Its my belief that poker is a much more complicated game then we give it credit for. Ego plays a pretty big role in impacting most of our play. We play our games and thus start to equate "right and wrong" with our play, meaning that what we do is "right" and what we don't do is "wrong" if that makes any sense.

IN a nutshell, we think we have the game figured out.

I'll often get into an argument in the forums concerning a play that should be made, however I quickly run into resistance and the primary resistors are people who have never tried whatever it is i'm advocating.

Example.

In the 1/2nl and 2/5nl live games, our villains are incredibly bad (especially the 1/2nl).

There are a lot of 1/2nl games that are uncapped or allow you to buy in for 200bb+. What is interesting about these games is that players wake up with a hand like AA/KK and then insist on raising the online mandated raise of 3bb - 5bb.

So then I will tell the poster that at these tables (especially fish filled action tables) they can often raise 10bb - 15bb preflop.

Of course, this is counter to how most players play and they immediately push back saying, "that's too much"

However, since they never raise that amount they really have no clue what is "too much".

Another common example is bet size as relates to the pot. Many times at these games fish really don't care about the size of the pot, at all. All they care about is their hand and their chip stacks. If they have $250 behind and you bet $70, then in their fishy little minds, they have more than enough money to call, never mind that the pot is only $35.

Again, if you aren't overbetting certain pots in certain circumstances then how will you know what fish will tolerate.

Anyways, food for thought, feel free to expound on this with examples or flush this theory out a bit more

ive played in a few small buy in live tournaments with friends ( like 50 ppl ) and this theory seems to be extremely accurate there...people dont care how much is in the pot, what their top pair kicker is etc.

This is a really interesting post dhiharris and I definately agree with you. I'm sure there are plenty of people who can exploit some terrible fish with a 10x raise who just aren't thinking.

For example, you're sat on the button, you pick up AA, you raise 10xbb, sure you might get the reg who's on your left to fold his QQ/KK/AK or lower set but we know the fish in the big blind is definately going to pay us of with a call and therefore pay for himself and the reg. Also it allows us to get it in easier with our top pair vs maybe his top pair on Kxx or Qxx.

Obviously you wouldn't use this type of thing against a reg who's thinking at least (or is that another assumption gone too far? If they're thinking it's easily exploitable obviously) but I'm sure there are occassions for it. Surely there is so much more value to be had here?

One final note, especially concerning cash games, when we sit down at a table with a fish, I'm sure we are all under agreement that we want to take the fishes cash as quickly as possible before anyone else so I fail to see how this could be a problem if we know he'll call our hefty 7-10xbb. You could just do it with AA, KK because they're so easy to play. There is the criticism of well when we get aces we don't want to msis value but if he's a 80/10 fish then trying it once is fine because think of how much value you might get as opposed to what you're missing if you didn't try it even once and it worked. 1 more example is I found a fish who was happy to call a 4bet jam with any pocket pair, AJ+ wouldn't be surprised if KQ was there as well and he was triggy happy with his 3bets. So why not just jam every time if you get an Ace vs him instead of making a standard 4bet size. It doesn't make a difference to him.

Other thoughts on this would be interesting.

If you're 15x'ing AA/KK and opening 3-5x with everything else wont it be super obvious? Seems like you might just get setmined when you do that and fold out a lot of the hands you want to get huge value from postflop (like villains QJ on Jxx, etc.) . Depends on villians though I guess, if the big open size doesnt affect their range at all then why not?

As I said, you wouldn't do this vs a reg at all, only vs a fish who doesn't seem to notice. Doing vs a reg really would be wasted value.

setmining for 15 Bbs hahahahahahaha

This is the problem I think inadvertantly limits a lot of players'. We can't help but think that our villains are competent or that our play will seem "obvious".

In many circumstances, that isn't always the case. You'd be amazed at what our villains can level themselves into thinking.

Below is a link to a hand that has really cracked my head wide open with how bad villains can be or how even an "okay" villain can level themselves.

CLIFFNOTES: Reg stacks off $2K with trips on a paired flush and straight draw board

http://forumserver.twoplustwo.com/17...-leak-1146074/

I thought V1's overbet was insane and I would have never done it...

