Wait, so we're folding AJo in late position because too many people limped?
Then what hands are we calling and what hands are we raising?

Remember hands like 87s also carry huge reverse implied odds.

If we're only playing / raising AKo and say TT+, even the baddest of fish are going to notice we're not playing a single hand.

If we just flat with AJo we probably put ourselves in an even worse position, since more people will call.

In a 5 handed pot holding AJo and hitting TPTK or TPGK is pretty easy to get away from if people start making pot sized bets/raises.

What would be even worse is hitting TPTK on a very wet board.
How much of our stack can we bet for protection here?

Your second example consists of a weak player over-valuing AJo against yourself, and I presume you are viewed as one of the tighter players at the table. This goes beyond weak to truly incomprehensibly bad -- nobody on this forum is advocating over-valuing AJ against tight opponents.

I don't know the composition of your game, but from what I remember you have said the players are generally on the tighter side. That might explain your repulsion to the hand?

Where AJ is profitable is at a table of loose passive players -- if it's possible to find a sweet spot pf raise size where you can isolate and go 3/4-way against the LP fish, and fold out some of the tight limpers, the RIO nature of AJ can become almost entirely negated. Consider for example on a board of A22Q7. If we bet small/small/small on 3 streets, there is a certain player type who will always call down with any Ace. We lose some of the time to AK/AQ (often opponents are raising AK preflop, so we can often discount these hands at some reduced percentage). But we're ahead more often against ATo, A3-A6sA8s-ATs (and a few players in my game are calling pf raises also with all the off-suit combinations).

For instance, in a previous hand I completed the BB with ATo and led out in a 6way limped pot on AJ3 for 1/2 pot. I was called by a fishy player at the table. I bet 1/2 pot turn and 1/3rd pot river and was called by A8o on a final board of AJ356. If our opponent is unable to fold top pair, we're simply good more often than not and we have to bet 3 streets.

The key is to identify bet sizing that won't fold out worse hands.

@ CheckRays

You're gonna have to show your math on that one.

I just did a quick random run-of-the-mill case with AJo vs a dominated ATs, a dominated KJo, a random QTo and 77. We're below average (although admittedly some hands are sucking up our outs, but heck we're dominating two of them and not dominated). Start throwing in some examples where we're dominated and it gets pretty horrendous pretty fast. You're going to have a tough time showing AJo with any reasonable advantage whatsoever against a field of limpers who don't have ATC in their range.

Did a couple of other quick tests: against 4 literally ATC limpers (100% limping range), yes, our advantage is a mere 8% preflop. Against 4 50% limping ranges, it goes down to about 3.5%. Now start narrowing that just slightly more to a more "reasonable" limping range, and you're not exactly crushing the field (and are often a dog). Meanwhile, you bloat the pot in these cases, where AJo plays pretty horrendously postflop against anyone who isn't completely moronic willing to get in stacks when there's an A on board.

GcluelessequitynoobG

I was slightly exaggerating that point for affect, *however* I do stand by the opinion that if you aren't very experienced then your best play is likely to fold it in this spot (unless you're calling to purely nut mine and can easily fold otherwise postflop).

GcluelessNLnoobG

And this is all an argument for limping/overlimping AJo, not raising it.

First, if you're trying to find a sweet spot with raising to thin the field to 3/4way, my guess is that this sweet spot raise will often eliminate the hands you actually want to see the flop with (often narrowing down the Ax's to better ones). This just might be a disagreement regarding what hands people are folding preflop as we start losing people with our raise sizing (which is also very debatable whether that actually happens), but I think most people would rather fold A5o than they would T9s (and they're correct in this thinking).

Second, it's easier for people to call multiple streets of betting with the betting is small in terms of $. People are much more likely to call bets of $10/$25/$60 in a limped pot with worse than they are of much larger bets that very quickly threaten their stacks (where they often might decide to just give up on the turn).

Third, as the raiser (and therefore as the entitled one where it then becomes even harder to get away from TP), in my example where I stacked my opponent with my dominated first-to-flat AK, his preflop play (raising $20 against my $320 effective) created an SPR of lol 3.75 due to there being 3 callers (where I could get in stacks postflop against him with 3 very small bets). I mean, yes, he obviously sucks due to paying off nit me on later streets (even for this small sizing, although I've seen enough "pot odds!" comments in this forum to wonder exactly how many people do get away), but a huge part of his mistake was simply building the bloated multiway pot preflop in the first place.

