Balancing Your Lines

Let’s discuss defense.

Joe is a semi-skilled $1 to $2 player. In a 6-max game, he raises to $6 as the second act. Only the button initiates the call. The flip is K75 Rainbow. Joe wagers $10. The button makes a call. The turn is a deuce. Joe checks, then folds to the button’s $12 bet.

This situation will arise several times during the following four hours. Joe raises from early position, is called by the button, c-bets the flop, and is forced to fold on the turn. It does not happen every time, but he is consistently slain. Joe has a severe playing weakness that he needs to identify. That is the bad news. The good news is that it’s really straightforward to do.

Read your own hands

Let’s imagine we’re Joe and try to read our hands. Joe’s main issue (and ours now) is the betting line “raise preflop and get called by the button, bet flop, check turn.” So, what is our starting range? Joe, the second player in a 6-handed game, raises with

22+, A2s+, KTs+ QJs-65s
ATo+, KJo+, QJo

When the next player folds, the button calls approximately two-thirds of the time. Joe bets approximately 99 percent of the time on the flop when he has top pair or better. He occasionally checks with a set, but rarely with the top pair. When he flops second pair or less, he c-bets roughly 90% of the time. On the turn, he usually bets with a top pair or a set. Otherwise, he checks.

Let’s start with the flop. What does Joe have when he places a bet? Naturally, this depends on the flop. So choose a few flops. In the first example, we used the K75 rainbow. How frequently does that flop hit Joe? The preflop range is as follows:

22+, A2s+, KTs+ QJs-65s
ATo+, KJo+, QJo

Line: Raise Preflop Get Called Board: K♠ 7♣ 5♦

Flop Holding	Percent
Three of a kind	4.0
Overpair	2.7
Top pair	17.5
Weaker pair	31.0
No pair	44.8
Category	Percent
Top pair or better	24.2
Underpair/Nothing	75.8

Joe now stakes the flop. What has he got? He bets the flop 99 percent of the time with top pair or better, and 90 percent of the time with underpair or no pair. The breakdown is as follows:

Preflop Range:

22+, A2s+, KTs+ QJs-65s
ATo+, KJo+, QJo

Line: Raise Preflop Get Called, Bet Flop Board: K♠ 7♣ 5♦

Holding / Adjusted Percent

Top pair or better 26
Underpair/Nothing 74

What does the button understand about Joe’s range? He knows two things. First, approximately three-quarters of the time Joe has less than the top pair. Second, Joe is ready to offer him a big hint about how strong his hand is. If he checks the turn, he’s likely weak. If he bets on the turn, he is most likely powerful. The button begins salivating and calls the flop c-bet.

Assume the turn is the 2♥. This rarely results in Joe receiving a set of deuces, so we must alter the numbers.

Holding / Adjusted Percent

Top pair or better 27.4
Underpair/Nothing 72.6

Joe checks. What does his current range look like? Remember that on the turn, Joe usually bets top pair or better. Assume he bets that 75% of the time. He rarely bluffs or bets inferior hands, so when he bets again on the turn, he almost always has a top pair or better.

We say “adjusted” because some of Joe’s opening cards were checked on the flop and therefore moved out of his range.

How about when he checks? On the turn, he examines about 25% of his top pair/overpair/set hands and approximately 99% of his inferior pair and no-pair hands. The breakdown is as follows:

Preflop Range:

22+, A2s+, KTs+ QJs-65s
ATo+, KJo+, QJo

Line: Raise Preflop, Get Called, C-bet Flop, Check Turn Board: K♠ 7♣ 5♦2♥

Holding / Adjusted Percent

Top pair or better 8.7
Weak pair/Nothing 91.3

Joe’s turn check range is highly slanted towards weaker hands. The button has figured it out. He understands Joe’s turn check indicates weakness, so he bets on the turn to steal. Typically, Joe will fold. When Joe checks the turn, the button kills him because his betting line limits him to more than 90% weak hands.

This is an uneven line. A line is considered imbalanced when its range significantly favors strong or weak hands, making it easier to exploit. Unbalanced lines are common, especially among solid $1-$2 players.

You almost definitely have several imbalanced lines in your play. It makes no difference when dealing with bad opponents because they will not exploit you. However, you face a significant challenge when dealing with clever opponents. You need to balance the lines.

