We have hyper aggro image

High risk low reward?

Opening trash then cbet then barrel costs alot of money?

Shouldn't we go to valuetown instead with our aggro image?

In marginal spots, they should tend to call off vs our bets than fold?

If I've been doing a lot of raising and 3B'ing, particularly if I've been opening wide and 3B'ing light, and especially if I've shown these hands down, I think opponents do start to adjust, and so I try to remember to not go overboard by opening any two cards in late position.

A good habit is to look at how many players have limped into a hand after we've been raising a lot. The more limpers there are, the more likely it becomes that someone is sand-bagging a good hand, planning to limp-3B, or hoping to cooler us post-flop.

When I think my opponents may be adjusting to my aggression, the counter-adjustment I'll make is to sometimes over-limp on the BTN with some of those hands like K7s or 87o. The goal is to make 2P+ when they were sand-bagging with a big PP.

Even when we make 2P+ with something trashy, it's important to be wary of going broke with a 2nd-best hand in a multi-way limped pot.

I think you should think in terms of range
You’re opening weak, not trash…but the board is key.

You don’t have to barrel if the board hits villain’s range, but you can keep winning a bunch of pots when it hits yours.

I think you’re asking a lot if you think people are thinking ‘wow, he’s opening wide, I’m going to have to pick him off. It’s more like he’s betting 40 again and i keep getting these ten dollar hands.

They should tend to call off is funny to me. Most people don’t change their stripes. You have fit and fold and a couple nits, keep firing

It’s also funny to me because the definition of low stakes players is they call too much. But it sounds like no stations are around.

Finally, there’s some finesse and nuance to shifting gears. If nobody adjusts, no reason to change what you’re doing. Still fold to aggression, don’t level yourself into thinking they’re playing back with nothing because you raised a few times.

But you said they "aren't adjusting". I don't tighten up until they adjust, and they show you that they adjust it appropriately. Because most people" adjust" too aggressive players by tightening up. Even a lot of people on these forums will suggest taking passive lines against a LAG. When the appropriate adjustment is to check raise light and 3! more.

There was a mark goone video not too long ago Where he was literally telling people his strategy before he made a play. He would say I'm raising any two cards from the button, and nobody would 3!. Even with hands that were clear 3!s against a normal range. This was at 5/10. They aren't adjusting and even if you tell them exactly what you're doing, they don't know how to adjust.

It is like that guy who sits there and has been folding for 6 hours and then suddenly he jams it all in pre-flop and some idiot calls him and pays off the AA. Most players at these stakes are not noticing how you are playing. They don't notice that you went runner runner to hit a straight against somebody if they folded. They can't even tell you who won the hand. You are not the hero in their story, they are the hero and the only thing they are thinking about is their own cards. They aren't likely to start hero calling down with second or third pair because you perceive yourself as having an aggro image. They will call down because they are on tilt from the hand that they just got coolered on.

So as long as they are going to continue playing passive, and they are not going to put you in spots where you should be hero calling because they are not bluffing anywhere near enough, and you are going to continue stealing pots because they are not going to defend wide enough, keep betting. If and when one player figures out how to play poker, make an adjustment in your play against that one player.

As for for high risk/ low reward, I don't really see it as high risk. The players are playing passively post flop, so you get to realize your equity, and you get to decide if the pot is going to be big or small. You don't have to just continue blindly firing into every texture. If you check back the flop, these are passive players. They aren't suddenly going to start betting air on the turn. They will just check it down all the way to the river if you let them. It is fine to have some delayed c-bets in your range, and some hands that will check back turn and bluff or value bet river. They are letting you control the pot size, so make decisions that fit the pot to a size that makes sense for your hand. If you are getting into a big pot with k7s against passive players, you're behind. The other 60% of the time, they're folding because they missed.

i dont think your default should be to fold k7ss otb when people limp to u

With the limpers having relatively small stacks we should only be raising value hands, imo.

With us likely sucking way less at poker than everyone else plus having the Button, overlimping weak speculative hands is fine, imo.

GcluelessNLnoobG

At 100bb robots are opening K7s (and K6s) at ~50% freq in _MP_. They don't open 87o on the BTN.

These aren't the same class of hands.

At tight tables I've opened K6s EP, and I'll do it again. On BTN with a field of limpers I might raise, or limp ... with your image limp along is probably better.

