I agree with this almost to a T - Perhaps either the failure is my description of villain: I estimated he seemed to have some decent poker experience moreso than some guy who comes and gambles every weekend for 10 years at the 1/3+ games (ie, more knowledge than the 50-60 yr old "poker vets" who never quite grasp the game and just sorta play this intuition thing all the time) just not a lot of LIVE poker experience, hence the awkward way in which he holds his chips and puts them in, lack of assertion in movement as if every gesture is a question & i think he still has plenty of holes in his game.

For the most part yes - i absolutely do not adjust to most individuals who would limp/rr me here 2 times in a relatively short amount of time. I didnt want this to turn into a kind of "you either have the live read or its impossible to explain" situation nor a "my action is justified because i said guy has potential to take advantage of certain meta game thereby me adjusting in time with his adjustment is perfect strat" type **** either. Maybe its just one of those in betweens.

As for what I was describing above - I think i doubled down on lack of explanation: For the most part, most players such as the OMC in your example are not going to suddenly switch gears. Thats so absolutely true. For years i thought the guys who crushed seemed to have every tricky move in the book and now Ive come to this point where I try to play the most straight forward game I can possibly play and let everyone else level themselves into weird wacky stories about what is going on behind the curtain (its funny, i was going thru old saved posts and everyone should take a read at AEJones well post about the poker journey, there's a good spot about straight fwd play in there).

I guess the caveat i wanted to speak to is the player that seemingly has potential to adjust - spotting it before he realizes we spot it and adjusting in turn. Where I play, folks seem to have enough gamble to ramp up their ranges as we go short handed, at least the ones who wanted to play SH. I had tried to get the kid to play some HU with me instead of breaking table and going on a waiting list but he seemed a little demure to that prospect, which either means i was wrong completely and he is just some kid with a little home game experience hence the nervousness and not ex online 6max break even/slightly losing player who is making the switch to live poker now that he's 21+. shrug emoji, its like spotting a loose gambler vs a more difficult loose aggressive and smart opponent. Both players have the "guts" (we can wax philosophic bout that later) & can cram 500 on a seemingly random miracle river, but 1 player will have a lop sided range of mostly bluffs while another will have crafted an image that sets up a perception of a lop sided range of mostly bluffs. The former being the one we want at our table so we can start bluff catching a little wider the latter we want to avoid.

back to discussion - youre right though - there is a solid chance i miscalculated and made the wrong read and therefor made the improper adjustment. Maybe I need to dial that back some and miss out on potential value of being ahead of them before they realize i am & not putting myself into a situation where I'm merely getting ahead of myself and can easily fold to the limp/rr one more time. The benefit of that strategy is maybe now we embolden our opponent to do it a little wider now, but it gives us the opportunity to be a dealt a stronger hand that next time and let our opponent wonder "are they taking a stand and pushing back w/ nothing? or do they have a strong hand?"

I appreciate the argument tho - at least it gets us thinking or me

2nd part of this statement - i dont have many opponents who are putting me on AA/KK/QQ in any of these spots. I wish they did, I'd be ****ing loaded

Also - what I was trying to say earlier with regard to your post is: i think you are discrediting your post flop ability or the alterrnative is you are not putting in enough hours understanding how your opponents analyze the game. The way you speak of your opponents they seem to have some sick god like ability to just range everybody, especially you. I can see why if you play the way you folks are going to just give refuse action and thereby the perception is they are ranging you with big PP and/or monsters post flop. I think your problem is you dont understand Shania - I'll try to find the thread that explains this concept but i imagine it would help you expand your game a bit.

Shania:

http://archives2.twoplustwo.com/show...fpart=all&vc=1

Or as we call it these days, meta-game.

So I played this hand badly last night and hated myself afterwards, but I'd appreciate povs on how you'd play it.

2/5/10 (1k buy in) and in this hand, Chinese whale in BB re-straddled to 20.

Eff stacks 900

Folds to me in cut off with Ah 10 c and I raise to 60. Whale is loose passive and not overly aggro, but I'm expecting him to defend his straddle to a single raise 100% of the time

Decent TAG pro on the button flats. He and I have a fair amount of history. He's rarely OOL and he's one of those guys you rarely notice but he makes good decisions and he's sniffed out a few bluffs I've made on him in the past. He'll see me as an OK semi reg, on the nittier side of TAG and probably a little weak/tight. He knows my range here is quite strong and I think he flats all pairs from JJ down, probably AQ and a lot of suited broadways.

Everyone else folds.

Flop is KK10hh.

