You can't create a $300 pot if you're limping in large hands. The times you go flush over flush / set over set is quite rare compared to the times you hit Overpair vs their top pair.

GG,

Learning to play the way that PNLHE and HOC teach you how to play is a lot like learning how to shoot a "granny shot" in basketball. Of course, a beginner who had no experience with basketball at all would improve his performance by learning how to execute the "granny shot. In fact, he would probably beat many of the basketball noobs who didn't know how to shoot the basketball at all, period.

Nevertheless, the basketball beginner who thought that proper execution of the "granny shot" was the "end all and be all" of basketball shooting would sooner or later get surpassed by far worse players than himself who, over a long period of time, actually learned to shoot the basketball properly (or even semi-properly).

GG, that is what happened to you. You make a decent 1/3 NL win-rate with your "granny shot" poker strategy even though it is a fundamentally flawed strategy because the other guys in the 1/3 NL player pool with whom you play have no fundamentals AT ALL. If you had never learned the "granny shot" poker strategy in the first place, and instead struggled to learn the proper fundamental poker strategy for beating live NLHE in the first place, then you would have eventually become a far better poker player than you are now.

This is hogwash. The biggest mistakes in live NLHE are preflop mistakes.

This whole idea of folding the best hand in a big pot on a river being a bigger mistake than folding the best hand in a small pot preflop or on the flop is OBVIOUSLY FALSE.

For example, folding AA UTG in a maniacal super-LAG donkfest is a HUGE mistake because you stand to win so much money from idiots who shovel in insane amounts of money with trashy hands preflop. Assuming a 1/3 NL game, you might say that open-folding AA UTG doesn't really matter because there is so little money in the pot. REALLY?!?!??! Does anyone actually believe this?

Meanwhile, folding AA to a big bet on a really scary river could be CORRECT against Villain's range (and even in thinking in terms of Hero's range versus Villain's range) even if Villain happens to have a bluff in that specifici hand history. This is true no matter HOW BIG the pot is and/or HOW BIG THE BET IS.

You have to think of mistakes in terms of G-Bucks mistakes. All this results-oriented thinking where you get extremely scared of having a non-nut hand in a big pot on turn/river where you are scared of stacking off incorrectly with an overpair is completely backwards thinking. If you decide to play poker in a way where you always have easy decisions on every street, that means that you are actually lighting 75% of your potential profits on fire. You still have 25% of your potential profits because your LLSNL opponents are so bad, but you are missing out on the other 75% that you could have had.

Something nobody is saying in this thread, and probably something that most will fail to properly manage...

TILT.

If you frequently get 4 callers to all your raises, it will, by definition, mean that you're losing a majority of the pots you play. Even if, it also means that it is the most +EV line.

If you can, from a mental health perspective, handle losing the majority of pots you play in, and your tilt control is working at 110%, then yep, go for maximum EV at all times.

If you're going to become despondent after the 5th time your AK gets cracked by 64o, and start to spew/steam off another BI, then perhaps you should consider thinning the field a bit and playing more like a human being, and less like a machine.

~~

I just love, , LOVE, sitting at a table where some LAG/PRO/Soul-Crusher gets his slow played pre-flop nuts cracked by some idiot fish. Blood in the water. Now the Pro is on monkey-tilt ready to spew a BI, and the Fish who took his stack is deep enough for me to start caring about him and showing him some attention.

+1 mirrion

Can this please be the post of the week?

GG, write a COTM on this subject. "Differences between LHE and NLHE".

FWIW, I am not in the "must open-raise AK/TT/JJ UTG+1" camp. There are sometimes GOOD reasons for open-limping good starting hands in the first 2-3 spots (very occasionally, you may even have a case for open-limping or overlimping good hands in MP/LP).

"I hate getting called in 3-5 spots when I open-raise in EP" is NOT a good reason. It is almost totally irrelevent in the decision-making process.

For those people who understand the fundamentals for betting or raising, bravo to you. You know how to proceed. For those people who don't understand the fundamentals for betting or raising, you aren't ever going to have really good results in poker. You may have better results than the hopeless fish who make up 75% of your 1/3 NL player pool, but you will be leaving tens of thousands of dollars of potential profit on the table every year.

I'm guessing one major problem with ATsai's comments is that they don't apply to 1/2NL and the vast majority of 2/5NL games I've played in.

At the average 1/2NL table, I can always open to 4-6bb with [JJ-, KQ-, QJ-, etc.] and get 3-4+ callers and be happy.

At the same table, I can open to 8-10bb with [QQ+, AK], and get 1-3 callers and be happy.

In doing this, I need to be worried about being exploited, like basically never.

