Yep.

@MikeStarr if you actually want to know the answers to these questions you should read some of Matthew Janda's books. He goes into great detail in establishing blind defense theory.

These concepts may be only rarely useful in your 100BB cap 2/5 games. I don't know. But generally if you call pre-flop and it's HU, if your opponent is C-betting about what he should, say 70% of the time, he just doesn't have a real hand that often which is why you should call with as little equity as bottom pair. Now if you know your opponent will only C-bet with TP or better, that goes out the window. How often we need to defend by calling or raising is determined by villain's C-bet % and the board texture. We want to defend enough to prevent him from profitably betting ATC.

And if you're folding bottom pair HU, it may be correct if your villain is not C-betting enough, but otherwise you're likely folding too much.

And in particular on paired flops like AA5, our standards for continuing must go way down, because we just won't have a pair that often (and neither should villain). Big broadway cards with a BDFD is plenty strong to call a 25% pot C-bet.

+1 to all the above. I really dont really think mike could beat higher then 2/5 or small stakes online. Math is math, just bc you believe 2+2 is 5 doesnt mean it is in reality. This stuff has been figured out for a long time and is pretty basic imo..

That said If he just wants to beat 1/2 - 2/5 forever, he seems to be doing a good job at that. This stuff isnt the most relevant there.. (still is, just not as much)

Didn’t mean to be condescending but just trying to be factual. You clearly don’t understand the concepts discussed here and by your buddy. It doesn’t mean you’re dumb or an idiot it just means you’re not as skillful as you think you are. As is the case with most poker players. Now if what I said was damaging to your ego I dunno what to tell you. Being objective and open minded about the way you see and play the game is the only way to grow as a poker player.

My point is reemphasized in your post above. Your claims of the profitability of minimum defense frequencies in cash games is based on absolutely nothing except your own intuition and experience. It’s not backed by any mathematical facts or EV calculations. Yet they are stated as facts in your post. The real facts are actually quite the opposite from what you believe especially when playing vs a “good player”.

That being said most of these concepts aren’t going to be necessary to beat a 2/5 100bb cap game. Like folding the KJ to a bet on AA5 isn’t killing your win rate in those games because the fish are prevalent and play so horrendously.

There are hardly any games higher than 2/5 anymore so that really makes no difference to me. I have played a couple 100 hours of live 5/10 and have a win rate of $78/hr. I realize thats a tiny sample size but I have played the game and won. Trust me, when I play 5/10 I adjust my game a considerable amount. When I post here, Im talking about strategy that will beat 1/2 and 2/5 games.

Maybe I shouldnt have brought up the KJs hand since it was in a tournmanet where you do need to defend you r blinds and I have no idea how deep they were, but I still think its a hand where our hero was being results oriented after slipping into a miracle runner runner flush when the other guy happened to have some sort of big hand as well. In the long run, I think a good player in position is going to beat him up in that spot.

I agree that there how often you defend with bottom pair is determined by how often the guy c bets. Here's where I disagree.

You dont need to defend your blinds hardly at all in a cash game. By "defend" I mean play weak hands just because you have money in the pot already. The blinds arent increasing like they do in a tournament. You arent losing much at all by just folding. You will be losing more by trying to play weak hands OOP.
If a guy is relentlessly raising from the button then at some point you need to make a stand, but that just doesnt happen very often at all in low stakes games, and I would rather 3 bet him with a weak hand than call with it.

Lets say the guy IS relentlessly raising your blind from the button and you call with 75s. You hit bottom pair.

The flop is something like J85. Sure you are probably ahead of him a decent percentage of the time, but the problem with calling his inevitable Cbet is that this guy is clearly a LAG. He is very likely going to pound you again on the turn. Are you going to call him down all the way to showdown with bottom pair? Unless you know this guys game like the back of your hand, and you know which scare card he will bluff, how often he CBets, how often he will triple barrell ect....hes going to destroy you IP. There is just no need to go to war with a guy like that just to defend 1 BB. You slow him down by 3 betting preflop with weak hands and calling with some hands, but not hand as weak as 75s.

I am the guy who relentlessly raises IP like this and I have people try to play like this against me from the blinds all the time. It doesnt work if the guy IP knows what hes doing.

