Playing Your Range Advantage

Say we open the button, the BB calls, and the flop comes down K83r. The BTN has a very clear
equity advantage on this board, 54.5%. Let's quickly jump ahead and think about who has the nut
advantage. What would we consider the nuts on this board? KK, 88, 33, K8 & K3. The BTN always
has KK and 88, while the BB never has KK and only has 88 around 50% of the time. That means
that despite this being a very good board for the BTN (and the BTN holding an equity advantage),
there is actually a small nut advantage for the BTN here. 88, 33, K8 & K3 are all split relatively
evenly between both players. This means that the BTN has a significant range advantage, but only a
small nut advantage. In these “wide ranges vs wide ranges” spots, that's going to be relatively
common; the preflop aggressor will hold the range advantage, but only a slight nut advantage.
There are of course spots where the preflop aggressor will have the equity advantage AND a
significant nut advantage, and we'll get to those in due course.

The solver will very often use a small size alongside that equity advantage to put the other player's
range into an uncomfortable spot. We do this very often as the preflop aggressor, spots like the
above K83r are very common, and we'll also see the same in 3bet pots, spots like K76 BTN vs CO.
This time ranges are much narrower than the previous example, and the nutted combos start to
become wider. AA or AK wouldn't be considered a nutted hand in the first example, but in a 3bet
pot when the SPR gets lower and ranges are narrower, these hands start to be considered extremely
strong hands.

Let's look at a third scenario here, one where we are not the preflop aggressor. Say the BTN opens,
the SB 3bets, and the BTN calls. The flop comes down 752hhs. The SB has an ever so slight equity
advantage here of 51.2%, but let's look what happens when the SB checks. Before the BTN acts, the
SB's equity drops down to 48.4%, which means that the BTN now has the equity advantage. On the
face of it, it might not look like a particularly huge equity advantage, but given the SB is the preflop
aggressor and has all the overpairs in their range, it is actually a little bigger than it initially looks. If
we take a look at the BTN's preferred size, we will see that the same logic applies in this spot as
when the BTN cbets really wide on K83r; the BTN here likes to use smaller sizes, and bets very
wide.

This is because it can force a lot of the SB's range into an uncomfortable spot with this small size,
folding out 25% of the SB's range, and forcing them to make some very marginal/breakeven/even
some ever so slightly losing calls with hands like KJcc. We can also see that the solver check/calls
with K6cc (no backdoor flush) in theory, and in reality nobody is doing that, so our small bets are
going to be even more effective than this.

Let's look at one last scenario. Say MP opens, the BTN calls, everyone else folds, and the flop is
843r. MP is opening approximately 22% of hands, and the BTN is calling approximately 6% of
hands. This means that MP's range has got lots of air on a board like this, and the BTN's condensed
flatting range is doing quite well. If we look at the equities, we can see that the BTN has 53.9%
equity. If we look at the BTN's betting strategy, we can see the same trend as the previous three
examples. We can also take a look in the reports tab to see the very obvious trend of stabbing much
less frequently (and for a larger size) on the higher boards.

When we hold an equity advantage we want to press that equity advantage by betting
frequently for a small size, even if we do not have a significant nut advantage!

In the first two examples we were betting our entire range. Let's take a look at our betting range in
the other two examples where we weren't quite betting our entire range. As we can see, we get to
bet very wide, and we get to choose a ton of lower equity bluffs. We get to do both of these things
because of our equity advantage, and the fact that we are in position. Unlike the first two examples,
however, we cannot simply bet our entire range. This is because in both examples the OOP player is
playing a high frequency check strategy, and whilst their range is at an equity disadvantage here,
they are uncapped, and we simply cannot bet our entire range into an uncapped range that still
contains lots of strong hands.

When we are the preflop aggressor, if we hold an equity advantage and have a middling nut
advantage, we can bet extremely wide for a small size. When we are the preflop caller and
have an equity advantage, we get to stab wide for a small size, but cannot bet our entire range.

When our global frequency is high, we get to find more low/non equity bluffs. When our
global frequency is low, our bluffs really centre around equity!