Hi everyone im just a 100NL regular but i have met with a pretty interesting situation the last week, that situation left me to think about a little 'theory' of my own. I hope u guys will respond to me with what u think about it!

Faking weakness for so called 'isolation':

Ok, we have the following situation:

We as a Hero find AA utg+1 on the CO or on the Button in a full ring game or 6 handed it does not really matter.
All that matters is, we need a shortstacked player behind us whom is pretty good, or just pushes a lot.

What happens next is utg, utg+1 or CO opens with a raise, we have got aces, which ofcourse we would usually reraise with.
But instead of reraising we now flatcall, assuming and hoping that the aggressive or regular shorty will push behind us with a lot of odds and good equity for his 10, 20 or 25 bb push. That ofcourse leaves the initial raiser to a decision in
which he will usually make the following decision: Follow up with a reraise to isolate the shortstack for good equity vs the shortstacker.

When Initial raiser does this he has already commited about 30/40% of his stack with the hand he initially raised with. This hand can ofcourse never be stronger then ours and probably is quite often not even that strong of a hand.
So now we reraise him; Villain can now ofcourse fold and then we got his 40% stack but he will probably call your reraise since he has created this situation with a lot of equity for him. This is ofcourse a great situation for you because youve got DA NUTS!

Now the downsides: What if SS behind u does not push but just calls with another caller mayb even behind him, ofcourse we dont want a 3 or 4-way pot with aces in
which we will probably get drawn out on the flop and got no clue were we stand. So this is a tough one and we gotta play our aces very carefully here and should be able to lay it down pretty easily.

This means ofcourse that we shouldnt always flatcall with aces with a shortstack behind us, we need to know hes a regular whom knows hes getting good odds
with a push or some weird pushing villain with just 20BB who is pushing with a lot of hands whenever we decide to use this 'isolation technique' too trap
an opponent.

I have personally used this play before, and I like it in thoery but not nesesarley in practice, because of the reverse implide odds that you (and I ) offer when we do this. Lets say the "pusher" is in the cuttoff. You have an UTG raiser raise it to 3xBB and you flat call, now your encouraging others to do so also, with any suited ace, small connector, one gappers, 2 gappers. you also have to consider the fact that the button will usaully call because of postion, and the blindes are now getting a good price.

This is more likely to happen in a full ring game than 6max of course.

This play also is applicable to perenial sqeezers out of the blindes, some people jsut cant "not" sqeeze out of blindes.

I think that if the "pusher" is in the blindes and someone raises it, and then you call from button/cuttoff when NO ONE else has called, it would be very effective. Because he may be thinking that your call is jsut a position sensitive one, and it doesnt directly correlate to your hand strength, more your hands playability (i.e) 56s, soemthing you could never call a push with.

I hope this helps to some degree, Im suprised know one has written anything, because I find dealign with shorty's a huge part of small/micro stakes play.

whom isnt just a fancy way of saying who. it has a different meaning.

This isn't really a theory, it's leveling, or "mixing up your play". You're re-raising an EP raiser with the nuts, and hoping to represent a good but not great hand by doing so - based on the assumption that you'd only flat call with aces.

First, you won't be in this spot very often to begin with. Second, it's image dependent. Third, you need players to follow through with the rest of your plan and mis-read you, which is going to be hard to count on.

In this specific case, no need for getting too fancy against players you don't know. You coming over the top of an EP raiser with a 3-bet preflop is going to look pretty strong on it's own, and generally people will need a hand to play back at you. 3-betting or calling can both work depending on the other players and the situation.

This idea has cropped up for me in various games (not just NLHE SnG's).

FLHE - Play "Call to isolate a bluffer"

Basically Fish get so used to a TAGs raise/fold that when you call, they get very scared of a slow-played monster.

Deciding then they should fold, as you want them in the pot.

If they have the hand that you are concerned about, then you save money on a resteal play.


PLO - Rolf Slotboom's mini-raise idea

Defines your hand less, and catches players in the middle. A short-stack maniac, mini-raises, gets called, and you have the pre-flop nuts AAxxs. If you pot raise, opponents tend to put you on a pair of Aces and can call for implied odds. But if you provoke a Push by the Maniac, you can now get much more of your stack in pre-flop, making calls with rundown hands uneconomic. So you actually can root for a call, and get better pot odds to Call All In on the flop a likely bluff.