NL 2/3 live

I’m in the Cut Off with 300 stack with pocket Aces.

Preflop Good LAG (with wide but not crazy range) UTG raises to 20, new player who I don’t know UTG+1 calls. The rest fold I raise to 50. Both LAG and new player call.

Flop comes 9 7 2 no flush draw.

LAG and new player check. Hero?.

Need to go a bit larger pre. You're giving them too great of odds to call just about all of their range. Even just against the LAG, $50 is really small. With a caller in between, I'd definitely go at least $65-70 but usually closer to $75-80. It also sets you up for a PSB remaining.

As played, due to your awkward stack size and holding exactly AA, I would have bet really small on the flop, the same as you would with 99 since you block their value ranges and there's almost 0 draws here (JT or T8s are pretty much the only draws around), with the intention to shove the turn. Bet the same $50 again and then shove any turn if they call you.

Welcome to the forum, OP. Please don't post results, as it tends to bias people's responses. I edited them out for you.

What stack sizes do the Vs have? Is your $300 the effective stack?

Bigger pre, please. Pot is $60 with your call and you made it only $30, more, a half-pot bet.

On a flop this dry, I tend to C-bet both my value and bluffs on the small side. 1/3 pot bets are all the vogue these days, but I never use them at LLSNL, as I think it loses too much value, I go half pot, here.

Ok thanks for the heads up. Will leave the results out in future.

LAG had stack of 1500+, new player 350.

Thanks for the feedback.

A couple of questions:

1. Why is my stack size awkward? The buyin is 100-500 and I choose to buy in with 300. Is this a mistake?

2. What do you mean by “block their value ranges”?

Your stack size was awkward postflop because you made it too small preflop. Once both players called you had $250 left and the pot was $150ish.

On the second question, what I meant was that when you hold 99 on that flop, you don’t really leave anything for the other players to have. There’s only one 9 left for top pair and there’s no 2p combos that make a lot of sense. Your opponents just can’t really have much so you bet smaller and hope a hand like 88 or 66 gives you one or two streets worth of action. You can bet smaller here with AA, too.

Preflop is too small. If we were bluff squeezing, or even had a strong hand like AK/JJ, we wouldn't make it this small, since we'd probably want to have a chance at winning the pot outright preflop. Weak players may not notice / take advantage of this, but the good player from UTG might.

I like a small bet on the flop, ~60. It's easy enough for us to get our stack in on the turn if we want, we may as well give our opponents a chance to call really light, get out of line, or overvalue hand(s) we crush.

Can you explain this for me a bit further. I don’t understand. Are you saying we want to represent bluff squeezing or a stronger hand by betting more preflop?

What are you saying a good player in UTG would have taken advantage of?

He's saying that your sizing looks like it's begging for calls. You generally want to size your bets the same with hands that would prefer to take it down pre and those that would prefer action.

Exactly what Garick says. The only hands that are really begging for calls are KK/AA. UTG could take advantage of this by playing near perfectly against you, making big folds pre with hands like AQ/KQ/AJ, but playing pocket pairs as set mines, knowing they will stack you nearly every time they hit. I've even folded AK pre to this type of action against a nit that showed AA.

If you make it $70, you represent a far wider range, that includes more of a variety of value hands [AK, JJ+, perhaps AQ] along with potential bluffs like AJ/AT/KQ/A5s. Now a lot more hands that UTG holds have tough decisions to make, whereas they had easy decisions to a smaller, nutted looking sizing.

75 on the flop.

I'd go more like 100, but yeah, everyone is going to put you on AK and all pairs are calling your obvious cbet.

So everyone is saying make a bet of say 60-100.

What cards should I be scared of on the turn or river? How can I get a feel for if they hit a set? Could they be slow playing pocket 99 here?

In general the cards you want to be most afraid of are those that complete the highest equity draws and the most likely draws.

So in this hand the highest equity draws is T8 for the open ended straight draw (OESD). But is it very likely? Probably not if you've put in a big 3bet pre it's unlikely anyone calls with T8, and a lot of players won't rayse T8 in the first place. Never say never though, a LAG could open T8s from EP and a bad/tilted LAG could flat a big 3bet with T8s OOP - it's just unlikely so you shouldn't worry about it postflop - particularly when stack to pot ratio (SPR) is so low.

