Jam vs. player 1, 4x vs. TAG. I don't think TAG will call a shove.

A healthy CO-Opening range vs unknowns for me looks like this at the moment:



So pretty close to your suggestion Verneer.


But back to MP:

If the conditions are right, feel confident to raise up QJo, KTs and QTs!



But who else is having big problems with teh ATo in MP?? The Agg pct. is way lower than with QJ KTs and Qts.
Maybe we can doublebarrel less boards or maybe the sample is just too small.

I think you can raise his 1.10 to something like 6.40 and he will call with ~ the same frequency as say 4.50

it may be your or mine (or both) samepl size issue. I have a 14$ profit raising ATo from UTG! over 56 hands, and a 33$ profit raising ATo from CO with 67 hands

Cool. I'll give ATo a shot again.

I do also

ffs when i post it always come across like im telling the reader something.

for furture reference when I say 'I think xyz' usually what I mean is 'What do you think about xyz'

/rant

Just say "some considerations..." and then use "might" as the verb. I do it all the time.

Great thread. Congrats to OP for starting it, and me for getting through it!

Small Pocket Pair with Limper in CO:



Player stats and stack sizes are shown. What's the best play and why?

I was wondering why the blinds so weird, its a deep ante game.

I'm not sure if I'm right or don't see anything strange but a 4x+1bb raise would be sufficient?

This is interesting. This might be one of the few tableconditions where limping behind might be a good option in CO. the limper is relatively short and we don't know how easyly he folds to cbets if we ISO him. In an ideal world we would like to get play a multiway pot with the blinds who seem fishy.

I think I still iso the fish by raising to .40 In all likelyhood it won't work and at least one of the others will call, but because we are deep we have to make the pot a bit bigger in case we hit. If the BTN 3 bets us, no biggie, we will still have the odds to call unless he 3 bets very big. I prefer smaller .40 iso here because I want to be able to call like 1.50 3 bet, and because I don't mind a multiway pot.

I would open raise this pocket pair in a table full of lags to something like 3bb. Big enough to build a pot if I hit a set and also small enough to be called a lot and get out cheaply if I don't hit. The stack sizes are excellent to make this move since we are deep which means more money goes in the pot in case they hit some part of the board.

I just overlimp only guy we dont want to raise is the button if he folds and 1 of the LAGgy blinds raise we are IP in a likely 3way pot. If button does raise we might get 3/4 way action. If we raise and get 3B odds are reduced and prolly only 2way and these villians are raising plenty light so no real guarantee of playing for stacks.

But i limp to much fwiw

Calling disguiss our hand & allows villain to fire away happily at the pot, but in this instance I would go for the 3-bet here as I feel certain we will be called & we add an element of balance, there may com a time when we need to bluff raise a turn? I know it has been said that balance is not vital at thse limits, and I can't argue with that, but if we are starting to see such spots is it really so bad to be incorporating these plays?

Show Me The Money! (Part 1)

You will make your big money at uNL on the river. You will do so in two ways:

1. Playing the river better than your opponent. This means folding when you are very likely beat, calling if you are getting the right odds and ahead of villain's range, bluffing if villain is weak, or inducing bluffs yourself. You will make your money from your reads.

2. Getting paid with your good hands.

I want to discuss the second point. The idea is simple: To win a big pot, you have to build it. Not enough players use the power of compounding on all four streets. You've probably heard how early financial investing reaps big rewards in retirement. The same idea is true in poker, where the river is kind of like your retirement.

A bit of Psychology of uNL Poker.

People love to see flops, so they call too much preflop. On the flop, most people tend to see how their two cards match up with the three on the board, and if there is a bit of a match, they see one more cards in hopes of improving. On the turn, since they got that far, they really want to see the last card. On the river, if the pot is big enough, they will call if they are getting "a good price."

Notice how the only street where people really start wondering if what kind of odds they are getting is the river. This is because there is no more cards to come, so they have to focus on their overall value, AND because the money is actually significant on the river.

Basically, preflop and flop are cheap. On the turn, well ... they got this far, what's one more step? On the river it's time to sober up and finally orient themselves.

Make Them Pay Early, Get Paid Late.

I'll illustrate with the most basic example which assumes you are HU with 100 BB stacks.

