The math part is easy (off the table). Range, now that's hard. All I can say is keep practicing it. Try to set a range for each hand you comment on ITF and check your assumptions with posters you respect. Don't mirror-image. Make a range based on the villain profile, not based on what range you would have if you took the V's line.

I always assign a 10% "LLSNL V's suck" factor.

This is just awful. You can discount certain hands, but you can't eliminate everything. That's horrible MUBS. I disagree with OP that all KJs combos are in V's range here, but the idea that there's no AJ at all is just ridiculous. I mean the other QQ combo isn't even in there. <shakes head>

So awful. I'm shoving here every time in this particular situation. I have never running to a 15-20 BI downswing.

You are just obsessed with your ego soul read but totally ignore the realistic range.
You are basically trying to avoid all high variance situation by giving up EV


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He could have AJ, but IMO the odds are lower because most people check/call with it on the flop. If we include AJ equally with AA/KK/JJ, which I disagree with, then you can justify getting all in. I just dont play that way without a read.

Its not "so awful". We all have different playing styles. I push my stack all in in lots of situations where other people wouldn't and get paid off and other people do it in spots where I wouldn't. If it was so awful and I was passing up so many ridiculously easy spots like some people think this one is I wouldnt be winning. I'm not saying only a fish would shove here. I see the merits in it and you will be right some times. You will be wrong some times. Im just saying I dont like it without a read. I know players that I would shove all in against here with an underpair.

So set a number of combos. Just don't say "only X," when what you mean is "I think X is most likely."

Fwiw few truly tight regs in my game are calling my 3bets vs their EP open with AJ let alone KJ. Most won't open AJ in EP unless there are some loose passive fish behind them (though, to be fair, that is usually the case).

Keybattle - why are you so adamant and personally critical with Mike? He made no claim to have a "soul read" he accepts he's folding the best hand sometimes, he's just erring on the side of caution. If it works in his game that's great. If you're playing in mike's game and see that his read is off and can demonstrate that to him I'm sure he'd be more than happy to adapt. You're not in his specific game so I don't blame Mike for sticking with what he knows works.

Will it work long term? Mike doesn't know, you don't know and I don't know. I just wish people all had a little more humility on here.

Personally I'd continue my QQ against an unknown and against some regs and all recs in my game but there are some regs where I think folding, even with this little behind would be correct. By that I mean specific regs in my game that I would fold to.

I think folding vs an unknown is a mistake but it's likely not an enormous mistake and I don't know how Mike's player pool play on average so I'm leaving Mike to decide for himself with the benefit of my insights on my player pool.

Of course I think X is more likely. Thats why Im folding. I dont base my fold on the odds of him having a certain hand based on the odds of him having that hand dealt to him (number of combos). I base it on the odds of him having a certain hand based on how Ive seen others play THAT hand over thousands and thousands of hands in the past.

In other words, I dont subscribe to the whole "number of combos" theory. If Im in a spot where a guy can have a made hand or a draw, I dont base my line on the odds of it being a draw being higher if there are more combos of draws than made hands. I base my decision on the odds of him having a draw based on how Ive seen him play a draw in the past compared to a made hand in the past.

In this case, V is an unknown to hero. I think making exploitable fold in this stack depth with QQ to some very tight nitty regs are fine.

But giving low stakes unknown so much credit for having AA, KK, JJ here every time is way off. If he believes an unknown V have AA, KK, JJ every time, I don't know what else I can say except "soul read".

Think about equity and spazz factors of general low stakes players, folding QQ here to unknown is huge mistake.

Personally I don't hate mike at all. I'm just being critical on his strategy.



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Im cool with that. We all play differently.

You're completely missing the point. For one thing, AJ is a made hand here. For another, combonatorics doesn't make every possible hand an even probability. There are 16 combos of AJ available, but only 15 of AA/KK/JJ. That doesn't mean that AJ is more likely than on overpair/set here (still don't understand why the 1 combo of QQ is not in the range you give, btw).

Instead you say (for example, change these numbers to suit your interpretation) "I estimate that he opens AJs in EP all the time and AJo half the time, so there are 8.5 combos in his opening range. Then he folds half the time to the three-bet, so that leave 4.25 combos. Of those, he donks flop 25% of the time, c/c 50% and c/r 25% of the time, so he only has just over one combo of AJ in his range here."

Sorry to keep bothering you, but how did you come up with our equity vs this range? Pokerstove? Mean average of equities vs each hand?

My example of a made hand and a draw has nothing to do with the hand in this thread. Obviously I know AJ is a made hand.

In the bolded paragraph...are you saying thats what I say, or thats what I should be saying?

What you should be saying.

Pokerstove. I hand enter certain combos of a given hand to make the number of combos correct for how often we estimate he could play tht hand that way.
That (process) is what you should be saying. The percentages given were just examples.

I know you estimated those numbers and percentages but if they are correct its definitely a fold. If they are even close to correct and I think they may be close, its a fold. Your numbers would give him 1 AJ combo and 15 AA/KK/JJ combos (and 1 QQ which I dont even think about because its so rare). That's 15 hands that beat you , 1 chop and 1 that you beat. Unless Im misunderstanding something, that's a trivial fold.

