not sure what you mean by theory and reads i guess. A theory can have any useful info in it, and the play could be 'theoretically justified' by reads imo. That's what i think of theory.

These sort of spots where decisions in the game tree become more and more chaotic the rarer the decision is, so range's become more imbalanced and more nonstandard lines become the highest ev option, where nonstandard is defined as deviation from piosolver strategy. I think my play is theoretically justified because their range looked very weak to me. Yes the turn barrel sizing was a big part of why i shoved and there was a psychological element to it, but I havn't played villian before except for like 100 hands. I guess where the confusion is, there are a lot of psychologically based plays in poker that are not read based, and this falls into that set of decisions.

nice post

that's what opponent said during the hand as well. I think a good strategy would lead some % of hands there, given the turn card i think IP will check back some decent chunk of hands. Run it in pio if u want.

By theory I mean that villain is somewhat playing how he is supposed to play, without huge imbalances in his game(like betting smaller with a weaker range and bigger with a stronger range), by reads I mean deviations you found on villain's game that are more obvious and consistent that allow you to exploit them.

I think that's sick strat to go nuts on those rare spots, but you let yourself to get owned too in those decisions, but in the scenario you've posted, you have such a good read on villain that he won't be able to exploit you back ever, he just has to give up after your raise OTT and anything else he does there vs you will lose a lot of EV for him. But that way of thinking is only good if your reads are really solid, so that's why I said you were relying more on reads than on theory in there. The reads allow you to see an opportunity to exploit him, while theory provide you with the tools to do so, if your reads are wrong, then the strategy you develop with theory vs that won't mean much and won't be very effective.

The biggest problem of that approach is that you can sometimes go nuts in spots you can't rep much and end up giving villain an option to fight back, it's super profitable vs some people who can't hand read but it's very easy for you to mess up and end up in situations where people can just soul-read you. So gotta be careful with that and do it only in spots you have a high confidence on your reads, also making moves like that tilts you like crazy too and makes your game less consistent overall.

Here are 2 interesting hands we've played, where I think you overdid with those plays

H1: what did you have here? that line OTR screams SDV turned into bluffs, since OOP should bet with his strong hands in there a lot and have very few slowplays

PokerStars - $2 NL FAST (6 max) - Holdem - 6 players
Hand converted by PokerTracker 4

Rapidesh123 (BTN): 100 BB
mnhome7979 (SB): 76.32 BB
Stroggos_nz (BB): 138.57 BB
x1elritze99 (UTG): 120.54 BB
Remi Lebo_10 (MP): 261.3 BB
nathana2 (CO): 151.44 BB

mnhome7979 posts SB 0.5 BB, Stroggos_nz posts BB 1 BB

Pre Flop: (pot: 1.5 BB) Rapidesh123 has 6 8

fold, fold, fold, Rapidesh123 raises to 2.32 BB, fold, Stroggos_nz calls 1.32 BB

Flop: (5.14 BB, 2 players) Q A Q
Stroggos_nz checks, Rapidesh123 bets 1.62 BB, Stroggos_nz calls 1.62 BB

Turn: (8.37 BB, 2 players) 9
Stroggos_nz checks, Rapidesh123 checks

River: (8.37 BB, 2 players) 5
Stroggos_nz checks, Rapidesh123 bets 4.13 BB, Stroggos_nz raises to 20 BB, Rapidesh123 raises to 96.07 BB and is all-in, fold

Rapidesh123 wins 47 BB


H2: do people overfold vs that line? I've always thought about doing it but since I'm never with value in that spot I never do that.

PokerStars - $2 NL FAST (6 max) - Holdem - 6 players
Hand converted by PokerTracker 4

LasseAA71 (BTN): 101 BB
Stroggos_nz (SB): 227.11 BB
Rapidesh123 (BB): 104 BB
mapcel1D (UTG): 100 BB
xxblut100xx (MP): 172.26 BB
Mr.Spewy (CO): 228.94 BB

Stroggos_nz posts SB 0.5 BB, Rapidesh123 posts BB 1 BB

Pre Flop: (pot: 1.5 BB) Rapidesh123 has 6 6

fold, fold, fold, fold, Stroggos_nz raises to 2.53 BB, Rapidesh123 calls 1.53 BB

Flop: (5.06 BB, 2 players) 8 4 J
Stroggos_nz checks, Rapidesh123 checks

Turn: (5.06 BB, 2 players) 3
Stroggos_nz checks, Rapidesh123 bets 1.59 BB, Stroggos_nz raises to 20 BB, Rapidesh123 calls 18.41 BB

River: (45.06 BB, 2 players) Q
Stroggos_nz checks, Rapidesh123 checks

You are sick in your head rapid. So damn Proud u played some hands at 200 u have to derail evry thread that exist. Can u keep ur fkn garbage clueless complicated directly stupid analyses in your own garbage can?
Why are u even commenting on msnl and hs players games and compare your struggling advanture?
You play micros and have for way to many hands, because you suck! Instead u have to tell the world in another crushers and gifted player why YOU arent playing higher. No1 fkn cares. U suck and thats all. Like 24 times set over set in several 100k hands should stop ur winnings. Clown! Impossible to stay Nice to u! Are you on some kind of troll run today? Fk off!

