Quote:
Originally Posted by upchipcreek
I play regularly with all and the players are very loose especially later in the game as it is, lots of limping, and cold-calling of pf raises. Hard to put players on a range pre-flop. Multiple people see most flops. My image is solid.
Me(Button) - $745 with AsAh
SB - $500
BB - $250
UTG - $800
UTG +1 - $350
MP1 - $225
MP2 - $600
CO - $1100
It is difficult to put either of these players on a range at this point because it is literally any 2 cards with them. They are the loosest at the table. The CO is playing terribly. He is bluffing in bad spots, and calling off with weak underpairs, etc for substantial amounts. Only has the amount he does because we can buy 2 full buy-ins at a time. He is down about $2k at this point. UTG+1 is even or down a little. These 2 guys are the loosest at the table.
Quote:
Originally Posted by upchipcreek
Thanks for this analysis, I definitely do not spend enough time trying to get in their heads. I do have a good feel for the regs tendencies with hand types, but some times baffling.
End Result: UTG+1 folded to the all-in, and CO called with 4s5c.........terrible read on my part
What was he thinking here? I'd say it was 'I have a straight draw $40 is no prob, oh I have bottom pair, and this guy probably had AK and is bluffing, oh and there is a caller in there now which means I am probably beat at this point, but the pot looks nicer to try to win, and I could still catch a 4 or a 5'
Sorry this is too damn long to read, but... its not a simple question either.
OK, let's take a trip thru the looking glass.
CO sounds like a action junky. He is stuck. He is trying to get even or better before he has to leave or more likely before the game breaks. He is going to target situations where he thinks its more likely that there will be a big pot.
You will see this in his actions.
- He is going to playing somewhere between 90% and 100% of his hands.
- He will be more likely to call in a raised pot with a junk hand than limp with it.
- He is going to float most flops, especially in raised pots, because he knows "like everyone cbets now".
- He is going to call down with just about any PP on all but the scariest of boards.
- The more action there is, the less likely he is going to fold.
- He is going to try play more hands versus you and the UTG player than anyone else on the table. No one else has a big enough stack to give him the big win he so desperately wants/needs.
OK, there is a little of what this guy is going to do, making it easier to spot him, or spot when he is in that state of mind.
Now lets walk thru some of the thinking when our players are doing with the above stuck action junky tendencies.
- First off he knows how hard it is to get a big hand. He knows this because he almost never does. So when he sees the fish bate he is thinking that it is unlikely you have a real hand and that his bottom pair is good.
- He is calling with ATC in a raised pot for the reasoning above.
- He is calling with str8 and flush hands PF all the time, because "even if the lucky SOB gets his set with his AA/KK or TPTK with his AK/AQ/AJ hands, I can stack him with my str8 or flush or trips or two pair.
So when calls your flop bet, he is playing "perfect" poker in his mind and just needs to get a little lucky on the turn or river, and wham he wins that big pot he soooooooo desperately needs.
When he hits his trips on the turn he has to "lay the trap" and checks to you. He feels his hand is invisible to you and you will overplay your AA/KK hands. If you don't fall into his trap and bet the turn, he is very likely shoving the river hopeful you make the hero call. (not being nasty here, just thinking in the degen action junkie's shoes here)
Now lets come back to the sane and thinking poker player world... Now that we have taken the walk on the wild side, lets see what we can do to figure out some rational decisions in this hand.
When we get called we know the villain has been dealt into the hand, on the surface we don't know much more. But after our walk on the wild side, we can start putting some broad hand ranges on our degen action junkie.
I would assign the following hands in his range PF.
- Any suited cards with a perference for Ax or J-K/X suited hands.
- Any suited connectors (SCs)
- Any suited gappers, e.g. T7 or 24
- Any connected cards, e.g. 45o
- Any connected but gapped cards, e.g. T8o
- Any PP, 22-99. I can not assign him TT-AA as this would be the "one time" he gets a real hand will push it hard PF more times than not.
- Any Ax hand excluding AT or AJ-AK, again if he had a "big ace" he would have a "big hand" and try to get more now before someone else snaps him off with their 45o
Now we have a fish bait flop of Q
9
4
we lead and get looked up... what do we change in our villain's hand range?
Well this is one of those "tough" situations, because we did not really exclude any hands we did not already exclude PF (QQ/TT). We can make a credible argument that we can eliminate 44 from his range, but I do not eliminate it because one of our degen action junkie tendencies is to trap post flop with "invisible" hands.
Something I do to help in situations like this, where the credible hand range of the villain is so wide that it becomes difficult to narrow the range I use a grouping/weighting system to classify the hand range into three ranges. Let me define what I use...
- I have one grouping that is made of all hands that are "very likely" or "likely". This range I place a premium/higher weight to it.
- I have one grouping that is made up of all the hands that are possible or probable and weight it with a middle weight.
- I have one last grouping that is made of all the hands that the villain could have but are not very likely at all and weight it the least.
So lets reevaluate now that we have a flop, a bet and some calls and a tool to use to help classify our villains hands.
- In my "likely" grouping I am putting any two hearts, e.g. 9T I put this group of hands first because I think they are most likely. Now I add Qx hands, Tx hands, 4x hands. Now I add the str8 hands, e.g. JT, KJ, 78, etc.
- In my possible/probable grouping I am putting 22-88.
- In my unlikly grouping I am putting hands like QQ/99, AK.
So I am feeling pretty good right now waiting for the turn card. Most of the hands in the villain's "likely" range I beat big time, and only have a few in that range that have significant equty versus my hand, e.g. J
T
Turn is ugly for us if we compare it to our grouped hand ranges.
Turn: Q
9
4
, 4
The action sucks too. Our villain could very well have just hit trips, and now he has checked to us. If we did not know our degen action junkie tendencies and thought patterns, the check would be a green light to bet here. Instead this should be a big flashing red light.
So before we make any actions, lets reevaluate the hand range groups with this new information.
We have to elevate the 4x hands in this group, but we really can not eliminate hands either. We change nothing in the middle grouping, and same for the least likely grouping.
So here, we need more information to play optimally. While betting has to be the most +EV action here versus typical hand ranges, but we have additional insight into the mind of our degen action junkie and have weighted range to better estimate his hand range. This makes betting versus checking a much closer choice, i.e. it is no longer clearly +EV to bet here.
We can safely check behind with a one pair hand knowing our primary villain is will push the action hard on most river cards. While we have ignored our second villain we can fairly safely classify his group range very similar to our primary villain's groups, excluding many of the hands that do not include a str8 or FD from the most likely group and move them to the middle group and bottom ranges as they are.
On the river we can get away from AA if either villain wakes up and starts betting hard here, we can call most small bets from one villain and still feel good about it.