That's because better than 9 out of 10 winning live low-stakes players are nits. Which is understandable, you need to be a far more sophisticated player to win at live poker as a LAG than as a nit. I still think nits are annoying though.

Fold pre

Ah, I see. The clarification makes a big difference. The prevailing sentiment about AJo OOP is not 'never play it', but to let it go when you're likely beat.

AJo is probably one of the biggest losing hands as far as playable hands go imo.

I like folding it from ep, opening it if I think my table is weak enough. Usually get punished whenever I play AJo though.

AJ suited I almost always open with though. I think its way more playable and don't have nearly as much of a problem playing it profitably.

I definitly would advise folding oop to 3 bets with AJo. 4betting sometimes if the 3bettor has a wide 3betting range. Usually @ 1-2 live peoples 3 betting ranges are way to tight to do anything with AJo oop to a 3bet.

Definitly open raising to 5x @ minimum imo, you want to get it HU or 3 way action, or just take it down pf.

Your plan otf was to c/r ... why? Do you really assume you can get action from worse in a 3bet pot? You think AK or 10s are going to spazz out? If so then sure I guess. I think c/c is optimal though as played. Folding ott or river and that's why AJo sucks oop bc you rarely are going to like your hand too much.

Remember- in this case it wasn't really a real 3-bet, just a min-raise... you'd have to call with almost any 2 just because of pot odds.

As for the CR plan, I'm leaning towards it being a bad idea... but, it does have a couple of merits: 1) It would get the middle player out in case she was considering hanging around for another card with KQ which could catch on overcard to my J, 2) it would put the Button to the test- if he called or re-raised, then I would release my AJ to a turn bet unless I caught an A or another J.

So, yes, it gets worse hands to fold and better hands to call or raise. However, just check-calling down could end up costing even more.

For example, let's say the middle player checks on the flop, button bets $20, I raise to $60, middle player folds, Button:

Folds: I take the pot
Calls: I go in to check-fold mode unless I catch- if he checks behind on the turn, I might value bet the river...
Raises: I fold

Total cost: about $70

The hand as it played out:

Cost: about $80
If you decide to turn AJ in to a bluff catcher and end up losing: total cost about $160

So, cost is about the same (without bluff catching) but the first line has a better chance of winning the pot or at least defining the villain's hand.

Where am I wrong in this?

Gene, you are responding way too much and too defensively imo. Why not sit back and let a trend develop then respond to what people are generally saying? It's annoying to read a thread where every other post is by the OP, especially by the OP who is defending his play.

#1. This is a fold pre because of position. I cannot emphasize this enough. Keep in mind that position doesn't just allow us to pot control when we have a medium hand; it also allows us to extract value when we are ahead. It weak tables I will raise AQo and at strong tables I will fold it UTG. Yes, position is that important. AJo is a snap fold for me UTG always; I find that I end up value owning myself against better aces or whiffing and getting called OOP which us so annoying. If we are called in multiple places we aren't comfortable stacking off unless we hit a miracle flop (two pair or broadway).

If it were suited, I would limp it for straight/flush mining as long as the table wasn't too aggressive. At passive tables I'll limp AJs/AQs. At aggressive tables I'll toss AJs into the muck but raise AQs.

#2. You are way, way, WAY more focused on your own play than the other players are. You say that your UTG raises have been getting folds.

Bull. ****. They have been folding T2o. Most of them don't even know about position. Most of those that do vaguely know that it's important but they don't think that you are raising a stronger range UTG. Why don't they think that? Because they don't know what a range is.

Please to not overestimate other player's ability to follow your game, and please do not use that to start opening up your UTG range to over-represent the strength of your hands. In that sentence, I'm trying to write out the strategy you seem to be employing in clear poker terms as neutrally as possible. How did your strategy sound to you?

Postflop is pretty straightforward. We are losing control of the pot size with the raise and reraise, which is what we expect OOP. So we fold on the flop, unless we are okay getting our stack in (and we definitely should not be).

Also no, we really shouldn't be calling pre because of pot odds. We should be folding because our hand sucks against a 3-betting range and we are OOP. Think of being OOP as having -10% equity in the hand (this actually depends a lot on the flop texture but you get the idea). The only way we win chips is if we flop broadway or top two. Those flops are rare. We are not getting the odds for that call. If an A flops we will usually lose money. If a J flops we will lose or, if we are much better than our opponents, break even. If no A or J flops we fold and lose money.

So we're raising AJo because people are calling off all kinds of crap, but we don't want that to happen, so we bet big to prevent it? There just isn't that much difference from 5 players calling vs. 3 players calling.

Grunch.

If you are going to raise this, make it bigger IMO, $10 at least. If your raise is going to be called in like six ways anyway, then you could limp or fold depending on table conditions.

