This is an excerpt from the Skype group chat today. The topic just came up through our discussion, and I realized most of the guys were not really following my explanation of "playing your range and not your hand". It's just a more effective way to think about poker. You all do this intuitively already. The guys in the chat really seemed to enjoy the convo though, so I figured I'd pass it along here. I sent most full access students a Skype chat invite. If you didn't get one, I just don't have you added on Skype yet. Add me: Greg Tiller (HokieGreg) and I will add you asap.I'll be popping in and out of the Skype chat occasionally. I'd prefer it to mainly be a place for full access students to discuss forum topics further, review hands, etc. The Discussion: Greg Tiller 5:39 PM   so let's go through a readless hand 25 bb deep from the sb 5:40 PM   we are in the sb 25bb deep and we are dealt ATC 5:40 PM   it doesnt matter what we are actually dealt (this is my main point) 5:40 PM   readless we raise our button with the top 85% of hands, so we tigthen our range from ATC to 85% of hand combos...everyone following?   Donk King1 5:41 PM   yup   Chad 5:41 PM   aye (use aye instead of yes cos im in scotland) Greg Tiller 5:41 PM   lol 5:41 PM   this is really important stuff here imo...could really change how u guys think about poker   Yoni Uzan 5:41 PM   but the reason you stop at 85 the hands that's right below 85 is no longer +ev open vs the population tendancies in BB? Greg Tiller 5:41 PM   exactly   Chad 5:42 PM   so in a spot where we say we c/r 9t on k84 instead of 23o is because we expect out bluff to be on the threshold of 0ev and we need that extra equity to make it prof, so for ex sometimes they flat 8 and we turn better pair Greg Tiller 5:43 PM   chad let me finish this exampel first   Chad 5:43 PM   k Greg Tiller 5:43 PM   but yes, kind of...i want to get back to that too 5:43 PM   ok so our range is 85% of hands and we raise the sb, bb flats and the flop is QT7hh 5:44 PM   the population tendancy of the average villain in a hyper turbo is to call wiht a range that hits this board pretty hard, villain isn't going to have many hands that have no equity...so it's not a board that we can cbet with atc 5:45 PM   so our actual hand is still XX, but our range is 85% of hands, we now narrow our cbetting to all hands that have reasonable equity or better ont he board....lets say it's maybe 55% of total hand combos (or 3/5 of the hands that we raised pre...the 85%) 5:45 PM   cool? 5:45 PM   still going, just want ot make sure i dont lose anyone   Donk King1 5:45 PM   yea got it so hands that have sum kinda draw/pair on this board Greg Tiller 5:46 PM   right, but u know to do that i think anyways...but ur just not quite thinking about it this way. like if u know to check back total air and A/K high here u are already doing it intuitively to a degree 5:46 PM   but thinking about it better is going to make your ranges look better overall and probably make you more confident in your overall play/approach to each street 5:46 PM   chad/yoni...following?   Chad 5:47 PM   yeh\   Yoni Uzan 5:47 PM   yea Greg Tiller 5:48 PM   ok so now our range is 55% of total hands, villain calls our cbet. we know nothing about this particular villains call range, but we can assume the avg player is calling a range that has decent equity and up to probably weak QX (the average player c/r decent QX+) 5:48 PM   so now, even before the turn falls, we start thinking about what parts of our range are good to 2 barrel on different turn cards   Yoni Uzan 5:48 PM   ohhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhh 5:49 PM   haha if i think how to play all hands in a spot rather than my hand 5:49 PM   I'm gonna play 200x more hands 5:49 PM   hence get baller faster 5:49 PM   haha Greg Tiller 5:49 PM   so the turn is 3c. we already had a plan for what hands we'd barrel on a dry turn or wet turn, but now we see its a dry turn. so now we barrel a range that includes our valuebetting hands, as well as hands that dont have showdown value but have reasonable equity to improve on the river. 5:50 PM   so we checkback weak 2nd pair/3rd pair/pocket pairs weaker than the 2nd card on the board...so we can eliminate them from our turn barreling range 5:51 PM   so now maybe our range looks like 35% of total hand combos (it keeps narrowing and narrowing based on pop tendancies, board textures, and by taking optimal lines with diff parts of our range - i.e., checking back the flop with air, or checking the turn with marginal sd value/bluffcatchers) 5:52 PM   so let's say we barrel the turn with whatever range we decided on there. 35% of total hand combos. 5:53 PM   the river is the Ac. let's say the pot is 1k and the remaining eff stx are 1k. 5:53 PM   we think this river misses a bunch of villains range for sure, its going to be hard for him to call a jam with much. lots of his draws missed. 5:53 PM   so now we determine the optimal way to play different type hands in the remaining 35% of our range. 5:54 PM   if we want to bet for value...we probably bet about half pot since we think villain folds to our jam a bunch. so maybe that 15% of total hands that bet 550 into 1k or so. 5:54 PM   with the total air in our range, we think jamming is best to maximize fold equity. so another 15% of hands jam the river as a bluff. 