ISOLATE

I'm not sure what OP was stating or asking? Might be AI related.

You are right about AI, especially after reading some of the other posts by this user. I took their point to be that you cannot play hands profitably in multi-way pots because you almost never have 50% equity in such spots. While it is true that you usually aren’t a favorite to win, it also is untrue that any spot where you aren’t favored to win must be -EV.

I play low stakes and kinda like being accused of being AI but it’s all me. Of course you have to know your way around multiway, it’s unavoidable. Simply stating that you should be finding ways to get heads up whenever you can. Thanks for responding. Just trying to fit in as I’ll be hanging around here now.

Career/Retired football coach and strategy is my thing. Don’t need AI as I have read every poker book out there & spend most of my time focused on getting better at the game.

Why does OP seem like an insult to me?
Maybe not such a welcoming crowd here.
Feel free to call me out. I don’t have all the answers but I’m trying to find them. Can’t understand a lack of respect

Maybe we could leave out the insults Barney

How about this - get rid of the CAPS LOCK KEY.

Welcome to the community, FreeCard. Your posts don't sound like AI to me 😀

I recommend changing your format to something that invites discussion, without claiming authority on the topic. A bit of humility goes a long way in a truth-seeking community.

Imagine walking into a poker party where you don't know anyone, then proclaiming THIS IS GROUND TRUTH. It's kind of difficult to engage with, you know?

Something like this, for example, is much easier to engage with:

p.s.

OP means "Original Poster", as in the person who started the thread. It's not an insult.

You've created several threads in a short span of time and on a new account and they are all phrased a bit weird. It is not uncommon in the last 6-months for AI-generated content or AI-generated-adjacent content to be posted on the internet. It was not meant to be an insult and as Tombos stated, OP just stands for "original poster."

Welcome to the forums and hopefully we can engage in some good discussion moving forward.

OP (and yes, not an insult), I do apologize for thinking you might be AI, but there is no hard and fast rule that “you definitely want to isolate and get heads up”. Really (like most things in poker), it depends.

I gave you an extreme example of this above. HereÂ’s a more realistic one. You shove for 100bb (assume all opponents also have 100bb as well) with either AA or AKs. How many opponents should you want to call your shove? I used a 14% calling range for all opponents (66+, A5s+, K9s+, QTs+, JTs, ATo+, KJo+). It turns out that with this calling range, any number of callers is profitable with AA and the optimum would be 6 callers. You would have a 42.1% equity against these six opponents giving an EV of 600x0.421 - 100x0.579 =194.7 bb. Heads up you have 83.9% equity, but your EV is only 67.8BB.

For AKs you want 2 callers, but itÂ’s close. With 2 callers your equity is 38.8% and your EV is 23.8BB. Heads up you have 58.0% equity and an EV of 23.3BB. AKs is still profitable with up to 6 callers (1.3BB EV), itÂ’s -EV with 7 or more.

Callers. AA eq. AA EV. AKs eq. AKs EV
1. 83.9 67.8 58.0 23.3
2. 72.1 116.3 38.8 23.8
3. 62.9 151.6 28.2 19.1
4. 54.9 174.5 21.6 13.1
5. 48.5 191.0 17.2 7.2
6. 42.1 194.7 14.0. 1.3
7. 36.0 188.0 11.6 -4.4
8. 30.6 175.4 10.0. -7.8

What great advice all around
I’m glad I found you guys

Not meaning to come off like that
Will try rewording

I thought I was throwing out ideas for discussion and wondered why I was getting no feedback. There’s never a ‘this is the way it is’ in poker.

Kinda socially awkward in real life too. Sorry I got off to a bad start. Sorry I didn’t know op.

Not sure about the problem with capitals in the title, but hey, I’m adaptable

I hope to ‘add to’ as well as ‘learn from’ all of you posting here. I only play once or twice a week, but poker is always on my mind.

It’s the circuit tournaments that I love and I haven’t gotten deep enough, but I’m pretty consistent playing cash.

Thanks for your understanding

No problem and welcome. I should add that my analysis with AA and AKs above was geared toward cash games rather than tourneys. Tournament play adds more complexity since a play that is profitable in terms of chips often is not profitable in terms of winning actual money. This is accounted for by something called the independent chip model (almost always abbreviated ICM on these forums). This model accounts for the fact that chips added to a large stack are typically not worth as much as the same chips added to a small stack and that chips list are often more valuable than chips gained (cash is simpler since all cash has the same value - we don’t need to have anything like this). If you want to improve your tourney results you really should familiarize yourself with ICM.

Interesting discussion. I agree that we should try and get HU and that is why we isolate. That is certainly a guiding principle in my game. I seek to play HU where ever possible.

However, with the exception of one spot: When I open a mid strength hand (33-99, low SCs) and I am 3bet, but then there is a cold caller of the 3b also.

In these spots I tend to fold alot to the 3b when HU, but call more with mid PPs and SCs with a cold caller, because the price is better, and this type of hand can win big pots my making sets or hitting a strong draw.

Do you think I am making a mistake thinking like that?

The problems with the strategy of “trying” to get heads up :

- You literally can’t in live games. No matter what you do a very significant if not majority of hands you play will go multiway.
- You don’t have any real levers to pull to create heads up pots in limped or unopened situations. Facing an open we can 3bet more than we call. But unopened all you have is size. And raising to huge sizes, that either self exploit you or force you to play way too tight, in order to make bad players fold bad hands, is just bad logic.

Multiway pots in position with reasonable ranges against players that are getting to flop way too wide and making huge errors postflop is a money printing situation. Remember if a pot goes 4 ways and you win 30% of the time you are crushing it even though you lose 70% of the time.

Tighten up early and middle position ranges so you’re defensible postflop when you wind up OOP, attack from in position, easy game

Appreciate the engagement, lot of good insight here. I know what some are saying:
Straddle gets 2 calls and then you raise and all three call - you’re still multiway

However, I still think you raise & try to get heads up, because you want the fold equity. Players call your raise with a different mindset figuring someone is strong so if they don’t smash the flop they’re gone.

Most agree, the likelihood of multiway pots makes playing OOP less desirable, and makes post-flop play more important.