There are 2/5 games and 5/5 games where I've played where this kind of unbalanced line would be decimated, quickly.

But the vast majority of the 2/5NL and lower stakes games... you can do it and get away with it almost always.

Lapidator,

There is nothing wrong with raising bigger with good starting hands when Villains are going to call big preflop raises with semi-trash. In fact, that is the best adjustment to those kinds of games.

The point here is that we should raise big preflop in LLSNL games when we CAN get called for big raises. Of course, we would want to get more money into the pot with a good hand (that gets us more value IMMEDIATELY preflop and will also lead to more value POSTFLOP as well).

We SHOULD NOT raise big preflop because we are "scared of getting called in 3+ spots." That is incorrect thinking.

Do you see the difference?

The bolded part is not true at smaller stakes. You're simply not leaving large amounts of $$$ on the table by trying to play the equivalent of "level-3 poker against level-0 and level-1 opponents".

Although, it is true that if your capable of crushing the smaller games, then you probably should be moving up in stakes, taking under-rolled shots, and trying to play more advanced poker to increase your win rate as measured in $$$ but not in bb/hr.

Raising bigger with good hands to extract more value from semi-trash is LEVEL 3 thinking?!?!?!

Is this April Fools' Day or something?

In case you are serious, raising bigger with good hands to extract more value from semi-trash is just COMMON SENSE.

And, raising bigger with good hands to avoid getting called in 3+ spots is the OPPOSITE of COMMON SENSE.

Looking down at my cards and seeing [X,Y] and thinking, "sweet, but I don't want to play against the whole table", is perfectly reasonable.

Mostly because I'm not capable of looking down at my cards and seeing [X,Y], and thinking, "oh cool, I'm up GB45,000 this year with this hand by playing against 6 opponents on average", and being happy about it.

Especially when I know that those 6 opponents are almost certainly going to play fit/fold poker and fold OTF, and will not put another $dime (in USD, not Gbucks) unless they out flopped me.

I think you are confusing the issue here. Both you and I are trying to raise big preflop with a good starting hand in a 1/2 NL or 1/3 NL game because we usually expect loose action.

The difference between you and me is that I would rather get called in 3+ spots than get everyone to fold. You and GG seem to be deathly afraid of getting called in 3+ spots.

And what I'm saying (which is exactly what this thread is about) is that unless you are playing the droolerish of the droolerish, we're never going to be exactly fistpumpy about getting in $300 postflop thanks to a $15 preflop raise seeing a 7way flop ending up with an overpair.

And, as I've explained before, building a $300 pot in a 7way limped 1/3 NL pot in position isn't very difficult. Taking the "worst" case scenario where we are called down postflop by just a single opponent, PSB/PSB bets builds a $180 pot for the river with $220 left for the river. Add just one more flop caller, let alone a raise at any point, and it can be trivially easy to play for stacks (so long as the opponent is willing to get attached to the pot).

When you get the 3+ players in, how do they play post flop?

Do they continue with hands that you still have dominated?

I think what you're missing is that it is only better to have more players seeing the flop if they're going to commit more $$$ into the pot w/o a monster, post flop.

I personally don't care at all if I can get 4 more players to commit another 4-5bb preflop if they're going to fold post flop (unless I have trash and want them to fold ).

I understand the math, and that it is technically more +EV to have more opponents.

I cannot control my tilt well enough to happily sustain losing repeated pots playing against large numbers of callers. Especially when I know I can double my preflop raise sizing, get a couple callers and just appear to be running over the table.

What's more, I watch "pros" all the time who cannot control their tilt. Take advanced lines against droolers. And keep reaching into their pockets.

Look at all the everyone talking past each other itt!!!

Since very very few go heads up in LLSNL, I think this is close to the equivalent argument as "how much should I raise to get HU?" for online. Live we're used to, and sort of plan to, play a hand 3- or 4-way. It's simply too fine a line to raise and get a single caller. Shouldn't we be striving to be in situations that optimize some balance between max EV and and minimum difficulty in our decisions?

Lapidator,

It sounds like you think that most LLSNL Villains will somehow manage not to lose the maximum when they flop TPWK versus our Overpair in 4+ raised pots. Maybe you think that they will suddenly decide to make a Hero Fold with T7o on T42r flop when we cbet with JJ into the whole field?

Even in bigger games (where recreational players and pros are more competent), most people cannot fold T7o on a T42r flop to a reasonably-sized cbet from the PFR into a 4+ raised pot. Reasonably sized cbet = whatever size that it takes to get someone to call with Tx.

