Saying to fold is fine and for most people it really isn't a bad idea. But that's just it, fold because you rather not play OOP against a "good" player. End of discussion.

If that's how we approach every discussion, then we can probably just put up a stickie and create a very static range in every position of play...

That's how you seem to approach every discussion and post-flop is always just SPR.

This.

It really is that simple.

If you are in a fish fest then you can happily pitch this since your goal is to simply play your value hands and get paid off. Kjo doesn't play that well multiway. We are OOP. Just pitch it and avoid the RIO of donking off chips to a "good" player who we isn't as likely to give the $ back to us.

If it was a loose, predictable player, we can call here more times than not since we have bet sizing tells on him, can sometimes steal if he checks behind on flop, can stack if we hit a monster, etc. Also we are "giving action" and can get paid off on the times we flop a set, and we will have more credibility when we bluff on flush and straight cards since we are playing more than 2 hands an hour..

But this only applies if the V's in the game have a fold button. If no fold button, then this spot sucks since we won't ever be able to win by stealing and we can get stacked the times we run into the top of V's range.

Ez call pre if you are good postflop.

Folding isnt bad. Just ask yourself if you think you can profitably call here given your skill. If the answer isnt a snap yes, folding is fine for reasons Rage has pointed out.

Yea but would you 3b tho

FWIW GG has sed sum vry gud stuf thts jst bein red ovr as "lol nit", imo

KJo and OOP? Fold and move on. Done, end of discussion.

However, is there possibility of doing more than just folding? That's why this discussion exist.

I just don't quite understand why we are keep circling back to discussion of what "good" means and why we rather just fold against such player. Isn't discussing a less comfortable position be what might help us better understand the game?

Another way to look at it is this:

If you're crushing the fish and doing some good winning, why not take on some regs occasionally in the spots where you think they may have leaks? It isn't going to harm your winrate if you have a go and mess up a hand or two. You'll learn something and maybe find you can start crushing more than just the fish.

In one of Ed Millers books (The Course maybe?) he suggests picking a reg in your game, a good reg by which Ed means one of the better players in your game, and watch everything he does for a number of sessions. Take notes after each session, step away from the table to make notes mid session, whatever. Make it your mission to learn how he plays and identify any exploitable weaknesses. Make a plan to exploit him and then execute it.

One of the prime spots where an otherwise tight reg will open himself up to losing some chips to you is when he's loosening up to exploit others. Blind stealing is but one example, though maybe the most obvious.

Nits are not "good" players but can you get any chips out of them? Difficult in a loose game but if the action dries up and you start getting opportunities to steal you can start pounding on nits and stealing their blids and limps. You obviously should do that but also look at the other regs doing the same and then pound on their stealing ranges.

Obviously first you want to get the hang of value owning fish while not getting owned yourself, and make a little profit so the game pays for itself. But as soon as you're confident you are holding your own then you need to go out there and get after the regs too.

Then your assumption will no longer be "TAG reg with equal skill opens btn vs my blind", you'll have a comprehensive read and tagreg becomes a tagfish with inferior skill. Then you aren't saying "KJo has nearly 50% equity but I'm at a positional disadvantage so I fold". You'll say "V's positional advantage is insufficient to make up for my skill edge so I call/3bet my 40-50% equity hand and exploit him".

I'm not there yet, maybe I won't make it but you have to have goals

Great Post.

The main thing I wanted to know was whether calling or 3betting would be better.

So let's assume that there is no fold option and we're forced to play the hand. And let's assume that SB and BTN are both halfway between p-fish and TAGs (ie. TAGFISH).

Would you 3bet or flat with KJo here?

Easy and standard flat.

3bet or flat depends on specific villain tendencies.

E.g. a tagfish who is aggressive and tricky in 2bet pots but fit or fold weak/tight in 3bet pots warrants a 3bet with almost anything you want to play against him.

E.g. a tagfish who releases hands to pressure in small pots but gets sticky in large pots may well be best 3bet only for value. If KJo is a value 3bet vs this guy then do it if not then flat it.

Generally you want to estimate V's call 3bet range and if a hand has > 50% equity against that call 3bet range then you 3bet for value. If V has a 4bet range then you have to decide if your "value 3bets" also have value vs his 4bet range. Those that don't become raise/folds and you may ask yourself whether some of them may be better as flats instead of 3bets. It is a bit of a compromise.

