$1/2 cash soft table common spot line check

Fold pre.

This is a common spot on low stakes tables but should not be a common spot for us. This call is terrible. For 5bb on a 100bb stack you should probably defend with a pure 3bet strategy but if I wanted an offsuited A-hand to call pre with I would look at AJo not A6o.

Yeah, I'm not taking A6o to war with me OOP even against a button raise.

Bet more on the river. Villain is just as likely to snap off your "bluff" if it's $20.

Fold pre, postflop looks good.

So how wide is your average BTN open?
What is their range, and what is the worst hand you are defending?

Against an "unknown", I'm not defending anything because they aren't stealing. They have what they believe is a good hand. The starting place in the SB is to play nothing that you're not willing to 3bet.

Tbf, H is in the BB, but I agree with you here: H shouldn't play this part of their range unless they're 3!'ing it.

An offsuit Ace, albeit an awful one, OK, I'll 3! it sometimes. *Blockers!* lol. Emphasis on sometimes. Calling is a no-go tho, and this one's a dog against a truly staggering range. Like random 40%.

Once H flops 2nd pair, AP, I'm x-raising, not x-calling a lazy b50 cbet. Like, what are we hoping for in the rest of the hand? Pairs aren't as hard to make as sets, but still less likely in BU v BB. We have all the 66/22 on Q62r. Does V? Sure, but it's drowned out by the rest of their range not connecting. (Guessing that LL V also x-backs QQ here.)

10 into 40 is meh after the x'd turn. Hope you won.

postflop is fine but i have no idea what you are doing preflop

ive gotten myself in trouble too many times defending the blinds vs. what i think are blind steals. first of all, blinds are worthless in NL. second of all, people at 1/2 and 1/3 dont know what a blind steal is. until proven otherwise i assume an open from any position is a top 10% range.

Preflop, you should rarely be playing A6o in any situation, and you should be defending your blind light to a 5x. Both are typical 1/2 donk plays.

River, you need to go at least 20. 1/4 pot and 10 in absolute terms are ridiculous. You are losing value and maybe provoking a bluff raise.

If we could just bet the value of our hand and the opponent wasn’t allowed to raise we’d bet 10. I’m not worried about V spazzing out til we see he’s capable.

[This is a hand posted by Gazely B on Upswing poker. [/SPOIL]

Presumable professional players do not think A6os is an obvious fold preflop.

I presume solvers would either call or raise here.

Frankly I the majority of commenters are break even nit or very tight TAG players.

well if you're gods gift to poker why are you playing 1/2

edit: it seems like youve moved down from playing 10/20 to 1/2. went busto? or just FOS/trolling?

You presume wrong.

You get the advice you pay for champ. Why are you begging for free advice from people that are "presumable" worse than you? Take your winnings and hire a coach.

Why don't you say what it says then?

Fair comment, but it's worth noting that if you post a hand played by a high stakes pro on here there's a good chance their plays will be derided as "terrible" by most commenters. Worth thinking about.

I don't hate it.

Pre - I'm defending almost everything against an unknown.

Flop - I'd probably x/r this at least sometimes. At least call, but V probably isn't super strong too often, it's a good opportunity to test him.

Turn - no real option.

River - Yep, I'm shopping at ValuOwnMyself too. At this point, we have to bet for value against a worse 6, 2 or 3. We might get away with $15, but I don't hate $10. If V raises, are we calling? 3!? That gets more interesting.

Standard flop/turn. River bet is okay exploitatively if population overfolds missed overs, but GTO wise you should mostly check. You’re not repping strong hands and rarely get called by worse.

We're playing against an unknown at $1/$2. If you're someone who is taking the game semi-seriously and are thinking post-flop at all, you have a skill advantage over a rando. And if you don't have a skill advantage, $10 is a really cheap price to pay to find out.

Folks on here obsess about the rake at $1/$2, and I don't get it. Yes, if you were playing a solver that plays perfectly post-flop and has a huge skill edge against you, then yeah rake matters a ton. Which is what a solver is calculating - perfect play against a perfect opponent. If you are playing against people who routinely make blunders on virtually every hand post-flop, sometimes blunders on the order of 50+bbs. Their blunders will pay for your rake many times over. It's a mistake to get a random player that much respect until they give you a good reason to. If you node-lock $1/$2 population tendencies, a solver is absolutely playing A6o and almost any hand from BB for $10. Yes, it isn't "GTO" - it is exploitative. But if you can't handle yourself with A6o post-flop OOP against a random $1/$2 player, the problem isn't your preflop play.

Following the preflop charts religiously is a great idea if you're playing a solver. In the real world against real Vs, you're leaving a lot of money on the table if you can blunder less than your opponents post flop.

And don't forget the human factor. This is a game of humans vs humans, not solver vs solver. There is real value in taking lines that might be slightly negative EV if they help liven up the game and generate more action for when you have the opportunity to take a strong EV+ line. Solvers play every hand as if its the only hand and results from prior hands don't impact the solver. Results from prior hands DO impact humans. The average $1/$2 player isn't even trying to control that natural impulse. There are times where its best to pass on marginally +EV spots, and to take marginall -EV spots in an attempt to shift the psychological dynamics at the table. Poker is partially a math game, but it is a psychological one as well.

Okay. All I can say about this is that I don't feel comfortable defending bad off-suit Aces against even a 3.5BB open, even though I have better rake structure than you guys. I'd draw the line at maybe 3BB, or 2.5BB if it's an earlier position raise, and not at all if the open is from another pro. But if you think you can do it for +EV, then that's fine.

A huge part of that skill edge at 1-2 is not spew calling bad dominated hands preflop, esp. so hands that are just much worse versions of hands your opponent will be expecting you to have. I'd much rather play 86s than A6o, even if a solver says both are folds.

I fairly often see long time 2-5 regs. play spew ranges at 1-2, while waiting for a seat, and get destroyed and often they'll say it was "just a cooler", or something about how the insanity of 1-2 players makes it difficult to win.

And, to be fair, some of it that they aren't used to opening UTG and getting 5 or 6 callers ... but a lot of it is that they played A9o/76o instead of just folding it.

Rake is much less about "this isn't profitable against a perfect opponent" and a lot more about "If I'm winning ~1-2bb a hand with this in a vacuum, that changes dramatically if the house takes 5bb"