Not Quite Threadworthy--Low Stress Strat Questions

3-4 am 1-3 game $800 effective

straddle btn to 6 - gets about 5 callers - i see no benefit in bumping it up as most will call anyway so i opt to check and see a flop with A9o so about $30 in the pot

flop comes 995dd

old man, who has been playing and drinking heavily since 10 am who literally needs to be woken up whenever there's a new hand and it's his turn to act i don't recall the specifics, but it was something like he led out with $15 after a few people checked and I bumped it up to $40 or so with the thoughts that i dominate any other 9x, people with overs will call, perhaps even a naked 5 calls and to make chasing the flush unprofitable

folds around and old man calls - this is the first turn he's seen in about 3 hours, he's usually one to fold quickly so he can go back to sleep - and no, i'm not exaggerating

turn comes 8c to put a second flush draw out there and complete the 67 gut shot

old man leads into me with $175, he has slightly more chips than I do so about $600 behind

my spidey sense is going bonkers, he has literally folded everything and been on nap mode last few hours, suddenly he's not only playing a pot but taking an uber aggressive line

so all i'm thinking is he of course has 55

i go deep into the tank

i eventually rationalize that although unlikely to be the case, he could just have a weak 9x and since he's a bad player, he could also think that pocket jacks are the nuts here or perhaps he's betting into a flush draw

i eventually decide that if he's on a draw, he check folds river if it misses and if he isn't on a draw, then he's jamming river, in which case i'm going to once again try to talk myself into folding and so i opt to let god sort it out, remove my fear of monsters under the bed and opt to jam

afterwards, nobody believed me that i genuinely thought about folding and almost did it - am i nuts to consider that? not posting results because i don't want that to twang the responses

also, i'm really dumb, but am I essentially correct that there's more 55 out there than 9x? i know there's only 3 combos of 55 but far more 9x but given that it's the case 9 wouldn't it be less common? if anyone knows the math for how to figure out stuff like that, i'd deeply appreciate it - it's stuff i used to automatically calculate in my head 20 years ago but now as an old man with brain farts it's all greek at this point

No, you're not nuts for thinking it through. If you fold and he shows a worse hand you'll want to lay down in traffic. Likewise, if you call and he shows 98, 95, or 55, you'll want to power-chug drain cleaner.

As played, I think a fold or flat call is better than a jam. But I'm guessing he folded, or snapped with something you beat.

I've had similar experiences with players who are living caricatures, and it can be hard to figure them out. I've seen my share of old men who look like OMC's but actually play pretty maniacal.

Against a "wild card" player type, I try to find some non-standard lines, to force them to react. Like, here, I might have made it $90 when he bets $15. Raising to $40 is inviting trouble, I think. Alternatively, I might min-click it. Let his drunk, tired a$$ try to figure out what what a min-click or a 6x raise is repping.

Yes, there are 3 combos of 55. How many combos of 9x he may have depends on how wide he's playing. If he's limp-calling ATC, he could have every combo of 9x possible, which is a lot more than 3.

I gotta admit, I typed up a long normal response and then after I examined all the thoughts / questions I reconsidered.

Part of me almost thinks this a troll of some sort? I mean, RR, you've been around the typical LLSNL game a while now, so I just can't believe these are your actual thoughts as to what is happening?

- you think naked overs or 5x in the field is calling the flop raise on this board with the action open? Exactly 0.0% chance of this happening, IME
- IME, 55 slowplay checks the flop almost always; I would be *much* more concerned about 98
- you think a guy who never reaches the turn is donking a flush draw or JJ (or even a weak 9x for that matter) after we raised a paired flop with eleventeen players in the pot to start risking ginourmous $800 stacks?; I mean, I won't go down to 0.0% chance of this happening, but it is less than 5% (admittedly number pulled out of my bum)
- not that it is relevant, but I also don't get the combos question; there is obviously only 3 combos of 55, and meanwhile there are a crapload of 9h(orwhatever)x combos (although as the streets go on we have to start weighing how many of said combos would actually keep playing this way)

I actually have zero issues with *considering* a fold cuz this really is 98 to this action / this guy, like, mostly, IME. Maybe 87dd. I'd sooner put him on misread 96 than pretty much anything else. Although admittedly most don't overbomb the turn with the ~nuts, but obviously a great play if we have what we're repping we have. I'm probably not good enough to fold now (I don't think?) so I think (?) I manage a call and evaluate the river.