Balancing A Line

Joe has already taken the hardest step. He thinks he has an issue, and he recognizes it as his imbalanced line “raise preflop, get called, c-bet flop, check turn.” What can Joe do to resolve the issue?

When you have an imbalanced line, you can perform two major corrections:

Play some of the hands from the imbalanced line’s range
Add hands to uneven lines

You can do one or both. Let’s investigate these choices.

Playing Hands Differently

Joe checks the turn after c-betting the flop 91% of the time and has a weak pair or nothing. One option is to play some of those weak hands differently. For example, Joe may gamble part of his poor hands on the turn. This offers two advantages. It not only helps balance the “c-bet flop, check turn” line, but also the “c-bet flop, bet turn” line. Let’s test it out. Assume Joe bets one-third of his underpair or worse hands on the turn. How does this affect his turn-check range?

Preflop Range:

22+, A2s+, KTs+ QJs-65s
ATo+, KJo+, QJo
Line: Raise Preflop,
Get Called, C-bet Flop
Check Turn Board: K♠ 7♣ 5♦2♥

Turn Holding / Adjusted Percent

Top pair or better 12.4
Weak pair/Nothing 87.6

This is an improvement, though not a significant one. The range remains excessively uneven, and an astute opponent can quickly exploit it by betting whenever Joe examines the turn. What more could Joe do?

He may avoid the line. For example, assume Joe checked the flip more frequently with his poor hands. There would be fewer “c-bet flop, check turn” hands, giving the button fewer opportunities to exploit this unbalanced line. Avoiding lines can be effective, but it is important to use discretion.

Those weak hands need to go somewhere. If Joe begins checking weak hands repeatedly on the flip, he establishes a new unbalanced line. Specifically, his new “raise preflop, get called, check flop” strategy would substantially favor weak cards. To compensate, he should check good hands more frequently on the flop.

Let’s return to the turn-check line. Joe can limit the number of bad hands in this line by playing tighter before the flop. When an imbalanced line benefits weak hands too much, tighter preflop play usually helps the situation.

This is frequently a good answer in tough, aggressive online games where you are out of position and do not play as well as your opponents. Tightening up, however, serves as a crutch. Playing too tight preflop can be detrimental to your bottom line as you gain experience. However, don’t become overconfident in your abilities. If a specific button is bothering you, simply tighten up until you figure him out.

Overall, Joe’s greatest option for balancing the line is to wager the turn with more weak hands. However, this simply alleviates the problem. It does not erase it.

Playing Other Hands The Same Way

This is the alternate method for balancing a line. Joe’s “raise preflop, c-bet flop, check turn” line includes far too many bad cards. He has to expand his range by developing stronger hands. Let’s test it out. Joe has been checking 25% of his decent hands at the turn. What happens if he checks only 40% of his good hands? He still checks 99 percent of his weaker hands. His new collection looks like this:

Preflop Range:

22+, A2s+, KTs+ QJs-65s
ATo+, KJo+, QJo
Line: Raise Preflop
Get Called, C-bet Flop
Check Turn Board: K♠ 7♣ 5♦2♥

Turn Holding / Adjusted Percent

Top pair or better 13.2
Weak pair/Nothing 86.8

This has a similar minor impact, as he only adds a few good hands to the range. The line has become more balanced, but only slightly.

Putting Them Together

Let us review. When you have an imbalanced line, you can perform two major corrections:

Play some of the hands from the imbalanced line’s range
Add hands to uneven lines

You should do both. Here are the key corrections to consider when balancing a line.

Add anything missing to the unbalanced range. Joe’s “bet flop, check turn” range includes only 8.7 percent hands with a top pair or better. He has to add more capable hands to the turn-check range.

Play some of the overrepresented hands in different ways. In Joe’s situation, we began betting more of his weaker hands on the turn.

Consider avoiding the line. By adjusting your actions on the previous street, you can limit the number of hands that go to the terrible line. Take care with this. When you dodge one line, others appear more frequently. Make sure the other lines are balanced.

Tighten up before the flop to prevent lines that greatly favor weak hands. We list this last because it is kind of a crutch. Crutches are effective, although they can slow you down. Similarly, tightening up before the flip normally works to balance weak lines, but it might be detrimental to your profits.

When you notice an imbalanced line in your game, try the first two fixes first. If the imbalanced line favors strong hands, include weak ones, and vice versa. Second, try playing some of the hands in the imbalanced line differently. Here’s what occurs when Joe employs both adjustments: he checks 40% of his top pair or better hands and bets 1/3 of his poorer hands.

