Hi all,

1/2 at MD Live Casino. Hero $110, V (older Asian man) covers. HH: V limps and then calls 3-bet of $37. Flop: 4-8-10r. Opponent goes AI on flop for $120, V calls, run out is 3-4. Opponent shows AA, V shows Q4cc for trips. V says he likes to gamble. OTTH:

Hero limps behind in MP with 33, calls BB raise of $12. Four other callers, including V in LP pot $60.

Flop: Ks-Qs-8d. Checked around.

Turn: 6h. Checked around.

River: 3s. Checked to hero, who bets $10, V raises to $45. Folds to hero. Hero? Due to the HH, I felt compelled to call, even with the possibility of a flush. Was this a clear fold regardless?

Thanks,
DT

Trivial call. Not going to put that guy on a flush because he randomly raised the river. He could easily just not believe you have much, your line looks pretty FOS.

Top up pre and don't limp/call small PPs with a half-stack.

AP, gotta call.

Pre is OK if 6-handed pots are standard, but it could easily be -EV if they're not so standard.

Bet more than $10. As played people always have it when they raise rivers in checked down pots, but your sizing may have induced, so it’s close and I’d call.

Had you bet $45 and still gotten raised you’d have an easy fold, and you get more value.

How can you fold given the previous 2 streets? To say your hand is underrepped is a huge understatement.

This. If you're going to bet this river, it's got to be enough to induce any small/medium flushes to fold. As played, when you're raised it's really hard to know where you're at given the bet sizing and you're forced to make a call where you're likely beat. Note that had you bet $45 and gotten raised, you would have lost the same amount but would have high confidence that you were up against a stronger hand.

$60 in pot and hero has $100, there is no sizing that is going to get flushes to fold river.

We bet river for value, it's not a bluff.

Trying to remember the last time I saw someone bluff in a spot like this. The answer might be never.

Yes, you bet a little small, but it certainly looks like you could have a flush yourself. There was no action for 3 streets and then a flush came in and you bet.

It's a raised pot, there's a decent chance he has some kind of showdown value if he doesn't believe you.

I guess it's possible he doesn't realize the flush hit and decided to bluff or something but I think you are almost never good.

Snap calling here as played.
Our hand is underrepresented. If we had bet bigger OTR I could maybe see a fold, but not for 17 more BBs

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I think people bluff the river here all the time. I'd say bluff or thin value from V is WAY more likely than a flush. Easy call for me, of course he has it sometimes but then I'm just thankful the set was on the river not the flop. Tell V nice hand and ship the pot.

Action checks around on 2 streets, then villain raises on the river in a 6 way pot to the only draw that completes. I don't see how he has worse value here often enough honestly. Villain isn't checking back 2 pair or better on the flop or turn, so the only real value hands we beat here are K3 suited, Q3 suited, and 63 suited for at most 6 combos, and these might not always raise the river. Flushes are much more likely combination wise when you figure how loose this villain is. Trivial fold and be glad you didn't lose more.

You need to warn people that you play in wild games when you post your thoughts. This is not normal. Most LLSNL Vs, in most places (and I've played all around the US and a few foreign countries) bluff rivers far too little, and bluff raise them even less.

That said, given the odds we're getting, this is still a call, imo. It's just not one we expect to win more often than we lose, much less WAY more often.

Don't limp/call small pp's even when obviously it's the best play at this stack depth? Top up pre is such garbage advice and really does nothing to help discussion.

Garick - if the game plays that predictably, doesn't that make it somewhat easily exploitable? Just aggro up and run the table over? I know it's never quite that simple but directionally that should make sense. My games appear to have already made that adjustment so I generally nit it up and get sticky with any reasonable part of the board except against crazy aggression. 100+bb pots show up ~3 times an orbit when the game is in full aggro mode.

With regard to river bluffs, same game a guy bet $400 into $500 on the river with an A10993 rainbow board and got looked up by A6 and A6 was good (other V had 5d7d with no FD). Fired 3 streets with no equity or draws.

notsureifserious.jpg How on earth is limp calling to set mine "obviously the best play at this stack depth?" We are not closing the action, so we have no idea how many callers we're going to get and/or if someone is going to 3-bet. If we go HU, we're getting IOs of only 9:1 for set mining, which is way too little.
Don't want to further derail this thread, but yes, river play is very predictable and easy to exploit in most LLSNL games. The thing is, they are sticky with calls, so the correct exploitation is not aggro it up and run the table over, it's bet/fold the river for value relentlessly whenever you have SDV and make exploitative folds when most Vs take aggressive action OTR and you can't beat a good holding (which, of course, is board/action dependent).

