2/5 ~ I almost shat my pants this hand.

I have no problem playing 2/5, I have problem playing deepstacks

Nope. The basic rule of thumb is that you want to play for stacks with your best hands. As you get deeper you generally size up on every street. This is especially true preflop in live poker where many players tend to over call vs 3-bets.

The exception, which is what you might be thinking of, is a situation where you size down to avoid putting in too high of a percentage of your stack, which would pot commit you. 3-betting to 100 off of a 1700 effective stack is no where near that threshold though. 100 might be slightly excessive and is a bit of an exploitative sizing, but $65 is too small.

I think you want to go at least 5x-6x OOP this deep. That would be $75-$90. I personally say raise and flick in a black chip and people don't fold much, but my image is probably a lot less nitty when I 3-bet.

To the OP, after you check raise flop I think you just have to go with it. The pot is too big now and you have too much equity to get away. Jam turn and pray he calls with QQ (or a miracle like JJ) and not AA. Hell, who knows, maybe he might even put you on 99 and fold AA? Unlikely, but stranger things have happened in live poker.

Bottom line you don't check raise there unless you're looking to stack off. The worst possible way to play it would be to check raise and build a huge pot, then fold to additional action.

A good rule of thumb that helped me a lot at one point, is to use the stack to pot ratio going to the flop as a guidepost.

If the SPR is less than 3, it's generally pretty standard to stack off with an overpair. SPR of 3-5 is sort of it depends territory, where you will often be willing to stack off with an overpair depending on the action, but you want to be more cautious. If the SPR is over 5, you want to be much more cautious stacking off with an overpair. That doesn't mean you'll never do it, but you have to be more concerned about running into sets and such.

In this scenario:

1545/310=~5

The SPR is 5, and your opponent's preflop action was very strong, so you want to be cautious about stacking off with KK here.

As I said before though, after you raise flop I would just go with it.

That's not at all what I'm saying. I was advocating for calling the 4-bet and calling the flop cbet.

What I'm saying is when you take polarizing lines you generally aim to get stacks in by the river, meaning as stacks get deeper you increase your sizing. Hence your preflop 3-bet should be bigger.

You're not as good at poker as you think you are. You need to read up on poker theory. When you have a polarized range, you can increase your pot share and capture a larger share of the existing pot (money already in the middle), by using a larger sizing. This is beyond the scope of a forum post.

Google 2e and 3e bet sizing. When you're polarizing you often size your bets to smoothly get stacks in on the river. Here I even found you a link to get you started:

https://upswingpoker.com/geometric-bet-sizing/

This demonstrates a lack of understanding of basic poker theory. As you get deeper you size up, not down.

Funny I actually talked about geometric bet sizing in another thread earlier today. I know all about what you're saying. It breaks down when stacks get this deep. Especially in live poker where no one has any sense of balance and will never bluff in huge pots like this. All the stuff you're saying goes out the window. The stuff you're talking about applies to 100BB poker, we're past that here.

No one in live poker is going broke for 300 BB with a hand worse than KK. Period. You can watch all the Doug Polk Upswing content you want, that fact will never change.

(Ironically enough I heard Doug Polk say exactly what I'm saying just the other day. So maybe keep grinding through that upswing library)

I found that article for your benefit buddy. I already understand this. That's how I know that we size up with our 3-bets when we're deeper, which you don't seem to understand.

Whatever man. Make any 3bet size you want. Calling the 4 bet and going broke post-flop was the mistake in this hand. OP is a payoff wizard.

Is it important to payoff better hands with geometric sizing? I don't see how. But you do you.

Your whole argument here hinges on us having a desire to play for stacks.

That should not be anywhere on our mind, even remotely, when we have 340BB's and an unimproved pair of kings.

If you're just speaking in generalities when playing deepstacked you want to use smaller sizings in general because it allows you to play more hands, balance bluffs and value, and keep yourself from getting caught in one of those geometry traps you were just talking about. (Other people subscribe to upswing too!!)

You should never be thinking about stack off commitments pre-flop when you're this deep. Everything you said is correct and true up to a point. I don't know exactly where that point is, but it's somewhere materially lower than 340BB's. Getting stacks is not a consideration pre-flop. Unless you have AA. Then do what the villain in this hand did and rope a dope.

There's a chance we're both right. The idea of geometric bet sizing to get stacks in when deep is clearly wrong. However, it does talk about bigger 3 bet sizes, I'll give you that. Though that's to exploit people who don't 4 bet. In this hand, the villain 4-bet

Grunch:

READS - skimming through the prior HH's twice, my first impression is that he's a "backwards" player. He doesn't get full value for his strong hands because he's slow-playing them too much, and he over-plays his decent / good draws and relative thin value. He may also just be button-clicking.

I'd expect him to do random stuff, or just keep playing backwards.

PRE - his small open size could be a sizing tell, possibly a big hand hoping to induce a light 3B, or he may just be sizing down because action folded to him in the CO and he doesn't want everyone to fold if he opens for a normal size. I wouldn't necessarily assume it's a sizing tell of a weak hand, but I'm still 3B'ing KK, obviously.

When he 4B's...his $15 open probably wasn't a sizing tell of a weak hand. Even at 2/5, I'd think his 4B range is going to mostly be QQ+/AK, but maybe he's as wide as JJ or AQs. He doesn't sound like the studied player who'd be 4B'ing A5s as a bluff. Even studied players don't always do that at 2/5, when they can just flat IP and take a flop with a higher SPR.

