Small Stakes Super Star

If you guys have been keeping up with poker software, you know about NoteCaddy. There has been a huge buzz building about the software, which has existed for over a year already. Now, it’s integrated into Hold’em Manager 2. NoteCaddy is a program that keeps track of showdowns, bet sizing, and more advanced stats and puts them into your notes, HUD, and popups.

To utilize NoteCaddy you have a few options. You can use the basic setup that comes with NoteCaddy, but I haven’t found it that useful. You can make your own stats which is very time consuming. Or you can take the easy and expensive way and buy features from other people. There is a package on 2+2 coming out shortly that many people are eagerly watching that features 30 stats, 20 custom badges that show leaks in your HUD, and graphs that show how strong your opponent’s range is when they take certain lines. In this article, I’m going to list my top 5 Note Caddy stats which come to mind that I would like to see and use in my game.

1) Call flop raise and fold to turn bet – When we raise the flop often our range is very polarized; as a result, calling a flop raise as a float becomes more of a viable option. Against guys who play somewhat tricky versus flop raises, folding to less than 50%, the amount of time they will go all the way to showdown versus the amount of the time they end up giving you credit is very important information, and not currently available in HEM2.

2) C-bet flop and check fold the turn, single raised and 3 bet pots – We know wide an opponent’s range is from their opening range and their c-bet %, but how they go after the flop is more difficult to access. We can look at turn c-bet % when we decide to make a float, but we also need to look at their check call % on the turn. Having this information will make it more clear what players are good to float by giving us one number to reference.

3) Triple barrel range – We have an opponent’s flop, turn, and river c-bet percentages available to us, but it can be difficult to crunch all three numbers to tell us what range an opponent is likely to showdown as the aggressor. Versus an opponent with a high triple barrel %, we ought to be more inclined to showdown some medium strength hands or bluff on the turn or river. Versus opponents with low triple barrel %, we can look to float more and take away pots on the turn or river to an opponent’s check. This stat might take a decent amount of hands to converge though.

4) 4 bet range versus hero – We have information about how often an opponent 4-bets us in terms of percentage, and their 4-bet range from each position, but not a combination of the two. These spots tend to come up very frequently reg versus reg in situations like blinds vs BTN and BB vs SB. Knowing the range that they have 4-bet with in these situations will help us play almost perfectly against their 4-bets once we have a big enough sample.

5) C-bet versus hero in heads up pots – We have information about an opponent’s general tendencies postflop, but not about how they play versus us specifically. Is our opponent’s betting range tighter postflop versus us than other players? If so, then we should call more preflop and less postflop. Is it looser? Then we might look to bluff raise and float more often. This stat would also give us some idea how our opponent views us a player.

I’m sure that these stats won’t even be close to the most useful ones that NoteCaddy offers. I’m looking forward to seeing how NoteCaddy develops as a piece of software. Let’s talk about what the most useful stats could be and maybe we can get something together and make them a reality.

Playing in the full ring games on Merge made me realize that 4-betting on the button is now a popular play. I was really surprised by this because it is so hard to balance a 4-bet bluff range when you have a narrow 4-bet value range. Add this to the fact that you’re opening a really wide range and it isn’t a favorable situation for 4-betting. Watching a video this week reinforced this idea. A coach said that you have to stay one step ahead of opponents by 4-betting light from the button, and he showed a hand where he did that with J9o. I think this is at best a really mediocre strategy and at worst a decent leak. Let me explain why.

Say our opponent opens up from the button 40%, 50%, or 60% of the time. When facing 3-bets, they 4-bet a wide value range like 99-AA, AQ-AK, call with some speculative hands, and 4-bet bluff when they suspect their opponent is getting out of line. I simulated this scenario with three hands, 77, A2o, and A5s, for opening 2, 2.5, or 3 bb. The number I was looking for was the percentage of the time an opponent could take a nonvalue hand and turn it into a bluff before I could shove each to at least break even. With 77, the amount of the time they could bluff with their non value hands before my shove would breakeven was between 5% and 12%, with the most important factor being opening range and second most important factor being their opening size. With A5s, they could bluff between 7% and 15% of the time. With A2o they could bluff between 10% and 21% of the time. Mainly my point is that when your opponent is 4-betting based on table dynamics and not their opening hand, they are going to tend to 4-bet way too much.

This is not to even mention that getting in a hand like 99 or AQ to a 3-bet is by no means a snap decision. It can range from slightly profitable to terrible depending on your opponent. I ran the equity of AQo versus the range 55+, A2s+, AQ+ and it has 47% equity. That means that if I am 5-betting with a 10% range, your 5-bet call is going to have the equity of 94 compared with 77-82 if you fold. Worst case range and your opponent is not 5-betting light, your equity is 35%. That is why AQo plays so much better calling versus 4-betting. The only time you should really be 4-betting AQo is if your opponent calls a lot of 4-bets and you are planning to fold to a 5-bet, or you have a really solid read that your opponent 5-bets a ton. 99 fares a little bit better, with equity ranging from 37% to 53%.