Once you get 3bet, even though it's a min raise I would fold without history. His range is still probably like 99+ AQ+ and AJo is basically the poster child for hands not to play OOP in a 3bet pot.

We actually fold pre-flop to specifically avoid hands spots like this. If this guy really hasn't been getting out of line, I doubt he is raising the flop with AK. He very likely has AA-JJ at this point. I would sigh fold the flop and kick myself for not folding pre. Fold turn... Fold river.

The EV is going to be much lower the more players there are in the pot even if we beat all there ranges in stove.

I think you also underestimate how much our equity drops the more players in the pot there are.

I'm trying to get 2- players to call, really. You can get 1-2 callers from UTG with ranges that AJ beats, though barely.

He's trying too hard to convince us (himself?) that he made the right moves. Playing a weak ace OOP is dangerous. It could have been worse. Pokerlistings Playing-with-deep-stacks

Opening UTG is fine. You are correct that people will call with Ax and all sorts of crap. You opened too small though, bound to get multiple callers, you won't have much success c-betting, and your equity will be a lot lower. People probably didn't pay attention to your $6 opener when you showed down KK, so don't convince yourself that they did.

Some reads on the 3-bettor would be nice.

In a vacuum, you can call the 3-bet as it is lol-tiny and you're likely to get a few callers behind you. Odds are too good. If you're uncomfortable playing OOP or have a hard time folding TP, just fold. Exercise caution during the hand.

When it gets donked otf and the 3-bettor raises over it I'd just fold, QQ+ makes up too much of his range.

Yeah, this. this is the truth in the avg 1/2 game.

With any raise preflop your shooting for 1-2 callers max. No one should raise thinking "gee I hope I get 4-5-6-7 callers"

In all but the tough games, raise this preflop to ~10-12. If you get reraised and you'll be OOP fold.

As played bet flop and fold to raise.

I would respectfully disagree, we are not getting AK/AQ to fold with any regularity against your average 1/2 villian

I will say this: For those advicating raising big pre with marginal hands like AJo oop, I just can't see how this is the way to make money in these games. Why are we trying to bloat pots pre oop when all we are really doing is lowering are ability to play skillfully post flop ? We want to be as deep as possible against everone post flop do we not ?? Im an advocate for raising small pre and playing post as deep as we can, obvoisly this is massivly effective stack/position and table dependent but as a genaral rule of thumb the deeper we are post the better.

Also with regards to the post about no one knowing what the word "range" means I gotta tell you this is BS now!! Although the majority of people are still making huge mistakes and the ranges they percieve are often times wrong its nearly impossible for a person who has played more than 50 hours in a casino to not have heard this word 50 times or more and for the vast majority they are gonna be somewhat to very curious to know what all this terminolgy means! (Its not 2006 anymore!) I heard a guy telling another dude to "go ahead and stove it!!" last week in a very loud argument about equity!!! I guess this is a bit of a derail it just gets on my effing nervs! What im trying to say is more and more people are adjusting (rightly or wrongly) to extreams of play! to say people are not noticing overly tight/overly aggresive/overly loose play is putting your head in the sand.

Anyway with all that said fold your AJo utg and certainly fold it to the 3bet!

Um, no, we want to make maximum money whenever people will put in money with worse. The reason live winrates for solid players are as massive as they are is that the average pot size is much, much bigger live than it is online (in BB terms). There's no real reason to sacrifice that for high SPRs.

It's certainly convenient to be deeper stacked vs bad opponents who will continue putting money in behind, but the reason for that isn't stack depth itself, it's so that they will have even more money to put in incorrectly. If we're playing 1/2 and V has just $150 behind, I don't want to "have room to play postflop," I bloody well want that $150 in my stack ASAP.

Once again I will have to respectfully disagree. Raising large from oop with hands like AJo when we are only 75bb deep is recipie to give your stack away as quickly as possible IMO.

Being relatively shallow is actually good for us in this situation.

If you're going to come in for a raise you have to come in guns blazing, otherwise don't bother. If you want to argue that AJo is a fold pre, that's another thing entirely.

After doing a little math I'm inclined to agree that from UTG (and only UTG) AJo is a fold pre in most games. We usually get paid off by worse often enough on Jxx, but not on really on Axx (not if our PFR is isolating adequately).

How so ? The shallower we are in this situation the easier it is for our villains who are in position to get there stacks in with superior hands and the harder it is for us to get away from it, it surely only benefits us when we hit the flop hard. This is very villain dependent (obviously) but are we just looking to get it in on Ace high boards now in many situations ? how about J high boards ? will it be tough to get value when an ace comes otf from worse hands now we are oop and have shown huge pre-flop strength from utg ? You really wanna build bloated pots here oop with marginal edges ? I say not.