So it seems completely unrealistic to assume that Villains in a 1/2 NL or 1/3 NL game are somehow going to be able to hero fold T7o on T42r flop when better/more solid versions of themselves cannot do so in 2/5 NL or 5/10 NL.

If you are having Villains fold T7o on T42r flop to your JJ when you cbet into a 4+ way raised pot, then maybe you have leaks in your game? Maybe you should work on cbet sizing? Maybe you should work more on understanding your table image and adjustment cbet sizing accordingly?

What you SHOULD NOT do is limp JJ UTG+1 in a super-loose table because you are deathly afraid of getting called in 3+ spots.

Look... I'll talk right... you talk left. Cool.

I thought this was what I was saying...

ATsai, I don't think we're going to agree on this issue, and that's fine. There's no doubt more than one way to crush this game, and perhaps the key is finding the route that bests suits your personality, strengths, weaknesses, etc.

But here's one thing I'll ask you:

If you were to take a beginner / noob at this game and try to turn him into a winner, do you think it would be more EV for them at this point with TP hands to encourage them to (a) create lots of bloated multiway pots, possibly OOP to tricky players or (b) thin the field, preferably in position / otherwise limp and ~nutmine? In my opinion, it is clearly the latter. It's *possible* the former route might teach them more longterm to improve to the superplayer you are shooting for, but I'm also guessing there is a good chance they go broke before that.

GgrannyshootingG

Can't wait to read all this when I have time this weekend. Seems like a good thread.

Don't trust my word on it. Ask my students if I managed to take them all the way from beginner/noob level to crushing LLSNL games (and mid-high stakes NLHE games for that matter).

Those students whom I have mentored from ground zero to 5/10 NL+ will tell you whether or not my "fundamental value-centric approach" works well. They probably can't speak to how bad your fundamentally flawed "I'm going to limp JJ UTG+1 if I think my EP open-raise will get called in 3+ spots" approach really is though. They would just be speculating on how bad it really is.

I know, ATsai, I love the SoCal games too. I played at The Bike on Sunday and it was like butter. Ask, Lapidatrix next time you see her -- I always get back from LA just amazed at how different the games are there. I love these games so much because of these guys who'll stack off for 100bb+ with T-rag on a T72r flop. GshootinggrannyG's mind would just explode once he sees what goes on down there.

I agree that one guy is going to put some more $$$ in the pot, because he hit. He's fit/fold, and he just 'hit'.

But I just took on all of the risk, and get none of the reward, against the other 3+ players who missed, and now will not continue.

