If our plan is to bluff often (terrible plan vs this villain, but in general ok, lets go with it for now), even bare overcards typically have more equity than say, a BDFD+ a BDSD. Also, we usually have better blockers with high cards.

Feel free to throw Ajo into pokerstove or equilab and see how it does on some random flops vs villains range, and then do the same for 45s or other low SC's.

Why do we need a limping range? And if we do, there is absolutely no reason to balance it with strong hands when playing at LLSNL. Limp behind some small pairs or other marginal hands and exploit the hell out of your opponents when you flop a monster.

And btw, quite often we can get 3 streets of value in a SRP HU when we hit with AJ.

Again, you're talking about people exploiting us. That just does not happen at llsnl. I could openraise 100% and people still wouldn't adjust correctly. I'd definitely be losing money opening 100%, but that's because my overall range would be too weak and i'd whiff way too many flops, not because people would be playing back at me with the correct frequencies.

Let's give this particular villain a limp/c range of 50%. You can make it wider or narrower, the %'s mostly stay the same.

Equity Winst Split
Hero 43.53% 41.99% 1.54% { Q9s, T8s, 97s }
Villain 56.47% 54.93% 1.54% { 22+, A2s+, K2s+, Q2s+, J4s+, T6s+, 96s+, 86s+, 76s, 65s, A2o+, K5o+, Q7o+, J7o+, T7o+, 98o }

Equity Winst Split
Hero 60.98% 59.16% 1.82% { AJo }
Villain 39.02% 37.20% 1.82% { 22+, A2s+, K2s+, Q2s+, J4s+, T6s+, 96s+, 86s+, 76s, 65s, A2o+, K5o+, Q7o+, J7o+, T7o+, 98o }

Even if it is true that hands like Q9 etc have more playability (not even sure it does), good luck making up that 20% equity gap vs a loose passive fish.

His range has a lot of weak hands, you want a linear range vs those. AJo is higher up on that line than Q9s. At the end of the day it's just that simple .

I didn't read your whole post. But I will. I'm just running out the door right now.

But the quote above makes me not want to read the rest.

Against a guy who is seeing flops with 66% of hands, you should be bluffing ****loads. Not just some of the time. Not just kinda often. **** loads.

Which is why T7s is far more playable here than AJo

This really should be glaringly apparent.

EDIT: Skimmed the rest. Talking about %'s and equities is irrelevant unless most hands are likely to go to showdown. If your villain is seeing the flop with that many hands, you shouldn't let him see very many showdowns. if you're seeing enough showdowns that those numbers matter....you're doing something wrong against this player.

Also, your ranges for V are way out of whack. You have AA in his limp/calling range.

^If we aren't going to showdown often, it doesn't matter which hand we have, 72o will do the job just as well as T7s or AJo. The thread title however clearly states "loose-passive fish". Imo that "suggests" we will be going to showdown a fairly decent percentage of the time.

Indeed, my bad.
Fwiw if we take the top 5% of hands out his range, AJo GAINS equity, while Q9/T8/97 don't.

AJo seriously cant be an overlimp here. It’s a clear iso raise. It’s for value and we almost have absolute position. Limping is a crime

I think a case can be made for all three plays with AJo here (raise/call/fold). Really depends on the table dynamic and the villain's in question. As a general rule, I like raising and maybe even to a slightly higher amount than normal. But I am fine with just overlimping versus stationy players who limp with A-rag who we may get more value from on later streets as they may fold to a raise.

AJo/KJo/KQo etc are flexible hands when we have the hammer of position and somewhat deep stacks.

There is no case. It's a raise pre ainec. I'm in the CO, not EP. And there is a case for making a big iso raise in EP with this fish. Are you advocating playing tighter when we have position on a big fish?

I wasn't making any specific case for any play. What I was trying to convey is that the highest EV play has to do with how villains react to what you do pre versus what they might do post flop. There are plenty of situations/players who will play tighter pre, but if they get to the flop, will go to the felt with top/weak. Against that player, clearly raising pre might not be the best play.

