Hi Everyone,

I just started playing poker again about 2.5 months ago. Have been grinding pretty hard, probably about ~600 (700?) hours of poker during this time period. I've played on and off for the last 12 years, mostly off for the last 4 years or so.

I play mostly 3/5 at Lucky Chances in California. I'm the biggest winner in the game.

So I've just sat down maybe 10-15 hands ago. Won a couple smallish pots, so original 500 stack is up to about 575. My image is winning, aggressive and strong. Probably on the TAG-side of things. I'm a young-looking Asian kid, so probably seen as capable of making moves when necessary.

Villain 1 is older white gentleman, has stack of 1000+. Seems solid. Not one to make too many moves it seems like, but not a nit either. I asked him to change some $20 chips into $5 chips and he did so gladly and gave me a fist pump along and said something friendly.

Villain 2 is not too relevant, but older Asian gentleman. Probably on the nittier and weaker side of things. Has $250 (?).

Villain 3 is young, white kid. Seems solid. When I sat down, he was involved in a hand where he called 300 on turn with second pair vs. another guy's set a Kings, so he might be slightly tilting. Has like $1000ish.

OTTH:

I limp EP w/ 22. Villain 1 and 2 limp. Villain 3 in small blind bumps to 30. BB folds, I and others call.

Flop (120): A72 all hearts.

Villain 3 bets 65.

I flat with 480 behind for a couple reasons. One, I think a raise here looks really strong and Villain 1 is capable of folding TPGK+. Second, I sort of wanted to allow players behind to tag along with an ace. Please critique my line of thinking here. My plan was to jam or bet big any non-heart turn. Is anybody raising here?

Villain 1 announces raise very confidently and says 265. Villain 3 folds. What do I do? My gut tells me he flopped a flush. It's 200 more to me with 315 in the pot already. Is this a fold?

Although I am a big winner in the game, I've realized the ranging and math side of the game could use improvement. FWIW, I'm up about 40k in the 2.5 months I've been playing (which includes some 5/10 and 5/5/10 PLO). But I feel like I have no idea what to do here.

I would raise the first time around. Even if you just call, it's pretty scary and he will likely slow down on the turn anyways. Also, there are a lot of hands in his range that can't fold even if he's scared (AxKh, KxKh, even QxQh).

AP, I think a fold is good. It's hard for V to have limped a raiseable two-way hand here, and your gut and his betting action are telling you he's not bluffing.

Winning a few hands in 2 orbits, does not make you have a strong image in my opinion. People probably don't notice much.\


How does a guy seem solid within 2 orbits and he lost on a Kxxx board after calling a big bet on turn? What hands have you seen that gives this image?

I'm probably raising pre-flop or folding. I'm not open limping 22.

Flop is a raise yourself. Guy just raised pre-flop and c-bet this board. Value city.

As played all-in. Stack sizes are too small, hand is under repped and pot is too big along with he's not always sets and flushes. Has 2p in range, Ax big hearts.

V3 has very few flushes in his range: KQs, KJs, QJs, maybe QTs. It's much more likely he has a pair+high h. Raise to $200. I think the odds will be too good to fold. You have 30% equity against a made flush and a pair+draw.

As played, V1 has significantly more flushes. He has also has a ton of semi-bluffs. You're about 50/50 against a range of 6 KhXx semi-bluffs, A7s/A2s/77, and 8 made flushes. I jam.

Preflop: If the game is passive and your opponents will pay you off if you hit, then open limping with 22 is fine. If these conditions are not met you're better off folding or in some cases raising (in most games of this size that I've played limping here will not be profitbale). After the raise a call seems good given your opponents.

Flop: Raise. This is not the time to slowplay because A) you'll give the players behind you a chance to correctly call with draws, and B) even if nobody has a your slowplay will be foiled if the 4th falls because a worse hand won't pay you off and you may even get bluffed off the best hand.

As played, shove. If you shove and get called by a flush the pot is offering you 1.6: 1 when you're a 2: 1 dog. So your opponent's range doesn't have to contain many hands that are behind your set to make going AI profitable. I think there's enough of a chance that V3 has A7 or an A with a to make shoving (slightly) worth it.

Just my opinion...

Thank you for all your thoughts and ideas.

Preflop: I've been playing around with raising and limping small pps in early position. This game was playing quite passive and weak so I thought there was a chance it could get limped around. Off the top of my head I probably open limp small pocket pairs in ep about 20 percent of the time. In mp im always raising.

Maybe this is a leak if I'm never folding small pps when I'm first to open the pot? It seems different people advocate different ways to play small pps in these games.

Flop: I agree this is a raise. No need for deception here with three hearts. With two hearts is it still usually a raise? Or can a call here be ok? Ive been working on getting value from big hands and I want to incorporate more slow playing into my arsenal.

After v1s flop raise: I'm still torn about this. Because my intuition is telling me he's heavily weighted toward a flush. But folding sets is hard!

When should I post results?

You up 40k in 2.5 months? You crushing!!!! You don't need any help lol


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Meh flop is such a dumb spot. I think villain range is alot more narrow than what's needed to call. Barely any KhXx and A2s is severely blocked and probably not a hand he'd raise here. That leaves A7s, 77 and flushes with A7 also being watered down.

It's close. Ace with Kh or Qh has to be discounted with villain limping pf.

I prob end up calling in game.

I still make tons of mistakes though. There's always room for improvement. I play too aggressively at times and too passively at times. I'm probably running good too.

