Villain is 37/13/.9 over 192 hands with an attempt to steal of 52%

So, probably fold pf? But, as played, how is the rest? Turn b/f just seems to invite people bluff raising the turn. Spewy?


Full Tilt Poker $5/$10 Limit Hold'em - 8 players
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Pre Flop: (1.5 SB) Hero is BB with 7 5
4 folds, CO raises, 2 folds, Hero calls

Flop: (4.5 SB) K K 7 (2 players)
Hero bets, CO calls

Turn: (3.25 BB) 6 (2 players)
Hero bets, CO raises, Hero calls

River: (7.25 BB) 6 (2 players)
Hero checks, CO bets, Hero calls

c/r flop, bet call down seems OK vs. cutoff raise.

This is the standard way of playing this hand.

On another note, you have 57.5% equity on this flop against a 52% steal range.
On the turn, you have 62% equity against his initial steal range. Of course, his raise on the turn should narrow his range a bit.

What I would be concerned about is his .9 AF.
Usually when someone has an AF this low and they feel like raising me I let them take it.

But since this was a cutoff raise, and he could have picked up a flush draw on the turn, and we only have 192 hands on him, I call down.


Also 37/13/.9 is pretty awful (loose passive). Try to play with this villain more often.

You went wrong with the flop donk - c/r would have been the correct play here. Vil is not super aggro so just keep firing away. I don't see hero being ahead much when vil raises the turn though, especially when vil fires again on river (which discounts a FSDR). River would be vil dependent, a 0.9AF would certainly mean a fold would not be out of the question as there is not much air that vil could have played this way.

The ace high FD might think it is the nuts on the river. So many people bet chops these days, and he may think he's making a thin value bet against a Q (which is crazy given the donk).

Mike, what did you hope to accomplish with the flop donk?

For extra credit:

How do you play KQ?
How do you play 44?
How do you play 88?
What line would you take bluffing with J9o?
How do you play K7o?

For serious extra credit, how would you play if the roles were reversed with the above hands and a flop donk? Add in AJo to your list.

c/r flop is the best way to balance your CR range with monsters/air

I can't see a 0.9 going uber aggro w/ A high here. If the read on vil is that they will go aggro the best action would be c/r, c/c, c/c and let vil spew off with his A high.

+

What's uber aggro about raising on the turn with a FD at this limit? Also, given the action, I'm not sure that betting A-high down is spew.

The guy is up at 37/13 FR in a ~200 hand sample. A 0.9 AF would be pretty close to a guy who is 18/12/2, right? This is still a smallish sample to do exact hand reads, but passive he ain't. He's loose and slightly aggressive preflop. His AF is decently high, given how many hands he plays. He doesn't need the nuts to bet/raise here. I think you're confusing 11/9/.9 with 37/13/0.9 in post flop play.

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That said, when I think about the lines of dealing with a donk, the call the flop donk and raise the turn line sure looks strong to me. As I think about the hand, I think that our hero can probably find a fold in a small pot. You believe that the villain won't raise a FD? As our hero played it, he should almost fold to the turn raise.

Once you hit a certain level (this one?), you've got to start thinking about how people read you. The questions I asked should make a difference in how you think about the had. I'm in the c/r 100% camp; play back against that. If you c/r the flop and get your turn bet popped, I think folding really comes in to the picture if you have a non-tricky read on the villain.

Thanks for all the comments. I definitely do not c/r enough in this spot -- that's why I posted this hand. Tbh, my thinking was that his aggression was low enough that it would check through on the paired flop, AND that donking looked weak and might encourage him to keep calling. I see from the many posts advising c/r that is just bad thinking.

So, I'm sure this is weak, but I prob would have donked KQ, K7 or 88 too to bluff weakness. More likely to c/r a J9o bluff and c/c 44. As I write this, I see it is lame. Multi-way, I check raise all of these hands (except the J9), including the one I had ... for some reason it just seemed to me that HU with this guy the risk of getting checked through and then he folds to my turn bet was worse than a donk he is likely to believe is a bluff.

So, is there ever a point where you aren't check raising here based on villain's stats?

Although, I would have 3! KQ or 88 PF.

Flipping it as Doug suggests:

KQ I raise and keep putting the last bet in unless an A comes. No way I can put him on AK in the BB just calling the raise (I'm something like 23/14/1.9), so -- and I do try to think about how they see me -- I would expect someone with those stats to 3b a big A or 88+

44 I am going to call down.

88 I r/c and then call down

I'm unlikely to be bluffing someone with my stats with J9o here. I *might* peel the flop, but that seems thin to me.

AJ I probably raise/call and call the turn, fold the river UI?

I suck at HU/blind defense so these are all probably wrong.

What is this guy's wtsd over this sample?

This guy has weird stats and I'd guess that he's probably opening something like 30% of hands in the CO. His stats are so bizarre since he's really loose, but super aggro in position. I'd guess we probably have a small equity edge against his range on this flop, but at what point against this guy do you feel comfortable bet/folding?

So I'd just c/c this flop, probably c/c the turn, and probably c/c the river. I might be missing some value but against spazzy players I'll pass up on tiny amounts of value in order to get to showdown. If he checks the turn then we get some valuable info about the way he (probably) plays his Ax hands. If he barrels off with A high that's some great info too, then we can adjust in the future to change our strategy against this player.