But I dunno, maybe my game just vastly differs (but I doubt it). No one who never sees the turn vastly overplays 9x / etc. for hugenormous $800 stacks pretty much ever., and especially against our flop raise (unless we have one heckuva maniacal image). They go into calldown mode and hope they don't have to put much more money in when they are coolered. I mean, yes, I've personally seen the rare example, but I can recite the HHs by heart since they are so unicorn. If anything else is happening here, I think we can safely chalk it up to the rare spazz factor (which is a very small number although admittedly perhaps larger than I think it is).

GcluelesstypicalLLSNLthoughtprocessnoobG

Yeah, I don't think drunk Sleepy McGee is donking flop and calling a raise with 67. Pretty unlikely. Also don't think he's doing this with 87dd.

I wouldn't rule out him fast-playing bottom boat, or worse 9x on the flop.

The turn 8 is pretty disappointing. My thinking is that people who are barely playing the game by not paying attention tend to play hands that don't require much thought pre or post. So 98 is definitely in this guy's range, and for the same reasons I wouldn't rule out him fast-playing 55, I wouldn't rule out him fast-playing 98.

Every so often, maybe this guy plays a flush draw this way, but that turn donk makes it much less likely.

I think it's okay to call the turn simply because he has more T9 combos than 98 combos. If he's thinking clearly enough to bet-call flop and donk the turn with trips, he may have enough brain cells left to slow down and check the river with worse value, which will be amaze-balls if we can spike an A, or just check back if not.

I dunno. If he has 98, 95, or 55, it's just a cooler. Maybe we can fold if he jams river, but probably not.

X-post. I really liked a long-gone IMDB post about the movie Nebraska. It said that filming in black and white is a lost art. It doesn't work if you set the scene for color and then film in b&w. Case in point, in Nebraska you cannot see a thing in the background whereas in any old Twilight Zone episode you can count the leaves on the trees on my CRTV.

^ was supposed to be in chat thread but could not delete.

so my thoughts were - my reraise was really strong - i'm basically saying I have 9x so him not slowing down one iota was where the alarm bells started going off

his donk really showed a lot of strength to me, where he's worried i'll check back turn and then he misses his chance to play for stacks

after i jam, he snap calls so i obviously think i'm beat because 9x is the very worst hand I could have here

he doesn't show his hand so i'm asking if he has a boat and he eventually shows Q9 after it blanks out on river

a few people accused me of hollywooding to try to look weak (i sat and thought about whether to fold/call/shove for about a minute) and when i exclaimed that it was legit and i was actually considering a fold nobody believed me

I wouldn't worry about dumb people at the table. These are the same types of people who would snap call 92 here. They are typically morons who can't comprehend what they don't know.

I don't think your flop raise looks that strong when you only make it $40.

I don't think his turn donk would look that strong after you raise flop, but your flop raise sizing does muddy the waters a bit, making it possible for you to have some semi-bluffs on the flop that might check back turn.

His flatting your flop raise and then donking the turn is a weird line. Most of his hands that are strong enough to call the flop - but not re-raise - should be more worried about you jamming over his donk rather than worried about you checking back.

If he has 98 he's got your higher 9x drawing dead to three outs, and your lower 9x drawing dead. I'd expect him to just check all his boats on the turn, so he can check raise. If you check back, he can just lead the river.

So his turn donk looks like a value hand that wants some protection, not a monster.

