grinders future outlook

I'm planning to play live poker part time so, everyone knows live poker is multiway dense, deepstacked

Opening from UTG 1,2,3 positions should be super tight, do you agree?

If lets say we open x3 probably there will be 3 callers, maybe open x4 or x5, maybe even x6 from UTG and x3 from mid to late positions? just to aim for 1 caller

What do you think about this?

Yes. Also 300bb+ deep in a 9-max game one needs to be tight in certain preflop situations it is difficult and its easy to make big mistakes, however in those fields there is a totally different fish to reg ratio and the regs are often weak-tight or just very passive or whatever but not like very solid.

Only needs to be one big fish who doesn't like folding and those multiway pots become haaard to steal even they have very weak ranges. One can try stuff like overbet some river when its checked through might get credit but like generally speaking think its just mostly games where you win in quite boring ways of making good hands paid the max and being good at folding players who don't bluff and calling everything against the ones who bluff.

What ive played with US players they seem to be way more predictable and open of their playbook, lol. Asians not speaking much and being tricky makes it easily quite annoying. Like just had some US guy and he just basically shows me all his hands he folds and tells me why he did fold and what size he would call and why, unbelievable. This was obviously the value gained of being friendly with him which no one else bothered doing.

Also there is players who come there and put phone to a stand and just play all hands all cards exact same and watch like anime for 10hrs or something. Unbelievable.

Depends on game. You cant really control who calls or aim at anything. Tight ranges and focus on getting paid with nuts is good starting point.

How do you play AQ AK QQ JJ TT from UTG? what size do you open? how do you play AA KK?

Limping is no option right? do you try to open x3 in hope to someone will 3bet?

Or just go brute force and open raise x5 just to get 1 caller?

Like most questions in poker, the answer is it depends. If table is crazy you open bigger. What the blinds are is almost irrelevant in a juicy live game so optimal PFR size depends on how deep everyone is, how crazy everyone is playing etc and adjust accordingly.

Basically the dominated hand stuff goes also for the suited broadways being worse than the low suited connectors / gappers but this is based only on UTG vs BB.

Would I be able to model UTG RFI- different ranges and then throwing those fish cold call ranges there in the middle would be quite interesting to see how the BB defense would look like.

Thinking monker solver could model something like this.

lets say utg rfi 3x that utg range , mp calls it with fishy wide 35% range, then two other guys call similar range behind

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What I can still try to do is simulate the pre-flop equity of a hand like QJo vs those ranges and think of it as bit lower than what it really is due to being OOP with many guys you mostly cant bluff off really easily. Then I can compare it to a hand like 57s.

Estimating you need like 17% Equity vs ranges to call vs 3x open and two callers and maybe 22% vs 4x. mathematically , not sure how correct this is but probably roughly reliable.

Well seems to take forever to finish it but just seeing those fish ranges obviously totally suck, the tight UTG range has huge EQ edge and this type of hand likely just performs too poorly to be a call because the top pairs are always coolered by the utg and whenever you get some straight draw your in pretty stupid spot OOP not wanting to really semi-bluff making check raises when its like 3-way with often some FD on board .

Equity with hand like 57 s seems to instantly jump to 20% bcz hand does not have same issues vs those ranges.

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So yes even not getting there with real results still much more confident to muck a bunch of hands pre from the BB in those spots and to be RFIng the EP tight.

Also doing some set-mining with cold calling raises in positions where its not really a play is something tempting to do but I will try to cut those calls away and set a rule that CO is the earliest position I would cold call a pair for set mining and do it if the guys behind are passive / fishy - one active reg and just fish behind I think its good to call with any pair there but the tougher the players behind the more those calls just start being putting dead money in pre-flop.

Cashed out pokerstars roll yesterday.

Accepting that the zoom grind is not A) worth it to me B) sustainable health wise , both of which just being personal things

Not a fan of multisiting results always dropped , needing to scroll lobbies to find games while trying to focus on existing ones

Live poker often feels tilting / boring / uninteresting etc. but it is also a good place to learn about yourself , what it is that tilts you , why you let something get under your skin etc.

Future of the online poker is not great at all. Games keep getting worse each year I would estimate 12-15% worse each year now we at point that those mid-stakes lobbies are just dead except at GG which just robs you with rake.

Value is in live-poker and learning plo .

My thoughts have been bit depressive lately which is unintelligent bcz it does put me to a depression which means I sleep more, eat worse, feel worse and contribute less anything good to my environment. So I did took the positive step to do cold exposure today using my chest freezer cold plunge.

