Yeah, basically congrats on often taking down the pot as a 95%+ favourite; that's not exactly a coup.

Johnny makes lots of good points for why raising is good; I don't think anyone in the flatting camp is ignoring those benefits. But those in the raising camp seem to perhaps be ignoring the benefits of flatting.

Git'sclose,imoG

So wait, you don't want to raise because you fear GII when behind, but now we are a 95% favorite when we win?? Talk about having your cake and eating the cake store as well. Man even for you, that is lol.

+1

I don't see the contradictions in this statement that you guys seem to.

If everyone folds the flop to a raise it was most likely the case we were a ~95% favourite to win the hand (with basically the lone exception being when old guy folds AA-QQ).

If the old guy decides to get in his stack to our raise, it's most likely the case we're a ~28% favourite.

Noting that these are simply points to backup that there is no contradiction here; it is not an attempt to say that raising overall is bad (as it isn't).

Git'sreallynotthatfarofffroma"raisetoseewhereweare at",imoG

Do you know the classic "cant see the forest within hundreds of trees"?

Thats how i often feel about your posting these days GG.No surprise at all that you arent able to understand the contradictions in your own posts, but we are alot of other guys who manage to see it. You cherrypick arguments that fits your predecided ubernitty nutpeddling/flatting everything/doesent stackoff without the nizzles approach.

Then these same facts or arguments- suddenly change again when you need them to in order to fit your narrative.

The cognitiv dissonance mentioned earlier ITT is certainly for real.

And how often does nitty old guy manage to flop a set on us at the same time when we flop the world in this scenario? It happen so infrequently that we cant create our strategy approach based on such rare incidents.

Its like saying "no thank you" to have sex with the 10/10 blonde model next door after she is keen on you after a party: because 1 in a million years she is going to have a deadly disease like AIDS.

gotta wait for a better spot

I lol'ed at both Petrucci and boats.

And yes, GG, you are contradicting yourself. I don't think I can explain it any more clearly than I've already tried to. Old men don't fold the overpair they were waiting 3 hours to get, and he is 5x more likely to have an overpair than a set.

As Johnny alluded, if people are only GII on the flop with us when they hold a set, it's because we're not raising anywhere near often enough.

because when we raise and they fold, it is almost the case that we were the dominating favorite. therefore, raising would be a tragedy.

if we raise and get it in, we are a dog. raising is a tragedy.

I'm literally laughing at my desk right now

Pure gold

1. To the bolded I say: Dude, we have one pair....when is it EVER a tragedy to win a pot on the flop with one pair?? And guess what? Your answer CANNOT include "but our draw has soooo much equity we don't want hands to fold blah blah."

2. To the italicized I say: Dude, we have such massive equity versus v's entire range. He has no sets other than JJ (WHICH WE BLOCK). And I know that you, GG and GG's entire family (Hi!, We are The UberNittersons!) all worry about that 1 combo, but Good God kids, let's make some $$ when we flop the friggin' world every once in a while!

I guess I view THE TRAGEDY as you guys gasolineing EV in these spots routinely, but perhaps I should be thankful. Why you ask? Because I am the gas tank that you are filling when you make these ridiculous plays.

OK, rant over. Head will asplode if I post ITT again.

Want to know why there's no bad permutation? Because we have an excellent hand in position. The point is we can lose less and make more by calling, not that raising will put us in a "bad" spot. It puts us in a worse spot than if we called.

We can finish this hand doubled up at 300-400bb playing lower-variance poker in position and luring someone who made their small flush, or someone who hero called with KJ. Or we can lose the minimum.

Compared to when we are all-in on the flop against at BEST an overpair where we are flipping a coin to, or yet-worse, on the turn where we are a dog against the same hands. Or let's say everyone people folded - you might feel great, but in reality you actually saved both villains a ton of money with their QJ/KJ/small flush hands.

Are you also the type that loves getting called with AKo all-in preflop? Do you smile knowing that you got it in with incredible equity and a premium hand pre-flop? In LLSNL we should be aiming to crush the table so hard that we should dread the possibility of flipping a coin 200bb.

In LLSNL like 1/3 and 2/5 we should be playing, at times, extremely unbalanced and exploitative poker to exploit villains who are not ranging us in the first place beyond "he tight", "he loose", "he good" and "he bad"! What I'm saying is I'm throwing range concepts out the window sometimes. When I see a multi-way pot with a flush draw and I have the nut flush draw, I'm looking to go from 200bb to 400bb or get to the river at a reasonable price with my TPTK. I'm not trying to semi-bluff GII OTF against opponents who usually call too much.

