Are PLO players better at NLHE? This lady is giving me fits...

The last time I played 2/5 NLHE with a 5/5 PLO pro the dude tried to rep a boat or something acting that because the board paired on a AQ7K7 runnout that he was really repping something. I just looked at him and said "board paired? lol that **** dont mean nothing here man"

i don't think any of what you responded to was condescending.

this whole thread is wild. you have multiple essays and talk about how you're impressed with this woman and she's obviously a good plo and nl player and the dealers said she's great when in reality she is limp overcalling 7x preflop with 75o. like she is pretty clearly loose-passive whale. im not even sure why there are history hands, legitimately none of it has a tangible impact on this hand and just clutters the thread.

in reality you're way overthinking things, you're not taking hands being multiway into account, and you (despite saying the woman doesn't understand thin value betting) don't seem to understand you should size down when you're making thin value bets.

it's really weird, most of your threads read like you've watched and are misapplying way too many higher level strategy videos. none of that really matters in these games man, like you're going through this complicated perceived range and how they're going to adjust when you're playing people looking to pass the time by limp calling giant raises with 75o and betting in the dark.

if you want i can stop responding to your threads, idc

It's worthwhile to consider:

1) The effect waiting to peel your cards until it's your action has on the game. This one is hard to quantify, but it's usually going to be bad for the game/your image (especially if it's obvious that you're consistently doing this intentionally).
2) The amount of time you waste by doing this. This one should be pretty easy to figure out and multiply by avg hands/hr to see the effect on your hourly.
3) The amount of information you're gaining by watching people to act before you (are you doing this?) and the amount of information you're giving up if you peel your cards as soon as they're dealt (can you learn to not react?).

Dude, I actually think you have good insights and I do read your posts and think about what you say. You just have a way of saying it that sounds like you're annoyed or basically calling people stupid.

I'm here to learn and improve. I'm going to make mistakes and get lost in hands sometimes. Not sure if you've ever coached, taught, or instructed anyone on anything, but berating someone isn't conducive to informing them.

All I can do is report on what I see at the table. And what I saw is that she always seemed to have the best hand, even when making super light calls in spots where her opponents could have strong hands. I got to the point that I was really uncertain about when a bluff would get through or when I could bet thin for value, or when she'd hero call or hero fold.

I generally act very quickly. I don't think waiting until action is on me, then taking two seconds to look at my cards has nearly as much impact on the game as the constant and endless tanking or Hollywooding so many bad players do.

I've been in situations where I missed critical info while looking at my cards as action was on an opponent. I've also seen how players who look at their hole cards rather than paying attention to the action tend to hold up the game, when they need to ask what the bet is, or be told there was a straddle or raise, or that the action is on them. Don't get me started on the guys who flick in 1bb, then want to take it back and fold when they learn someone raised.

Very often they have to rethink everything when given "new" info they missed while looking at their cards. Suddenly they don't like their hand once someone puts in a raise, or they somehow like it more.

I think the game moves more quickly when everyone pays attention to the action, rather than looking at their hole cards before it's their turn to act.

I'll admit I didn't see the 4-liner come in, so it makes a river bet a quite dicey against all but the most stationish. I don't despise a river bet but think we should be sizing it *extremely* small in order to possibly get paid off by worse (mostly targeting second pair as it is unlikely they somehow got here with a worse naked Ax).

Gkindathinkwe'reoverthinking,imoG

My thinking is that most low-stakes NLHE players either won't notice the 4-liner coming in, and will therefore over-value worse hands, or they will notice it, and over-fold, or they were drawing to it, and in that scenario, they're very likely to lead out when they make their hand, fearing the action will check through.

Ordinarily, I would either check back the river here, or bet small, to get looked up by 9x and worse Ax, and just fold if I got check-raised.

Kind of already beat this horse to death, but after watching her play for a few hours prior to this, I thought she'd donk-lead turn or river with her made straights (like she donked out with bottom set), but she'd call a bigger bet with 9x or worse Ax.

I wouldn't expect most NLHE players to arrive on the river with many worse Ax combos, but I'd seen her show up in similar spots with similar holdings. If she had Ax, I could see her calling my smallish turn bet, figuring her pair outs are probably good (maybe even pairing her kicker, if she had A5-A8), and she had an ISSD.

The main thrust of the thread is that I wasn't really sure what she was doing prior to this hand, because I'd seen her show up in so many spots with such unlikely hands. By the time we played this hand, I kind of sort of thought I had a decent read.

My read was that she fast-played thick value, and would make pretty loose calls with marginal value. It seemed like she did most of her folding pre, and didn't like folding post, even to big bets on the turn or river.

If the river was a 7, or a 5, and I barreled for this same size, I think she would have called, and won with a pair of 7's, or lost with a pair of 5's. When the river comes an Ace, and she checks, I think her having 9x or worse Ax is at least as likely as her having 5x for the straight, if not more likely.