If your opponent chooses to call with the hands 99,TT, and AQ, then their ability to 4-bet bluff without being exploitable goes way down. Now with 77 their bluffing frequency can range from 3%-8% before we should shove, with A5s, it should range between 4% and 9%, and with A2o, it should range between 6% and 12%. If you have a decent read on when someone is likely to 4-bet light, like the first time you 3-bet them in a session or the second time you 3-bet them in a row, then it is really easy to take one of these hands and show a massive profit by 3-betting and 5-betting it.

I would be a little careful when 5-betting light. The numbers that I used for breakeven point were the numbers after you make the 3-bet. For the play to be profitable overall you should have decent fold equity on the 3-bet, or excellent fold equity on the 5-bet. If your opponent has a very low 4-bet frequency, which you can use the stats 4-bet range for the position and also 4-bet vs hero, then 5-betting light goes way down in value. You will know when your opponent is 4-betting too much – it sticks out when someone opens a 50%+ range and 4-bets frequently. Use these guidelines in addition to the open shoving ranges I provided in part one to plan your strategy versus players who 4-bet bluff from the button.

If you have experience playing live poker, you know it’s hard to keep track of the specific styles of one person playing, much less a whole table, even just playing one table.  It’s especially difficult when you haven’t played most of the players before.  Fortunately for online play, a few years ago Poker Tracker was created, and a little while after Poker Ace HUD.  Suddenly playing more than 4 tables became a viable option because software was able to keep track of the minute details that poker players didn’t have energy to.  We all know that the more hands of poker we play, the more money we will make up to a certain extent.  Crucial to playing more tables effectively is having the right information in your HUD.

Ideally in your HUD you want to have the pieces of information that you have to reference the most frequently while playing a certain player.  For example, having the RFI, raise first in, for each position of a player is extremely useful because it helps you determine preflop how you should play your hand.  Having VPIP/PFR is useful because it lets you know if someone is a weak player or not as quickly as possible.  Having stats like W$WSF and 4-bet % in your HUD is less useful because they are more subject to variance and difficult to interpret.

I would recommend starting off with a basic HUD, and building on it gradually as you get more comfortable with it.  Having a ton of numbers isn’t going to be useful if you don’t have the skill to reference them efficiently yet.  Start with the basics, like VPIP, PFR, 3-bet, Fold to 3-bet, fold to steal, C-bet, Fold to c-bet, and the RFI for each position.  As you get more hands on your opponents and get more comfortable with your HUD, add stats like turn c-bet, fold to turn c-bet, aggression frequency, etc.  If you are playing on a site that allows street-by-street HUD, take advantage of that.  I recommend color coding each stat based on the range of values of the stat that you think are tight normal and loose.  I avoid having anything but numbers in my HUD because it makes it more cluttered, and if I am just getting used to a new layout I have a guide to my HUD near me.

I’ve played with my current HUD for a couple months now.  Here’s what I have in my HUD.  First line: VPIP, PFR, 3-bet, fold to 3-bet, fold to c-bet in a 3bet pot, fold to steal.  Second line: RFI EP-SB.  Third line: Cbet, fold to c-bet, turn c-bet, fold to turn c-bet, aggression frequency.  Fourth line: 3-bet vs hero, fold to 3-bet vs hero, limp fold, raise c-bet, fold c-bet to raise, fold after checking as PFR.  When I have to make a decision, I know exactly what stats I am looking for so I like to have the most commonly used ones in my HUD, then the others in hte popups.  Don’t copy my setup if you’re not grinding a ton of tables like I am though – start off with the basics and add more as you go.

No Limit Hold’em is a game where similar situations come up very frequently, so having the right information to play correctly in them is quite important.  You want to be able to classify your opponents into different categories so that you can adjust your game plan accordingly.  Stats often aren’t going to be definitive evidence that an opponent is employing a certain strategy, but they will definitely indicate what your opponent is capable of doing.  Mastering stats is at least half of developing reads on people when playing many tables.  In the next part of this series I will focus on building pop-ups for your HUD to organize the information you have about your opponents efficiently.

Betting for protection has a negative rep in the poker community.  The concept of betting for protection is betting to fold out your opponent’s share of equity in a pot; i.e. you bet and they fold a gutshot instead of checking and giving them a chance to hit.  I was recently reading the book Easy Game, and the author Andrew Seidman claimed betting for protection is a consequence of betting for value, not a reason for betting.  I’m going to provide a mathematical argument for why betting for protection is very legitimate.

