2/5NL Navigating JJ four way and OOP

hmm

Props for imitating my style (probably did a better job than a LLM.) Speaking of which, on the topic of “I know … but” rhetorical constructions: they function to acknowledge commonly-held points of view that may have various shortcomings.

I mean, this forum is primarily built around the learning method of discuss problem/reveal outcome/reconsider problem in light of outcome. Of course, the unwillingness to fully acknowledge the implications of the outcome when it diverges significantly from the initial discussion is a learning experience in itself!

You keep saying this, but that doesn’t make it true

I think it's strange that this VGP is criticised so heavily for playing 99 like this, especially since everyone is saying hero should fold the flop.

We're talking about two big fish here, so why couldn't VGP coldcall this 3bet, if he's expecting both fish to join? That's where the money should come from. They're all deepstacked and he has position on hero. On a flop like this, why wouldn't he bet 99 against these same fish that could have a milion hands he's ahead of ("sets are very much in play" means nothing here, when apparently there are a million hands very much in play)? We could argue about the sizing, but when the fish are gonna pay you anyway with A5s or whatever (which is the vibe I'm getting here from OP), you might as well bet big. VGP doesn’t even have to assume hero just became a non-factor with AK/AQ, because VGP probably knows he can fold out a lot of overpairs as well. Heck, you guys are all saying JJ is an easy fold! If JJ is an easy fold, I'm willing to bet the consensus on QQ would be fold too. AA/KK I'm less sure about, but if hero is only willing to continue with AA/KK (which he might not even be checking), then VGP is in a very good spot with an overpair against two big fish.

I dunno, maybe I'll be getting a lot of flak for this, but this thread feels like a lot of people trying to have it both ways. If VGP is such a fish, then why did you all just let him outplay you?

I'm not sure exactly, I didn't really like how I played it, hence the post. But there are still plenty of bricky cards left in the deck, and runouts that get us to a free showdown. I suppose I really just wanted to see if VGP would fire again with me also still in, and if he did that would be enough proof that I was beat. Obv seeing what everyone had made me kick myself for not shipping it on the flop. But I get it's also very results oriented. Anyway I just thought it was interesting spot with fold, call, and raise all being pretty valid options."

Unexpectedly, I think the most illuminating part of this thread is how quickly people are to label someone a huge fish if they don't take a solver approved line in a deep stacked, fishy game.

He has, in his mind, nine outs. As someone mentioned earlier, some people here are clearly unfamiliar with LS fish.

Of course they’re going to call—you dont win huge pots, like the one they won three weeks ago, by folding to huge bets in multiway pots when there’s another action player and the preflop raiser behind you.

$150. 😉

And every turn card in the deck except a nonspade Jack can beat JJ on this board, especially with a Meg in the pot. 100% shove or fold on flop.

Main villain having 99 did not reveal any new information. Literally the very first response ITT said results may show they have 99 and their analysis would not change. My own post said it's entirely possible they show a different hand we'd be ahead of and said I'm fully prepared to shrug it off.

Because when you do a range analysis, you can acknowledge that you're a 2:1 favorite against half of one opponent's range and drawing to two outs against the other half, and 4.5x jamming over two players to find out which is still a blunder regardless of which half the one opponent happened to have.

I will acknowledge that results did provide new information about the fish. If he is expected to have 98o here, then he is a 70/40 type ultra-whale, which I'll admit I did not infer from OP's read which was (in its entirety) "Biggest fish (BF) at the table."

It is quite obvious when someone is raising any top 40% hand from any seat at the table in a 9-handed game. And if villain IS raising 4 times per orbit, then he's achieved a table main character status that not only changes his range (which is not the one people were most worried about), but also recontextualizes main villain's actions. OP did drop a clue for us that this is a "very good table, " which very well could mean this is a table where the fish are opening a ton of pots and everyone's vying for every chance they can get to flop any top-pair-decent-kicker or marginal overpair in an 80bb pot so they can speedrun stacks in. So that's my bad not picking up that bread crumb, but I don't really think that was absorbed by anyone and didn't really enter the conversation for either side's argument.