I dont think about hands in combos like this. I think about all the thousands and thousands of hands Ive played in the past and use that experience to estimate how likely it is for a guy to have a certain hand in a certain spot based on all action up to that point. Thats what I mean when I say I play by "feel".

In the end though, its the same thing. My experience tells me that its way more likely he has AA/KK/JJ than it is that he has AJ. "Way more likely" isnt a number but in game I use my estimation of "way more likely" and compare it to pot odds and make my decision. The numbers listed above are 15:1 hands we are behind vs hands we are ahead of. Thats "way more likely" in my book.

Those are not my numbers. Those are me showing you how to get honest numbers, rather that just saying "he only has AA/KK/JJ here." I gave my range in post #3 ITT.

No offense but "feel" generally means "I'm too lazy to actually work it out, so I'm just going to go with the first thought that popped in to my head." People will take your strat more seriously if you actually work it out, and your on table estimates will get much better if you put in the work off the table.

There's a reason your strat gets flamed so often, and it's not because people are jealous haters. It's because you don't seem to think about poker deeply at all. Once you think more deeply, your posts will get less absolute, offer better and more actionable advice, and help you develop more.

My nephew plays piano but he cant read music. Would he be a more well rounded musician if he could read music and understood musical theory? Maybe so, but he can play his ass off. He can listen to any song on the radio and play the piano parts like a professional musician down to the last detail after practicing it just a few times and hes a hell of a lot better than most people who can read music and have a degree in music theory. He plays by ear and has ridiculous musical instinct.

So maybe I cant explain my thoughts as well as others can do here which makes me sound like an unsophisticated player. Maybe I dont know the ins and outs of numbers of combos but what I know how to do is take peoples money playing poker. I never even heard anyone refer to the "number of combos" of a certain hand until recently and Ive been winning playing poker for 15 years. Im sure I would be a terrible poker coach because half the time I cant explain clearly why I do what I do. Its mostly instinct. Attacking peoples weaknesses which are much more obvious at the table when you see it than can be explained away from the table.

So people can flame away. I offer my advice and people are free to take it or ignore it. I have several friends that I play against daily who read these threads and just laugh their asses off at the difference between what you guys think of me and what the people who have to play against me think of me.

As for being "too lazy to work it out"..nobody is working it out number by number to the degree that is done here in the 10-30 seconds to make every decision. Im sure Ben does all the calculations that he puts in his posts in 30 seconds while at the table, right? Not possible. Im not going to start second guessing my decisions that have made me successful up to this point by trying to work out all the combos and percentages of times a player will have each combo. I watch and study each player every hand and have a very good idea what their ranges are without being able to put an exact number on it.

I played over a million hands online in the past and never used a HUD. Somehow, I still had a respectable win rate.

My posts may never "improve" based on your standards of a good post because I cant put my experience and instincts into words so people are free to ignore them if they like.

You know, I used to be an Arabic linguist for the US military. I was very good at my job, but I didn't know the rules of Arabic grammar. I just knew whether something sounded right or not.

Then I started teaching Arabic, and I had to learn both the rules of grammar and how to explain them to my students. My first thought was that it was just for their benefit, since I didn't need it. But you know what happened? I got even better at Arabic.

That part wasn't my strong suit, but it still helped, and it tied everything together in ways that improved my inuition and use of context as well. Those who ignore the part they're not naturally gifted with hit a ceiling based on their natural gift. Those who also work on the part they are not naturally gifted with take it to a whole other level.

I am not a math guy by nature. I force myself to practice the math of poker because it makes me better.

if your posts aren't helping others and aren't helping you get better, why make them? This is a strategy forum in which we study strategy. Study a little.

Touche

I actually am trying believe it or not......but so far its not sticking

For some it may be laziness that stops them applying maths at the table. I suspect for many it is just too difficult.

I have an A in A-level maths and a science degree but I am flat out awful at maths. I'm literally bad at counting and my working memory is so poor I can't hold more than one number in my head at once. Serious mental arithmetic is pretty much impossible for me without learning things by rote (like times tables).

I don't know why I'm bad at it but I suspect it is just the way I am. To suggest I'm lazy would be akin to me telling anyone under 6 foot tall that they're lazy for being short

Nevertheless I do benefit from slowly doing the maths away from the table and memorizing the results or at least the implication of the results. Without doing combinatorial analysis it isn't intuitively obvious to me that, for example, in certain spots some players' ranges are value heavy or contain mostly air or lots of draws. Working through it in slow times give me insights I can use at the table while playing by feel: it gives me a better feel basically.

I've read a lot of Ed Miller's books and one of his pieces of advice is to look for how and where loose players try to get rid of their bad hands. Loose players have a choice with their bad hands; fold them, call them or bluff bet/raise. Experience will enable you to quickly identify a folder, station or bluffer but combinatorial analysis seriously improves your ability to predict when they are going to over-fold, call too much or bluff too much.

Then it is easier to spot the rare times you can bluff a station, can fold to a bluffer or should thin value bet a folder.

Just get it in, not enough money behind to really worry about it....