[James.]

initially, this post asks questions about a single topic, but every street is relevant to that question at hand. the concept at hand permeates the root of strategy in every limit hold em game.

all poker strategy is situational. some ranges in regard to this action(especially HU) can expand depending upon the specific opponent(or opponents) in the hand. for instance, HU against an opponent that is capable of giving some action early but still find a fold on a later street capping a wider range might be a profitable play. on the other hand, capping the same range against someone who shows down more frequently can be a significant loser. so ranges are fluid in relation to our opponents. but we know all of this.

so what we're really shooting for here is a default range against a typical player. it's a range that should have components that serve more than just one purpose.

first and foremost, the heaviest part of our flop 4bet range should be aim to solicit value. strong made hands/megadraws(straight flush/flush w/overs, etc.) that figure to be ahead of your opponents' ranges should be 4bet on the flop for value(or less often, but for other balancing purposes defer until the turn to raise; this however is another post for another time but reinforces my prior notion that this is relevant for all streets in hold em).

there are other ancillary considerations that should be noted in relation to the hand range with which you are capping the betting on any given street. more specifically, if you were only to cap the nuts or near nuts it makes it very easy for your opponents to read your range and allows them to play perfectly in relation to it. they will only give you action if they have you beat or if they have a draw to a hand that will beat you.

since poker is a struggle for calculated deception combined with gaining maximum information about your opponents' holdings(in accord with the fundamental theorem), it becomes necessary to adjust your capping range to reflect this(in this case your flop capping range). you should be capping a wide enough range with the proper frequency so that your opponent is forced into tough decisions. he must decide to give you action with a worse hand or risk folding the best hand(or a hand that has odds) too often. the largest part of this portion of your range is going to consist of drawing hands, the semibluffs. you must use these powerful weapons as a means to gain optimal action and unexploitable play at a heavily "discounted" price. for instance, when you cap a flush draw on the flop, due to the pot equity of your draw, it only costs a fraction of each bet for each raise that goes in rather than the entire bet. other reasons for 4betting, but to a lesser extent, might include when in position to gain a free card on the turn. this would be because you don't have a holding strong enough to merit a valuebet on the turn and most often a draw that profits tremendously from getting to the river if it doesn't come in on fourth street. the smallest portion of your flop capping range is going to consist of pure bluffs. it should be very small proportionately and only be done for fairly specific reasons. an example might be that you are pretty certain your opponent is on a draw(and maybe you are on one as well but even UI you have a worse 5 card poker hand) and as such the action unfolds in a way that you can consider a cap to further enable yourself to win the pot UI if your opponent doesn't complete his draw either.

so the way it breaks down is this. the largest portion of your range is strong made hands and powerful draws that hold their fair share(or close to it) in equity, the weaker semibluffs and least in proportion the pure bluffs. properly playing these hands in an optimum frequency allows you to enjoy the luxury of getting action on your very strong holdings and disguising your range against your opponent which should force your opponents into making worse decisions. this allows you an edge that exploits their play while alsoworking to keep yourself from being exploited in return. these mistakes are the root of our profit in hold em. the more that you induce, while at the same time avoiding making them yourself, the more you guarantee longterm success thanks to an unexploitable strategy.

i'll give my own ranges for these situations later. first i thought i would address the "universal" implictations that these types of decisions(and how game theory incorporates itself into them) in an effort to help us understand this is ultimately about more than simply a flop cap range. rather, it deals with an understanding of the importance of why we need to cap a hand like QJs in an effort to balance the times we have a hand like 99.