My skill is determined by my win rate after 1000s of hours. Not by your interpretation of my skill level based on your understanding of poker. I guess YOU are the only one who doesnt overestimate his skill level right? You are the authority on poker apparently.

and just barreling any flop and any turn with ATC in position doesn't work if the guy who defends his bigblind knows what he's doing, and yes sometimes you have to call 2 streets with what was bottom pair on the flop, that's poker, sometimes calling turn with your bottom pair is higher EV than folding, and sometimes also calling the 3rd barrel is higher EV than folding it

Also from what I gather in your game it's possible you shouldn't defend hands like 75s from the bigblind given people open like 5x or something, but if you're folding 75s to someone who's opening to like 2.5x from the BB you are likely making a mistake, not a huge mistake but a mistake nonetheless. Pots-For-Sale is right when he says that you probably can't notice those are mistakes because you are printing money from whales in your game making much much bigger mistakes.

That's a very good point. In the article that started this debate, the author was talking about a 2.5x open from the button, but nobody hardly anyone opens for 2.5x.

That's $5 in a 1/2 game and $12.50 in a 2/5 game. There are some people who open $5 in my 1/2 games but they are totally clueless and they almost always vary their raise size on hand strength. For the most part people are opening $10+ in the 1/2 games and $20 at 2/5. The standard open at 5/10 is $35 so that's 3.5x.

The raise sizes do get smaller as the stakes go higher because people raise more widely. I personally dont like that strategy but thats a whole different discussion.

If someone opens to $5 in a 1/2 game from the button and I have 75s in the BB, I am very likely to call so Ill concede that point, its just vary rare which is another thing about the article I think is not realistic to live games I play in regularly. For tournaments its a different story. I think that's pretty standard tourney open, correct?

yes in tournament opens are even smaller, ranging from 2x to 2.3x from most people, there are also antes which means you get an even better price on your defend

I try to be as honest and objective with myself as I can be. I am reviewing my play daily and looking for mistakes that can be corrected. When I see someone make a play that I at first think was dumb it takes a little work but maybe I find some merit to it after review. I know I’m not as good a player as I could be. I’m always striving to make improvements. This is after 1000’s upon 1000’s of hours of live and online play at 5/10+.

You on the other hand pretend that you’ve learned all you needed to with comments about your friend’s soon to be downswing because of a new concept he’s trying to implement and improve upon that you don’t see as necessary or relevant.

Your comment about your win rate determining your skill level further proves my point about said skill level.

Again sorry if you’re taking this stuff the wrong way but you have to expect some criticism when you make a PG&C thread.

These are all very good points. Obviously our defending range changes based on villains sizing Preflop. In Mike’s example vs a 3x sizing we are going to need to be defending 75s vs all but the tightest of players on the button.

No whether that strategy of defense includes 3 betting this hand at some frequency (which is prob best) is really up the player. And so work would need to be done to figure out how to not get out of line in this regard.

As we get into the more standard sizings preflop in a live game such as 4-5-6x and higher yeah we don’t have to be defending this wide and it can actually become a mistake to do so.

Exactly, but in cash games you dont need to defend blinds. That's my point. You can fold the blinds without a second thought and not be losing anything worthwhile. You are never going to be able to make up for lack of position in any meaningful way.

Here's the thing. There are some very smart people here at 2+2. There are some math geniuses. The difference between them and me is that they are trying to solve poker. I am trying to take peoples money. I dont care about solving poker or playing GTO.

The article talking about this 75s hand where he hits bottom pair says

"So in terms of raw equity we need at least 27% to profitably call plus a little more to account for positional disadvantage. Next we need to calculate our own hands equity against the buttons betting range"

We need a lot more than " a little more" to account for positional disadvantage". It then goes on to show the buttons range which is completely absurd. He shows that he has 37% equity vs this button range. Now its talking about a 6 max online hand so maybe its not as absurd as it would be for a full ring live game, but still there are major problems with this. Trying to calculate your equity vs a hand range doesnt matter nearly as much as he is trying to have you believe when youre not all in. We dont have a HUD. We dont know how often this guy is going to keep betting for value or keep bluffing. You will never be in enough similar hands with this same guy to get that precise a read on him. You will never be able to beat a good player OOP like this.

Even more importantly, you dont need to do anything like this at all when the table is full of random droolers like most live low stakes games are.

I just love it when people here tell me my lack of poker skill is apparent. LOL
Ive been hearing this for so long its boring at this point. The amount of money I win is my judge of poker skill. Im not trying to beat a perfectly programmed GTO bot. I'm trying to take peoples money and that's what I continue to do at a rate that is much higher than most of the people who tell me how bad I am.

When I play higher stakes I adjust my game accordingly and the higher stakes you play the more important player reads and feel for the game are and less important the math is.

