I've lost count how many times winning live 2/5 regs who don't play higher tell me "you don't need to be balanced because opponent is not capable of exploiting you.." etc. They have no idea how exploitable that makes them in multiway pots when a good player whom they either don't think is good, or is underepping(eg. calling flop cbet 3way with a set) can just exploit the **** out of them not being balanced.

Seriously that is literally one of the biggest hurdles for 2/5 regs..

1. I way way way disagree with cbi's post. Anyone whose played online knows that there are/were tons of winning/breakeven regs that they played in either 6max or FR that were not positionally aware. I use the term positionally aware liberally in today's sense.

2. HU, you can justify flatting AK here and not 3betting. Otherwise it is a stupid idea to just flat here.

More Players in the pot should make you 3 bet less in general. Tighter opening ranges should make you 3 bet less.

QQ+, AK is a very common OOP stackoff range. No winning online player value 4 bets JJ from UTG against a winning players 3 bet in position. I told you why.
People rarely 3 bet AK IP after a tight UTG raise. And definitely not the good regs. If someone does it I make a note and mark him as fishy immediately.

What are you doing after a 3 bet?

If UTG 4 bets -> fold?
if whale backraises -> fold?
if someone cold 4 bets -> fold?
if both call and you miss the flop -> bluff a whale and a super strong range in a huge pot?
if UTG folds and whale calls and you miss the flop -> bluff a whale?
if UTG calls and whale folds and you miss the flop -> bluff a super strong range?
if UTG calls and whale folds and you hit the A-hi flop -> make the nitty UTG raiser pay you off?

You will not flop a pair or better 2/3 times btw.

Do you just hope everyone folds and you fold to further action yourself? Ok, good bluff then. I assume your flatting range does not have any offsuit aces then.
Or are you playing for the scenario which includes everyone behind you folding AND UTG folding AND whale calling AND hitting the flop AND whale catching a lesser piece AND he is paying you off AND your hand holds?

I wish you did not since you clearly were not capable of understanding the concept (as expected).

Yes, this is what crushing mid-high stakes online winners like me do when they face an unknown opponent who has not shown any fishy tendencies yet. They take a defensive approach to approximate "unexploitable play" until the player gives a reason to change the approach. It is the best strategy to use as a default.

They were absolutely necessary to explain the concept. I was specifically asked for it.

These are common words in the poker world. Especially between high stakes winners. Without them it is hard to explain anything. Again, i was specifically asked to elaborate on this. If you have trouble understanding them I suggest using a dictionary.

If you want to call 5th grade math scientific, ok. For some people it probably is rocket science. But I added in these common words because they were necessary to explain the concept I was asked for.

Only? I think it is a huge conclusion which has tremendous effect on our overall play. It gives a great guideline on what to do as your default play when you face an unknown UTG raiser. If you are smart enough you can even derive exploitative strategies and other ranges from that.

In fairness, you did the debater's trick of leaving out two of the best scenarios: (1) you take it down -- maybe not a huge % of the time but still, and (2) UTG folds and whale calls and you hit the flop.

I realize that it's a little inconsistent to simultaneously think you can get the whale to fold when you miss but you can get some value when you hit. But not really. Isn't the joy of live big-bet poker being in position against peopel (esp. a whale) where you get to size the bets, read the players, etc.?

I call, what do you got?

all jokes aside, i can agree that if we were heads up i wouldnt mind a pf flat, but in this spot 3b is far superior to flat.

Re: cbi's more general point that a "defensive" mindset versus a tight/unknown UTG is good, taking the initiative in position allows you to play the big streets most "defensively" with more information, no?

The assumptions that lead to NOT 3betting AK include villain playing a 4bet or fold strategy. These days online (and even more so at live poker), you don't see many players employing such a strategy. Once people start to flat 3bets OOP, I'd say AK is pretty much the nut hand (besides big pairs fat value hands obviously) to have in position in a 3bet pot.

cbi you're not the only one here who plays online, but once you start to use 'crushing high stakes online cash' as something to back up your argument you need to 1) back it up with graphs/signnames etc, and 2) realize that it makes you to be either a fake or a highstakes crusher who's unable to relate to live poker.

Just 4betting or folding is obviously exploitable as well and is a strategy that could easily get murdered if you have a basic idea of that persons 4b frequency, tendencies, and call off tendencies.

Between really good players with a fair amount of history there can obviously be a lot of exploiting/ rexploiting/ rexploiting in spots like this until everyone is playing GTO.

Again- this is 5/10...against a 50 year old guy. If you want to show off this analysis, this is just the wrong thread to do it.