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travelled 3x in past months to check the live games in neighboring countries which is good stuff.

You need to be brave active and curious in life . Those are the things which really do pay some unexpected dividends in the long run.

Right now I try to get my roll from current 70k to 100k and take a shot to go check out the games in US , probably Vegas.

It can be whatever -EV trip as total costs but life is not like poker. You need to push yourself to direction you want to go whatever the costs might be it is the only way to achieve goals otherwise you are just in ur comfort zone changing your plan whenever it gets uncomfortable - moving sideways .

Ok 7hrs yesterday payed more attention to stuff than usually.

So in that table 4x raises got callers easily so folded KQo UTG and QJs utg +1. Think those were fine

Then was thinking utg limp , hj limp hero co k4s - did not limp folded from the button i would limp it in

So one strange hand was grandpa utg 3 x raises when he previously 5x w QQ , sb flats hero bb with AJo , opted to call sb flats like 50% of hands probably cant see this being -ev call

Flop A37 - mono hero has no flush cards , grandpa bets around 2/3p sb gets out of way , I call , turn brick he goes again same size and river brick he bets like 80% , saw an aggro line before by him and having changed open size from 5x to 3x is weird , low ace no flush card I would fold the flop 3-way . Problematic to me is its 3 way and its mono board and its vs utg. but these are all quite indifferent things to fishes they do whatever they do so I would not be shocked seeing AJ sometimes beat ambitious value bet and the real value range is quite narrow there . And as mentioned he earlier started just potting turn on 3-way pot he floated so I opted to call it ... he had KK with flush blocker - immediately started to think it could be GTO if he plays with my tighter ranges not opening KQo and therefore just needing to pick some high pocket pair at a frequency to bluff when otherwise he is just too value heavy , lol . I'm a bit doubtful it was his thought process though . No real opinion on the call down probably just loses in live games on average but just keep seeing random stupid stuff very much so probably is fine approach to just defend hands which are seemingly at a bit upper part of range and folding early with like low ace.

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otherwise hj limp hero co JTo - tempting to iso but folded which I think is correct play. JTo ends up sucking when they limp ATo KJo etc. so need to iso raise tighter than online average and try pay attention whats the whole range they limp like if someone limps 30% or 60% it makes huge difference and if they are fit/fold postflop or just call you down and if there is active players behind. There is a lot to think with every decision really.

as last thing i have bit of leak to bet too big when they call a bit size sensitively usually on turn , such as KJ8 i 3b , cb flop 2/3p which I think is fine w AK , turn went for 90% on brick when probably want to go 70% they will fold AQ, AT sometimes the jack if go that big and imo the value there is to eventually get all those to float turn .

similarly on an iso spot 3 way on AAJ - went 50% flop w A9 3-way , turn comes and I went like closer to pot , he opens QQ and folds , cant remember board exactly but still want to bet the size which keeps those middle range hands calling when going too big gets u a fold

If you travelled 3x in the past month to check out live games in neighboring countries, you in Europe or Asia?

Vegas is the most obvious place to go but its far from the best place in the US to play poker. Outside of when they have big series in town games generally aren't that big and is very much hit or miss.

Asia. Europe is pretty much a live poker cemetery.

I want to visit vegas for sure but doubt I want to live in hot climate anymore as it passivates a person.

Start to run today , hot and polluted af. logged like 30mins and some walking ok start.

I know the negative part of living in cold climate , but to me personally it outperforms the negative of living in a toaster, hot , particularly this hot humid polluted is not for me long term.

Often feel nauseous like sleepy , running aircon to cool the inside air , doing cold exposure etc. but air is hot and that dehydrates body and is not healthy

And from all the cold places there is also nearly always options to go somewhere for vacation if it really starts to suck (if u have the time and opportunity)

Vegas weather is actually fantastic outside of summer. My brain shuts down when it's 26+ I can't really deal with it. I did a stint grinding live in Manila and just absolutely hated the lifestyle.

