2/5 NL Foxwoods. Hero been at the table 3 hrs turning his initial buyin of 500 to 1950. Against random villains won AIPF AK vs 1010, turned set of 4's and open shoved on an 10 7 3 4 got called by OMC's JJ. Turned a flush with j9 on an A465 got called by random asian's AA and flush held.

Villain question is "HEK" (Todd Boghosian) and on my immediate right. Normally plays 5/10 and up but claimed to be killing time waiting for his seat to open. Ironic as 5/10 was 8 handed but I thought better than to call him out on it. Some would say he's THE best player at foxwoods. Masterful hand reader, great LAG. Loves to put pressure on weak opponents. Due to a couple suckouts hes down a few buyins but on his 3rd 500 clip as worked it up to around 1300.

One of HEK's suckouts was my doing. I shoved over the top of his turn bet with AK on a J923 he had two red QQ and I binked the 4 on the river. He also 4 bet folded to my 5 bet shove with AA, he flipped 83off and laughed saying "good bet". Kicking myself for not flatting in position and letting him try to barrel me off but oh well

2 limpers to HEK who makes it 30, hero looks down at 108 and decides to mix it up and make it 90, fold to HEK who 4 bets to 225, Hero calls.

Flop (467)
107j

HEK leads for 310, Hero jams.

I put HEK on exactly AK at this point because I saw him play AK almost exactly the same on 2 other occaisions (4 bet PF, similar sizing, similar lead sizing). Both times he went to showdown as a winner. So range-wise, had him at AK/AQ/AJ.

How good/bad of a move was this? Does my line look strong? is HEK as AA or KK is this a big enough shove to get him off it?

He only has a pot-size bet left, right? He seems to have you doing exactly what he wants. He's never folding AA/KK/QQ/AJ and not betting that big with AK given his stack.

I liked your 3-bet pre but plz just fold to the 4-bet.

why are you bloating pots pre at 250 bb+ versus a player you admit is better than you?

To win money. Im not going to let him run me over.

You accomplish that by getting 20% of your effective stack in pre with t8s?

Also he's never ever folding AA/KK versus you here if he can really hand read

First of all preflop: What are your thoughts behind the 3 bet without just some random button clicking like you describe as "mixing it up"? What are you trying to accomplish here and why? What kind of patterns have you observed in this highly skilled villains game that you can take advantage of by 3 betting with 10-8 suited? Mixing it up in various ways can be golden, but to be successful doing that you need some more in depth plan for the hand than just clicking buttons if you see what i mean. When he 4 bets you pre i would have just folded the hand preflop and aborted my mission.

As played i like your jam on the flop IF you are doing it because you figure to be doing okay equitywise against LAGs 4 betting range that probably C bets close to his whole range on this board after 4 betting pre. You are well ahead of both AQ and AK, and even if he does have KK or AA you have decent amount of outs. Just getting folds from all his AK combos here is a strong argument for shipping the flop.

What i dont like in your reasoning though is that you are putting villain on one hand spesific, and that is AK. Its more productive to look at ranges compared to one spesific combo. Yes you might be 100 percent correct that he plays AK this way after observing it earlier on, but he also most likely is skilled and smart enough to play the top of his range like for example KK or AA the exact same way.

Gil, after blowing his first few buyins he started to open to $30 literally every other hand. He was getting a lot of folds and didn't really get played back at at all. I wanted to steal from, plain and simple. I felt 108s was a good hand to do it with because if he flats im well disguised and if he 4 bets, which I DID have a plan to flat in position with, my hand is VERY well disguised. I felt the edge of position huge here as I picked up a bet sizing tell on him with his flop c-betting. I noticed when he bet like 3/4ths the pot on several occaisions he only had over cards. when he bet like 1/2 to 2/3 pot he had top pair or monster draws

I think it's easier for you to call and attack him on threatening high card flops in position. It hits your perceived range more than it hits his.

You got really lucky here - what you doing most of the time you flop badly? You're losing 45 bb. That's hours of a good player's win rate.

Semi-Grunch fold to the 4-bet, this assumes you had an aggro dynamic, as played cry-ship. Fold out AK and be 35 percent against AA-QQ

I understand where youre coming from, but once he 4 bets you pre here he is basically taking away your biggest advantages by lowering the SPR (make you put in more money preflop=gives you less wiggleroom in position postflop and also reduces your implied odds)

What you have described to me here as the reasoning behind 3 betting him with 10-8 seems much more like random buttonclicking than a well thought out light 3 bet. You are trying to fight fire with fire, wich i personally believe is not a good adjustment.

