Preflop Synthesis

Five preflop leaks, each with its number

Every leak below is one this camp has already measured. If you remember nothing else, remember which number kills which habit.

• Overvaluing aces. Best and worst aces are 9.7 points apart against the same opponent (C5).
• Opening too many hands with a dangler. One dead card costs about 2.8 points before the flop and more after it (C4).
• Three-betting as a bluff. 51.2% of an opening range keeps 30%+ against the best hand in the deck — you are not making anybody fold (C9).
• Calling too wide multiway. Bare aces are 29.3% against three opponents (C11).
• "The price is right, so I defend." 2♣2♦3♥3♠ clears the price at 37.1% and folds everywhere; the table defends 36.1% total (C8).

The first, fourth and fifth are the same mistake wearing different clothes: treating a preflop number as if it were money in your stack. It is not. It is money you still have to go and collect, out of position, against people who also have cards.

Run these five checks before you act and you will not make a large preflop mistake.

While you are still building the habit — which is exactly the stage this camp is for.

All five are preflop leaks, and playing preflop correctly only means you have stopped giving money away. The winning is somewhere else: nine hands in ten sit inside a 21.4-point band before the flop (C3), so almost none of your edge lives there. Treating a preflop checklist as the whole game is the sixth leak, and this camp cannot fix it — the postflop camp can.

Fifty big blinds changes the answers

Same line, two depths. The cutoff opens to 7, you three-bet the pot to 22 from the big blind, and he calls. The pot is 45 either way. What differs is what is left:

• At 100 big blinds: 178 behind — stack-to-pot ratio 4.
• At 50 big blinds (100 chips): 78 behind — ratio 1.7.

One three-bet more than halves the ratio. Push it further and it collapses: at 50 big blinds a four-bet to 75 leaves 25 behind, a ratio of 0.2 — the money is in before the flop is dealt.

So the two hand classes move in opposite directions. Aces gain: a low ratio is the environment they were asking for all along (C5, C10), and shallow they get it without having to play three good streets. Speculative hands lose: their value is realised over multiple streets, and at 50 big blinds there are not enough streets to realise it in.

Note carefully what did not change. J♠T♠9♥8♥ is still 50.3% against a button opening range at any depth. Stack size does not touch preflop equity; it touches how much of it you get to keep.

Shallow, play aces harder and speculative hands tighter.

Around 50 big blinds, six-handed.

"Tighter" is not "fold". J♠T♠9♥8♥ keeps every point of its 50.3%; what it loses is the room to chase implied odds, so the adjustment is "stop calling big three-bets with it", not "stop opening it". Read this rule as "only aces and big cards when short" and you will fold a pile of hands on the button that should have been opened — and you will be doing it while holding a positional edge that shallow stacks do nothing to reduce.

Six questions, in order

This is the whole camp compressed into something you can run at the table in a few seconds. Ask them in this order, because each one changes the meaning of the next.

• Where am I sitting? This table opens 17.6% under the gun and 48.6% on the button. The seat comes first because it decides how much the rest is allowed to matter (C7).
• What are the four dimensions? Pairs, suits, connectedness, nuttiness — and is there a dangler (C4)?
• If it is aces, which kind? Second pair or connected big cards with working suits, or two dead low cards (C5)?
• If it is a rundown, what is holding it back? Height first, suit shape second, gap position last (C6).
• How many players is this pot going to have? The answer reorders everything above it (C11).
• What will the stack-to-pot ratio be after my action? Not after the hand — after this action (C2, C10, C12).

The last question is the one newcomers skip, and it is the one that connects preflop to everything that follows. You are not choosing whether to play a hand; you are choosing the size of the game you will be playing it in.

End of the preflop camp

You started with 85.2% aces and you are leaving with 70.7% aces, a 9.7-point spread inside the word "aces", an opening range that changes by seat, and the knowledge that 51.2% of the table has a hand against your best one.

• You can compute. Legal raise sizes, pot odds, and the ratio your action leaves behind.
• You can read your own hand. Exactly two cards, four dimensions, and no more phantom flushes.
• You can grade. Aces by kind, rundowns by height then suits then gap, and everything by seat.
• You know what you do not know. Small-blind defence, three-bet pots, squeezes, limped pots and multiway are scenarios our reference range does not cover, and we told you so on the page instead of guessing.

What is left is the part where the money actually is. Nine hands in ten start inside a 21.4-point band, which is another way of saying that almost nothing was decided by the cards you were dealt. Bare aces are 29.3% against three opponents because somebody else is going to make a hand. Learning which hand, and what to do about it, is the postflop camp.