Full Ring Theory and Practice, Part 2

Theory:

• What makes betting, raising, calling and checking profitable?
• Playing a hand against a range versus playing a range against a range.

Betting/Raising

• There are three reasons to bet or raise:
• For value
• As a bluff
• To pick up dead money against hands with non-trivial equity
• Whenever we are debating the merits of a bet or raise, we must consider our opponent's continuance range relative to his entire range. We can often manipulate our opponent's continuance range through bet sizing.
• We want to use the information available to us at any given time to make the most profitable decision possible - not bet in order to obtain additional information.

Calling

• There are four main reasons to call a bet:
• Our hand is ahead of our opponent's range. You could refer to this as a "value call"
• Our hand has sufficient implied odds to extract enough value on later streets should we improve.
• Our hand is behind our opponent's range, but good enough of the time for a call to show a profit given the pot odds we are being offered. Especially applicable on the river.
• To "float": calling a bet because we believe we will be able to bluff a later street profitably enough of the time.
• The expected value of our calls must always be weighed against that of us raising. Just because a call is profitable does not mean a raise will not be more so, and vice versa.
• If we are unable to call or raise profitably when facing a bet, that is what the fold button is for!

Checking

• When we check and are not closing the action, it is because we are intending to:
• Check/Raise - for any of the reasons that raising is profitable.
• Check/Call - for any of the reasons that make calling profitable.
• Check/Fold - if we cannot do either of the above profitably, we should check/fold.
• The expectations of check/raising and check/calling should be weighed against each other, and also compared with that of betting. Fairly frequently all three will be profitable, but one will have a significantly higher return.
• When we are closing the action, the expectation of checking behind should  be compared with that of betting. Even if betting is profitable, checking behind may have a higher expectation in some situations.

Good Float

• Our opponent, running 14/10 with a flop c-bet of 80% opens in MP1. We call from the CO with AhQs.
• The flop comes 3h5hTs, and our opponent c-bets 2/3 pot.
• Factors that make this a good spot to float:
• Our opponent's range has a reasonable amount of air and his c-bet stat suggests he frequently c-bets his air.
• Having the Ah acts as a blocker to our opponent having many combinations of flush draws which he is likely to be continuing with on the turn should we float the flop, while also giving us additional equity.
• Having two overcards, we will often have three to six outs should our opponent c/c our turn bet on a blank.

Bad Float

• Our opponent, running a positionally aware 13/9 with a flop c-bet of 50% opens UTG. A weaker player calls from middle position and we call from the BTN with 6d6s,
• The flop comes JhTh8d, and our opponent c-bets 90% of the pot. The weaker player folds.
• Factors that make this a bad spot to float:
• Our opponent has a strong UTG range.
• Based on his c-bet stat, it is unlikely our opponent will be betting his air multi-way on an extremely wet board. His bet sizing supports this.
• Our hand has very little chance to improve if we are checked to on the turn and our bluff is called.

Hand vs Range or Range vs Range?

• When playing against an opponent who is not thinking about our range or that we expect to never develop any history with, we need only play our hand against his range.
• When playing against an opponent who is thinking about our range, we should be attempting to play our range optimally against his range. Otherwise, we will inevitably develop tendencies which are trivially exploitable to a thinking player that is paying attention.
• By playing a range against a range well, we may sometimes sacrifice expected value with some parts of our range in order to gain a larger amount with others.

My Thoughts:

Definitely a video I would re-watch as the information is presented in a very clear and precise manner. The first 15 minutes of the video touches on basic theories but the explanations are top notch. Beginning and intermediate players could benefit from watching and re-watching that part to refresh their memory, especially when running or playing bad. The rest of the video is made up of HH review, live play, and a quick HEM stats review.

I very much like RonFar3's style of play and wish to emulate it. He puts a lot of thought into his decisions and goes through/compare all his options to choose the one that is MOST +EV. As a result, his style of play lends itself to more checking and less c-betting compared to other winning players. 

I feel that most people, myself included, overuse the c-bet as a standard strategy but fail to consider all their options. I need to seriously take a serious look at my game and see if I can improve in that aspect.