I dont mind criticism at all. If I post a hand that I screwed up, I want to hear about it so I can play it better next time. Telling my my lack of skill is apparent when I crush these games over and over is just dumb. Can I beat a 10/25 game? I dont care to be honest.

Im destroying 1/2 games
Im one of the biggest winners at 2/5 in my room which is one of the biggest in S. Florida.
Ive beaten the 5/10 games in the small sample size I have but it has all but dried up so thats irrelevant at this point.

All I care about is beating the games Im in, nothing more. Can I get better? Sure I can. But IMO the main thing I need to get better at is when to double or triple barrell bluff...not when to call with garbage OOP.

Possible that you need to improve on double and triple barrel bluffs, but it's very likely you need to improve on your play out of position when you are defending an open, which type of hands to check raise and to call

Also I strongly believe you shouldn't measure your skills based on how much money you make, most of the time it's not quite relevent

This is just incredibly wrong. We all know that anyone can win or lose over 100 hours, but when you are talking about 1000s of hours, how much money you make is all that matters. What else are we playing for? Do you want to try to prove you are smarter and know odds and math better than everyone else or do you want to read situations better, outplay people and take their money?

Ive taken over $100,000 in cash out of the poker economy in the last 20 months. I dont play full time and I dont play for a living. I have other income. If I actually played for a living I would put in probably 50% more hours and I would make over $75000 a year, in cash, playing low to mid stakes. How many players do you think are doing that? Id be willing to bet its less than 2% of all poker players. Imagine what I could make if my lack of skill wasnt so apparent?

I'm just saying some players who are living in remote areas and can only grind online that are beating like 1/2 at a good clip are probably a fair bit more skilled than some players playing live who have access to great high stakes games and are making 10x more money

winning money from whales usually gives the illusion that we are better than we actually are, and yes you would make more money from the same games if you worked on improving your skills at the table

Comparing online and live is a waste of time. Its apples to oranges. Its like saying a football player is better than a baseball player. Im sure I would have to make serious adjustments to playing online and I know for a fact that plenty of great online players get their asses kicked playing live. I see it all the time as they donk off buy in after buyin after buyin playing full ring live just like they do 6 max online.

The only thing that I care about is can I take peoples money in the games Im in. Not whether or not an a good online player is better than I am in HIS game. You think Mayweather cared that McGregor was better at MMA when they were boxing?

dude the only difference between live and online is that live players in general are worse, not much else to it, you are playing vs mostly fishes, there are no great online players who get their asses kicked playing live man...

OMG! Are you serious? You just lost all credibility with those statements. Would you like to conduct a poll on who thinks there are major differences between 6 max online and full ring live?

What do you mean I lost all credibility, you don't agree that live players are much worse in general?

No. There's no debating that. I mean your statement that there are no differences between online and live other than live players being worse is blatantly wrong. There are glaring differences.

Also, I see hot shot young online players come in all the time playing aggro as hell and get their asses handed to them and then they disappear. It happens on a regular basis. You cant play full ring live like you do 6 max online. It will never work. Im not saying a good online player cant crush live games. Im saying they cant do it playing the same way. There are serious adjustments and the young guys I see arent making them.

well yes of course but it's the same adjustements we make when playing against a recreational player online, only difference being the table is full of them, also the regs are much easier to exploit, the only thing I can think of that is vastly different is the fact that lots of pots are multiways live whereas online it's often HU on the flop, but any good online players know the adjustements for that, maybe those young hot shot you're talking about are bad micro stakes grinders online

To be fair these GTO concepts are more useful in higher stakes cash games and tournaments where players are more skilled and opens smaller.

Your friend, according to you, does play these games, but you're applying your live 1/2 and 2/5 experience to conclude these well-researched concepts are wrong.

In your 100bb cap 2/5 games there are limited uses of these concepts, but it doesn't make you correct in generalizing that these concepts are useless in live cash games period.

And aren't the 5/T games you've played some weird like 10bb cap game? Thought I remembered you talking about these games at PBKC. Maybe I'm wrong. But it's obvious these would play different than typical uncapped 5/T where opens are usually around 3x.

I'm not criticizing your play, but it doesn't seem fair to use your winrate in low cap low stakes games as justification for how one should be playing in high stakes games with deep stacks and highly skilled opponents.

.

Guess I misread that post. I re-read the post about your friend. I see you referred to the high stakes player as an acquaintance. Thought you were just talking about one guy, the high stakes player. Kind of confusing.

Yeah if your friend who also plays 100bb cap 2/5 starts applying GTO concepts too liberally it could be bad.

The KJcc hand is standard for a high stakes tourney though.