Stack-to-Pot Ratio (SPR), Part Two

In the last post we identified what stack-to-pot ratios were and how we could use them when that figure was low, but what if we have a higher SPR? How do we commit to hands with higher SPRs as opposed to lower ones? As we went over in the first part of this post, lower SPRs are easier to play due to the smaller stacks size in relation to the pot. There aren't a lot of tricky plays to be made with a low SPR. For example:

We are playing against a loose, mediocre player and we hold AQ. Effective stacks are $60 and there is already $25 in the pot with a flop of Q75. Our opponent cannot put us to a tough decision because our SPR is 2.4, so if our opponent moves all-in, we should have no problem calling here with what will be the best hand most of the time. However, what if the effective stacks were changed from $60 to $300? Then our SPR goes up to 12. If we bet and then get raised, the rest of the hand may be trickier for us to play because we have so much money left in our stacks in relation to the size of the pot. 

In this post we'll look at different size SPRs, how they can be beneficial, what problems they present, and how to create a target SPR. First let's look at the categories of SPRs:

Low SPR: 0-6
Medium SPR: 7-16
High SPR: 17+

So if your SPR represents how many pot-sized bets you are able to put in post-flop, how do we play hands with higher SPRs? Let's look at an example:

We're playing a $1/$2 6-max cash game. We have $200 and everyone has us covered. We are in middle position and we find ourselves with K♣K♠ so we make a standard raise of three times the big blind to $6. We get a caller on the button and the small and big blinds fold. The pot is $15 and we have an effective stack of $194. Our SPR is 12.9. The flop comes Q♥7♠5♥. We then continue and bet $12, but our opponent raises to $45. Even though we’re likely to have the best hand here, our opponent has put us to a tough decision. Do we just call? Should we move all-in? If we do move all-in here and get called, it will generally be by a better hand than ours. By tweaking one little part of this hand, we can play it more easily.

It’s the same situation, but instead of raising to $6, we raise to $12. We still get called by the player on the button so now there is $27 in the pot, and we have $188 behind. Now our SPR is only 6.9. By tailoring our preflop raise, we can make a plan around the hand that will make it easier for us to play. Say we bet $22 and our opponent raises to $75. The pot is now $102 and since we only have $166 left, it’s much easier to get the rest of our stack in here instead of facing tough turn and river decisions. By tailoring our preflop raises to meet our target SPR, we reduce the difficult decisions we may be forced to make on later betting streets.

What about hands with medium-sized and high SPRs? What types of hands should we be playing with here? Typically with medium-sized SPRs we want to be playing hands like sets, two pair, good drawing hands, and flushes and straights. With high SPRs we should be playing top-tier hands like very strong draws, full-houses, and big flushes or straights. The idea behind this is to get in as much money as possible when we stand the chance of having the best hand or making the best hand. Let’s say we’re playing the same $1/$2 game and our opponent in middle position raises to $6. We are on the button with $500 and our opponent has us covered. We look down and find 5♣5♠. We call and both blinds fold. The pot is $15 and we have $496 behind. Now our SPR is 33. This is incredibly high, but the flop comes out 5♥5♦Q♠! It’s going to be very hard for our opponent to put us on one 5, let alone two of them. If our opponent has a hand like AQ or KQ, they’re going to have a hard time folding in this spot. In this situation it’s good to have a high SPR because we want to get as much money in the pot as possible. We won’t be faced with hardly any difficult decisions with this hand.

In essence, stack-to-pot ratios give us a better understanding of our risk vs. reward and they can help us to plan commitment around a hand more efficiently. This can give you an edge over your opponents because many players don’t worry about a difficult decision until they’re faced with one. By knowing how to use SPRs to your advantage, you can manipulate the way the hand is played and you benefit.


As always, question and comments are welcome.