I check, he bets 75, I call.
Turn is offsuit 8, I check he bets 140, I fold and felt filthy dirty about the entire post flop play.

I hate my flop check, I'm not super keen on my call if I'm going to fold a blank turn and while I called flop hoping that may slow him down and or I could pick up equity on the turn, I knew he was betting 100% of turns.

I think the right play is c bet flop for value, barrell turn as a bluff, check/give up river but...I'd be interested in other POVs?

I think its just a bit more than meta game though because at its root, its the concept of constructing ranges, whether polarized, such as in their [AA, XX] example or balanced. Whether thats intentional or not I'd have to re-read again.

I think the application towards an extremely tight ranged player is obvious but is both meta-game as well as simply the basis of understanding ranges and why tight ranges are easier to play against.

terrible flop for your hand but good flop for your perceived range so yeah, I would say dbl barrel and ch/evaluate river.

If we've been caught bluffing by this guy more than once, I'd think we're not seen as weak/tight. Maybe there's much more history of us just going for fat value. Maybe we're seen more just taggish..?

Anyways, I took your range and modded it a smidge, but we're actually at a fairly substantial advantage OTF.



As far as extracting value, I think the best we can hope for is no more than 1 street. I don't see the point in double-barreling as a bluff since the only hand we can bluff off according to the range provided is JJ. BTW, I do think he actually is more apt to 3bet JJ & TT since eff stacks are like 45bb with the blind $20.

Based on description, it doesn't sound like V is super aggro, so I'd plan on firing the flop (1/3 - 1/2 psdb) knowing we can expect a check back on most turns & go into bluff-catch mode from there.

As played, gross but whatevs.

It's funny how this applies to my TT hand because of course I end up shipping into a 3betting KK. Still not completely sure if I'm being results oriented / mind in a fog due to current downswing / or what.

GcluelessNLnoobG

Tightest guy at the tables donks a 962r flop from up front, gets called in 3 spots (including two tightish players), then continues 4way (FOURWAYS!!!) on the turn and all of sudden ranging me for solid hands is god-like? Heck, you don't even have to attribute it to god-like reads (which it *clearly* isn't); you can simply attribute it to one of the most common properties players have: MUBSYness.

I'm not playing with poker gods, far from it. But I'm also not playing with complete fools either.

GcluelesscompletefoolsnoobG

Fwiw GG, the rake in your game went up. Pretty terrible idea to buy in short. All the extra $$ you put in the pot goes unraked. Your win rate will be like $5/ hr if you keep buying in short

I believe in the current environment (very loose and aggro preflop, very nitty and not payoffy postflop, questionable whether I have much if any postflop advantage against a fair amount of the players, etc.), that simply taking down relatively huge pots with dead money preflop (and untaxed) / getting stacks in preflop/flop is the best line. A shorter $200 stack makes that slightly easier to do than a $300 stack.

Gatleast,thatistheconclusionI'vecometoG

GG. Don't they rake on the flop/postflop? You should probably work on improving post flop, rather than shutting it down altogether.

Side note: You post a lot of hands and stuff. Seems like 95% of your posts argue your initial point, without *really* considering other options. Do you ever think a certain way about a hand, read some advice, and then allow yourself to change your mind? I'm not sure how often you're *really* considering other alternatives to your current line of thought. Stubbornness is the nut worst quality for a poker player to have.

Yeah, they take a rake if you see a flop. Which is why taking down a relatively big pot preflop is fine.

It's easy to say "improve postflop". A little harder to do if you feel a lot of the others have caught up in a lot of regards. Kinda like saying "why don't you simply run faster than 10s over 100m"?

I'm actively changing my game. Before I was better postflop than most others, so my game was mostly seeing a flop with them for cheap in a passive game and then raking in the money. I'm not stubborn enough to not change my game when I realize those conditions mostly don't exist anymore. I'm sure there will be disagreement with how to adjust; I think for my skill set, the route I'm taking is the best (current downswing withstanding).

GcluelessadjustmentnoobG

GG, if I told you:
- my villains were loose pre and fit/fold post.
- my image is consistently supernit.

what strat would you suggest that I use?

will take a long time for significant sample, but if you're gonna buy in short, I'd start tracking WR by # of BB brackets. Something like <60BB, 60-120BB, 120-240bb, 240BB+

I'm well aware of where you are going with that, and that's also an adjustment I've considered.

