low stakes live nlhe grind

Pretty wild day yesterday. Put in a long live session.

Start off at 1/2. $200 effective, I defend TT going 4 ways to the flop for $8 each. $32 in the pot.

Flop T94, two tone. Top set. SB donks $10, I raise to $45, he calls. Turn is a brick 5, he checks, I jam, he calls with a slow played KK. We hold. +$200 right away. I hit and run to 1/1, where I proceed to break even for an extremely long period of time. It is mostly the nature of the games, which are very loose passive. Pots take a long time. The games weren't great either, which is to be expected with afternoon games. I would win or lose $20 or $30 then fold for an hour or two. Rinse and repeat. Very dull. A few 1/1 hands from the tail end of my sesion.

I open AQ in a straddled pot. Villain flats. Flop comes KQx and we check it down. He has AK.

I open KK, same villain flats. Flop comes A high, and we are three way to boot. I check fold. He shows AK again.

And that is basically how this 1/1 game plays. Just ultra loose passive, everyone usually has it. Tons of checking. But there are spot to get some value here or there, and you can often get paid off on big hands.

One hand I over limp A9o in late position. Flop comes A35. with two clubs. I call a small bet and we are multiway to the turn which is T. Checks around. River is a 9. Board is now AT359. BB bets pretty big (relative to the pot size) like $17 or something. I call. She has smaller two pair, 39 with flush draw.

Actually had one interesting hand with AK. There are some limpers and villain raises to $3.5. Villain suffers from BS=HS. Bet size equals hand strength. We've got tons of history, such as me paying off his AA with QQ for like 50 bb or something. And me folding AK TPTK to his AK TPTK. For like $20 on the river. Not my finest moment. Anyway this legendary short stacker jams for $16. I call with AKo. I think a lot of people would reraise to iso here, but I think that is a mistake. The short stacker's range is pretty strong, although he could have some hands like KQ or AQ that I dominate. But he'll have high pockets mostly I think. Anyway, buddy calls. Flop comes KJx and he check folds to my $30 bet with AJ! Short stacker has JJ and I lose.

So then I go back to 1/2. The game gets really, really good. Like outrageously good. I'm just sitting back and watching the madness, not really picking up too many hands, but taking a pot here or there when I can. And losing some bets when I can't. Not much flux, but I keep topping up. Then I go on a mini heater and win a couple of pots, so I am sitting on 250 bb. But in for all of it. And I pick up QQ, and it is straddled and limped, so I make it $25. I get three bet huge to $100. I four bet to $300, villain jams, I stack off and he has.....

KK.

But I nail a queen on the river. For a positively massive pot. 500bb.

End the day +750$ or something. Huge day.

Like 12 hours into my session I go back to 1/2.

Sometimes, it isn't about how much you win, it is about how much you don't lose.

Villain on my right has been playing fast and loose, including a min-three bet with A5s and opening at a high frequency. I am sitting on a modest $105 stack and three bet his $6 open to $18 holding QQ. Sudden I face a cold four bet to $38 from the BB. I could have just ripped because QQ and 50 bb but instead I folded and villain showed AA. Later on in the session I would defend QQ vs a small open and station postflop (villain actually checks back the flop but he slightly over bet the river to make it up for) only to get shown KK. So overall pretty good, I could have definitely lost a lot more money on both hands. I also played another QQ vs KK hand at a $1/$1 where I flat a 6x raise pre and a 5 cbetwd

The highlight of the night was probably an AJo hand where I iso pre, and we got 4 to the flop, which is AT8 two clubs. Villain on my right - definitely a beginner he made some pretty egregious plays - donks out for 1/3rd pot. I make a pot sized raise, folds around to him and he calls. Turn 7c, he checks, and I jam for about a pot sized bet. I do have the jack of clubs. He eventually folds.

Anyway, pretty dull break evenish night. But I made some good folds so there is that. Some big swings online but managed to recover there as well.

Hit up an early afternoon session. Joined a pretty good 1/2 game. Highlight was when I three bet to 20bb with AA and got three callers! Flop came K65 two tone. In retrospect this is a very safe flop. Strategically it doesn't matter much, at this SPR we're probably jamming most flops. But realistically, we are just seating 55, 66, and 65. K6 and k5 are unlikely, although a couple of the guys were super loose so who knows. Anyway took it down. Played 1/1 for a while. Nothing really going on there. Back to 1/2.