Iso-raising is for situations where we can isolate a fishy player with a hand that flops large chunks of equity on a variety of board textures. This allows us to bet multiple streets, which is the best way to exploit villain's pre-flop calling mistakes (he'll fold more hands post-flop).

I don't think anyone is advocating we play "tighter", just that we keep this in mind when choosing the hands with which to expand our range.

AJo just doesn't qualify. It makes weak-one pair hands. And when it misses, it misses by a lot. There won't be very many opportunities to win pots whenever a c-bet fails.

You won't get big value nearly as often as you think. The fishier this player is, then the smaller his frequency of having Ax gets.

You only make money when you make a hand, and he makes a hand too. Both of which are actually rare enough. Both happening simultaneously is a very long shot.

And also, how confident are you that a raise will even achieve the goal of iso-ing? There are still 4 players left to act.

I am seriously questioning the value of following/reading/posting in these forums when you get advice like overlimp preflop with AJ in the CO.

Anyway....

I don't like your flop raise. Either call or raise to $70.

Turn is fine.

River: It's close. He could have hit a 9 and turned a flush draw and bricked out on the river. Hands like Kc9c, Qc9c, 10c9c, Jc9c, 9c7c could have taken this dumb line. The only hand that beats you that makes sense is A8 or 98. Only 15 combos of those hands since you are holding an Ace.

Given the odds (2.5:1), you need to find just 6 bluff combos for this call to make sense. And it's hard to find 6. It's very close. I probably fold.

Some of us prefer to question 'why' we make the plays we make, evaluate them logically and mathematically, and make reasoned determinations.

There's more to it than just saying "oooh, pretty cards, me raisy now"

Our raises in this situation are for big value and for setting up post-flop barrelling situations. AJo accomplishes neither of those well. I wouldn't call it a "big value" hand, as you rarely win a large pot with it. you're far more apt to lose a large pot with it. Furthermore, being unsuited and 2 gapped, this hand rarely has large chunks of equity in situations where it fails to make TP. In other words, it doesn't offer much in terms of post-flop maneuverability.

If you want to argue that it's on the fringes of a value-hands, fine. You're not wrong. But it IS on the fringe. And all I'm advocating is to see what happens when you take those fringe-value hands and put them in your limping range. Your raising range will be more polarized, and your limping range will be much stronger. Both of which are good results.

Just consider the +EV in getting two streets of value against Ace-rag in a limped pot vs the +EV of iso-raising and missing most flops.

Just gotta take everything you read with a huge grain of salt and ignore the obvious trolls.

So you think those advocating for perhaps overlimping are trolling / intentionally posting bad advice?

GcluelessNLnoobG

I was talking about in general. I know you're a well respected poster with a proven long term winning record, despite your unconventional play style. And so far no one ITT has really posted anything with malicious intent. But I've seen posts in other threads from people I'm not gonna out that are so cringe and obvious trolling. For example, my thread about QQ facing the back raise. Pretty easy to spot the trolls.

As far as limping AJo in the CO with position on a fish when we should be open raising AJo in earlier positions, I'm definitely against it.

All I would suggest is keeping an open mind to all the pros and cons, perhaps even regardless of who is making the points (attempting to evaluate the point on it's own terms). And if you eventually come to a different conclusion after weighing everything fairly, especially factoring in what you consider a good spot vs bad spot and how you play your game, that's fair enough.

GfencesittingandstillnotsurewhichwayI'meventuallyg oingtofallG

Brown guy?

What was your read on him since he was brown?

I add age and race for every villain. But since you asked, young brown guys tend to be fishy in my experience.

Preflop is good. Flop raise is bad (we should call instead). Turn call is good. River we need to sigh fold this hand. We can call river with AQ+.

If we had instead flatted flop, then we could call down the entire way with our AJ.

But I'm not calling this river bet without some kind of read that he's an idiot that would turn a hand like A2o into a bluff here.

This is the wrong way to think about bluffing.

72o will NOT do the job just as well. Hands that bluff well are hands that have equity when called. 72o and AJo suck at this. T7s, does a little better.

