1/3 NLH hand

against a true OMC just call the flop. you block top pair and two pair. so i dont see any point in raising.

pre size seems too big too.

I don't think I'd just open raise to 25$ when there are no limpers in front.

Probably just open to 15$, if table's really fishy, 20$ is the max I go.

Not sure what OMC's flop donking range is but can we really raise for "value" vs him? Against most people, this raise is "standard". But against OMC, I'm not too sure.

I think his worse range on flop is KK/combo draws type hands which is still like 50/50 vs us.

Btw don't post results immediately. This might cloud our judgements.

Hey thanks for the reply

Felt it was hard to write the hand without results given I jammed and action ended turn, but I will keep that in mind for future hand histories!

Curious what both of your takes are on opening size being bigger

Property I play at is annoying in the sense everyone has a tendency to limp call 15-20$ opens.

I’m in a constant dilemma where if I don’t go bigger, I’m going 5-6 ways to a flop, feels like I’m playing a bomb pot every time.

How do you adjust to that?

In order of preference, preflop I would fold, limp, raise small, and last raise to lol 8x. We're putting in far too much money far too early with far too weak a hand, imo.

For better or worse, we've flopped top two on a drawy board in a SPR 4 pot (thanks to preflop). I would (somewhat uncomfortably) feel committed here (and if we're up against better then that's mostly due to overplaying preflop). I would raise a PSB which would mean about $150 (which would leave a $175 shove into $380 on non-stoopid turns). Think you could also argue for just a shove at this depth. Our small raise offers too good of odds when committed, imo.

I also shove the turn.

Next time don't post results so early as they might bias responses, but we way overplayed things preflop, imo.

GcluelessNLnoobG

Don't fold pre FFS

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Grunch:

PRE - why are we opening to 25 at 1/3, especially when we're only 350 eff? Why not 10-15?

When the OMC calls out of the SB, be wary not to start blasting off post. He's going to have some sort of reasonably strong hand if he's happy to keep putting money in.

FLOP - yeesh. Why are we raising the OMC's donk on QJT? Do you think he's bluffing or betting worse for value?

If he's betting worse for value or bluffing, we want him to keep doing that. Raising only ensures he continues with the top of his range.

My preferred line here would be to raise smaller pre, flat call the small donk, and consider a fold if he bets big on the turn. I'm never playing back at an OMC who takes this sort of line. He's letting us off the hook. May as well be wearing a nutted sign around his neck.

It really depends, do they really flat call with "trash" for 25$ though??? When you make it so big, it forces them to call and trap with stronger hands including qq+/ak+.
If 25$ works for you then by all means go ahead. For my pool most of the time 15-20$ is the "max" amount they'll call with speculative hands, once it gets to 25$ they start folding all the hands they wanted to play.
Of course if there are limpers in front, say 2 limpers in front, I can add more to like 25$ or even 30$ depending on the limpers and table.
If there are no limpers in front, opening to 25$ often gets me 0 callers unless they have a decent hand {AQ+/88+}. But if I were opening light, vs this range, it's lighting money on fire. If I were opening with super tight ranges, I'd still play super cautious postflop but pot is already too bloated now for small ball poker.

Stack depth is also a thing. So say you only play 300$ effective, 25$ out of 300$ is already 8.3% of your stack, this is already playing like online "3bet pots". Which means you can't even open any speculative hands with this sizing and depth.
And if you get 3betted to like say 75$, it forces to fold alot of your opening range. Probably only continuing with {JJ+/AK+}
But your opening range is probably pretty wide something like {pp, Axs, broadways, AJ+}. Which means some random 3bets you, you're literally losing money each time.

Not saying opening big is "bad". It really depends if the table lets you make money with it. If they're very fishy, they still call with all sorts of speculative hands with it, then by all means size up. If aggro players are behind me, I rather size down because they'll 3bet/squeeze vs me more often.
I've seen tight players size up and others still call with trash range just to crack their aces kinda thing but what actually happens is the tight player stack them all.
So at the end of the day, do what works for you. If you can make money with such tactics, go ahead and continue what you were doing.

other than the pre-flop sizing that others mentioned , which isn't really that bad if you've experimented and get 1-2 callers with 25. I think you played it fine.