If this is the case, main villain's preflop call is less face up and their B75 lead is light enough that a flop jam makes sense. Anyone who inferred all this from OP and had this as their underlying reason for jamming is better at piecing together clues from HH than I am and have bested me in this argument.

If villain is *not* a 70/40 ultra whale, then results are anomalous. Failing some externally obvious reason for the "BF" to play like a 70/40 for this hand only (and OP did not provide any game dynamics or tells to suggest this hand was exceptional for any reason), then results are statistical noise. They are possible and should be considered in our range analysis at a small percent but 1) too discounted to have an outsized impact on the direct equity calculation itself and (more importantly) 2) do not have the effects on the greater dynamics of the hand that are important to the last paragraph's conclusion.

In that case, reconsidering the problem means OP should reevaluate if there's any gameflow or tell they missed about the hand that made the fish temporarily raise/call 40% of hands and/or note that they prefer to raise offsuit connectors even though they limp weak broadways or whatever and move on.

(I swear this post got so long just to preclude people from replying with "Fish's ranges aren't static and don't follow a GTO hand chart, ya big dummy" and I know that's still gonna be the response and I'm already tilted just imagining it.)

Not that it makes any difference in a vacuum: "BF" could just as well have 98hh and that wouldn't force us to reevaluate a single thing about the hand. Just pointing out the only unusual thing about results and demonstrating how the "reconsider problem" step looks.

Just saying "I know results shouldn't color our analysis too much, but boy howdy look at those results" isn't pointing out shortcomings in a commonly-held point of view. It's just self-defeating logic.

+1

The "anyone who cold calls 3bets is a fish" camp are way too rigid in their thought process. You can do whatever you want in poker from limping to cold calling. Your strategy is 100% dependent upon your opponent, you only play theoretical if you don't know who your opponent is or what the population tendencies are.

Cold calling 99 makes sense because there are 2 fish in the hand and everyone is very deep.

I have no problem with how VGP played this hand -- he took perfect advantage of having two fish in the hand and position on OP.

Speaking of which, except for a "pretty tight range, " how does VGP see you, OP? Seems as if he took full advantage of your check on the flop and the board texture -- or he has some read on you? What are you doing w/ KK/AA on this flop?

MDA = Mass Data Analysis

H2Note just released a Live DB of over 675k hands available for purchase from various streaming platforms.

It's how online players have been playing for the last 10 years or so but live players are usually about a decade behind in terms of strategy (not really their fault since you see much less hands plus more multiway pots).

Chai Academy (now Savant Poker) has a free live MDA guide which can introduce you to this.

Since I plugged him hopefully he doesn't mind me showing one of his free slides.

If we take two lines and let's say we want to bluff an unknown opponent

B-B-B

and

B-X-B

What line is better against an unknown as a default strategy?

The Triple Barrel or the Bet-Check-Bet

Well we can look at MDA (live mda and online mda are different so we can't use online mda)

This is B-B-B for bluffing

This is B-X-B for bluffing

So unless you have some personal history or a real reason to deviate you should be putting your bluffs in the second line as a default and your value in the first line (no one is going to know you are doing this at low stakes live).

You can do this with every possible line and also start getting into texture specifics as well.

We already prefaced that all the data is from streamed games which are both softer and deeper so they aren't lying about anything.

You are clearly just a bad actor.

My goal when posting on this forum is to help people and also learn something myself. Your goal is to make other people look bad. We have completely different motives.

You already showed us your hand. This is you:

Sorry for derailing the thread OP. I will bow out now and please be very wary of people like this and taking their advice at all seriously.

I don't know, "the sample size isn't large enough to support the claims I'm making" and "the applicability of the data set for its use are questionable to begin with" seem like pretty major "prefaces" to me.

"Let me preface by saying snakeoil hasn't been clinically proven to cure anything I'm selling it for, and this isn't even really snakeoil. So how much you want for it?"

I'll be honest this isn't the best look for me. In the interest of demonstrating that I can caveat the things I say and admit when they're not the best approach, here's the draft on my reply I never quite put the finishing touches on:

I'd still much rather get caught going a lil too far with my trolly persona and walking it back when necessary than being an MDA coach who says using results of a single hand to inform your analysis is MDA.