Just one question right off the bat.3 betting light and with a weak hand as 10-8 suited first of all requires alot of fold equity to be a +EV play in the long run. If youre getting called every single time when you 3 bet with this hand i doubt you will be turning a profit against a highly skilled villain. Against this sticky almost hyper aggressive LAG, how do you gauge your fold equity preflop in this situation? I would go ahead and guess that you have close to zero fold equity at this point with your 3 bet.

Also by calling the 4 bet you are facing a bloated big pot with 10-8 against a highly skilled aggressive villain who you describe as one of the very best players at your casino, who most likely will be able to barrell you off of your hand at the vast majority of flops.That does not sound like a very good deal to me.

Depends on his sizing. If its 3/4ths im shoving any flop that's J high or less and feeling super confident. I had about 10 different instances where I noticed his flop c-bet sizing tell. when he bet 2/3's pot and went to showdown, it was TPTK, NFD OTF, overpair, flopped bottom 2 pair, etc. The times I saw him lead 3/4ths... he bet river, got called showed down AQ high, he lead low flop, got shoved on by a player 40bb deep and he mucked, and also he c-bet flop in another instance, got called, checked to the river and he and other player both had AK high lol.

So... I feel like exploiting these leaks/tells would actually INCREASE my winrate. My theory is that a tell this consistent needs to be exploited. My cards don't even matter. I can tell when he has it and when he doesn't.

This thread reminds me of my sessions very early in my poker journey where i was playing alot with a very skilled LAG in underground clubs in Oslo. He was extremely aggressive sky high 3 bet percentage and also 4 bet percantage with deep stacks- and double and triple barrelling postflop, attacking scared money (nit like me) like a wild tiger.

Here are some ideas in terms of adjustments i made against this skilled villain wich made him lose alot of money to me and made him extremely frustrated at that time (wich was very unusual for him). Later on he has actually revealed to me that i was the one player he could simply not beat, wich was pretty cool:




- My aggression towards him was almost rated for pure value and close to zero bluffs. Why? Because he simply was not folding, if he was it was very rarely, especially when playing deep. If i 3 bet him pre he was either calling me every single time and made my day hell with aggressive postflop play or he was putting pressure on me with a 4 bet. So i waited very patient until i was at the top of my range,wich was causing him to have illusion of fold equity, when in reality i was so strong that i was never folding to him.

-You win money off LAGs by making big nutty hands and then let them do what they like best: barrell off like crazy postflop. Avoid as much as possible to peel flops light with the hope that LAG will put on the brakes on the turn/river: guess what, it aint happenning. So you can burn alot of money by calling flop bets light only to fold to further aggression on later streets. Wait until you get a big hand you want to go with, and then let him blast off his money to you.

- Keep it as simple as possible in general and avoid FPS (fancy play syndrome). That will make your life so much easier against a skilled LAG. Valueheavy basic ABC poker with a solid plan for the hand works almost surprisingly well against these kind of villains. You dont need to "steal" from them or make light 3 and 4 bets with A3 suited or 67 suited to be successful- more often than not that kind of plays will get you in trouble.

-Try to think about ways to give the LAG an impression of having huge fold equity in certain points in the hand when the reality is that he has none. I was getting pretty creative with this adjustment at some point and it can payoff really huge for you if done correctly.


Anyway, i dont mean to derail your thread OP- but thought this pointers to possible adjustments would be relevant in this thread. I probably also have forgot some important things, but it will come back to me i hope.

Also why did we 5 bet shove pre with AA versus super LAG? My guess is SPR was such that seeing a flop had to be more profitable.

Tbf if we don't 5-bet shove AA we can never really shove, which is okay against many 2/5 players but against uber lag you can get them to call off many times especially if you have 3-bet them before and have an aggro image.

Agree 100 percent. Seems like a premium spot to just call the 4 bet keeping all his bluffs in the hand and let him barrell off postflop with the illusion of facing a weak range and having fold equity.

4 bet was huge, we were both around 1k. 4 limpers, he opened to 50, I 3b 140, he 4b to 380. I mean..... is it THAT bad? according to every HH ive ever posted, I haven't played ONE street in ANY hand correctly.

Gilmour.. define a well thought out light 3bet please. and if you don't mind, can u give an example of what players/scenarios/hands to 3 bet light would be. I just watched a 30min youtube clip of phil galfond (200/400 NL expert) advocating 3betting in position versus players who open wide and often is optimal strategy. Not trying to be a smartass whatsoever, I just wanna hear your advice on that.

What is uber LAGs number 1 weakness and leak? Relentless aggression and barrelling with all the brakes destroyed, both preflop and postflop. The best and most effective way to win money from LAGs is to let them do what they love to do: show aggression and barrell away.

