Raise flop, and GII. I would 3bet pre and prolly fold to a 4bet that is sized correctly. I feel it’s way too passive to not 3 bet her in position. I wanna set up a low spr with aq/ak so stacking off post when we hit is correct and don’t like seeing flops multi-ways with hands like this. I would 3 bet to like 100 and Cbet a ton of flops.

It's pretty close. Would you not 3-bet QQ+ in this spot "to keep the whales in the pot?"

It would also suck the times we do pick up KK+ and don't get any action because we haven't 3-bet 1 time in 4 hours.

I don't hate flatting but being OOP and letting whales in to see cheap flops is playing right into their game.

Ex: we have AQss

5 way pot ($125): flop comes Q65hh

checks to us we bet $75. Whales call.

Turn ($275) Q65hh 9h

We check. Whale bets $200 next whale calls.

Not what do we do? Nobody has any idea. It's a crappy spot where you can easily lose your stack or get bluffed off the best hand. Stuff like this happens over and over again when you play pots with whales.


We also stack them when we make nutted hands, but we are basically turning AQs into a "nutmining" hand when just calling pre, rather than fighting for what's already in the pot and protecting our equity.

AQs and QQ are very different hands. Consider the likelihood of being ahead pre and the likelihood of flops that improve the 2 hands and the likelihood of flops that allow one to continue past the flop and apply pressure, etc.

I would certainly 3bet QQ and flat AQs for these reasons. It's true that we might be nut mining vs multiple opponents(there is significant value here w whales behind) who see the turn but if only one opponent sees the turn then we are usually value owning a whale.

How many buy ins do you guys bring to games?

I tend to bring 3-4 buy ins for a game and always top up bc I play 1-2 with a 200 max so I start adding if I get down to say 150-170. Also how do you know when it’s time to stop playing? If I get down 1-2 buyins early I get angry but I don’t think my play is terrible when I slightly tilt.

Like I’ll be angry etc but I feel I still play the same way. Anyone have advice for when they know it’s time to stop? I tend to go with the approach to keep playing well and just trying to turn a session into a not massive losing session. For example if I lose 2 buyins I’m not trying to win it all back. I consider it a win if I can get it back to say a -1 buyin session.

I'd threebet it, but I think flatting it is completely fine.

Citation needed. We're OOP to the button only.

This is literally just "I don't want to let whales into the pot because I'm scared they'll outplay me". Trying to avoid difficult spots cuts both ways. The whales are going to have a harder time postflop than I am, because I'm better than them.

Ironically, by flatting pre you just let the whale and everyone in the hand OUTPLAY you. DUCY? With these stack sizes he is getting great implied odds to call in position.


Not only this, we gave the pro TAG great odds to open with hands like 55 and T8s.


I would open these hands at 1/2 UTG all the time because I knew passive players would never 3-bet without KK+ which is what you are advocating.

I have the benefit of initiative, keeping my range wide, and allowing myself to set my price with speculative hands while keeping my opponents on their heals and playing face-up.

Over time, the aggressive players are going to be getting you to fold your equity left and right. (BTW the whale has POSITION on you, so expect him to outplay you in certain spots).

I mean AQss in the CO is such a good hand that obviously you are going to make $ no matter what decision you make, but it's kind of ridiculous that we are going to let j8o see a flop and have players in the hand that can credibly rep 2 pair + on ANY board texture.

It's actually much easier to set the price when we're in position. We really can't ever overcome this positional disadvantage with naked aggression, unless our opponents are pretty weak-tight (or they view us as being nitty).

I keep a balance in the player's bank, so it's not a matter of how much I bring to play.

I generally get two full buy-ins worth of big chips when I go to the cage to take out money to play. Nothing stops me from going back for more.

As for knowing when to stop, that's easy: I look at my watch. If it's quitting time, I quit, and if I haven't put my hours in, I keep playing.

I accept that I'm giving up some preflop advantage by not threebetting, I just don't expect that advantage to be all that large. AQs is down near the bottom of a value threebetting range.

Postflop, AQs is going to have a huge advantage. This sort of spot is exactly what we expect when we raise AQs in normal play in a game like this. It's a profitable spot. imo all the stuff about "but what if they rep two pair" etc is sort of anecdotal and doesn't invalidate the brute fact that AQs ought to be easily profitable postflop, even against normal players, let alone whales.

A TAG pro's UTG opening range is going to be quite snug -- if it isn't, they aren't a TAG. AQs is not good shape against a tight opening range. (For example, it has only 33% equity versus {JJ+, AKs}.) It would be insane to three-bet for value here.

If you want to have a bluffing range against this villain (and in live, low-limit NL that is a pretty big if), AQs is a decent candidate: it blocks AA, AK, and QQ, it has good nut potential, and it is just about the best hand we could have that we would otherwise be folding.

But that would be for a polarized three-bet-or-fold strategy. In a situation where we want to exploit the big fish in the blinds, we likely want to have a flatting range, and AQs is strong enough, especially multiway, that we want it in our flatting range, and we would be bluffing, if at all, with rather weaker hands, like T9s or A5s.

UTG from Tag pro is way wider than JJ+ and AK.
AQ 99+ at very least are added.

