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15/30 how is my range doing OTT? 15/30 how is my range doing OTT?

03-03-2015 , 06:04 PM
Quote:
Originally Posted by Jon_locke
Lawdude, I think your post and reasoning is really bad. You say "there are great mathematical reasons to call here" but your math is just wrong. You can't just stove 7-8s 3 ways cold call the sb and realize so little of your equity.

Button raises J8o, we call 67s sb. Flop is A55.... What's our equity and what's our line?
Button raises J8o we 3 bet 67s sb, flop is A55, what's our equity? What's button' line?

Not to mention your further advocating taking hands that are extremely profitable 3 bets and calling with them in order to balance out weaker hands? This is just terrible as well.
1. We are talking about 87, not 67. That actually makes some difference.

2. I am not suggesting we just stove 87 suited three ways. If the equity was very close to fair share, I'd say go ahead and fold (or 3-bet to make a play). Because I agree with you that we are not going to realize all of our equity in a 3 way or heads up pot out of position.

But in fact, we have WELL over our fair share of equity against a typical stealer and BB defender (if there is one). So long as we capture a substantial amount of our equity (not all of it), we should be OK.

3. I have a question for you. You raise pocket aces. A single player 3-bets you in position. It folds around to you. Do you 4-bet? You do realize that if you just call the 3-bets, you are "calling with a hand that is extremely profitable to raise in order to balance", don't you? (A similar question-- do you always 3-bet AA or KK in the BB against a steal?)

That's what balancing involves. It involves playing hands that have different levels of value the same way for deception purposes. That often means that the top of your range will not be played for maximum value.

(EDIT: my point here is that there's quite a lot of benefit to having a cold-calling range when you are being forced to put in $10 in the small blind in a 15-30 range. To effectively have such a range, you have to engage in some balance. That doesn't mean you are going to have no 3-betting range-- just that you can pull some hands out of your 3-betting range and just call with them so that you don't always have exactly medium-strength suited connectors when you call here.

The alternative is to 3-bet your entire range, but that puts you in situations where you are bloating pots with really bad hands heads up and out of position. So it seems to me that having a cold-calling range could be +EV overall as opposed to that strategy.)

4. Your examples are cherry-picked. Clearly, whenever you are 3-betting as a bluff, you'd love to see ace high paired board flops. And anytime I see one of those flops, I'd rather be the aggressor with aces in my range than the other player.

But how about the rest of the flops? Imagine, for instance, having a calling range with A4 suited and 87 suited in it, along with some other stuff, and check-raising an A72 flop with two suits. Now you can have a flush draw, the 7 you actually have if you have 87, or an ace. I like that situation. And you might have put a bit of dead money in the pot by folding out the BB after he put in 2 bets pre-flop. In contrast, if you 3-bet pre-flop, you are now barreling away heads up with middle pair and lots of reverse implied odds.

To be clear, MY example is cherry picked too. But you can't answer these complex questions of playability by just positing the most bluffable flop in the world for a 3-bettor and saying you'd rather be the 3-bettor.

Last edited by lawdude; 03-03-2015 at 06:14 PM.
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03-03-2015 , 06:15 PM
Quote:
Originally Posted by BigBadBabar
nope, that's not what wa/wb is
Asian villain can't cbet KQ, KJ, QJ on this flop?

These types of players would most likely bet the turn with +88 once the board pairs and maybe check back the river. So we know where we would stand only on the turn. Thus my comment of WA or WB.
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03-03-2015 , 07:10 PM
You use not capping AA as an example of ignoring extremely profitable spot for balance purposes but that's just wrong. Capping AA is not more profitable than the alternative of calling (obviously the 4 bet is profitable in and of itself but that's not what jm talking about, although it's what your focused on). 3 betting your suggested balanced hands is more profitable (in my opinion) than the alternative of having a balanced range here and merely calling. So sacrificing $ with certain hands so we can cold call 87s is an absurd position. When we don't 4 bet AA to have a balanced calling range, I don't think we lose anything (actually think we gain some $)

This is largely due to the fact that you don't play with good players. If you so they are just going to ruin your life so often as zomg suggested with your transparent ranges.
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03-03-2015 , 07:12 PM
Here an example, I open the button extremely wide, you cold call the sb and the flop is 7-8-9, What do you think my cbet% is? Do you think I cbet the following hands? a3, K3s, KQ? I'm not saying whether or not I do but curious what you think?