Sometimes I might limp 87o in this spot, but it's super marginal at best and I'd much rather have an image where my bets get folds when I do it.

i'm not sure the logic of "we have a very aggro image and no credibility so we're going to start playing bad hands we'd normally fold aggressively" is a sound strategy

Yeah, agree with illiterat that K7s is way better than 87o. K7s is speculative. 87o is offsuit trash.

With K7s you could limp behind (assuming blinds won't raise often) or you could raise big enough to try to get heads up. Either way the plan is to outplay them postflop, using position and your superior poker skills, honed through years of degeneracy and poor life choices.

You've got to fold 87o in a raked game. Your skill edge isn't going to be enough to make up for how bad your hand is, combined with a couple BBs being raked out of every pot.

Doubt there are too many here that play in a bigger raked game than i do (max $9 + $1 BBJ + $1 promo + $1 typical tip), but limped to me and not expecting the blinds to raise, I'm happily playing about 45% of hands on the Button (where unsuited two gappers like 85o are often making the cut, so 87o is a no brainer for me).

I mean, I obviously have no data proving which (if any) of these extremely speculative hands have actually turned a profit for me. But I just don't really see much of a downside attempting to get into pots with terrible players on the Button as much as we can. At most it's a very small -EV mistake which is likely more than made up for image-wise when I sometimes table the exact same junk that everyone else is playing.

Gmulletpoker:allbusinessupfrontbutpartyinthebackG

Having read a lot of your posts over the years, it surprises me that you are opening 85o on the button into limpers. I always thought you had the, "tight is right" philosophy.

As you say in live poker you don't have hand by hand data, but I've tried different styles while tracking my wins and losses for the last eight years. I've generally found that my winrate was higher when playing tighter. Obviously that isn't exactly scientific. However, I've also seen hand by hand stats from microstakes online players showing hands like 87o as overall losers.

The problem is that you don't make strong hands often enough to avoid over folding in various spots postflop. Like I could see playing 87o when it's folded to you on the button. You are likely to get heads up with the BB and can outplay them with position a lot. However with limpers, you're going to be going multiway and mostly need to make a hand to win.

For comparison, here is a GTO RFI chart from the button. That is over 40% of hands, and it doesn't include 87o. I can definitely see opening more due to skill edge, but you should also be tightening up when there are limpers.

WOW. My first reaction was OMG I guess I'm a massive nit?

But then I opened PPT and ... that's not a "normal" 45% range.

87o gets in at 53%
85o gets in at 78%

Now to be fair I guess GG is probably playing 87o but not Q2s (43%) or J3s (51%) ... so it's not like GG is actually playing atc.

I would almost never open 85o on the Button, but I would ~happily (admittedly bottom of my range) overlimp it. Unlike others on this forum, I think a big part of our strategy at LLSNL should be Bingo / make-a-hand poker when in position for cheap, because we are so much better at this than our opponents (we're ahead in both position and skill, where skill is simply not sucking remotely as badly as they do). Again, if this is an EV error, it has to be at most an extremely small one, imo.

I am most definitely "tight is right, tighter is righter", and I tightened my game up even more in 2017 moving to my SuperNit method, especially in EP and even MP (where we won't have position or a reasonable chance at a cheap flop in my game). But having a loose LP range for the appropriate price (i.e. a single bb) is fine, imo.

I probably didn't pick the same ~45% of hands your robot is picking (plus lol @ the thought of having a raise versus fold mentality in LP @ LLSNL, imo). Pretty much all broadways / Axs / sometimes most Kxs / pocket pair / most single gappers / most double gappers, but not doing any three+ suited gappers (other than the obvious bigger ones) / A9o- / etc. due to RIO. But again, this is for overlimping in LP (obviously raising the top end of that range), and I think open limping them here is also fine.

GcluelessloosefishnoobG

There's nothing wrong with playing some slightly -EV hands if the main reason you're playing is for entertainment. I know you've said you usually play two days a week and you look at it as more of a fun hobby/ mental challenge that also brings in some cash.

As an example, if you make 5 calls an hour that average -.2bb/each that's one bb/hour less for your winrate. That doesn't sound like much, and the less hours and smaller stakes you're playing the less costly it is.

