stronger than the other, conventional minimum defending frequencies are inadequate. Equity is an imperfect way to measure the strength of our range but it's better than ignoring who's range is ahead all together.

In your example I'd definitely be floating some of the 30% and 25% hands. We would often float backdoors and gutshots with far less equity than this.

I'm aware of the conventional way to calculate minimum defence frequencies and that in doing so we would get 50% for all four hands. What I'm asking is whether it's possible to adjust these frequencies based on our ranges equity? Hand 2 and hand 3 illustrate two very simple examples where we can do this. Hand 4 would require some maths.

Any suggestions?
I think I'm going to start with vs 3bet and vs 4bet filters, throw in some pots we're I'm not the preflop raiser and how I fare vs c-bets. I'll need more than my own results to scale what's good and what's bad so I'll likely make some filter threads within this forum.

Was merely my first point of call. I used to be part of a private forum were we'd run filters and compare results, unfortunately it closed and people are much less willing to take part in such things within public forums but I'll likely give it a go.

I've done this for all big pots, it's mostly coolers from what I can see which leads me to believe it's the medium to smaller pots I'm bleeding money or that my definition of a cooler is way off.

This year I've played no more than 6tables of regular 100NL. I bumhunt very hard, if there isn't a fullstacked fish within one of the three seats to my right I leave the table unless their a 50+vpip drooler then I'll stay even if they're to my left.

My EV line is still negative over 185K but not nearly as swingy.
To the best of my knowledge I don't have tilt issues but December last year (last 100K hands I 24tabled 200NL to reach supernova) was similar to my last 7months and the first time I'd ever had a swing beyond 25buyins.

No big changes, I started raising more flops, coming up with wider flop and turn check/calling ranges for balance and have been defending my blinds much wider.

I'm not saying his range is KK+ it's just not going to be T8s and A7s. I'd expect 99-JJ to make up most his range with a few heavily negated premiums from time to time. I don't think we'll see Ace high floats and 88 often enough.

The BB cold calls the SB's 3bet.

What can the BB hold that we beat on the flop?

It is relevant it will affect the quality of the advise given. I've posted on forums for years and I hate it when people give results as I know it influences my decision without me consciously meaning for it to.

TheLove_Below, why balance against fish? Reason I'm not fistpumping here is the lack of Kx or Tx that calls the flop raise and the straight coming in.

Check/call turn imo. Get value from the draws without fear of them shoving on you.

We've only 72 hands so i didn't include it his checkraise %. It's 50% (1/2) including this hand.
I probably shouldn't have cut the hand off from the flop I'll try and add the turn in.

I play it the same and fold the river. I'm not folding the turn there are more than enough draws barreling here for us to call. To the people folding is the strongest made hand your continuing with Top two pair?

Super standard. Well played.

He's a very tight value range. It's from a previous hand.

These are my ranges:


Flats vs 3bet (vs 10% range)


Flat vs 3bet (vs 20% range)


4bet Range ( 10%)

4bet Range (20%)


If villains F4B is above 60% with a good sample I add in a lot more Axo. If it's really low I'll throw in 77 and 88. These ranges combined with a tightened opening range should really bring heavy 3betters some pain and fewer folds, would love to have some opinions on them as well. I'm looking to widen my range further as I cba tightening my opening range much when even heavy 3betters generally fold to steals enough to keep wide opening ranges profitable.

lol still trying to come to terms with RIO's 'BN' abbreviation, thought we had position.