Turn Holding / Adjusted Percent

Top pair or better 18.4
Weak pair/Nothing 81.6

This is significantly better. It’s still more than 4-to-1 weak hands, but Joe can’t do much about it. Joe flops top pair or better 24 percent of the time. He then stakes the flip with nearly all of his cards. Joe’s opponent has called the flop bet, thus he has not folded any hands until the turn. As a result, he cannot consistently have top pair or better than the 24 percent he flopped. Anything close to twenty-four percent is reasonable.

Punishing The Exploiter

This is another way to approach line balance. Someone is abusing your imbalanced line, so you decide how to punish him. The main issues arise in two forms:

Your imbalanced line disproportionately favors weak hands, prompting your opponent to bet or raise.
Your imbalanced line favors powerful hands, so your opponent folds.

Let’s start with the weaker hands. Joe’s button opponent takes advantage of his poor “raise preflop, bet flop, check turn” approach, betting the turn when checked to. Joe can make it more difficult for the button by balancing the line. He may also take punitive action.

What happens when the button bets after Joe checks the turn? Usually, the button is weak and only takes advantage of the imbalanced line. Joe can punish him by checkraising his turn. The button puts in extra money on a steal, but is forced to fold.

In general, if an opponent bets or raises on your weak unbalanced line, you can and should penalize them with a checkraise or 3-bet. This can be done with strong hands or by a bluff. Either is effective.

What about strong, unbalanced lines? Assume in a 6-max $1-$2 game the cutoff raises to 3bb, you 3-bet preflop from the small blind to 9bb, and the cutoff calls. You bet 14bb on the flop, were called, and bet 30bb on the turn. What have you got?

If you are like the majority of amateur $1-$2 players, you have top pair/good kicker or better around 90% of the time. So, what does your professional opponent in the cutoff do? He folds anything worse than top pair/top kicker without hesitation. Consider how much this costs you. Assume you have kings and the opponent has JTs. He raises pre-flop. You made three bets. He knows you’re a tight 3-bettor from the blinds, so he doesn’t 4-bet. He flatly calls. J75, you’ve just had a spectacular failure. This is the ideal situation for your kings against JTs, but the cunning cutoff folds on the turn anyway.* How will you punish him for folding?

Bluff! Your uneven line clearly favors strong hands. So add a few weak ones. 3-bet from the small blind with a broader range of hands, then bet the flop and turn, even if you miss. This punishes the cutoff for putting down his JTs on the turn after flopping top pair.

Second, you should approach some of the stronger hands differently. When you have an overpair of kings, check the flip. And you should occasionally verify the turn. Adding bluffs and occasionally checking the kings makes it much more difficult for the button to lay down his JTs when he gets top pair.

Remember that we only do these things to observant opponents. If your opponent does not understand that your “3-bet from the blinds preflop, bet flop, bet turn” line indicates a powerful hand, simply fire away. Line balancing is defense. Keep it for thinking opponents.

When Is A Line Balanced?

Let’s consider the extreme example. Assume we balance a line to game-theoretic perfection. For instance, suppose we begin with Joe’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:

Flop Holding	Percent
Three of a kind	4.0
Overpair	2.7
Top pair	17.5
Weaker pair	31.0
No pair	44.8

Assume we c-bet 80% of these hands. How does a properly balanced c-betting range look like?

It is similar to how we flopped. We stake 80 percent of our sets, 80 percent of our overpairs, and so on until there is no pair. This precise balance reveals the least amount of information. Our opponent learns nothing new about our current hand. He simply knows that we bet eighty percent of the time. This strategy simplifies our decision-making to checking or betting, as well as selecting a bet size if we bet.

Nobody balances lines correctly. There is no reason to do so, especially in $1-$2. Instead, the idea is to balance a line so that your opponent cannot take advantage of your imbalance. The better the opponent, the more balanced your lines should be. Line balancing is ineffective against terrible opponents who will not exploit your imbalanced lines.

So the correct question isn’t, “When is a line balanced?” Instead, ask: “When is a line sufficiently balanced?” That answer is dependent on the opponent. A line is sufficiently balanced when your opponent is unable or unwilling to exploit any lingering imbalances.

How Far Should Joe Go?

