"The Pen:" Live NLHE Chat Thread

That's what I was thinking. If so, my money is on sabr.

this is sabr?

how would you ever count something like that?

I don't know who ATsai is.

I believe you guys that SABR42 might be better than the top pros at Gardens and definitely way way better than the regs below them. But that's even more reason to get a stake to play bigger games.

If SABR42 has a stronger skillset than them, he could be winning $300k+ ($400k+?) in a year. Not sure how a reasonable staking agreement would work, 50% of those numbers would be higher than $100k/year.

A Chinese pro named David.

I've made $300K in a year twice before.

It was pretty stressful and $20K losses weren't uncommon either. I don't want that stress right now until my roll is higher.

I don't know how many people understand this explicitly, but for many bad players, their strategy is to trade mistakes in early streets in the hopes of getting paid on the last street. This is probably what people do calling vs obvious overpairs. In turn our strategy is to magnify their early street mistakes and not make mistakes in late streets. That doesn't mean there can be no bluffing.

Since a big part of making mistakes in early streets is VPIPing too much, it's unavoidable that at some point in the hand, you will either call too much, fold too much, or bluff too much. What a player should do is determine villain's tendency and at which street it mostly materializes.

People are too scared to lose with overpairs in general.

The truth is that if you have aces and someone flops a set on you, you are almost always going to get stacked if you are playing properly. The right adjustment isn't to raise so big that pocket pairs can't "set-mine." That's a scared-money adjustment. A lot of the time you aren't facing a pocket pair but hands like QJ or KJ that are drawing super thin, and you really want those hands to flop 1 pair and get stacked. It's far more likely that they'll hit 1 pair rather than 2 pair or better. Or you might get a really blank flop like 822 and then you can bet 1/10th pot and watch Q-high float you or raise you while drawing dead.

Furthermore, you shouldn't 3-bet so tight that no one should ever call you down anyway. That's super easy to play against (always fold).

If you raise so big, that people fold while making the correct decision, that's a mistake.

If you raise bigger than optimal, but people still make the mistake of calling, that's a proper adjustment.

sabr, you really should sit down at a 1-2 game for a while and adjust to the new reality of what it's like down there

I've literally seen old men not play a single hand for 3 hours straight and then open shove their $200 stack and get snap called off by J8s and surprise surprise the old man has AA

literally witness that stuff

Well yes, you should bet whatever you think they will call.

That said, I tend to to go smaller because I don't want to lose them pre. More streets and more play is good for me.

Hand values only matter at showdown. If you never get to showdown, it doesn't matter if you have AA or 72o.

Not sure what you're trying to say there.

Just agreeing that, in general, we don't actually want folds on the flop with our large pairs. I agree that betting so large that people shut down so as to "not get drawn out on" is a scared money approach to the game. If we're never getting to showdown with our big pairs, does it really matter that we have AA?

gman, someone shared to me today and i thought you'd enjoy

I got dealt aces 4 times in 20 mins tonight. Never in my life have i had this happen. 2 I took down preflop with normal sized raises over limpers, one taken down with a 3bet in position, and one i stacked AK all in pre. It was glorious. Great night for me, ran amazing. Even flopped a set with 66 and got paid on a 4 card straight and flush runout vs 2 villains haha.

Last night on 4 consecutive hands I was dealt AA, KK, JJ, and JJ.

AA was the only one that lost, go figure. Some donkey cold-called pre for a quarter of his stack with 22, well played sir.

Had this hand today, I think my line is fairly standard:

$5/5. UTG limps. MP limps. Hero limps K♠6♠ in CO. Button raises to $20. SB calls. UTG calls. MP calls. Hero calls.

Flop 9♥7♦5♠ (pot $105)

Checks around.

Turn A♠ (pot $105)

MP bets $40. Hero raises to $140. Everyone else folds. MP calls.

River 2♦ (pot $385)

MP checks. Hero jams $750.

Is that a smaller raise size from the button after 3 limpers? What are you putting MP on here? Or does it not really matter because they're not calling the jam when they check the river after you raise their turn bet?

Noice!

GG is a part time player who has found a foolproof style that wins. I doubt he cares about maximizing anything.

It's true that having spades is not ideal for bluffing, but this was also a 5-way pot on the turn, so I can't just go crazy with all kinds bluffs hoping to get it through. So most of these 87/76/65 combos aren't getting to the river like this. Mostly I would just be folding those hands against so many players.

Not trying to make a set fold. I'm betting this size so that he doesn't get any bright ideas about calling with 1 pair.

Not true at all I have all 86s/77/55 in my value range here.

Yes that's a really small raise and it's fairly weak.

I'm pretty tempted to backraise over these lines except here I probably don't get credit for it after limping CO.

He could have a bunch of pair + draws, draws, or two pair+.

I have roughly 10 value combos here so he should fold most of the time.