Hey guys, I've been doing some playing around with CREV, EDVis, Flopzilla etc, and I thought I'd share some of my work to see if I can get some feedback / productive discussion going.  I may have made some terrible assumptions / decisions in the below, so treat it with caution, but I thought it also might provide an example to people of how to start analysing postflop situations in detail and constructing ranges.

I only started this today, so it's very unpolished.  It's also probably horribly unbalanced, as I haven't gone on to look at any turns or anything yet.  I suspect the BTN's range for checking back is too strong at the moment, so it no doubt needs a great deal more work.

Enjoy, any feedback or discussion would be appreciated!

Hand Analysis - BTN v BB K72r

BTN v BB - K72r

BTN Raises to 2.5bb 

SB Folds

BB Calls

BTN Range (49.9%)

AA-22,AKo-A2o,KQo-K6o,QJo-Q8o,JTo-J8o,T9o-T8o,98o,87o,AKs-A2s,KQs-K2s,QJs-Q4s,JTs-J5s,T9s-T6s,98s-96s,87s-85s,76s-75s,65s-64s,54s-53s,43s-42s,32s

Designing the BB’s Defending Range

Assuming the BB can realise around 62.5% of his equity when calling , each hand needs 43.64% equity against the BTN’s range to be profitably called.  Against the BTN’s range, this roughly translates to:-

Hand range with equity greater than 43.64 %:
22+,A2s+, K2s+, Q6s+, J8s+, T9s,A2o+, K6o+, Q9o+, J9o+

Of course, there are many hands that should be defended that don’t meet the equity threshold set out above, but that will obviously be profitable to defend.  We can almost certainly add the following hands to that range:-

T8s,98s-97s,87s-86s,76s-75s,65s-64s,54s

Of course the BB will also want to raise many of the hands that could be profitably called.  Assuming that the BB opts for a relatively linear 3b range of around 16-17% - 

AA-99,AKo-AJo,KQo,AKs-A9s,A5s-A2s,KQs-K9s,K4s-K2s,QJs-Q9s,Q3s-Q2s,JTs,J8s,T8s-T7s,97s,86s,76s-75s,65s-64s,54s,[50]KJo,QJo[/50]

That leaves us with a final calling range of:-

BB Range (25.49%)

88-22,A8s-A6s,K8s-K5s,Q8s-Q6s,J9s,T9s,98s,87s,ATo-A2o,KJo-K6o,Q9o+,J9o+

As the BB has opted to use a fairly linear 3b strategy, this removes many of the stronger Kx from his range (notably many of the KQ and KJ combinations – although I’ve included KJo in this analysis, it would ideally be weighted to represent the BB 3betting them some portion of the time).  This range may seem fairly tight, and of course if you are confident of being able to profitably defend more hands than are listed above you should do so.  Whether BB’s 3b range is linear or delinear will presumably have a fairly significant impact on BB’s strategy on this specific flop texture.

Equity

On a hot and cold equity basis, this board very marginally favours the BTN’s range.  When we look at the equity distribution, it’s clear that HvR equities seem to run very close together for the top 50% of both player’s ranges, although the BB seems to have an advantage in the bottom 30% - 40% of hands.  

What conclusions should we draw from this?

1. The BTN’s positional advantage will be significant, given how close both players equities run together;

2.  The BTN should probably adopt a fairly aggressive cbet strategy to try and deny the BB from realising the equity of many of his marginal hands;

3.  The BB has little or no incentive to lead because the BTN is likely to cbet often on this board (and because he needs to include his strong hands in his checking range to protect the weaker portions of his range if the BTN is going to cbet often).

Designing the BTNs C-bet range

Given that the BTNs range is so wide, and knowing that the BTN wants to be cbetting frequently, it seems reasonable to examine what hands we want to check back as the BTN.

The following hands seem at first glance to be reasonable to check back:-

KK

K7,K2s

K6-K3s,K8o,K6o

QQ-JJ

A7

AQ-A8

QJ-QT (top of our non-A air range, can turn gutshots/straight draws and profitably call a bet)

In addition to the above, middle and bottom pairs with a backdoor flush draw seem like reasonable candidates to check back.

All of those hands either crush the board (KK,K7,K2s), have sufficient showdown value that we can check down and expect to win the pot relatively often (AQ-A8), or require little protection and can call a bet when we check back (A7 in particular seems arguable both ways, but the possibility of the BB holding an A and the turn coming an A seems like it edges it towards checking back).

By eliminating the hands we want to check back, we are left with the following range, which represents 393/593 or 66.27% of our range on the flop.  So we are continuation betting around two thirds of the time.

Of that range, 145 combos are a pair or better (36.9%), and 248 combos are high card or worse (63.1%).

Our range for checking back is:-