Old man coffee (OMC) players don't love drawing on flushes. They wait for made hands. The name comes from older players who play during the day sipping coffee. They are playing a couple of hands an hour. If you see someone doing something a bunch of times, most likely they aren't OMC.

As for the hand, the raise is way too much. I open with about 10, the more callers the better. I'm not looking to shut out the others, I want them to keep betting at me when I hit. If I miss, not a big deal. Flop is fine as played as long as you were willing to stack off with top two. Just a cooler.

Random thoughts...

1. Don't be afraid to go multi-way. Especially not when we have a speculative hand, such as QJs.

Speculative hands are actually great multi-way. We'll either smash the flop and someone will pay us off, or we'll whiff and we can get away from our hand cheaply. At least, that's how we're supposed to play. If we're going broke with top pair, so-so kicker, that's just a leak that needs to be plugged.

I'd be more annoyed going multi-way with premium PP's like AA/KK and have to fold because we have one guy blasting into us with the obvious nuts. But there again, it's not the worst scenario imaginable. People tend to play more face up and "honest" when pots go multi-way. Our burden of defense goes down. We don't need to lose a lot of money in multi-way pots.

2. If I'm raising to 15 at 1/3 and getting multiple callers, I'll start opening to 20, and keep increasing my open size until I reach the point that people start getting OOL, or playing REALLY face up, which is inevitable.

Say we start opening to 20. It may take an orbit or two, but pretty soon, the crabby nits will ask for a table change, or they'll start to loosen up, and someone, probably multiple people will start to play back at us. That's good. We want that.

They'll either be getting OOL, or they'll be playing face up. We can now start to make our counter-adjustment, tightening up on our 3B/4B range, over-folding to bigger raise sizes, and basically making them play in a way that is uncomfortable for them, but very comfortable for us.

I love it when I sit down at a table, and hear people grumbling about my raise frequency or size. I just keep doing it, waiting for the inevitable shift in table dynamics. As soon as I sense that the rest of the table has gotten tired of my $hlt, I tighten up significantly, but keep raising big with my now stronger range. It won't be long before some one jams into me with AJ and I have AA.

3. The worst scenario is we start raising bigger, and the table dynamic doesn't shift. In that scenario, I'll start opening smaller with my stronger hands. Like, if I was opening 15 or 20 with my usual range, I'll open to 10 with AA/KK/AK, and pray someone thinks I'm weak, and wants to 3B me.

I'll also sometimes start limping with a polar range of big PP's and middling SC's. Smash a few flops and stack a few people with a surprisingly strong hand, and watch the game change very quickly.

Basically, my strategy is to have fun being the table a$$hole.

Point #1 really resonates with me, and for the most part, I don’t have trouble fold top pair good kicker in different scenarios. Ultimately I want people to put money in when they have trash hands, and when I know I can outplay them post. So you’re right, getting used to playing certain mid-strength hands multi-way post is definitely an adjustment I want to make

On Point #2, this is why I question around opening bigger sizes moving forward. The reason I feel got screwed by this hand, opening a bigger size pre, is I ran into the top of the range of a player I now know is fairly elastic pre when it comes to preflop raise sizes, meaning he’ll flat top of his range to bigger open sizes, because he perceives the raise purely based on dollar value and respond accordingly.

It was really hard for me to put him on AK there given he flatted my open, and I’m still torn there whether he flats AK or 3B if I opened to say 12 instead.

Would love your thoughts on this…

I think the main adjustment I can make here is observing what players are doing a lot more attentively, paying very close attention to showdowns and remembering open sizes during those hands. If I saw this guy flat AK before to an open, I could have put him on this hand when he called my flop raise

You got screwed because you failed to connect the dots using your own logic.

