NOT Shania Twain:

http://forumserver.twoplustwo.com/56...d-know-143451/

Yes, that's what I am driving at. I might think it's rubbish a few years from now, but I agree with Shania, or as I called it "strategy".

From where I sit, it looks like you're stuck in the mud. Most players get the concept of Shania wrong, and they use it basically to just hand-wave justify whatever play they're thinking of making. And that the concept justifies throwing random hands into random spots.

You're not quite "wrong" in anything you've said, but the nebulousness of the concept is probably giving you a sense of confidence that isn't fully justified.

I think the hand range you gave as what you could have on the river is basically full of crap. To put it another way, it might be possible that you have those hands, but I'm confident if you combined them all, they would make up less than one percent of the hands you actually have in that spot on the river. Why? Because you don't actually play those hands like this.

So while you can have all of those hands, it literally makes no difference, and you're probably over-folding the river.

Don't knock the moderately tricky play in these games until you try it. The worst thing that can happen is that you start to understand better the tricky side of the argument, and your tricky opponents.

I am currently reading Further Limit Hold'em by Philip Newall, and reading about heads-up play. I learned that a few of the heads-up bots (and there aren't many) played the same hand different ways based on percentages. There's no reason to assume that, for example, a Q9s, or an A6s is an always limp, or always raise against limpers in a low limit game. This is a very complicated question.

Agree completely, usually people just do a bunch of really stupid stuff and then say metagame or it was for my image or something equally dumb.

Heh... I'm not even knocking "moderately tricky play." I'm conducting a pretty straightforward analysis.

If you think you're showing up in that spot with hands in that range more than a tiny, tiny fraction of the time, you're probably spewing chips all over the place. But since you're probably not spewing chips all over the place, it's more likely that you're really not mixing up your hand range to the level that you seem to be portraying.

I stand by my claim that the range of hands you cited actually constitute less than 1% of the hands you have after that river bet.

This is also not a new observation. This type of mixing of preflop play is pretty old news.

This type of mixing of preflop play also diminishes greatly in value in multiway pots.

I could have A6s preflop, but I wouldn't bet the 7 turn w/ it. Nor would I bet river.

Right. By the time you get to the river, you've got a pretty well-defined and fairly narrow range (not this is necessarily a bad thing), and all of the mixing stuff that you might have done preflop has already washed out of the problem. And your only two pair hand is KQ.

No I agree with you. Unless the weird stuff was already pretty good by the turn (so like 76s is still in there, but not A5s/A6s/etc). But by now, it's a fairly trivial part of our range.

Heh... sorry --- I thought for a moment I was responding to leavesofliberty... I'm still waiting for him to declare whether he has any other two pair hands.

Raise it up. Not close.

----

I'd pay off the river as posed in the op but as I've said numerous times I'm quite jaded by online poker. Also, I've played my share of 4/8 and have definitely been raised in similar spots by worse value hands and bluffs at that stake. I only have about 10 hours of 8/16 though, but I can't imagine the regs being any more passive than at 4/8. I'd even value bet other strong hands like K9s and call when raised. Now AQ? There's a close decision imo. The thing about having a lag image is that nobody ever believes you have anything. Once upon a time at 4/8 I bet called in a 12 or so big bet pot 3 ways with 77 unimproved with two overcards on the board with no read besides my own lag image. I won vs his busted straight draw 7 high no pair. When I showed my hand he says "figures the one time I try a bluff he actually has something."

I think this is quite the exaggeration:

To quote the great Jack Burton:

"hey you never know until you try."

and if you always fold in these spots, you don't have the evidence to support such a high folding frequency.

This is exactly why I call in this spot until I have a read. This:

may not have been an argument for calling the river, but if the shoe fits....

Online, I wouldn't. But live if I sense they are donking with something as low as AT, or a pocket pair, then I'll bet all three streets.

I will seldom have a two-pair other than KQ. And, I am over-folding in this spot, BUT only because they are under-bluffing. As I did say before though in this thread, I could have suited connectors that make two-pair. So, I am discouraged that you missed that.

I don't play online, so I can't speak as to what their river-ranges are. But, I suspect that if you can beat 4/8 online, you should have an an even easier time beating 8/16 live.

Right, but "could" in the sense that I've already asserted:

None of the math is impacted by the counter-assertion "I said *TWO PAIR* not *KQ*" because you're getting there with those other two pair hands so rarely as to have basically no weight in the consideration/calculation. (That is, unless you play those hands so poorly -- as in, raising preflop waaaaay to often -- that you'll end up there far more frequently than you should.)

I have doubts that the level of confidence required to confidently assert this is actually reasonably attainable. I have significant doubts of anyone's ability to make intuitive estimates of generic frequencies within +- 5%. (I'd probably push that to +-20% in reality... People really, really suck at estimating frequencies because of all the psychological biases we have.)

This means that beyond about 10:1, any sense of confidence (in the absence of specific information) is probably misplaced. A villain that has already shown himself capable of bluffing *just once* is already giving me enough information for me to believe it's possible for him to be bluffing. It will take a *LONG* span of hands without ever seeing another bluff for me to change that impression.

Quick question, if you were villian is there anyone you try to bluff the river against in your 8/16 pool? Be honest.

I could probably count on one hand the number of people I'd show up with a bluff against here at any frequency above 0.

I actually haven't played a ton of 8/16, but I've played quite a bit of 10/20 and 15/30.

And yes. I've taken stabs at regulars who have shown that they like to make hero folds. Some regulars are so proud of their folding tendencies that they muck face up to tell you that they know you had it.

Edit: In this hand, with the way that villains played, I'm probably never bluffing because I'm probably never actually in that exact spot.

Edit x2: Actually, it wasn't clear from OP which villain was in the hand. I might end up there from the big blind if I had 97s. I would definitely call preflop with that many players, I definitely had odds to call the flop with the gutshot, and then I've got odds after pairing the turn with the added two pair/trips outs. I'd definitely consider bluffing to represent something dopey like Q6s that got there. The turn peel would be thin with only 5 outs, but it's not horrible. (If I'm on comfortable terms, I might just say something like "big blind special caught up" or something to clue them into the type of hand I want them to think I have, but that's super player-dependent leveling.)

We have to be careful on who we try this against though; there's definitely people who will try to take shots here, not realizing it's a 2 BB mistake because even though the TAG reg is willing to fold one pair to the 55 year old lady, he isn't willing to do it to guys like you. Of course, some people just don't adjust and play their "style" (which for them means never paying off a river check raise with one pair); usually I find these are the older players who have made their time at poker playing maximally exploitative.

That's true. I forgot it was 3-handed to the river, and that's worth at least some consideration.

I've played a ton of 8/16 and higher, and the stake definitely changes things, and you have to take this exploitive play out against most opponents higher. Almost the whole pool isn't bluffing in my game.

You should consider listening to the people who've played this game before trying to soul-read their "mistakes". You're kind'a arrogant in your soul-read feels.

There would be times for that, but if people want to always call AK TPTK getting 13 to 1, there's nothing really wrong there.

xkcd?

I think you should explain your notation. What do "^" and "|" mean here?