1/2nl, saturday afternoon

Hero: BB, $200, bluffy image
Villain: HJ, $100, a bit more aggressive than your average fish, open-raises in LP from time to time, still in with too many hands, bet-sizing is too wimpy

8 limps to hero in BB with 75

Flop (~$14)
469

Checks to villain who bets $10
Hero calls, everyone else folds

Turn ($34)
2

Hero?

I'm pretty sure this flop is a c/c, but if you disagree, I'd like to hear from you.

OTT, do you want to check or bet, and why? If you bet, how much? If you check, is it a c/c or a c/r?

I prob CRAI. I'm fine with the free card if he checks it back.

Disagree. Don't be afraid to lead out when the flop smacks you like this. It provides balance for your OOP ranges on later streets. There can be some negative consequences re. pot size and implied odds; the old adage don't play draws OOP.

But the alternative, c/c, is like waving a red flag with the word "DRAW" embroidered on it, and in the long run, those negatives are higher.

i always lead flop here
i almost never check/call out of the blinds in a limped pot

Given our image x/c flop is fine. We won't have any fold equity. Either CRAI on the turn or we will get a free card. Either situation is good for us.

Think about it. Everyone expects everyone to know how to play the flop; if you don't know how to play the flop, you really suck at this game. So they watch their opponents play the flop very closely, to gather information.

So that's the point you should run all of your counter-intelligence operations. Play ABC PF, to stay out of trouble. Play ABC OTT and OTR because the bets are exponentially big.

It makes the game slightly more difficult for you, because the information you gather on that street will be "tainted." But as long as you play the next two streets well, you'll make it all up.

Yeah.

That's not what I did; I led out, and, stack size being what it was, wound up all in. Probably overestimated my fold equity, and probably didn't bet strong enough to leverage any I had.

Shoulda checked, I think, which leaves a number of options open:

a) Checks thru, get free card
b) If he bets light, I have the option to call or crai
c) If he shoves, just gotta do the math. Won't always work out because of the light betting pre- and OTF.

Given the read, that he's a timid bettor; and given stack sizes, and my bluffy image, I think checking was the play.

To me this is the tricky part of playing dynamic hands OOP. I typically start out playing passively, but at some point take the initiative if the hand unfolds as I want. Question is, when. Not saying turn c/r is always the answer, but I think it's the answer a good portion of the time.

You know the levels of poker thinking, where Level I is, you know what your cards can do; Level II, you have an idea of your opponent's range; Level III, where you have an idea of what range your opponent puts you on, etc.

That has limited usefulness at 1/2, where most players aren't ranging you. Most players, and all the marks are Level I thinkers, if not Level 0 (ie, got drunk and wandered over from the slots).

A more helpful system for 1/2 might be:

Level I: just paying attention to your own hand
Level IIa: paying attention also to villain's range
Level IIb: having some understanding of how villain will play his range. For example, does he bet the top of his range, or slow-play it? Does he bluff with the bottom of his range, or call? If he bets, how much? If he calls, how much will he call?

If you're playing at Level I or Level IIa, your only tool is to bet when ahead. You can't really leverage the advantage of position, which is information, except to the extent you believe, on varying degrees of faith, that it is inadvisable to play out of position unless you have to. And when you have to, you find yourself playing the same way OOP as you do IP.

If you can use information, then you should appreciate that, by leading the flop in EP, you are giving up information, and you should only do that if you don't need it, for example if you flopped a set. That's how I look at it anyway.

In this hand, I could have looked at the turn in much the same way.

With bluffy image, there isn't whole lot of FE.

Without FE, putting more money in the pot when it isn't necessary is simply reducing EV of the hand.

I would check/call turn and bomb river for at least pot if I get there.

Check turn 100%

+1

This is incorrect. In that sense, position gives you one extra data point, which is an advantage, but not the advantage of position.

I probably lead $15 OTF. We got a free flop, can rep any 9, all two pair combos, all draws. On boards like this, a PSB will win it a surprising amount of the time, even 8 way, and if we get called, we have OESD to fall back on.

Even with a bluffy image, I like leading here. I don't mind playing this draw fast on the flop, esp since we're not particularly deep. I could see leading, and 3! GII if raised. Super aggressive but OESD, back door flush draw and FE are a powerful combo.

OTT, if I had led flop, I'd be inclined to continue the aggression, depending on how opponent called flop bet, esp given that we picked up a flush draw to go with our straight draw. I'd probably lead for half pot, maybe three quarters pot.

As played, since H checked flop, I'd probably stay in the weeds and check turn. The line doesn't make a lot of sense to check this flop, then wake up and bet this turn card. With eff stacks, and our equity with straight and flush draws, I like the idea of CRAI on the turn, or a free card.

Note: if I lead flop, don't improve equity OTT, might c/f depending on action. I like leading bc if we hit turn, we can go for two streets of value. Don't love drawing and potentially only getting one street of value OOP. I'd either lead turn or potentially check/fold. I don't think check/call would be my choice unless the price was great.

You only need to think one level above your opponent to exploit him. I'd agree with you and say 95% of 1/2 players are level 1 thinkers. If you play at level 2, you'll increase the likelihood that you will take their money. If you play at level 3 against a level 1 thinker, you are overthinking too many hands against a large majority of 1/2 players.

C/call turn. We get away from our hand if we miss on the river, and we stack villain if we get there. Lets us play perfect. The only way to take advantage of a bluffy image is to actually make a hand and get paid off. If we keep shoving with the worst of it opponents get to play perfectly against us when they call us down.

Newb question: Am I missing something here? He has 88$ behind OTT... we're CRAI with ~2:1 hand odds at a pot of just 35$? We'd need to win more than a third of the time right? In any case, if it goes in OTT we're getting about 1.5:1 on our money. Unless a pair of 7's would be good I guess.

It won't just be a pot of $35 if he bets, and he still has enough behind for us to have fold equity to go with our draw equity given the read that his bet-sizing tends to be wimpy.

I'm fine with flop x/c in a 9-way pot with 4 outs to the nuts and 4 additional outs to the second nuts. (NOTE: If we want to win this pot without SD any kind of often, we should iso large pre. 75s is pretty junky to play OOP in a 9-way pot, and quite damned good as a semi-bluffing hand against a bunch of weak ranges, so this is one of the few hands I'd consider doing it with).

Leading turn puts us in a lot of bad spots when he ****-it shoves. I also don't think our FE is through the roof when villain's bet miraculously makes it HU and a deuce hits the turn. This is like best-case-scenario in villain's mind when he bet the flop.

I also don't like crai because I have zero faith that described players is going to fold his last ~$50 with any hand that he thought was good enough to bet twice.

I think I just play it like a fish and x/c and shove any river that completes our hand.

I agree with you if he bets pot, but our read is that his bet sizing is wimpy, so if he bets, there should be more than $50 left in his stack, and he should be getting worse odds on a call as well.

I still think his range for betting twice is strong. If he bets smaller, then great, the price is all-the-cheaper to just odds call.

I obviously don't think raising a bitchbet with a combo draw is ever really bad, but I'd rather just take the cheapest price here. But who knows, maybe he bets twice with KTo and I look like a total fish when we go unimproved and lose at showdown, and I don't think it's the sort of massive EV discrepancy that's worth arguing too much over.

When stacks are this shallow, I like a c/minraise/call on the turn. Since fish love to minraise nut hands it looks really strong to them when you do this, and you get way too many folds from top pair. If he calls, you'll always get stacks in when you hit, can bluff shove some scare cards and can c/f bricks.