Man this is such an underrated skill live. It's half the battle. Not making opens/calls/3bets that are too loose during these dry spells is where a lot of edge comes from imo. Technical ability aside, it's so much easier to stick to solid preflop ranges online multi tabling compared to fighting boredom single tabling your 30 hands/hr.

Study

So I was going to go out with this girl tonight but both of us came to the conclusion that we couldn't be assed. I had the option of going and playing for a few hours at the casino or heading to a homegame after gymming at about 11pm but decided I'd just rest up since I need to be up at 8am to see a friend tomorrow. I didn't just want to sit around and do nothing though because it just seems like too much of a sin to waste the best night of the week poker-wise not doing something that isn't poker. So I'm going to take a closer look at some of the hands I posted from Thursday night's session and see if I can't break them down somewhat.

It's interesting the comparison between studying for live games and for online games. If I were to study these hands as an online player, I'd be using tools like PIO, FlopZilla, and a couple other random tools like Equilab and some hot/cold calcs. But the online days are behind me and so instead I'm going to focus more around player profiling, exploitative adjustments, and game dynamics - all of which have far more weighting in the live environment. I'll also look to respond in more depth to the feedback I got from some of you guys on these hands here.

Hand 1

$500 Effective, $2/$3 NLH, game tends to get fairly deep and pre-flop sizings are generally on the larger sizing at this place (for a 2/3 anyway). We have two pretty horrific players in this game at this stage, not really involved in this hand. 8-9 handed at this point.

UTG: Pretty typical bad reg, plays a lot of PLO, doesn't really get out of line, will occasionally take some spooky lines and occasionally bluff, I honestly don't know a whole lot about him.

UTG (500) $15, call, call, Hero (500) 3bets to $80 in CO w/ AJ, only UTG calls.

I see a lot of people comment here as though we should be giving more respect to the UTG RFI. In an online game, you see a huuuuuuge difference between RFI % from UTG vs BTN. In live, it's not really the same at all. GOOD players will still open tight from UTG in a LLSNL game. But I think it's a fair assumption to make that most recs are just going to say "these are the hands I want to play" and will play them from anywhere. Yeah, sure, you probably won't get guys opening K8s from UTG that would open in CO/BTN, but I still think in general people are opening far too wide from early position in live games.

Next thing I want to bring up is the RFI size. $15 is probably pretty standard for this game, if on the smaller side. I'm usually opening to $20 and then $25 on some lineups from UTG at this game. But $15 is definitely the median open size by a long shot. So yeah his open is "5x" but realistically, it's not an indication of strength by any means.

Two cold callers between me and villain. One is a whale and the other just normal/bad. Their ranges are both very wide. Could be something like all offsuit broadways, all suited connectors, 1 gappers, two gappers, offsuit connectors, who fkn knows really. I have no idea how recs construct cold call ranges, I just know it's "wide".

Because of this, and because of Hero's tight image, I think squeezing is a fine play. AJ doesn't really play particularly well multiway, so I don't really see any merit to overcalling pre. I'd much rather overcall A6s than AJo here. Folding seems way too nitty because of how wide the RFI's range is and the cold callers are. I expect to have very good fold equity with this 3bet. If UTG folds, the cold callers 95% of the time will as well. And I think we have decent enough fold equity vs UTG. Sizing-wise, I think $80 is fine/the sweet spot.

Flop $195: 66T

Once villain calls, I expect his range to be faaairly tight. Something along the following lines: QQ-88, AJs+, KQs, AQo+

It's entirely possible that he also has like all suited broadways and maybe some suited connectors as well and maybe more pairs. I simply don't know. When I think of the OOP range here, I visualise it containing a high density of pocket pairs. And then the next thing that comes to my mind is that my cbet isn't going to have a lot of fold equity here since he's just got so damn many pairs that will never fold to the flop bet.