How far does Joe have to go to correct his uneven line? Unfortunately, there are no mathematical solutions to this problem. Too much depends on your opponents, the game conditions, and the street you’re on. However, there are some guidelines to follow.

The more imbalanced a line, the more beneficial it is for your astute competitor. An 80%/20% line provides your opponent with an exploitable situation.* A 90%/10% line grants him a sledgehammer. To begin, make sure you do not have any 90%/10% lines.

On the flop, the proportion of good hands in a line should be within a few percentage points of the proportion of good hands you expect to see. For example, suppose you expect to flop the top pair or better 25% of the time. (Flopzilla calculates these figures for you.) When you look at the flip, you should have top pair or better about 15 to 35 percent of the time. Similarly, when betting the flop, you should have top pair or better 15–35 percent of the time. This is only a recommendation.

We chose these margins because they are effective against most $1-$2 opponents. If you’re up against a tougher opponent, you may need to balance more. For starters, make sure you check enough excellent cards on the flop so that your opponent does not assume you missed when you check. Also, bet enough weak cards on the flip so that your opponent cannot presume you have a strong hand when you bet.

Following the flop, the percentage of weak hands in a balanced line usually decreases. Many hands fold on the flop. The majority of these folded hands will be weak, so if the hand reaches the turn, your range will improve on average. However, if you haven’t folded many hands by the turn, little will change. This is true for Joe’s turn-check line above, therefore the proportion of good hands in that line should remain within a few percentage points of the proportion of good hands he expected to flop.

However, if you have folded several hands, we apply a different guideline. As a general rule, lines for the turn and river are adequately balanced for $1-$2 if at least 25% of the hands in the range are weak and another 25% are well-made. The remaining 50% is a midway ground for you to work with. This is still vulnerable, but it plugs the major leaks.

The more uneven a line, the easier it is to detect and exploit. Above all, avoid using 90%/10% lines against thinking opponents. If you notice that your opponents are exploiting your 80%/20% lines, you can work on them thereafter. Again, you do not want to have perfectly balanced lines. You simply want to balance them such that your opponents can’t easily exploit you.

Simply changing your playstyle can help with line balancing. “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 basic tactics will help you prevent uneven lines. However, each of these solutions only handles one issue. Thinking about line balance can help you approach all of your lines systematically.

Strong And Weak Are Relative

We wish to underline that for balancing purposes, strong and weak hands are relative. For example, your range will occasionally be highly skewed towards powerful created hands. Assume you 3-bet from the button and two people saw the flop of A♥ Q ♦7♣. You c-bet and checkraise the pot. You make a call. The turn is a 7♥. Your opponent pots it. When you call or raise, you usually get an ace or better. Yes, you may have less on occasion, but most of the time in $1-$2 you will have at least aces and sevens.

When you think about balancing this line, your strong hands are now full houses with the occasional trip seven. Your weak hands are aces high and low. Check to see if you can still use your strong or weak hands occasionally. Earlier in the chapter, we defined a strong hand as top pair or better. But strength and weakness are relative.

As an aside, your last paragraph’s turn line may be uneven. According to your perspective, the line is “3-bet from the button, call a checkraise on the flop, call or raise on the turn.” How can that line be unbalanced? For example, suppose you almost always 3-bet the flop with a set on an uncoordinated board. But in this case, you simply called the flop checkraise. Your savvy opponent can see you didn’t flop a set. As a result, it is increasingly unlikely that you will have a complete 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 reasonable number of times.

The Limitations Of Line Balancing

Unfortunately, you only have so much to work with. On the K♠ 7♣ 5♦ flip, Joe only flops top pair or better 24% of the time. Regardless of how effectively Joe balances his lines, he is in a potentially unpleasant situation. An opponent can fire away with nothing, making life difficult for Joe.

This is one reason why online games become more aggressive as the stakes rise. For instance, consider a $10-$20 online game. A professional raises the button with 40% of his hands. Another professional calls from the big blind. The flop was 5♣ 4♦4♥. On a 5♣ 4♦4♥ board, a loose button raising range strikes two pairs or better less than once in every four hands. They don’t give up easily. Instead of c-betting and folding to a checkraise, the button could reraise or simply float the checkraise with nothing.

It turns into a game of high stakes chicken. And this is how things should be. When the preflop pot is 10bb and your opponent has less than a 1 in 4 probability of having two pairs or better on a 5♣ 4♦4♥ board, you should be willing to risk far more than 10bb to win the pot, even if you have nothing. However, this is only true against an opponent who understands the situation.

