2/3. Hero is about 1.1k effective w the reg in question (V1) who has us covered and is sitting on a massive stack of probably 3k. He is pretty loose preflop and bets large with strong hands, but hes not overly aggro.

V2 is also a reg and I havent played as much with him but he seems very straightforward from what ive seen and more on the nitty side. I discover later on that he's actually much looser than i thought.

There are 2 other inconsequential players in the hand as well. HJ is bad loose reg, BTN is uber bad loose fish ive never seen before.

HJ open limps 3, CO (V2) raises to 10, BTN calls,
Hero SB w KdJs calls
V1 BB calls, HJ calls, 5 ways to the flop.

I could be convinced its a fold preflop. I debated a little bit and decided to call bc of the fish in the hand but its probably not good since we're so multiway and with a weak hand oop. So fold pre, got it, however I wanted to see what people think of this action.

Pot 45
Flop
Kc 7c 3h

Hero X, BB V1 X, HJ X
CO V2 bet 30
Btn fold, hero call 30, BB V1 call 30

Pot 125
Turn Ah for Kc 7c 3h Ah
Hero X, now V1 donks 115
CO V2 folds

I folded, but i was very suspicious and surprised. I asked him what are you doing? He was just quiet. Which was a little strange because hes normally very talkative. Maybe this hand isnt worth posting I dont know. I just thought it was super weird and I've never seen him take a line like this.

Maybe its just a set and he doesnt want it checking through or he binked aces up w A7 or something. Or is it more something like 54 or 56 hearts? It seems strange for him to want to take this line with Ax clubs I think.

Pretty simple fold. Definitely leaning towards aces up, given the sizing and sets probably raise flop facing bet+call. Ax of clubs is possible too and quite bad for you. You pose the possibility of combo draws but you're really scraping the bottom of the barrel when considering how rare those are combination-wise compared to a hand like A7 which could be 9 combinations alone.

Weird/odd lines definitely throw people for a loop, but remember the fundamentals. Most people don't bluff/semibluff close to enough, especially for a large sizing and multiway

What’s the standard open in this game? I feel like $10 is a small open over a limp. I think I would lean towards 3! This hand pre. Especially oop. I understand why you didn’t. You wanna let the fish come into the pot, but now you’re oop v fish and regs.
As played I don’t mind calling flop. Turn easy fold.

Standard open is 15, so yea 10 is super small over a limp. I stay w 15 over 1 limp and add 5 for every limp beyond that if im raising unless the table is super splashy and will call even more. V1 in this hand goes huge to 25 over 1 limp every time he isos.

With KJs I'd 3bet, but i think offsuit i rather just fold.

Yes it was a rather easy turn fold, but i just couldn't understand his play.

That’s my bad, I thought Your initial post said KJs.
I may actually still 3! Or fold here, especially over his small open. Just an exploit. I feel like a stronger range should open a bit larger over a limp.

Yeah big blind’s play doesn’t make much sense. Seems a bit strange, especially from a reg. Would expect that from a fish.

This is basically the huge gap in live small stakes NLHE right now. You need data on stuff like this and no one has bothered to compile it with statistically significant samples.

Yea that would be amazing. I will start keeping a log of hands i see as far as donks, but obviously the toughest thing about it is we dont get to see many hands.

I do know one for sure though, basically holds true for live same as online. A rec donking 50% pot or less is on a draw, especially turn donks. I see it all the time in live play.

A rec donking for large sizing though when the flush or straight comes in actually has it. Even when they do it on a seemingly inconsequential card it means they just hit a random two pair. Again, ive seen this so much.

And heres a good tell that has worked well for me. I used it tonight vs a reg to make a big fold that was correct. If someone is holding their hand over their cards as if protecting them, they are strong. They do it subconsciously when they have a big hand.

