Outplay Your Opponents Using Poker Stove

By DoanDiggy

I've seen some posts lately which try to use PokerStove to defend certain plays, and posters are making several mistakes that I would like to correct. Here are my thoughts.

Part 1: Efficiently inputting hand ranges by using PokerStove's shortcuts

Quick summary

ALT - this hand and higher (e.g. A8s+ by ALT-clicking A8s)

CTRL - column and row that includes this hand (e.g. KK and all Kx when CTRL-clicking KK)

SHIFT - similar to CTRL+click in Windows. Treats multiple clicks as single selection

Let's say that an UTG raiser is running 30/25. From past hands, we know that Villain raises suited aces, suited broadways, suited connectors 87s and higher, suited gappers T8s and higher, pocket pairs, ATo+, KQo from UTG. Let's put this range into PokerStove quickly and efficiently:

First click "Any Pair:"

Now hold ALT and click "ATo" and "A2s" to select ATo+ and A2s+ respectively:

Continue by holding ALT and clicking KTs, QTs, J9s, T8s, then click 98s, 87s, and KQo:

In just 10 clicks we have put in Villain's entire range!

From the button we know that he's raising over 50% of hands. He is strangely superstitious and anytime the 2 is in his hand, he raises that as well even if it's not in his range.

Click "Any Pair" and "Any Broadway:"

Hold CTRL and click AA to select all Ax hands:

As before, hold ALT and click K8o, Q8o, J8o, T8o, K2s, Q2s, J2s, T6s, 95s, 84s, 74s, 63s, 52s, 42s. Then click 98o, 87o, 32s:

Now click K2o. Hold SHIFT and click all of the unselected hands that include a 2. In the lower right corner you'll see a bunch of suits. Since the 2 is the lower of the 2 numbers in all of these hands, click every square except the rightmost column to deselect every hand that does not include the 2 :

Let's see how our JTo in the SB is faring against his button range. Click OK and then Evaluate and wait a bit:

Ugh. JTo is slightly behind a range that includes a bunch of garbage.

Part 2: VPIP/PFR is not the same as PokerStove's top N% of hands.

From the PokerStove FAQ:

The slider interface for setting the top N% of hands orders the hands according to their preflop all-in equity versus three random hands. This rather arbitrary selection was picked because it balances the value of high cards with the value of drawing cards. It is

not an absolute ordering, and depending on the specific situation you may want to edit that range of hands when doing equity calculations.

I often see people taking a number from their HUD, sliding PokerStove's hand percentage indicator over, and using that to determine Villain's range. Hopefully this post illustrates the error in such an approach. Let's say an aggressive Villain has an UTG PFR of 17%. Using PokerStove's slider:

Let's revisit our aggressive UTG raiser from the previous page:

In both examples Villain is raising the exact same 17.3% of hands from UTG, but we see two very different ranges. So what is the significance?

Let's say that Villain raises UTG and we flat with T 9 . The flop comes K T 4 and he leads out (we expect him to do this with his entire range). How does our hand fare against his range?

Against PokerStove's default 17.3% of hands we have 43% equity:

With position and pot odds we can call, but we're not loving it. If Villain barrels a lot then calling actually becomes a bad play. Perhaps flatting his UTG raise with T9s was a bad idea in the first place.

Against Villain's true 17.3% range our equity is a much-improved 53%:

Now we are actually happy to call and our preflop flat makes a lot more sense.

This is just a single simple example. Many more complex, more interesting hands will come up where it is very important to get as close as possible to Villain's actual range of hands. Sometimes it may even be necessary to determine if a specific hand is even in a Villain's range, for example if he is repping a very specific hand on the river. The first step in accurately determining a hand range is to get it right preflop, and if you're relying on PokerStove's top N% of hands, you're already making a small mistake.

Part 3: Realistically narrow your opponent's range from preflop to the current decision.

I showed above that it's important to get your opponent's range correct preflop. Even more important is appropriately narrowing that range as you get more information in the hand. Our opponent's actions, bet sizes, tendencies, and timing tells are all important information to consider when evaluating their possible holdings.