So on this board having 3bet big preflop and gone heads up (HU) to the flop I'm not really afraid of any cards on the turn or river - if they want to get it in (GII), I'm going to oblige them and if they flopped a set after calling a third of their stack preflop - good for them this time but I'm going to beat them in this spot in the long-run.

More generally how do we spot sets? Well, it's difficult, particularly when stacks are shallow. However, if stacks are much deeper it can be done against many weak low stakes players.

Firstly when stacks are very deep we have to be much more careful with our strong 1-pair hands. While we are happy stacking off for 100bb (or even 150-200bb if we've reraised or raised a big preflop pot and got a low SPR (<3) postflop) we really don't want to be stacking off for 200bb+ with only 1-pair in high SPR (>8 or 9? at the flop).

In deepstacked conditions we value preflop hands differently too. We'll open wider and with more good speculative hands. Deepstacked hands that can flop or draw to the nuts go up in value and big pairs and big unpaired hands diminish in value.

So if we're betting postflop deepstacked with a wider starting range we're typically betting a bit smaller compared to pot and we've got a lot of chips behind. If we're betting a 1-pair hand and we get raised on a dry board in those conditions we immediately start thinking we're up against a set (or 2-pair). Against some unbalanced players we can make very easy and very tight lay-downs.

On wetter boards against more balanced players when we get raised its much more difficult to know whether we face a set/2-pair or a draw. We certainly put sets in their range but we have to compare the number of sets to the number of draws they could be seni-bluffing before we decide whether we can continue.

There are some preflop give aways that can help us distinguish a set postflop too. For example if we 3bet preflop while deepstacked and another deepstack cold-calls ( calls without having already raised themselves or called the initial raiser) then we can often mark them as holding a pocket pair. Reason being is if they're calling getting less than around 15 to 1 stack to bet ratio (implied odds) and they're competent and particularly big they're OOP then the only hands that hit strong enough often enough to take you on cold are pocket pairs. Also pocket pairs are the hand inexperienced players are least able to fold preflop.

So when this player then wants to get it in postflop against string looking betting from you as the preflop 3bettor it's highly likely he hit his set.

Other evidence is players who are habitually set-mining. They'll typically appear very tight preflop but be limping in or calling raises rather than raising themselves. Then postflop they'll give up quickly most of the time but when they continue they bet big or raise flop or turn and want to get it in quickly.

Otherwise sets are just hard to see - they're the most disguised hand in holdem so you can expect to lose your fair share of largish pots to them. Conversely you can expect to win your fair share with your own sets. The key is to ensure you come out on top after both sides of the deal are summed. Key to that is to get big value from your sets and be cautious with your one-pairs in high-SPR pots.

I don't think any of these questions matter when we have this little stack left vs the pot size. When we see a flop with AA and an SPR of under 2, I think we're basically committed to going all in no matter what comes (not all at once, but over the course of the flop and turn generally, unless we hit a boat or something). We're going to have enough equity to do so.

We should not be afraid of any cards. PPs are drawing to two outs. They have about a 4% chance of hitting that each street. Any c-bet more than denies them that tiny equity. If they luck out so be it, but no need to protect against that tiny chance.

Oh yeah - yes they could be slow playing 99 (or any set) but if they are they're going to get all our money because of low SPR and our relative hand strength compared to their ranges (overpaid, top-pairs, disbelieving pocket pairs below 9s). Even if they X-shove you'll have to go with it at this stack depth.

I would raise to $60 with this stack size to offer poor ~8:1 setmining odds to my opponents where I'll then feel comfortable stacking off postflop (and given the SPR will be <<= 2.5 we'll never be able to fold postflop).

SPR is about 1.6. Flop ain't too drawy. But we're 100% committed and never folding (if someone outflopped us for 1/6 of their stack, good for them). I'd probably bet a 1/2 PSB on this ~drawless board of like $75, which will setup a $175 shove into $300 on the turn.