At least one of those 4+ opponents was going to call a double sized preflop bet anyway. So why wouldn't I want to do that so that I can still stack off against that 1 guy, now that I've eliminated the risk of the 3+ who will miss and will not continue?

~~~

Very few 1/2NL and 2/5NL players at FW are stacking off with T-rag on a T72r flop.

Let me talk about this concept of doubling your preflop raise sizing to avoid those difficult tilt-inducing situations.

If you are successful at doubling your preflop raise sizing and still getting action from worse hands, then you have just done a good job at maximizing value. Good job!

Unfortunately, there will be a nonzero (possibly 50%) of the time that your "doubled preflop raise sizing" will result in folds all around. Now, that's a disaster when all those Villains who might have called a normal-size preflop raise are named Larry, Curly, and Moe.

Cliff Notes: 80%+ of LLSNL Villains are named Larry, Curly, and Moe. You want them to party at your club, and you don't want to exclude them just because all 3 of them want to join the party at the same time but don't want to pay the exorbitant "doubled price cover charge."

I just have to chime in an agree with ATsais points here and his thinking.

The fare of having several callers in a pot has gone out of control on this forum, especially from a couple of posters. You cant be too careful with AK or KK right? So you end up raising an amount who scares away everyone, thats for sure a disaster when you hold a good hand.

About a week ago i was in a hand where i was put directly allin by a semireg in a 3 bet pot on AK10 rainbow board, where villain had flopped a set of kings. He didnt put a regular C-bet out there, but just shoveled the rest of his stack in, wich was about 60 BB or so. "I dont want to get outdrawn, its the straightdraw out there and everything" he said.I was so amazed as i folded my hand i couldnt say a single word. Just, wow

Thats the extreme example of course, but i totally agree with those who says that this "raise big enough" has gone a little too far.

Well, maybe the litmus test is simple as this:

You raise JJ UTG+1 to $15 and you get the semi-expected 4 callers at this loose 1/3 NL table. Pot is $75. Flop is T74ss. Effective stacks were $300, so we have $285 left (SPR = 3.8). A couple LP opponents can be tricky / aggro. We're OOP to 3 of the 4 players.

If you're comfortable in this spot and know exactly what to do postflop from this point on, then good. You shouldn't have too much problem, so then you should lean towards raising preflop.

If you don't feel comfortable in this spot, and really have no clue what to do from this point forward, then maybe you shouldn't get yourself into this spot in the first place.

Fair enough?

I know this will probably get a lot of "learn how to play postflop better" comments. Which is possibly a reasonable response. But it's also possible we might be overestimating our postflop skills.

GcluelessNLnoobG

I'm skimmed this thread but for the most part I agree with ATsai.

Back to the original topic of this thread, whenever I raise with a value hand and get lots of callers, I'm happy because that is more potential for me to stack some fish.

In order to play multiway bloated pots we just have to have our villains dialed in and profiled. One of the things I've noticed over the years on 2+2 is that even with all of our talk of "it depends" I sense that a lot of us just aren't really good at profiling. Too often I hear someone say, "Villain was TAG...." and then go on to describe the play of the so-called TAG an in reality that player was a drooling station or a passive nit...

Here are some things to take into account when we play these multiway bloated pots, in no particular order.

#1) Hero's raising range. I think too many posters here have too easily defined of a preflop raising range. They raise JJ+, AK, AQ and of course when they get 3-4 callers on a 8 5 7 hhc flop they feel a bit squimish. LLSNL players don't fold their pairs or draws here meaning that for Hero half the deck sucks for us on turn. We don't want to see a J, T, 9, 8, 7, 6, 5, 4, or . One way to counter this is to have X percent of your raising range that consists of SCs, S1Gs, and middling pairs so that these sorts of flops hits you. The percentage of X is debatable, personally, when I have a strong image I prefer to have about 15% of my raises consist of SCs, S1Gs, and middling pairs and when I have a weak image and/or my table is exclusively level 1 players then my percentage is more like 5%. Note this is moreso for MP excluding wider BTN and CO raising ranges.

#2) Eff stacks. Being deeper favors the better player. Truth is, most LLSNL players just don't play well or comfortably at 200bb+. Playing deep works in tandem with our raising range, the wider our range and stronger our image, the more we can exploit our villains.

#3) Profiling our villains!!!! We need to understand our villain tendencies. If the board is semi-wet and an ABC rec-fish who normally blasts the pot when he is strong is merely check/calling or blocking betting then he isn't that strong and we can potentially move him off a hand or milk him for max value (depending on circumstance). If a passive nit is check/calling decent bets on a semi-wet board (and he is known to HATE draws) then odds are he is near nutted and just waiting for a safe river before he blasts the pot. The point here is that if we have been paying attention to how our villains play post flop then we should be very comfortable playing multiway bloated pots against them.

#4) Board Texture and Scare Cards!!! This is the bread and butter of multiway bloated pots. Understanding how to use board textures and scare cards, when to go for thin value, when to turn made hands into bluffs. When to prison rape our villains and shove for max value instead of going for some fishy check/raise that ends up checking through on river.

#5) Understanding/Adjusting to Villain Aggression. This relates to profiling our villains. But often, in multiway pots a villain will donk bet or take a stab at the pot or even go for a check/raise. These acts can be the best thing for our hands. When a thinking aggro or thinking ABC rec-fish donk bets that is almost always a "bet to see where I'm at" and we can decide to rep a hand, slow play, or float depending on circumstance. If action checks to us and we c-bet and the passive nit or some nit-fish check/raises us we can easily fold unless we are near nutted. Point here is, we need to understand what our villains' aggression means and how to exploit it (bet sizing and betting patterns is key).

#6) Image: When the table fears us because the cards have been smacking us in the face with AA, KK, and flopping sets that is one thing. But my favorite form of image relates to having a wide range and showing up with unexpected nut hands! When the table is scared because "you could have anything" I feel that is when we can seriously maximize our image and extract tons of value from the level 2 players. It is when we have this image that we should rejoice in big multiway bloated pots because we now have another avenue for winning. If the flop betting narrows the field to thinking players, then we should win a high percentage of the time if we have good reads/profiles on them.

Last point. Imo, I think the reason why most LLSNL players don't do well in these sorts of pots is because they just don't pull the trigger when they know they should or they don't fold their awesome AA/KK when the writing is on the wall that AA/KK is losing to 2p or better. They don't profile their villains and fail to take note that the donk/station is never folding no matter what you rep or the weak-tight player just tensed up when the board went 4-to-a-diamond-flush on the river and you're heads up but holding two black Tens--- bluff that biatch!

It's hard to give a definitive answer in an "it depends" situation, but the above quick list is my attempt. It is by no means complete or all inclusive by any stretch...

GL