Well I’m pretty much checked out of this thread, you guys do your thing

Obviously we can't tell everything from a single hand, esp. as 99 is one of those hands that a lot of people would _want_ to call preflop (although maybe not for 20bb, even if 300bb+ deep) ... so you can only know where the leaks are by how he plays the other parts of his range, esp. how he is at least breaking even vs. you when he doesn't get hit by the deck.

It is true that a lot of bad players will autocall all pairs preflop, and then auto bet huge with overpair+gutter. So bad players will look identical to VGP in this hand, IMO.

Maybe V knows that basically your entire range doesn't want to continue for a big size on the flop, esp because he can play 88 or QQ+ this way (and he knows you know that). And that 99 is often ahead of the fish (and has outs vs. 76 or whatever). But depending on the fish I wouldn't want to get raised on this flop, so going big seems like a bigger risk for the reward to me (esp. as you overcalled anyway, correctly -- although that's still fine if you never get to showdown without a J hitting the board).

Also VGP can be really good, almost all the time, but have played mediocre in this hand for whatever reason.

This is exactly how I feel, and I strongly agree that seeing V with 99 changes nothing and focusing on it is results-oriented. The spot feels very shove-or-fold and it comes down to V's range (we should be comfortably ahead of the fish with an overpair).

If Hero is ahead of V's range, ship it. Fold otherwise. JJ feels cuspy here, and I for one don't think it's insane for V to have flatted KK/AA here to trap in the fish and get here with some weighting of 77-AA and maybe some spade draws, but probably weighted against draws with the fish behind. My bias is to fold marginal spots in LLSNL because you can just wait for the fish to come give you money, but I still think it's reasonable to go either way. If V has 77-KK and AJss, we're comfortably ahead. If he has 88-AA or 88-KK but not TT we're badly behind. It's.. marginal.

I think the major problem is that a good player is very unlikely to seize the betting lead with b67 here and then give you a free showdown.

You can make assumptions where 99 is played fine here. That relies on:

-fish rarely 4bet pre (good chance this is true)

-OP rarely c/shoves flop (this seems unlikely - OP’s range should contain a lot of big overpairs that will shove after the $300 bet)

-fish will call $300 four way in a 3bet pot on this flop with a range that 99 is solidly ahead of (OP says this is the case. It may be true for some of the biggest fish ever. Even then, it’s hard to actually count the combos, but if they’re showing up with A6o and J6s, then this works.)

Penance accepted, your analysis is excellent

FWIW, given the derails etc., and, btw, I appreciate those stove ranges, which I consider accurate (although MP's are perhaps debatable).

I agree that BB having 99 did not reveal new information but confirmed what we expected vis-a-vis his entire range, although what we have to consider is whether he plays his nutted range (sets) or semi-bluffs (nut flushes) differently, that is, uses a different sizing to his vulnerable over-pairs. So, for instance, if BB showed AsQs or QQ instead of 99 after betting 75 then I would likely take more note (but obviously then we wouldn’t have info about how he plays 99 as a point of comparison, which, yes, does create a sample-size related conundrum). In this respect the VGP designation is kind of relevant, as it suggests BB is balanced with his sizings over his entire stab flop range.

I agree the fact that BF (MP) RFIed 98o is a significant “bread-crumb”, which incentives BB to stab more frequently than usual for value with 99 on a 865tt flop.

I’m not going to claim I inferred this point, fully-formed as a golden nugget, from the OP, but I saw it as a possibility (I regularly play in deep stack 2/5 games where fish play unsuited low-mid-gappers in 3 and 4bet multiway pots, so the idea that a decent reg might play a mid-overpair more aggressively post-flop, e.g. like 2 pair+ in tighter games, as an exploitative adjustment is a reasonable assumption).