ETA: My guess is there are likely arguments for all types of bet sizes on the flop, anywhere from a small 1/3 PSB to a shove. Might be a bit opponent dependent, and board dependent (if this board contained a flush draw I think I'd lean to a shove, and if it was slightly drier you could even sometimes try to get stacks in over 3 streets instead of 2), plus might also be a good idea to switch up from bets sizes from time to time to not be as readable. The bottom line is that with this SPR we're never folding (we're never sniffing out a set and making a hero fold), so all the money is going in and how we actually end up doing that in this case probably isn't too critical (i.e. I'm not sure you could make a bet size on this flop where I'd respond "wow, that is horrible").

GcluelessNLnoobG

3! to $80 (3x+1x per caller), $100 otf, ship turn. Enjoy your new money!

check the flop and when somebody leads the turn minraise them, if they call check the river unimproved incase he has a set and fold to a turn jam.

Not sure if trolling, but if so, just a reminder that trolling strat threads is not allowed ITF.

I see no reason to make it $100. We only have 250 to get in by the river.

$100 is scarier to some people.

Could go like $80. $80. $90.

Basically, whatever you think will be the hardest for someone to fold to.

A lot of times a guy who is a "good" LAG will be programmed to call the same sized bet on consecutive streets. Then by the river he'll think "I only have to be good x% of the time."

It's not trolling, that's just how mrdestiny plays

/jokes

Mrdestiny usually advocates very aggressive and theoretically correct lines so I'm pretty sure he's just being ironic here rather than trolling.

/seriously

Certainly I wasn't taking his advice in post #20 as genuine strategy (quickly scribbles out latest note in "Ragequit's Very Little Black Book of +++EV plays")

/more jokes

Okay, so I’m trying to get my head around SPR now which I didn’t know about before.

What I don’t get about the concept of SPR is that it kind of negates everything I thought I was learning so far. I usually buy in with a 300 stack on a 2/3 live cash game. So basically any time the pot gets to say 100 preflop I’m usual gonna be in a low SPR situation < 3 so in these scenarios I should be looking to shove preflop or GII with TPTK+ postflop? People don’t teally seem to play that way at the tables I’m on. And this is when the effective stack is my 300. Sometimes it’s 100-200 with opponents stacks.

The thing I guess I don’t understand is this: What I’ve been trying to work on is my post flop play - cbetting, reading opponents, bluffing/semi-bluffing, calculating draws n outs, implied odds etc. But from what you’re saying this all becomes irrelevant if the SPR is < 3. I’m still not sure I understand why. Wouldn’t a read on an opponent that they have you dominated despite your top pair on the flop be better to fold than to GII on the flop or over the remaining streets? It could save you 250 of your remaining stack (assuming you started with 300 and you put in 50 preflop)? Don’t you lose out potentially by not post-flop strategy?

Also this is making me think about reassessing my buy-in amount. The option at these tables is to buy-in for 100-500. Is 300 a mistake? Should I be buying in for the max 500 so I get caught in these low SPR situations less often?

The issue is you're pretty pot committed. When the pot represents a large portion of your stack, you shouldn't be making tight folds.

That being said, you don't have to automatically stack off in low SPR situations, particularly when the flop isn't favorable and you went multiway.

Ex. if the flop is 9hThJh and there's significant action before me I'm snap folding black Aces on the button.

For the most part, this is why you should be raising more pre with strong 1-pair hands. Find the table's pain threshold where you only get 1-2 callers. If V outflops me after calling 1/3 of my stack preflop then good for them—I'm printing money on all the times they *don't* outflop me since none of their hands have that much equity against aces.

If you think you can outplay your Villain's, conventional wisdom is to buy in for the max. If you can't, you should probably not be playing at all.

If you're not comfortable stacking off with 1 pair in low-SPR pots, first step is to figure out why. Then either buy in for less (so it's trivial to stack off) or more, so your stack size is less awkward.

Buying in for the max isn't always the only good strategy though. Ex. there's one bizarre 1/3 game I go to with uncapped buy-ins. There are players there who live to stack each other super deep ($1-3k) and are quite competent at deep stack. I'm not yet very good at deep stack, so I just buy in for $300 and shove premiums. Many of them call for the chance to play against each other (and I often get outflopped), but in the long run this is a very profitable shove.