If a hand has > 50% equity vs V's opening range but < 50% equity vs his call 3bet rangethe you mostly flat unless V has tendencies that favour a a 3bet anyway.

Hands that have < but close to 50% equity vs V's opening range aren't quite strong enough to flat unless you have a significant postflop skill edge and reads so you know how to exploit V postflop. Likewise you may 3bet these hands if you know V is weak in 3bet pots. They are 3bet bluffs. The nature of the hand itself is relevant: KJo blocks AK KK JJ KQ AJ, hands that call or 4bet a 3bet. KJ also is 50:50 vs pairs TT-22 so it's got good equity vs a lot of V's call 3bet range. Downside is KJ has bad RIO being dominated by AK KQ JJ.



Seeking to "know" which action is better in a vacuum is symptomatic of being at an early stage of your poker journey. You seek absolutes and a cookie cutter strategy that you can rely on because other players do the same thing. I've been there and done that, to some extent I still do. It isn't the way you become a consistent winner though.

this is very far from a standard flat.

3bet or fold. In some rare cases we can flat.

IMO you nailed the pertinent concepts and questions.

My previous post was a bit scattered so I'll respond first by tightening up my earlier comments. I'm writing this out as much for my benefit as in response to you.

Just for perspective let's consider GTOish minimum defense frequency. The idea being to prevent villain immediately auto profiting from raising ATC. As GG stressed there are still streets to play but let's just start here. Let's also assume the SB posted then walked away without looking at his cards so it's heads up.

In this 1/3 game V is risking 12 to win 4.
1-(12/(12+4)) = .25 or 25% mdf. So if hero defended less than 25% v would be auto profiting by raising ATC. A 25% defending frequency would certainly include KJo and weaker hands.

Now, often a raise in 1/X games is more than 4x. In my area 1/2 game opens are 5-7.5x and 1/3 5-7x. So consider also the 12 raise in a 1/2 game. 1-(12/(12+3)) = .20 or 20% so as the risk vs. Reward increases for v, the theoretical mdf decreases. Allowing us to defend less frequently with a stronger range should we choose.

In reality however there is a small blind in the hand. The theoretical defending burden is now shared between the SB and hero. That is between us and the SB, if we defend collectively 25% then the button cannot auto profit by raising ATC.

So it's pretty clear that in most btn vs blinds situations at low stakes hero won't be exploited by folding KJo. And when considering post flop situations I think GG's case is 100% defensible. He's considering his skill, opponents skill, his playing style, his position etc. and concluding that KJo from this position is net unprofitable. Or so minimal it doesn't make the cut based on his personal risk aversion.

Now the real question (and your question) is: from an exploitative standpoint what will be a profitable range given what we know about the villain.

So as I mentioned earlier, against that 33% btn opening range (again I just used Miller's ranges as a baseline:

22+, A2s+, K2s+, Q5s+, J7s+, T7s+, 96s+, 86s+, 75s+, 64s+, 53s+, 43s, A7o+, K9o+, QTo+, JTo = 33.3%

our KJo is 50%

Considering hot/cold equity only and heads up:
Pot is 16 and its 9 for us to call we need 36% equity.

So if we only had $9 left, clearly we could profitably stick it in.

But we have a stack and an assumed equally skilled opponent has position. All equity is not created equal. In applications of NL Holdem Janda stresses this point and suggests it leads to many small leaks in all aspects of most low stakes players games. Here positional disadvange will prevent us from realizing our 50% equity and as or more importantly it is more likely that more bets go in when we are behind than when we are ahead since villain will be making more informed decisions in position than we will oop. We are more susceptible to RIO situations. We will be bluffing and value betting with a significant information deficit. So against an equally skilled opponent the immediate preflop odds are, as GG suggests, a small piece of the puzzle and we must have an equity advantage to level the playing field.

Obv with a significant skill edge we can profitably defend with less of an equity advantage. But here we are talking about an equally skilled opponent.

So what range to defend with and how? Assuming reasonable stack depth (btw excellent point made above wrt neutralizing positional adv with lower SPR), I really want Suitedness in my favor. It gives us an equity boost (in our KJ example from 50 to 53%.) and its going to improve playability since we will sometimes be flopping draw or back door draw equity sufficient to bolster our barreling decisions.

