ummm results?

I'm also of the belief that:
1) Fold pre. Your SB completion range should be similar to your CO limping range. We would never limp 96 in CO so no reason to limp it here.

2) Pot flop. Don't let straight draws, FDs and 1pr hands a chance to outdraw us for free. And remember that, whilst there might be a lot of "scary turns" for us, villain is only going to have one draw most of the time; not every single draw simultaneously. This isn't PLO.

3) As played, I like x/raising turn and barreling river.

4) As played, I also like x/raising river.

5) I strongly disagree with the "don't x/r river if you're not going to call a 3bet" comments. That's like saying "don't raise pre if you're going to fold to a 3bet". It's wrong on so many levels.

6) I think that river call is marginally +EV as played, but I don't mind folding because it's a very high variance call. We should expect to lose outright more often than we win/chop combined.

In my experience, all good players avoid difficult spots. The reason you think they don't is because some players are good enough that spots you think are difficult for you aren't difficult for them.

Oh you mean some good players autopilot all the time? Got it. They'd do better if they reflected just a little bit. Hint: A "good" player is not one who's playing a nitty autopilot ABC game to win 8 BBs/hour against weak fields, but I think that's what you perceive as "good."

good players don't avoid difficult spots but they don't seek them out either.

just fold pre ffs

Haha, and here at last is the post that should settle it. It's amazing how many people hear "You can't turn a profit here no matter how much better you are than everyone else" and respond with "Hold my beer."

still no results?

Results were I tanked for a while and folded. I don’t think this guy was jamming with less than A6, so in reality probably 77+... Reasons for me thinking this was there was a hand in a previous session where I opened UTG and he mucked AK a couple seats to my left (he showed guy in between us before he mucked and it was talked about after the hand). I also saw him call some rivers with big hands where I thought he should have raised. And one hand I saw him flat JJ pre then x/c top set then x/r safe turn, so I definitely think 77 was in his range.

However, there is a spaz factor at play. After the hand, he first asked me if I would’ve called if he bet less - it seemed as if he was very disappointed. But then he went on to say that he flopped the nut straight. Somebody said that’s a crazy shove with a straight, and his response was, “I don’t care. He didn’t have anything. He checked flop and then turn and then river.” I think he was just trying to needle me (it should’ve been obvious that I was making a pretty big fold), but who knows for sure.

Although I think I made the right choice, with the random spaz/accidental bluff factor, my guess is I was maybe like 20% to win.

Anyway, I don’t think there’d really be much to discuss about the river if I had said, “reads are this guy only shoves with the nuts or near nuts”, so that’s why I left that out.

why wasn't all of this put into the original post, these are the things that need to be taken into consideration while making these decisions. Those previous hands would make it a fold.

Of course... I left it out intentionally, understanding that the river spot would be highly dependent on villain reads and history if they exist. This hand is much more interesting to discuss without that.

I don't think that anybody that said this is a call on river is wrong, nor do I think anybody that said this is a fold on river is wrong. It can go either way, and it could be that my previous session with villain was one where he was playing particularly nitty (he was trying to get unstuck at the time), and possible that with more history with villain, I'd change my mind to this being a call.

What is still interesting to me at this point is whether or not he is bad enough to shove a straight here. We know from your prior hands with him that he has been very nitty. The question becomes: is he nitty in a smart way or is he nitty because he is poor at judging relative hand strength? When the turn checks through, maybe he thinks nobody has a 6, so his 10 high straight is always good. Then when we x/r river maybe he puts us on a flush draw made top pair and he thinks he should raise with the best hand. (EDIT: Forgot to mention we are WAAAY underrepped here, so it is within the realm of plausibility.)

I know I lost a lot of money in the past by raising in villain's spot because I thought I had the best hand without giving thought to what hand it is that I think will call. If villain is like that, he can turn up with T8 here.

All that said, I still think this is a boat given the new history given. I don't see a guy that folds AK to a single open as a guy that is going to jam with less than a full house here. Means we beat 3 combos of 76, chop 2 of 96, and lose to 6 remaining boats of 99, 77, and A6. This guy might just call the 250 with 76 as well.

I was voting call on the assumption that this might be the type of player who's confused why the pot's being shipped the other way when they ship it with a counterfeited two pair. So yeah, more reads than just an Eastern European dude who's "definitely pretty passive pre" would do us some good.

What I take from the last few posts about reads is that the amount of data we base our reads on is so incredibly small, that in some cases the reads are almost useless. OMC, fine, drunk aggro, easy, but against the average V, we remember a couple of hands vs someone. But there are so many extenuating factors in every single hand that we have no idea how reliable our data is, which in a scientific sense, makes it almost worthless.

What I/we do as poker players assign characteristics of general player types and apply them to specific players, and gradually gather more information on the nuance of that specific player. A nitty player will have wildly different play style from an aggro player; what is being studied is the nuance within the player type. IE, is this nitty player bad enough to overvalue a straight here? If villain was a LAG or aggro player, we would be asking if he is good/patient enough to check 99/77 on the turn. If it was a TAG player we would be asking if he is loose enough to call A6 pre, etc.