The usual $1-$2 player does not understand this notion. He will not risk much more than that 10bb to win the pot, despite the fact that you have a less than 1 in 4 probability of flopping a modest hand or better. If he puts in, say, 25bb more, he usually has a good hand, so you may safely fold. You should take advantage of this circumstance by not paying him off. In general, $1-

$2, when you encounter strong resistance, it is acceptable to abandon your bluffs. But be wary. The game is growing more difficult. At some time, you will raise your stakes or come across a few $1-$2 players who will not give up lightly. Then you must fight harder for pots because no one is likely to have any.

When Do We Care About Unbalanced Lines?

The answer is, “When your opponents are observant.” Line balancing is defense. If your opponent is stupid, drunk, or on a major tilt, mismatched lines are less of an issue.

Why Do We Care About Unbalanced Lines?

We care because we enjoy money. Unbalanced lines are quite expensive when your opponents are astute. Is your range too skewed toward weaker hands? Thinking opponents simply raise or float, forcing you to fold. Some of these sentences, such as “raise preflop, get called, c-bet flop, check turn,” appear frequently. Assume an opponent steals one more time per 500 hands against you since this line is imbalanced. That might easily cost you 10bb each 500 hands, or 2bb per 100. This is in a game where a consistent winning pro may earn 4-5bb/100. And these figures can easily underestimate the situation.

What happens when your range is too biased towards powerful hands? Thinking opponents simply fold. It’s that simple. Choose the phrase: “call raise preflop, checkcall flop, checkraise turn.” For many amateurs, such lines indicate that they have a powerful hand 90% of the time or more. A good player folds top pair or worse to your checkraise without hesitation. This occurs less frequently, but the consequence is severe. In a game where a 2bb/100 winrate gives a decent living wage, having an opponent consistently fold top pair to your 30bb turn checkraise is a nightmare. Assume he folds one more time per 1000 hands. That’s still 3bb per 100. So much for earning a living.

Unbalanced lines are ineffective against bad players. However, against stiff opposition, you must balance or collapse.

Exploiting Transitions

Say you discovered an imbalanced line in your game. An opponent is taking advantage. You look through your lines and determine what changes are required. Should you make these changes right away?

No! Consider Joe’s difficulty with the phrase “raise preflop, c-bet flop, check turn.” His shrewd button opponent notices the weakness. He utilizes it against Joe, betting on the turn whenever Joe checks. Joe has realized that in order to balance his lines on the turn, he must check more excellent cards and wager some worse ones. But he shouldn’t do it straight immediately. Instead, it is time to turn the tables.

When Joe checks the turn, he conditions the button to bet. So, the next time Joe has a nice hand, he should checkraise on the turn. This punishes the button. It is worth noting that when Joe first checkraises the turn, the button may believe he is full of it and is only checking out of aggravation. So Joe should have a decent hand when he first checkraises.

What should Joe do next? This is contingent on how long it takes his adversary to figure out what Joe is up to. Some opponents will not pay too much attention. If you suspect this is the case—for example, because your opponent is 18-tabling—you could checkraise most of the time on the turn for a few cycles until he catches on. Only then do you move to the balanced line.

Transitions represent opportunities. Your opponent expects you to do one thing and will react appropriately. Punish him. Do whatever comes at the highest expense to him. Checkraising is effective in this situation since it takes additional funds from the button.

What About Other Flops?

Did you notice that we just traveled through Joe’s lines on the K75 rainbow board? What happens when you get an ace-high flop? What about a well-coordinated middle board, like T♣ 8♣ 7♥? The percentage of strong and weak hands in Joe’s range varies greatly. For example, on an ace-high board, Joe will score top pair or better more than 30% of the time since he plays far more hands with an ace than with a king.

Flops are ideal information. Everybody can see them. It’s a little detail but critical for line balancing because your lines may be uneven only on specific flops. For example, a line can be balanced on an ace-high board but not on others. Furthermore, when the boards are synchronized, drawing hands join your ranges, providing additional depth.

When fixing an imbalanced line, you should try three or four different flips. Consider testing an ace-high board, a coordinated board with a face card (e.g., Q ♥ T♦2♥), and a low flop. Your opponents understand that 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, you must do your homework and keep track of your balance across numerous board types.