Now, because of that hand, i've been incorporating what I call Sick-Prison-Raping-Overbet-Shoves roughly 10% of the time when I have the near nuts or better and i've had pretty good results getting called down by hands that I thought would never call. Its amazing how villains can level themselves. I shoved $1K into a $200 pot (busted flush draw board but I had a set ) and got called by TPGK by a villain who leveled himself thinking that no way I would bet that much with a real hand and had to be bluffing.

Anyways, I'm going to up it to 15% for this month see how it goes and then go to 20% next month. I suspect 15% may be around optimal but time will tell.

What we give to much credit for is intelligence of various villains.
95% of people playing poker today are idiots making idiotic moves with their idiot logic to support their play. Biggest strength they have as a poker players is sucking out on the river.

And that goes for even some of the famous ones. just watch EPT London won by Spindler last year and u will see what I'm talking about.

In the end it is more important how good you run than how good you are, because there will always be a moron that will destroy you against all the odds.

Do you really find that you get a lot of resistance on this forum to the idea that overbetting the pot is sometimes a good play? I would have thought almost everyone here would agree with that.

i agree with the general idea that being too rigid in your thinking, bet sizing, PF play, etc. is a leak especially at live poker

but the answer to your question is that if someone else at the table makes a play, you can get a sense of how weak players react to it without being the one who made the play yourself. i know in the games i play in there's no shortage of people making huge PF raises or overbetting postflop, so there are plenty of chances to see how often they get called, and with what hands

imo observation of the plays of others should be the first step in figuring out what to experiment with and implement yourself. then you can adjust that depending on how they react when you're the one doing it (and as you pointed out, lots of fish don't pay attention to table image, so their reaction may not change at all)

^ good point.

Also wanted to just add that i'm talking about more than just overbets. Another concept that I started employing since last summer was floating IP more and or calling to reevaluate turn and river.

I've had AMAZING results live by floating certain villains IP and betting scare cards on turn and river

And it all started by "trying it" but since a lot of players never try it, they don't know the benefits...

I've just started donk betting a ton of regs on dry and wet boards and it's so profitable. Half of them won't adapt either. Thanks for this thread dgiharris, you just moved me up a rung on the ladder.

The caveat that I will add to this thread is to try only one new thing at a time and then incorporate that new thing into your overall game. As you add another new thing to your game you may have to readjust some of your old things in order to optimize your overall game.

one of the biggest logic fails that i see the most on the forum, and hear at the table the most is:

"i didn't bet because i didn't think anyone would call", or some variation on that line of 'thought'.
never mind that when you don't bet, they don't call 100% of the time.
when someone is resistant to bigger bet sizing in live poker, in general, i think they are falling into this same mental trap in a way.
they are afraid to lose action. they anticipate that villians think and play like they do, and this where they really go wrong.
we are used to making decisions based on their profitibility, we would fold OOP for 10X, because its not profitable to call,
Villian, however, is calling, because he wants to play the hand.
; he doesnt care how much (within reason), or what the SPR is going to be, or what hands youve shown down. they don't care.
people need to get it through their heads how bad live villians are, and start betting accordingly, or get used to leaving a lot of money on the table, one or the other.

How often in 1 session are you getting AA/KK ? 1-2 times maybe. The fish has never seen you, the reg knows what your doing.

The key is adapting, every table and each player is different. It sure seems that most players will play their cards more than their opp. So if someone has a nice draw, and your betting 25% of their stack, they are gonna chase u down on the flop. And the fun part is the turn bet, b/c then they will level themselves into thinking about "pot odds" lol. Now they have to call another 40% of their stack since they invested sooooooo much at this point.


Then they hit

lol

I know when i hit that you'll pay me off,
because i called your overbet
with nothing but a flushdraw

rub it on my tittiiiiies

...but then you're going to be getting 3-bet by the regs when you do 3x.

How are you keeping track of this, and do you feel your record keeping is accurate?

I keep a poker journal.

My 10% and 15% is done by using a method Harrington uses, he looks at the second hand on his watch.

So, I look at my watch and if the second hand is on the first 10% of my watch (i.e. between the 12 and a touch past the 1) then I overbet shove. If not, then I just play it as I normally would.

At the end of each week or month, I enter my journal hands into a spreadsheet I keep.

Obviously its no where near as accurrate as poker tracker, but it really helps keep me from being biased or subjective since I have hard data to look at. I feel its accurate enough to help me spot trends.