Cbetting: If we cbet this spot, we want to choose a sizing that garners fold equity vs the air in his range - hands like KQs that still have equity or could bluff us off ours later in the hand. We know he's not folding a pair, but by cbetting we drastically improve our visibility. If we assume his range is what I posted above in the bold, let's quickly take a look at combinatorics. This is a 4.8% range and is 52 combos. 21 of those 52 combos are pocket pairs, 88-QQ. So almost half his range on the flop are pairs. 26/52 combos continue on this flop - pairs, quads, flush draws. The rest of his range will just fold to a cbet because I don't expect this player to float too much - I even think we get AK to fold. To make sure we get the fold equity we want and to get AQ/AK to fold, I like maybe a half pot sizing. It seems unnecessarily big prima facie, but it's really important that we get AK to fold the flop. So I think something in the vicinity of $80-$100 is a good cbet size.

Before looking at the combinatorics, all that's going through my head here is "HIS RANGE IS PAIRS. HE NO FOLD PAIR." But if we assume he's folding half the time to our cbet, then a bet is auto-profiting. And we still have equity/implied odds as well. I'm just going to quickly try a wider 3bet defense range to see whether that changes things much on this board. If I give him this: QQ-66, ATs+, KTs+, QTs+, JTs, T9s, 98s, 87s, 76s, AQo+, that's 86 combos and 47 of the 86 continue. His range is now 30% pairs, roughly 13% trips+, and the rest air. If we assume he folds all his air that missed, he'll be folding here 46% of the time so even vs a wider defence range, a cbet is still auto-profiting.

Basically these numbers make our check back look pretty terrible. It's also really good to get back in FlopZilla and start visualising ranges a little better. Now I know that vs most 3bet defence ranges low/mid paired boards should probably be bets because 50% of the time we get fold equity.

Checking: After that, I can't see much merit to checking back. Now vs someone who will float AK here 100%, which IMO is a fairly small % of the population, they'll continue on the flop 67% of the time. If we cbet $90 here and lose the every single time they continue, we still have a profitable cbet because we only need to win 32% of the time with this bet. Of course we can still make the best hand a decent amount of the time so even vs floatier players, cbetting is probably best.

So instead of freaking out on this flop thinking his entire range is pocket pairs and that we have 0% fold equity, I can now visualise it much more clearly and will look to cbet here instead of checking behind.


Tyman said:

I'm fairly happy with the squeeze pre. I think I'd be more in love with it if I knew UTG was opening ever so slightly wider than he might have been? But I still think in general people are opening too wide UTG and therefore folding a lot to 3bets. Could definitely be wrong though.

Dizzy said:

Interesting that we now have two people saying not to squeeze. I agree it's a weird spot here with AJ. Like we can't overcall because it's just not the right hand for it, but just mucking AJ in a fairly loose/high VPIP game just seems soooooo nitty. I think I'm not overbluffing here either. I probably only squeeze value and AJo here, and maybe 67s-89s.

Dizzy brings up another interesting point. And that is that if we do cbet, how are we playing turns and rivers? Once he calls flop, his range is 25% super nutted hands, 17% flush draws, 38% 77-99, and 19% JJ-QQ. If we barrel off on say, low bricky non-spades, we can probably get him to fold 55% of the time, as in he'll only call with his nutted hands and JJ-QQ. Might even get JJ to fold. If we cbet $90 on the flop, and I don't think we can go much smaller as much as we'd like to simply because we need to retain fold equity vs AK. If we go $90, that puts $375 in the middle, leaving us with $330 behind. At this point we would have to jam or give up. At $500 effective stack, we probably have to jam it. Problem is when he starts calling all nut flush draws on the turn then we might be in trouble. I mean even if he calls ALL of his flush draws, we still have a profitable jam. We only need to win 31% of the time to break even on our jam. If he has 38% 77-99 that'll snapfold, jamming makes sense.

Now at $750 effective stack, I think this becomes a much more interesting spot. We'd have $375 in the middle but with $580 behind. At which point I think we'd still have to bet. Jamming doesn't make any sense whatsoever. We just want fold equity vs his middle pairs and hopefully some of those flush draws. I think $180 would do the trick nicely. And if they call again, well we just give up on rivers and check back when we hit a J or A and hopefully win some of the time.