That 60 hours/week number shows impressive dedication. However, please do try to make sure you don't burn yourself out. I find that setting aside at least one day a week to do fun non-poker things allows me to be more relaxed when I play. I'm also a big advocate of exercise on a daily basis to try to avoid annoying health ailments (since we're already at a greater risk by handling chips all day).

This is a great illustration of the challenge of dealing with poor relative position. Our decision becomes so so much easier when we have this hand on the button. Not to say that calling the extra $25 is bad pre, since at that point our implied odds are better than 20:1 and V1 will have some big pocket pairs in his range (and he apparently isn't in much of a folding mood). Just to say that I think you'll see debate because there are drawbacks to both calling and raising in this spot. As you indicate, we do not want to lose action from Ax hands, but at the same time we don't want to lose action when the players behind us fold, a fourth heart comes on the turn, and V3 suddenly gets into more of a folding mood.

If you see a lot of people in your player pool who make min raises to "find out where they're at," then I think a min raise/slightly above min raise here could actually be useful. It may cause other players to optimistically put you on a hand like AT and decide that they have much greater equity than they actually have while holding a hand like AJ or 76. It could also cause the preflop raiser to get annoyed with you and do something spewy when the action comes back to him.

The thing I would recommend to you is to look at decision trees when you are away from the table. If you decide to flat the initial bet, you should have some rough idea (based on estimated ranges, equity, and EV) of what you are going to do when either of the villains behind you decides to raise. The rough idea can be amended when you make your decision if you pick up some kind of read, but in general you do not want to make the initial decision between flat or raise without taking into consideration how the EV of each decision will be impacted by the follow-on actions of other villains in the hand.

In this case, I would say that I am not going to flat the c-bet and then fold to a raise behind me. Flatting underreps my hand quite a bit, and I have 34% equity against the flushes in his range. On very rare occasions we get it in with one out against his 77, but that's life. I am happy to stick in 125bb here against a range that can have stuff like KQ/A7s/etc and see what happens. Folding a set when we do have the best hand is just really bad for the set mining venture in general.

Thank you for your thoughts axel.

At first I was playing super long 20 24 hour session but I've been playing much shorter sessions now. I read tommy Angelis elements of poker about a month ago and have been on a tear since. Quitting is something that's taken a long time to learn. Still learning.

Re: relative position is a relatively (!) New concept for me and something I'm actively thinking more about at the table. The idea is that it's best to act right before the preflop raiser? What other nuances/situations come up re relative position?

Re: decision trees. Totally agree. I did actually think about it before flatting and decided I was just going with the hand regardless but the guy made such a confident strong raise so I got confused.

I will consider the min raise idea next time I'm in a spot like this.

I've always been more of a feel player with just a basic understanding of the math and reading people's thoughts and logic in this forum is making me realize how emotional and impulsive I can be. Something to work on.

Thanks for your critique!

No problem. Glad to have you aboard.

I would also recommend taking a lot of breaks during a session. Just getting up to walk around for 15 minutes will help you mentally reset. I try to use these strategically as well (i.e. if I feel my image isn't so great, I'll go for a longer break and hope the villains reset their perspectives a bit).

That's correct. For relative position concerns it's best to act before the PFR, and worst to act right after the PFR. I would say that this becomes more important as the hand becomes more multiway and will also depend on things like the PFR's c-betting frequency and whether the other villains are observant of that c-betting frequency. For instance, if you're in the small blind and call a raise from a button raiser who c-bets with way too high of a frequency in 5 way pots, you now have to take into account that the observant CO will very often be waiting to x/r the nuttish parts of his range on two tone flops. By the same sort of logic, you will be less likely to be able to get value from the medium strength hands in CO's range when you do flop well since CO will see a c-bet and at least a call in front of him. It just gets tougher to make optimal decisions when you have to deal with the additional considerations that come with poor relative position, and easier to win a huge pot with nuttish hands when our relative position is strong.

The thing about the guy's confidence is that it can have a lot to do with his read of V3. It doesn't necessarily have to be, "I have KQ, I'm very likely to win this hand." It can be, "This kid is tilting. KQ isn't super likely for him. I don't think he even has an ace. I think my AT is good, and I'm going to make him pay to draw with that JJ that I put him on." The c-bet wasn't that big, so it's possible that he doesn't give the raiser nor you credit for very much and therefore is making an ambitious "protection" raise with less than a flush. I know that your call should set off some alarm bells off in his head that you might hold a flush yourself, but I've seen this player type make dumb protection plays often enough to think that this might be going on here.

Pretty sure this player always has a flush here. Old snug men don't raise A7 here. You're beat.

Ok posting results now bc it's fun.

So I think for a couple min and decide to ship. My thinking was if I call the 200 im not folding for 280 more on turn when he ships. I flopped set and whatever let's gamble.

He insta calls. Turn is another ace river is blank. He has 94 hearts for flopped flush. So much for my read of seems solid.

Got lucky. A few hands later pocket aces all in pf against two players. One pocket jacks the other not sure probably queens or kings. She was a nitty older woman. Pot is about 1300-1400. Flop has Jack turn is ace. I scoop.

Fun session. I quit after about an hour 20 min up about 1300.

For live poker, there's one other nugget in this kind of dynamic (old men) that might be helpful. Not as applicable here since he didn't make an all-in bet, but if that had been the case and action gets back to you heads up:

"I have a tough decision. If you show me a flush right now I might fold."

Some villains will ignore the fact that they are giving away EV and allowing you to play perfectly just for the sake of not losing this particular pot to a suckout. From everything you say, this guy might have been that type (although again, because he's not all-in he probably realizes it's not a great idea to reveal and literally play his hand face up with more streets to go).


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