Pre flop check up posts.

No, I have seen quite a few in my day.

How long have you been a pro?

If every move in poker was a simple equity calculation, it would be a pretty easy game to play perfectly and there would be no money in it.

So what makes 75o an “easy fold” getting 11:1 closing the action if not its lack of hot and cold equity? You seem to be in the minority on this so it would be interesting to know if you have any reasoning beyond “I’m a pro and I know better than the recreational players.”

If you do know this to be true, it certainly isn't from reading his posts here. I've never seen a good player play 64 for three bets cold.

Of course he was wondering if he should have folded, and my reply was too harsh. But he certainly sounds like a recreational player to me. And I believe that you at least used to be a winning player, but you come right out and say now you're playing for fun and that you play looser than you would if you were serious.

In reality any of these scenarios are very rare events, and the 64 hand is likely once in a lifetime. Without knowing the exact tendencies of everyone else in the pot, it's impossible to prove anything. But if you're playing that hand in that spot, you're playing probably 50% of your hands there, and I have played with enough good and bad players over the years to know that good players don't play those hands.

These forums used to be very active and frequented by very strong winning players, many of whom were pros. Many of them were tighter than I am. It was so common that the response to a question was "fold preflop" that it became a running joke. I learned to play by reading poker books and reading posts by those players. I have no idea how anyone here has determined it is profitable to play so loose, as I know no poker book will tell you to do so, and neither would anyone in the forums of 10+ years ago.

AFAIK at this point I am the only LHE pro who posts here anymore. No one posting often strikes me as seeming to be a particularly good player. I have no idea if anyone else here is a significant winner, but I suspect the number is very low. I'm guessing most of the people advocating loose play don't even keep records or keep a separate poker bankroll to even know if they're a winning player or not. I would be happy to adjust my opinion if anyone wants to share their poker results from the last few thousand hours of play, as I doubt anyone would go to the trouble of making that up.

But there are a few players who seem to be legitimately trying to improve their game, and I'm legitimately trying to help them do that. If they wanted to play in the way that is the most fun, they wouldn't bother to ask questions here. I don't think it's helpful for them to be given bad advice, and I would recommend that no one without a history of many years of significant profit should not be answering questions with anything more definitive than "I would call here, but I have no idea if it's right or not" and if a winning pro says different they should be much more likely to realize they are making lots of mistakes than to tell that fellow he's wrong.

Winning players are always in the minority.

To be honest, I have never even considered playing such a hand, as those who had lots of experience when I was new recommended not playing such hands. Preflop play isn't usually even particularly interesting, and nearly everyone would be better just following a hand chart from any 2+2 book and then put effort studying how to play post flop.

But with he experience I now have, I know several reasons this is not a good spot.

First off, you never know what your hot/cold equity is, and I suspect it's generally lower than most of you seem to think. Low offsuit hands have very little going for them. The only thing this hand has is its ability to make a straight, and that is going to be very rare. If the hand were suited then I would play it, but I think even that would be very marginal and beginners should probably just fold that as well.

Even flopping two pair with this hand is nothing to get too excited about. It's usually going to be bottom two and very easily counterfeited, plus when you make two pair with a connected hand, it makes other players more likely to make a straight.

Being to the right of the preflop raiser is good, but that doesn't mean that player will be the one pushing the action postflop, and you have terrible absolute position, which makes all your postflop decisions more difficult as well as causing you to lose more when you lose and win less when you win.

I can't think of anything else to add at this time, but if I think of anything else later I'll post again.

since you claim pf is "boring": imagine a typical low stakes 9 handed game with bad players.

you have T9s UTG.

call, raise or fold? how close of a decision is it?

If it's a low stakes high rake game, definite fold. Probably should fold in any game if you're not an expert, but in a low rake or time game I might play it if the other players are all bad.

Really I think all 3 options are close for a player with a big edge. I might raise or limp depending on what kind of bad they are.

If you're in a game with very loose players, medium suited connectors lose some value because sometimes you're going make a flush and lose to somebody who paid Q4s. If they will fold those kinds of hands for two bets that would make me more likely to raise.

And of course you still have a big positional disadvantage to overcome.

I don't really think preflop is boring, but I think anyone who is learning would be better off just playing preflop based on a hand chart and spend more time thinking about postflop spots.

If you're playing a lot and not spending too much time studying, playing too loose preflop actually can help you boost your postflop skills as you'll be getting more practice playing postflop, and especially in marginal situations.

But eventually you should tighten back up if you're looking to make money more than to learn. I've known quite a few players, mostly self-taught, who play great postflop but only break even or win small because they play bad preflop. If these guys went back to a starting hand chart they would be making more money, and with less variance. But they wouldn't be having as much fun.

Can you demonstrate this with math? Because I calculated a reasonably loose range with only hands that do decent in multiway pots and I got 14.3%

22+, ATs+, A5s-A3s, KJs+, QTs+, J9s+, T8s+, 97s+, 87s, 76s, 64s+, 54s, AQo+

You might argue around the edges of some of these hands but I don’t think you’ll get to the 50% you’re talking about.

And remember that it’s perfectly reasonable according to solvers to only play hands a percentage of a time, so these are unweighted combos. I also imagine we might not even want to play all these combos and might cut some out.

You're right, the 50% was an over estimate, but I think 14% is low. I haven't looked at this kind of range list for awhile, but I am confused by some of the items and what you left out. I'm assuming 64s+ just means 64s and 65s?