Can you post the math you did ? How did you come to the conclusion "UTG only", Im not having a go Im just interested.

I guess I didn't cut and paste your post correctly. In reply to the first part I wrote:
That is a huge generalization. How can it always be correct to come in "guns blazing"??

Well, in LLSNL I assume that, in a vacuum, most people are willing to play a range of roughly: any two Broadway, any pair, any connector, suited gappers, Ax suited, Kx/Qx suited sometimes, A-rag occasionally. AJo is FAAAAAAR ahead of that range, but since we're UTG we have to clear 8 people's random ranges. Now, our basic strategy with big value hands is to raise in order to isolate the action to an average of, ideally, 1.5 players (which allows us effective postflop pot control). If you raise to a size that consistently gets called by 1 to 2 people, out of a field of 8, you're approximately getting called by a 18% range, which looks something like: [[22-JJ, A7s+, K9s+, Q9s+, J9s+, A9o+, KTo+, QTo+]].

Most LLSNL villains use very simple strategies and will fit/fold worse hands than top pair, which means that if we whiff we will usually be able to cbet into 2- people (with a good image) and get folds on the flop. However, when we hit, we need to get enough worse top pairs to call that we've got greater than 50% equity. With AJo, if you hit a Jack you will usually get more than enough calls from worse, but if you hit an Ace, you will have exactly 50% vs a calling range -- which is incredibly thin, likely uncomfortably so, being OOP.

A raise is inherently polarizing. When you bet or raise, you are laying yourself 1:1 on whatever money your villains put in, because you are effectively betting into a dry side pot. Therefore, for a raise to be +EV you need to have the expectation that you will win the hand better than 50% of the time, with or without showdown. When you put in a small raise that allows multiple people behind you to call, you are guaranteeing that that will not happen (because you will very rarely win without showdown, therefore you need to make your hand).

How are we getting paid off on a J high flop by worse hands and simultansly getting folds to continuation bets otf when we whiff ? Are we always taking a 1 stab line and then done with the hand ? Say we $150 effective against both are villains, we raise Utg+1 to 12 we get called in 2 places in the field (39) we wiff but we are lucky and the board is dry. What do we do ???? Lead for 25 and give up ? Do we really have much fold equity here against guys who will often call with top pair just to see if they can make 2 pair and people who will call there pocket pair because they think you have AK all too often and want to see what you do ott ?? If we get just 1 caller we the pot is now $89 with $113 behind now what ? Can we fire again ?? What if the the flop is wet ? Do we fire then ?? I presume your answer is no ! If the flop comes A high do we lead check fold the turn ? If it's J high do we just pile it in over all 3 streets because we think we are good so very often ?? I just see as lighting money in fire !!! It's only good fun when we flop huge (well I guess any hand is). Pre with have 45% equity against 2 callers if they call ATC and we are oop and to my mind we have very little fold equity to a 1 time stab against 2 guys sitting in a 1/2 game. Now
Take the same senario but we raised 13-17 pre (because we believe this is the sweet spot for 2 laggy callers) now things get even worse !!!!

I'm insta folding AJ pretty much always here but if I were to raise I would raise small so I can size my bets appropriately and figure out what kinda hands people have and get value where appropriate and bluff on good cards on later streets. (Hard to do oop against stations).

You can play more hands profitably in position when the stacks are deeper. Shallower stacks take away positional advantage.

Because people flop worse than top pair the great majority of the time, yet when they do flop top pair they can have a worse top pair than AJ (such as KJ, QJ, JT, J9s, depending on how loose/tight they are preflop).

It depends on reads, our image, how dynamic the board is and how scared V will be of overcards, etc.

Say we $150 effective against both are villains, we raise Utg+1 to 12 we get called in 2 places in the field (39) we wiff but we are lucky and the board is dry. What do we do ???? Lead for 25 and give up ?[/quote]
Depends on our villains and the board. Vs most people I will fire once on like Q72, but I might fire multiple times on 923 if they're the kind of V that's going to get scared and fold if the turn is a Queen or a King or whatever.

On the flop? Absolutely, because most of the time they will have absolutely ****-all, they can't continue. Any hand only connects to the board roughly 40% of the time. If V is folding worse pairs than top pair, taking a stab at any ragged flop is going to be automatically profitable.

Again, it depends on a lot of factors, but yes, on a lot of flops, with a strong image, we will be able to get folds a lot. And get paid off.

Raising small is burning money vs the average live lineup. Unless you can win without showdown via multistreet bluffs, you are not going to be winning the majority of the time (and you will be OOP multiway basically always), which fundamentally makes raising small -EV versus raising large or limping.

This would be 100%, unadulterated spew.