Honestly, the idea of squeezing AJ pre, cbetting and double barreling with complete air seems really counter-intuitive to me. This whole past year I've been trying to avoid "getting myself into spots like this" by just making hands and value betting vs fish. Like even if this is clearly a profitable line to take with AJ, it seems like I'd just be getting out of line. If I got called on the turn after squeezing and double barreling, I'd feel like it was basically a spew - not spewy in the sense that it's just baaaad but moreso because it's just unnecessary and because you don't have to ever bluff in LLSNL to make money. In a way playing this hand this way goes against my entire strategy which is to keep variance low and make big hands vs spastics and value bet.

So I guess that's why we can probably just fold pre here instead.

Telly said:

Another on the no 3bet train! Interesting. I now like a flop cbet as well but we have to be super careful IMO that we size juuuuust big enough to make sure we aren't floated by AK. That would be a ***** disaster if we get to showdown and lose to AK here.

Tehkid said:

Glad someone likes the 3bet! Again, I'd be worried that if we cbet less than $90 here we risk getting floated by AK. Maybe people would snapfold AK 100% to a 1/3 psb bet OOP here, maybe I just have nightmares about getting floated by AK. I agree that the river bet is probably +EV after we play the hand this way. Think we definitely get 77-99 and AK to fold and if that's the case then we have reached auto-profit.

The benefit to taking this particular line, xxb instead of bbx (as Dizzy recommended) is that it's cheaper. I only risk $100 on my bluff instead of $90 + $180 by going flop and turn. That is a whole variance reduction factor thing as well and I like to take the safest route and conserve chips where possible. In this particular hand villain tank/called w/ JJ which is a hand I don't think villain ever folds on a two-toned board if we go flop and turn. After tanking for a while he says "Oops, show me AQ" before tossing in the call. He is at the absolute nut top of his range so don't blame the call at all, but it just goes to show that if he defends 88-QQ (and he could well fold 88-TT pre vs me here, idk) that we have a good river bet. I'm not trying to get JJ to fold here (never really expecting that hand to be in his range).

======================

Anyway, it's way too ****ing late atm, need to get some sleep. This was good and I'll definitely do another one of these shortly. Probably tomorrow evening while chilling at home with the fam.

Yeah you're dead right. I would guess there was maybe a 5 hour period where it got reeeeeeaaally bad. And you could tell it was upsetting me too lmao I was aggressively folding those fkers and complaining to the dealer. But you can deal with it two ways, one by opening wider, getting out of line, fps, etc. If we do this, this leads to mistakes, and mistakes are what make us feel bad at the end of sessions. Even just opening wider can be a mistake in and of itself. Like I posted a hand where I opened K8s over a limp - that was definitely a byproduct of being so incredibly card dead. I donated like $240 in that hand alone basically. Not saying the iso is bad as such, but it's just unnecessary/nil EV to the point where nothing good is really going to come from it IMO. The other thing you can do when it gets tough is to just keep folding through the pain of acute boredom. I'm getting really good at that and I think it's definitely been a large part of my success so far!

You are taking my point the wrong way. I'm not advocating to 3b to get folds. It's for value. If the whale is never folding KXs to a 3b do you want to play KQ in a single raised pot or a 3b pot? If he's taking every suited connector or gapper to a flop do you want to play TT with deep eff. stacks or shallow? When larger bets go in on the turn or river who will make bigger mistakes?

When you have a strong 1 pair, do you want players behind you left to act and deep eff stacks to maneuver or would you rather be able to reach committment against the whale more easily?

Ex whale opens utg. You cold call kq ip, fish calls behind, good reg completes big blind. Flop Q74fd. Whale cbets, you (this is already a hard spot)?? Say you call. Either player raises (you now lose). Either player calls. Turn completes the fd or oesd (now you lose). If you had 3b the whale, you turn this awful difficult spot into a money printing spot.

You need to ruthlessly be bloating the pot and isolating the weakest players with a wide value range. You can play the make the nuts mulitway game too with speculative crap, but all the stuff in the top left of pokerstove needs to be 3b for value (think the top 4x4 or 5x4).