If I read correctly, what you are saying is that if BB played the rest of his flop betting range (e.g. sets, draws, better overpairs) the same as 99, that is, didn’t check or use a different sizing with 66, QQ or AsQs, then the identity of his actual hand is irrelevant, UNLESS BB was responding to a live tell/game dynamic that the MP (big fish) was wider than usual with his RFI on this one occasion, which caused BB to cold-call with 99 preflop (when he’d normally fold or 4bet) and then bet it on the flop for 75 when he might normally check or bet smaller/larger.

I believe the above is significant — it’s a signal to be gained from the noise, by observing showdowns in live poker and a perfect illustration of why “the reveal” should be the subject of reflection and reason to reassess initial judgements about a hand history. When I see a VIP RFI 74o but limp AQo (and then c-bet the 74o on AK5 and yet check the AQ on AT6) I take note and use this information. According to your argument, I’m merely treating noise as signal and effectively making the wrong kind of exploitative adjustment (which might entail calling with 65 on the first board and not value betting AJ on the second). But I acknowledge I may have misunderstood your point about whether a VIP’s tendencies are anomalous or not.

I obviously don’t agree with your conclusion here. I have issues with the “consensus trap” that can develop around HHs in which posters adopt a “look for a better spot” mentality. The “I know ... but” rhetorical logic is designed to say "yes, adopt a theoretically sound range-based analysis of your opponent and their betting actions” but acknowledge a result that may cause you to rethink how you’ve ranged an opponent and assessed their actions. That MDA has been a successful method of developing an exploitative strategy online confirms that HH-results do matter, and, while, I acknowledge the insurmountable problem of what the “M” means for live poker, that is its inevitable absence, we can still extrapolate and apply MDA principles, however sketchy, speculative and snake-oilish they may make us feel.

Shove the rest. VGP should have loads of cold calls pre and while his huge flop sizing guarantees significant equity, it does not necessitate a fold from Hero. Couldn't care less about what the spot has as he has all kinds of pieces behind JJ. Stack is far too shallow to fold.

What would you like him to do 4bet and blast the spots out while isolating hero's 3b range? The dynamic is the legit opposite for me, I can't even imagine how bad my hand would have to be not to continue where you don't need much to stack the table.

Read through a couple of pages, enough to see the reveal, so I'm probably not completely unbiased.

I think in a fishy game I'd raise bigger pre. At least 6x, maybe even a little larger. We really don't want a player we think is good coming along and having position on us. And JJ tends to be difficult to play on a ton of board textures, so we don't hate taking it down pre when we're OOP.

On the flop, I'm nearly always checking range from OOP and multi-way. But I could see making a very small c-bet here, rather than checking and giving up the betting lead. If we check, we're basically turning our hand into a bluff catcher, which I don't like doing in multi-way pots, especially at low stakes, when we have a mix of good and bad opponents involved.

When the BB bets 3/4 pot, I'd think that's pretty strong, but he could have some draws. The challenge is that it's hard for us to be certain BB and the other opponent both have a draw or just a worse hand. We don't know what cards we need to fade.

I think making an exploitable fold is fine. I understand calling once, but I don't love it, knowing we'll be in the blender on a lot of turns. I don't think a raise is going to work out often enough to make it EV+, even though it may have worked out in this specific hand.

I wouldn't beat up on hero or BB too much. Multi-way and with fish involved, people make all sorts of adjustments based on best guesses about what the fish are doing. I will say in BB's defense that he probably thinks he can rep almost any two cards on this board, so it's not outrageous for him to start betting when hero checks. It's just a little unorthodox.

A couple of people have said bigger pre, but I think $110 is OK. If you use the 3X plus rule, it would be $80, adding another $20 since we are OOP is $110. I think ~$125 would be fine considering the fishy/bad players will call wide, but nothing wrong with $110.

There is no reason to believe VGP is going to flat $110 wide or feel as if he can "come along" just because he has position on us. He's still BB and should have a decent hand if he's going to flat.

Another holiday detour ... but this seems like the wrong adjustment(s) to make with 65 IMO.

Calling 65 pre. when he's raising 74o pre. seems dubious. Raise or fold probably better.

Calling 65 on AK5, even when we know he's not betting good top pair, seems risky. Raise is probably better.

In both cases it's helpful to have an idea what he's doing with 99 or QTs.