If you know the OMC is elastic pre, then you know if you open to a larger size, he's going to have a stronger hand. If you know he'll flat the top of his range, then you know he's not 3B'ing hands like AK.

You had a good read - he's an OMC, he's elastic pre, and he'll flat with the top of his range rather than 3B. You had all the puzzle pieces you needed to know you shouldn't over-play top 2P when he donks on the flop.

It's not just that you only had 2P. You could have top set here, and your line should be the same in response to his donk, after you open for such a large size pre, and he flats out of the SB. He's repping super strong on the flop, but he gave us a good price to call and hope to boat up on a later street.

I meant to ask - did he check the turn, or bet again? I'd have expected him to bet again, and pretty large, when he has AK on a two-tone board, after you flat call flop. If he bet big, it's kind of an easy fold. He'll very rarely be betting worse than top set for value, and the only hand better is AK.

If he checked to you, it's a little more understandable to jam, but I still wouldn't do it after we raise the flop and he calls. I'd just take the free card, pray to boat up, and plan to fold if he jams river, which is what I'm expecting.

i have to admit i tire of seeing gobbledygeek's OMC advice. i have him on ignore but usually i forget to login before browsing this forum so i see it anyway. i highly recommend everyone just put him on ignore as well, if you want to develop your game and not use a robot-like, paint-by-numbers approach.

true omc's only 3bet with KK and AA preflop. and only 4b with AA.

they like certainties in life. kind of makes you wonder why they bother playing a game with uncertainties like poker.

Do you expect this opponent to 3bet or call preflop with AA/KK? If mainly 3bet then what value does he donk flop with other than AQ/QTs/JTs which you block? If a true OMC then he has all the sets as well as straights. Against a proper opponent the postflop line would seem to be OK, if this guy is OMC (and I'm conscious of having seen results) then the raise and jam look like a fairly big overplay. It's a little tricky since the big open means you don't have a great deal of wriggle room and it's hard to get away from.

donkbets tend to make better hands call and worse hands fold. Therefore your adjustment is to flat the donkbets and raise as a bluff. Obviously dont want to bluff with 2 pair so in this instance we call the lead. He'd probably lead turn again in which case we can still call. We want him valuetowning himself and dont necessarily mind it if he's 'setting his own price' for a draw. Going broke on this river every time all things considered, but fish will take this line with all sorts of stupid hands that they dont know what to do with, especially since our calls look so weak.

@docvail Yeah he did check turn, my read was off tbh, and yeah there’s a lot of ways I can be beat, combos of 98s K9 AK.

My read at the time was that he can have a lot of pair + SD FD combos, was setting the price to draw, and thought I was getting in my money in good against those hands on the turn.
But I have it printed in my thought process now that OMC will not want to bet multiway OOP with such hands.

KQ, KJ, KT, maybe T9, and read his flop bet as him wanting to set the price for his draw.

I think the simplest adjustment I can make here is not to discount AK from OMC limping ranges, especially in blinds / EP.

I like to look thru villains eyes when evaluating. He flopped the nuts and is worried about getting value, so he bets 1/3 pot into 2 players hoping someone will call.

Then you come along…
I like your aggressive attitude, don’t ever change that, but I think that this situation does not warrant aggression.

I get that you are trying to make draws pay, but what better hands will fold? When he calls the $90, can’t you eliminate draws? You do beat QT and JT. Why did he Not fold?

I agree with others that said call & pot control. If you call, he may keep it small not wanting to let you off the hook. I love top two pair and usually want to bloat the pot, but not when connected like this and facing players that called 8x pre-flop. OMC is nothing to play around with, known for always having it, no matter what you might have seen previously.

OMCs don’t call huge raises with K9 or 98. He either has us crushed or is flipping. Call flop and play turns, probably calling a reasonable bet and folding to a bomb.

His most likely hand is a set but he will telegraph his hand strength on the turn.