One note though. As stacks become shorter I do think dropping the weaker suited combos in favor of more high card (Offsuit) combos will be correct.

I also think we should have a modicum of board coverage. So in addition to pocket pairs we want a few medium suited connectors in our range and a few Awheel suited combos.

At low stakes it can be hard to get a handle on how wide a btn is opening in a steal spot since so often there are limpers in first. But up to this That 33%ish btn opener I'd 3! Something like QQ+ sometimes JJ, AK some lighter 3! With A4s, A5s and something like 9Ts. I'd call with suited broadways, all pairs, AQ and Axs down to A8ish.

So I'm defending around a 15% range 3! 3%-4%ish.

Beyond this as he truly approaches that 33% or is in outright steal mode opening wider I respond as you suggest by widening my 3! Range somewhat linearly with more med-big pps and broadways for value particularly the Ax Kx stuff.

Again all this assumes big raises and a good player.

Against smaller pot builder looking raises I'm defending wider. From a theoretical mdf pov it would be correct to defend more frequently. Also it's not uncommon for those to be consistent with a wider range.

Obviously with a skill edge we can defend wider but we need to be willing to play beyond fit or fold and even against bad players it's not hard to make a mistake oop.

Incidentally I went back and sorted through some session records from when I recorded lots of hands in a little db app and it reflects my earlier comment that straight up steal spots where everyone folds to button tend to be rare at my games 1/2 through 2/5-2500 as there is just a ton of limping so even if 20% of pots got folded to btn and we are in the bb 1/9 and btn raises a 50% range, we would face this spot .33% of hands or about once every 3 hours. It's such a small sample that you will be extrapolating other showdown info from villain to guesstimate his range in that spot unless you have history.

So that's how I think about these spots in the bb. I hope I get some feedback on this post because I tightened up my blind play quite a while ago and have from time to time wondered if it's too tight. I suspect it's not and it has nothing to do with "comfort zone" it's more forced discipline.

And there is nothing wrong with that. But that's just it. Discussion over.

This could also simply be written in a hand ranking chart with consideration of V's button raising frequency.

Again, no one is refuting that OOP is harder than IP...and isn't that really the basis of this long passage?

------------------------

Ok, before we even get too far with the discussion below, I think we should discuss few underlying assumptions.

1. Why are we assuming that a "good" player is only opening 33% on the button when it is folded to him?

2. If H is routinely folding KJo, which is top 12.4% hand (according to PkrCruncher), H could literally be always folding to a raise in BB.

So if a good player sees that H is always folding in blinds, wouldn't it make sense to be opening a lot wider than 33%?

And I guess then the concept of "equally good" is up for argument because if someone who's always folding KJo would probably not observe BB's tendency to always do the same, and therefore might only raise button using a very rigid opening range.

That's the inherited problem of these equally good argument - it is a sliding scale.

If both players are playing fit-or-fold, then the advantage is more less neutralized with slight edge to player who's more likely to fire river thin. But if both players are equally skilled, then the frequency of thin river bet and thin river call would probably again be neutralized.

If both players have some sense of board texture (but with this underlying assumption, you would have to assume both are more likely to open wider than 33% pre in the given scenario, and both are more likely to defend with wider range knowing the opponent is opening wider than 33%), then advantage would go toward player with position. However, it would also mean that KJo has a decent equity advantage against such range.

If both players are really good, then defending with KJo is obviously necessary.

But before we go any further, discussion of equally good is becoming obvious that we are really discussing reciprocality. So the first question to the matter is if we are V on the button, do we think it is more profitable for us if BB folds or calls with KJo?

Great thing about LLSNL is that if you pay attention to player tendency, you should have a pretty decent grasp of whether to defend x hand vs whoever raising on the button.

The more I think about it, the more I think if we are folding KJo against a equally skilled player, it isn't actually equally good, but rather equally bad.

This would be a pretty horrible HU match to watch...basically a lot of folding left and right, and advantage goes to the first player who wins a cooler.

That's from the SB. BB we should be 3-betting a more polarized range. KJo plays very poorly against a 3-bet calling range. Would rather have suited connectors, value hands, bluffs that are suited/have blockers, etc.

Why do you think 3betting with a polarized range is better? Do you assume that V will 4bet/fold a lot and we get it in on the flop?