@rapidesh

nice hands, i had K9o. Looks like a good bluff spot and probably people overfold.

You havn't really explained your theory well. You say it's how 'people are supposed to play', that doesn't mean anything. You also say 'without huge imbalances' in your game.

Imo that has to be a pretty ideological theory. My own theory would conclude that the maximal EV line is to be very imbalanced in some spots.

I agree with your last sentence that people should only deviate from a solver type strategy only when they are very confident.

I never run Sims that allow donking tbf

man this rejam with 68o is such a giant punt, also you opening 68o from btn when stroggoz is in the bigblind is asking to lose money

loving this thread !

By playing as they should, I mean using a reasonable strategy that takes in consideration what their range wants to bet, with reasonable hands for each spot, basically playing their range, not their hand and telegraphing the strength of their holdings. Also if using more than one bet sizing, having some nutted hands hidden on each bet sizing.

Ofc fish won't do that, but a lot of regs will in a lot of spots. But if somehow that villain in the K9o hand were playing a reasonable strat for that sizing(like a mergy/equity denial strat with high frequency turn barrels for a small sizing with all sets/draws in there), your strategy would perform badly vs that.

Ofc people are not doing that, but by saying in theory, I mean if villain was actually thinking about using a balanced strategy for that sizing OTT(or mixing 2 sizings), which probably will make his strat more complex and will probay have a lower EV than playing overbet or check.

But if he is somehow playing that suboptimal strat, he will gain EV by people overadjusting vs that thinking "oh, small bet, he either has a draw or a midpair, TP is the nuts".

Btw, what I said probably is stuff that would only happen in a fantasy world, because it's way more likely he has a midpair and is betting small to x back river than he is playing that equity denial strat. But there are spots where it's not as black and white as this one and villain could actually be playing a balanced strat.

In those scenarios isn't the best approach to see how our strat would perform vs both the balanced strat and the exploitative one? As an example, K9 or a flush draw would perform decent vs that balanced strat, while A6o with the flush blocker wouldn't. But all of those will do well if villain is always weak in there

What hands villain should be x/r river with for value? When I'm in his shoes I rarely bluff in that spot because I rarely have value in there, most of my valuebets that can x/r want to overbet and put pressure so I can win the pot more often with my range. It's only useful to trap vs villains that will realize that and will rejam often and bluff/call light with Ax.

Even with all that, villain has so few value combos and he gets so wide to the river that it will be easy to overbluff. And yeah, my RFI pre was terrible, I quit doing that since you told me(vs tough players ofc).

Also I used to bluff a lot in that spot, so it made me think villain could do the same. But didn't know it was such a good spot to bluff, because I got called a lot in there vs some regs.

so few value hands?

The set of value hands is a mixed frequency of {AQo, Q9o, Q9s, 55, Axhh, Kxhh, some lower flushes, Q5s, potentially Q5o and 99.}

Who cares about your RFI, you can't seem to read ranges at all.

You have around 40 value combos OTR if you never 3-bet AQ,99, always x/c with those hands and always trap the river. If you turn all your Kh into a bluff OTR, you will be bluffing with 4 combos of KTo, 4 of KJo, 2 of K9o, that's 10 combos. Now if you're thinking the EV calling with 9x will be negative, then most of your 5x will be bluffs or folds, also 5x is a better blocker than Kh, because villain doesn't have many flushes anyway.

If you bluff with all 5x, that's 8 combos of K5s, 56s, 45s, 57s(backdoor floats, which Ive seen that you float a lot with those vs small sizing). This isn't even considering you are bluffing with random give ups, bluffing with Kx without hearts and that you're bet-calling all your value range vs a pool that show with 55 in that spot very very often.

With all that, your villain is breaking even with his call vs your x/r, now if you consider that you 3-bet some AQ/99 pre, x/r flop with some Q9o/AQ/Q5s and lead the river with those hands, that narrows your value range to an insanely small amount of combos, while you still have a lot of potential bluffs in your range, which will probably end up making you overbluff in that spot(unless you're using some sort of RNG and are bluffing with that hand at a 5%-10% frequency)

It's not sure whether my jam is printing or not, because I need 75% folds, but calling with Ax seems to be +ev vs that

Can u just shut it rapid! No1 cares u learned about there is something called GTO. U are a struggling microstake player. He is obv crushing 500z Hard! U are obsessed about things that means nada, and u have shown ur hidden brag(its a spew fwiw).Pls go back to ur own garbagecan...

Btw why is it u still play so low? So many pages with u rambling on about what is the most ev+. Where the fk is the money ur head has lured u into belive u making or skill for that matters. U pull numbers out of a hat! .... no Wonder there is gonna be a wall.

Lol advanced strat up in here

GL OP

hi, much respect for ur game. gl at the tables.

Gl dudes, im back soon looking forward!


lol rapidseh last post actually makes some sense, didnt expect that, keep it up rapidesh

day 6

Sensational response.

GL OP, quite sure I'll be seeing plenty of you at the tables.

Pretty sure Brazilians have their own version of PIO which suggests turning every hand into a bluff on the river 100% of the time..

weird, it seems like nobody bluffs to me