Quote:
Originally Posted by callipygian
It depends on how many 9x, 7x, and PPs you beat.
Passive old men may have PPs as high as JJ here. A lot of people will donk 88 and 66 (pair plus straight draw). You lose to A9, chop with K9, beat Q9-98, lose to 97, and 96- may be out of a tighty's range. You also have 87 76 86 and maybe 75. You also have sets to worry about.
Work out the combos, and see whether you have enough to raise. I think so (at game speed I definitely raise this and probably Q9 but not T9 or 98) but if Villain is tight and passive his range may be so strong you just call down. No shame in that.
Agreed. Especially if
1) You will play this guy again
or
2) You're early in a session.
Collecting this data point will help with what I think is an easier skill to master at the table: empathy.
Combo counting at game speed is hard. In limit, people play all sorts of cheeseball from the BB, even nitty old men. If you're up against a fish that plays 60% of hands, where do you even begin?
Instead of immediately trying to "range", ask yourself "why is my opponent doing what he's doing right now?"
For example, last night I was playing PLO and flopped middle set on a J92cc board, and my passive-ish opponent check-raised me on the flop. I called to see what he did on the turn, and he immediately bet small (smaller than his previous street's raise). So you ask yourself "why is he betting so weakly, when he made such a strong move on the flop?". From there, you can discount monster hands/draws (JJxx, 22xx, QJT9, AcKQcT, etc) and converge his range on hands that either need help on the river, or aren't willing to play for stacks.
For a Limit example, I once played a guy who absolutely would not raise until the river, unless the board was draw-free. And even when he did raise, bottom set would be the weakest hand. So what can we infer about this guy? My guess was, he's playing scared of losing the big pot. The absolute worst thing that could happen to him has not to do w/ losing $3000 in a 20 game, but getting raised or reraised at any point and having to call with a worse hand. He's here to play a ton of hands and see a ton of showdowns, not to maximize value. So how do you adjust appropriately? Obviously bet twice and check with anything that can win a showdown becomes profitable. Also once should tighten up their river value range, as a 90/0, 0.02 AF guy is going to have some surprisingly good hands. You may also bluff less, for the same reasons.
In this instance, a tight man has check called a flop, and then donked. As I said before, we should ask ourselves "why did he not check raise the flop if he likes his hand enough to donk the turn?". And the answer is, it's opponent-specific.
Against a tight old man with limited history, this donk seems rather strong. He likely isn't playing many weaker 9's, and players like this may not even pay off a 7x type hand on the river after being raised. Since even tight old men like to go for the check-raise with a set or turned straight, it seems unlikely one of these hands are in his range; OTOH, he can also feel like it's now "safe" to start betting his JJ/TT/A9 type hands, or he may have even turned two pair.
Against a more aggressive player, they may be donking because they just want the betting lead with their 65s and want to take your Ax to value town. Since they'll likely be check-raising a lot more hands OTF, and looking to check-raise a lot wider OTT, you'd have a slam dunk raise against a player like this.
TL;DR, important thing to note is to always ask yourself why a player is playing the way he is. When you answer that, you can start finding optimal counter-strategies.