I'm simply not convinced it's going to be profitable when you're seeing a flop 5+ ways each time. While it is true that a lot of hands don't go to showdown, it is still my belief that in a lot of cases the best hand isn't going to fold postflop, and this multiway there is simply too good a chance someone is going to make a hand they ain't gonna fold. Yeah, there will be times I'll be able to barrel TP off their hand; I'm not convinced that is going to make up for the times I'm stationed by ~nuts.

GimoG

Hopefully, you'd tell me to see plenty of flops IP, float an insane amount, and rep scary turns/river like it was my job. I'd say "whoa whoa, these guys won't believe me" and you'd remind me that these guys are no dummies, they got a clue, so when I bet like I hit the gutshot, they'll believe it.

As I say, I understand what your saying. I'm just saying I don't think this strategy is going to work too well in multiway pots. You're simply going to be investing far too much money on early streets hoping everything works out nice for later streets (i.e. hope that no one has made a hand they can't fold, hope the scare card comes in that you can rep, hope that no one actually made the hand you're repping, hope that no one makes it more expensive for you to see later streets, etc.). It's quite a parlay, imo.

I'm not saying I don't try to identify spots where this will work.

GcluelessNLnoobG

Have you considered 3b iso'ing pre with hands that have nut making possibilities like QJ suited, etc?

This is interesting - i look at the same situation and would rather dbl barrel and ch/fold or ch/evaluate rivers with our hand here and check back the turn w/ something a little more robust like 2 pair say to defend our turn checks as well as induce the occasional bluff we can more easily call.

We can easily ch/fold many rivers and our line is strong so most villains are not going to try to turn made hands into a bluff that often on the river whereas the times we check back turn and check back the river we are at a bit more of a disadvantage as we have now given two free cards with less of an idea if we have narroed villain's range.

The benefit of the turn bet isnt as much value as it is sometimes he folds a portion of his range and decides not to bluff/continue since most villains dont go "i take X% of my range and bluff 100% of the time with it in these spots" - vs players like that, we then move towards a more balanced GTO approach which would dictate checking turn there.

What do you think? Im curious about your thoughts on this

We have two pair A kicker

**** i was conflating with another board in my head.

On a paired board i think its similar though - i would still bet the AT here and check back to induce with QQ/JJ and sometimes AA. We have a T meaning its harder for our opponent to have a T, so as far as what we get actual value from its smaller. I guess you could argue we are effectively betting the turn for value against the portion of his range that is Ax with X as blocker, J9 etc but I look at it more as exploitive vs opponents who are more likely to fold to continued barrels on runouts like this where we should have less bluffs. But with hands like QQ and JJ we can get value from more Tx combos that villain potentially can have here that villain may decide to bet VB on rivers against our perceived range that checks back turn and river.

Since we should be checking back some Kx here as well and betting some Kx on flop and turn, I think its ideal to provide our opponent the best opportunity to make mistakes. If we have a T, he has less Tx combos, so checking back turn means we should be ch/folding many rivers. Whereas with a hand like JJ or QQ, or some lower Kx, we can check back turn and ch/call more rivers if our opponent is likely to try to bet some Tx combos whereas having Tx means we are blocking more hands we beat, polarizing villains range a little more on the river.

If villain is aware of this, then obviously a different counter strategy is in order but I would rather give villain opportunity to fold turn when i hold Tx shutting out his equity on his semi bluffs and induce bets/bluffs form his range when we hold a hand better than Tx.

caveat: this assumes villain rarely turns small PPs into bluffs on the river and Im also giving villain a slightly wider range on turn. The range above seems rather disproportionately optimistic towards a range we are dominating always and we merely check down our T and scoop every time as villain only has a hand that bets when we check 10.5% of the time and doesnt always bet Kx those times either.

This is more of a general question for you guys:

How do you get more value and less callers with a premium pocket pair pre? I've tried betting 21 at 1-3 with QQ UTG only to get like 3 callers (1 of whom got there on the river with J9o).

The other day I bet 25 with AA and still get 2 callers who only folded to a big lead on the flop.

Tonight I bet 18 with AA, since the table was sizing generally smaller, and everyone folded to me. Is this considered a good outcome? Just winning the blinds? Did I just get unlucky in the sense that no one had a hand good enough to 3! ?

Should I work on my image more? I hate getting big pairs when I just sit down b/c idk what to do with them or how to size my raise (e.g. first orbit I have no reads on anyone on the table). It seems I either size too small and get myself into a scary flop or I just win the blinds. Tips on extracting more value would be appreciated.

In the AA hand, what was the board? Where did you open from? Where were the callers?

Specific hand histories will go a long way to determine how to play them. Your question is to vague IMO.