The fact that she checked, then tank-called, just goes to why I had a hard time figuring her out. Her hand was strong enough to lead, is at worst a check-snap-call, and arguably a check-raise, but rarely if ever a tank-call, and never ever a tank-fold.

ok but i mostly just berated how you posted the thread not your actual play.

the thread itself is really difficult to take seriously because she's obviously terrible at poker and realistically not trying to win. you've played enough where you have to realize that someone that does this with 75o or the first hand with 55 is not winning over any kind of reasonable sample. i'm not sure if you're confused because of statstical anomolies over a 100 hand sample, or you're frustrated that you made what ended up being a series of whatever decisions vs her but like come on. this person is probably losing 40$ an hour at 1/3. maybe she tightens up a bit sometimes and only loses 20 or whatever but its frustrating because it's ridiculous to pretend like this person is a competent thinking winning player. i'm not saying your a child, but its very akin to when u speak to a child who is talking about something completely made up and you have to humor them like its a real possibility. the chance she is up money life time at poker if she has played more than 100 hours is literally 0. this isn't like a great plo player who's playing a different game and confused about ranges. it's someone that goes to the casino for social interaction etc and is pretty clearly torching.

back to the hand. betting your hand on the river vs this player type is great. you will never have a tough decision vs a raise and she loves to call. i think you made a better assessment of that than like half of the thread who are telling u to check. i just think you want to bet as small as possible so she calls with whatever weak hands she has. from a theoretical perspective it's sound too, if you bet like 10% of pot she "needs to defend" like 90% of her range. in practice she is just going to call bc pot odds and it's cheap and you seem nice and mercury is in retrograde and its a tuesday and whatever else goes through her head to make decisions. this is obviously exploitable but this is a person who is just never going to exploit you so we can get away with doing things like this. the issue with going large with AT is when you filter her down to a stronger range, you actually may not have the best hand here all that often when money goes in. i think even something like AK would be different than AT although not enough to bet 125. pretty much i would structure my river sizing vs her as linearly as possible. i'm surprised she didn't lead a straight but i dont think everyone will always lead a straight nor should they. alot of people won't ever lead a subsequent street after c/c the previous one even if it makes obvious sense range wise.

i also really wouldn't put much weight in what she says after the hand. we have no real idea if she was going to c/c, c/r, if she wanted to x/r a smaller bet and got confused by a large one, if she was upset she didn't lead the river huge and now feels like she took advantage of you (remember she isn't trying to win), or a million other things. i will say regardless of what option it what, you got basically immediate feedback that 125 is bad with AT as either a) she tanked w much better of a hand than u were targetting for thin value, b) she isn't nearly as capped as u think so u can't go large with thin holdings, c) you have to actually fear x/rs here, or d) all of the above and probably other things i haven't thought of.

if it makes you feel better i am trying so much harder to be a good poster and yet i still seem to suck at it :(. i even use paragraphs now.

re the betsizing (submersible yelling into the void part 4).

the defender is supposed to approach calling as a fulcrum. the more the aggressor bets, the less defender has to call, 1-alpha, trying to make bluffs w atc indifferent, whatever u want to call it. so the less equity your hand has vs their range, the smaller you need to bet to ensure they call wider and you still end up with 50+% vs the calling range. if you somehow ran a node lock where she always leads the river with AJ+ you could, im not saying you should but you could, jam your hand for value because you have 100% equity vs her calling range and theory would dictate she has to find calls. we aren't going to have that level of clairvoyance in game so you need to give yourself as much leeway as possible by just sizing down when you're thin value betting (note this is not vs competent people where you need to worry about range, exploitation, blah blah) to ensure she calls as wide as possible.

the issue here with AT, even if you entirely discount straights from her range, is you still lose to better aces that i think this player type can plausibly limp call, and primarily rivered 2 pair is going to be our biggest worry. also i would guess based on very little evidence but just profiling her and what's been said, she's hero calling in small pots but when real money goes in she probably tends to have a hand. i think this bc if she is limp calling 80+% of the time and calling down every single hand regardless of pot size, she would run out of money quickly and you would probably be less enamored with her play. so for me, i have a hand that can't really cooler many hands here, and she probably has a weak range bc she checked everywhere, so i would let her be a whale for cheap. when she calls with q2 or w/e, you can commiserate with her and tell her u were trying to bluff everyone else out and u feel bad and u would have bet way bigger vs anyone else. just random yapping that means nothing, similar to what she does tbh

note vs reasonable people the turn is not a stab and the river isn't a bet but its hard to find reasonable people that limp / call utg tbh

You're not yelling into the void. I read every word, and appreciate the advice.

The snark about how I post, not so much, but I'll take the good with the bad.

Thank you.

I think this small a sample isn't enough to say she's def. losing $40 an hour at 1-3. Also if she's making $50+ an hour at 2-5 PLO and rarely plays NLHE, she might not care (and saying "terrible at poker" is kind of a bad read).
Also in my experience when PLO players play stupid high VPIP they don't torch as much as you'd assume because they often don't play bad in the way the bad regs. expect, and they don't play long enough for people to adjust.

FWIW a lot of your recent posts have seemed a lot less trolly, and more importantly give more reasons for your thoughts. So I think you are doing a lot better ... any day now you'll find the shift key and we'll get capital letters 😉.

she plays 2/2 plo and talks at the table about how shes good at picking off bluffs while telling opponents what she is going to do on future streets and after allegedly noticing a tell on OP, the first thing she does is brag about it in a 2024 recreation of rounders. she's also open limping and over calling a huge iso with a bottom 90 percentile hand. is it more likely she's a fish that usually plays plo or a strong reg that happens to play a different game? if there was a way we could get accurate results i would lay you 5:1 she never has a winning year if she spends 200 hours in the poker room.

vpip is directly correlated with loss rate when it comes to fish

should just stick to trolling. attempting to talk about poker on here is an exercise in futility and bashing my head against the wall with some exceptions.

if you're looking for a follow up / confirmation re the bet sizing etc, galfond has a nl course on run it once thats like ~50$ that i haven't watched that i would imagine is good that seems to cover alot of it based on the description. "Foundations"

I hold with this to a certain extent. I play ROE every day, and I play PLO whenever I get the chance. I am tighter at NLHE when I play against unkowns. I think it comes from all the suckouts in PLO -- they make you see monsters (they walk the earth).

The point about money is real, too. I play in so many huge pots in PLO that the small pots in 1/3 mean very little -- sad but true.