Our data isn't just on the specific individual, it is on the player population as a whole developed after thousands of hours playing.

yeah, V shoving with anything less than 77 or 99 would be mystifying

+1. Exactly

I think we can characterize this river shove as coming from villains who might do each of the following:
1. Value ship only very strong hands, A6+ or 77+. They shouldn’t really be bluffing ever unless they know I can fold a full house (which they don’t).
2. Overvalue hands as nuts/overly merge their range to include 67 and 8T. I.e., they are accidentally bluffing against a strong range. And again, there shouldn’t be any bluffs because most of the player pool never folds 96 or 76 in my spot.
3. Bluff ship sometimes simply because they think I’m FOS.

I’ve put this villain mostly into bucket 1, but I’m not completely ruling out he’s actually in bucket 2 or 3.

wow i had no idea that's what we (think we) do. mind blown.

Thanks for adding so much to this thread. Apparently live reads are almost useless, sometimes, in some hands. Sometimes in poker, a card game, it's tough to know what to do, sometimes, but not always. You should write a book.

Sent from my VS988 using Tapatalk

What I offered was that saying we "have a read" on a guy based on the fact that MAYBE he folded AK once, and another time he might have been tilting when we saw him in a hand, isn't much of a read. Putting more weight on our read than is warranted is overvaluing spurious evidence. So (as you mentioned), pop reads are probably more useful imo, and most won't raise a straight here.

Aren't you the guy who got kicked off CLP for trolling (screenname initials BS)?

Not sure what CLP is or Bananastand. But no, not me.

Sent from my VS988 using Tapatalk

Fold pre
I might just lead for 10 otf and call a raise, also dont mind a check raise. Depends on players in hand.
Whether i lead flop or x/r i am betting about 1/2 pot ott and then betting river.
As played I am not folding otr tho unless this guy is a very tight or very good player. We still beat some of his value range w 67, 108, 85, very slim he bricked draw and is going nuts but it is possible. I also dont see a lot of players check calling with sets on a board like this. I feel like of we are beat it is going to be A6 which is just unlucky imo. Always tough to give answers on forums because live reads are so important but against ur average 50 year old I'm calling

If you're much better than players in the hand, pre is fine. Considering how you played it post though I guess I'd be more careful.

Flop is too weak to c/r by far, that's the worst play. x/c is okay, but I think it gains you little value by inducing (they are passive) and when it gets checked through it sucks. We can just bet/fold this. Leading is notably the best play on the flop.

If we lead flop we lead turn too. We want a stronger than than ours to x/r if we have the betting lead. As played, I don't hate the x/r.

We're not getting value from Ax on the river, so checking has no point, people aren't going bananas on an A river. Our hand just isn't strong enough to x/r, so we should bet.

As played it's kinda gross, once we check we kind of have to raise, but getting jammed on really sucks, I'd look for live reads. Either way can be justified I think, but leaning strongly towards fold since some people who are passive would limp mid pairs and hands that make boats and then check the turn.

But seriously guys, everyone focusing on the river is really really not putting time where it needs to be. Flop and turn are huuuuge leaks.

I think what OP said about river, putting villain into buckets, whatever, it's is fine, fairly intuitive, but like, good reasoning. If OP decided that it's more likely villain overvalue hands, whatever maybe that's true, idk the population tendencies, sometimes you just can't fold a strong hand because there's enough random % of ****, and I do think live reads play a huge part in this, but I'm not gonna grill OP for not bringing it up because it's very hard to quantify.

That said, if you wanna work on your game, you should be looking at flop and turn, and, to an extent, preflop, though I personally would definitely complete if players involved are fishy. You don't need that huge an edge on someone to make 96o playable for a complete if bb raises very rarely.

I think OP's line of reasoning is fine, look, trying to expand your range is good, it's just that a necessary part of it is going overboard, and you gotta be honest to yourself an rein it in when that happens, but like, everyone trying to discourage it when it's clearly close is hurting yourself, it's part of the process if stepping out of your comfort zone.

Like, do you think 97o is a fold? because it's clearly not imo, and 96o is obviously going to flop quite a bit worse than 97o (double gappers suck) but it IS one pipped in a sense, so like it's clearly not THAT far off, and I don't feel like OP has been super rude or whatever, and it's a bit mean to say he's calling himself a genius to be able to profitably play a hand, he thinks he can so he tries to, maybe he can, maybe he can't whatever, why make it personal? I'm sure he's not saying he's the only one who can do it, and that he thinks most players have have edges on villains can do it too.

Rake is killer though, I think the equity we need increases by way more than 2.5% or whatever it is OP gave in a raked vs unraked enviroment. I think unraked folding is kind of atrocious vs anyone halfway passive, btw, but... I could be wrong? I guess?

So personally even though I was saying that OP played the hand semi atrociously I think his heart is in the right place or whatever, you gotta make mistakes, but I'd recommend looking at spots that don't seem as important to you, and not just the seemingly flashy spots (folding boats on rivers), because flop, turn, and preflop mistakes really really add up.

What you are saying is- "If the blind structure were 5/5 in this spot, open mucking our hand every flop is better than making decisions."

It's impossible for preflop to cost us a lot of money unless you believe the above to be true.

I think everyone gets IP>OOP and 96o ranks pretty low in pre flop starting hands. That is irrelevant though if our equity realization is > equity required. If you want to argue being OOP and playability will cause us to drastically under realize our equity, you'll see our ev will be negative by just a fraction of a dollar by running the numbers in an equity calculator.

Basically what I was saying 2 pages ago but said more succinctly here...so you get an IOU for 2 free head rubs from the poaster of my choice

But be warned