Hilarious how contentious this thread has gotten between the raise camp and the flat camp. Seems like a good chunk of the disagreement stems from whether villains fold dominated hands like flush draws and TPGK to a raise here.

I feel like if it were heads up against the PFR I would prefer a call to keep their bluffs and weaker hands in and I'm not too concerned about different runouts. But 3 way, given a donk lead and call I'm a bit more worried about straightening runouts. Would not be surprised if BB is leading with straight draws like T9, 97, or 65, or if a raise would lead to him jamming Td9d as a significant underdog (and also likely shutting V2 out of the pot), especially given the description of "action player".

If I call then on blank runouts I'm calling a barrel on turn and deciding on the river. Obviously bet/raise a diamond, J, or A in most situations.

If I raise then I'm checking back blank turns I think, but not sure.

Curious to hear results.

Some welrd groupthink in this thread, and strange hostility that doesn’t make much sense.

Yes, it can be the case that a raise folds out worse and gets called by better. I mean, duh? It’s like some of you guys are playing poker for the first time.

If raising is largely folding out dominated hands and getting called by overpairs plus, it’s clearly an inferior play. This isn’t a tough game where we need to balance our raising range. This is 1/3 where dominated FDs and TPs are going to hand us mounds of money if we don’t find a way to make them fold.

You think Jx and flush draws are going to fold to a barely larger than min-raise + caller $100?

I don’t.

Nobody in the raise camp said we had to bomb it for $150-200. All we want to do is get more money into the middle and $90-120 helps accomplish that.

It depends. Some fish will call 3 bets but fold to a raise. So the exact way to extract most can just be a bit of tricky fish psychology.

With that said, a small raise is better than flatting if we think we can get all the dominated hands to come along, of course. Depends on some assumptions which people could debate either way.

Obviously raising is fine, but some of the posts above have gotten absurd. There’s plenty of logic behind flatting too.

Also, the logic behind raising has varied in this thread. Some people want to value raise (sure), some people think it’s a bluff (I’m much less in favor of this although I see the logic), maybe some hope it’ll magically do both?

Posts like this just cross the threshold into stupidity and then go so much further. Have you never value bet one pair before? Is this just a level? What on earth are you talking about?

How often have u seen sets take this line on this flop texture with someone yet to act? Perhaps JJ (3 combos), while 55 is on the other end of the spectrum (something >0%). 88 somewhere in between, closer toward the minority.

Point: the 3-6 combos form a small part of the PFR flop calling range.

Only one combo of JJ out there, not three. Which is a huge part of the reason we should not fear a set from V2. He not only would have to have that 1 combo (or the 1-2 combos of 88 he raises pre), but he would have to choose to flat a smallish donk lead with the set on this insanely drawy board with a player yet to act behind him.

In truth, I wouldn't even really consider V2 to have any sets in his range when flop action gets to us. If there are any, its such an infinitesimally small part of his range that it shouldn't affect our decision making.

Curious to see results/next hand action here. Update, OP?

Discussion has started to slow down so I'm going to continue the hand. I decided to raise for many of the reasons already listed in this thread.

Villain 2 raises to his standard 12 UTG+1, CO calls, Hero calls on BTN with AJ, SB folds, Villain 1 in BB calls.

Flop: J85 (Pot=$48)

V1 donks out 30, V2 calls, CO folds, Hero raises to 100, V1 takes a sec before calling, V2 tanks for a bit before folding.

Turn: J855 (Pot=$275)

V1 bets 65, Hero..?

He has a little less than 200 behind at this point.

V1 says he has a boat, but this type of player can hopefully have a lot of junk still. Hopefully just a blocking bet. Don’t think we have a choice but to ship it in here.

All you can eat baby.

The offsuit 5 pairing the bottom card is a great hold em card, and it also reduces the likelyhood of him outflopping us with a set.

Rip it. Nice hand and don’t take too long with the results!

I always thought much of the reason for raising was to target this guy, and a lot of people seemed to be overlooking that. but i think we got an over pair to fold too. Nice work and good size.

It's actually an element i, and i think everyone else overlooked. When we get this call, it puts a lot of preasure on a nit with an overpair. I think he SHOULD be happy but a lot of the time he will now think "one of them must have me beat and plus there are draws... I'm probably going to lose."

I think he is blocking with this bet for sure.

I think 200 gets too many folds. Prefer to set up a crying call on the river. You could make it between 160 and 180.

The biggest downside is you could lose a chunk when he misses worse FDs but they will hit sometimes and i want to get that 200 from jacks and occasionally even worse. I'm just not going to allow this guy to fold.