Are you saying that you're only squeezing from BB with nutted value? That you'll never isolate with anything else? What if utg is a rec who's RFing 4x with JT and gets 3 callers (as regularly happens live)? Couldn't you just squeeze large with KQo or AJo? Would seem better than folding in this scenario. But I might be relatively unstudied and/or deluded.

ive made the best out of this, bought own furnitures and AC buy groceries from big store like casco or costco in usa i think is called , eat very little any restaurant food ...

in thailand there is food accessible everywhere i would start eat that fried rice **** and gain weight like crazy thank god im not living in thailand they throw ton of msg to their food nearly everywhere , thats why it taste so yummy ...

funny how all tourist love the bkk so much , it really isn't better city than the manila sub-city that's made for foreigners, bgc.

bkk beats manila with better infra (bts-train), malls and food but its similar ant hill as this place and all other big cities. Small beach places either just very local would get you bored to the bone or the big ones are living in tourist mecca like Phuket , which is why I refuse living here in Asia long term bcz this lifestyle is just like camping no matter what you try to do about it .

What I tried to think was if UTG is a reg with tight range.

Did not got so far to think if its a rec. with wide range but that should change it a lot.

I think to squueze AJo/KQo you start run to the problem that in a ring game of 9- players where they under 3-bet there is players who only call the first raise with AK or AQ or JJ .

But it is like probably also more question if you can run over the players by bluffing postflop or if they are just sticky.

I felt like in tighter games squuezing wider works well irrespective to their ranges being maybe tighter too but in loose and stationy games it gets very hard to really push them off preflop and postflop so would just fold those AJo KQo probably there - if really utg raises like really wide range then I would contemplate either call or squeeze AJo /KQo but probably not end folding .

"utg is a rec who's RFing 4x with JT and gets 3 callers"

squeeze . Calling that size OOP sucks . You wanna squeeze or you wanna fold imo. depending on the spot and players.

I've actually tracked my BB vpip live, mostly at 2/5, over the last few weeks ( a game sometimes loose and passive, other times reg-heavy and tight, often 300bb+). I did so because I felt I was too wide in this spot and also because I get bored at the table and it gave me something to do.

Of the 91 times I've vpiped from the BB, 68 have been calls, 12 raises and 11 3bets. Of the 11 times I've 3bet, only 1 has been a clear bluff (K4o), 3 have been on the light side (QJ, KQ, AJ), the rest TT+/AK.

Even though I've collected this data, I feel like I'm still leaking $ and generally lack clarity on my strategy (compared to the SB where the best play seems more straightforward). I can understand why you're looking at it in depth.

Before I read your post, I assumed that I was calling too much/not squeezing enough (hence wanting to squeeze with KQ/AJ), but perhaps could now simplify that to "vpiping too much." I'd really need to track how often I get HU or get folds etc by squeezing. I mean, there have been hands where I've 3bet 6x and end up 4way to flop; so generally it's multiway, sometimes even when raising 10x over 4 limps. To me the most significant problem is the prospect of being OOP, multiway, in a bloated pot, against a diversity of effective stacks. I mean how can you solve that? Just avoid playing from the BB?

Think you guys are complicating things with the preflop stuff. Marginal +/- EV spots preflop can swing huge in both directions based on villain's postflop tendencies. Ask what mistakes these guys are making postflop then ask are you equipped with the knowledge to exploit it. If you can articulate how you can exploit them then feel free to VPIP all those marginal hands if you can't then don't. If you're playing in a live game and need to sweat over whether AJo/KQo is a +EV call you're in the wrong game and should just rack up and leave.

Those pots being often multiway is what complicates it I like simplicity. Sure if the utg or mp is some whale and there is no callers behind its easy to defend that hand. However if your getting there multiway calling a bad price (lets say 4x raise pre) just saying its +ev because you can exploit these players by getting value when you have better top pair or two pair or whatever I think we do also need to keep in mind that we play without position. Also not everyone is a whale most typically its that there is some reg or regs who did call it behind as well.

Whenever i did vpip too much felt like my game is bleeding and what Ive talked to accomplished live-regs they do all say same thing of preflop discipline being a very important aspect in the game.

To me personally if i call somewhere and say oh well i have implied odds with KQo it is like a mental train taking my game in that session to a less disciplined direction , like next spot would be KQs vs reg 4-betting big size and I would say oh well KQs is like a pretty nice hand and I might talk myself to defending even it might be an obvious fold.

Also whenever I worked on my pre-flop game online I started to really crush it. Felt also way more confident of how I played in my last session thinking of the pre-flop decissions more theory based than just by playing with instinct (which gets flawed by emotion when you get tired). So by no means this type of studying / thinking is a waste of time.

Said earlier that I make a rule to cold call for set mining earliest from co.

Well last session table was soft, utg limp mp fish iso raise , hero hj 88 - i did call it behind.

