Well we don't see villain's hand which makes the success of the hand reading exercise difficult to rate.

All we know is that Villain wasn't that strong in this case. I actually think that's pretty useful information given people's reads on the turn.

If I watch the entire hand to make sure I see villain's hand, then it's not really an authentic hand-reading experience because I know the "answer"... and we know the hand goes to showdown. This info would massively bias the discussion.

I'm definitely open to suggestions on how to better practice hand reading, but I feel like I'm already learning a lot from this. Definitely enjoyed the various perspectives, especially on pre-flop hand ranges.

^ here's what we can glean from that hand;

V straddled
V called a raise OOP
V called the flop OOP with an obviously pretty weak hand
V is likely a fish

If V is a fish then we generally dont want to be trying to bluff them because what do fish do? They call a lot. What is a fish's range? Any pair. With so many indicators that V is just bad I feel we have very little FE. I'm all for barreling but prefer to have more than 7 outs on the turn.

Huh? Check/calling flop is evidence of this guy being a fish? That’s quite the read.

What is obvious about this? Aren't there quite a few Qx and OESD hands in villain's range? Also, the video's narrator said that villain had to think for 30 seconds before folding.

Read again, i said it's a combination of all of those things. Are we really debating how often pros x/c OOP and then x/c x/f? I can think of no weaker line to take.

Still think I disagree. We should often be calling in the big blind (i.e., OOP), probably more often than we should call preflop raises from most other positions. And when we do this, probably the most common action we should be taking on the flop is check/calling. I don't think even the combination of these two actions is "fishy" at all.

You always have the weaker range heading to the flop since you didn't 3! and you were getting a discount on a call, so it makes sense that weak lines will often be taken specifically when you're the BB.

If this is a super rare line for you to take from the BB then you have huge leaks. When you call preflop in this configuration most boards are going to favor the preflop raiser and you should be checking to them, and you'll generally continue vs. a bet by calling more often than raising. If you don't have any turn folds you're just a calling station, or you folded quite a few profitable hands on the flop. Villain probably had a Qx.

Villain should not be doing much cold calling vs. a large sizing, but this is not a spot you want to 3! or fold only.

The only suspect thing villain did is straddle, but I guess some people like it for meta reasons. It also seems the table had been doing rounds of straddles, so it's possible that's what this was.

^ calling to setmine is probably the only legitimate reason to flat in the blinds. Calling the flop just to "keep em honest" with the intent to fold the turn has to be the nut low of all possible strategies. Might as well just fold the flop. But whatever, looks like im not gonna win this argument. V is a pro who exploits opponents like me who give up their edge holding 15% equity by floating out of position.

I think you’re not flatting in the BB enough. For example, solver is flatting 26% of hands from the BB versus an UTG raise. 43% versus a button raise. The optimal numbers for LLSNL games with larger preflop raises will be lower than this obviously. But the optimal flatting range is much, much wider than just set mining.

So what does the solver do BvB 50% of the time, x/c the flop?

Depends on the board and cbet sizing obviously, but yes, BB vs. BU it’s check/calling flop with around half of hands at equilibrium. Includes stuff you wouldn’t necessarily think like A highs, 3 to a straight/flush, etc (again, folding out some of the weaker stuff to larger cbets). You can download Solver+ on IOS for free and try some common pre-solved scenarios (heads up, 100 BB, for a few common cbet sizes).

good to know ill try to incorporate some of this