I’m not sure I agree. The amount of players who rely on high card hands or limited combinations to bet, and thus miss out on hands, is a big cause of their losses. There are way too many factors to have in mind to limit to betting patterns. How far ahead are you of competitors to see beginning of hands? How tentative are certain opponents? Sometimes a run of near every hand betting produces incredible results in wins whether due to luck or the sense of pressure
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You are correct and it is actually a matter of math.
If most people on a table are waiting for just top cards A to T then the chances are when you hit those cards the other people betting that hand will also have at least one of the same cards you do and that reduces your chances of hitting those cards on the flop turn and river.
If you play a wider range you will statistically hit more cards and have more winners and a player that folds everything but top cards is easy to read and will get smaller pots when they do play a hand.
However, there are cards that compliment each other that increase your odds so suited cards give you a flush possible and connected cards give you a straight possible and the more possibles you have the better your odds of wining a hand.
If you play odd ball cards with no connection and not suited your odds go down and I only play those if I get stuck with them on the BB and everyone limps in the pre-flop bet.
Occasionally the odd ball hands hit but not something I would rely on.
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This is a good example of why holding a wider range can sometimes pay big.
I announced this was my last hand on the table. I held 9 5 suited and I knew one of the players calls everything. Hit the 9 5 and got 2 calls on a post flop all in and felted both players.
https://www.replaypoker.com/hand/replay/441940298
Was the all in smart? It was my last hand and if they hit I would break even at worst and if they didn’t I make a big pot so no real risk for me.
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When have you ever seen people playing like that here? Specifically, a table where everyone is playing tight.
You checked the big blind in this hand and got lucky on the flop. You’re playing 5/10 so yes, people will call with anything and it’s fine to go all in when you get a good hand. I’m not sure that this is a good example of anything except that many low stakes players are very bad.
Are you really advising people to play 95s outside of the big blind and hope to hit on the flop? With any 2 cards you will flop 2 pair only about 2% of the time.
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Well Tacos,
All hands are lucky draws on the flop and you have just as much chance of hitting a 9 or a 5 as you do an ace or king. Same amount of all cards in the deck.
However as I said if most players are playing a tight range A to T you are all looking for the same cards and most likely someone in that hand is holding one of your cards so playing a wider range you are more likely to hit statistically. That is simple math odds.
Let’s not turn this into a fight and you had your chance to prove your skills in your own personal challenge.
Have a great day and win big!
Completely true. You’re exactly as likely to make 2 pair with 95 as you are with AK.
Most of the time though, with either hand you will make either no pair (about 65% of the time) or one pair (about 29% of the time). A hand with an ace or king is much more likely to be making top pair instead of middle or bottom pair. A-high can even be enough to win unimproved. That’s the value of high cards after all.
I agree that if most players are playing a tight range then this is true. Most players here are not playing a tight range though so this is not a problem that we need to worry about on this site.
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A couple of articles that might interest you Tacos:
The Poker Hand Critic: Keeping Your Range Wide Against Thinking Opponents
https://www.cardplayer.com/poker-news/16721-the-poker-hand-critic-keeping-your-range-wide-against-thinking-opponents
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These are good articles, thank you for sharing them.
Defending your big blind heads up vs an aggressive late position raiser is a special case and a bit different from the topic of this thread where we are looking at general Replay player tendencies. I agree that in this situation you have to call and 3bet much wider.
Another good article. I’m not sure that the kind of opponent described here (a winning $5-$10 NL cash reg in Vegas) is one that you will frequently find at Replay. Here you can happily 4bet jam it with your AA and get callers without having to worry too much about balance 
This is good too. The balanced range that this article recommends opening is similar to but even tighter than the range that I recommended in my original post on this thread. Their range is only about 9% of hands:
Glad you enjoyed the articles Tacos!
Conclusion
“The main objective when building our range is balance. Without balance, we’ll get figured out and we won’t be able to play our hands profitably.”
Sums up what I have been saying all along.
