Rake and tips make it very hard to profit from mediocre hands in small pots oop. You might do this in spots but it probably shouldn't be a goal to do it a lot. A $10 raise in particular maxes your rake %

I wouldn't worry much about bet sizing tells when it comes to opening premiums. For one thing, unless you are making very obvious ones, it will still take the 1 good player perhaps a full session to glean much.

But let's say he sees you open bigger than normal and figures you have a big hand and he happens to have a hand where this is relevant and he correctly decides to fold AQ off.

Now weigh the value lost in scenario against getting the 6 bad players to put in more money with their calls whenever you have AA.

I think it's more neutral. But it's a good point about bluff raises. For one thing, people seem to think winning youngsters are more aggro than they really are.

For another, we have all sets, aq, qq, aa, kk and kq. Doesn't seem like a great spot to run someone off a better hand at low stakes when you have something decent.

In any case, it just doesn't happen all that much.

We can't just look at equity when called because there are also several hands we can protect against, like an 8 a k and small pps.

In poker, you have to play with incomplete knowledge. You have to make a decision as to what type of player you're up against. At 1/3, I'm not worried about the rare player that can shove over a river bet on a bluff. If someone does do it, they most likely do it too frequently and become easy targets. I don't read "the kid" as that sort of player because the OP would have described him differently.

He does seem to have a clue about bet sizing. The ones that don't understand it keep betting the same amount each street, not the same %. Or they just double their bet each street. With those two clues, I'm going to guess that he doesn't think SP is a value hand in this situation.

Therefore, I think a blocking bet will be effective given this board and level of player. All that said, I'm rarely in this situation because I'm not going to play passively with AA on even this flop.

We don't need >50% equity to extract value because it's multiway. If we expect two calls on average we need 33.33% equity for betting to be immediately profitable. There's also negative value in checking and allowing a hand with 40% equity to see a turn card for free. It's basically giving that player 40% of the current pot size.

to clarify for you
OP posted its a $1-3 game standard open with ATC should be $15-20
a $10 open shows weakness
flop play is fine but again shows weakness better to c-bet here
turn again is fine but shows weakness
he played every street under repping his holding that's what I meant
so snap call of river

I play fairly tight myself. I just love reading your posts. Excellent insight.

Good post, when I initially advocated betting flop this was kinda my thinking, but in a more muddled, less rigorous way - thanks for helping me crystallize the idea.

This would be valid for this hand if we actually had >33.33% equity against two continuing ranges. But we don't. Seriously, put this stuff into Equilab; it's way better than guessing.
Those hands are not folding to reasonable bets, so this is really just another way of saying we miss some value against the hands with 40% equity. Of course we do. But that's the wrong way to think about value betting; what matters is our equity against their entire continuing ranges.

$12 is still a pretty small open by live standards so might as well make it at least $12 even if you want two sizings.

As played, river isn’t a fun spot but it’s a pretty clear call. He has about 10-15 combos of value that we beat and we lose to about 20 combos of straights. I would expect him to have 5-6 combos of sets on the flop but I wasn’t there, he might only have 3.

+1

I play in the Midwest and my normal opening size in 1/2 is 20-25, for 1/3 I likely go 30-35. Waaaay too much value lost opening smaller. Although I will say I play in no flop no drop games.

10+BB opens...must be the softest games ever.

A lot of times it's just nofoldem holdem, at least preflop, but if they are calling 10, they are calling 25. Best part is they are still folding to a cbet and/or turn barrel over 80% of the time, but they will still call that bigger preflop raise...

Crazy...so are you opening traditional ranges with this sizing or do you have to tighten up? Like in the CO: 22+, A2s+, K7s+, Q8s+, J7s+, T7s+, 96s+, 85s+, 75s+, 64s+, 54s, A9o+, A5o, KTo+, QTo+, J9o+, T9o, 98o

I can't imagine opening 10+BBs is very profitable with much of this range. Particularly SCs AXs T9o JTo etc.