This may at first seem like a daunting task. In reality, all we have to do is use the information at hand and process it step-by-step to arrive at a useful, reasonable conclusion.

Let's use an example. We're playing 6-max, a 50/5 limps the HJ, we isolate J 9 from the CO, everyone else folds and HJ calls. We have seen HJ raise AA and AQo, and we have never seen him limp/fold. In PokerStove, the top 5% of hands is 99+,AJs+,AKo. This seems like a reasonable place to start, but let's adjust HJ's raising range slightly to be TT+,AQs+,AQo.

Now let's look at top 50% of hands. In PokerStove:

We need to adjust this slightly. Fish love suited hands, especially suited connectors, so it is much more likely that he's limping in with 54s and 53s than Q7o. We also need to remove the hands that he is raising with:

So now we have a (pretty wide) range for Villain.

The flop comes J 8 5 and Villain (who has a 0 AF on the flop so far) checks to us. From past hands, we know that he will call a 3/5 pot cbet with any pair, any gutshot, A high, 2 overs, or 1 over with a backdoor flush draw (don't tell me this isn't realistic, I see it all the time!). Before we proceed, let's see how we're faring before our bet:

Clearly our top pair is a monster against his range. We bet, and as expected, he calls. This is the point in the hand where we narrow his range again. It turns out that on this board, we're only removing a few hands, namely KTo, K9o, KTdd-K9dd, K6dd, K4dd-K2dd, Q7dd-Q6dd, Q4dd-Q2dd. This is where we stand going to the turn (Villain has 42% of all hands):

Now the turn comes Q and Villain again checks. This board may look super-scary... all those Q hands got there, T9 got there. But let's reason this over. Assume that Villain now calls any Ax or Kx pair, any other pair that beats 8s, any pair or A-high + gutshot, and any flush draw or 8 out straight draw. Villain will check/minraise any hand J8 or better.

First let's evaluate the scenario where we bet and get checkraised. We have a gutshot. Can we continue?

Clearly we can't. This point is very important. Convince yourself all you want, Villain's range does not include combo draws. We already know that Villain check/calls his draws and check/minraises with his nuttish hands. We do not have implied odds because our 9 might not be good, our J might not be good. We might be drawing to 1 of only 3 Ts only to split with T9. We could even hit the T and be up against J 8 . Villain's range is super-strong, we have about 5 outs to his range, and we aren't even sure which of those are clean. Once you use the information at hand to appropriately narrow an opponent's range, justifying a bad play by then widening that range is a huge mistake that costs otherwise good players a lot of money!

So with that said, perhaps we were in error to bet this turn. Perhaps we should have checked it back to take our 3 outs to the 3rd nuts? Absolutely not. Villain is check/raising 6% of all hands or less than 14% of his range on the turn, and when he does we can easily fold. But what about the Q or better Js? Let's see what Villain calls the turn with:

Villain is calling with 23.4% of hands, meaning that he's folding 30% of the time. Over 55% of the time he's calling, and we have 59% equity when he does. Clearly a bet here is good.

The river is an exercise that I'll leave to you. Make a reasonable assumption about what hands Villain will call with on different rivers (K8 or better on a blank is a decent start). Paste the river range of:

99,AJs-A8s,Ah7h,Ah6h,A5s,Ah4h,Ah3h,Ah2h,KTs+,Kh9h,K8s,Kh7h,Kh6h,K5s,Kh4h,Kh3h,Kh2h,QTs-Q9s,Qc7c,Qh7h,Qs7s,Qc6c,Qh6h,Qs6s,Qc4c,Qh4h,Qs4s,Qc3c,Qh3h,Qs3s,Qc2c,Qh2h,Qs2s,J9s+,J7s-J2s,T8s,Th7h,96s+,8h7h,8h6h,85s,8h4h,76s,7h4h,6h4h,AJo-A8o,A5o,KJo+,K8o,QTo-Q9o,J9o+,T8o,98o

into PokerStove, eliminate the hands he folds, then evaluate that against J9 to see if you have better than 50% equity. If not, a check behind is best, and if so, a properly-sized value bet is the most +EV play. Experiment with different rivers and different calling ranges. Should we bet a 9 ? J ? A (he probably won't call with K8 or 99)? 2 ? You may be surprised by what you learn.

