What up guys. Some of you know that I have a current video series on how to use StoxEV (first part is here http://www.leggopoker.com/forums/vid...1-a-15449.html). The series is mostly on all the features of the program and how to use them to make sure the game trees you are making are working correctly. However, there was a lot of interest in a more advanced video with some real application of how one might use StoxEV to do some meaningful analysis that will translate into an improved winrate. So far I have made one video which does just that, but since it probably wont be out for a little while, I thought I'd try my best to make a blog entry about how to do this, using a lot of pictures. This wont be ideal, but I think it will help some people out there


First thing I do when I start using StoxEV is either pick an actual hand I played or pick a situation I make up in my mind (often times based on a recent situation that came up). For this blog, I am just going to take a hand I played about a week ago, and then extrapolate that into an entire range vs range situation, instead of hand vs range.

$2/$4 NL Hold'em Cash Game, 2 Players
LeggoPoker.com - Hand History Converter

BTN: $364
Hero (BB): $737.20

Pre-Flop: K A dealt to Hero (BB)
BTN raises to $12, Hero raises to $40, BTN calls $28

Flop: ($80) Q 5 2 (2 Players)
Hero bets $44, BTN calls $44

Turn: ($168) J (2 Players)
Hero bets $92, BTN calls $92

River: ($352) Q (2 Players)
Hero checks, BTN bets $188 and is All-In, Hero calls $188

Results: $728 Pot ($1 Rake)
BTN showed 4 3 and LOST (-$362 NET)
Hero showed K A and WON $727 (+$367 NET)


Theres tons of things to look at in this hand. The 3bet is standard and is not worth looking at. But Id say every other action in the hand is worth some analysis, with each street getting more interesting.

Before we get into the analysis, lets go over the relevant factors and stats going into the hand. Villain was pretty fishy. He was playing 69/69 from the button and hadnt folded to a 3bet yet (this hand was my 3rd 3bet) and 64% vpip from the BB with 16% 3bet. He also had shown a tendency to not be terribly aggressive postflop, although we are working with an extremely small sample here so all the stats need to be taken into context. But at the time I had adjusted my assumptions to be that this guy was a splashy, mostly passive, but occasionally spazzy fish (although not a complete mouth breather).

Ok so first thing to do is set up the tree so that we are on the flop...



I gave myself a very top heavy 3bet range of ~14% with few bluffs in it AA-77,AKs-A9s,KQs-KTs,QJs-QTs,75s,65s-64s,54s,AKo-ATo,KQo-KJo,T9o

I gave him a 70% opening range, calling roughly 45% of hands AA-22,AKs-A2s,KQs-K2s,QJs-Q2s,JTs-J6s,T9s-T6s,98s-95s,87s-84s,76s-74s,65s-63s,54s-53s,43s,AKo-A2o,KQo-K9o,QJo-Q9o,JTo-J9o,T9o,98o,87o

You can plug those text ranges into stove to take a look at the range. Next I am going to put in all possible flop actions. You can see the bet and raise sizes I chose to use for both players. Obviously I dont know to what amount villain would raise if he did raise, so I just guessed based on past experience with similar players on similar boards



Now for now, I am going to try to find out what the best flop strategy for me would be. So I am going to set up villains entire strategy on the flop and then use the Maximally Exploit Feature (from now on MES for maximally exploitative strategy)

For his raise to 108 action I gave him 20% of sets, 75% of KQ/AQ, AA, KK, and then I had him raising 33% of the time he had 66-TT because I think some fish like this will raise these hands to see where they are at even though they dont always know what they will do to a shove (same principle for the 20% of MP and Bottome pair I gave him). I also gave him a small bluff range of 10% of hands that have both cards including a 6-T. I think a player like this will occasionally bluff but not very much. I have him calling the shove with all none bluffs as I think fish will talk themselves into a call once they have raised with MP/BP

I have him calling a cbet with any pair or better he didnt raise, any gutshot or oesd, any ace high, and K9s, KT-KJ. He folds roughly 30% of his range

Vs a check I have him betting all pairs, all gs and oesds, and some air, totaling roughly 57% of hands, more than half of them pairs or better



Now I am going to hit the MES feature, the "EX" button and I am going to find the MES for the BB

Checking Range :

(Program tells me I should c/c all of those hands)

Bet/Shove range

Bet/Call range



And I should bet/fold T9o.


Now obviously if you look at this analysis it looks a little off. For example its hard to believe c/cing KTs is the best play, or that we can bet/call with 64s and A9s without a problem (these are all plausible but not really what'd you expect as being the best play.

The reason for this is that I simulated the turn/river with a checkdown which effectively eliminates any future betting, which in turns causes us not to account for implied and reverse implied odds which are obviously important. So my options at this point are to adjust the %s for the checkdown or put in some turn actions. For this I am going to choose to adjust the checkdown %s to save time and make this simpler, and maybe so people can see how to do that a little bit since its an arbitrary, and experienced based task

The checkdowns I put in are fairly straight forward. I gave us slightly higher %s with the same subsets of hands for the times we are betting because of our added fold equity and increased ability to actively hand read as opposed to when we are checking and deciding



Heres what comes out when I re run the MES feature




So we see when I put in all the new checkdown features that we should bet all of our range and basically call all of it to a raise as well. This definitely makes some sense given I gave us higher checkdown %s when betting due to our skill advantage, and the various other assumptions I made about villains play, as well as the fact that my range is very top heavy so theres not a lot of complete air on this board

I am going to end this blog here. I still have more to do with this file and will save it for my next blog since this ones really long. Heres a list of what we still need to do

-Delete any flop actions that didnt actually happen in the hand.
-Insert the turn card, and basically do the same exact thing we did on the flop in this blog, for the turn.
- Rinse/Repeat for river
-Come to conclusions for how we played the actual hand, and what our overall strategy will look like in this situation vs this type of player
-If we wanted to do more work we could start adjusting our assumptions for different player types using the same board ( I likely wont do this for the blog)