This is basically the same thing as the really good point captain R made in this thread that unfortunately went unnoticed.

So not you have all the benefits or cold calling sb (you didn't actually say what they were), except not when you flop well or at least the flop connects with your range well the button is going to play perfectly against that range. So when you brick flops like A22 our going to lose to J7 and when you flop well and are a big equity favorite they are going I check back at a high frequency......

Now your going to start donking flops and have become the guy that cold calls small blind, flops top pair and donks, a common like amongst limit holdme wizards.

Last edited by Jon_locke; 03-03-2015 at 07:20 PM.
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03-03-2015 , 08:15 PM
Quote:
3. I have a question for you. You raise pocket aces. A single player 3-bets you in position. It folds around to you. Do you 4-bet? You do realize that if you just call the 3-bets, you are "calling with a hand that is extremely profitable to raise in order to balance", don't you?
an awful awful comparison. Not 4b disguises our range and costs at most one SB, which is easily made up.

Not 3 betting JJ-AA so we can have a "balanced" SB calling range will often costs us much more when the BB would have eaten two to the face and/or Btn would have capped.

Not 4b'ing hu is also much easier to not get yourself to in to gross situations. by not 3 betting JJ you allow the BB in for cheap, and now have to play an under repped hand oop. Youre just going to end up in a cluster **** of not knowing where you are in a hand way too often.

Youre suggesting we take our most profitable hands, put less money in the pot with them, put ourselves in weird situations. all so we can cold call stuff like 78s. and your range still wont be balanced. youre going to have far fewer "real" cc'ing hands, than disguised monsters. CC'ing here is just get to get you eaten alive by any btn who call hand read
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03-03-2015 , 09:02 PM
I can't respond in detail now, but at least one thing I said is being misinterpreted. I did not say we are going to cold call all of the hands I mentioned for balance- only that it should be possible to balance our range by coldcalling SOME of the hands I mentioned while still having a 3-betting range

I have 1 other question for discussion. Let's say a player leaves and as a result there are two big blinds. You are in the first BB with 87 suited. The button raises. What do you do?
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03-03-2015 , 09:21 PM
same thing i would if i was the sb. 3 bet
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03-03-2015 , 09:24 PM
Quote:
Originally Posted by ZOMG_RIGGED!
same thing i would if i was the sb. 3 bet
OK. Do you have any calling range at all there under normal conditions or is it 3-bet or fold?
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03-03-2015 , 09:55 PM
if btn is good, 3 bet or fold under normal conditions. unless BB #2 is playing 100% vpip and even then I doubt that would stop me because I'd rather invest 1 SB then let the BTN punish the **** out of me.
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03-03-2015 , 10:27 PM
Fold pre.

As played, checkraise the turn.
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03-03-2015 , 10:52 PM
Quote:
Originally Posted by up2ng
Fold pre.

As played, checkraise the turn.
Not even a good troll attempt
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03-04-2015 , 03:21 AM
BTW, I got 52% equity on the flop vs. 50% button opener and 62% on the turn. I ignored BB.
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03-04-2015 , 07:28 AM
I disagree with the blanket statement that having a cold call range AND 3b range makes us exploitable.

If full ring UTG raises, then I think it is (more) ideal to always 3b or always flat. But when BTN opens, things are completely different. His range will be ~50%. If we defend 35% that is enough to have say a 12% flat and 24% 3b range. Everyones range everywhere is wide enough that we don't get exploited. Even if you Never flat AA, and the board comes Axx, you will have enough combos of 2p or mid set to put in significant action -- AA only represents a small fraction of BTNs whole range. There isn't this huge difference in ranges that will crush us.
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03-04-2015 , 08:10 AM
the funny thing about threads like these is people always say stuff like "we can have a balanced cold call range" or we can have a "balanced 3b out the the bb range" or we can have a "balanced open limp SB range"

Its like when a guy starts a thread by saying " I have a tight TAG image" when what he really means is "the table thinks I'm a lag idiot"

is it theoretically possible to have balanced ranges in these spots? probably. Does anyone actually pull it off? no. what really happens is you lose value on your big hands youre trying to "balance with" while at the same table giving superior opponents a **** ton of information about your hand and letting them play you near perfectly in position.