However if you're playing something like 5/10, let's say you're playing 30 hours a week and 50 weeks a year.

That's 10x30x50= $15, 000/year lost at 5/10 due to a small pre flop leak.

At 1/3 with the same number of hours it's still $4, 500/year.

For you if you're only averaging 15 hours/week maybe it's costing you $2, 250 in EV, but year over year variance is a bigger factor affecting your win rate. You could just run good in those spots and lose nothing.

So it's a personal decision as to whether it's worth it. Clearly it's more fun to see more flops.

I had a rich rec, who happens to be a smart/successful real estate developer, comment about how I never make the, "F*** it, " calls. He's right. That's one of the biggest differences between playing professionally vs playing as a hobby. You have to be disciplined because it effects your bottom line.

I mean, I'm open folding hands as strong A4s/KJs/66/etc. in EP because I simply don't think they're profitable for me in that spot in my game, so I don't think this qualifies as "it's fun to see flops". Conversely, I'm overlimping 85o/etc. on the Button simply because I think it is likely profitable for me in that spot in my game. Course I don't have any data to back any of that up (nor could I accumulate it) so I'm just doing my best guess estimate based on my experience in my game (where I fully admit i could be wrong).

Git'salsopossibleallmyprofitsimplycomesfromQQ+/AKandeverthingelseisaloser,I'mnot100%sureG

gg, when you play 85o and completely whiff on the flop, do you ever decide to "play it like a set"

Yeah I would echo richroll's question. How are you turning 85o into a +EV hand multiway on the button? If your only plan is to make a big hand and stack someone with a disguised straight or something, it's simply not going to happen enough to make up for all the times you miss and fold... That is unless you're 1000 bb deep and playing with some massive punters or something.

Don't worry though GG. Most of all of our profits comes from QQ+. I'm all for playing as many hands as possible anyway so long as they're at least neutral EV in the long run.

yeah i dont think he really understand preflop

he also short stack which to me feels worse to see the flop w trash hands

85o is like idk bottom 15-20% hand fwiw, not a top 45%

is small decision so doesnt matter much but is fairly certain to be losing. find it at odds with the rest of his stated approach.

It's a small decision in any one spot, but if you're making the same mistake repeatedly, also playing 86o, 75o, 53o... All those small EV leaks can add up and have a significant negative effect on your overall strategy. It can likely take a BB or two off your hourly win rate.

@ RR and BigFish

Almost never "playing it like a set" (more repping the flush when my straight draw busts). But definitely trying to recognize spots where I can rep things that make sense due to seeing others actions suggesting there's a decent chance I can steal. But, yes, obviously just folding a super lot too when whiffing and not pushing things if i don't think the steal is there.

FWIW, even on my starting shortstack of $200, I'm still getting maximum IO of ~70+:1 with an overlimp, all of which will likely produce a SPR of 10 where I can play for not-too-painful $200 stacks at 1/3 NL postflop if I want.

My guess is that I've probably included 10% of hands that you don't like. I'm only going to be able to play those hands about 30% of the time on the Button (due to facing a raise, a straddle, a non-mark limp, an aggro blind, etc.), so now we're talking 3%. If I extend that to another 2% in the CO, that means I'm playing these extra hands 5% of the time in LP. So 1 out of 20 orbits, at 4 orbits an hour, which means I'm playing one of these hands that you wouldn't play once per session in LP. If that turns out to be a mistake, I can most certainly live with that.

But overall, my philosophy at LLSNL is that we should be doing our best to attempt to sneak into cheap pots in position with anything remotely playable (and anything remotely connected qualifies, imo) against morans. If we've game selected ~alright, the majority of our opponents at the table will be *losing players at LLSNL*; imagine how horrendous at poker they have to be in order to do that, so we shouldn't be passing up these spots, imo.

GbutitlookslikeI'moutvoted,sofineG

I think 86o is dogsht but might play an unsuited connector like 87o once in a while. Don't like to make it a habit.

K7s sounds like a slam dunk overlimp in a weak lineup. You'll often be able to value bet one pair a couple streets

This thread has me wondering if anyone has any data about which starting hands play best in these multi way spots?

I'm often torn about what to do if I'm sitting there on the button facing something like 3 limps, and I have A3o or something. I would open it on the button if it was folded to me, but it doesn't play particularly well multiway.