GimoG

From propokertools

AJ 23.53%
15%-50%15.27%
15%-50%15.35%
15%-50%15.31%
15%-50%15.31%
15%-50%15.23%

We don't have to play for stacks postflop every time, but worse Js and worse As will usually pay off for two streets when it's top pair.

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Ha, I wasn't understanding why your AJo vs 5 50% ranges was doing so much better than mine in PokerStove... until I realized you were eliminating the top 15% of hands. The top 15% of hands is pretty damn wide (more-or-less A7s+/K9s+/77+/anybroadway), a huge percentage of which is often limped, so I don't think it's fair at all to eliminate those.

If you start with 100bb, make a 5bb raise, and go 6ways, the SPR will be lol 3. "2 streets" is your stack.

Gjustsayin'G

I always adjust my pokerstove settings to suit my argument

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Expert.

Gyou'lldowellG

If you go 5 ways with a hand having 23.5% equity, like AJo does and then each person puts 100 into the pot making it a $500 pot, you have $15 of profit per pot. 3 pots like this per hour and you re making a cool $45 an hour profit.

Of course if you don't raise, your pots get smaller, so your profit gets smaller.

And if you think that AJo has bad implied odds what does hand like QJ or JT, or J4 have? Because if you re going 5 ways to the pot, in all likelihood, you re facing that type of crap.

The only hands that concern me multiway are suited connectors, since villains ranges are full of K high and Q high suited craps so the suitedness value of your ACs goes down IMO.

We actually do have about 25% with AJo against 4 players with a 20-25% range, top 25% of range that is.

I am a moderately winning (?) player at the Isle in Pompano mostly 1-2 nl so take my advice with a grain of salt:

Limpers live are the mother's milk of profit. As most people observed many live limpers are sticky and lack a fold button pre, so exploit that. Raise with a strong relative range. The more limpers in front, the stronger the range you need to play and raise larger. My defaults:

I limper....$11
2 limpers....$13
3 limpers..... $17
4 limpers..... $19
5+ limpers....$23

Small pairs & smaller SC's and suited aces = overlimp. (mostly)

What I have accomplished by raising > pot:

1....Likely bought position (lessen the frequency of players behind entering pot)

2...Take players who want to see cheap flops completely out of their comfort zones. I get Onanistic pleasure hearing recreational players yelp, "Why raise so much!"

3.... sometimes vacuum equity when all fold (see if AJo wins 4.5/BB per hand in your database) When multiple limpers fold pre it is seldom bad and always +EV.

4....Get to play a pot mostly in position vs. mostly vs weaker ranges

5..... Gain initiative. Play reasonable post flop poker.

6.... Profit!

There is no magical play that gets better hands to fold and weaker hands to call, but evaluate your players and adjust accordingly.

You know before I became a new money scrub and spent my roll on tinder hookups I was actually a half-way decent NL500 reg. 1st year netted 65k and 2nd year was on base to clear 70 until I made the decision to become an unemployable uber driver.

But before all that mess began I learned everything I needed to know about small stakes live poker from one single book, I believe it was called "Donkey Games" written by a guy who specifically set out to crush live poker starting at NL200 to figure out once and for all wtf is happening at these levels.

As I recall his basic strat consisted of playing reasonably tight (maybe 22vpip or so), open for 5x and always bet half pot postflop and 1/3 pot on the river. The logic being that we want to tax the fish a little preflop for their looseness and then value town the ever loving **** out of them post. While it might sound wise to bet big post when you hit, keep in mind the avg live player is playing 60vpip which means most of the time they are missing, or at least connecting very poorly. When they do connect we're talking middle pair at best, backdoor gutters etc. These players arent calling a pot sized bet with those hands, however they will call a half pot sized bet.

Playing 5 ways with AJo from UTG isnt such a bad deal vs these types. By sizing down every street postflop we dont run the risk of getting felted from a hidden monster or standard suckout. We get lots of value when they chase and dont lose much when they bink.

Using this strat my winrate was $42/hr for about 1500 hr sample. The only player in the entire room I feared seemingly used a similar strat. His winrate was a little higher than mine over a larger sample (showed me his poker app), but I never saw him open for larger than $25 preflop from any position, even when legendary whales were at our table. He also cbet a little more "internet-ish" using closer to 2/3 or 3/4 pot strategy and was much more willing to barrel. I actually wanted to post about this a few years ago but felt it was such a strong strat that I didnt want to share. I only do so now because I done goofed and cant build up enough roll to play again.