Ok, I provide an exact opening range, 4b range and calloff range:

100bb starting stack
Open 3 bb: 22+, ATs+, AJo+, KTs+, KQo, QTs+, J9s+, T9s, 98s, 87s, 76s
4b a 9bb 3bet to 27bb: QQ+, AQ+, AJs, ATs (fold rest)
call 5b AI: QQ+, AK (fold rest)

Can you please show me how this strategy is easily murdered or what I need to do to (easily) find a way to exploit this?

No, it is the wrong forum. Unfortunately a forum for even semi advanced full ring strategies (as I said: this is super basic) does not exist.

One day you might be lucky enough to realize that calling people with far superior expertise dense makes you look like a pretty huge idiot.

Regarding my results: I have posted my winrates from NL200-NL2k about 2 years ago and they have only gotten better since. I have not seen any proof for being a winning player from any of the live players though.

Min 3b/ fold every hand opened by that player and become the winningest poker player in history.

CBI no matter how good you are at poker, ffs learn about life and work on your communication skills. You'll find out that when you stop being a dick, you get your points across more frequently and life gets easier.

If I made a mistake somewhere, let me know. There were some very slight card removal effects that I did not take into account.

Assume we have A2o on the button.

Now assume for simplicity the blinds cold 4bet QQ+, AK. With the card removal effects of our hand (and not your open. Too lazy for that one), they enter the pot with 27 out of 1225 possible hands. So the blinds fold with frequency:

(1 - (27/1225))^2 = 0.9564

With A2o removed, you have 167 hands left in your (14%) opening range. You will continue 45 hands to a 3bet. So you will 4bet 45/167 = 26.94% of the time.

So the probability that our 3bet goes through is:

(1 - (27/1225))^2 * (167-45)/167 = .6987

70% of the time we win 4.5 bb and 30% of the time we lose 9 bb. So on average we make:

.7*4.5-.3*9 = .45 bb

Giving us a profitable 3bet on the button with all of our Ax hands.

But whether or not this strategy is exploitable isn't really the point. If you attempting to play GTO at live poker, you are likely missing a lot of profitable spots. Or maybe you're just playing in much tougher games than I am. I don't know.

cbi,

You continually call out the whole community as being inferior and remedial. Why again are you posting here? If your tone continues to remain negative and derogatory your presence is not welcome, and you will not be missed...regardless of your skill set.

not 3betting is absolutely absolutely awful and every good online reg will tell you why

I did not say anything about my response to a min 3 bet. What is my strategy to a min 3 bet that you have made up in your head?

@The Muffin Man Thank you for the reasonable contributions.

@JlocDog I already stopped posting in other threads. Just finishing this discussion and I am done. You should however reconsider your answer of "gtfo then" to every possible criticism that you encounter.

When you say good online regs you mean 13/8 (if i remember you correctly) nutpeddlers like yourself?

The fact that you have insulted most everyone in this thread with your arrogance and self entitlement means you are finished with the discussion in this thread as well.

Take care now.

It is arrogance from you to assume you can judge if I am arrogant or realistic.

Well just give us your SN and let the people decide who's who :-)

Before this turned into a flamewar, I was getting curious about posters' attitudes toward a 50 year old opponent. Do you find 50 year olds play as conservative as 70 year olds?

What I'm really wondering is, if I make an effort to look older than I really am, will my opponents underestimate me and if so, how to exploit them? Extra river bluffs for one thing, I guess.

I personally just assume all 50+ year old guys are tight, level-zero players until proven otherwise. In my experience the older they are, the more conservative they are. Obviously I've played with 50 year old maniacs too, I'm just giving you my baseline read.

This particular villain proved to me that he was, at the very least, a thinking player when he called down with (presumably) A-high.

Cbi- do u play 1 on 1 kid?

People only 3x because its tougher for the opponent to profitably react to with most holdings. If opponent reacts by only folding or raising, you can definitely exploit their understanding of the mathematics behind 3 amd 4 betting by lowering your 3bet size, forcing them to make an adjustment into a reaction they're not familiar with. Oh I forgot, you play optimally in any situation and so does every .2/.5c online reg/50 yr old casino regs/anyone besides the people arguing with you.

I guess by the turn you may as well continue the check-fest, despite the fact that that's what put you in a trick bag to begin with. All the not-betting is why you don't know whether you're way ahead or way behind--a ridiculous place to be after picking up a premium hand. Check the turn and you'll still find yourself wondering where it all went wrong when either he bets the river or you do and he C/Rs. Or had you been thinking of checking the entire thing down and moving on?