Miller, Ed. Smallll Stakes No-Limit Holdem

kings. And sometimes you should check the turn. Adding bluffs and occasionally checking the kings makes it much harder for the button to lay down his JTs when he hits top pair.

Remember, we only do these things against observant opponents. If your foe is clueless and does not realize your “3-bet from the blinds preflop, bet flop, bet turn” line means you have a strong hand, just fire away. Line balancing is defense. Reserve it for thinking opponents.

When Is A Line Balanced?

Let’s take the extreme case. Suppose we balance a line to gametheoretic perfection. For example, say we start with Bill’s preflop range of

22+, A2s+, KTs+

QJs-65s

ATo+, KJo+, QJo.

We raise preflop and get called. On the K♠7♣5♦ flop we have:

Suppose we c-bet 80 percent of these hands. What does a perfectly balanced c-betting range look like?

It mirrors what we flopped. We bet 80 percent of our sets, 80 percent of our overpairs, and so on all the way down to no pair. This perfect balance exposes the least amount of information. Our opponent learns nothing new about our actual hand. He knows only that we bet 80 percent of the time. This approach reduces our

time. This is just a guideline. We chose these margins because they work well against most $1–$2 opponents. Against a tougher opponent, you may have to balance further. But for starters, just make sure to check enough good hands on the flop that an opponent cannot assume you missed when you check. Also, bet enough weak hands on the flop that an opponent cannot assume you have a good hand when you bet.

After the flop, the proportion of weak hands in a balanced line typically decreases. Many hands get folded on the flop. Most of these folded hands will be weak, so your range becomes stronger on average if the hand reaches the turn. However, if you have not folded many hands by the turn, then little changes. This is the case with Bill’s turn-check line above, so the proportion of good hands in that line should still be within several percentage points of the proportion of good hands he expected to flop.

However, if you have folded many hands, we use a different guideline. As a general rule for the turn and river, lines are reasonably balanced for $1–$2 if at least 25 percent or so of the hands in the range are weak and another 25 percent or so are decent made hands. The remaining 50 percent is the middle ground for you to work with. This can still be exploitable, but it plugs the big leaks.

The more unbalanced a line is, the easier it is to recognize and exploit. Above all, avoid 90%/10% lines against thinking opponents. After that you can work on your 80%/20% lines if you find opponents are exploiting them. Again, you don’t want to balance lines perfectly. You just want to balance them enough that your opponents cannot exploit you easily.

A great deal of line balancing is just mixing up your play. You may have heard advice like “Don’t always bet the flop when you hit top pair with an ace,” or “Sometimes you should check the nuts on the flop.” These simple strategies help you avoid unbalanced lines. But each of those strategies addresses only a single situation. Thinking in terms of line balance can help you address all your lines systematically.

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Strong And Weak Are Relative

We want to emphasize that for balancing purposes, strong hands and weak hands are relative. For example, sometimes your range will be heavily skewed toward powerful made hands. Say you 3-bet from the button, and two saw a flop of A♥Q♦7♣. You c-bet and get checkraised the pot. You call. The turn is the 7♥. Your opponent pots it. If you call or raise, you will have an ace or better most of the time. Yes, occasionally you will have less, but most of the time in $1–$2 you’ll have at least aces and sevens. When you think about balancing this line, your strong hands are now full houses and occasional trip sevens. Your weak hands are aces up and lower. Make sure you can still have these strong or weak hands some of the time. Earlier in the chapter, we use top pair or better as our definition of a strong hand. But strong and weak are relative.

As an aside, your turn line from the last paragraph can easily be unbalanced. From your perspective, the line is “3-bet from button, call a checkraise on flop, call or raise on turn.” How can that line be unbalanced? As an example, say you nearly always 3-bet the flop with a set on an uncoordinated board. But in this line, you just called the flop checkraise. Your astute opponent can figure out you didn’t flop a set. Therefore, you become quite unlikely to have a full house on the turn. To balance this line, when you flop a set on an uncoordinated board, you must flat call the flop checkraise a fair percentage of the time.

The Limitations Of Line Balancing

Unfortunately, you only have so much to work with. On that K♠7♣5♦ flop, Bill flops top pair or better only 24 percent of the time. No matter how well Bill balances his lines, he is in a potentially difficult spot. An opponent can fire away with nothing and make life hard for Bill.

This is one reason online games get more aggressive as stakes increase. For example, take a $10–$20 online game. A pro raises on

the button with 40 percent of his hands. Another pro calls from the big blind. The flop is 5♣4♦4♥. Both players understand that a loose button raising range hits two pair or better less than 1 time in 4 on a 5♣4♦4♥ board. So they don’t give up easily. For example, instead of c-betting then folding to a checkraise, the button might reraise or float the checkraise with nothing. It becomes a game of high-stakes chicken. And this is how it should be. When the preflop pot is 10bb and there is less than a 1 in 4 chance your opponent has two pair or better on a 5♣4♦4♥ board, you should be willing to risk a lot more than 10bb to win the pot, even if you have nothing. But this is true only against an opponent who also understands this.

A typical $1–$2 player does not get this concept. He won’t risk a lot more than that 10bb to win the pot even though there is less than a 1 in 4 chance you flopped a modest hand or better. If he does put in, say, 25bb more, he has a good hand so often that you can safely fold. You should exploit this fact by not paying him off. In general in $1– $2, when you hit strong resistance, it is okay to give up your bluffs. But be wary. The game is getting tougher. At some point you will move up in stakes or come across a few $1–$2 players who won’t give up so easily. Then you must fight harder for pots when no one is likely to have anything.