The secret to winning at limit is not to put yourself in ****ty spots and then guess if your hand is good, its to put your opponent in ****ty spots where they have to guess if their hand is good.

Was this the thread where we talked about the decision tree? Limit is a ******edly simple game. Once you decide youre playing a hand pre flop there are so little options available that the hand can only play out about 4 ways. after the flop 95% of limit hands just auto play themselves based on number of players involved. After playing poker professionally for almost 8 years it stills blows my mind that people continually want to put themselves the the passive position where more mistakes are possible, than to just take the aggressive one and put the pressure on the opponent.

its like the entirety of the limit forums have gone bat **** insane. There are about 10 quality posters left, they respond and tell you how a hand should be played and why, and then all the monkeys start arguing.

I'd bet my left testicle that if you Phunkphish gave up on thinking about poker on your own and just parroted what ever Jon_Locke said youd be an infinitely better player than youll ever be using your own logic

Last edited by ZOMG_RIGGED!; 03-04-2015 at 08:11 AM. Reason: also, listen to OTR and ILP. in spots they disagree just flip a coin becuase it wont really matter
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03-04-2015 , 10:39 AM
I disagree that this is a WA/WB situation. I would be WA/WB if you had A3.
But a huge portion of Villain's range consists of two cards between 8 and A. These hands have about 25% equity against you. And even if villain does have an A, you have 20-24% equity against him. I don't think in any case one player is "way ahead" (obviously this changes on the turn). Wouldn't you love to fold out QJ on the flop for the cost of a check-raise?
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03-04-2015 , 12:10 PM
Are you in the 9seat by any chance? I like 3bet pre, calling is ok when BB sucks.
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03-04-2015 , 03:18 PM
Quote:
Originally Posted by ZOMG_RIGGED!
the funny thing about threads like these is people always say stuff like "we can have a balanced cold call range" or we can have a "balanced 3b out the the bb range" or we can have a "balanced open limp SB range"

Its like when a guy starts a thread by saying " I have a tight TAG image" when what he really means is "the table thinks I'm a lag idiot"

is it theoretically possible to have balanced ranges in these spots? probably. Does anyone actually pull it off? no. what really happens is you lose value on your big hands youre trying to "balance with" while at the same table giving superior opponents a **** ton of information about your hand and letting them play you near perfectly in position.

The secret to winning at limit is not to put yourself in ****ty spots and then guess if your hand is good, its to put your opponent in ****ty spots where they have to guess if their hand is good.

Was this the thread where we talked about the decision tree? Limit is a ******edly simple game. Once you decide youre playing a hand pre flop there are so little options available that the hand can only play out about 4 ways. after the flop 95% of limit hands just auto play themselves based on number of players involved. After playing poker professionally for almost 8 years it stills blows my mind that people continually want to put themselves the the passive position where more mistakes are possible, than to just take the aggressive one and put the pressure on the opponent.

its like the entirety of the limit forums have gone bat **** insane. There are about 10 quality posters left, they respond and tell you how a hand should be played and why, and then all the monkeys start arguing.

I'd bet my left testicle that if you Phunkphish gave up on thinking about poker on your own and just parroted what ever Jon_Locke said youd be an infinitely better player than youll ever be using your own logic
??

There are two trains of thought: the pseudo-theoretical way of playing, and the exploitative one. Most live players suck. I agree the best way to exploit this is to be aggressive. This means always choosing to 3b out of the SB instead of flatting. Theoretically though, flatting some in the SB is fine. If you think the pseudo-theoretical methodology isn't worth thinking about or discussing, that's fine. I just like throwing it out there because a lot of 'pros' on this site like to just say "always 3b or fold" or "always flat BB v BTN open". They act like that is definitively the only way play in those positions, which is simply untrue.

My last post was to illuminate the difference between defending v a tight range compared a wide range. In BvB or HU matches, it's clear that you can have a calling range and a 3b range, because ranges are so wide everywhere. Defending SB or BB vs a BTN open isn't so far removed from this scenario.


