| Is Balancing Overrated? |
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When you recognize spots in which you must keep your range balanced to avoid being exploited, you are training yourself to exploit opponents who don't balance in the same spots. And because you have done your homework on why you should balance your range in this spot, you know what type of mistake your opponent is making and how you can take advantage of it. For example. In NLHE, you open 3x on the button with QT. A tight player defends from the SB. The flop comes 227r. You c-bet and gets check-raised. What is his range here? Well, a simpler question to answer in this spot is what is your range for check-raising in this spot? As a good player, you recognize that check-raising in this spot is extremely difficult to balance since you rarely have any 2x in your range. So to protect the rest of your range on the flop, you elect to check-call your entire range. This includes 2x, 77, AK-AJ, pocket pairs. By doing so, your flop range is balanced in that you can have a lot of marginal, good, and great hands in your range. This makes it difficult for your opponent to read your hand and play against you, which is the goal of balancing. So when someone check-raises you on this flop, you know right away his flop check-raising range is unbalanced. What you need to do next is figure out if he's check-raising light in this spot or he always has the nuts (2x and 77). Considering that he has such a narrow nuts range, there is a great chance he's check-raising light. You can exploit it by calling or 3-betting small. If you get shown the nuts, you can be sure in future hands, when he's check-calling this flop, he rarely has a strong hand and you are free to do whatever you want. I prefer a river shove. This is one of the many situations that you can take advantage of if you understand balancing. When I said understanding balancing, I don't mean you understand that you need to have a few nuts, good, and air in your range. It's much more than that. You have to recognize the situations in which imbalance occur so you can take advantage of it. One important detail I should point out (and lots of credit to kingsofcards for this) is it's OK to be unbalanced in certain spots where your opponents isn't exploiting your unbalanced range. And this goes back to my original statement. If you are playing against a moron who isn't exploiting your exploitative play, by all means, go for it. Play as exploitable as you want. But at the same time, try to recognize spots where you feel your range is exploitable. You can use this same spots to take advantage of your opponents if their range are unbalanced. That's why balancing is important. Comments (3)
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