So in a nutshell a sea of callers is fine, we definitely want to raise pre and not to iso since there's no way to single anyone out, dont overbet because we just set ourselves up to get felted, hit TP and then value bet smallish to avoid any traps while extracting value from a wider range that is willing to call these bets. Always plan on playing all 3 streets. Too many recs like to limp AK and JJ and not because they are trapping. Too many recs like to x/r top pair and not because they are value betting. Too many recs like to float and not because they plan to steal. Single pair draws converted into backdoor 2 pair draws is a legitimate shot to these guys. Let them chase, but be wary of them hitting. With a combination of the aforementioned players types you often dont know who hit what.

Playing like this should allow you to chip up to 200BB's relatively quickly and by then all you're hoping for is to flop a set vs a straight draw vs another deep fish who only built his stack from the previous bad beat he laid on someone.

$42 per hr at 1/2 or 2/5?

2/5, but 1/2 is basically 2/5 with shorter stacks.

.

@ javi

Nice to see a friendly face in here... I remember you a pretty active poster back when I frequented 2p2. It seems neither of us are very active nowadays. But I'm just curious about the story of how you "done goofed and can't bulid a roll anymore". Perhaps out of sheer curiosity, or perhaps to avoid taking that same path.. either way I'd love to hear.

Someone once described it as the difference between being rich and being wealthy. When I was earning 7k/month cash I thought I was a baller. I bought a new corvette. New TV. New furniture. New clothes. Took shots at 5/10 which the table would bump to 10/25 for time rake, and then they'd all start straddling so it's now 25/50 and I had too much pride to leave and look scared. And to impress girls on tinder and get laid quickly I would wine & dine them at nice places. I was what you call "new money". I didnt have generational wealth, I had temporary wealth (if you even call 7k/month wealth). So I basically kept my bankroll at 10k and spent anything I earned over that every single month. I only had 1 losing month my first year. I knew deep down inside I was destined to failure but I couldnt help myself. Obviously the inevitable happened and I went on a 4 month losing streak and then presto, bankroll gone. With 3 months living expenses left I started driving for uber and have been ever since.

I take a shot here or there hoping I can just have back to back sessions of run good. Almost happened once and ran up a single bullet to 4k but promptly lost it back over the span of the week. Meanwhile my only real life poker friend is plowing 100k for the last 2 years with no end in sight. I done goofed, consequences will never be the same.

Wow, can I relate to that story, though my version involves a lot less having fun, so you got that. Even did Uber and postmates for about a year.

I started last year with about $1k to my name, plus a reliable car and $25 k in debt. Now I have debts paid off, and am in a relatively good spot. A lot of this is from other gambling endeavors, but a healthy chunk is from poker. Particularly, in the first few months, it was mainly poker.

Unsolicited advice, but your story parallels my own so closely, I thought it might be helpful, especially because now you'll know that a bungling idiot got out of the same situation.

Anyway, what worked for me. You need to be in a city with a low cost of living if your income sux, which it does driving for uber. Otherwise, you're pretty much drawing dead.

Cut cost of living as much as possible. No cable, obviously. You're already paying for tons of data for uber, so just use your phone as a hotspot for internet. Buy whatever food is on sale and fits your diet. Live in a cheap place. Find a couple places that have $1 tacos on Wednesday or whatever. All that kinda stuff.

Continue "shot taking" at 1/2. Don't buy in deep. Maybe buy in for $100. Be nitty. When down, short stack, don't top off. Get good at playing short and exploiting the massive edge you have when playing short. Hit and run. You already have too much BR on the table with $200. Don't play much over $500. Build slowly. You can't force it to happen over night. Sacrifice hourly win rate for a bigger % edge and more consistent winning.

Obviously, there is a bunch of mindset stuff or whatever. Work on that in ways that make sense to you, but work on it. The bottom line is you need to spend very little time and money on TV/movies, video games, women, etc. for a while and just make it your mission to build a poker BR.

Maybe you are doomed to non-baller status. I'm hardly a baller now either. But, you have the tools to be at least be a working stiff who tacks on $1-2k a month in cash doing something you enjoy. Even when we crash and burn, it's not like we become peasants in a third world country. You can build up a $10k roll over the next 12-18 months.

^ yeah I've definitely stripped down the budget food wise, and women are a distant thought.


I've experimented with the shortstack vs fullstack approach given my circumstances. Shortstack seems optimal just because **** happens and you need to bounce back, but damn is it disheartening to flop top set in the first hour and get it in vs 2 pair and only scoop a 100BB pot.