Not in love with creating SPR ~8ish pots OOP, but sometimes that can't be avoided.

Any thoughts on what our river plan would be with just ~PSB left thanks to our bet/bet?

As played, I'm cool with the fold. I just think SPR 8, especially OOP, typically means pot control, which means we have to check a street somewhere and hope like hell a street checks thru (or otherwise we'll be playing for stacks by the river).

GcluelessNLnoobG

Which book would you guys read next after having read PNLHE?

NLHE theory & practice

PS: there are book recommendations in the stickies

Working on floating. How well do you think I picked my spot? If I am a bit slow to act while thinking all this through, does that make my bluffs less effective?

Live 1/3.

V1 and V2 are idiot fish who give too much action with medium strength hands and are 1500+ due to coolers and lucky draw outs. They can be LAGgy if no one has been aggressive, but can be fit-or-foldish if someone else is betting while requiring only a light fit (such a gutshot) to call. Basically, if they fire three barrels, they could be bluffing, but if you bet and they raise on the turn/river, your one-pair hand is almost always no good. V3 is a tight, smart old man with 500+ who is clearly trying to stack one of the fools. Hero has ~300.

V1 raises to his standard 15. He hates limping. V2 calls. V3 calls. Hero calls OTB with A2. Everyone else folds. It's a borderline call, but I think I can read the fish well enough to figure out when I'm good if I flop an ace and there is action, so I'm not calling just to make aces up or hit a flush.

Flop: 9 6 2. (Pot=64) V1 checks. He doesn't c-bet air into three callers, but will bet hands like bottom pair or a gutshot. He is most likely done with this hand. V2 checks. He has a similar betting range. V3 bets 35. Hero thinks about it and calls. The other players fold, as I expected them to. Feeling sure that I wasn't going to get squeezed by a check-raise and having the backdoor nut flush draw were factors that led me to call.

V3 has a lot of pocket pairs in his hands. He's tight enough that he might fold A9s preflop. I think he checks the flop with a set, hoping one of the two idiots catch a pair with an overcard and get it in light. He most likely has QQ/JJ/TT/88/77. (He definitely has QQ in his range. He might even have KK.) I think his bet-sizing suggests he is on the lower end of that range, but I am not completely sure. My intention was to bluff the turn if a card comes that completes a flush or straight draw, a nine, or a seven. I might bluff other cards depending on how he bets the turn. I planned on just calling any ace or deuce. I was leaning towards bluffing on any club, but I wasn't set on it like I was with other cards.

The turn is A. (Pot=134) V3 bets 75. Hero thinks that villain will put hero on the nut flush draw or aces up and fold unless he has hero beat, so calls.

The river is Q. (Pot=284) V3 checks quickly. Hero takes some time to evaluate whether that changes his read that V3 doesn't have a set or A9 and is trying to induce, then decides to shove and represent a bluff by a missed draw. V3 takes some time and doesn't immediately call, but he does call.

''How to be a girly girl in just ten days''

''How to read hands at NLHE'' (also good)

And, what Suited said. (better than all the rest combined IMO)

PNLHE is confusing and I have my doubts about its practical application to LLSNL.(Shh...Don't tell GG I said that.)

Can you expand your read on the old man? Specific tendencies, hands you have witnessed? What is his pf range here? Would he bet with a flush draw here? Would he barrel the turn UI. With good bluffing cards? ETC ETC

Also, what does he know about us?

He respects me as a player because I actually play tight and don't show up with random junk. He might not expect me to slowplay a set until the river.

I'm not sure if he has a hand like JT in his range. I wouldn't be shocked if his pf range against a raise here is something like QQ-55/AK/AQ. If he played by the book, that book would be TJ Cloutier's.

Suffice it to say, I haven't witnessed very many hands by him. I have seen him flat pf with KK/QQ. He will try to build a pot with his strong hands and be more cautious with something like an overpair.

So, he only has like 7 combos max of diamond draws+overs in his range. I think we for sure can rep diamonds, a king, possibly a queen. I definitely like the idea of semibluff raising the 9,Q,K on the turn. I think bluffing the middling clubs is iffy. If we raise the 8, will he really give us credit for a set and fold QQ-TT? A lot of these tight old buggers are pretty sticky with overpairs. Also, they tend to go into check/call mode (as opposed to bet/fold) so it makes bluffing them more difficult. Frequently we should just take the free card and hope to improve or have the obvious draw come in on the river which we can represent.

This is exactly the route I'm taking (first did HOC, then PNLHE, and now have NLHET&P but haven't had the time to barely crack it).

GcluelessbooknoobG

I also call preflop and hope one/both of the blinds come along for an even more multiway pot in position on everyone with a speculative hand for relatively cheap.

On autopilot I think I fold the flop, but I can see lots of reasons for floating. We have some outs and backdoors and could cause old man to fold on a lotta turns. I'm assuming old man has a fold button and "respects" us.

I'm actually getting a little worried now that old man is still betting the turn. He shouldn't have flopped any two pairs, so any two pairs he's now made are crushing us. He could easily have a set. Is he really barrelling the turn with a draw? Did he bet the flop with just an A? If we call, the pot is going to be $284 with just $175 left. Can we possibly fold the river? Are we cool with letting draws continue? I think we have to make up our mind now what we're doing and either get it all in or get out, no? Or are we cool with letting him barrel into us for stacks?

