In that case, NH

OP when your 3bets continually get called by hands like KJo preflop don't you feel incredibly dumb for making these idiotic light 3bets with J9s and stuff like that?

Like you understand you can play like a total nit and print money against these folks without ever bluffing right? And guess what comes with equity advantage; less variance.

last 3 hands were QQ, AA and AQ so its looking better

Depends on the players and the table. Not every session is as juicy as the one I just played. Sometimes I need to bluff more and 3bet more polarised, if I'm on a tough nitty table for example.

6,


You were just at $4500 before paying rent and other expenses, posted about losing/breakeven sessions, and your bankroll went up?


Oh, never mind, got it.

I ultimately left $5 up today after a 5.5hr session. In for 3 bullets of $200 each, out for $605.

Again, I had my AA cracked by Q8o right at the very end:

$750 effective, villain is button clicking bad reg

Folds to SB
Hero limps $5 SB with Ah Ad
Villain checks BB

Another thing I've started doing a lot recently is completing the SB. This is what all the online regs do these days. I try to find a balance between limp-folds, limp-calls and limp-3bets. AA definitely falls into the limp-3bet category. So anyway:

Flop ($9) is As Jh Td

Hero bets $14
Villain calls $14

(I was tossing up between betting vs x/r'ing flop. I'm not sure which is better. I never expect villain to have KQ when he checks preflop, so I know I've got the nuts at the moment)

Turn ($35) is As Jh Td 9h

Hero bets $30
Villain calls $30

River ($89) is 5h

Hero bets $85
Villain calls $85

Villain shows Qh 8c and scoops a $262 pot... at least I didn't go broke in a limped pot lol.

What’s the plan if you hit $0? Gl

6,


Except you’re playing low stakes live poker.

6,

What’s the variance of your medium stack strategy you invented compared to playing $1/3 when it also includes you playing $2/5 with a $750 stack?

Venice,


You’re right about all that, but he does have an option. He could switch between short-stacking 2/5 and going to 1/3 when he doubles.

Nice hand, and a good example of printing money with a shortstack strategy at a splashy deeper stacked table.

GgoodluckG

wait, why are you playing full stacked? Shouldnt you rathole and drop down to 1/3?

Pity you never thought about about the possibilities that it was a great turn for villains range, and good chance you were behind before you punted off all your money with TP. Limp 3betting AA? Pretty sure that used to be a thing back in 2009.

Because he isn't some punk-ass 1/3 player.

This is bad bad bad bad bad in live, low stakes, rake-trap games. You WILL NOT win money long term playing this type of strategy in a ridiculously raked game.

No **** Sherlock. But OP doesent care about such non important contexts. He has watched what the big boys does online, and is transferring that to the high raked livegames where every pot you complete in the SB goes 4-6 ways to the flop.

GL winning money with that strategy OP. By the way its actually one of the biggest lols in this thread that you obviously dont understand the huge difference between the online games where this adjustment is recommended (often MTTS with shorter stacks and facing very wide openranges from late positions to steal blinds) and fullring live games full of bad calling stations playing 60-70 percent of the hands they get dealt.

That's a good point which I hadn't considered. It appears that the OP hasn't either.

I think hes just talking about open completing, so its even more lol

1) I'm talking about open completing. I'm much less likely to trap in the SB with a monster hand if there are already a few limpers before me.

2) No, this doesn't only apply to short stacked MTTs: it applies to 100bb cash games too. Watch some 200nl online. You'll see the winning regs complete from the SB a lot in unopened pots.

3) High rake has the same effect on our decision-making process that ICM does. We can pass up on some coin flips and marginal spots, but our overall strategy isn't going to change. I consider completing from the SB as part of my overall strategy now.

Is chopping not permitted?

Officially, no it's not. Most dealers will allow it on 2/5 if you're just trying to speed up the game, I chop all the time.

Cold calling too much in position

The more that I think about it, the more clueless I am about what hands we should actually be cold calling raises with in position.

In the past, when in position and facing an open raise, my strategy was to cold call pretty much any suited Ace, any mediocre suited connector, any low to mid pocket pair and any suited broadways worse than AQs. I was good enough to 3bet or fold offsuit broadways like KQo, but I'd still have quite a large flatting range, and I think that that was largely due to overestimating my implied odds with speculative hands, underestimating the reverse implied odds and underestimating the chance that someone would 3bet squeeze me out of the pot.

As I start to play in tougher games like 50nl online, and even some of the tougher 2/5 live games, I'm noticing people that 3bet a lot and don't pay off postflop as much, and it really makes me question which hands we should be cold calling with in these tougher games.

Whilst I haven't solved this problem yet, I'm beginning to think that our cold calling range in position should be far narrower than most people realise. Here's what I hypothesise we should do, on the BTN, with 100bb stacks, when faced with an MP open raise:

22-66: fold or 3bet pre
65s-QJs: fold or 3bet pre
86s-QTs: fold or 3bet pre
KJo, KQo, ATo, AJo: fold or 3bet pre
A2s-A9s: fold or 3bet pre

Hands which we can flat with:
77-99
ATs, AJs, KJs, KQs

This sounds insane at first, that our flatting range should be this ridiculously narrow, and I'm definitely open to opinions on this, but I'm just struggling to see how we can make profit, in tougher and more aggro games, when cold calling any wider than this.

What does everyone think?

Given your limited BR and game dynamics the majority of those 3b or fold hands should probably just be folds pre imo. 3b 66 and below seems really bad imo.

I just don't get it. OP clearly has some level of understanding of poker and can make good folds so 1/3 should be so easy to crush just buying in for $300 and playing normal 100bb+ poker. We've seen in the last few updates that people are willing to put in large chunks with **** hands, bottom pair etc. It seems like a no brainer to see cheap flops with everything bar monsters and value bet the **** out of them.

I play HUSNGs and it's often evident within a few hands whether villain is a fish and as to how much of a station they are. In some cases where they're on the higher end of that station scale I will simply stop raising pre-flop because why would I put myself in a spot where the SPR on the flop is significantly lower than it can be? Against a reg I may raise pre so that I can bet 50% flop/70% turn/jam river but I know that I could 120% every street vs said villain and get called by bottom pair. Keep it simple.

Of course not. That is because you have not separated out what in ops blog is fact and what is fantasy. If you go back to the beginning and read through it, op contradicts himself every which way.

For my part, I believe Op goes to a casino and plays poker meh/poorly. He probably was a pizza delivery man as well.

All the rest you can take with a huge barrel of salt.