I've been in trips over trips situations a few times. Never seen my opponent slow down, even with crap kickers. They just always think they have the nuts. Especially on straightening or flushing boards, they tend to put opponents on draws.

One time I folded top trips with top kicker facing aggression from an OMC type, in a three way pot with a maniac. I was sure the OMC had a boat when he raised over my call of the maniac's turn barrel on a wet board. Sure enough, he was just overvaluing worse trips, and I'd have scooped if I'd stayed in it.

As I say, some of your thoughts just "do not compute" to me (which is why I found it such a strange post)... such as worrying what people who are capable of lol calling the flop raise with naked overs think of your play.

I'm guessing you're just checking your sanity / thought process against your typical LLSNL player? Honestly, I think you have every reason to be shitting your pants (and I actually dislike your shove), although I guess I'm not surprised the results would gobsmack me, but congrats on running into the worst player you'll play with this year @ LLSNL. But not everyone will agree with that.

But may also really depend on what the BI limit is for this game and what everyone typically plays at. I mean, if there's like a $1.5K BI max and everyone is always sitting at $1K+ and those fly around, ok, whatever. But in smaller BI games where people BI for like $200 and then run their stack up to a huge 4x that to $800, the typical player goes on lockdown and full on GodMUBSy mode.

Ggoodluck!G

Obviously think as long as you want, and it's often really difficult to understand what people are thinking/doing ... even more so if they are drunk/sleepy and might be doing weird things (Eg. think they have 99 pre. but end up on the flop with 96o, or even remembering and old hand and then recheck on the flop and see 92o).

Saying that ... I think it's much _less_ likely people have 55 here. Some better players might flop bet/call and donk lead almost all turns to look weaker (but probably not for this size), but IMO the bad low stakes population heavily leans heavily toward having 9x here ... I assume because they don't want to just gamble for everything vs. a combo/NFD draw on the flop and they don't want the turn to check through for those same draws. So they donk 9x to charge all your draws.
98 is a real worry (one of the worse 9x hands, then makes the nuts so lead away), but even then they probably don't lead so big because they want flush draws to call and not fold.

Given that I probably call turn, but shoving might be better ... esp. vs. the drunk/sleepy guy who probably isn't going to realize that 92o is crushed when you shove.

How do folks handle a fairly snug taggy guy who may now be tilting when they alter their 3! size to something insanely large?

Specific example:
HH with specific V - I shoved turn with bottom 2 + FD, villain tanks forever after and folds. Was a fairly large pot as me and V were effective 175-180BBs. Player on his right rabbit hunts and shows him a Jclub river and villain laments not calling as he had lone Qhi flush draw.

Very next hand - were 6 handed, 1/3
MP: ~75BB
V1: 100BB

1 limp
MP raies to 15
V1 gives a lil speech and carefully places 3! to 50 out

Hero in CO has {X,Y}

What's our 4! range here?
I dont think polarizing a 4! range here is best exploitively - I think something linear works best if we are to go that route. Open to reasons why thats wrong though as well.

Specifically to our read though - villain is somewhat TAGy but not aggressive enough post flop - closer to fit or fold than a passive calling station. Was visibily irked by getting shown the rabbit river card previous hand. Had been pretty straight fwd prior. but small sample size and still jsut a guess/read on my part so while I thought this to be the case, greater than 55% say, i wasnt approaching a territory i'd call confident in that read - 85%+ so a range of doubt here.

MP is a bit of a gambler - will raise/call and limp/call a lot. likes to see the board, highly curious about it being a 7 card game often too.

Curious about how much folks adjust their range here and how

FWIW i had JJ and wasnt in love with 4betting but also wasnt thrilled to simply flat as MP.

Lately I've just releeased a lot of hands to wildly oversized bets vs random 1/3 and 2/5 opponents in spots like these. More often from OOP due to difficulty of equity realization in those spots.

Unecessarily bloated pots: Do we always assume 100% tilting? Do we like to linearize our 4! range here since we probably wont get folds as often now but assumption is tilted villain is 3-betting with way too much here and possible even a higher % of pure trash but likely to take it to the streets and not fold pre + liklihood of MP coming along.

