It makes a lot of sense. It's basically the argument for GTO poker. And against opponents whom I think play GTO, I try to play very similar to that style.

However, most "good", moneymaking players at the mid stakes nonetheless play nowhere near GTO. For instance, while they do wait for the turn with hands other than monsters, they still have a widely unbalanced range.

And further, you can INDUCE mistakes from them by making unorthodox plays. Because they are not playing GTO, they will not put you on the correct range when you make non-GTO plays, and will make mistakes. ESPECIALLY if you do not do the same thing every time. (Remember, for your opponent to play unexploitable poker, he or she must CORRECTLY estimate your range. If your play induces your opponents to make incorrect assessments of your range, you net Sklansky dollars.)

The point is, balance is supremely important when you are playing either a bot or a human whose play approaces that of a bot. If that describes the play of typical Oaks 30 regs, that's fine. Play GTO and remind me not to sit in that game.

However, if you are sitting there constructing a balanced range so you can slowplay all your monsters, you are probably giving up money against the vast majority of players, INCLUDING "good" ones.

Finally, a small point. I was responding to someone who said that waiting for the turn gets you an additional 1/2BB. I think you agree with me there-- it isn't that simple and that if you are raising the turn, it should be for GTO reasons and not "to win an additional 1/2 bet".

I have a novel idea. Instead of posting about the general idea of waiting for the turn, let's get someone to post a specific hand, and you can respond to that specific hand.

I don't think you understand the purpose of balanced play if you think I construct my range around the strongest part of that range. Exploiting winning players by fast playing is extremely tough because they really have to have something to put in a bunch more action. Think about it; you are talking about running sets into overpairs and overpairs into top pair. That's just not how poker works.

Let me come at this from another angle. Let's say our range consists of 3 hands distributed 4/6 overcards 1/6 top pair and 1/6 nuts: overcards, top pair and the nuts. We always fastplay the nuts and call with the overcards. We usually fastplay top pair but sometimes call with it too. Our opponent has threebet from the sb after we opened the button and has his full distribution. His best play when we call the flop is to barrel 100% on the turn. This is a very common strategy employed by the people you claim you are exploiting. Now when we raise the flop maybe he spews at us, but we just won't have the nuts in our range enough for it to matter.

What you aren't considering is that when you take one hand out of one part of your range there can be multiple unintended results.

otr seriously posting some secrets in this thread...

NEVER FOLDING. lot of players like raising second pair heads up ( I do more often then not) on the turn. AJ, ATs would be my read

flop-raising all day long never flatting
turn-3 bets all day long

This is the best post I've read on 2p2 in about three years.

A couple of things you are assuming:

1. That in live poker, your opponents-- even the ones you play against a lot-- will be able to play so many hands against you that they can create a comprehensive story of what you do with different parts of your range, the same way an online player might be able to with PokerTracker after a couple of thousand hands against you.

2. That against the best opponents whom you face regularly, you always do the same things. (I randomize somewhat against good opponents.)

If you assume those two things, then yes, against the very best, most observant opponents, who never make a mistake about your range, you can't get away with pulling some monsters out of your turn raising range and fastplaying them. Again, if you are up against such opponents in your game, I would recommend a table change. But I understand, sometimes you have to play hands against them. There just aren't that many of them.

In the games I play in, there are many "good", but leaky, LAGgy players. To take an example using OP's hand, I know plenty of LAGgy players who play in the Commerce mid-limits who will reliably put way too many bets in on the flop AND turn with a hand like AA in this situation if we give them the opportunity. And I don't think they are good enough handreaders to take a hand like TT completely out of our range if in the next similar situation, we raise the turn.

Now perhaps your competition is tougher.

But I honestly don't know where all these expert poker players are, at least in live games. I haven't found them at 15-30, 20-40, or 40-80 in my area. What I've found is that you have a fair number of LAG's, but they are leaky LAG's, not brilliant, handreading, excellent memories, put us on the right range at all times LAG's. I WILL concede that I recall there being a fair number of them at 2/4+ online back in the day, so maybe they are out playing live poker somewhere. But I haven't met them.

And in the player pool I swim in, I am pretty well convinced that you get more value playing exploit, exploit, exploit than you do balancing your ranges, with the caveat that against the very best of them varying your play somewhat will keep their noses off the scent.

So to answer your hypothetical-- if someone is barreling 100 percent on the turn, that is clearly exploitable unless the optimal bluffing frequency mathematically equals 100% minus your opponent's turn equity, which would only be true as a matter of pure coincidence.

So it seems to me as a matter of MATH (before we get into what specifically we should do TO exploit it), so long as taking some monsters and other hands out of your turn calling range to fastplay them doesn't leave us in a situation where we have made our equity equal to the pot odds that our opponent is getting on a bluff, we can exploit our opponent's 100 percent double-barrel frequency either with exploitative folds or exploitative calls / turn raises.

Most likely (having not done all the math), an opponent that double-barrels 100 percent is likely to be bluffing too often, because he is going to be double-barreling both his full value range PLUS hands with enough value to check and call but not enough to value-bet PLUS hands without enough value to check and call, but too often as compared to the pot odds. So that would suggest that a strategy of widening our calling and raising ranges to turn double-barrels will successfully exploit this opponent AND allow us to still sometimes go for value raises on flops.

Now granted that the very best opponents will, if given enough time and enough observation, correctly adjust to such a strategy. Which is why, against the very best opponents, I concede your points about game theory and balance. I just haven't met those "very best" opponents very often at actual physical poker tables. The exploitation is subtler against good players, but it's there.

Otr, can we accomplish the same thing by raise/calling the flop with our exact same range. 107 q9. Etc.

I wish MitchL were still posting regularly; I'd love to see the back-and-forth between him and lawdude.

Not sure if he'd say it, but I know he would think the word, "godawful" at some point.

EDIT: Also, lawdude, you are assuming a few things also:

1. That the OP was talking about a mediocre player. (He was not.)
2. That your assessment of all the players in your "pool" is relevant. (It is not.)
3. If you say a lot of words, that you will derive meaning. (It does not.)

I think the reason people are praising OTR's analysis and not yours is for those reasons.

Can we create a hypothetical where doing whatever it is you recommend doing is correct? Yes. But you can always do that. However, since almost all poker strategy boils down to scenario-by-scenario, wouldn't it make sense to analyze this specific scenario the OP posted? You can start a new thread about how to correctly play against a player who loves to go 8-9 bets with you on the flop. I'm sure someone will reply to that.

Can you raise the flop effectively with your whole peeling range?

I think so? I'm not peeling particuarly light on this board with the preflop three bet (plus im never four betting preflop). Id probably just jejetison small pocket pairs on the flop, so the weakest hand in my non folding range might be aq or 89.

Even against an assumed strong 3b range you have like 27% equity and position. I think folding that out on the flop is a recipe for getting run over vs a a strong lagtag:

Note that if you play how OTR suggests your range will be much stronger on the turn, making 2nd barrels less profitable for him and making this peel even easier. As an overall strategy across your range, you get to realize more of your equity.

Yeah sounds like you aren't peeling the flop enough in this spot. I don't understand why everyone has this compunction to raise flops like this. Calling is so much easier and more elegant.

You also get significantly more fold equity with your semi-bluffs when you also delay them to the turn (assuming the turn is not two to some other draw). Which means you reap the benefit of the extra half bet (on average) when you have the best hand, and the extra pots you win that you wouldn't otherwise