Not Quite Threadworthy--Low Stress Strat Questions

I think *you* really have to draw *your* own line in the sand because *you* (not the robot, not the YouTuber, not the chartmaker, not the GTO'er, not me, not them, etc.) are the one that has to play it postflop.

For me (and this is just me), I guesstimated long ago (2017 to be exact) that it is unlikely the weaker suited broadway are profitable, for me, in my game, in EP. And since the day I started 1/3 NL (2010 to be exact) I guesstimated that AJo/KQo aren't profitable, for me, in my game, in EP. So I personably don't play them (and the hands I do play I come in for a limp with all of them, again setting up a situation that is good for *me*).

In general, the more of a crusher you feel you are in your game, the wider you can play from various positions... although you can't go too crazy with this idea as stacks get shorter (where it more all becomes about starting hand strength, and dipping below 100bbs with large live preflop raise sizes starts encountering this situation).

So if you feel coming in for a raise with AJo/T9s/etc. in EP is too loose, then don't do it, and you'll probably do just fine.

Gplay*your*game,imoG

GG, the GTO preflop charts even for 6 max agree with you on the weak broadways in EP

need more info on the the reg

if you think he can do this with a non premium to bully you out and isolate vs whale then you shove

if you think he only has value here then you cry fold

Why not call? Calling $325 to win a pot that will be over $1900. Get to play 77 in position in a spot where the reg doesn't have much incentive to bluff, as there will be a dry side pot.

There will be some grim post-flop spots for sure but idk how you fold a playable hand here getting these odds.

i mean sure

but your upside is capped

if reg is value heavy then you basically need a set, even a seemingly safe flop like 36Tr you still lose to the pocket pairs and you're only a 75% fave vs two overs

there's a lot of flops where AK doesn't even hit a pair and you're still 60% at best because of counterfeit potential in addition to backdoor draws and pairing up

as played, you're going to hate every single flop without a 7 on it

villain is a smart player who will understand he basically can't fold on any flops

villain also understands that OP is going to be isoing with a very weak holding compared to his normal situation - and he's correct as there's no chance he plays 77 this way otherwise

yes, OP could have something like AA etc, but villain knows this as well - he knows OP is happy to play a $600 vs two random cards so even if he's going to get out of line repping a premium here to re-isolate - he also has some value here

maybe he is bluffing with some A4s or something, but he's not doing this with 67s

this is a reasonable range for him which includes some weaker holdings to account for bluffs - because remember, even if he gets OP to fold, he still has to win heads up vs the random hand so it can't be a pure bluff with 27o

vs that range and two random cards were exactly 34% to win

but... that's mostly do to to random spew of the other guy - the big favorite here is the person who covers us

if we remove his looser bluffs then it's a little worse where we drop to 30% but villain goes to 51%

and importantly, we are crushed if heads up - which is where most of the money is going to be played

yes it looks tempting calling 350 to win 1900 but that min click is super nutted imo and we can't go set mining with an SPR of less than 1

so despite having position, we have almost no playability and very few flops that we actually like - many of the times we push out the sb with a pot sized bluff shove we still lose to the whale as well so we either shove now and turn our hand into a bluff or we cry fold

A lot of what you said makes sense but OP is calling $325 to win $1900 so he needs to win ~17% of the time. 77 is going to flop a set ~12% of the time. We agree SB is not going to be folding very often post-flop, so OP is almost always getting the other $1850 when he hits. Those aren't great implied odds when calling $325 but they don't have to be when OP is almost getting direct odds to setmine.

There will also be some other flops OP can happily continue on (654, 865, etc), as well as a very small percentage of the time OP might win unimproved too.

I do think it is an ugly spot nonetheless. I don't love calling because there are so many murky spots (eg facing a cbet on 36Tr like you mentioned). I don't like shoving cause I agree with you that the minraise looks nutted. And I don't like folding for the above reasons.