Scenario 1:

He limps, you check. The pot is now 2 BB's. On the flop, bet 75% pot and he calls. The pot is now 5 BB's. You bet 80% on the turn. The pot is now 13 BB's. On the river, you bet 10 BB's. If he calls, you just made around 16 BB's. On the other hand, the pot is not that big on the river, and people don't get that attached to medium sized pots.

Note: Notice how people look you up much lighter in both small pots and large pots, but not really in the medium sized ones.

Scenario 2: He limps, you make it 4x. The pot is now 8 BB's. On the flop, you bet 75% pot and he calls. The pot is now 20 BB's. On the turn, you bet 2/3 pot and he calls. The pot is now 48 BB's. You've got 76 BB's left and put in another 2/3 PSB. Your river payoff, if called is 32 BB's.

Note: Even if you bet 50% of the pot on the river, you make 24 BB's from your river bet, and people find it very hard to fold any sort of a hand getting such good odds.

Scenario 3:

He limps, you make it 5x. The pot is now 10 BB's. On the flop, you pot it and he calls. The pot is now 30 BB's. On the turn, you bet 80% again and he calls. The pot is now 78 BB's. You've got about a 80% pot sized bet on the river setting up a a shove. If he calls, you just made 100 BB's. Alternatively, you can induce a bluff since most players spazz out when they got to the river in a big pot and missed.

Note: Stacks sizes make the river play here much easier, right?

Example:

(no reads on villain)

Full Tilt Poker $0.05/$0.10 No Limit Hold'em - 4 players
The Official 2+2 Hand Converter Powered By DeucesCracked.com

SB: $11.64
Hero (BB): $10.00
CO: $17.80
BTN: $10.33

Pre Flop: ($0.15) Hero is BB with A 9
1 fold, BTN calls $0.10, SB calls $0.05, Hero raises to $0.50, BTN calls $0.40, 1 fold

Building the pot ...

Flop: ($1.10) 7 2 9 (2 players)
Hero bets $1.10, BTN calls $1.10

Building the pot ...

Turn: ($3.30) 2 (2 players)
Hero bets $2.20, BTN calls $2.20

Setting up river ...

River: ($7.70) Q (2 players)
Hero checks, BTN bets $6.53 all in, Hero calls $6.20 all in

I decided that there is more value in check/snapping.

Moral: It's easy to win big pots with set-up hands like overpair vs. a set, flush over flush, etc. The pots tend to get big themselves, but that's not where your edge will come ("My edge is that I'm on the positive side of coolers all the time! Wheee!"). Your edge will come in building bigger pots with non-nutted hands on early streets and getting paid off by worse.

iso raise imo
- gives us initiative to take down pot with a cbet if it gets heads up on the flop
- getting overcalled by a deeper stack is not a bad result particularly if its one of the blinds.
- we are not upset by getting 3b by one of the deepstacks cause we are deep enought to setmine

Verneer, but we bet if we know that villain is passive and won't bluff at the river, right?

These are all right on.

... I'll add that by raising ourselves, we really control the TAG's range. He probably won't re-raise us with 77-TT type hands that he would definitely have raised himself, and get him to fold KTo and A9o type hands that he would also have raised. Thus, we also pretty much buy ourselves position postflop.

Yeah - vs. calling stations I like a smallish (< 1/2 PSB) value bet to get called by a 7 or 9.

Very nice thread Verneer, thank you for this.

I noticed you doubled your starting br in about 4000 hands at 5NL ($100 to $200). Did you find this level exceptionally easy and were able to crush it or were you running extremely well?

I thought I was doing reasonably well till I saw this. Maybe I have some glaring leaks/mistakes that I continue to repeat or something like that. I've recently completed about 4000 hands at 5NL and am only up about $25

I ran like God at 5NL.

CR coach + moving down to 5NL + running like God = complete annihilation of the fishes

is my maths wrong or i that 50bb/100!!!!

That has verneer winning at 50BB/100
and u at 12.5BB/100

In terms of "beating the game" ur paying (well sum1 else is playing) 10BB/100 rake give or take

verneer 60BB/100
you 22.5BB/100 So over a third almost half the winrate of somebody who has played and beaten much higher is a CR coach and prolly has done alot more studying of the game. Id be happy with that.

Of course sample sizes are small nobody will know if verneer can actually beat low steaks until he's played 378,694 hands or more