I was chipping up nicely but then I got stacked after I three bet AK and face cold four bet. Villain's first hand at the table, and with less than 100 bb in my stack I couldn't get away from it. Was against QQ so flipping but lost. Took a break. Then back to the grind. Somehow I ended up calling 50+ bb pre with KThh. Well it was straddled, villain opened, I flat, short stack jams, villain calls - this guy was just not folding to ANYTHING and I overcalled. Then flop came 987 two diamonds. He checks. We don't have that much left, just 120 bb or so. Pot is 170 bb. I have over cards and OE. Anyway I bink a 6 and scoop. Nice little 400 bb pot! I hit and run shortly after because I'd much rather play with 5k or 10k in my stack. Short stack had QQ - and it was fairly obvious he had a very strong hand looking back, he was playing pretty snug. So my preflop call was atrocious. No idea what I was thinking actually. I think flop jam is probably ok but i could see checking also since the main pot is protected.

Play some more 1/1 then join 1/2 again. Game is decent. This one run good whale is sitting on like 600 or 700 bb and just really dominating and having a great time doing it. This session I was really proud of actually. It starts off with three betting KK vs a couple limpers and an 8x raise. Take it down. Then I have AA vs a couple of limpers and an 11x iso. I three bet and take it down. Not huge pots but I was only on like 58 bb to start so picking up 10bb here and 15bb there - rake free none the less - was really helping to pad my stack. Also had AJs open to 2.5x vs a straddle, flop top pair three way bet half pot and take it down. Small hands but chipping up.

Then I pick up KK on the button and make a 3x open. SB makes it 11x. He is a pretty tight / conservative player but he did get stacked by the rungood whale with a set vs rungood whale's flush. So maybe he's a little shook. Anyway, we are 100 bb deep or so and i decide to just call. This is a classic slowplay spot, especially I dont' mess around pre very much. My 4 bets tend to be extremely nutted. Anyway flop comes 732, perfect, he c-bets 7bb and I make it 33 bb. He jams and I hold vs QQ.

Once more to 1/1. Something like 15 hours into the session now. First hand I get there and buddy is jamming T7hh pre all in. So right away I pick up KK and I limp. On cue the guy on my left jams for 20 bb, it goes call, call, I rejam they both fold. He has 57s. So I am getting 3:1 as a 3:1 favourite. Pretty sweet. Then this girl joined who was a first timer, so that was kind of amusing. Eventually I realized i needed to crash and called it a day.

Okay, so I've been thinking a bit about that KK vs QQ hand. First of all, how is the situation supposed to play out?

I think most people advocate for opening around 40-50% of buttons. In this particular game the spot seldom came up.
According to poker range calculator 40% of hands is 33+, A2o+, k5o+, Q5s+, K2s+, although surprisingly not a lot of lower suited connectors. I'd personally be more inclined to open a hand like 67s than I would to open K4s.

Against a 40% open range, SB should be three betting 13% to 15%. Google gemini suggests the following three betting range :

99+, A2s-A5s, ATs+, KTs+, QTs+, JTs, T9s, 98s, 87s, 76s, J9s, T8s, AJo+, KQo and says that the weaker hands should be randomized between three betting and folding

That's in theory.

I don't know what my actual button open range was in that game. But it was definitely super tight. Not that the spot ever really came up.

Against for example a 20% button open range, AI suggests we three bet 8.5%-9% and adopt a more linear approach.

In response to the three bet, BU is supposed to continue with about 40-45% of their range, split between 75% call and 25% 4 bet.

So that is in theory. What we actually saw was nutted ranges going up against each other. Nit on nit violence is generally quite rare, since if you are both folding 90% of the time, it stands to reason you will only end up in a pot against each other 1% of the time. I mean there is not much point in going up against each other, when there are plenty of players with 80%+ ranges out there taking flops.

Anyway, I'm not saying that I need to or want to copy GTO frequencies or anything like that. I am more or less pleased with the game I played in my last session, although calling off 50+ bbs against a short stack nit with KThh was not one of my better decisions. But I feel like my style did generate substantial positive expectation and I do not need to switch it up in these current games. in tougher games, no doubt, i might need to employ a more robust strategy. but i'll worry about that when i get there. for now i just want to grind what I am playing.