River is a weird spot. While he could put us on a busted draw, what hand that we beat is calling down light? 9x with 2 overs? Even KK/JJ/etc. have over(s). The only decent hand we're getting value from is like Ax who bet the flop (perhaps Axdd). I probably shove to (the only betsize, imo) especially after the check but at the same time I'm wondering what pays me off. ETA: Although, if we feel we have the best hand, even if we're not going to get paid off a lot by worse, I'm guessing not having to show and putting a seed of doubt in everyones mind is a benefit.

Ha, maybe this is why I sometimes autopilot fold the flop as I get myself confused on later streets.

GcluelessNLnoobG

Like most books, I think you can just take what you want from it / whatever you feel applies to your game. Even just 20% of gold from any book is worth its weight.

I think the general SPR concepts in PNLHE are great (and extremely applicable to low stakes games), for both planning commitment as well as something as trivial as planning bet sizing (making it brain dead simple, imo).

GcluelessNLnoobG

I think it can be easy to misapply new concepts and thus struggle after studying certain books, training videos, whatever. But look how often AA, AK and KK hands get posted here. I decent number of those are pretty straightforward if you've understood PNLHE.

I'd summarize it as GG is willing to go to more extremes to manipulate his SPR. But if you never thought about SPR preflop you can still get a lot of value out of that book. However, just like watching a video on balancing your calling ranges, it can mess you up at first.

PNLHE was 100% essential to my development. Not everyone agrees on its value.

Also KM plays redic deep, where PNLHE isn't as obviously helpful.

i've actually never read PNLHE, does it still have value almost a decade later?

A lot of this occurred to me. I guess I was really good at selling that I was on a busted flush draw because I got looked up by 88.

Ya, PNLHE even admits this. My game plays pretty shallow - medium a lot of the time, so much more applicable.

GcluelessNLnoobG

Decades don't change some of the usefulness of its concepts, imo.

As I say, even if the only thing you took out of it was computing SPR in order to lay a blueprint for your betsizing on each street it would be pretty helpful for a lot of posters in this forum. Sooooooo many threads here the betsizing is *horrendous* (geez, I've got $50 left on the river and pot is $250, did I do something wrong?) and could easily be corrected by simply memorizing a table of SPRs and what type of bet sizes could get stacks in over 2 versus 3 streets.

GI'mguessingeverybookhassomesortausefulnuggetsinit G

Yeah I use SPR a ton when I play, definitely a ton of value in that book still, I'm pretty sad I can't find my copy.

Wow....Just wow. NH

His Asianess trumped his nittyness, apparently.

Gwhitenit;wearingblackface/asianfaceisnotsociallyacceptablenow,right?G

This was the main thing I got from the book. Also that if you want to play for stacks getting 10% of it in pf is a good start.

I have my doubts about the application of pot control and pot commitment lines in my $1/2 game. Against quite a few rec. regs I play with I can GII on the turn with a big pair at 200BB effective to start the hand.

Also, the plan to manipulate SPR pf, by perhaps over raising big cards or pairs, or limp RR´ing because we don´t want an SPR of 10 when it goes HU...well the whole thing causes me a big mind****. In my game it could just as easily go 5 ways to the flop, so now our SPR is 4, not ****ing 10. A huge raise is likely to fold everyone anyway. Why the **** would I want to do that when I am holding a premium hand? There was a post recently (hero had KQ or KQs...I forget) where this exact advice came out (using the concepts straight out of the book), but I think it was completely wrong.

I should go back and read PLNHE again. But I am a little leery. Last time I let it **** up my game. I started checking back too many turns and getting paranoid about commitment. Bet/folding and thin value betting (with a lot of consideration to sizing) are the keys to the big streets in my game. I don´t mind occasionally putting some big chips in and then folding when I know I´m crushed. Those bets are still huge value over the long run.

Haven't read the book but I think pot controlling on the turn is way over rated an people miss out on tons of turn value by checking. If it's iffy you can just bet the turn and take a showdown at the river especially in position. Stolen from CLP and Bart Hanson.

You can also miss a bunch of value by betting the turn, especially against aggro opponents.

I recently watched a super old Live At The Bike 3/5 game with like lol $300 BI. Bluffy has QJ and floats a K32r flop OOP against 88 which bets. K on the turn, aggro checks, 88 checks. Q on the river, Bluffy bets and is called by 88. Bart starts going off about how bad checking the turn was (lol, results oriented much?). And yet if you do the math (even ignoring the times we get aggro check/raised on the turn and put in a horrible spot), it's *way* more EV setting up a bluffcatcher here versus someone who'll bet their busted hand on the river a lot when whiffing.

Gcheckingtheturngetsyoumorevaluethanyouthink,imoG

Totally agree with that GG. If you got a bluffy opponent who loves to pounce on weakness there is serious value in checking to induce. No question about it.

Against that V, checking the turn is awesome. But those guys are a minority.
When a semi competent reg calls this flop (I assume we raised pf) he has a King, middle PP, or 45. I much prefer to bet the turn to get value from 45 and get better pockets to fold, vs bluff catch the river. Most of the muppets I play with would just check the river with 45 UI anyway. Against a few regs I know I am checking back the turn and check/folding the river because I am way behind their range on the turn and they are never bluffing the river.

Edit: Against donks that can have any piece of that flop, I bet/fold the turn, check back the river all day everyday.