Well if we limp and it gets raised and then it would be going HU then ok you fold. So you would open fold pre? Or raise ?

I don't ever play a half stack. If we had a full stack, we can pretty safely raise or limp/call here and still get good set-mining odds. With a half-stack, we really can't raise if there is any 3-betting going on, and we can't limp and get set mining odds if it's raised. So we're kind of stuck with limping, and hoping for no raise, or for multiple callers of the raise before it gets to us and then no one re-raising after us. Those aren't unicorn-levels of rare, but they're nothing to build a strategy around, and hoping for that outcome is definitely not "obviously the best play."

This is also why it went along with the comment that you called "garbage advice" to top-up pre, as a full stack gives us many more +EV options and responses to various actions.

Did you notice that I actually answered your questions instead of deflecting them with other questions? You should try it.

The short stack hate in this forum should stop.

Do you realize that short stacks also have +EV opportunities that are not available for big stacks?

There is no concrete evidence that I'm aware of that full stacks make significantly more money than short stacks, and short stack strategies are easier and lower variance to play.

All well and groovy but not automatically overcalling small pockets is one of the first adjustments if you want to short stack.

Short stack strategies are for just that, short stacks. Half stacks are neither fish nor foul. They are too deep for a lot of short-stack maneuvers, and too shallow for full-stack value extraction.

Also, short stack strategies are definitely not lower variance. They are easier, but they are much higher variance. This has been shown empirically, not just theoretically, by mpethy's statistical review, but is also very intuitive, as SS strat involves a lot of PF and OTF all-ins, which will usually be approx flipping when called. Obviously, a high variance approach.

Last, but not least, limp-calling to set mine is almost never part of a winning SS strategy.

Limp/calling is NOT part of a solid ss strat. Yes, open fold. You played this hand to gamble.

If only it was that easy. I'm guessing OP is short stacking on purpose and is up $10 on the session. Topping up isn't always an option, and learning what ss concepts still apply with a 50-100bb stack is crucial to being a good short stacker. Its really not that hard. If you can raise 10%+ of your stack pre and still get called on a regular basis, then we are right back in the ss wheelhouse.

Good points. Even $30 gets the job done. OP you have to b/f for roughly the same amount you would b/c or b/3! You can size down a little when b/f, but go too far and you start inducing bluffs you didn't want to see and good players will pick up on this sizing tell and start punishing you.

Wut?

Maybe if we were hu, or if the pot was bigger. In this spot, it is almost never a bluff or a worse hand value owning. The only reason to call is because the terrible sizing we chose may have induced some spazz.

SS strats require less thinking as you are faced with fewer decisions, but it is not easier. It's much easier to just say f-it and limp/call with any hand you feel like playing regardless of position, stack size, ect.... Its much more difficult to sit there and fold your marginal hands and watch the monkeys fling poo at each other and watch while the Kxs you just folded make the nut flush vs. a fish that l/c from ep with T7s.

Also I don't think you understand variance. SS is low swings, high variance.

BINGO!

This is something I struggled with in the beginning, but quickly came to the conclusion that anything less than 100bb can and should be played as a short stack. As I mentioned, if we can get 10%+ of eff stack in pre, then we are right where we need to be. The larger pf sizing we see in live poker allows for this because it's not out of line to raise to $15-$20+ @ 1/2 or 1/3 and this sets up good SPR to b/gii otf or for a pot/pot line to gii by the turn.

The reason I made this post is because OP already knows ALL OF THIS, but continues to post hands that violate the most basic, fundamental rules of short-stacking. (read: STOP LIMP/CALLING!)

I get that you are doing work away from the table to improve your game, but the most important skill any player can have is discipline. Knowing what to do is useless if we don't have the discipline to do it IRL.

Otherwise, we are just gambooling like all the fish.

Half stacks do have advantages over deep stacks, mostly being able to play a tight preflop range effectively against players who are playing wide ranges with hands that need multiple streets and/or implied odds to properly play. If a 200BB stack correctly opens a hand like 66/KJs UTG he’ll lose money to someone shortstacking.

It’s certainly not “obviously” high variance. A 1BB player obviously will experience less variance than a 100BB stack. Is there something special about a 20-40BB stack that makes variance go up?

This discussion comes up somewhat frequently and it usually comes down to a non-standard/incorrect understanding of the word variance. Where is this empirical evidence?

I agree about limp/calling. I was talking about the general attitude of the forum as it seems impossible to get an hand history through with Hero <100BB without tons of people telling OP to top off pre and play real poker.

FYP

A player with 1BB will experience MAXIMUM variance.