If the whole table is cold calling 3b behind you, you can disregard. I too would only be 3b the nuts and I'd be going with stupid huge sizing.

I played 3 pretty long sessions the past few days since I'm on vacation/staycation with a mix of 1/3 and 2/5. I literally don't know how anyone is beating 2/5 for a significant winrate. It's pretty much like playing online. No limpers -- everyone is coming in for a raise instead of a limp and instead of calling they're opting for a 3bet. There would be a backpacker that table changes out to replaced by another backpacker that table changed in from another table. When I asked a dealer, he said there's definitely a lot of dead 2/5 tables. I'd be pretty interested in anyone else's observations on the state of the game. Are people just hyper-aggressivly table selecting or are people actually able to get 30bb/100 win rates in this type of environment?

Yeah sure that's fine. And I would 3b KQ every day of the week vs this player. It becomes a grey area though with hands like J9s and even a hand like 88-TT. 3betting TT is almost always going to be best vs this guy but it's very difficult to play a lot of flops when you're getting floated almost 100% and more than half the flops to begin with you're not going to like. KQ at least is a hundred times easier to play in a bloated pot vs this guy than J9s or TT.

Where's your game? The games I play in are extremely soft. I'm at about $34/hr over the last 800 or so hours.

So the guy checked JJ on the turn? Eesh. Also, If you're gonna play J9s just 3bet it as well.

Yeah, pretty horrendous right. He knew it on the river as well, his "oops" was referring to him not betting the turn.

With J9s and 3betting, I'm not entirely sold. Yeah the benefit is that we probably get the pot heads up (not as often as we'd like but still a decent %) and it'll play much better HU than in a multiway pot. The downside I see in this game/vs this player is that we have somewhere between 0 and 1% fold equity. He literally will just never fold and will float a ton post as well. My whole strategy vs players like these is to keep the pot as small as possible when I don't have a hand, bluff hardly ever (because they call so much), and just value bet the fk out of really strong hands. The benefit to doing this is that we get to reduce variance overall.

If I was to play J9s IP vs a less spazzy opponent, someone who I may also have fold equity vs preflop, then I think 3betting or squeezing becomes better because their range will be more defined post flop and we won't be in the dark re bluffing post since villain will be playing more straight forward.

But ya, in general I'd rather not go MW with J9s if possible. I still think playing the hand, whether it's cold/overcalling or 3betting is going to be higher EV than folding when there's so many very weak players in the hand/game.

I see a lot of people saying not to cold call much IP but at the same time people also say that we should be playing as many hands as possible vs the whales. So I definitely want to be playing a hand like this but I think maybe 3betting a slightly more linear/strong range (like your KQo/AJo) is better than going ham with suited connectors and one gappers. The whole, 3betting polarised vs people who fold a lot argument and whatnot.

bbisssick, do you play much live cash?

I like the AJo squeeze and betting 90-100 on flop then giving up most runouts as default. I think this is one of those spots where villains believe you bet almost all value on flop so you might get heroed by AK on river but not flop. By betting flop you can also bet a street for value of you hit an A, ideal to have AK/AQ folded out by then.

In my experience double delays in pots where villains are invested don't go all that well unless they believe you've hit your draw or Ace or whatever.

A lot of people 3bet these suited connectors/gappers for fold equity, but I think it's highest Ev as you kick out the regs from the pot (now if you have bad regs cc'ing AJo etc than disregard this entire post) and then you're often IP against a whale (who still has a very weak range), who are making massive mistakes.

He's going to give it away at some point so I think it's a pretty big skill set to maximize your opportunities with these types of players.

I do play live, mostly in binges, but have avg. 400 hours past two years, it's a nice change of pace from the online grind on occasion

Yeah definitely all fair points. Cheers.

Yeah definitely, probably something I need to work on tbh. ATM with whales like this I'm probably playing way too tight in general. 3b to iso IP with a 15-20% range is probably way better than just passively trying to make a hand before pulling value outta them.

