Having the same sizing is exploitable but having multiple sizings that give away information is less exploitable. Has to be a troll.

You are too kind.

I think I was pretty fishy back when I posted in this thread and probably do some things differently now, and I still think I'm pretty fishy now because of how much I don't know and how many spots I'm not sure how to play.

You just did me an incredible disservice by merging my original independent thread into this thread. I have completely lost track of my point with the back and forth bickering that has taken place. I come here to learn and ask questions, not sift through pages of bull$hit and drama to pull one microscopic piece of information from 30 minutes of sifting. Thank you sir..

FWIW the reason I started my original thread asking about a standardized PFR is by looking at the way people like Annie Duke and Phil Ivey play.

Annie Duke specifically says in one of her videos she make the exact same size raise and Cbet all the time to standardize her play and avoid leaking the strength of her hands.

Also Phil Ivey tends to play AA the same as he would 55 pre and post flop. His play is very standard and hard to put him on specific hands.

So my theory was if Im open raising with the same bet with AA as I am with say 79 suited, my opponent would always be guessing at my opening range. where as if I limp or call then 3 bet only premium hands, it becomes quite obvious what Im doing.

No?

Yup. You are absolutely right. The reason this becomes an argument is that in LLSNL manhy of our Vs are completely level one and thus playing only their cards, not their cards against your perceived range.

Good players disagree over whether the extra value we get from them by raising bigger with premiums outweighs the information we're giving away. The reason for that is that it is very villain dependent, and different people have different "standard table" experiences.

What am I absolutely right about exactly?

That varying your bet size by holding (especially if your not also varying for position, number of limpers, etc) is very transparent to a good thinking player. Many ITF try to avoid playing against good thinking players, though.

Bad players can figure it out too. They still call with dumb **** tho.

dats 'cuz if I flop a six and a four, I stack your nit ass!

True story. sat night guy opens 20 call overcall 3! All in 125 cold 4! All in 300 fold to overcall guy who tanks (now he just flatted the original 20 so he can't have much right? He finally calls. Flop 996 runout whatever. 4! Shows AA obv 3! Mucks overcall guy tables 94s.

that´s the thread which ultimately led to spex domes banning? dang it all...

I was browsing youtube for poker strategy the other day and came across a Johnathon Little video on nlhe cash games. In it - he makes a few points that I find problematic. I wondered about other's perspectives.

Here's one of the videos. I think I saw others focused specifically on low limit - but don't have the links at hand.

Anyway, the gist of the advice was to LLNHLE players was not to oversize pre-flop raises. He noted that it's prevalent in low-limit to see 5x - 8x and bigger sizing - while in higher limits is usually 3x. And he goes on to say that this over-sizing is a mistake - because the larger size creates folds from dominated hands that would otherwise have called. He demonstrates this by some equilab simulations that have show how Hero's equity increases as we broaden opponents ranges (to include more trash like A-rag). He then goes on to say that this effect is multiplied when we go multi way.... In his example he shows us going from about 32% equity against a narrower range of callers vs 34% against a looser range. He seems to be making the point that this incremental 2% equity is being lost when we oversize.

This just seems goofy to me, and I wondered if I was missing something. The seemingly obvious fallacy is that when we over-size it's because a) we have determined at this game that we are getting weaker hands to call a raise and, as importantly... b) we are actually trying to thin the field (in order to increase our equity). So in JL's example, if we "oversize" with a premium hand and reduce the number of callers from , say, 4 to 2 - then we are likely going from a relatively small equity (since there are 5 to the flop) - to a decent equity (only 3 to the flop).

Certainly one of the most common points I see on this sub-forum is recommendations to increase the pf bet size when we are seeing too many opps to the flop. Any thoughts on this...?

I would have to disagree with him completely. Every table is different, but in lower stakes games more people want to see a flop so a 4-5x raise in lower stakes games will probably get the same number of callers as a 3x raise in 5/10 or higher.

I disagree with him and agree with your analysis. If we can raise 5-8x and get calls from dominated hands, why not? Often a 5-7x raise in my game gets 3 callers. If we want to play HU, which we should, we should raise enough to get 1 caller. See gobbledygeek's well post for some good writing on the topic: http://forumserver.twoplustwo.com/17...-3-nl-1303247/

Yes, the point with LLSNL is that we CAN raise so big and still get dominated hands to call. Also, we are generally looking to increase our equity from 30-40 to 50-60, not simply add 2%. Since the bigger raise usually causes more fitnfold play, we can certainly include our gained fold equity into the equation, something we don't have multiway.

I disagree somewhat here. Even though those who have been playing for 5 years have numerous resources available to them that those who had 5 years experience in 2000, there is always a new crop coming in. Furthermore, so many 1/2 & 2/5 players are Rec players, that is, they play part-time when their jobz allow them to.

It is 2017, 14 years after Chris won the WSOP & 1/2 players donking off their last $80 -$120 in chips, with an all-in straddle, or OTF with a draw is as commonplace as it ever was. It's as if it's not worth their time to go to the cashier with $100 in chips.

This may be the "information age", however, look at the two primary choices for president the U.S.A. had this time around & tell me what good "information" did for the voters.

In the poker world, people are gullible enough to fork over $497.00 USD for a video entitled "The Four Steps to Beating Anyone at Poker." If you have a great personality & can sell yourself as the real deal on youtube, you can fool poker players as easily as politicians fool voters every two years.

This is why I am reviving this thread. It is post #135 & the subsequent posts concerning the argument are great.