And the donking tell could be true for this reg too. Hes a reg who is almost always there, but he does have a lot of fishy tendencies so he could very well just have binked a 2 pair with A7 here. He plays almost anything remotely suited and connected even vs a raise, but he is aware enough that he wont tangle with other regs. He tends to get very tight when me or the other better regs are involved in hands.

He's donking almost full pot into multiple opponents. Probably not a bluff. Probably A7 or A3.

A3 in particular would be concerned not just about either of the flush draws coming in, but also getting counterfeited by a better two pair.

Sent from my SM-G781U using Tapatalk

Yeah I think everyone just uses anecdotal evidence which can be good but it's prone to selection bias.

I was going over some YT videos and this guy did a huge study on live tells it is labelled "Beyond Tells."

I'm only going over the free stuff because the course is like over 2k but here is what I learned so far:

1. Doesn't double check hand preflop - higher likelihood of hand being a pocket pair (pocket pairs only double checked their holdings 18% of the time over a 20k sample)

2. Preflop card check: 2 second card check = likely a top of range/bottom of range hand.

3.8 second card check = middle of range hand.

The thing with live poker is that there is so much information available to you that is almost overwhelming. You need to be able to parse the information correctly, this is why I think the ceiling for live players is way higher than online because I bet even someone like Linus Love would have live tells and that is going to give you a huge advantage if you can correctly discern this.

Your list is very good though, I like the holding their hand over their cards as if protecting them. I think I do that haha.

This one good reg once tried to reverse tell bluff me. I was checking to him with top pair SB vs BB, we started the table up 4 handed, so I was letting him bluff. Board ran out runner runner 4 flush and I didnt have it. He rechecked his cards again on the river and bet big and I instacalled which he was surprised by. He said I thought you would think I had the flush since I checked my hand again. But since he already bet flop and turn he would know if he had the suit, unlike if he checked it down.

I always repeat my cards w the suits in my head several times so I never have to check. And I always take at least a few seconds to take any action so i wont have any timing tells.

How did the guy come up with his data? Did he just watch livestreams? If I dont have time to play I will watch livestreams to learn fish habits.

Nice one man. That's a sick call. The ceiling for making sick plays in poker is basically limitless. You just have to make sure you are exactly 1 level ahead of your opponent because if you overthink it you might level yourself and get owned.

He had a group of people playing cash games and recorded it. Here is the website.

https://www.beyondtells.com/

Coming from an online background this is super interesting to me since I basically don't know s.hit about live tells (although I will crush these live guys in fundamentals lol).

Even bad players are capable of giving false tells. WAY too many variables to compile accurate data. Location, age, race, mood....there's a million things.

I balance my card checking tells. I'd love to play against people who studied the data. Sounds like they're easily exploited.

lol what.

No I think you would rather play against fish who have no clue how to play. The data would not be an end game result, it would be used with other factors to make you more accurate in your decision making process.

Nothing in poker is foolproof since it is a probabilistic game.

Thats cool, i will definitely check it out. See thats what i love about live poker and my abilities at hand reading and live tells far outweigh my online skills, opposite of you. I really want to get better at online but its way more beneficial money wise to spend my time playing live.

But I started playing live poker riding my bike down at 15 yrs old to play 1/2 in the backroom of the local bowling alley back in the early 2000s poker boom haha.

But yea once you learn certain live tells and just the differences in how it plays compared to online you can make absolutely massive deviations to add a lot of EV.

Live tells and mass data are only additions though to add to hand reading and fundamental play to help you make close decisions. It would be foolish to make decisions based solely on tells. Its just another piece of the puzzle that can sometimes sway you one way or another. In the example i just gave about the reg rechecking his cards, it was already a close decision with top pair in a BvB srp 4 handed, but his fake tell led me to call rather than fold.

The barrier for making money in live poker is way lower than online. It's hard to even make 10k online and in live poker it's pretty easy.

Yeah you seem to have a good grasp on live play dynamics. I think however you first learned poker is what you will naturally be better at as well. If you grew up learning poker in the live arena then that will always feel more comfortable to you.