Learning about combos?

Christopher S

I'm just touching the concept of combos and I'm wondering if being equally weighted of two hand types and heavily more weighted to the third hand type is a bad thing. Is your range more polarized with more weight to one side or does your range become polarized when all hand types include the same amount of combos. I seem to be heavily weighted towards one hand type and the other two are almost exactly equal does that make me an exploitable player?

Trent

You're less exploitable when villain has no preference to the action you are about to take due to your balance between bluff and value hands. If the bulk of your three bet combos are centered around big hands, it's easy to fold to your 3 bet. The combos you are repping should balance somewhat between bluff and value, but that's not always easy to discern. Matt Janda has an excellent book (Applications Of No-Limit Hold Em) that discusses this subject. Not everyone agrees as to just how depolarized your various ranges should be, and the quality of the games in which you play should be a big deciding factor in setting up your ranges. Ed Miller has a good book that covers this ( Poker's 1%). Read it several times.

Eazzy

Different coaches (books) use slightly different terms. But in general

I you think of 3 types of hands.....Strong, Middling, and weak...
.
Then a polarized range (sometimes called non linear) consist of strong and week
3 beting QQ+ and AK, as well as A2s-A5s and 45s-89s....type thing...here you have 34 strong combos and 32 week combos

Where as a linear range (or depolarized)....would be the strong and medium hands.

That is QQ+ AK, but now you add in middle hands like 88-JJ and AQ
So now you would have 34 strong combos and 32 middling combos


I actually don't worry about being exploitable...I worry about exploiting them and not exploiting myself. Which of the above two ranges would be best for 3 bets (or if another might be better) would depend on how I expected my opponent to respond.

If I though he would fold or 4 bet me then the polarized range is better....If I though he would defend by calling more then the linear range becomes better.

Christopher S

@trent , Thanks for the idea about the book man! I haven't heard of this book before anywhere so I'm more willing to check out information that some opponents may not already know. I'm building my bankroll right now actually. I started playing poker about 8 months ago and didn't do to well without a bankroll. Looking forward to 4 months down the line really restudying good concepts and definitely focusing on equity where I left off with since I'll have a bankroll!