After the hand, check out what hand is showed down and see if you should change your perception of his play.

That is just one illustration of how we can take a range from preflop to the river and use it to determine the most profitable action throughout the hand. Of course, countless such examples exist. The most important point to take home, and I'll repeat it again, is:

Once you appropriately narrow a Villain's range based on the action and his tendencies, do not later widen it to justify a bad play!

Part 4: Determine fold equity using PokerStove.

On the previous page I talked about how often a Villain is folding, but I didn't really explain how I arrived at that conclusion. Now I will explain how you can use PokerStove to determine your fold equity, using two separate examples.

The first example is an SNG, blind vs blind and we have 8 BB after posting the SB. There are no antes. We want to calculate if shoving 85s is +EV against the BB, and we have a pretty good idea of his calling range:

We can see that he's calling with 17% of hands. Since his range is 100% of hands, he is folding 83/100 = 83% of the time. When he calls we have about 34.8% equity.

Shove/fold = .83 * 1.5 = 1.245

Shove/call/win = .17 * 9 * .348 = 0.532

Shove/call/lose = .17 * -8 * .652 = -0.887

Result: Shoving 85s in this spot on average results in a 0.89 BB gain.

(If you want more information on equity calculations, see CodeRed036 and CodeRed038)

In the second example, we are facing a short stacker (40 BB) who is raising UTG at 6max with 55+/ATs+/KQs/AQo+. We have decided to flat with 8 : 8 and the flop comes 9

7 6 . He bets 8BB into a 9BB pot (28 BB back) and we believe it is with his entire range. Is it profitable for us to shove 36BB in order to win the 17BB pot?

Let's assume he calls with 66+ and flush draws. First we give him his initial range, which turns out to be 7.8% of hands. His calling range (66+, AcKc, AcQc, AcJc, AcTc, KcQc) is 4.4% of hands.

FOLD EQUITY CALCULATION

Of all his hands (7.8%), he is calling with 4.4% of hands, meaning that he is folding 7.8 - 4.4 = 3.4% of all hands. Since he has 7.8% of hands in his range, he is folding about 3.4/7.8 = 43.5% of the time.

Against his calling range, we have 35.6% equity:

Shove/fold: .435 * 17 = 5.95

Shove/call/win: .565 * 45 * .356 = 9.05

Shove/call/lose: .565 * -36 * .644 = -13.10

Result: Shoving 88 in this spot has an expected value of +1.9 BB

In review, to determine fold equity, we first narrow Villain's range given the action so far and see what percentage we get. We then determine Villain's calling range, and subtracting that number from the range gives us the percentage of total hands that are folding. Dividing the percentage of hands that fold by the percentage of hands in Villain's range gives us fold equity.

Part 5: Discount combinations for some hands.

Here's the situation: we have a tricky fish who limps into the SB. He raises our BB about 10% of the time and limps in about 50% of the time. We are pretty sure that he is always raising TT and some big unpaired hands. We think that he almost always limps AA. He probably limps KK about 2/3 of the time, QQ about half the time, and JJ about 1/3 of the time (depending on his mood). How do we create a realistic range for him in PokerStove?

First we'll take care of the big pairs. Select AA and in the lower right, deselect 5 of the boxes so that only 1/6 of all AA is in his raising range:

Now select KK and deselect 4 of the boxes so that 1/3 of all KK is in his raising range. Try to mix up which suits are selected so that the numbers aren't slanted to certain suits (this will be more relevant in hands that see a flop):

Do the same with QQ (deselecting 3) and JJ (deselecting 2). After doing this, we see that big pairs account for 0.8% of his SB raising range. We can continue adding hands until we reach 10% by adding TT-88,A9s+,KTs+,QTs+,JTs,ATo+,KQo. Let's say Villain is crazy and will always shove when we reraise. What range should we reraise?

Clearly TT is +EV. 99 has 51.1% equity. 88 only has 47.5, so a flat is better. AJs is 51.1%, with ATs being only 45.6%. AJo is only 48.4% but AQo is 55.6%. KQs is only 44.7%. Thus, against this Villain, we can reraise and then call all-in with 99+,AJs+,AQo+.

