Leveraging range and positional advantages while deep stacked
AKA: Playing the numbers game.
Not all poker games are the same.
If that seems like the most obvious sentence you have read in a while, please allow me to explain. Of course there are major differences between tournament vs. cash, low stakes vs. high stakes, and home games vs. triton events. I wont waste my time or yours trying to show or convince you of the differences in these examples.
What I mean is not all poker variants play the same. In Razz, you can have a very nutted hand compared to your opponent’s up cards, and it can be broken to dust by getting a 7th street that makes a full house or a third pair. You can break a made hand in 2-7 triple draw and end up with a much worse hand after your third draw. At least in No Limit Holdem (NLH) we are never going to see a river and suddenly have a worse hand than we had on the previous street!
The point is this: In every variant we - and our opponents - build a pot that we may or may not wish we had by the time it comes to showdown. However, those of us that play NLH have an ace up our sleeve when it comes to any equity advantage we may have and being able to realize it by the time the river betting is done. This is due to the wide spread in range equity vs. range equity. Let me show you…..
In NLH, with the best hand - AA - we have a massive equity advantage against our opponent’s entire range. Against a random hand, AA enjoys an 85% - 15% advantage. Versus the second best starting hand - KK - , AA wins 81% of the time. The hand that performs the very best against our AA is a suited version of 76 of a suit that does not match one of our aces. The equity of these so called “Ace Crackers” - 23%. That leaves our Aces with an equity at 77% in a worst case scenario when we get it heads up against an opponent.
Of course this is an extreme example but there are plenty others that get us over 80% equity such as any over pair vs. any under pair. I say this in an effort to help you understand that NLH offers extreme - by poker standards at least - equity advantages.
If we contrast that to Pot Limit Omaha 8 or better (PLO8) as an example. A great hand like Ah2hKc3c will only have about a 64% equity advantage over a bad hand like Ts9h7c4d1. In other words: If you think you get bad beat a lot in NLH, this should be an eye opener for you.
So why are we discussing equity spreads in games that you probably don’t play and may never even find an interest in? The answer is to shine a light on the idea that you should be taking advantage of this fantastic opportunity that your game of choice (NLH) is offering. The strategy is to use your equity and positional range advantage to your maximum benefit - especially when you are deep stacked.
If you could a roll a die that has 100 sides (instead of the conventional 6) once a day and if you roll a 41-100 you win a dollar and you roll 1-40 you lose a dollar, you should be taking the opportunity to take your roll every day. Some people may say “It’s only a dollar, its hardly worth it” while others might bemoan the times they lose 5 days in a row (this would definitely happen). It really doesn’t matter. Time and chance are on your side in the long run. Your equity for each roll turns out to be $.20. The sooner we look at this roll to be worth 20 cents every time we roll wheter we win or lose, the sooner we will take the emotion and the feeling of chance out of this daily routine.
The same should be said for pushing for our equity when it comes to having an advantage in NLH. We will say we have an advantage when we enjoy a range advantage and / or a positional advantage. While these 2 advantages are unique, there are many times we find ourselves enjoying each. Both range and position advantages are very important and depending on stack sizes and exact positions, one can be more or less important than the other. For ease, we will look at situations when we have both these advantages in the hand.
When we open raise and get called by the big blind, we are in a very frequent scenario where we enjoy both advantages. In this case, we want to be - generally - pushing this advantage throughout the hand. We do this by betting with reasonably small sizes and on multiple streets.
As an example, our LJ raise will have a tighter and stronger range against the Big Blind player’s calling range at 100 Big Blinds. Lets say the board is Jd8c3s. While both opponents have Jacks in their range, our HJ open will have KJo, AJo, JJ, QJs, KJs, AJs and sometimes QJo. That’s all the Jacks our range should have. Compare that to our opponent in the BB seat. Our opponent can have J9o+, JJ, J2s, J3s, J4s, J5s, J6s, J7s, J8s, AJs2.
So how do these ranges compare on this board? While the player in the BB does have more nutted hands like 2 pair with a J8s or a J3s that we do not possess, we have a massive equity advantage. If we try to randomize hands in our range vs hands in his, likely match ups would be KJo vs. J6s or QJs vs J9s. The tops of each of our ranges are similar but the bottom of villain’s range dilutes the relative strength of his hand on this flop.
This is an example where small bets will likely be called by our opponent, it is also likely that neither player improves significantly on the turn in which case another bet by the LJ would be effective again. Compound this with the pressure that you can put on your opponent when he can foreshadow that he will face another bet on the river, and you will often create a fold then and there and deny your opponent the opportunity to realize any sliver of equity he may still possess. This pressure - and the potential for future pressure) gives the advantaged player leverage in the hand.
This example comes from a hand where we both have top pair. Of course this will not always - or even often - be the case. But if we can get a weak top pair to fold the turn or river when we have the goods, it opens up the opportunity to get folds from weak top pair when we whiffed the flop altogether.
Using our pressure for these small slices of equity works best when you and your opponent are deep stacked for maximum leverage against a capped range. When deep (100 Big Blinds or more) both players can “afford” to lose these small bets that you will win a majority of the time.
This is the concept of pressuring a weaker range from a superior position. Spoiler Alerts: This is not magic. It will not always work. You will still lose hands in poker.
However, just like rolling the 60% die, using a range and positional advantage will win you chips in the long run a small sliver at a time. In a game like poker where we try to find advantages anywhere we can, you need to be getting your proverbial 20 cents a day EVERY day of the week.
If you enjoyed this article, please consider hitting the like (heart) button. If you have any questions or feedback, please leave a comment below. As always, thank you for reading.
Special thanks to Sam Greenwood and his Punt of the Day (POTD) Substack for choosing my submission. Here he analyzes a hand that pits Michael Culpepper vs. Mike Holtz in a $2500 WSOP event from 2024.
If you haven’t subscribed to POTD, I would certainly recommend it. Sam tackles some high level concepts that every player should - at least - expose himself to.
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This hand is in the bottom 90% of starting hands in PLO8
The BB should be 3 betting J9s, JTs, QJs, KJs so these will not always be in the opponent’s flatting range.