What in this spot matters most is that like if someone throws a 3bet they are all either folding or calling but 4-bet it with like KK/AA.

So in some really tough game (hard to find and not worth to play) the 88 I would fold but my standard is to put a cold call however I would probably not go and cold call any pair bcz probably want to have some ability to be good at showdowns sometimes. However these are spots I am really not all that sure and playing to set-mine might be just too good with any pair as there is players who overplay their hands heavily.

Think this cold call to setmine any pair is just good in these lowstakes line-ups , whenever i play something bigger than roughly 2/5 the fishes tend be more aggro regs are better etc . so even the 88 gets more marginal ... but then the fishier and weaker game one can probably +ev call 22 there...

I get what you're saying re the minor EV differences pre versus the potential exploits post. But maybe you're assuming we only have to consider a villain's post flop tendencies rather than viliains' tendencies, which are batched together in the one pot. I just find many BB squeezes aren't nearly effective as isolation raises and I'm too often in multiway scenarios where not all villains make the same mistakes (e.g. some call too wide, others overfold to large bets, some trap too often, etc.,). Too many landmines to navigate when all I'm looking for is a nice stroll and a bit of low hanging fruit (but, yeah, nothing wrong with racking up and leaving, either).

If we had this discussion 6 months ago I would've 100% agreed with you. In tougher lineups I would also err closer to playing GTO preflop. But in the exact scenario you're talking about where it when open and 3 callers, that can't be that tough of a game, hard to imagine everyone making GTO calls there and playing anything remotely close to GTO postflop. I am also retired from NL so its very possible that my opinion is off the mark as to the specific scenarios discussed above. In GTO, the EV loss from making a marginally bad call preflop is generally a fraction of a BB. Vs whales or even bad regs in unfamiliar spots they could be making mistakes with EV Loss that is 100x that by the river. As I said, its important you're able to articulate exactly how you think you can exploit them on later streets if you're going to make these marginal VPIPs pre. Knowing the whales never going to fold TP and you can get extra value is one of them. Knowing that people don't bet/raise enough so you overrealize your equity is another If by calling marginal hands you're going to put yourself in an unfamiliar spot and you end up being the one making these multiple BB mistakes on later streets by all means you shouldn't be making these VPIPs pre.

Perhaps I'm being a little too conservative and risk-averse. To your point, these loose-passive games are generally +EV, with similar player types overcalling squeezes, and, who, at times, make similar mistakes. So you can over-realise your equity and get extra value, but generally you're tied to your actual hand rather than any range advantage (hence the emphasis on preflop equity). Another positive to squeezing wider in this type of live game is that some of those you're "squeezing" out of the pot are the better regs, although they might find some more EP 4bets, which can be a nuisance (unless you're keen on opening up a 5bet bluff range, 300bb+, etc). So, for instance, a better reg RFIs 3x utg1, 3 weaker recs call, you 3bet KQo 6x in the BB --- if utg1 folds and 2 weaker recs overcall then I believe that's an ok result, but I don't know if it's actually +EV (depends on the overcalling ranges of the weaker regs, effective stacks, their postflop leaks, etc.). If the better reg is incentivised to start 4betting 55-99 or A4s as bluffs/AJs-AQo for value, then squeezing KQo is more likely -EV, especially if you're not comfortable 5betting it at some frequency.

Say the average spot is UTG opens 4x (bit splashy fishy guy), co reg calls, your with AJo on BB then you call.

Flop A28r , UTG who is like somewhat ok at hand reading and for some extend understands ranges but like lets say -30bb 100 loser throws 80% bet , co reg calls quickly what you do?

in theory your hand is a fold UTG still does not 4x there with A3s and throw that size of bet his cbets are likeliest A9+ and maybe sometimes random broadway or 99 or whatever. Regs range there is relatively strong but perhaps you got the equity perhaps you don't . So you call . Turn T you check UTG checks CO bets big , now you know your just beat and realize had you folded flop and not deviated it had been the best already.

These are most typical scenarios and theory says early fold (pre-flop) particularly when ur price is bad is best and then second best is to continue tight ranges multiway. Deviating the pre-flop might give extra value in spots you make 2pairs but then you need to make super disciplined folds like the A28r spot vs c-bettor and a caller should be mostly folded hand will not get anywhere.

This is why if you think its good enough to call vs their ranges it should be more +ev to squueze then and if its not +ev to squueze it should be a fold imo.