You want hands that can successfully bluff multiple streets while backed up with equity. Offsuit hands almost never do well.

And just because a player is loose/passive, doesn't mean we will get to showdown alot. In fact, it means quite the opposite.

Imagine if your range was just AA....how often would you get to showdown

Now imagine if your range was 'any 2 cards'....how often would you get to showdown?

You'd get to showdown more with AA. The stronger range can withstand multiple bets. Weaker hands have to fold before showdown. So if V is calling pre-flop with a massive range of junk hands....he's going to miss shytloads of the time. And when he doesn't miss, alot of those times he'll have a weak connection with the board that won't be able to stand up to multiple barrels.

If you can't drive the hand by connecting with many flops, and betting multiple streets, then you're letting V get to showdown with lots of his weakly connected junk.

Has this ever happened to you? You raise AJo in position, get called by a loose passive fish, whiff the flop, c-bet anyway, get called, and then give up only to see that V floated your flop bet with bottom pair, or a gutshot that caught 3prd pair on the river, or some other kooky nonsense that would have never got to showdown if you were able to take a more aggressive line.

That's the drawback of offsuit, unconnected, weak-top-pair-making hands. They lack the ability to deny equity to your opponent.

It doesn't matter how much of a pre-flop 'favorite' you are. You are going to under-realize your equity with this hand, and your opponent will over-realize equity with his hands. Simultaneously, you won't be exploiting V's major error of playing too many hands because your hand will often be too weak to be leveraging fold equity enough

Why should we be running multi street bluffs vs loose passive fish? The only hands that we can guarantee a fold from are whiffed draws. Bottom pair might get called all the way down. Our strategy vs these players isn't to bluff them it's to VALUE BET them which is much easier to do with AJo when you make top pair than with T7s even if you can bet multiple streets with the latter.

Somewhat agree, but he's not the only player in the hand. In fact, he hasn't done anything to differentiate himself from anyone else in the hand so far. And focusing your strategy on just one opponent, when there are 4 in the hand, doesn't make much sense.

If the guy is that bad, then you can still make at last two healthy value bets post flop when you make a hand with AJ. You aren't missing value by not raising pre-flop.

I also don't think that AJo is as strong as you think it is. This hand is a pretty good example of how easy it is to get owned by 2pr or AQ+. You end up overplaying your hand, even inadvertently, pretty often.

Because the goal of the game is to make money.

And we're not just running multi-street bluffs. We're choosing hands that have that as an option in addition to value betting, semi-bluffing, and drawing to strong hands.

AJo isn't a very versatile holding. But it is strong, which makes it a pretty good addition to a limping range.

All I'm saying is that there is probably more +EV in the times you show up strong in a limped pot, than there is +EV in the rare occasion when you both make a hand, and you can value bet.

My goodness this can't be real. Limping over a loose passive fish with a hand as strong as AJ in LP is laughable. I can't even believe people aren't trolling here.

As played, just call down here. He is wide open preflop and can really have anything on this texture.

Also.....lol at saying we will be 3b into oblivion. There isn't a 1/3 game in America where more than 2% of the player pool is going to 3 bet light regardless of your opening frequencies. That is simply a non-starter. Which is not to say you should be opening light a lot just because particularly if villain's are sticky. But to limit our opens because we expect to get played back at is simply not understand how 1/3 works IRL.

And there is virtually no reason to plan on bluffing a loose passive player at any point in the hand absent some read or whatever. These players are POW and we just need to value town them over and over again.

I'd suggest we are trying too hard if we are trying to find a bluffing range on this villain at any point in the hand

Slim said alot of the same things i was thinking of getting out there, well put.

ROFL at not opening AJ in late position due to being afraid of being 3 bet light in a typical 1/3 game where like 1 percent of the playerpool is ever gonna think of 3 bet you without QQ+/AK.

Planning on bluffing loose passive fish is fancy play syndrome at its finest. Not bluffing a player who calls too much is like the first page in the book, and everybody knows it. However executing what they do know in theory at the table is a different animal for most people.