Your math proved nothing and was most certainly idiotic.

Fact is most live low stakes players, including crushers, are terrible 5 handed. While you guys wait for your 98ss and your AT, I'll be destroying the table with junk and you'll soon be calling for the floor asking how many seats are available so we can break the game. Happens all the time.

So while this was too loose of an open, most players play too tight short handed so props to OP for loosening up but work on your postflop game.

That is done with high frequency in PLO and Big O. If I knew I was playing a reg in one of those games, I would have to call him down.

Yes, bet small to induce in that case.

Although to be fair there are also players we can simply check/fold too because lol live poker but in general we should be fine betting multiple streets and sometimes value-owning ourselves.

You are a man in search of an argument no matter how much we agree.

Too loose of an open...we have agreed
Most 1/2 players are too tight 5 handed...agreed
He's going to have to win 23 on a bluff except for the occasional miracle flop...agreed
He should loosen up...agreed and you'll note I was advocating the occasional 3B with 23

As to my math, I got it off some website that you'll flop 2P or better 1 in 50. I didn't verify it myself. Maybe they were wrong. I admitted the math wasn't complete as it didn't take into account the occasional time when bottom 1P wins at the river and that some bluffs will win and some will lose. I was merely pointing out that you can't play that hand without a plan to bluff and you've agreed to that in a disagreeable manner.

Where you can say I failed is that I didn't point out that not all of those 1 in 50 2P+ flops are going to be winners. If you want to crit the math because it doesn't tell the full story of how bad 23 will play without bluffs, that I can understand.

So what is it in particular that you think is idiotic? I'm willing to learn.

I'll play as little handed as needed. Unfortunately my current game won't start a table unless it's 6 handed. Just the other day I tried to start a game with four people only to be turned down.

I have no clue why you are talking about flopping 2 pair. Sometimes we have a favorable flop for the pfr and cbet and take it down. Sometimes we flop a pair and have the best hand. Sometimes we flop a straight draw, sometimes we flop a flush draw, sometimes we flop a pair and a flush draw. There are a lot of good flops for us as the pfr so while it's a bit loose it's not the end of the world.

Pretty sure the math you are using is what people use to argue that you don't call with weak hands. Huge difference between raising and calling. Also even though we are UTG, in a 5 handed game we will often end up seeing a flop with position which obviously is a huge advantage.

Maybe you just need to reread my post where I said, "If you are opening with that hoping to hit a winner miracle flop like 2P or better, you're only going to win about 2% of the time or 1 hand in 50." Certainly that must give you a clue why I mentioned it. Hmmmm?

Sorry, I couldn't resist that trip to snarkdom I'll try very hard to make it my last one.

Maybe if you just read my posts without looking for an argument even when you agree with me, you would see that both of us are saying you have to play 23 with a plan to bluff. About the only place we differed, and I'll bet we agree here as well, is that I think a 3B is a more convincing bluff than an UTG near min raise.

All the math does is prove you have to have a plan to bluff.

yep, agreed to all that, and sometimes we will flop a flush and we're still be faced with a crying call or a fold. See the OP.

those favorable flops you describe are still semi bluff opportunities. You might have the best hand on a KT2 board, but you are still semi bluffing IMO when you lead out.

As to it being "end of the world", that is a strawman you are creating. I said, "I can play something terrible like 23o at times..." and that was about the most negative thing you can take from my comments. I didn't say or imply the OP was a bad player or his poker world was ending. I can even argue that there are circumstances where the OP is absolutely right to make that move, as I did with 78o in my post, "Bluff Pre, Great Flop". So in your rush to argue, please don't make up stuff.

LOL there is a 50% chance he will have position opening UTG 5 handed. Since you like math, what are the worst possible odds he will have position if he 3B? Hint: it is better than 50%.

In my "bluff pre" post I had to admit I was wrong a dozen+ times. I'm here to learn so if I'm wrong, I'll admit it and try to learn from it. I'll also admit to not writing with the skill of Hemingway. So if I phrase something poorly or ambiguously, I'll admit I need to correct that as well. But I don't mind holding my ground when someone throws around words like "idiotic" especially when they agree with me way more than not.

I ran it through a solver and if they aren’t calling down three streets with worse, then they aren’t meeting MDF and we can over-bluff monotone boards. I think EV of going 2/3 pot river after going 2/3 on flop and turn was $240 and check was $190 so bet bet bet is good.

In my experience, people are in fact disproportionately more cautious on monotone boards, Garrick’s take has merit, which is why my quick gut reaction was only to go for two streets, but after thinking about it in game I’m pretty sure I go for three streets.

I think we get paid off by a lot of two pair, almost all sets, straights, and sometimes one pair with a heart. You have to figure V would have raised at least a meaningful percentage of his flushes before the river. Even if we don’t get called super often here, we simply aren’t beaten often enough to worry about value owning ourselves.

Missing a street is just bad. If your opponents are not calling worse they are playing weak-tight and can be bluffed very easily. To claim only an idiot would call down worse is just wrong. Flushes raise earlier streets a good amount.

If you try to guess what call down ranges look like you’re likely to be wrong. Just value bet hands that are strong enough to value bet.

I think the second paragraph makes a good point. I have a heuristic where if I’m pretty confident I have the best hand vs a rec, even if I’m not sure what worse hands can call me, I just bet anyway. It tends to work out lol.