There is a player making really good $$$ in the 1/2NL game & he o/r $6 no matter what he has. UTG 22-AA, SCs....$6. If there are limpers & he has a raising hand, it's $6 + $2 for each limper & he's doing extremely well against the fish & it seems above avg against all else. The other day he cashed out with $1.8K+, but the bulk of it was won against fish who had promo bucks in their pockets. HOWEVER: he also does very well vs. aggro-tards. I know another player who uses the same idea, but couldn't do well enough to move up to 2/5NL, couldn't make a living playing poker & had to get a J.O.B.

Anyways, this guy believes that rather than bloat the pot pre, when avg stacks are 100 bigs, keep it small & open your range in EP, allowing yourself to get involved in more pots. I watched him, asked some questions & two primary keys to this concept are: 1. Hand reading [based primarily on bet sizing & player tendencies] & 2. Being able to lay down a big hand [AA/KK] otf when necessary.

I don't like making it $10 when there's 2 limpers & you go to raise. If it's 3 way to flop, that's $33 - $3 rake & $1 BBJ = $29. Why not make it $11?
Then it's $36 - $4 = $32

When you win 100x that's an extra $2 & when you lose 100x that's -$1.00, so your net Ev is +$100.00

Four limpers, make it at least $15 instead of $14.

This is 1/2NL with avg stacks being $150-$250. What say you?

Second zombie thread today, nice!

The small opening size is an interesting topic, imo. In some ways I utilize this myself by simply open limping my hand; I believe it mostly has the same effect as a minraise, although I'd be interested in arguments for why it's much different.

After seeing a bunch of threads recently where people were doing the worst possible raise size, I revisited T+P just to confirm I wasn't going nuts with my thoughts. Sure enough, look up Concept #26 (if I have that number right) regarding preflop raises. It argues that you really want to do one of two things: one, raise (or, in my opinion, limp) an amount that doesn't create any commitment decisions whatsoever and you can simply play poker postflop (or if it gives you an opportunity to limp/reraise your big hands to setup a trivial postflop spot, great), OR raise an amount where you'll be trivially committed postflop with TP but you don't care since you'll be giving such horrible IO (although admittedly this can be difficult in deeper games). The worst sizing you can choose is one where you handcuff yourself into a commitment spot right away (such as due to creating a very multiway bloated pot with smallish stacks) and yet at the same time give all your opponents great IO; it seems half the threads I see posted in this forum are of this result (all in the name of "I have JJ, a standard raise is $15, so that's what I do").

GcluelessbetsizingnoobG

There are 2 types of ways to play the game: GTO and exploitative.

GTO says: always min raise from every position, do not give away sizing tells, keep the SPR high, fight for the blinds using small ball aggression with your entire range.

Exploitative says: raise as big as people will call when you have a value hand, vary your bet and raise sizes against people that are too dumb to read into it, keep the SPR high with suited connectors and low pocket pairs, keep the SPR low with high cards and high pairs, etc.

Doug Polk claims that the optimal way to play is somewhere between GTO and exploitative. We want to be somewhat balanced in case we run into some competent players, but we also want to make minor adjustments to exploit others and increase our win rate. I'm inclined to agree with that.

When you raise small you can have all of the big hands. When you limp you cannot, that is the difference. You're playing 1/3, make it $11 and you keep the large spr while still instilling the thought in the head of your opponents that you could be sitting there with QQ+, AK. When you limp there are simply hands that you cannot have. When I make it $7 (playing 1/2 from EP) I can have literally any of the sets, AQ/AK/KQs/J10s etc.

When you do this, pots will go multi-way quite often BUT as I said in another thread, even with hands like JJ/1010 you flop a set, an overpair, or you gtfo. If you have AK and you whiff the flop you gtfo. If you start taking too much heat with 1 pair you need to be willing to fold and realize what other hands are in your range! Multi-way pots are an easy way to make money, when you've committed $7 to the pot and there's $42 in the middle, whiff with that AK and just check/fold, who cares? Get involved when you smash the board and some fish starts overvaluing top pair. The biggest mistake I see from the average fish in 2018 is raising preflop and c betting into 5 other people when they whiff the flop!

FWIW my strategy is to make it $7 from early/mid position, $12-20 from LP based on # of limpers/player tendencies, $17-22 from Sb/BB.

You need to play exploitative 100% if the game will allow that to be the case. I am ALWAYS willing to make broad adjustments to take advantage of certain tables, or when isolated vs certain players (my favorite is betting 1/6th pot with nfd and V folds turn). If you're sitting there with even 1 player who is capable of exploiting your obvious play you better make sure he's already folded before you make your move. Even the dumbest fish can read sizing tells PREFLOP if the opens are too widely varied.

I'm not sure you have a good understanding of what GTO means in a poker sense.

As for GG, one big reason you raise is to narrow the potential of hands against you. By the river, only a couple of percent of the time is the nuts top set. Almost always a straight is possible and any paired board means quads are the nuts.

This is a great thread! So much to digest.
IMHO, $6 open + $2 for each limper is fine online, however, you have a huge rake + BBJ + dealer tip to think about in live. I know SPRs have to be considered but what about $8 in a 1/2NL game to help overcome that additional rake?
Also, if you make it $8 UTG with AKo & get 6 callers, is that better long-term [if you can read players & fols asap when needed] as opposed to making it $17 & getting e callers?
Thoughts?

I can't have a monster if I limp?

GcluelessNLnoobG

So I tried this lowball strategy the other night: I o/r UTG to $7 with KK.......

5 callers & now I'm wanting to filet the guy who I saw doing so well for 2 weeks with this strategy.

Luckily for me, the BB decides to squeeze with AJs, raises to $45, leaving him with $ $85 behind & I make it $150. All fold, he calls & KK holds up. But if BB doesn't squeeze......