When Do We Care About Unbalanced Lines?

The answer is, “When your opponents are observant.” Line balancing is defense. If you opponent is clueless, drunk, or on serious tilt, you don’t have to worry as much about unbalanced lines.

Why Do We Care About Unbalanced Lines?

We care because we like money. Unbalanced lines are terribly expensive when your opponents are clever. Is your range too skewed toward weak hands? Thinking opponents just raise or float and force you to fold. Some of these lines, like “raise preflop, get called, c-bet

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flop, check turn” come up often. Say an opponent steals just one extra time every 500 hands against you because this line is unbalanced. That can easily cost you 10bb per 500 hands, or 2bb/100. This is in a game where a solid winning pro might earn 4–5bb/100. And these numbers can easily understate the problem.

What about when your range is too skewed toward strong hands? Thinking opponents just fold. It’s as simple as that. Take the line “call raise preflop, checkcall flop, checkraise turn.” For many amateurs, that lines means they hold a strong hand 90 percent of the time or more. A good player folds top pair or worse to your checkraise without a thought. This comes up less frequently, but the penalty is severe. In a game where a 2bb/100 winrate provides a good living wage, having an opponent routinely fold top pair to your 30bb turn checkraise is a disaster. Say he folds one extra time per 1000 hands. That’s still 3bb/100. So much for making a living.

Unbalanced lines don’t matter much against bad players. But against tough competition, you must balance or fall.

Exploiting Transitions

Say you have found an unbalanced line in your game. An opponent is taking advantage. You go through your lines and figure out what adjustments you need. Should you make those adjustments right away?

No! Take Bill’s problem with the line “raise preflop, c-bet flop, check turn.” His wily button opponent sees the flaw. He uses it against Bill by betting the turn whenever Bill checks. Bill has figured out that to balance his lines, on the turn he needs to check more good hands and bet some weaker hands. But he should not do this right away. Instead, it’s time to turn the tables.

The button is conditioned to bet when Bill checks the turn. So, the next time Bill gets a good hand, he should checkraise the turn. This punishes the button. Note that when Bill first checkraises the turn, the button may well think Bill is full of it and just checkraising out of

irritation. So it is best for Bill to have a good hand when he first checkraises.

What should Bill do next? This depends on how long it takes his opponent to figure out what Bill is up to. Some opponents won’t be paying too much attention. If you guess this is the case—say because your opponent is 18-tabling—then you might checkraise most times on the turn for a few cycles until he figures it out. Then, and only then, do you switch to the balanced line.

Transitions are opportunities. Your opponent expects you to do one thing and will act accordingly. Punish him. Do whatever costs him the most. Here checkraising works well, because it extracts extra money out of the button.

What About Other Flops?

Did you notice we only went though Bill’s lines on a K75 rainbow board? What happens on an ace-high flop? What about a highly coordinated middle board like T♣8♣7♥? The proportion of strong and weak hands in Bill’s range changes quite a bit. For example, on an ace-high board, Bill will hit top pair or better over 30 percent of the time, since he plays many more hands with an ace than hands with a king.

Flops are perfect information. Everyone can see them. It’s a minor point but important for line balancing, because your lines may be unbalanced only on certain flops. As a common example, a line can be balanced on an ace-high board but not on other board types. Also, when boards are coordinated, drawing hands enter into your ranges, adding another dimension.

When adjusting an unbalanced line, ideally you should work through three or four different flops. At a minimum, test an ace-high board, a coordinated board with a face card, like Q♥T♦2♥, and a low flop. Your thinking opponents know you are less likely to hit a 5♣4♦4♥ board than an A♥J♥T♣ board. If you want to survive in the modern game, do your homework and check your balance across multiple board types.

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Some Typical Unbalanced Lines

Chances are early in your career you had many severely unbalanced lines, but they didn’t cost you much. Your opponents probably weren’t good enough to realize your lines were unbalanced, or they didn’t know how to exploit your flaws. To survive in the modern game past $1–$2, you must eliminate most of these severely unbalanced lines. There are too many strong opponents not to.

We’re going to go through several common unbalanced lines. We’ll give suggestions for correcting the problem after each. If you feel a twinge of recognition, make the general corrections we suggest. You can fine tune later.

For example, here is a betting line that is terribly unbalanced for most $1–$2 amateurs:

“Bet flop, bet turn, bet river.”

Imagine yourself doing just this. You bet the flop, turn, and river. What do you have? If you are like most amateurs, your range consists of big hands and big hands alone. You might be a really frisky amateur and once in a while do this with a flopped flush draw, so instead of a 100%/0% range you proudly have a 95%/5% range. Good for you, but you’re still dead. We crush you by folding. What happens when we fold to your big hands, but you pay off ours? We win, and you complain about running bad.

If ever there were an argument for a three-barrel bluff, this is it. You very much want freedom to bet your big hands across three streets. To protect that freedom, you must balance your “bet flop, bet turn, bet river” line by bluffing sometimes. What is sometimes? If you’re not bluffing at least 10 percent of the time you make that third bet against tough opponents, you might as well get a day job. You should be bluffing on the river more like 15–20% of the time against