1) Youre letting him fold all his weak 4 bets and thus play pretty much perfect against your range. By letting him get away that easy with his bluff/light 4 bets you are losing alot of value. Dont misunderstand me, a shove is not bad or horrible, thats not what i am saying. I am just pointing out that its available lines that are even more +EV than 5 bet shoving. Like a burger is good for dinner, but a quality beef tenderloin with a good sauce tastes even better


2) Galfond is an online cashgame expert and i would assume (correct me if i am wrong) that his advice/vidoes is prepared and made to give advice to online cash players at pretty high stakes. I would be very careful to make fast conclusions that those advices can easily be applied to low stakes live games. Those are two very different envirements.

Hey, that was sort of why I thought flatting with AQ was a good idea in that other thread!

OP, I think I like your posts because I used to have a lot of similar leaks to you, and sometimes they even pop back up on me. That's Tendler's adult learning compentency theory for you.

Across your threads...
[x] preflop aggression for aggression's sake
[x] pissing matches with Vs
[x] not always having a clear plan
[x] choking up on the bat when my aggression is countered even when I have a strong hand or strong draw
[x] calling when I should shove for fold equity
[x] calling hoping things will work out
[x] playing back at the toughest player at the table because I'm tired of folding cards I like okay instead of trying to exploit weaker players

It can take a long time, even years, of play and study to get rid of these leaks, and I can tell you from personal experience that even when you think you're miles past them, a long stretch of bad variance can bring them all back, which will extend that stretch even longer.

One of the most valuable things about posting in this forum is that I am either going to learn something new or players are going to remind me of lessons I already knew or forgot in the moment.

As played, 2 comments:

1) I'm okay with strong live tell reads but they are the grey-est of areas and may not even carry over to another session. If you were right, don't count on them happening again, especially when you've posted V's name in public. (Which I'm not sure is kosher on 2+2.) I picked up a live tell on a good player in a session once--his value bets were thoughtful, his bluffs were autopilot--and snap called him with a busted K high flush draw on the river knowing all he had was a worse flush draw. I never saw that tell again.

2) I don't mind the shove, honestly. Could go either way. You've got outs against a player as fast as this guy. But if he does hold AK he's never folding and actually has a healthy amount of equity:

Board: Tc 7h Js
Dead:

equity win tie pots won pots tied
Hand 0: 66.174% 65.57% 00.60% 10387 95.00 { Th8h }
Hand 1: 33.826% 33.23% 00.60% 5263 95.00 { AKs, AKo }

That's 2:1.

Do you have PokerStove? Get it. Use it. Live it. Love it.

These two statements are contrary. DUCY?

Gilmour, 100% agree. (Isn't it great, we're on the same page!)

Interested in what resources you think would be more helpful for OP.

Although older, I think Harrington on Cash and Ed Miller are really great for low-stakes live and even then you have to dial it back a bit because at 2/5 and below the vast majority of the time you are playing weak players and ABC, while boring, is standard.

2/5 plays much like micro/low stakes online and I have found some micro texts helpful.

If OP isn't big on reading I'd suggest searching out Rumnchess's legendary thread on player typing and low-stakes play, or search the internet for Ed Miller's article about 5 things to do to beat low-stakes in Vegas. It doesn't necessarily apply to games outside of Vegas, although with the traffic Foxwoods gets, my guess is that it would be comparable.

Nice to agree with you Poppa,even though i think we are more often on the same page than we both think, just rambling past eachother

Both Harrington and Ed Miller has some solid stuff yes,especially Miller.

This forum also holds tremendous amounts of gold and its all free. For example i cant count how many times ive read through all the threads in the "best of stickies", only to choose one or two topics i wanted to put extra focus on and work with the next couple of sessions.

I believe in honing your game slowly, building a solid foundation stone by stone at steady pace. Read,make reflections,discuss and play. Rinse and repeat.


Sent from my LG-D855 using 2+2 Forums

Nah, I have written you off as a crazed Scandinavian because I once saw a Norwegian blow 3K in 3 hands at a Golden Nugget 1-2 game.

But seriously folks...agreed with working on fundamentals bit by bit. Applying principles at micro stakes online can be excellent practice as well, at least for Americans on anonymous Bovada tables.

can you two get a room already? I don't want to read books, I want to play 2/5 nl, post hands, smoke weed and hang onto my gfs huge tits while I plow her.

oh and btw, you guys are my best friends on 2+2 even though you do nothing but bust my balls.

Friendship requires 5% from all winning sessions moving forward. #thanksinadavance