Yeah, my EP limping range is still basically still 99-/Axs/suitedbroadway. If table is very loose / tricky, I'll often limp my raising hands as well, often to limp/reraise (or sometimes re-evaluating AK/JJ/TT against who is doing the raising). My table is typically quite loose and can involve tricky players, so I really don't like building bloated multiway pots OOP with mediocre hands; but at the same time, I'd like to see a flop (hopefully for as cheap as possible).

Standardish raise in my room is all over the place, so really have to evaluate the raise size, number of callers, stacks sizes, and postflop quality of players. If it looks like flop is going to go 5+ ways, I'm typically going to get in there with any hand I limped. If it's less players, I'm typically only calling the raise with a pocket pair to setmine (and if it's going to end up HU OOP to a decent player, I'm folding); players will all have to be really bad for me to call a raise with the other speculative hands in a shorthanded pot.

Yes, I always play with a $300 (100bb) stack (I top off after every hand). But if effective stacks are smaller ($150 - $200) then it does make things easier in that we can play TP type hands far more straightforward, in that we can simply raise to 10% of stacks preflop and then stackoff postflop with TP, and these shortstacks sorta nullify being OOP to tricky players. As stacks get deeper, then I start getting more passive OOP preflop.

Gstuck93bbsin2015,sowhatdoIknowG

Read trough this whole thread and I agree with most of what you say. I get that this is written years ago but would like to know how you balance bluffs otr when you seem to bet polarised ott. Meaning after turn goes c/c what bluffs you have when betting otr. Seems to me that plan of often potcontrolling ott makes your river range rather weak and valueheavy. Obviously it works wonders against bad players so this might not be an issue for you at all. But from theory pov its rather dicy as a default, imo.


-huor

In the end, I just don't believe there is a lotta great spots to bluff the river at this limit. Do these spots ever come up? Of course they do, and the key is to be able to recognize them when they do and take advantage of them. But I really don't think about balancing or anything like that, especially since overall I believe these spots are fairly rare. My typical session is ~8 hours long; if I've found 2 occasions to bluff on the river in that time, I'm having a pretty maniac/bluffy session.

IMO, the majority of this game is about getting appropriate value for our hand. Bluffing with the worst of it makes up pretty small part of our $$$. I actually think a much more important concept in terms of $$$ is the ability to fold when beat; I shudder to think what depths my current downswing could have reached had I not been making some ridiculous (but I believe correct) folds.

GcluelessNLnoobG

Yeah I dont play live all that much so prolly you're right about it being rather pointless observation but I do think that against thinking villain you're gonna be in trouble. Its not so much the bluffs that make you direct € its the fact that your range can be perceived to have bluffs thus inducing lighter calls and not allowing your opponent play perfectly against you. Again I must say that all this is prolly just pointless debate since you for sure know live villains tendencies and leaks better than I do. FWIW I also don't think you need to balance much at small stakes. So I guess I'm just saying things for the sake of the argument


-huor

I basically agree with your thoughts, but the key point is above. At a table full of good thinking villains, no one will win long term due to rake.

Gstep1laywithbadplayers;step2+:step2+doesn'treal lymatterG

True. If there is anything I've learned from this thread, it's the fact that if there ever is llsnl table full of good thinking players I'll change tables.

But while you're at that table, be sure to kill the unicorn and sasquatch for their pelts before you move.

Hence the "if there ever is.."

FWIW, I've played at lots of tables where (at certain moments) I've wondered if being anything other than a very slight winner is possible. As soon as the ******edness level of all our opponents decreases dramatically, the rake really begins to take affect.

Geachtableisdifferent,andcanvaryveryquicklywiththe addition/subtractionofaplayerortwoG

To add to gg, if you don't see an obvious donator at your table, you should be changing tables in most rooms.

Most good tables are made by 1-2 players being too loose.

I do this all the time and then think 'why the heck did I just teach him about blockers?' And I do it for the same reason. Even after all these years I still enjoy talking about the game.

Btw I never realised how similar our age/experience/backgrounds/philosophies were. Even down to the home recording part

Great thread.

The #2 strat thing you can do is stand up for bad players when they use fish logic. Keep bad players in the game and keep them having fun. Don't let others make them feel like idiots.

The #3 thing is say/do things to tilt others.

#1 is not talk about poker at all. keep people having a good time talking about other things.

I always change the subject and/or ridicule those who talk poker at the table.

You post any of your crap? Put up your SoundCloud/etc. link so we can all lol/wince at your stuff too!

GIguaranteemystuffisworsethanyours,ha!G

Amen to this so much.

I try to avoid any poker discussion at the table and talk about sports or women or cars or hell, even politics. Anything to avoid talking about poker. Unless I'm re-enforcing some fishy logic by needling my dealer friends about how unlucky I am when they deal.

A lot of the games I play in have a lot of regulars though, and some of them are starting to talk more and more strategy at the table. Much of it's still bad, but terms like "EV" and "range" are getting tossed around and *some* of the strat is actually correct. It's nice when a wannabe grinder fish tells you exactly what he's thinking, but please stop educating the completely clueless players!


Spikeraw22 and I play in some of the same games, and he posted a perfect story about a guy we used to see all the time: Here


Don't tap the glass. Given the choice between #2 and #3 ... choose #2. Keep the fish happy and enjoying himself. Don't try to piss him off to tilt him.

#3 isn't for fish, it's for regs.

God, I can't remember the last table I was at that half the table wasn't busting to spout their pot odds wisdom. :screwy:

I actually love when people start talking strategy (I don't ever initiate it), I can usually determine in about 10 seconds if they understand it or are just using terms they can't apply properly.

Half the time they think "pot odds" means the pot is big I need to call.

I recently had a fish ship me a massive 200BB pot getting it in on the turn a huge dog (he had 22 percent equity, more reasonably he would expect to have 27 as I had two blockers) and the dealer, as he is walking away, says, "wow that's unlucky, you had to call, you had so many outs!"

I always just play along, "yeah man we were basically flipping what can you do?"

Listening to how others think is very good Intel.

Actually, that's kind of right, just without precision. If the pot is $1000, and it's $1 to call, you are getting great pot odds, because, well, the pot is big (relative to the call amount)

Actually, he's right. If you have a lot of outs, you have a lot of equity, and so you will call.

On playing poker when married: 90% of my comments to my wife when I get home are "I had fun, it was a good game" (always true, though fun is subjective when losing).

Sometimes I say I won a little or lost a little but she doesn't really care because since the beginning my poker bankroll has been 100% seperate and logged meticulously. I've taken from our income for poker exactly 0 times and she or I has used poker money for anything else exactly 0 times (unless it was planned and drawn from the roll). This is the way it should be and is one of the major seperators between you and the people you play with who have no actual idea whether they are winning or not (spoiler alert, they are not but they think they are).

I am always flipping when on a draw.......I'm either going to catch the card I need...........or I'm not.

jezz.. you are a beast. ~3 hrs is my attention span. Slow pace of live poker just drains me out. how do you able to play 8hr sessions?..

Once you start playing longer sessions often you will get used to it. Frequent short breaks help. I take a lap around the casino and grab fresh air just for 5 minutes to reboot.