I've been experimenting with checking back 100% of hands OOP in heads up pots. On top of that, only calling. No check/raising either except on the river. Okay, I know it sounds terrible, but think about it for a bit. Being OOP sucks and it can be really hard to balance. It is also very easy for IP players to bully you out of pots. Where you may have the best hand.

On every board, you are no longer capped. Also those players that love to get carried away with their bluffs are going to be running into some really bizarre spots that they may not be familiar with. Some players may mistakenly assume you are capped and make moves or value bet a hand that actually is a bluff and they don't know it.

The idea is to get to the river as cheaply as possible and with a range that is strong as hell.

Pros:
-Game simplification
-Easier to balance
-Destroys unattentive opponents who over bluff or go for value triple barreling
-Collects money from those who auto-bet the flop when checked to
-Keeps pots small

Cons:
-Very transparent strategy
-Most certainly not optimal
-Check/folding hands that could have bluffed

Thoughts on this?

you cannot check back oop

all the reasons why check raising is good make your strategy suboptimal: villain can vbet thin in spots where you should check-raise alot, villain can checkdown weak showdown value because you never bet him off, probably alot of other things i cannot think of right now. i think your strategy is close to optimal in alot of static spots where he has range advantage though, but certainly not in general, especially not on wet boards.

The thread title makes no sense, for the reason ohly mentioned in the first sentence above.

FWIW, I think that when Busquet was crushing HUSNGs several years ago, he used a strategy of never donking or check-raising the flop, reasoning that balancing his flop check-raising ranges was too complex and to some extent unnecessary against bad players, but these days it's vital to have a (balanced) check-raising strat to beat competent opponents. All the good HU players study with solvers, don't they?

Playing like a calling station in every spot might work OK vs uber-LAGs, but allowing opponents to realize their equity for a price of their own choosing can't be good in general. It's almost as if you're saying "You have the positional advantage... and I'm going to let you use it to maximize your EV and minimize mine."

yes. and the very good ones have software that automatically sorts the hands you played by biggest GTO deviation which i find kind of scary

Well if you are vpiping a lot more hands you will have to be playing like a calling station to have more defends and ev gain through the more hands u are trying to play.

No offence OP but those aren't really valid points that's not really how NLH at least functions... answer is too complex to tell u in a single post but in essence most important things are range interactions between both players and EV pertaining to nuts just get a nash equil solver and play around with it and ull be pointed in right direction

There is no such software unless u are talking about simple gto trainer training and it's not already implemented into things like PT4/hm2?

https://forumserver.twoplustwo.com/1...abase-1677018/

The cons listed by op are serious game breakers, whereas the pros listed should still be available in a balanced strategy. Except for simplification, and simplification should not be necessary with repetition.

Some players try to avoid oop altogether, which is also suboptimal, but a smaller leak than auto-checking full range.

Wrt being capped, a meaningful discussion can be had about what truly is being capped, versus when a player may likely be capped or could be trapping. Consequently, the nuts should be found in your check range on the flop some of the time in either position.

never raising oop sounds like a bad idea

You realize they can check back all rivers that can't withstand a x/r so keeping your range uncapped allows them to get two streets in without fear of the x/r and then just shut down

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I was talking about 6-max cash games, ...i've never used skier 5's software b4 but are they going to come out with a NLH cash game version where you can link it up to HM2/PT4?

There is a Pokersnowie plug-in for HEM (for post-game analysis) that finds errors/blunders in your hand histories, and can show you how much theoretical EV you're losing with your mistakes. (Based on Snowie's private database).

It's rumoured that some high stakes cash (and HUSNG/Spingo) players have used "advice bots" to help them play a near-GTO style. Pokerstars has certainly banned a bunch of accounts (they also banned Skier's software from being used "live"), and asked several people to make videos of themselves playing to 'prove' they aren't using such tools. On other sites, such botting might be even more common.

Checking range OOP can be a very good thing against the average population tendencies, but never check/raising is a huge huge huge mistake. The only thing that makes betting ineffective is the threat of being raised. If you never raise villain can just autobet his range in order to fold out your marginal equity while knowing he will always get to realize his.

This is why the strategy of cbetting 25% pot with range to then check back turn at high frequency is so powerful against non-expert players. With a single minuscule bet you get to realize all your equity and because most players don't raise the small cbet nearly as often as they should you print EV.

The same logic can be applied to checking range OOP, if you never check raise then IP gets to realize all his equity with a single small stab on the flop. In fact because the average player will stab too much when checked to, your strategy should be to check raise very aggressively.

Always have a raising range.

You don't need to fear the IP check back because you can stab way more when they do because you always check the flop. I think that removes a lot of the potentially lost EV for observant players.

Wow, it is crazy to think how much has changed in my life within a year.

I've gone through this phase.

What it really is psychologically, is being uncomfortable bluff catching since we will lose so often. So in a way to feel better about it, we keep all our strong hands in our passive lines so that when we bluff catch we feel like a genius.

We lose out on too much ev by NOT check raising early streets.

Haha, sorry for the necro but this thread was too good. Do you still agree with your prior heuristic?

At the time I was doing a million hand challenge for 5cent/10cent tables with the goal of making $10,000. The strategy was designed so that I wouldn't have to think and would make me time-out fold less often/ make split second decisions. I was doing 4 zoom tables at once at BetOnline. I didn't complete the challenge, because it felt like a waste of time. I over played poker to the point where it isn't enjoyable anymore and now I almost never play.

The heuristics are still correct imo, however check-raising is clearly better. I just had the problem of check/raising and then not giving up on the bluff or just going for too thin of value. Or I get cocky and start doing it too much. I always **** myself when check/raising somehow. Ha.

That's my opinion as well. I already tested the check-range OOP strategy. I prefer to not simplify here anymore, but I understand this simplification can be okif you have a check-raise range.

EDIT: Only now I saw this is an old topic, hehehehe. I'm sorry.