Some Typical Unbalanced Lines

Chances are, early in your career, you had numerous severely unbalanced lines that didn’t cost you much. Your opponents were probably not good enough to notice your lines were uneven, or they didn’t know how to take advantage of your shortcomings. To survive in the modern game above $1-$2, you must eliminate the majority of these extremely unbalanced lines. There are too many formidable opponents not to.

We’ll look at a few frequent unbalanced lines. We’ll make suggestions about how to fix the problem after each. If you feel a recognition, do the general changes we recommend. You can fine-tune later.

For example, this is a betting line that is extremely unbalanced for most $1-$2 amateurs:

“Bet flop, bet turn, bet river.”

Imagine yourself doing just this. You bet on the flop, turn, and river. What have you got? If you’re like the majority of beginners, your range is limited to huge hands. You might be a lively amateur who occasionally does this with a flopped flush draw, resulting in a 95%/5% range rather than a 100%/0% one. Good for you, but you are still dead. We crushed you by folding. What happens if we fold to your bigger hands while you pay off ours? We win, and you complain about running poorly.

This is a perfect example of a three-barrel bluff. You want the freedom to bet your large hands across three streets. To protect that independence, you must occasionally bluff in addition to your “bet flop, bet turn, bet river” strategy. What is sometimes? If you’re not bluffing at least 10% of the time you place your third stake against tough opponents, you might as well find a day job. You should bluff on the river about 15-20% of the time against skilled opponents.* Keep in mind that you can “bluff” the top pair. The idea is to try to get a better hand to fold a good portion of the time.

Do not take this the wrong way. We do not advocate randomly firing three barrels. Rather, when you make a flop semibluff, you should occasionally follow through on the turn and river. Alternatively, if you c-bet with a gutshot draw and one opponent calls out of position, reconsider before taking the turn. A half-pot or two-thirds-pot turn bet can be very effective. If that bet is called and you miss, don’t be afraid to fire a third barrel a good portion of the time.

Remember that flops are excellent information. What occurs when you “bet the flop, turn, and river” on an uncoordinated board? Are you the overwhelming favorite to have a large hand? If this is the case, it’s time to fire a few turns with second pair or a gutshot, and then make a river bet more frequently than you’d want. If you don’t, good players will fold to the river bet unless they have a really strong hand.

Another strategy for balancing the bet-bet-bet line is to bet a greater range of made hands throughout. As with bluffing, this makes it more difficult for an opponent to fold correctly.

After you’ve attempted to balance the bet-bet-bet line, spend a few minutes to evaluate your performance using your favorite tracking software. Isolate the hands that followed the line and observe for yourself. How often did that third bet involve a bluff? If your answer is less than ten percent, skilled opponents will eat you alive.

Here’s another imbalanced line: “3-bet preflop out of the blinds.”

What have you got? Many novices only have strong hands, such as AA, QQ, and AK. This is far too tight. Blind theft is a lucrative source of income in online games. You want to make it expensive for burglars to steal from you. The most effective approach to punish a blind stealer is to three-bet. At the very least, you should 3-bet with a considerably greater range, such as the majority of AA-99, AK-AJ, KQ, and some suitable connectors. The suited connectors help since they comprise the bulk of your bluff hands, allowing you to hit any flop.

How about this line:

“Raise preflop, bet an ace-high flop.”

At first sight, this line does not appear to be very imbalanced. But it’s remarkable how many weak players bet the flop 90 percent or more of the time when they have an ace or three of a kind and don’t check the other half. If their preflop raising range is highly skewed toward ace hands, such as AK-AT, KQ,-KJ, or AA-TT under the gun, on an ace-high flop with inferior cards, they have:

Preflop Range: AA-TT, AK-AT
KQ-KJ Line: Raise Preflop
Bet An Ace-High Flop Board: A♠ 9♥ 8♥

Flop Holding	Percent
Three of a kind	2.8
Top pair	44.9
Weaker pair	22.4
No pair	29.9

Assume this player has a common amateur tendency. He usually checks KK-TT when he hits second pair on an ace-high flop. As a result, he checks for an underpair or no pair half of the time. Because he also bets the flip approximately 90% of the time when he strikes top pair or better, his flop check range is as follows:

Flop Check Range / Adjusted Percent

Top pair or better 15.4
Underpair/No pair 84.6

Do you see the problem? When he checks the flop, an experienced opponent will bet to steal. The line is very uneven. For example, suppose the pot is 10bb and an opponent consistently bets 6bb when checked to.