Say your opponent has a gutshot on the turn.  They have 4 outs to the best hand, about an 8% chance to win on the turn.  So if the turn pot is 17 bbs, then their share of the equity is 1.1 big blinds.  However, their 8% share of the equity is worth more than 8% of the pot.  When they hit the gutshot, they can value bet on the river for 2/3 pot and it ends up costing us an extra 11 bbs.  So really their equity is 8% * 1.66 – so 1.8 bb’s.  So their equity including their turn bet in a percentage of the pot is 13%.  Say they have a 9 out draw and you plan to call a river bet no matter what card comes – now the value of their draw goes from 18% to 30%.  Overall this is a moderate difference, but not necessarily enough to get you to bet solely for protection.

But what about if they have a gutshot on the flop and we plan to pay off turn and river bets when we check back?  Assuming the pot will be 7 bb on the turn and 17 on the river, that means we have to pay an extra 17 bb to reach showdown.  Now their 4 outs on the flop will be worth 24 bbs when they hit on the turn: 7 bb for the pot and 17 bb of value bets.  They are going to hit their draw about 8% on the turn, so the value of their free card can be expressed as 8% * (24/7), so 27% of the pot on the flop.  Say they have 6 outs, then it is worth 41% of the pot.  If they have 8 outs, the free card is worth 54% of the pot.  You might be giving up more than you realize when you check the flop back with a medium strength hand.

Let’s say we bet and our opponent has 6 outs to the best hand.  Our opponent might fold with only 6 outs, but if they call they are putting in 5 bb to win 12 bb, so they are getting 2.4:1.  Since we already determined our hand was worth 2 bets by checking the flop planning to call turn/river let’s say that when they hit they collect our turn bet, but when they miss they fold on the turn.  So when they hit they win another 12 bb about, so their implied odds are 24:5, so about 4.8 to 1.  Their odds to hit the turn are 7:1, so by betting we take them from having a situation where they are entitled to 41% of the pot or one where they have to either fold or make a -EV call.  That means we are earning 41% of the flop pot versus their hand or more if they decide to call.   In a 7 bb pot, this is 2.9 bbs, so that’s a great result for us.

Betting for protection is an important factor in determining what the best line for your hand is.  The value of protection is higher on the flop than on the turn because the implied odds given to your opponents are better.  When you start giving your opponent free cards you are giving them not only a chance to win the pot if they hit but also a chance to extract value bets from you.  To make this a profitable trade-off you need to be pretty certain that they are going to bluff on future streets in a way that is advantageous for you.

We’re not going to make a lot of money getting in 55 for 100 bb in NLHE games preflop… or are we? 5-betting goes way up in value in situations in NLHE where we have good fold equity versus our opponents. If our opponent makes a 4-bet to 20 bb versus us and we have 100 bb stacks, if we have 1/3 equity we only have to risk 34 bb minus our investment to win the likely 28 bb in the pot. That means our opponent would have to be bluffing 55% of the time on his 4 bet for our bet to be breakeven. This doesn’t sound likely, but what about situations where a player has a very wide opening range and a tight 4-betting value range? Over the next couple articles I am going to mathematically analyze 5-bet situations in NLHE.

The first step in my analysis is determining an unexploitable 3-bet shoving range to shove 100 bb over our opponent’s open without them having a good way to defend against it. If it is unexploitable for us to shove, then it must also be true that 3-betting planning to 5-bet with the hand will always show a profit, and our opponent’s bluff percentage is the profit. This is only going to apply to opponents who like to 4-bet or fold to a 3-bet.

I created a spreadsheet at https://docs.google.com/spreadsheet/ccc?key=0ArqDMNP8uKTSdElKVFJ3bEgzUE9YUEtDQzlkMk16cEE to solve this problem. Feel free to take a look at it and make your own adaptations of it. I’m going to list the discoveries I made for the opening ranges your opponent must have for you to show a profit by open shoving. To simplify the problem I did not take into account card removal. I also set the maximum calling range for our opponent to be 88-AA, AK, and AQ.  This particular example is BB vs BTN

TT- 3x: 24.5% 2.5x: 27% 2x: 31%
99- 3x: 32% 2.5x: 36% 2x: 40%
88- 3x:46% 2.5x: 51% 2x: 58%
22- 3x: 48% 2.5x:53% 2x: 60%
AQ- 3x: 32% 2.5x:35% 2x:40%
AQs- 3x: 27% 2.5x: 30% 2x: 33%
AJs- 3x: 42% 2.5x: 47% 2x: 52%
KQo- 3x: 51% 2.5x: 57% 2x: 64%
A5s- 3x: 50% 2.5x: 56% 3x: 63%

I wouldn’t recommend ever over shoving over an opponents 2-3x open, but these numbers provide a decent basis for us to formulate a 3-bet 5-bet strategy versus an opponent who frequently 4-bets. Next week I am going to look into how often an opponent needs to be bluffing for you to show a profit with 5 betting. With a combination of these two analyses I hope to come up with a great plan to defend against 4bets.