Quote:
Originally Posted by ScotchOnDaRocks
Ok, this is well articulated and I think I get the gist. If we are folding near the top of our range we are potentially highly exploitable, right? But I have some follow-ups
1. It appears that this is most relevant to cash game situations with familiar opponents with stacks almost always >100bb effective. MTTs are a way different animal; tables are breaking, effective stack sizes are always changing and in general shorter, and there is more an attitude of chip preservation. Regardless of where we are in our range, can't feel great about a tight older gent tossing in a second barrel with around 25% of his stack. This hand would be way different if the effective stacks were greater where villain only had to put out say 10% on turn. I think it's aspects like this why some great players think HUDs are more harmful than useful in MTTS.
2.Why wouldn't we look to exploit him first by raising a hand like your previously mentioned 98s on the flop?
Assuming villain opens with AQo+, ATs+, 88+, he has 74 combos with our hand and this flop. If he only continues with a made hand greater than ours or a flush draw he is only continuing with 30/74 or 40% combos.
In regards to point 1, that’s my default approach when playing any hand. To look at all the possible holdings I can have in a situation and then make a decision based around that. This kind of approach is ensures I don’t make many blow ups. It’s not uncommon for someone to call a 3bet and then station some guy with AA with some weak holding because that player had beaten them in a few pots already.
When defending, you’ll face a bet of a certain size, calculate yours pot odds and evaluate what sort of frequency you should be looking to continue vs that bet size. Then comes what you have alluded to, things like information on the player and the positions which might allow you to make exploitative, but good decisions. I tend to try to play each hand as well as I can and not focus so much on chip preservation.
Looking at point 2, you could definitely work in some raises to make this with. I think the kind of hands you might like to use are your weakest flush draws and then pick out some KJcc, KQcc, QJcc etc to mix in with some Tx type holdings. You always need to know what your value range is before working in bluffs. These holdings i’ve selected have a lot more playability on later streets and have better removal vs the Tx in the opponents range of hands.
The range you have given for the opponent is very conservative, i’d expect it to be wider than this.