Deciding which part of opponent's range to target with our betsizing
Okay so I'm fairly new to GTO so forgive me if this is a stupid question, but as far as I understand - when we polarise our range we're generally attacking a condensed range, and more specifically, using a certain betsizing to target a specific part of that condensed range and make it indifferent between calling & folding. Are there any other factors when deciding which part of our opponent's range to target other than our hand strength? Would we ever bet small with the nuts to try and target opponent's weaker holdings, or would we always bet big with the nuts and try and get the stacks in by the river vs their strongest hands?
Here's an example:
PokerStars Zoom, Hold'em No Limit - $0.05/$0.10 - 6 players
Hand delivered by Pokeit
UTG: $10.32 (103 bb)
MP: $11.45 (115 bb)
CO: $17.44 (174 bb)
BU: $10.29 (103 bb)
SB (Hero): $11.77 (118 bb)
BB: $10.21 (102 bb)
Pre-Flop: ($0.15) Hero is SB with 9♣ 9♠
2 players fold, CO raises to $0.35, 1 fold, Hero calls $0.30, 1 fold
Flop: ($0.80) A♠ 9♦ A♦ (2 players)
Hero checks, CO bets $0.29, Hero raises to $1.17, CO calls $0.88
Turn: ($3.14) 6♦ (2 players)
Hero ?????
If I'm thinking about this right, we could either bet big and target villain's strong Ax, flushes etc, or we could bet small and target villain's PP with a diamond, weak Ax etc. I know at micro stakes it's moot because we can just always bet big and villain isn't folding A3hh anyway, but at equilibrium how do we decide how big to bet?
Solver says it's almost a pure overbet, so I'm wondering whether that's always the case when we have the nuts (or close to it)? Or are there also situations where you have a nutty hand but would decide to target the weaker portion of villain's condensed range by betting small instead? I can imagine that there are maybe some rare cases where we can't find enough good bluffs to be able to bet big, so we have to bet small with our entire value range? No idea if that's true or not though, just my intuition.
4 Replies
I'd recommend not calling out of the SB and instead utilizing a 3b or fold strategy... this is especially true vs. larger opens and fish.
Looking at a solver here is pointless, because you shouldn't have called preflop to begin with, so whatever ranges you're looking at here are very far skewed from reality... add in the fact your opponent is also a fish who 3.5x rfi'ed preflop and analyzing it from the POV from a solver becomes even worse.
The guy is a fish and it's 5nl... just bet the size you think maximizes EV vs. your opponent. He's unlikely to fold an A and will certainly not fold a flush. Just be 75-100% of the pot.
Ah yeah sorry if it wasn't clear but the actual hand I posted wasn't too relevant to the question I was asking. Although good advice anyway so thank you!
But what I was really after is just a slightly better understanding of why solver does what solver does in certain spots because I'm curious. Namely how it "decides" which part of its opponent's condensed range to attack by using a specific betsizing.
Ah yeah sorry if it wasn't clear but the actual hand I posted wasn't too relevant to the question I was asking. Although good advice anyway so thank you!
But what I was really after is just a slightly better understanding of why solver does what solver does in certain spots because I'm curious. Namely how it "decides" which part of its opponent's condensed range to attack by using a specific betsizing.
You'll want to look up counterfactual regret minimization (CFR).
I haven't watched this video, but I'm assuming it will answer your question.
Would we ever bet small with the nuts to try and target opponent's weaker holdings, or would we always bet big with the nuts and try and get the stacks in by the river vs their strongest hands?
I can imagine that there are maybe some rare cases where we can't find enough good bluffs to be able to bet big, so we have to bet small with our entire value range?
Generally speaking, no. If you have the absolute nuts, sizing down loses EV because you win too little the times you get called (despite getting called more often).
The only reason to size down would be if you were betting some marginal hands for thin value, which makes villain raise more often vs your small bet, which in turn compensates for the value you lose when you bet small with the nuts.
Not having enough bluffs is also not a valid reason to size down, because then we would just bet big with our entire range and capture 100% of the pot - which is really the best case scenario if you think about it.
I actually posed this exact question to Tombos in one of my quizzes, so check it out if you want a more detailed explanation:
