Not Quite Threadworthy--Low Stress Strat Questions

i don't think solver stuff should be relied upon in llsnl because it assumes a level of competency that doesn't exist in this ecosystem

ie the A2-A5s 4! candidate is flawed because there's very few 3! and fold players and you're mostly getting it in terribly where at best it's against something like KQs or 99

you're far better off swapping those out for hands like 67s or more appropriately, just don't have any 4! bluffs

I disagree about A8 offsuit being a lot better than A3 offsuit. If we talk about the suited versions, A8 suited is probably equally strong to A3 suited in a lot of situations.

The main problem is that A8 offsuit and A3 offsuit are both semi-garbage. A8 suited and A3 suited are definitely better.

We ended up getting into trouble because of the UTG straddle. That's fine if we have metagame reasons for straddling UTG, but we are definitely bleeding EV when we UTG straddle.

An 8 is over half way through the kickers, if they are playing any A the same way.

A7/A8 is where there starts being a significant advantage vs. under kickers (Eg. A5 chops most of the time vs. A3).

ProPokerTools Odds Oracle Results (2.3 P...
Holdem, Generic syntax
PLAYER_1 A3
PLAYER_2 A8
328762368 trials (exhaustive)

All-in Equity
[table=head]|Equity %|Wins Hi %|Ties Hi %|Wins Hi Count|Ties Hi Count|
A3|34.8990%|24.5116%|20.7749%|80584848|68299944|
A8|65.1010%|54.7136%|20.7749%|179877576|68299944|
[/table]

...also when someone with a small stack shrug rips it with 33-77, A8 is very different from A3.

I mean A8o and A3o aren't great ... but they aren't the same.

Also I probably fold way more than most winning players at 1-2 (maybe apart from GG), but I think preflop is close at worst.

Didn't Java just recently post a question regarding playing weak Axo and we've already gone over this (i.e. the suckability of its lack of playability postflop makes it useless)?

I don't straddle and I don't play Axo (x < T) in almost any situation (possible exception being folded to me on the Button, but even then I actually think it is fine to just fold and move on with life). But that's me and obviously I'm a mega nit.

GcluelessNLnoobG

This common spot got me conflicted on what to do on the flop, I'm looking for help.

The main villain in this story is labelled as relatively loose passive and I already know he's gonna call my raise with whatever he happens to have, his range is gonna be around 22 to JJ, Q9s+ and the like. A sort of, weak range but not totally weak, kind of like a serious weak range if you will. So like, hes not gonna have pocket ace here, and he also won't have 2-8 offsuit. He's gonna be somewhere in the middle of the road.

The villain in question calls UTG 5$ because there was a straddle.

The table follows him along, get 4-5 more callers.

Im in small blind with pocket 9, raises to 35$, because it feels like the best hand at the moment and that pocket 9 set hunting is just too rare to let this situation go by, ideally everybody folds and I win whatever this is like 30$, and even if it goes to the flop, well, I have pocket 9, probably in the lead to whatever this table called with.

So everybody folds except the villain with the aforementioned range.

Flop comes A-K-2, no relevant suit cards.

I'm first to act.

I'm- I'm really conflicted here. So my question is in this exact moment. I raised hard, loose passive called as he was supposed too, and now comes this ass flop where pocket 9 isn't an overpair.

I just- I dont see a good thing to do here. If I check, I'm opening myself to be bluffed. If I bet I'm opening myself to be called by better.

So I went with the general thought that, this is a 1/2 table with a loose passive, like, whatever dude, hes gonna call me more often than not. Kind of like the 1-2 people, I just dont want to bluff them very much, they just call too much, so I usually hang out on the other side of the fence wanting to be called, because wanting them to fold is usually a losing proposition. They just call dude. They just call, is nothing professional, they just ****ing call you know. If he hits that board, hes most likely calling.

So IDK, IDK, I just see the disadvantages of both my check or my bet.

So I end up checking.

He checks back.

Turn is inconsequential.

I check again.

He bets 15$.

I snap call.

River is inconsequential.

I check again.

He takes a reasonable bunch of red chips and put them in the middle, probably like 40$.

I fold.

Later I ask him what he had, he says he had a small pair. I ask him what pair exactly, he says pocket 4.

So yeah. I mean. IDK. Its kind of exactly what I didn't want to have happen. I opened myself up to be bluffed here 100%. But on the other hand, Cbetting into him with the ace and king on board also feels like a bad decision because if he has it (it here being some random Ax and Kx, which hes totally loose passive enough to go down in the drain with it, so essentially, if he hits the K or the A he always wins because I only have a pair of 9 and there's no way I will bluff this guy for too much and even if I did he probably calls anyway just because hes that kind of guy, so really here im just trying to have my equity's worth. Im fine folding if he hits, im fine winning the hand on average because well my read was that 99 was ahead pre, so Im lost here, like, looking for advice!

So hopefully throught all that rummage, you can see the question, the hand I have is good~, it might be the best hand, but I still have to consider the A and the K on board, so I really dont know what to do, and uh, I kind of went with the well just gonna try to get to showdown for free, which I feel I would win a lot, but I also -KNOW- that it will be me checking OOP for three times in a row, kind of almost making him think he can bluff me, which is what I was already worried about, and it happened anyway.

I would often bet flop small here HU ... depends on V though. Like yeh, he probably has a bunch of mediocre Ax/Kx hands ... but you have a lot of big Ax and he also has a lot of worse hands.

Weird that he's turning 44 into a bluff, and maybe it's better to just x x/c x/c if he's going to do that.

Turn is a weird spot where it feels like you have to bluff catch river a lot if V has even a tiny clue, because I doubt even A5s is checking twice HU.

My default action is to bet the flop because it massively favors our range and applying multiple streets of pressure is likely to get nearly a range fold from most villains because of the overwhelming amount of good Ax and Kx we can have. Villains call the raise because any two cards can hit the flop, and AK-high is not what they were looking for. Is a weak Ace really calling big turn and river bets? (And if so, we know how to get massively paid with value.)

To exploitatively deviate, it would help to have a more concrete read. If he is going to call down way too wide, checking the flop has merit. If he is liable to bet the significant majority of his pairs when checked to OTF, then we can start value betting after the flop checks through. Or if he is majorly passive, x/c down or even folding the river as you did is a reasonable choice.

As played seems fine, we risked the minimum and now we know what this player does with SDV in this spot. Next time it seems like x/f x/c x/c will work well.

I'd like you to go deeper into explaining why bet is your default.

My personnal default is to check here.

In my personnal experience, range cbets aknowledging the previous actions are the devil.

I understand it very well, in the sense that yes, Im the one who "would have" AK here and that my further bets reps AK.

But the reality I find myself in is that, well they just ****ing call too much. They dont respect the mind game. There is a lot of trappers checking just because you was the aggressor and now theyre happy little campers check calling flops after hitting it.

I also think hes just calling with ace rag.

So it feels to me that im turning my hand into a bluff really. and im not keen to bluff ppl i label as having calling and chasing and disbelieving tendencies for obv reasons

Sincerely, if I bet bet bet here repping AK, and he calls down with a weak ace, I for sure will think I made a mistake.

-I am- the one that would fold Ax to a bet bet bet line here, him? Not so much. In fact, I woudlnt even be surprised at all that he calls down with a poor kicker. And this I would also apply to any readless player that is at the 1-2 table, and maybe even at the 100-200 table.

As for the read, that is the read you got. It was an excellent and accurate read as well. Also it was like 10th hand of the session, so that read was the best I could at the time. Later I'd learn that he does that often, bet into checked rivers, and for sure its weird because well he got called too. Its only me as pro that folded here. I dont think what he does was very profitable aginst the rest of the field.

So -later- we would learn that the x/f x/c x/c line was optimal and well adjusted to be profitably exploitative.

But yeah I really want to learn as to what the best play was before a greater read was available.

So whats the tipping point? I still feel insecure about this spot. c opens me to be bluffed more often or to pow a better hand that isnt a bluff, b opens me to be betting into a better hand, being floated, etc

I'm not saying whether you should or shouldn't have raised 99 from the blinds after a gaggle of limpers, but LOL at boasting about being ahead preflop when nearly 80% of flops will have an overcard to your 99.

as played i am happy with the fold on the river - whether or not he was bluffing you - when you check flop and check/call turn, you're broadcasting to the entire world you really don't like your hand very much - it's very transparent

if i were in that spot, i'm raising much bigger preflop, with so many limpers i'm putting in at least 50 here and probably more like 65 - everyone here is capped - nobody likes there hand and we're happy to take it down now

and then you need to cbet flop, you're out of position and can very reasonably rep Ax, Kx, AK, etc and you'll get a lot of folds here, just think about how difficult a spot A5s is now facing further aggression from an uncapped villain deciding whether or not they are wiling to call now and potentially face 3 barrels

AK, AQ, etc would all squeeze preflop, they would not limp and call pre - you can easily rep something bigger than 99 here

this is something i see out of you a lot - this is such defeatist thinking that you are surprised and feel like a victim when your middle pair is no longer an overpair once the flop comes - this is standard, it'll almost never be an overpair - basic math says 80% of all flops you see with 99 will have a 10 or higher so it's wild that you are surprised by this

In situations like that, I think the now ‘old fashioned’ question is relevant. If I’m betting, am I betting for value or as a bluff or semi bluff?

Is he folding better? Not on flop…maybe on turn

Is he calling with worse? I think probably yes but this is your question IMO

So ... it's not that deep a thought. Too much looking at GTO things would make me autopilot the flop.

AK2r is just so so good for you, it's kind of weird to not bet.

Looking at GTOwiz we have to tweak it a bit because of the limps/calls, but if V opens 2x in LJ and it folds to us and we 3bet 99 in SB (mostly calls but there's a ~15% 3bet range and EV of call/3bet is the same) then when LJ just calls we _never_ check on AK2r.

Mostly betting 20% pot (~80% of the time), but I'd probably boost it to 33%.

To be clear I wouldn't really be thinking of it as a bluff ... I'd think of it as mostly cleaning up equity, so maybe he calls QTs/JTs and maybe he doesn't. Dito. like KJs. but when he folds 88-33 that's not that bad, because they are either bluffing us off or only putting money in when they hit.

Again, if we have reads that he's going to start bluffing a lot then you can think about x/c lines with 99 ... but would mostly lean towards checking with any/some A5s-AJs or 76s that I raised, where I'm not put in the blender.

If you want more detail than that, I think it needs to not be in this thread.

Do you really care about hot and cold equity only?

There are a lot of hands that have decent hot and cold equity, but they don't realize their equity well. This is going to be a single-raised pot where Hero is going to try to realize his equity OOP to the PFR.

You could have shown me a hot and cold equity comparison of A8 offsuit to 87ss here, and I still would rather defend OOP to the PFR with 87ss regardless of what your hot and cold equity simulation says because 87ss is going to realize it's equity far better than A8 offsuit will.

i think you're missing that in low stakes games where villains "just want to see a flop with K4s" you are immeasurably better with a hand like A8o vs 87s

multiway or facing good players you are obviously correct, but vs a 75% vpip llsnl player (who would be 100% vpip if nobody ever raised) and is going to call down with mid pair and bet his top pair you're far better off

btw i do like your concept of hot and cold equity though, is that something you came up with or a newfangled term all you gto kids use in discussion? could you elaborate a bit?

Obviously, you are trolling me, and you aren't interested in my perspective.

This is why 2+2 is garbage. Posters here care more about their own egos than learning how to crush live poker.

lolcats, you should post more often 😀

Discord chats with good players is way better than this decayed borderline worthless forum.

One of my good poker buddies who is a top notch live pro told me that the CrushLivePoKer Subscriber Discord chat was garbage (he asked Bart to ban him permanently from it because he considered it brain rot). But even he would agree that the CLP Discord is 100x higher quality than the strategy posts here.

I would guess that, like most things in life, the quality you get out of something is an amplified function of what you put into it.

And yet here you are.

1/3 on a Friday night at Maryland Live. Stacks range from $100 to covering my $300. There are two LAGs on my left, and one or the other of them have been opening most hands and getting multiple callers. So far no 3-bets observed in about 45 mins at the table.

Hero gets red QQ UTG and limps, planning to limp/RR. Criticize this play if you like, but I did not want to play a bloated pot multi-way OOP. This is my first session in eons, and that sounds like an awful way to start.

LAG1 in UTG+1 opens to $15 (covers). LAG2 flats in MP (about $300). Loose/passive flats in HJ (about $100). Calling station flats from SB (about $225).

Hero raise size?

BTW, I hate Live's blue $2 chips. They serve no real purpose in a NL game, and they look way too similar to greens, making me really have to stare to count Vs' stacks.

Just make it $100 - $125. Let them know you are committed, and don't let them in cheap. (I might even make it $150.)

I'd go $140. Thrilled to take down 20bb in this spot and don't want to give the stations a price to go multiway.

A little awkward given the small stack sizes so I might be missing some wisdom here, but I think we're happy to commit and will probably get better terms than by shoving ourselves? None of the villains seem like the type to exploit being offered a commited flat as an alternative to all-in. And am I stupid to think we could fold an AK flop?

5x over a limp from a LAG feels small, but I don't want to read too much into it.

Preflop plan is completely standard for me at any table. And in this exact this configuration, I'd even go so far as to say that any other plan is horrible, but that's me. Was going to welcome you to OMCdom but i see you've already got your shirt tucked in.

I like giving poor 8:1 IO (at the very most) to the biggest stack. So that would be about $40 on top, so $55 total. However, being OOP and having QQ (which is going to see an overcard flop a decent amount of the time) and being this multiway, plus being our first rusty session in ages, I would consider the more old skool 3x + callers, so $90, in which case could just go $100 to put the shorty all in.

GcluelesseasymoneynoobG

Only real consideration is if we think HJ will shove if you make it 55, then you can raise to 55 and reshove collecting any extra $40s.

Without any reads I'd probably just make it 150 though.