Going to have a crack at hand 2 tonight re the flopzilla stuff etc if I'm not too tired.

I made a trip to MGM National Harbor, Maryland (USA). I skimmed through your hand histories and there's still plenty of people still making "mistakes" playing loose passively pre-flop and for the most part aren't worried about getting squeezed or 3bet. Looks like it's a completely different ecosystem.

I know 2 different pros who played in the same room I play in and they picked up the whole lives and moved to play full time at MGM National Harbor. They report back to me that the games are much softer than the games in my room. If youre saying that the 2/5 at MGM isnt very beatable, Im not sure what to say to you because its much softer than most 2/5 games.

I played there a few months ago for 5 straight days and about 40 hours. I only played the $500 max buy in 1/3 game but I concur that there is tons of action there.

I think I'm fairly lucky being in Aus in that regard. Rake/comp etc is atrocious but the games are probably some of the best in the world.

Well, it could have been bad table selecting or low sample size. I only played for about 30 hours. It was mostly an observation on the pre-flop play and that I wasn't expecting pre-flop competence in a live environment. Most of the time I would expect something like 5 limpers and then a TAG opens 6x instead of having most of the hands going 3-4x open/3bet/fold or 3-4x open/3bet/4bet/fold. I wish I asked the backpackers when I was there because, from my perspective, that's not exactly the type of game a pro would look for. I could also be completely wrong about the amount of post-flop edge possible given pre-flop competence.

Well, it could have been bad table selecting or low sample size. I only played for about 30 hours. It was mostly an observation on the pre-flop play and that I wasn't expecting pre-flop competence in a live environment. Most of the time I would expect something like 5 limpers and then a TAG opens 6x instead of having most of the hands going 3-4x open/3bet/fold or 3-4x open/3bet/4bet/fold. I wish I asked the backpackers when I was there because, from my perspective, that's not exactly the type of game a pro would look for. I could also be completely wrong about the amount of post-flop edge possible given pre-flop competence.

Meale the live grind sounds like hell. Why don't you man up and play online again?

It's actually ez mode tbh. Don't listen too much to Avaritia's propaganda! And the fact that online poker is now banned in Australia would mean I have to grind on ignition/acr and PHUCK that tbh. Don't see how I could possibly get the same hourly from online poker ATM.

cause live nl 500 is more value than any lowstakes online tables ever could be

Live poker ftw!!

i agree completly with this. i mean we wanna play isolated pot with the whale, we can exploit him with smaller sizings when we dont and bigger when we do and he would never tell the difference bcs he dont care. valuebet him thinly af and that would do it.

new to the thread, best of luck op

Thanks mate, welcome.

Re this particular villain, as I said he's the type to float every flop and especially vs small sizings because he'll look got any excuse to bluff and will see that as weakness. Very tricky to play against unless you have a made hand.

Daily Update - Tues 26/12

Hours Played: 7.7
Profit: $1,076

First of all, I want to say a big Merry Christmas to all you guys following. Hope you guys had a good break and spent some quality time with people important to you! I spent yesterday Tuesday back home with the family, ate way too much food, drank way too much beer, and did absolutely nothing for a good couple days. But today it was back on the grind. Waited probably 1.5-2 hours on the list before getting sat at 2/5. I won the same about $$$ wise tonight compared to my previous session but I feel a lot better about my overall play. Quite frankly, I ran pretty good overall - distro wise and AIEV. This is my 8th consecutive winning session and we're running the hourly up nicely, 20c short of $35/hr atm which is cool.

Tomorrow (today) we'll look to get some sun, hit the gym, go to the bank, and play a session at the casino in the evening.

Results since start of thread: https://1drv.ms/x/s!AkK4doh8PHLEgk6pBpFJrgcokPKM

Merry Xmas mate, have a good one! Congrats on the results and hopefully you'll be killing it next year at the 5/10 games.

Much appreciated brother < 3

Quality results man. Just wanna say that it's super impressive to be so active in PGC and knock out top content day in day out.

Looking forward to following your journey in 2018.

Take care and good luck!