Have a good one Tacos!
Perhaps you could clarify what hands exactly you would recommend including in a typical opening range? We are agreed on the need for balance but I still have the feeling that your recommendation is rather different than mine.
One of the biggest mistake I see is people thinking that those making the biggest mistakes think much about ranges at all, let alone balanced ranges.
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Another “biggest mistake” is thinking this is a poker site in any meaningful sense of the word. Let’s continue with the reliable RNG parade, shall we? How often do you see 2 people flop top trips, top kicker? You see more identical hands here than anywhere where there’s an actual pRNG. Of course you wouldn’t see someone flatting AK to go multiway with it either but that is more player-oriented than RNG oriented.
https://www.replaypoker.com/hand/replay/442143067
Its a video game more than a poker site. People wouldn’t know a range from a toaster oven or balance issues from tinnitus. I’m not good at this game at all but I’ve played enough real poker online to know that whatever is being done here bears no resemblance to it. Not in the level of play and certainly not in the “random deal”. I could fill this Forum with enough hands in any given week to make anyone see this.
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When at the table and away from the table … never ever - tell … anything!
I covered that in my post above Tacos:
As I have said many times I write posts to help new players and people learning to increase their odds of winning.
Getting in to specific ranges for them isn’t helpful in my opinion and takes alot of the fun out of the game and this is a social poker website.
ADDED: I adapted this chart to help new players to know at a glance what the percent chance is of hitting any hand after the flop for the most common hands.
The percentage goes down by roughly half after the turn.
Hope that helps and here is the article from which I adapted that chart:
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Dont be too surpised…but I know its frustrating as hell that its allowed to happen
the chart is fine, but i just like to add on this that the given percentages usually are only of importance at an all-in situation because they show the odds of the next 2 cards. when facing a single bet it’s usually it’s not an all-in situation. in which case you would want to use the odds of only the next card (which is roughly half of this as well)
i watched your link and i think this chart will be of interest to many beginning players as well:
Table #3 – Poker Odds Chart
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The chart gives you the odds of hitting those hands on turn and river so you can decide how to bet or fold regardless of if you go all in.
It also helps new players to understand possibles and hands to hold pre-flop for the best chances of a win.
The article is very good but confusing because you have to look at one chart and then find the outs on a second chart so I just adapted it to include the percentages in one chart to simplify it for players for the most common hands.
If you are still learning odds I would suggest having that chart open on your screen next to your table and after awhile you will have it memorized.
ahh that explains it, didn’t knew you added the percentages.
don’t get me wrong, im not saying you aren’t right about the % it’s just that it can be misleading to beginning players if you only add the % for hitting the turn AND river. that way it’s very easy to overestimate the pot odds.
srry but i’ll have to disagree on this one.
the reason behind this is that turn and river odds are usually only meant for all-in situations. when facing a normal bet on the flop you have no need to know the odds of the river yet, the pot odds you need to call are for the turn only because new bets might come, making it an entirely different variable you can’t know on teh flop yet.
here a simple example: pot is 60 and villain bets 20, so you need to call 20 (making the pot 100) so obviously the 20 of the 100 you need to pay is 20%. but say you called it and the turn he bets 50, you decide to call making the pot 200, you had to invest 50 of the 200, so that 25%. but now we are on the river. on the flop you had to pay 20, and the turn 50. making it 70. so 70 of 200 is 35%. in other words, when using the turn odds only you calculated you had to pay 20%, while in fact you had to pay 35% to hit the river
i do like to add that you can still call wider on the flop then on the turn because you have bigger implied odds, but thats an entirely different topic.
long story short: this proves that taking turn and river odds aren’t relevant for regular situations.
Just count each out as 2% and you don’t have to memorize any charts… done.
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true,
you can use the rule of 4&2 to multiply your outs by 2 for teh next card and multiply by 4 to get the next two cards. this rule isn’t 100% accurate, but accurate enough to make good decisions based on the pot odds
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