Could you please clarify how having both a flatting/3b range v BTN open gives our superior opponents a tonne of information and lets them play perfectly against us?
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03-04-2015 , 05:19 PM
It doesn't take much math to realize that coldcalling ranges would be extremely difficult to balance.

Let's say BTN opens 50%. Broad strokes, what percentage are you 3-betting? Probably 20-25%. So your coldcalling range is beheaded, and not by a little bit either - 20-25% includes the shoulders and like half your chest. You can do the lawdude, and start coldcalling premiums, and now your 3-betting range is beheaded. Unless you plan to be dealt aces more often than others, each of your **** card ranges can only be half as big as otherwise and you disproportionately end up at the bottom of your range.

So how is this different from raise/calling premiums OOP? Because you start off with a much tighter range to begin with - you raise 10% EP, you're 3-bet by top 5-8%, and ideally you'd like to cap top 2-4% but that's simply too narrow. So you'd rather take all top 10% against all top 5-8%. In the BTN/SB scenario, you're deciding whether to take all top 20-25% against his top 50%. Huge difference.

As for people who think there's a difference between 2/3 and 2/4 structures, you need about 3/7 (42%) equity to 3-bet and 4/15 (27%) to 6/20 (30%) to call HU and 4/18 (22%) to 6/24 (25%) 3-way. So by saying there's a difference, you're essentially saying there are a lot of hands with exactly 27-30% equity against a top 50% range HU and those same hands have exactly 22-25% equity 3-way. I would need to see proof before I accepted that.

On the other hand, such a narrow range of hands could probably be balanced by randomizing your premiums. So maybe someone's worked it out but like someone (ZOMG, probably, given how unecessarily inflammatory I remember the post being) said, it's a huge amount of work to balance one range much less two.

3-bet pre, regardless of blind structure.
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03-04-2015 , 05:31 PM
Quote:
Originally Posted by phunkphish
??

There are two trains of thought: the pseudo-theoretical way of playing, and the exploitative one. Most live players suck. I agree the best way to exploit this is to be aggressive. This means always choosing to 3b out of the SB instead of flatting. Theoretically though, flatting some in the SB is fine. If you think the pseudo-theoretical methodology isn't worth thinking about or discussing, that's fine. I just like throwing it out there because a lot of 'pros' on this site like to just say "always 3b or fold" or "always flat BB v BTN open". They act like that is definitively the only way play in those positions, which is simply untrue.

My last post was to illuminate the difference between defending v a tight range compared a wide range. In BvB or HU matches, it's clear that you can have a calling range and a 3b range, because ranges are so wide everywhere. Defending SB or BB vs a BTN open isn't so far removed from this scenario.


Could you please clarify how having both a flatting/3b range v BTN open gives our superior opponents a tonne of information and lets them play perfectly against us?
This is a really good post, not content though, but because it deals with almost exact conversation I was having the other day. Almost everybody that plays limit holdem with do something that is against the "norm@ Becusse jt works for them or fits their strategy or they think it's correct and then they lash out against people with group think mindset. Which brings me to the part f your post I agree with "There are two trains of thought,". (A) what's right and (B) what's wrong, when people do something that's their way or agaisnt the norm it's almost always wrong/bad. That's all there really is to it. I haven't played on starts in a while but I can't recall any good players that frequently called sb vs button in 2/3 games (maybee there were some or they do now I don't know).

When every single good/great player plays a spot exactly the same and people come around and say all these people better than me do X but I'm going to murder this live 15-30 game By doing Y, your are probably making a mistake jn your decision making.
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03-04-2015 , 05:42 PM
Here's a hand I played at commerce a while back, button and sb are friends/friendly and it's a 2/3 structure. Both players are solid winners. Button opens and sb calls, button jokes and says just cold calling no 8-9-10 dealer. Flop comes 8-8-9 and button checks back AK (can't remember how hand played out) and sb scoops wjth 9-10 or something.
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03-04-2015 , 06:05 PM
Not sure what your first post was getting at. Adhering to groupthink is dangerous. Years ago, NL experts all thought that a 3b range should be JJ+ and 4b should be KK+. More recently, LHE experts used to cbet 100%. Then bots came out, Newall studied them, and basically wrote a book on spots where maybe you should donk check. Or donk bet. etc.

