I'd like to know what your thought process is when deciding to peel or not.

Example 1) A solid winning TAG opens in the HJ. I give him a default 20% range. Does this sound right? I've been away from the game so maybe ranges have changed. He seems pretty balanced as far as betting or checking the turn. I think he is betting the first two flops always. I think he checks back flop 3 sometimes. Assume he bets the flop on all 3.

I have KhQd and call. We are HU.

Flop 1) 2d3dAh

Flop 2) 8s9cAh

Flop 3) Js8c7d

Does equity matter much in your decision to peel? Do you need a back door draw? I'll assume we are not bluffing the flop with this hand on these flops. The villain knows I am flatting pre in this spot.

I'm hoping to take a deeper dive on peeling decisions. I may be peeling too much or too little. I'll throw in more examples as we go along.

Are you defending the BB in these hands?

Yes. Sorry!

I’d peel #3 and fold the other two

The only time I fold KQ vs. a HJ open is on bad monotone flops where I don't have a flush draw. All of these are clear peels. An ace on the flop is actually a good thing. It makes it mathematically less likely that villain holds Ax which is the most common pre-flop hand that is ahead of us. I am very showdown bound on the A32 board, still pretty showdown bound on A98, and am likely peeling most turns and folding the river on the J87 board though I will still show down in the right spots.

I feel like working with a solver would help you a ton in these spots. You will quickly understand how terrible it is to overfold in these situations.

A 20% opening range is much closer to a typical LJ range than a HJ range. A HJ range is going to be 25%+ for most strong players.

an a on the flop may cut down on combos that are ahead of us, but those combos jump to a crushing lead against our actual hand, and against small pairs that are showdown bound we are also down to 24%~ equity. That being said, I wonder if we are too high up in our range to fold on a high flops since we are going to be defending a lot of junk out of the bb in this spot.

Unless the villain is incredibly weak-tight (sounds like he’s not) we can continue here and try to show down on quite a few runouts. I would peel all three spots.

Just plug these into an ordinary equity calculator and you will see what unguarded is talking about .

What are you do with your Ax combos on these flops?

regarding the 25% open range for HJ. Do you open T8s, K6s, JTo? I'm curious what hands you are adding from what I thought was a standard open range from the HJ. I learned many years ago it was Button..50%, CO 35%, HJ 20%, LJ 15%. Maybe I learned it wrong or maybe it has changed over the years.

I would love to do solver work but I've heard it takes up a lot of space on the computer. I'm not good with statistics. I am willing to pay whatever if it will help my game.

I am def considered a LAGTAG, but 15% UTG and 20% from the HJ is closer to nit than TAG imo. I open all 3 of those hands in the HJ, usually open JTo UTG, and always open T8s UTG. Those CO and button numbers are closer to correct though.

I always have a powerful computer that runs solvers fast and easy, so I am not really sure what the system requirements are. There is an entire forum for such info. Learning to use a solver is a pain, but it is easy once you get used to it. I have gotten to a point where solvers mostly just confirm stuff I already know. That being said, I have a much less detailed knowledge of solver theory than someone like DonJuan who has to survive in the modern hell that is online LHE where he constantly has to battle regs hu and 3-4 handed.

The solver would help you a ton because it would show you that it never folds KQ on an ace hi flop vs. a HJ range, for example. You would quickly see that a 100% flop cbet strategy wrecks you if you have been folding such hands. You would be especially vulnerable against LAGs to the point that even spewy recreational LAGs are likely sucking lots of EV from you. A solver would help you learn how to properly defend yourself against good TAGs who notice you overfolding, LAGTAGs who love wrecking overly tight players, good LAGs who orgasm when they run into overly tight players, and even the spewiest rec players.

I feel like I would get tore up if I opened T8s and JTo UTG in the games I play in. My games tend to have at least one semi maniacle pre flop player and two or three very laggy players mixed in with some loose passives and one or two TAG's.

Did you derive your pre flop ranges from solver work?

I have been rewatching some older Deuces Cracked videos. The coaches were great and the videos were fantastic but I'm concerned that some of the advice may be outdated. For example, I watched a vid where the coach describes T8s in the HJ as marginal and dependent on who is on your left.

I appreciate you taking the time to respond to my posts. I have a lot to think about.

I haven't looked at LHE solver ranges. You need to either pay a lot of money or have a friend who paid a lot of money and is kind enough to share his research. I mostly play NL now, so I don't feel very motivated to check out LHE solver ranges.

My ranges come from ripping off the ranges of top LHE players from the PTR era, looking at massive databases from the PTR era, and discussing ranges with top players. The bottoms of my ranges have always been slightly profitable in my databases.

If you have the old DC videos, I think Oink's are the best. He was an outright LAG who made over a million dollars in LHE playing significantly looser than I ever have. He spends a lot of time in his vids explaining LAG play. His olds 2p2 posts are also gold. Deathdonkey's vids are also amazing. But the vids from other coaches were not nearly as good imo.

Lots of LAGs to your left is a good reason not to open JTo in the LJ.

I've seen every Death Donkey vid. They are fantastic. I watched a few Oink vids back in the day and wish I would have downloaded a few. His analysis was very interesting. You used his words "Don't bloat and fold" in a recent post of mine. I heard he dialed back his aggressiveness a bit at some point. I wonder if he was a bit before his time. I'm sure his aggressive pre flop style confused people into thinking he was a maniac and not a great player. I feel like that style might not fair so well today given there are so many agro players out there. I'm gonna revisit some of his old posts. Thanks for the tip.

What brought you to NL?