If the checker folds all but the top pair or better, the bettor wins 84.6 percent of the time, with an immediate 7.5 billion in expectation.* If the checker calls with KK-TT, he folds 48.3 percent of the time, and the 6bb bet results in an immediate estimated profit of 1.7bb for the opponent. In either case, the opponent will profit handsomely.

This can go the other way if you inspect the top pair of aces too frequently. On an uncoordinated ace-high flop, it may be best to check when you hit top pair. This check demonstrates weakness. It works well against opponents who like to bluff or call light on subsequent streets when they detect such weakness.

Suspicious opponents are unlikely to believe you if you bet the turn and river after inspecting the flop. However, if you overdo it, such as checking the top pair of aces and sets 90% of the time, your c-bet line will become unbalanced:

Preflop Range: AA-TT, AK-AT,
KQ-KJ Line: Raise Preflop,
Bet An Ace-High Flop Board: A♠ 9♥ 8♥

0.846×16bb=13.5bb. Subtract the 6bb wagered to get the profit of 7.5bb.

The term “immediate” refers to the individual’s expectation of winning the pot straight now. Usually, his overall profit exceeds that. This is because, when he is called, the skillful bettor can occasionally increase his winnings by betting again on subsequent streets or showing down the best hand.

Flop Bet Range / Adjusted Percent

Top pair or better 15.4
Underpair/No pair 84.6

These are the same numbers as before, except this time they are for betting rather than checking. In this scenario, an astute opponent just raises everytime you bet on an ace-high flop.

There is no justification for unbalanced flop bets and checks. Early in the hand, it is simple to balance ranges. For example, by betting or checking 80 percent on the top pair rather than 90 percent, these lines become more balanced for $1-$2. All you have to do is ensure that the percentage of good cards in a line is within a few percentage points of the percentage of good hands you anticipate on a specific flop. This is not flawless, but it is difficult to exploit.

Hunting For Unbalanced Lines

How do you locate your imbalanced lines? In principle, it is straightforward:

Read your own hands

Put yourself in your opponent’s shoes and inquire, “What do I have?” If you don’t read your opponents’ hands on a regular basis, you will struggle. But stick to it. Reading your own hands is an extremely useful technique for overcoming thinking opponents. It will also allow you to read other people’s hands.

Using Brute Force/Counting Ways

We skipped the arithmetic when we discussed Joe’s “raise preflop, bet flop, bet turn” strategy. Let us get your hands wet. Here’s an overview of the problem:

Typically, when Joe raises preflop, the button floats the flop. Postflop, the button appears to know when to raise and fold.

How? That’s a difficult topic to answer because it depends on Joe’s opening range, betting patterns, and the flop and turn. It is so complicated that most successful high-stakes players approach the subject intuitively rather than mathematically. They gain insight into their opponents’ betting lines through experience and recollection. When they discover a weakness, they exploit it. They also examine their own play to prevent the same issue.

But what happens if you lack that intuition? Count the hands.

This is brute-force counting. The graphic shows every hand in Joe’s opening range. It specifies the preflop betting action, or range of actions, for every hand. Joe raises to 3bb on every hand he plays. Then, on a certain flop, it displays what Joe has and what he does with each hand.

From these columns, you may add up the ways Joe can have a top pair or better when he takes a specific line. Divide that by the total number of combinations for that line to get Joe’s percentage of top pairs or better.

This chart just conveys a portion of the tale. To better understand his weaknesses, Joe will need to repeat the practice for other flop types, such as an uncoordinated ace-high flop like A♣ T♥4♦, low boards like 6♥ 6♣ 4♦, and possibly a handful of other board types. He should search for 90%/10% lines and correct them immediately soon. Then he should consider whether he needs to adjust his 80%/20% turn lines for specific opponents.

Summary

Line balancing requires time. First, identify unbalanced lines, and then figure out how to correct them. Furthermore, if the flop and turn vary significantly, you may end up with a completely different set of betting and checking frequencies. It gets complicated shortly. However, the exercise continues to be beneficial. You’ll find and stop leaks.

When a betting line produces an easily exploitable frequency of good vs. terrible hands, change it up. We recommend that when you encounter a typical hand situation that is causing you problems against your harder opponents, use this exercise to determine whether the problem is an uneven line.