5:55 PM   that leaves us with 5% of total hands, or the hands we barrele don the turn for thin value (2nd pair/pocket pairs lower than QX, etc)....these are in our river checkback range 5:55 PM   so for each action/bet size we have a specific range, irrelevant what actual hand we have 5:56 PM   bc it's the optimal play with all hands in that range   Donk King1 5:56 PM   so sick   Chad 5:56 PM   copy and paste into new thread imo   Donk King1 5:56 PM   yea 100% Greg Tiller 5:56 PM   ya i will   Donk King1 5:57 PM   So basically we can manipulate our percived range to look like what ever we want once this is mastered...   Chad 5:57 PM   so that explains it better, no w everytime i post a hand i think i will be posting every hand in that lines range for double checking   Donk King1 5:57 PM   this i assume is only vs a thinking player tho? Greg Tiller 5:57 PM   so basically, a great poker player plays his range and not his individual hand. and as long as you are concerned with building the optimal range, and you stick to that range. you shouldn't be choosing random trash outside the range (when you do this it fucks up your ranges long term) 5:58 PM   no donk king. 5:58 PM   it's vs anyone, the ranges we would build vs a thinking player would just be different than vs a fish! but the same thought process still applies!   Donk King1 6:00 PM   Yea i got this... but vs a good thinking player, we can merge the way we play our ranges right? so play our air ranges exactly how we would play our value ranges?   Chad 6:00 PM   ok so that makes sense, so in the case when we c/r 9t on k84 onstead of 23o is a case of the 9T being part of a range that has sufficient equity vs opponents range to c/r and barrel whereas 23o does not, so its not that we decidee a particular freq to bluff, but just that the freq is based on hands that we think are "good enough" to be part of a bluff range   Yoni Uzan 6:00 PM   yea but i think the value in this thinking is not that it helps us realizing if we should c/r T9 or not   Donk King1 6:01 PM   where as vs a fish who isnt thinking about our percived range, we are just concerned with our ACTUAl range rather than what we are repping.. am i along the right lines here?   Yoni Uzan 6:01 PM   but rather that it makes us think about what we c/r here in general Greg Tiller 6:01 PM   well yes we need X equity to respond to Y range...so if we think we jus barely have enough fold equity to c/r bluff him that means hes going to continue a decent amount, so we better have reasonable backdoor equity for when called (the backdorr equity diff bt 23o and JTs there will add up so much)   Yoni Uzan 6:01 PM   and that's gonna make u a better player Greg Tiller 6:01 PM   ok 6:01 PM   stop again for a sec 6:01 PM   losing donk king  6:02 PM   xxxx: this really doesn't hav eanything to do with our perceived range. we built each range on each street based on a combination of things (vs a thinking player our perceived range could definitely have a big impact on how we build that range though)! 6:04 PM   preflop we raised 85% bc its correct vs the population tendancy, on the flop we cbet decent equity or better and gave up our air bc the pop tendancy of the avg player is to hit  this Q8Xhh board pretty hard - neither of these have anythign to do with our perceived range   Donk King1 6:04 PM   yh i got that Greg Tiller 6:04 PM   so what about perceived range are you not understanding?   Chad 6:04 PM   ok i get it, my problem was the thinking that we are c/r bluffing in that spot was that it was just profitable with atc, wasnt really considering it semi bluffing when its like 9T on k84 Greg Tiller 6:05 PM   this exact same hand you could play vs a fish or vs a reg or even vs me...the exact same thought process applies street to street, u would just have different ranges based on the tendancies of each particular opponent   Donk King1 6:05 PM   i understand 6:05 PM   this all jst clicked\ Greg Tiller 6:05 PM   so in the hand exmaple, our river play is super exploitive...we bet our value a small size and our bluffs big...this is great vs  fish and vs bad regs right?   Donk King1 6:06 PM   yea i got it Greg Tiller 6:06 PM   but vs me, you cant be so exploitive, your river jamming range needs to be more balanced 6:06 PM   ok great 6:07 PM   could be a real "aha" moment for u guys i think...spend a lot of time thinking about it next few days and let's talk about it more. it's just the tip of the iceberg really   Yoni Uzan 6:07 PM   thinking about your range and thinking about the max ev play with your hand is going to result in the same action in-game, it's just that thinking about your entire range makes you better at pokarz Greg Tiller 6:07 PM   when u play next few days, try thinking actively about your range in each spot and forget about what hand u have 6:07 PM   exactly yoni 6:08 PM   BUT the problem that players have is that they find justifications to going outside of these ranges and it leads to a lot of -ev plays...   Yoni Uzan 6:08 PM   i'm gonna try to do that 6:09 PM   yea i get what you're saying, I can justify c/ring Q6o on K84 6:09 PM   but if i understand that in order to do that 6:09 PM   I first need to have Q7o and J7o there 6:09 PM   that's a ton of shit 6:09 PM   and I'm like... 6:09 PM   meh 6:09 PM   gonna stick to my range 6:10 PM   bye Q6o Greg Tiller 6:10 PM   exactllyyyyy, and you need villains frequencies to be correct to have a c/r frequency that includes all hands down to Q6o! 6:11 PM   its just a way to think about poker more confidently and consistently. we all do exactly what i'm talking about intuitively, but not thinking about it this way leads to players getting outside their ranges when they are carddead or running bad/hot