But if you would play 64s, wouldn't you also play 75s and 86s? I would prefer either of those hands to 64s. Also don't know why you wouldn't include A2s and A6s-A9s. I would prefer any of those to 64s in nearly any spot, including the example we're talking about.

Also, it seems unfair to assume that 64s just happens to be the absolute worst hand you would play in this spot (or possibly second worst, it's pretty close with 54s). If all you know is that someone is playing 64s in this spot, it's not very likely that he isn't playing hand that you're judging worse than that one. And almost definitely others that I would prefer to 64s, such as KTs, K9s, Q9s, Q8s, J8s, J7s, T7s, and 96s. Especially 96s, as that is my lucky hand, though I prefer to call it 69s 🍰

I think 64s gives better board coverage than 69s which is mostly redundant for board coverage.

And yes I agree that there are some hands at the borderline that could be added or subtracted, but the point is even a range that includes 64s could otherwise be pretty decently tight.

The threshold question seems to be "is there a range of speculative hands we should be calling 3 bets cold with in a 5+ way pot where we have decent position?" Rob seems to think that the answer is that we should not play anything we would not 4bet and that our 4betting range should be very tight in this sort of spot. That is not a crazy position, but I tend to think that there are a number of hands that have more than their fair share of equity and that offer good board coverage, including suited ace-wheel and many suited connectors, one-gappers, and potentially two-gappers. This is a bizarre spot and I'm not totally sure how we construct the right range, particularly since there are some pretty-looking hands that present unique problems in this setup. (K9s is a pretty obvious example.) But approaching this as a 4bet or fold spot seems like we are giving up a lot of profitable opportunities, even if it most of those opportunities are at least somewhat marginal.

(And yes, I say this as someone who fits the mold of a winning player who plays pretty well post flop but could certainly make more if I tightened up pre.)

I assume what you mean by "board coverage" is that you want to make it possible for a low board to have hit your hand, hoping that your opponents would notice this and lead them to play in ways more beneficial to you.

If so, this would only be relevant when playing against experts, and really only significant in heads up hands. I don't think this would be in any way applicable to a loose game in a hand where several players are already involved.

Really I think this is also a NLH concept. In LHE, even if a players suspects a low board never could be good for your starting hand range, he's not going to be able to push you off your hand with large bets.

I think that in general if your hand is pretty easy to read it’s not going to be great for you, unless your opponents are so bad that they just never catch on to your strategy. Or there is just so little incentive to be unpredictable because you’ll never play with the same players again.

It’s not like the concept of unpredictability is alien to good poker players that play limit. I think the Illusion of Action is a decent book and it seems to recommend throwing in some unpredictable hands to make yourself harder play against.

Ultimately I think you make some strong points about what I think is a decent strategy gone a little too far and maybe we should just restrict ourselves to suited aces and pocket pairs as our “action” hands in multiraised pots.

Sure, you don't want your hand to be easy to read, but in this kind of example -

Likely most of the other players are bad, as it's unlikely they all have hands worth 3 bets

There are many players in the pot, so even if some of the players know you would be unlikely to have low cards, that's unlikely to help them much. They can't really change their play significantly exploit you when they have to worry about the others as well.

He's in late position, where he most likely will be playing weak hands other times, when the pot is limped or has been raised only one time.
If other players have seen you show up with a 64s from time to time, it will be harder for them to realize that was only in unraised pots.

In shorthanded pots and players I play with regularly, I do mix it up and play some weaker hand than I'm sure would be GTO.

For example, someone open raises in mid position and it folds to me in the CO. I may 3 bet a hand like 87s if it's likely to get the hand head up.

I'm almost certainly not a favorite against the opener's range, but I have the significant positional advantage, plus usually when I 3 bet I do have something like AK or a medium to large pair so he is unlikely to put me on a suited connector.

This can lead him to make significant mistakes, including the biggest one - folding the best hand. That's the result I'm actually hoping for, but if I do end up making a good hand and winning a showdown, both he and other players will see that I'm capable of 3 betting a weaker hand.

By the way, is there actually a poker book called "The Illusion Of Action"? I can't find one, but I can find articles I read in the past by Barry Tannenbaum, and I remember reading his books many years ago, at least one of which did talk about that concept quite a bit.

Sorry the intelligent poker player haha

I did read that one long ago as well but remember very little about it.

4/8 Typical. Bad player limps in EP, fold to you in HJ with 55. Easy fold? I raised and wound up 5 way.

8/16 great game. Pots are big. Had a few hands like this-

2-3 EP limps, I am in HJ/CO and see meh broadway cards like QTo, QJo, KTs. Blinds defend most of the time.

Limping along OK? Maybe throw in a raise with the KTs?

I think at 4/8 raising in hopes of getting it heads up is overly optimistic. With a hand like that I’m wanting it 4+ ways to the flop.

KTs is a raise from any position. I typically limp the other two although don’t think raising is terrible.

Why do you say easy fold? How about just call?

I don't hate a raise with KTs but I usually call with all these.

I raise as a default but I think it’s a mistake in a 4/8 game. I’d look left and see if the other 4 players seem interested, and I would fold if the answer is no.

KTs is a raise. I would limp the other two in this sort of game, though raising with QJo is a small mistake if it’s a mistake at all.

I said easy fold? Maybe the question mark doesn't show in the post? Not easy fold. I question these spots, I used to limp along with 22-55 in similar spots and then suddenly folds behind and I'm 3-4 way generally oop and set mining without odds. Ideally as above, 5 way or more is good, but my 4/8 game is not the old school 6-7 to every flop. Are you raising here with 66+? 77+?