Am I wrong or do you drop these kinds of hands? Or I guess you could size huge with premium hands and small with everything else but IMO this is pretty transparent.

Yeah, could be wrong, but I'd do the same.

By my count he has ~ 15 2PR/sets he plays this way & will likely call off vs a shove, and has like 12 straights (unless we give him all KQo, which I do not, assuming he's able to make decent preflop folds). Yeah its thin, but we're not super deep @ all (130bb to start), so I'm happy to play for stacks as well.

I have put this into Poker Cruncher (same functionality as Equilab).

Maybe my ranges are off but suppose villains continue with

88-77, QhQs, QcQs, JdJh, JdJc, ThTs, TcTs, TdTs, 9c9s, 9c9h, 9d9s, 9d9h, 9d9c, AQs-AJs, A8s, AcTc, Ac7c-Ac2c, K7s+, Kh6h-Kh2h, Q7s+, Qh6h-Qh2h, J7s+, Jh6h-Jh2h, T7s+, Th6h-Th2h, 97s+, 9h6h-9h2h, 82s+, 72s+, 6h2h+, 5h2h+, 4h2h+, 3h2h, AQo-AJo, A8o, K7o+, Q7o+, J8o+, T9o

I'm giving them about 50% calling ranges of which they call 30% on this flop, any TP+, FD, SD, and pair+SD

Against two such villains calling we have 36.5%

Against one such villain we have 55.5%

So betting should be profitable but even if we had 33% and 50% respectively I would tend to bet particularly against passive opponents. If they raise we fold. If they flat we are probably good on blank turns. Personally I like bet/folding more than x/c as we have more info when we make it to the turn and it costs the same. Strong hands like 2p+ should raise on this flop due to the massive number of draws, so when we are not raised and merely flat called we can overbet blank turns. In theory.

As mentioned previously checking gives free money to other players, particularly if we plan to do anything but x/f on scary turns and rivers. If they have 40% equity yeah not folding but even checking vs a hand with 20% equity has some negative value, and getting it to fold (assuming he isn't putting more money into the pot without improvement) has positive value.

Are you advocating a x/c or x/f OTF? I'm just not seeing the advantage of x/c. If we intend to call a bet why not bet ourselves? If we have particularly aggressive opponents I like a x/c but that's usually not the case.

I open about 30% overall. Position is king.

Yeah there's a big difference in the assigned continuing ranges (e.g. I wasn't giving Villains all the suited 7x combos). Against droolers like that, def bet for value. Depends on the Villain betting. If V is aggro, then yes, x/c. (And if that V is decent, he's also sometimes raising these hands when we bet.) If V is straightforward LP, it's a pretty easy x/f to a large bet; again, that's assuming we can't get value from garbage hands like 74ss.

Your PFR % is 30 in a full ring game? With 10BB+ opens?? How can you possibly open so wide for such large sizes and be profitable???

Are these games super deep or something? Only way I can see opening 65s UTG to 10BB is profitable (and to average 30% PFR that's a mandatory open UTG) is if stacks are extremely deep and your opponents extremely bad. Because if this is a typical 100 to 150BB capped game nobody will ever have odds to call you with anything but premium holdings. So we're constantly risking 30+ bucks for 4 in blinds (less if there is preflop rake), and if called typically in bad shape with weak holdings in bloated pots.

Sorry for slight derail this just blows my mind. I agree OP's open is too small but I think there's a happy medium around 5BB.

Wow great first post, you're well on your way to winning this forum! Seriously, good background and realization of your past play and insight, looking forward to your future posts.

As played no way I could fold, don't think I could raise the river though either, KQo could be in his range (as well as all sets).

I'm in the bet flop camp though...you're not just up against the kid in this hand. Lots of pair+draw hands would call a bet or check behind from any of the 3 villains, and I think the other villains with position on the kid will decrease his raising "light" range.

Yeah, my games are pretty deep, but I gotta say, I'm not really playing MY cards...