Strategy
11 posts.
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What a 4-Bet Is in Texas Hold'em: The One Number With No Target Band, Because It Measures a Range and Not a Frequency
A 4-bet is a raise made when you are facing exactly two raises. Most players do not 4-bet too rarely — they 4-bet with AA, KK, QQ and AK every single time, and that range looks perfectly normal in the numbers, because it is only 4 combinations away from a healthy one. This post covers what the 38 combinations are made of, why the A5s has to be in there, how an opponent exploits a range made purely of value, and why RushCraft deliberately gives this statistic no target band.
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What Fold to 3-Bet Is in Texas Hold'em: The 65% Ceiling Measures Your Opening Range, Not Your Nerve
Fold to 3-bet is how often you fold after opening and facing a re-raise, with a target of 65% or below and anything past 70% flagged as a serious leak. The reason it runs high is rarely timidity — play RushCraft's default practice ranges and it lands around 85%, and the problem happened back at the open. This post covers how the denominator works, where the 69% arithmetic behind the line comes from, how wide the continuing range has to be, what call 3-bet tells you, and why it is the slowest-converging number in the series.
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The Complete Guide to Preflop Play in Texas Hold'em: Position, Ranges, Six Spots and Seven Numbers
Preflop is the one street every hand passes through, and the only one where the spots repeat often enough to be systematised. This post takes the whole thing apart: how position prices a hand, what range charts are and are not for, which button each of the six preflop spots calls for, the three sizings you need, and the seven statistics that tell you afterwards whether you got it right. The entry point for every preflop post on the site.
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What a Cold Call Is in Texas Hold'em: The One Number With a Ceiling and No Floor, 5% or Below
A cold call is when you call a raise having put no money in yourself this round, and the target is 5% or below. It is the only statistic on the site with no lower bound — calling has never been an action worth a frequency. This post covers what it costs you (a capped range, the players it invites in behind you, a price 50% worse than the big blind's), the five conditions that decide whether this particular hand is a call, and why 50 opportunities are only enough to catch the outrageous.
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How to Play Pocket Aces After the Flop: Low Boards, Wet Boards, and When to Keep the Pot Small
Preflop, aces are the best hand there is. Once the flop lands, that stops being automatic. Three textures: how to give an opponent a reason to pay you on a dry low board, how to charge draws on wet and monotone boards, and which flops call for deliberately keeping the pot small enough to afford.
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How to Play Pocket Aces: Why You Should Not Just Shove
The first instinct with pocket aces is to move all in, and that is exactly how the most profitable hand in poker turns into one of the least profitable. Three preflop questions: why shoving costs you money, how to play aces at a table where nobody 3-bets and everybody calls, and whether to 3-bet or trap when someone opens in front of you.
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What a 3-Bet Is in Texas Hold'em: The 8-12% Target Band Averages Six Different Spots
3-bet is how often you re-raise when facing exactly one raise, with a target band of 8-12%. But that single number averages away six completely different spots — against an UTG open the value hands worth re-raising are only the top 1.7%; against a button open they are 5.3%. This post covers how the denominator works, what too low and too high each cost you, why 70% is the line on your opponent's fold-to-3-bet, and how large a sample it takes before the number counts.
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What ATS Is in Texas Hold'em: Reading Your Steal Frequency, Three Positions and Three Targets
ATS is how often you raise first in from the CO, the button or the small blind when nobody has entered the pot. At six-max the blinds take about 25bb out of you every 100 hands, and stealing is the main channel for winning it back. This post covers how the denominator works, the target band for each of the three seats, what too low and too high each mean, how to respond to an opponent's ATS, and how large a sample it takes before the number counts.
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What VPIP Is in Texas Hold'em: It Only Becomes a Player Read Next to PFR
VPIP is how often you voluntarily put money in before the flop, and it measures how wide your range is; PFR measures how aggressive it is. What is actually useful is the gap between them. With reference values for every seat at a six-max table, three opponent profiles and what to do about each, and how many hands it takes before the number means anything at all.
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How to Work Out Pot Odds in Texas Hold'em: Skip the Equity, Just Ask How Often You Have to Win
You are on a flush draw and your opponent bets half the pot — call or fold? Pot ÷ bet + 2 gives you how often you need to win, and comparing that with how often your draw hits settles it. Includes a threshold table for the common bet sizes and hit frequencies for six common draws.
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The Complete Guide to Position in Texas Hold'em: Early, Middle, Late, and What IP/OOP Means
Position is two things at once — absolute position is where you are sitting (UTG/CO/BTN/blinds), relative position is IP or OOP. This post covers both: the order of action for every seat, why late position gets to play more hands, and how position decides which starting hands are worth playing at all.