Hey guys....I’ve been recently reading Janda’s books and Miller’s book and I have a question for you all on frequencies. Is it possible, if your frequencies are very good/correct, to beat live $1-$2 without ever looking at your hand? I think it’s possible to be a very small winner to a very small loser. I don’t think you’d get killed or even be a moderate loser if your strategy was high level for your given game characteristics. What do you guys think?

Someone could probably do it without looking at their cards but it would have nothing to do with frequencies.

Edit: Also would probably be better in beginners questions instead of theory.

My apologies for posting in the wrong forum. That being said can you please elaborate on your thought that it would not have anything to do with frequencies?

Live 1/2 is hardly full of sharks. Players are incredibly easy to read so just playing based on actions of other players one could probably do alright.

Not sure exactly what you mean by frequencies but imagine I open the CO 28% of the time it's folded to me.

Choosing hands at random to add up to 28% of the hands is completely different than choosing what you think are the best 28% of hands.

I would guess not considering how much of our win-rate comes from showdown winnings at this stake.

We'll also raise a lot of eyebrows when our bluffs get called and we showdown T3o no pair no draw. Good luck expecting to get many folds after that.

There's a lot of money to be made just raising and c-betting, and there are some opponents against whom you could do this blindly and win, but they're not that common. A couple weaks ago a nit called my $7 BU open from the SB and check-folded TT face up to a $10 c-bet on a dry J-high board. If you find a table of players like this I suppose you can make money this way.

It will be hard to find profitable double barrels since you usually don't want to do that with air.

This works better in tournaments because you can rely on much more FE. In cash games there's no way you can win unless against the world's nittiest players.

Maybe.

For starters you'd have to peel your cards to pretend you're looking at them. You'd have to play very few hands to appear like you're the biggest nit ever (also don't say a word the whole time). Definitely tighter than GTO or whatever charts you normally play.

Then, ideally wait for a spot to 3-bet squeeze (vs a raiser who doesn't only raise big pairs). If you get a call, on most flops you can take it down with a big cbet repping an overpair. If you get 4-bet, tank for a bit, fold and tell them you folded JJ or, if they'll believe it, QQ.

A $15 open followed by a cbet should get the job done too. Fold to a 3-bet of course, because their range will be QQ+.

Also look for spots to call a raise vs a raiser who cbets too often on boards they can't credibly represent. That way you can raise their cbet and steal some pots that way.

And there are other profitable blind spots too. But once you reach a showdown and get exposed, you'll probably need a table change. Peek at your hand before turning it over. If villain's hand is good enough, you can muck without losing your tight image.

I wonder if I could pull this off. It would be fun to try if I can get one of my poker friends to take a prop bet on it!

Tables can vary a lot of course, so table-selection might be the deciding factor. I was at a 1/2 table a few weeks ago where this kid was blind-raising almost every hand to $30 or $50. But the rest of the table was a bunch of elderly nits and I was the only one standing up to him. This one hand he does it again, this old lady to my right tank-folds, I look down at 88 and snap-shove, maniac kid calls with some garbage hand and I win. The lady tells me she folded QQ (which would have won) because she didn't want to gamble so much preflop, even though she knew he didn't look. A pretend-look strategy might have done great at a table like that (minus the maniac).

I don't think you'd beat low stakes live using Miller's frequencies even if you did look at your hand.
Those games are full of multiway pots with stations aren't they? C-betting 70%+ and barreling turn and river at the same high frequencies would likely mean you end up value-owning yourself, and your bluffs wouldn't work very often.

I've seen someone play (and beat) 2NL zoom without looking at their cards. They played 'exploitatively', and only opened on the BTN or SB if everyone else folded. They did not call or 3-bet pre at all, since their entire strategy was based on stealing pre, or taking down the pot with a c-bet.

EDIT: I also vaguely remember a PLO endboss doing a propbet where he actually beat PLO50 zoom without looking at his cards. That just blows my mind, because card removal is so important in PLO. Or at least I thought it was. I guess if you understand how ranges hit each board, and your opponents are predictable, then your own cards don't matter quite so much.

cbet frequencies only work when you apply them correctly accross your range to the correct combos. So, no! Not imo

Strong agree here. Success with Janda/Miller depends on constructing resilient ranges with the right frequency, not random ones. You want the best value hands in your value range and the best semi-bluffs in your drawing range.

Balancing those in the right ratios, gives you the greatest chance of creating an indifferent opponent on the river, one who can't profit by calling or folding to your river bet.

Forgive the commercial, but I wrote an app to help players visualize Miller's 70% continuation ranges. To Arty's point, and as mentioned in other threads, that 70% is waaaaay too high as the hands at the bottom of your drawing range end up being very, very weak on most flops.