Not only that, but your opponents will quickly realize that you can be easily pushed around, and you’ll find yourself regularly bluffed off of pots you should win. Folding too often can be just as bad as not folding enough, as you miss out on opportunities to make money. It’s important not to go overboard and fold too much. In these situations, you can disregard MDF and exploitatively fold more than you “should.”Īlmost all players you face will either be overbluffing or underbluffing to a certain extent, so you need to use all the information you have on them to decide which way they lean, which then tells you how often you should be folding. If your opponent is an extremely tight player who rarely bluffs, they will likely be extremely value-heavy when they make a bet. This is why you look at other factors, such as your opponent’s range and playing style, to make your decision. The only time where it’s recommended you do so is when you’re playing against unknown players or in an unfamiliar environment.Įven then, as soon as you develop reads/tendencies on your opponents, you should focus more on how to exploit them. However, in practice, it’s doubtful you’ll need to use MDFs when you’re playing, as most players are too unbalanced for it to be worth it. Therefore, you need to defend 50% of your range against that bet to avoid getting exploited. Y our opponent bets $100 into a $100 pot.

This is referred to as the minimum defense frequency (MDF), which can be worked out by dividing the amount you need to call by the size of the pot and then multiplying by 100 to get a percentage. This means that sometimes you’ll need to call with hands that don’t meet the equity requirements given to you by the pot odds if it’s high enough up in your range. If you’re playing against good players, you’ll need to defend enough against postflop bets to avoid exploitation.

If your hand is a profitable call, then you call, and if you don’t, you fold… sounds easy, right? Using pot odds, you can figure out the amount of equity your hand needs against your opponent’s range for it to be a profitable call. One of the most common ways to determine how often you should fold is by using pot odds.

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