Over my last 15 hours of play I have ran into essentially the same exact situation three times, and was wondering if this is just how it goes. All of these villains are different. Hero should have a TAG image.


Hand #1. Villain opens at a pretty high frequency, but loves to just call raises if there's already been a raise pre. I suppose he's more passive, but can still be pretty aggressive. I can't really label him LP or LAG, but he is a pretty big station. $400 effective.


OTTH


UTG straddles for $6, two limpers, villain makes it $25 OTB, hero 3 bets to $125 in SB with A Q and only villain calls.

Flop ($270): K 7 2. Hero shoves for $275, villain says "that's funny because I put you on AK," then calls with 44.




Hand #2. Villain just sat down, younger guy, based off of his 15 minutes at the table, he has played almost every hand and raised twice pre. $200 effective.


OTTH


Six limps to villain OTB who raises to $15, hero 3 bets to $65 with A Q and only villain calls.

Flop ($144): 8 4 2. Hero shoves for $135 and villain snap calls with AK.



Hand #3. Hero has never seen villain before until today and has been playing with him for an hour. Villain seems like typical loose passive, except he raises more frequently pre. He did show he has somewhat of a fold button, as he c bet a JT9r board HU, checked Q turn IP, then open folded to a bet on a brick psb river with AA. $350 effective.


OTTH

UTG straddles for $4, three limpers to villain OTB who raises to $30, hero 3 bets to $120 with A Q and only villain calls.

Flop ($258): J 5 3. Hero shoves for $230 and villain tank calls with 22.







Anyways, all three of these happened over my last three sessions, and I guess I hadn't been in these situations too frequently prior. In all of these shoving seemed standard as we either had slightly less than or slightly more than a PSB, with a range advantage, trying to fold out literally all three holdings. Should we just be x-f our A highs in 3 bet pots vs these types of villains and just shoving all value, or is this not normal?

All these flops are bone dry. You have no real business potshoving on any.

Cbet these flops with whole range 25% pot.

Wrt your point, when you start thinking "my opponents are so bad, how the hell do I beat them?", you need to go back to fundamentals and ask yourself why you are making this play (in this case shoving dry flops).

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Don't post results, I'm pretty sure you know that .

In all 3 hands your opponents seem to make massive mistakes both preflop and post, so be happy about that.
I can't really answer whether these are isolated incidents or just common in your games, since i don't play in your games. But generally you want to be valueheavy in these spots, if you are 3betting JJ+,AQ+ that's 32 unpaired combo's vs only 24 paired ones. So playing some of these hands more passively might be advisable.

H1 sizing pre is somewhat big given stacksizes. I also bet ~100 on the flop, instead of shoving. Gotta love the comment, tho .
H2 i might just jam pre. AP i'm probably giving up on this flop, vs this villain. Might shove with a bit more BD equity.
H3 looks ok but obviously still a awkward spot. Again we could make it ~100 instead of shoving, but this board is less in our favour than in H1, so i mind it less.

My main takeaway from this thread is that you need to learn to flop better.

Downbetting is viewed as weakness by about 100% of these player types and has no FE. For example, hand #1, we c bet $70, he calls, now the pot is $410 and we have $205 behind...We'd have more overall fold equity by just making the flop jam.

Because of the fact that this isn't really HH, and is moreso pointing out the extent to which I lack FE and seeing if this was normal, I thought it was fine. In fact, I think in this case it puts me at a disadvantage for learning if I didn't say what villains held. I just assumed these were exclusively x or shove spots.

As mentioned above, I don't like the idea of betting an amount other than shove, because odds are we aren't turning a pair and now we have basically 0 FE, if any at all.

So how are you playing topset, TPTK and overpairs in these spots?

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Mainly shoving, not always, but also I have x-f these flops, though I they've had slightly higher spr's

These are standard situation where you are being too aggressive. You make money against stationary leaning fish by making hands, not by bluffing them off. Don't try this sort of over sized bluff until you know that a villain can fold. Until then either make a probing bet or just give up on the flop.

Hand 2 in particular, if villain is snap calling you with AK either villain is a hard station and you shouldn't try to bluff them at all or your image is a lot more aggro bluffy then you think.

This is common at low stakes where people are used to loose/passive play. It doesn't matter if your reraise is obvious straight value, if your raising/reraising a lot your image looks laggy.

AQ is obviously a real tricky borderline hand where you could probably argue for lots of options preflop in these cases. However, if we're 3betting (which I have no problem with in all 3 of these spots) and leaving ourselves with just a PSB left (which is exactly what I'd be targeting), then I think a shove on the flop is standard. We're often ahead, we do have some semblance of FE (even though from these isolated cases it almost doesn't seem that way, but really, we do), and if we're called by one pear, whatever, we're still going to hit 3:1 having given ourselves 2:1 (which ain't bad when you factor in our FE).

ETA: Lol, after grunching it looks like I'm the forum aggrotard? Sigh.

Gnicehands,imoG

Hand 1 sounds like your typical live gambool player. Preflop isn't a "street of poker" and they love throwing in pot sweetener raises. At that stack size, jamming is fine, and he's just an idiot who got lucky here (calling is going to perform poorly versus your range w/ 44).

Hand 2 is just a cooler. He's playing 100 VPIP. He happened to have AK v your AQ. It's fine.

Hand 3 you might be able to check and see what happens. You could have the best hand.

This is hilarious.

OP, I think you should try the downbet with all your holdings on these dry flops in pots you 3-bet for a bit -- I also think this may be something to do with *your* image -- "Hero should have a TAG image" is what you say, but obviously you're getting snapped off by AK/44 here, so I mean, for somebody who has been there for 15 minutes, how do they perceive you? Are you a headphones/hoodie type, an OMC? I think you need to examine your own image a bit more if you're getting snapped off this light.