We're deep enough that 5B'ing KK seems like it could be an option, but I'd think a 5B just folds out most of his worse hands, and lets him put us in the blender with AA or an over-played AK/QQ. So, flatting seems okay at this SPR.

FLOP - having the Kh in our hand doesn't suck. Can't fold when he c-bets less than 1/4 pot. Raising now doesn't make a lot of sense if we don't 5B pre, and you said his semi-bluffs are one-and-done, so just flat and see the turn.

So...we're playing street poker now? Okay...

At this depth, and when V seems button-clicky, I can understand and get behind giving him a wider 4B range pre. But, if that's true, then I'm not sure I understand the raise. If he has AA, he's not folding. He's probably not folding AXhh if he gets here with the NFD. If he's bluffing or betting worse for value, why stop him by raising?

It doesn't make much sense to me. Even the size - it looks like we're raising for value, but feels like we're turning our hand into a bluff.

That said, when he flat calls...I somewhat think AA would 3B the flop, at least some of the time. I definitely don't think he has 99 (not that I think he's 4B'ing it pre). I think it's fairly likely we have the best hand now, and the question is how best to extract max value from his worse value and any draws he may have.

We have...$1245 in our stack? I think we can probably target QQ/AK and whatever other worse hands are in his 4B range by barreling for a small size, like $400. If he calls, that'll make the pot $1700, and we'll have $845 back, basically 1/2 pot. It puts him in a rough spot, where he probably thinks his only options are jam or fold.

The other regs will despise you for it, but if you're not comfortable playing deep stacked, buy in short, and / or table-change when your stack gets deep enough that you don't feel confident you'll play your best game. At least at Parx, you can't sit down with more than $1k when you table-change, unless your table broke.

Lots of nit-regs do it. There's no rule against it. You may get talked about, but it ain't show-friends, it's show-business.

wait what? table chang doesn't bring the whole stack to the other table??

Doc likes to make up strats as he goes along, invent villain tendencies out of thin air, and create reads contrary to known reality

It was only a matter of time before he started changing the rules of poker too.

OMG, ROTFLMFAO.

Changing the rules of poker? The rules for whether or not you have to bring your whole stack with you or can only sit down with the max BI vary from room to room.

Call Parx poker room, and ask them if they'll let you sit down with more than the max buy-in at 1/3 or 2/5 if you're just table-changing, not leaving a table that broke.

The number is 267-525-7300. Whoever you talk to, tell 'em I said "wassup!"

There are at least a dozen Parx 1/3 and 2/5 regs who will routinely hit-and-run by sitting down with less than the max buy in, drag in a big pot, and then table-change so they can rat-hole their profits. I've been in games with regs who will change tables when they see one of the rat-holers sit down, because they know if they lose a big pot to a rat-holer, they won't get a chance to win their money back.

ETA - dude, seriously, are you autistic? Asperger's?

As played, bet…600?

cant do anything but call. as played you set yourself up to get stacked vs AA, but w/e.

No wonder a 2/2 plo shitreg was mocking me the other day, I didn't hit and run. I chopped a pot with him. He said I won a hand it was time for me to rack up???

I was just nitting it up doing my **** and he was talking smack. Now that you mention he probably thought I'm one of the rat-holing nit regs.

Eventually, I switched to 1/3 game. The 2/2 plo at parx is a regfest with 1~2 targets max.

There was more action at the 1/3 than 2/2 rofl. I've also tried the 5/5 plo also, but had a mandatory 10$ straddle, game was too big for my bankroll.

I think you're really missing the nuance of what Doug is saying. It might help if you found an example hand where he sizes down smaller than 4x when he's 3-betting OOP 350 bb deep. I am guessing you won't be able to find one because it pretty much makes no sense, unless he is doing it as an exploit.

In the scenario presented in the OP you pretty much always want to size up like I said. If you 3-bet to $100 that is only 1/17th of your stack, so that sizing is not having a negative effect on the post flop SPR/playability.

What the AI is likely summarizing is a Polk discussion about sizing down to manipulate the postflop SPR.

Ex) $450 effective stacks in 1/3
You open to $15 as is often standard exploitatively, and face a 3-bet to $60. You are considering putting in a 4-bet...

In this scenario you might "size down" by only 4-betting to $120 or $130.

The reason you do this is because if you 4-bet bigger, for example by making it $160, that is more than 1/3 of your stack and basically pot commits you if he jams. It also sets up an awkward post flop SPR if he just calls. By sizing down it enables you to include 4-bet/folds in your 4-bet range, as you're not necessarily pot committed.

So yes there are times you size down when deeper stacked to manipulate the SPR, but this situation where you are $1700 deep, facing a small open and contemplating whether to 3-bet from between $50 to $100 is not one of those situations.

Hahaha. I believe he really had what he said. This is live ls poker after all. People sometimes do off the wall stuff.

I've been in this exact sort of scenario before, after I made a questionable decision to go all in (or in this case almost all in). You sit there sweating bullets thinking, why did I just go all in, as they tank. It's such a relief if they fold and you win a big pot instead of punting your stack.

I think we only get called by better when you bet so huge.