Stack-to-Pot Ratio (SPR), Part One: Introduction

Many Texas hold'em players know when they should push all of their chips in the middle, but few know the mathematical principles behind this decision. If you have a short stack and you look down at a hand like AK, you know that you should try to get all of your money in while your hand is most likely the best. What many players don’t know is how to plan commitment around hands which, while often overlooked, is a fundamental part of the game. This is where the idea of stack-to-pot ratios comes into play.

So, what is stack-to-pot ratio? In its simplest terms, stack-to-pot ratio is the size of the effective stack divided by the size of the pot on the flop. An effective stack is the smallest stack that is involved in a hand. If you are playing a pot heads-up and you have $200 in your stack, but your opponent only has $100, the effective stack is $100 because you cannot win or lose any more than that amount, so basically you’re only playing a stack of $100 as well. The whole idea behind the stack-to-pot ratio is to balance your risk versus your reward. We’ll look at a quick example to start and then we’ll go more in depth.

Say we’re playing a $1/$2 cash game and we raise with A♥A♦ in middle position. The button calls and both blinds fold. The pot is now $15 and both our opponent and we have effective stack sizes of $100. Our SPR looks like this:

6.67 = 100/15

So what does this mean? Essentially it means that you are more committed to your hand, but this is based on a number of variables such as the way your opponent plays, their range, the texture of the board, and what you consider to be your maximum SPR. If the flop comes out 8♠9♠T♠, then we may have some problems. If our opponent moves all-in here, it’s easier to find a fold because we only have one pair with no draw to the flush on a highly coordinated board. Although an SPR of under 7 is generally easier to play, we need to know why this is true.

Lower SPRs means less decisions after the flop. Let’s use the same example as above but change the flop. Let’s say it comes out Q♠3♥7♣ and our opponent moves all-in. We still have an SPR of 6.67 with an overpair and not a whole lot to worry about, so we should be willing to call, especially against a looser player. As previously stated, stack-to-pot ratio is a way to balance your risk versus your reward. On a flop like this, we should be willing to risk $100 to win $115 on a queen-high board.

In this entry we’ve looked at the introduction to small SPRs; in the next section we’ll look at how playing high SPRs will change the commitment around your hand and how you should play them.

As always, questions and comments are welcome.

The REM Process, Part Four: Maximize

We've gone over the first two steps in the REM Process (range, equity) and now we use this information to make the best possible decision about what to do with our hand. If we've assigned our opponent a range, then we can estimate our equity against their range of possible hands. Once we estimate our equity against that range, we use the final step in the REM Process to make the best possible decision that we can. This brings us to "maximize". By maximizing our decision-making process, we can do our best to get the most money in the pot when we are ahead, and the least when we are behind. 

The fundamental theorem of poker states: “Every time you play a hand differently from the way you would have played it if you could see all your opponents' cards, they gain; and every time you play your hand the same way you would have played it if you could see all their cards, they lose.”
By knowing what our opponents are holding at all times, we would obviously be able to make the best possible decisions with all of our hands. Unfortunately, since poker is not a game played face-up, using the REM process is the most efficient, and really only way to make the best decisions you can. 
If you are contemplating a bet or a raise, you should always ask yourself: “Do I want my opponent to call or fold?”

·         If you want your opponent to call then you are value-betting.

·         If you want your opponent to fold then you are bluffing.

·         If you’re not sure yet what you want your opponent to do, then you should not be betting.

Let’s look at a couple of examples:

We are playing a six-max $1/$2 cash game. It is folded around to us on the button and we find A♠K♦. We raise to $7 to and big blind calls. The pot is now $15. The flop brings A♣8♥5♣. This is a spot where we will most likely be ahead a good amount of the time, so we want to be our hand for value. We want to get our money in the pot for value with what is more than likely the best hand because we can get called by all sorts of weaker hands here such as a weaker ace and a flush draw. If we assign our opponent’s range to a flush draw, we want to bet it so that they are getting bad odds to call. If we only bet half of the pot here we are giving our opponent 3-to-1 odds, and they would be right to call to try and hit a third club. However, if we bet something like $11 or $12, we are only giving them around 2.2-to-1 odds on a call and they will be making a mistake by calling here. With a flush draw our opponent has about 36% equity in the pot, giving us 64%. While sometimes they will call and make a flush, it will be much easier for us to shut down our betting because the third club is a big scare card for our hand. It’s likely that we won’t lose any more money in this hand.

