Hand Ranges & Flop Texture

As I was skimming through some threads on 2+2 this morning, I came across a discussion on ranging your opponents to successfully bluff/take away pots when their range misses the flop. It's a concept I've been trying to work on improving this year. It helps a bunch when your opponents are inexperienced or so tight that they are super easy to read post-flop, as was the case when I won the Ladies event at Horseshoe back in June. I also used it sparingly, but successfully in my recent satellite win. They are talking about 1/3-2/5 cash games here, but it applies to tournaments even more, I think.

The question asked in the thread:

Could you talk about being aggro with a wider range? I am pretty ABC and only bluff in lol obvious spots. Rarely am I squeezing light pre or bluff raising flops/turns. What hands/conditions/board textures are you looking for?

The answer from the OP:
 

Before you start to expand your ranges pre you need to work on your post flop game more bc you will be put in way more marginal spots post the weaker your range is. My advice would be to really focus on ranging your opponents fairly accurately first. Once you are able to see what the majority of their range is in a given situation you will start to see what board textures go well with what ranges, if an opponent has a stagnant range (to tight and doesn't vary much from that range) then you will be able to exploit sooooooo much on the majority of boards, just bc it's so damn hard to make a pair in this game. And that is how you bluff effectively post flop, don't ever do something just to do it...I hear a lot of people say that they had decided on the flop no matter what they were going to bluff the hand all the way down which is absolutely idiotic. Learn ranges vs board texture and will start to set yourself apart from 95% of all players.

The best part of his response to me was the "don't ever do something just to do it". I think a lot of people ( I know I have in the past) decide even before the hand is dealt that they need chips, they're bored waiting for a hand or whatever the reason that, I am taking this one down no matter what! That usually does not end well and they've lost a ton of chips for no reason. Been there, done that.

In his next response he said:

The thing is playing live double and triple barrels work a lot less than online, same goes for a high frequency of bluff flop/turn raises. There is nothing more exciting/fun then to play a complete session as a successful lagtard...the thing is in these lower stakes it's tough to execute it successfully consistently bc people aren't quite on the right level of thinking. Ed Miller wrote a book "playing the player, how to move beyond abc to dominate your opponent", absolute greatest book I've ever read. His thing is you don't want to have your game labeled as "abc" "tag" "lag". Your game is based off of your opponents game, so you develop aspects of all 3 styles and you crush games when you successful sift thru all your tools and use the most optimal line tailored to your opponent.

I haven't read this book by Ed Miller, but I have listened to him talk about it in interviews. I believe it's a $50 book (last time I checked) and so I probably will not read it...cheap ass alert lol. But I think the idea can be summed up in the 2 paragraphs above; don't do anything just to do it, know your opponent's ranges and how it relates to the board texture, if they will fight back or fold 2nd pair, AK with no pair, etc. Play the player. :)

Welp, the main event starts tomorrow at Gold Strike! I'm excited & a bit nervous, but all I can do is play my best. As long as I don't play like an idiot, I'll be fine with however it turns out. No pressure. LFG!