ABC Reading Lesson

Received an email overnight from a reader who asked a question about hand ranges. He wrote me that his Hold'em Manager 2 (HM2) HUD program had automatically marked a villain as "ABC," and he was wondering what specifically this meant in terms of ranges. This was a general enough question that it made sense to expand it a bit and answer it via a full blog post instead of just an email reply.

While I can't speak directly to what HM2 defines as ABC, I can give some general thoughts about what "ABC Poker" means and how to play against it. The classic definition of an ABC player is one who plays solid, patient, straightforward poker.

Uh, okay. What does this mean?

In simple terms, ABC players employ a style that emphasizes position and caution. Tight, but aggressive, this player mostly bets for value, and only bluffs occasionally (and then only when the situation is ideal). They fully embrace Sklansky's Gap Concept, and in fact usually follow a starting hand chart for pre-flop selection. There's nothing fancy or flashy about ABC poker, and the chief advantage is it limits the times where you find yourself in a dodgy situation chasing a hand or caught making crazy bluffs.

ABC poker is indeed a winning formula, but it's not ideal nor optimal by any stretch of the imagination. An ABC poker player can make a respectable earn rate at the lower stakes, but will be out of his or her depth at a mid-stakes or above game, where 3- and 4-bet bluffing is rampant, villains are paying close attention and don't make the common low-stakes mistakes that can be so easily exploited. ABC poker players are, by definition, consistent and straightforward, which is another way to say exploitable. As noted poker authority Ed Miller wrote in his excellent Playing the Player: "Stick an ABC player in a [high stakes] online 6-max game with five sharp opponents, and it will be a bloodbath."

That said, ABC poker is in fact a great style for beginning players to start with and build upon, as it emphasizes pre-flop play, position, selective aggression, and value betting. Once a student masters these fundamentals, they can start adding in post-flop "play the player" REDi poker to their arsenal, adding in more bluffs, opening up starting hand ranges, 3- and 4-betting more, and generally playing their opponents' hand ranges more than their own two cards.

Okay, but this doesn't answer the email's original question about hand ranges. Here's what I define as pretty typical nitty ABC opening* hand ranges for full-ring early, middle, and late position:

Sometimes you'll see more pocket pairs added in from the earlier seats, even as loose as 55+ in early seats, and/or all pairs by MP, but for the most part ABC players follow a tight chart like this pretty much to the letter.

The key thing about ABC players is that their opening ranges are predictable. For example, if they're raising from EP, then they almost certainly have a premium hand (99+, AQ+). This means that you should be folding RIO hands like KQ, KJ, and AT against them, but also trying to see flops (when effective stacks are deep enough, of course) with big IO hands like small pairs and suited connectors. Similarly, if they're open raising from the button, then their range is quite wide and may not be able to stand a 3bet re-steal from you with pretty much any two cards.

All-in for now…
-Bug
*Opening Range: the range of hands that you should open for a raise if the action folds to you preflop. When facing an upstream raise, this range will get noticeably tighter from most ABC players who understand the Gap Concept.

Yes, I'm Still Alive...

...Barely. Had a pretty rough past couple of weeks on the travel and health front. Spent a cold/rainy week in Spain, and then went from there directly to Hawaii for another cold and windy week of fun at altitude on the mountain. Somewhere along the way I picked up a bad chest cold, got a sunburn, stopped sleeping, started getting some migraines... yada yada. I'm getting too old for this crap, but the reality of my job is it's going to continue for the next 3-4 years like this. Worst part is a) the overnight flights; and b) the screwed up diet and exercise routines that come with biz travel. After all these years of travel, I still haven't managed to find a way to not come back home feeling crummy.

Quack quack quack.

On the good news front, I did make significant progress (due to sleepless airplane seat time) to get better organized on the ABC Poker Training front. It might sound to an outsider like I'm over-thinking the layout and organization side of things when it comes to the training material I'm putting together, but the truth is I am a person that needs structure for this type of thing. I've written a number of non-fiction books in the past, and I've learned that spending time up front with outlines and structure is a key to success. As Abraham Lincoln reportedly said, "If I had an hour to cut down a tree, I'd spend 45 minutes sharpening my ax."

The direction I've decided on with this ABC project is the writing of an actual (e)book. The focus/theme for the tome is the process to take an absolute beginner, step-by-step, up the learning ladder, progressing from Level-0 poker (i.e., How do you play this silly game?), through Level-1 (What are my cards and how do I play them in a vacuum?), Level-2 (What cards do my opponents have and how do I use that information to maximize EV?), and Level-3 (What cards do they think I have, and how do I use that against them?). I even have what I consider pretty helpful material on so-called Level-4 and above poker that could move someone into the professional player arena. Seriously.

If/when I get the book done, the next step would be (I think) to produce a series of coaching videos on each chapter of the book.  All of this would end up on a website, eventually.

And that's the current plan. But it's on a small temporary hold whilst I go cough a lung out and try to recover. Quack quack hack hack quack...

All-in for now...
-Bug

4 starting cards are twice as much fun as 2 cards...

Been playing a fair bit of PLO cash sessions lately. Mostly $25 buy-ins, but I'm also dabbling (way) above my bankroll (for my skills) at $50 and $100. Had a pretty good session today, banking a solid $200 for about two hours of seat time. The variance is tough at times, but overall I'm feeling relatively good about my poker play...

....except it really isn't poker that I'm playing. The word "poker" would imply reading players, bluffing, and all the other REDi and meta-game stuff I'm so comfortable at in NLHE. Am I doing any of these things in PLO? Uh, no. Basically, I'm still just a beginning player, but I'm finding a lot of success by just letting other (bad) players make bigger mistakes than I am.

Yep, that's right. I'm playing just a "nut peddling" approach to the game. Playing very tight in the first few seats, waiting for big cards, and loosening up and trying to see flops in later position with more "bust'em" type hands. Occasionally, I limp-reraise big hands from up front, and very rarely I actually bluff at scary boards when heads up in position. But for the most part I'm just playing an entirely exploitable level-1 approach to the game. I'm waiting for cards and position, playing mostly fit or fold, chasing my monster draws, and varying my bet sizes based on hand strength. I'm making good money doing this, but only because the other players are actually far worse than I am...

... well, most of them. Occasionally I run into players who have tripled or quadrupled their starting stacks, and they seem to know what they're doing... but so many of the other players are, well, playing terribly. Bad starting hands, playing OOP, cold-calling raises with marginal hands, chasing with hands that are clearly beat, getting married to aces on wet boards, etc. I'm no PLO expert, but even I can see really fundamental and basic mistakes being made by more than half the fields I face.

It's fun and lucrative, even if it isn't real poker.

All-in for now...
-Bug