Now let’s look at a different example:

It’s the same situation: it’s a six-max cash game and it is folded around to us on the button and we find A♦Q♦. We raise to $7 and the big blind calls. The flop this time comes out T♦5♠8♦. Now we have no pair here, but we have two over cards and a draw to the best possible flush. The big blind checks. Although we would be bluffing here, we can still bet because of the substantial amount of equity we have in the pot. Any ace, any queen, and any of the nine remaining diamonds will more than likely give us the best hand here, so we have an estimated equity of around 52%. If our opponent has a hand like JT, then we are essentially a coin flip to win the hand, and by applying pressure we may be able to make him fold a ten. However, what if he has a hand like AT or QT? That takes away our outs to an ace or queen because our opponent would make two pair. In this case we have a perceived equity of 47%. Although we have lost some of our equity, we can still bet here to try and get our opponent to fold or make the better hand.
As we established, the idea of maximizing is making the best possible decision with the information you have at hand. This will allow you to, with the other two parts of the REM Process, to deduce useful information and receive better insight as to whether you should be betting, checking, or folding.

I hope this series helped shed some light on the idea of the REM Process.

As always, questions and comments are welcome.

The REM Process, Part Three: Equity

In the last post, we talked about our opponent’s range, or possible hands he could be holding. Now that we’ve successfully put our opponent on a range of hands, it’s time to figure out our equity in the pot.

Equity, in its simplest terms, is our stake in the pot. It’s the percentage of times our hand will win against our opponents. By figuring our equity in the pot, we can then make decisions based around our equity, and it will be easier to know if continuing the hand is profitable in the long-term. As a quick reminder, we must remember that it is not necessary to put our opponent on his two exact cards, but merely a range of what he or she could be playing. Let’s look at an example:

Let’s say we’re playing a six-handed $1/$2 cash game and we are in late position with K♥Q♥. It is folded around to us and we raise it to $7. The small blind folds and the big blind calls. The pot is $15. Now the flop comes A♥Q♣5♦. We’ve caught a piece of this flop, but there is an overcard to our Q on the board. The big blind checks and we bet $11, which the big blind then calls. The pot is now $37. Here’s where we should stop and take a second to analyze the hand with the information we have.

The big blind called out of position, meaning he knows he’ll be first to act on every betting round. This should lead us to believe that he may have a stronger hand than ours. However, we can take hands like AA, AK, and AQ out of his range as he more than likely would have re-raised us before the flop. With our bet and his call we can safely put hands like AJ, AT, A9 suited, or A2-A5 suited in his range. It is also possible that he could have a hand like QJ, QT, or even KQ in his hand. There is also a slim chance that he could be holding 55 and is slow-playing a set of 5’s. Against any hand like AJ, AT, A9, A4, A3, or A2, our equity is essentially the same. We need to catch another Q or a K to win the pot. Going back to the Rule of Four and Two we can estimate our equity by multiplying our number of outs (3 Ks and 2 Qs). This gives us an estimated equity of 20%, so only one in five times will we win this pot outright. However, what if our opponent thinks that we don’t have any pair and is defending with a hand like QJ? That only gives him three outs (3 Js) to take the pot from us, putting his equity at around 12% and giving us an 88% chance of winning the pot. Lastly, what if our opponent is holding A5? This would be one of the worst hands our opponent could have against us because even if we hit a K and make two-pair, our opponent is still beating us. Our equity in this situation is roughly 13%.

We will receive more information on the hand during later betting rounds, and that’s when our next post will come in handy. In this post I just wanted to cover how to calculate equity based on our perceived range of our opponent’s hand.

Next week we will cover the final part of the REM Process which is the “M” which stands for “maximize”.

As always, questions and comments are welcome.