The first graph you posted is pretty spot on on how i would range him in that spot

yeah thank you, but i just feel i play way too tight on all positons tbh and whe I see a ! from EP or MP against a blank villain ( no reads) i just clam up to much and even fold AQo etc which might be burning oney.

obv it depends on villain but I just hatehow I play way too tight form a lot of pos and then after 30 mins i raise and every folds since they know im tightass so I need to go to thelab and re looking at preflp charts instead of only playing 6 ****ing hands.

but im not that confident yet

1-2 nlhe 400 max
H SB with AKo $600
V BB Ks9s $600

H raises pre V calls
flop multiway A Qs Js
H cbets 1/3
V calls, all others fold

Turn heads up A Qs Js 10c
H bets 2/3
V shoves, H calls. clean run out for a chop.

This is normally an easy call for me with the nuts. But I was letting V freeroll me for $600. Is there ever a right time to fold in this spot? How would one know? If so, I don't know if I'm a good enough player to fold here ever.

Why would you ever want to fold with the nuts? You are 80% to chop here, but there are lots of situations where you will be 100% to chop and maybe even some spots where you are ahead (V has TT, AXss, TXss, etc.) so you can't ever really consider folding. Even if he turns his hand face-up, you have something like 40% equity, so I believe that you are getting direct odds to call.

If you want to avoid this spot, you can maybe consider checking back the turn, but unblocking spade draws and hands like QJ/QT, bet-call is probably the correct play.

Your game has bigger leaks than this hand.

You give no reads and no player profile on this hand, so im gonna talk like I have no reads, but I most likely would have one.

As far as meta read of the population that I can access right now is, Mr. Nobody that is not excellent at poker -and- that loves his two pairs on this board is on calling mode. I am not sure if he has a straight here 99% of the time or 100% of the time.

If you do say he has a straight 100% of the time, I think that very well might be true, but I dont think hes freerolling you 100% of the time. Idk. the standart open 1/3 and 2/3 seems to be just a little too much money to fold <>, the nuts in quotes that is, because -he- has the nuts.

As played, he has a lot of Kx that are not K10, with some of them being unsuited.

This is a call, a bit too much money invested to think about not chopping it up

If you call here, and lose, it was a bad day of poker for you. I say this ultimately because this set-up is rare, it's rare as **** dude.

I do think however that this is (objectively?) a world class fold. Better start doing some player profiling and hand historys in your head and in the questions you ask, for you to allow yourself to reach world class folds. I also think that its in your best interest to call this hand. So really, let's call it a gray spot, an extremely rare gray spot at that, where you have so many other stones to gather to make yourself the mountain of a solid and better poker player.

So dont worry about it! You chopped it up dude. I really want to hammer how rare this situation is. If I sent you on a scavenging hunt of this hand, you wouldn't find it!
You would need, on average, to play soooo much poker, to see this situation happen again. If I told you, ''if you go to the casino, and come back with a story where you lost straight vs straight and the other guy had a flush draw, I'll give you 5$'' it would be a bet worth forgetting, because you wouldn't come to me with that story soon enough.

But, if I was in the commentating booth, that's a fold when you can see the cards.

Professional poker call.
Potentially world class fold.
Would prefer to redirect you towards another area of your game.

Lets do a thought experiment. I have a magic wand, and turn your poker game AAA flawless, with the only permanent leak of always calling with the nuts. You'd be making so much money its ridiculous.

Also, same spot but two cards straight, now you -need- to be player profiling and have a sense of game flow, because he can not have the straight. At 4 cards straight its easier to target him as potentially freefrolling you.

Also, you dont even need to be black or white. You could improve your game by simply stating most of the times I call here, and sometimes I fold. I guess I draw a hard line at the 1200 BB deep. 300 BB deep is a whole lot, but its still (almost?) reasonable to be ''fightning'' for 20BB.

Well, he wants to fold the nuts, because its not the nuts. Completely understandable. His opponent always or almost always has a straight, so we're already in the chop range.

As for the face up equity, What. Face up, that's a fold. That's absolutely a fold face up dude. That's a two third pot, turn bet, on a pot that was not 3bet in the first place, it's actually a fold. You chop, or you lose. That's the thing dude. You're not winning or losing. Winning is actually just chopping 20BB. I'd be uncomfortable to call a face up chop or lose without lets say half my stack on the felt. I don't even care about the maths. Face up its a fold, cuz this is like 10-20 BB of a 300 BB stack, its like you fold this hand, and you're still alive. If you really wanna talk math, well its a pretty nasty freeroll. He needs a spade. That's a lot.