Neither you nor V is likely tight aggressive.

I think this is a fine spot to blast off actually. I’m assuming we’re bluffing the turn?

If you’re opening 3 2, you’ll have a lot of A x hands and Q x hands you “shouldn’t” have in the HJ.
And considering V is “TAG”, V won’t be flatting a lot of that.

So I would just shove here AP over what is likely a b/f and try to fade a snap.

People don’t x/r bluff very often for stacks otr and I don’t think V can call here without at least the nut flush.

If you don’t want to jam, I think folding is better than calling AP

Sounds backwards to me. If we are opening 32 then only a small percentage of our hands with have broadway cards of any suit relative to other preflop raisers (and more importantly, our image will likely be of someone that doesn't have these cards, and someone that is often FOS).. Also, not understanding why you would think villain would bet a middle flush on this board. This board hits villain way harder than us and a shove is pretty much asking villain to fold a nut flush or full house. Very optimistic in live poker.

I played 2/5 in a card room Sunday. It was a feeder table and one of the most passive tables I've seen in a long time. I like playing Sundays because many on the table are focused on football. It does slow the game down but it is easy to see when one of those folks is suddenly interested with a strong hand. During about 3 hours of play, other than my own half dozen 3B bluffs, there were only two others, both from the same guy, both showed KK. One of those KK hands lost to AA and the AA did not 4B.

Thinking about this thread, I opened raised with 23 and 24 probably 6 or 7 times. I also 3B with 23 and 25. Only one c-bet was ever challenged, losing $90 to AQ TPTK. All the others won $40 to $80 with a c-bet. I never showed my starters. I was up over $500 when forced to move to the main game after winning only one contested pot of over $150.

The main game was much more aggressive, at least a couple of 3B every orbit plus an occasional 4B, no football watchers, and in a couple of hours I never had a good opportunity to 3B with legit or bluff cards.

I wouldn't get in the habit of doing this. You'll lose a lot of money.

agreed completely.

It was just such an unusually passive table that I did it once just to see if I could. It was so easy that I had to try again. That was so easy I decided to keep it up until someone seemed to take notice and pushed back.

After a few of the worst players busted out or moved to the main, the complexion of the table began to change and I had to quit with the goofy stuff.

Way too much showdown value to bluff turn with no chance to improve. Normally sets can be used as semi-bluffs sometimes on 4-flush boards, but here they are drawing dead to the nuts, so I'm not sure if that's still good. I'd bluff with hands that block offsuit broadway hands. Ax/Kx are the best blockers since hands weaker than AQo/KQo should be folded pre.

On the river bluffing is less bad because we don't have much showdown value anymore, but I'd still prefer holding an Ax/Kx.

I think it's an interesting idea to bet big on the turn with AK no heart to set up a lower SPR for a river overbet shove. We have a higher density of Qh I think and it would be funny to turn quads into a bluffcatcher.

I worded that wrong. I was just referring to the river, once we’ve already started bluffing the turn.

Wouldn’t bluff turn personally.

There are better bluff candidates of course, but sets/two pair should also x/c turn because they will improve a healthy % with decent implied odds as well.

Offsuit Broadway hands are going to want to do a lot of x’ing otf.

Contrast to our hand, we’re always betting flop, and it’s effectively worthless once we’re called ott for that sizing.

We’re also blocking hands like A 3 and A 2.

We probably have up to like 25% pot share from checking down. More if villain is passive and won't bluff us off. Vs. a reasonable defending strategy on what is a pretty static board villain should defend near MDF, so a 0 equity bluff should be close to 0 EV. The only time you would bluff a hand that has showdown value but 0 equity when called here is when you have no worse bluffs to use. In that scenario where your worst bluffs have showdown value, at equilibrium villain will overfold to allow your bluffs to be as profitable as checking. Otherwise there's no incentive to bluff.

From an exploitative perspective, we would need a read that villain is likely to dramatically overfold this texture before we consider turning a flush into a bluff. +EV isn't enough. It has to be more +EV than attempting to check the hand down, and we'll win a good chunk of the time when that happens.

It's not related to my other points, but on this texture specifically sets don't have great implied odds. You can't stack off a full-house/quads and be pumped about it when one card hands beat us.

We should have at least some non-heart hands from flop that can bluff 4-flush turns.

I did not expect to get so many responses. Nonetheless, I think staying out of the pot to begin with would have been the best play. Checking the turn is probably the right play over 50% of the time IMHO.

I agree as I would KISS. After 200 hours of recorded play with a plus result I have had two consecutive situations come up where opening with trash (non-solver approved) has got me into lots of trouble.

Last night's episode of high stakes poker involved a recreational player opening 32 from UTG. He ended up with position postflop as only the BB and straddle called.

The flop was quite favorable as he flopped the flush. Given the favorable flop, he proceeded to get the rest of his stack in the middle with .1% equity.

I remember back when I did stuff like this. TV poker made a lot of new NL players think the entire game was just playing nonstop street poker. To be fair, back when “pros” were often exploitable nits, street poker kind of worked.

So many hands I’ve played where in 2012, I’d chalk it up to a cooler, but in 2021 I’d say that I played it terrible.

Of course when you’re stuck in 2012 style street poker in 2021, you sometimes still will put 300 bb or whatever into the middle with a 3 high flush against a non-maniac.


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