JJ in position isnt awful as a flat but some % tho low MP shoves.

I wouldn't call his raise "insanely large," especially if he's still rattled and quickly trying to calculate the raise size.

Unless you know him to get spewy pre-flop when he is tilted, I probably would not adjust my range at all, since snug TAGs don't normally tilt by widening their 3! range.

Seems like an awful lot of words to ask 'how to respond to a 3bet when we have no reason to deviate from our normal strategy?'. The sizing is normal, not 'insanely large' or 'wildly oversized'. The villain should have a tight range, which is population normal, and might be wider than normal and might not be.

sorry i shouldve said large for the table. usually these guys if htey 3! was max 3x so 15-45 and even then their sizing would sometimes just be 35-40 avg.

yeah not insanely sized but was out of the norm.

---

i used a specific hand example but i am curious about folks thoughts on adjusting to larger/abnormally larger relative to opponents avg raise size - what is our criteria for adjustment and what could be a sort of catalyst piece of info besides an obvious one like V shows down something like 88.

This also does border on avg player tendency for middling players - big big raises tend to be big hands but i do see a trend where they mix in middling PPs a lot here too unintentionally arriving at a big raise size range that isnt just preflop nuts.

if it was more likely to go HU vs 3bettor and we were deeper - i wanna say somewhere between 150-200BBs flatting easily becomes much more viable imo.

And
perhaps a follow up question might be: as stack depth increases, obviously our range should increase in tandem - what does that scaling look like both for a linear range and a polarized one

1/3 $900 effective. 9 handed

$6 straddle

UTG+1 open $15, i have 44 UTG+2, i call (I think this is bad). anyways.

UTG+3 makes it $80. UTG+1 calls. call or muck.

I think being the first caller to setmine is always fairly poor, with perhaps the exception being on the Button (made poorer the earlier we are and more chance of someone 3betting behind us).

Our IO at this point are about 15:1. That's not too great all things considered (OOP, unlikely to make it to showdown UI, we don't stack like KK on A4x, even in best case scenario of getting it all in on the flop with a set versus an overpair we still lose ~10% of the time, etc.).

GcluelessNLnoobG

I fold twice, after lightly punching myself in the balls for the first call.

first call isn't terrible if you think villains will both:

a) stack off with overpair/top pair type holdings if you flop it
b) nobody is going to reraise behind you

since both of those in combination are unlikely (if they are, congrats, you found a dream table) it's a pretty straightforward fold

even easier fold to the $80, at no point should that ever be under consideration

i'm far likelier to make a call there for the original $15 if i'm towards the close of the action but you're so early that even if it doesn't get popped up, you'll likely be oop for most of it and thus unable to realize your equity where villain can check back a lot of turns and rivers when you hit it

$1.1k effective $1/3. $6 straddle.

i open KQs MP $20. solid tag sb 3b to $100. sb is probably the best player at the table. straddle folds.

$1/3 1100 effective

two people limp $3, i limp 66 CO, btn limps, blinds check

flop 345 two spades, i have no spade. checked to me i go $10. bb CR's to $50.

BB's range is tough to play here, hes not that passive but not crazy either.
folded to me, what do you do?

imo no real value in isoing a hand like JTo where the alternative is seeing a flop in position 4 handed

JTo plays better multi way than heads up anyway

especially don't want to do that vs a capable player in the sb that is known for 3! light

curious what you're posting this for, is this ever a call for you?

i'm never folding here, you block 67 well and it's unlikely he pops it up with the wheel so you're mostly facing a combo draw, overpair, or 2p or a set, all of which you have a lot of equity against

quite often you don't improve here and need to fold river but a lot of people will go to the wall on boards like this with marginal holdings even when a 7 or deuce is spiked - it's a good spot to double up imo and you could even be way ahead of his A5o which he thinks is the nuts