Interesting point that you and QuadJ made about my image...This makes me want to do a $4 BTN straddle every time to give me a full on LAG image, but play TAG.

I don't wear a hoodie or headphones lol. I'm a young white reg that's either silent, or social if other regs I like are at the table.

I really don't like the idea of a downbet with just a PSB remaining and OOP to boot; leave that for bigger SPRs, not SPRs of 1. Otherwise, what, we're planning on putting in 1/2+ of our stack to leave us with like 1/2 PSB left for the turn OOP with air and possibly not even getting to the river or flexing our FE? I don't see the point.

GimoG

That is exactly what I was arguing...Doesn't seem like a good idea

These spots are where fundamentals will really increase your winrate.

First point - all these boards are not range cbets.

Hand #1 - K72r: Not a range cbet board BUT AQo is always a bet.



The SPR is around 1 so from a theory perspective the EV of 1/3-1/2-full pot bet size are all the same.

From an exploitative angle - full pot bet size is the worst option

This is because you are simplifying the game tree against bad players. Against bad players- you want to complicate the game tree.

You are essentially making poker a 2 street game where Villain can just close his eyes and call and not worry about the turn or river. Against bad players you want to force your opponents into situations they have never been in before, that is where they will make mistakes and you will profit.

Okay Hand #2:

Again not a range cbet - we should be cbetting around 58% of the time with our range.

AQo is always a bet though



So in this spot - AK should always be calling from a theory point of view. So Villain played it well and there's not much we can do on this board.

Hand #3

This hand is the closest one to a range cbet on the flop.



AQ is a bet around 86% of the time.

So your opponents are exploiting (probably unknowingly) you by calling you down light with any pocket pair on boards where most of your high cards miss. The counter exploit is to start checking a lot more - we get 3 benefits from this:

1) Villain may check back his low pocket pair and let us over realize equity with our high cards
2) Villain may bet his weak holding and we can shove our overpairs.
3) Because the SPR is so low (between 1-2) we can ALWAYS get the money in either OTT or OTR. So checking the flop let's us complicate the game tree while also letting use over realize with hands like AQdd.

Again this is an exploit so as a default I would just cbet against an unknown - but once Villains start exploiting us with Hero calls. We can adjust our strategy to include more checks.

I don't really agree with the above.

All a person with a small pair on these boards is going to do facing a really small flop bet is go "well, I call cuz, lol $30, and maybe you'll stop betting", and then on the turn "oh, just another $50 and maybe you'll stop betting?", and then by the river "well, I can't fold now obviously, as it's only $50 to win the whole pot" (or whatever). Shoving the flop puts his weak pair hands (which we want him to fold) to the test and is the best way to maximize our FE (imo). They'll sometimes get it "right" and make the hero call (although they'll be getting it wrong overall as a decent amount of the time we simply have them crushed), but some of the time they'll fold. And when they don't, simply practice sucking out the 25% of the time by the river.

We're also realizing our equity overall a whole heckuva lot less by checking than shoving. Shoving guarantees we realize our equity. Checking (and hoping he doesn't bet) does not.

And plus: we're often ahead with our A high. Giving a free card (or even awkwardly facing a bet with A high) seems pretty bad to me.

And meanwhile we can just play super exploitively against most opponents and simply check/tarp when we do hit TP on drawless boards (and maybe mix in a few shoves for protecting against the times we do this with whiffed overs if we feel that is necessary, which it likely isn't).

GimoG

Well to be honest, all of your opponents played their hands fishy. Those small pairs probably shouldn't be raising 3 or 4 limpers and definitely not calling those 3-bets with the stack sizes in play. The good news is that all you have to do is tighten up your range to like AK, TT+. AQ is one of those hands that isn't always a 3 bet for me. I think even fish have learned not to call with hands like AJ & AT to a 3 bet, so if they're not calling with those hands and they're not folding small pairs, then what's the point? The only situation I would 3 bet would be Hand #1, reasoning being that with fewer limpers the general population will raise wider and with more limpers they raise tighter.

Interestingly, i disagree that cbetting pot maximizes fold equity. There are tons of players who have massive sizing tells. They jam when they are on draws, but bet 60% pot when they want value. This might not apply to you, but villains can also think that way.

Betting 40% pot, then following up with a turn bet can appear to be more value oriented. Plus, you can actually adjust your play. Some players will defend the second barrel, and some will give up. You can guess who will do what and adjust accordingly.

Even though you are both tight and aggressive, there are different kinds of aggression. Even passive players pick up on who stacks off with ace high and who slows down with ace high, and if the latter bets, they are given more credit.

Edit: Don't discount the fact that many players are never folding, but they also might not bet. By always stacking off, you are making serious ev mistakes against this player type. Obviously not all or many players are like this, but you can be more exploitative. Additionally, among the population that are never folding, you can just fold! There are plenty of adjustments you can make, even if those adjustments would not be gto against competent players.

I am very reserved to c betting anything besides all in with these SPR's.

With that being said I appreciate you running it through a solver, and the analysis as always, DooDoo.

We're in SB for all of these hands. 3 betting AQ>>>>folding AQ>>flatting AQ

Yeah I guess I wasn't very clear in my post - but I advocate checking at a higher frequency against players that will not fold a pair.

We play our range vs regulars
We play our hand vs fish

As far as shoving realizing the most equity. Of course going all in will realize our equity the most - that is implied. Our goal isn't to realize our equity - it is to make the highest EV play.

Interesting call downs by population. You can consider mucking AQo/AJo against players like these since those hands don't flop as well. And just change your 3bet range to hands that flop better (more suited/more connected).