FYI bots sometimes flat out of the SB vs BTN open. That's all the proof I need that it is *theoretically correct*. Whether to adjust to an aggro personality is another question.
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03-04-2015 , 06:10 PM
Quote:
Originally Posted by Jon_locke
I haven't played on starts in a while but I can't recall any good players that frequently called sb vs button in 2/3 games (maybee there were some or they do now I don't know).
So just to provide a counter argument, the lowest game on Stars with a 2/3 SB was 15/30, which was a tough game that played mostly shorthanded and was full of pros. The 3/6 had a 1/3 small blind, and was a spot you basically auto folded mostly and 3 bet if you played. You're saying "all the best players" did X or Y in a really tight/aggressive online game. Fine, seems reasonable. That game has about as much to do with a live 15/30 (top of small stakes) game as it does PLO/8 -- that's a game full of mouth breathers.

It may be entirely correct that you only 3 bet or fold here. However, you're playing against opponents who are terrible and who can't hand read. Thus, any argument of "high stakes online players don't play like this" or "you can't build a balanced 3h strat simply enough" or any other argument about purity seems flat out nuts to me. There are dozens of things I wouldn't do in an online 10/20 game that would seem normal/standard/good in a live 15/30.

There are likely zero pros in this game. We can balance or not balance if we want. We just want to make the best decision possible. Saying "no good 15/30 online player would make this play in this spot" is like saying "I'd fold here without a wrap and a good BDFD".
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03-04-2015 , 06:39 PM
I guess we can just disagree with that. My take is the online wizards 3 bet sb Becusse irks correct, whether they are playing other wizards or fish. The fact that live opponents are worse doesn't make cold calling correct, thought it probably makes it less bad than online game.

Doug, you also adtess something I talk about here a lot that people don't focus on. I see lots of people on here that seem to play same stakes for long periods of time never really getting better and not moving up and that's largeglu be cause of the my opponents suck so I can play like this approach. When/how do they learn to play "correctly"? Like they cold call sb 15-30 then move up to 30-60 or 60-120 with good opponents that can hand red and magically say ok now I just 3 bet or fold?
They move up with their terrible habits, generally lose move back down and rationalize they can just play vs terrible opponents with their style.
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03-04-2015 , 06:44 PM
Quote:
Originally Posted by Jon_locke
They move up with their terrible habits, generally lose move back down and rationalize they can just play vs terrible opponents with their style.
So you basically play the same in the CAZ 20/40 game FR as you would in a 30/60 online game on Stars? Even though there are 7 limps and like 15% of all pots are raised, you dutifully play the same range of hands UTG+2?
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03-04-2015 , 07:13 PM
Quote:
Originally Posted by DougL
So you basically play the same in the CAZ 20/40 game FR as you would in a 30/60 online game on Stars? Even though there are 7 limps and like 15% of all pots are raised, you dutifully play the same range of hands UTG+2?
Basically yes, with the caveat that some stuff I would do in an online game will just never happen. While the ranges I have for certain spots may be different my actions will largely be the same. For example, UTG opens in live 20 or online 30 and Im going to play my hand, I will 3 bet in either game (except my range may include 88 in one and not in the other). Likewise if the button opens and Im in the sb I'll be 3 betting my whole range in either game.

Sure, on average I play more hands UTG+2 in live 20, but thats only because of the makeup of the particular games. There were certainly online 30 game where I would have the exact same range UTG+2 as live 20, they just were very infrequent. Basically in either game I just tried to do what I thought was correct (doesn't mean I was but I thought so when I was doing it).

I'll even go a step further, when I played live 4-8. I never open limped and never cold called first in. Basically I watched the bigger games on stars, assumed the people crushing those games knew what they were doing and tried to copy their styles as much as possible (knowing what they did was correct and that I would figure out why as I got better). Maybee I left some money on the table with my style better suited for tougher games but I absolutely crushed $4/$8 and was fortunate to be playing 30-60 within a year of starting at 4-8/

Last edited by Jon_locke; 03-04-2015 at 07:20 PM.
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