And for people asking what you do with other hands in this situation: Who cares? Balance is so useless against a drooler like this guy, and the only thing we have to worry about is what we perceive will be the most profitable line, and this might be slightly altered by his recent history with us or even with another player (i.e. another player just donked the turn against him with middle pair, maybe it's not in our best interest to do it the next hand). If some reg that we have a lot of history with raised the CO and we defended here then obviously we should start thinking about being balanced.

You're victim to labeling and forgetting that there is a person pushing the keys. This guy may be a little bad. He may lose. You can't say, "unthinking drooler". You have to give a little thought to how a 5/T player may read your hand. Make him 50/12, and I think your argument holds more water. There is a blind spot among many of us where if someone has PF stats we don't like, we assume that they can't play post flop at all. In the real world, there are plenty of people who lack discipline post flop who have some clue post. Is that this guy? We have no idea.

To me, this is a little bit like live progression. In a 8/16 or 10/20, your opponents are playing level 0 and never think about what you have in a coherent fashion. Even some bad 15/30 and 20/40 players have an idea. You start getting above this, and most players have a strategy; it may be a bad one, but you need a specific read of drooler.

When I look at .5/1 FR villains and 5/T FR villains, even the bad ones at 5/T are doing something for a reason. The .5/1 guy randomly mashes the raise button to bluff. The 5/T guy at least bluffs scare cards.

Doug,

I've played a lot of 15 and 20 live (and lower of course), and I agree with you. What I'm less clear on is where the online switch happens. Frankly, I find the 5/T game more familiar and easier to play than, say, 1-2. Maybe this is because fewer people are mega-multi-table nits at 5/T on FT because there are so few tables.

I've never played 5/T on FT. I played FR 5/T on PS this AM (the 6m tables didn't seem good). When I started, there was one table, but after some game starting on my part, there were 5 tables. In my experience, there are more tables at every limit at Stars, but not this AM. Can you game start at FT and get several good games going? The SN/SNE thing means you get high volume grinders at every limit at PS.

I think you see a gradual transition from 1/2 up through 5/T. I have played very few hands higher than this. At 1/2, more players play decent starting hand selection. They don't understand board textures, scare cards, and proper adjustments to aggression. You can find games like this even at 3/6; people play multiple limits and the lineups matter. I see a jump at 2/4, where more people can steal/defend blinds. At PS, the $1 SB in 3/6 makes it a weird limit. By 5/T, there are plenty of games where you can just watch the rhythm of the hands and go, "wow, that aggression is pure".

Given that you have players who play 2/4 to 5/T (or 10/20), the exact people matter. You see a gradual change in the fish at each level, with the higher level fish being more likely to have some correct aggression. Live players understand that some guys are bad PF and play decent (or even well) post flop. With all these stats and data analysis tools, it is easy to see bad stats and say "can't play ever".

I found the FT 2/4 FR game easier than 1/2, as well. Playing the same limits you do live, it seemed more natural. Now that I play better in steals, the 1/2 games seem very beatable.

I certainly agree that as you move up the fish become a bit better hand readers and have a few more tricks in their arsenal (see fishy nit c/c c/r river with turned trips against my TPTK for maximum ownage in the 20/40 game I played last weekend in spew thread). But the thing is when playing online and seeing someone playing 38/13/.9 or whatever, my default is obviously going to be "weaker player." I might have exaggerated a bit calling him a drooler or something, and this guy's steal stats certainly indicate he is at least moderately positionally aware... but he almost certainly is not a great player.

So when I have to make decisions against a player like this I'm going to assume his thought process is not necessarily going to match up with mine or is that of a winning player (postflop, since PF he's clearly awful), and as a result I'm going to try to do things like showdown until I get a better feel for how he's playing. But as is, there are too many players on the internet to not default to labeling based on stats and ways we've seen similar villains play in the past until we can update our read.

All that said the OP should have some sort of read on the villain besides his stats over 192 hands (unless they were datamined)... that's way too many hands to have on someone that plays oddly without having a few decent notes.

Which assumes I have been in a good habit of taking notes. Not. Which is one of my major leaks. But I am working on it.

I also tend to take notes in the FT system, and then review hand histories in PT, so I don't have access to my notes when I am reviewing. Which is probably another leak.

and I can't rule out the possibility that some of those hands were observed while waiting for my seat on the 8 deep list that always seems to exist. Why FT can't autostart a new table the way B&M would is beyond me. Also, SEAT CHANGE BUTTON please!!

But the primary problem is that in transitioning to ol I have relied too heavily on stats, and my live memory of players stuff doesn't work as well when I can't see their faces.

I will try to include better reads in future posts where I can.

Thanks again for the feedback!

there's no magical switch online where games go from easy to hard, just like there's not live. it's a progression always as you move up the limits.

in this hand i would fold to the turn raise, but i also wouldn't donk the flop and instead would checkraise

welcome to the forum btw oaklandmike

That's all reasonable. I don't think we're that far apart.
Remember, you can load notes back and forth.

Good notes in games with lots of regs is a huge help. If you take a lot of notes, not having one is a read that he never gets out of line.

HOW? That sounds really useful.

Thanks! If only I had time to play more. Getting everyone's comments is really helpful.

But how do I get a cool avatar?

There is a notebook icon on the toolbar. You can push or pull notes from the sites.

Avatars are in your user profile.