If you're playing in a smaller stacked / high rake environment, there really isn't any such thing as playing too tight; it is a very reasonable way to play to beat this type of game, imo. FWIW, folding AQo (especially as the first one facing the raise) is my default play (although obviously against loose openers and especially with dead money callers I'll consider 3betting).

One of the ways I've combatted my tight AF range is to have a 0% raising range in the ~HJ-. This capitalizes on two major traits a lot of our opponents have: they are way too loose with their raising / "attacking dead (limped, lol) money" (especially at smaller stacks) and way too loose with their calling. But yeah, if we have a tight AF raising range and we raise to just 5% of stacks OOP, no one who plays half decent preflop (in position and against a face up range to boot) is making that much of a mistake against us making a speculative call/overcall (although it is possible they are making one against the world), so it is something that we have to be aware of regarding how we combat things.

GcluelesstightAFnoobG

Face up this spot is a fold. The math on calling for a chop is often brutal. Hero is calling ~$545 (OP didn't include betsizes but I am assuming $15 pre $10 flop $30 turn) to "win" $597 (his own $600 minus rake), so he needs to chop 91% of the time to call. He chops 80% of the time here, so calling off if the hands were faceup would be a big mistake.

At the same time though, that hyperbolic example illustrates why this spot, as played, is still a call IMO. The vast majority of the time, Hero is going to be chopping 100% of the time in this spot and the worst case scenario Hero is chopping 80% of the time. Villain shouldn't be shoving all of his naked KX in this spot but he could conceivably shove every time he has the Ks. KXss is somewhat discounted too because he didn't 3bet pre BVB (so no AKss KQss KJss) and because he didn't raise the flop when KXss is a nutted draw. Villain would need to have KXss more than half the time for this spot to be a fold.

Also, I guess he could be bluffing. Maybe that happens 1 in 1000 times.

How much? How come you weren't chopping?

I love to bet 1/3 pot on a lot of boards ... but this one I'd pretty much always bet at least 50%.

It's not a 600 freeroll. There are no pot sizes etc. ... but even if there was only one other caller preflop, and you made it 15 pre and 15 flop then you've already put ~80 in by the time he shoves.
And the biggest problem at 1-2 is that a random V might have all 12 combos. of K9, all 9 of KQ, all 9 of KJ, etc here.

Yeah, I didn't really think about how big the shove was. That being said, OP says it was a multiway pot, so there might be (a lot) more money in the pot than you are factoring in. One of the (many) reasons why HHs should always have bet and pot sizes.

Oh yeah, I didn't notice that. The math does change somewhat drastically with each player in the pot as there is more dead money and Hero has committed more of his stack.

If 3 ways pre: Hero is calling $520 to win $610 and needs to chop 85% of the time

If 4 ways pre: Hero is calling $500 to win $625 and needs to chop 80% of the time

If 5 ways pre: Hero is calling $478 to win $640 and needs to chop 75% of the time

So if the hand starts out 4 ways with Hero betting $15 pre, $20 on flop into $60, and $65 on turn into $100, then the turn bet/call would be breakeven if the cards were face-up.

Again, no matter what, this just illustrates that you can never fold this spot as played.

I'm sorry but I think I misunderstood the low strategy thread. I didn't realize that reads and bet/pot sizes were important. Also the pot got big and scary and I couldn't remember everything.

illiterat wrote

Why didn't we chop the blinds? There were limpers in the hand 2-3. My raise size would have been about $15. V and I think 2 limpers call. Flop bet would have been $15-20. Turn bet I think was $50-$60 into a $80-90 pot. Rake is 10% up to $6 with another $2 going to promotional funds.