What do you do with bottom end of your range if V calls?

I don't like standard ranges but 3betting from the blinds should be a merged value anger rather than polarised because of IP opponents' tenancy to flat our 3bets rather than 4bet. Though obviously it is villain dependent.

If V is tight and rarely opens, then a polarized range makes more sense.

H simply shuts down once V calls with the bottom end and play for stack with the top end.

This is the part I can't get by, mostly regarding the strong wording.

It's obviously necessary to play a good player OOP? Is it obviously necessary to do this in order to be a crushing player?

I'll give you that good players can *perhaps* make this profitable. Heck, I'll even give you, as someone else stated in this thread, that folding *might* even be a small mistake (at worst). But stating that defending here is "obviously necessary" and other strong takes (i.e. someone posted earlier that folding is "really bad") seems really lolz-over-the-top.

Meh. We can just fold for our pittance we've already mandatorily put into the pot, move on to the next hand (we'll be in position in just two hands), and just keep crushing the rest of the table (where our money comes from). We'll do just fine if we folded here every single time. Will we maximize our expectation by doing something different some of the time? Possibly, certainly debatable, that's for sure; and as I've said, I certainly have no problem with good players attempting that if they'd like to. But it's hardly "obviously necessary".

GimoG

What do you think make up for the WR of a crushing player? Just constantly pound on the bad whales at some insanely high WR?

Isn't that what you do, just target the whales and really bad players? How is your WR?

Folding pre by itself is obviously never going to be a big mistake, after all, you are not actually invested at the decision point.

However, the idea is that if the spot with KJo is +EV post flop in the long run, and depending on the EV, it could obviously go from bad to really bad.

Using your argument, is it that big of mistake to fold AA preflop?

Not everyone is content with being a B/E player.

Only specifically for BB. SB should be generally linear, since if we call a lot of our range it sucks. BB can overcall and we are OOP vs both players, BB can squeeze, etc. That's why it'd be more standard to 3-bet linear from the SB.

BB we are closing the action, so we can continue with our medium strength hands. Generally the SB has a more narrow flatting range since they know they will be always first to act, so I wouldn't discount strong hands like AJo/AQo/A10s/88-1010, etc from their range (also especially since live players are not 3-betting as wide as they should be). KJo just plays really bad vs a 3-bet calling range, especially if SB calls, since we'll be dominated so often and we can't really flop/turn equity to barrel off.

Also, if we are 3-betting linear from the BB, we can't really defend against multiple barrels against high boards like Q high, K high, A high. By 3-betting linear from the BB, we are also letting BTN fold his weak Kxs, Qxs, Axs, Axo that we could get a lot of value from by just flatting.

Ok...not sure how SB was brought up and why it is better to 3bet with linear range (whatever that means)...

Still, why is polarized range better? What do you do with bottom of that range if we see the flop?

I am guessing linear means top of your range...

Well, I don't think adding the very bottom of your range in this spot is going to add value to your 3betting range. So if it isn't adding value to your 3betting range, why add the garbage?

I also don't think merging your calling range with top of range is more profitable for the calling range either, unless V is some trigger happy aggro donk who will fold a lot to pressure.

it makes very little difference being in the BB as opposed to the SB. The only difference is if a BB flats our light 3bet, then yes we might have a 3way 3bet pot and might have to c/f otf. Of course it depends totally on the two opponents, but that's not going to stop me from 3betting a super light button open.

I rather have KJo than a sc which won't even flop top pair or an overcard. Your not gonna flop a straight or a flush, and if you flop a draw you're still OOP anyway in a huge 3bet pot. I'm not 3betting for value here.

I recently posted my 3000 hour winrate. If 7.82 bb/hr is considered B/E, then yes, I'm a B/E player using this style.

FWIW, I would not consider folding AA preflop OOP to a good player (especially deep) that much of a mistake. I would consider shoving all-in a much better alternative than folding, but if for some reason that option wasn't available (or options regarding 3betting to very large where we can comfortably commit on any flop), the exact same arguments apply (i.e. it is certainly not a big mistake; I certainly wouldn't argue with those wanting to continue, but if you wanted to fold, I wouldn't take a hard line saying that it was horrible and you could still certainly do just fine in the game doing so).

GB/EplayeraccordingtonewtoughstandardsG