If we had not properly discounted the big pairs in Villain's range, we would have his range as something like 88+,A9s+,KJs+,QJs,ATo+,KQo. Against this range, 99 is only 47.5%. AJs is not good enough either. Thus our raise/call range tightens to TT+,AQs,AQo, over 10% tighter.

To review, discount big pairs in a Villain's range by removing an appropriate number of hands from the suits selector area.

Part 6: Note that PokerStove automatically removes impossible hands from Villain's range.

I have seen several examples of posters including hand suits when giving a range, and I would like to show that this is almost always unnecessary.

We raise the CO with A J and get flatted by the BB who is 40/10 with a 3% 3bet. Flop comes Q J 6 , we bet, and Villain check/raises us.

We want to put his range in PokerStove, so we (this is not a complete range and is merely for representative purposes):

Don't waste your time figuring out all of the possible hands yourself because PokerStove will automatically do it for you. Compare the above to:

Note in particular the "pots won" column in each picture. They are exactly the same! When PokerStove sees "66, AQs, AQo", it expands it to all possible combinations, then it inspects our hand and the board and removes the impossible combinations. So don't waste your time doing it manually. And if you find yourself saying that someone else's result is wrong because they erroneously had AdQd in Villain's range, you are actually wrong because PokerStove will remove it automatically and it will not affect the result whatsoever.

Part 7: So when do we need to manually perform hand removal?

I can think of two situations where manual hand removal is necessary. The first is when calculating fold equity. Let's revisit this example from page 4.

We are facing a short stacker (40 BB) who is raising UTG at 6max with 55+/ATs+/KQs/AQo+. We have decided to flat with 8 8 and the flop comes 9 7 6 . He bets 8BB into a 9BB pot (28 BB back). Is it profitable for us to shove 36BB in order to win the 17BB pot?

We determined that Villain has 7.8% of hands in his range by putting his range into PokerStove. This range, however, includes hands like 7 7 , which is impossible given the board. In order to determine our true fold equity, we'll have to be a little more careful. So let's remove any hands that include 9 8 8 7 or 6 .

We now see that Villain's range is only 6.8% of hands. Because of our hand and the board, we have actually removed 12.8% of his hands. His calling range is now 3.4% of hands, meaning that our fold equity is actually 50%, a fair bit higher than the 43.5% we came up with the first time around. Note that the equity calculation is still the same since PokerStove performs the removal automatically when calculating equity:

Thus our equity when called remains the same, but our fold equity improves. This means that our shove in this spot is actually:

Shove/fold: .5 * 17 = 8.5

Shove/call/win: .5 * 45 * .356 = 8.01

Shove/call/lose: .5 * -36 * .644 = -11.59

By removing the impossible combos, we calculated our true fold equity. It turns what looked to be a +1.9 BB shove into a +4.9 BB shove!

Another time when we need to perform combination removal is when we are making range vs. range calculations. Take a look at the above example, and let's say that we want to calculate our entire range's equity against Villain's equity. Let's say that the shortstacker is instead 125 BBs deep, so that our button flatting range preflop includes JJ-22, 76s+, T8s+, suited broadways, and A5s+. In this particular instance, we have 8 8 , but we're curious how our entire stacking off range fares against Villain's stacking off range.

Again, Villain's range is 66+,AcKc,AcQc,AcJc,AcTc,KcQc. Let's say that our stacking off range is top pair or better, pair + open enders, and flush draws. But we know that the 8 and 8 are not in Villain's range because we have that hand. So the final calculation is (we are Hand 0):

We have to remove the cards manually because we don't want to consider them Dead (we want them in our range), but there is no other way for PokerStove to know that the hand is not in Villain's range. It still is not necessary to remove Board cards from Villain's range because that happens automatically.

Knowing our range's equity against our opponent's range can be important when trying to make a balanced play. Removing our blockers doesn't make a big difference in this case, but having a hand like QQ on a KJT flop cuts Villain's chances of having the nuts in half.

In practice, these situations come up somewhat rarely. Manually removing your cards and the board cards from an opponent's range is almost always unnecessary.