deep stacks after a bunch of big pots - i have about 1400, whale two spots to my left who sometimes blind raises 300 before cards are dealt and always raises my btn straddle to 30 from the bb has about 500 and young asian who feels really solid/tight in limited play to my immediate right has me covered

i straddle to $6 on btn with KK

bb whale makes it his standard 30, gets 3 callers before young asian makes it 145 - washington state so max wager is $300 and only 3 raises allowed preflop so if i raise it now capped where people can't 5bet and max i can make it is 445 - which i do assuming asian was squeezing lightish and would fold and perhaps the whale would call

folds around to asian who calls

crap - not happy now, this guy seems tight, maybe there's some meta here going on where he thinks i'm lightly resqueezing but most likely he has a premium as well

QJTr flop

we both check

4x turn

he checks - i hate life, but in addition to AA/AK/QQ/JJ/TT that beat me, there's some AQ/AJ/AT/99/KQ that may have gotten here and i'm open ended so i put in a max bet of $300 and he doesn't like it but he quickly calls

2x river

he checks - i consider going for real thin value figuring he would have bet AK but decided to nit check back

he says "i only beat kings" and flips over aces

curious how people think i played the hand and where i should have gone differently - but much more curious if you think villain missed some thin value on the river

Hand history + general question:

Playing for three years now and trying to get better all the time, always studying and always learning. Playing 1/3 HE pure more or less with some 2/5 sprinkled in. Played more hours (not exactly sure how many more) in third year than the first two, probably about as much as the first two combined as in the third. In year 3 I played about 900 hours. So say like 450 hrs, 450hrs and then 900 hours this past year.

First year won ~ 10,000$ or about 20-25$/hr

Second year won ~ 25,000$ or about 55$/hr

Third year won ~ 1,000$ or about 1-2$/hr, one 8.5k downswing at the start of the year, dug out of the hole, went up a bit then down then just kind back and forth around that.

When I calculate my variance and standard deviation I find my third year has the highest variance, slightly more than my second year, and 2.5x that of my first year.

My small 2/5 sample that started in my third year is dramatically cutting into my winrate, down about 9k at 2/5 in only 10 sessions. So would be +10,000$ if it wasn't for that.

In terms of playing style year-to-year, I've been watching hungry horse a lot and he says something along the lines of higher variance being better for your winrate. I definitely started 3-betting and 4-betting and playing much bigger pots in my second and third year, but especially in the third year, nothing seems to be working out, just kind of win a bit then lose then win it back and sideways overall. Bluffing a lot more now though and trying to rep hands and so on.

Is this normal? Is 900 hours too small a sample? I calculate the variance to be 1123519$ and the standard deviation 1060$ for this third year in about 160 sessions.

Ex HH:

I straddle UTG, folds to a straightforward loose passive in the BB whose trying to learn the game but is still quite face-up and he limps 6$, I raise Q8dd to 25, he limp calls OOP.

Jd - 9h - 4h

He checks, I bet 20 into 50, he calls

Js

He checks, I bet 55 into 90, he calls

5c

He checks, I bet 150 into 200......

I'd assume he said something like "If you take certain lines, which are higher variance, your winrate will be higher." and/or that having a higher winrate with higher variance is much better than a lower winrate with lower variance ... just adding more flips doesn't make your winrate higher on its own.

I would mostly stop bluffing this hand on the turn, if not then I would swap the sizes around so 65-75 on turn, and 125 on the river.

Mostly this, imo.

I've mentioned this a few different times here to illustrate this point, but my cherry picked best 1016 hour streak is 3x+ as good as my rotten cherry picked worse 1307 hour streak (which were put in pretty much back-to-back in my same 1/3 NL game).

My guess is a HHP strategy followed by an extremely competent expert player (who understands exactly why he is doing things and in what conditions to do so) will yield awesum results... but followed by a non-expert not-as-competent-as-he-might-think player will yield horrendous results. ETA: Also, most people suck at dealing with prolonged high variance situations; make sure you're the exception if going down this route.

GgoodluckG

Thanks. I'm torn between ABC profitable and trying to get better FPS it seems.

From my studies of variance, the mark is at 500k hands.

The general 2+2 consensus of around 20-40k is probably good enough.

You wanna know if you're good? Well you're not! Problem solved.

This is the nut low flop for both of your hands in this configuration (well, actually it's a decent flop for you given what he actually has, lol), imo. Do you actually pay off a bet on the river?

GcluelessnutlownoobG