I bring $2000 in cash to my 1/3 NL game, which as of a couple of weeks ago was a maximum $300 BI game (although now you can BI for $400, although I actually now only BI for $200). I also play a very low variance nit style, so there is likely no way I'll ever lose the $2000 (in 541 sessions I've only lost $1000+ twice, namely $1013 and $1200). The reason for this is that when you have a massive (over)roll in your pocket you never ever get to the point of "OMG, I'm on my last BI, or if I lose this I'm on my last BI" or whatever, which is never a productive thought.

Course, I always mostly play to a predetermined time and feel overall I have very good tilt control when stuck (I just rebuy again for the $200 and play my nitty game, no big deal); I only had to learn my lesson once (the $1200 all-of-my-money in my pocket loss was all my tilting fault). If you don't have tilt control when stuck / good it-is-all-about-the-long-term view, you may want to consider having a limited amount of BIs in your pocket (but then you get the mental drawback of "playing with your last BI").

GgoodluckG

At the two casinos that I usually frequent, you are allowed to top of with a Benjamin(100 bill), but no other denomination.
In other words, you can't take a 20 out of your pocket and put it in play. It has to be a hundred dollar bill.
That's what everybody does and what I do.

I usually take anywhere between 800 to 1k with me and top off if I run bellow 50 or more from my original (200) buy in.

In that case, AQs is only a 37:63 dog. Raise it up!

PS: think for a moment how well AQs fares against a UTG TAG pro's open/continuing range once you have three-bet.

I bring 3 BIs with me, with each BI being between 100BBs (2/5) and 200BBs (1/1). I find I get too tilted if I lose more than that.

As for when to leave, if I can't let go of a beat in an orbit, I'm prolly too tilted to keep playing. If I'm just a little grumpy but am still outplaying the field, I stay.

I'm watching these youtube vids on how to play poker. Youtube teaches me how to fix my car, so why not?

So Bart Hanson recently advocated for a "new school" 3 betting strat in which your 3b range is "linear," meaning that, pure bluffs aside, you are more likely to 3b with better hands, period.

The example here was squeezing on the button over a raise and 2 callers. For Bart, we should be much more likely to 3b with KQs than KQo.

I'm of the old school, I guess. To me, these spots are semi-bluffs. I'd much rather semi-bluff with weaker hands that play worse post flop. Among other things, it would suck to get jammed on and miss the chance to play KQs 4+ ways on the button.

So who is right. Me, or the guy 50x better than me at poker?

Probably might be dependent on stack sizes? The smaller they are, the more I want a better chance of having the best hand. The larger they are, the more I'd side with your reasoning.

GbutBart'slikely100xbetterthanme,sowhateverG

You lost a little credibility when you initially offered JJ+ AKs as a TAG pro's EP raising range. Even when you factored in 99+ AQ+ I had to hold in laughter a little bit.

99+ AQ+ is not a TAG. That is a nit REG.

TAG pro's should have all of the suited broadways, pocket pairs, suited wheel Aces, and even suited connectors, not to mention some off suit broadways like AJ and KQ.

plug that into equilab.

I find it very hard to believe that a pro at a soft table is going to nit it up just because he is in early position.

My usual UTG raising range is { 77+, AJo+, KQ, ATs+, JTs, QJs, A2s-A5s } and sometimes the other suited aces and T9s if I feel like it. I may be tighter in this game depending on how much threebetting is going on.

Against this range AQs is 54%. We have a positional advantage as well and there's dead money. It's a profitable spot to threebet, but it's pretty thin. Bear in mind we have to fold to any 4bet. We should be careful to compare against the right thing here - what I mean by that is that threebetting is profitable, but so is flatting, and what you lose by flatting is only the profit differential, not the entire profit of threebetting compared to folding.

These preflop raising battles with hands like AQs are inherently thin. It's not really possible for them to be hugely profitable, because it would mean that UTG was misplaying. imo the main profit center available here is making crushing hands like top two, nut flush, trips with big kicker etc against the whales - as well as just the ordinary profit of like flopping top pair and winning. I don't think it's close.

1/3, UTG straddle. 1 limp, H in late position raises to $21 (too low?), $275 eff

Folds to straddler who raises to $75. Haven't seen him before, so I don't think he's a good reg, but probably not clueless.

Hero?

Same table.

Pocket 10s EP, $150 eff. H $15 pre, goes 5-ways, flop Q79r. Is this just a c/f type of flop?

Definitely too small, make it like 30. I feel like my answer to H1 is going to heavily revolve around which two cards you were dealt

H2, can't x/f fast enough.

Against unknown Vs, I just assume any 3! is KK+ until proven otherwise. Folding everything but KK/AA here.

That range looks remarkably like a TAG's lowjack (BTN - 3) opening range.

AQs is 54% versus that entire range. That is great for flat-calling.

Suppose we three-bet.

Do we really think that a TAG pro villain is going to call with that entire range?

When we consider raising, we have to consider how our holding fares against the range the villain is likely to at least call our raise with. The villain is going to be folding the worst of their opening range, and at the very least the slight edge we start with against their range will turn into at least a slight deficit. If they fold a significant (but still unexploitable) fraction of their opening range we are in serious trouble.

Whoops, can't believe I forgot to post my hand for H1.

H had QQ. My question revolves around "can we ever flat this?" or is this mostly a fold against a typical unknowns and a shove against loose gamblers?