yea of course, i didnt say u have to bet the pot or close to it. bet what u think will get called.

well raising yourself and then cbetting the flop isnt set mining. set mining is calling a raise in or out of position specifically to flop a set or give up

ahh ok, i thought that set mining was when you raised with PP also. thanks for clarifying that makes alot more sense to me.

Are you really always folding J9s for those pot odds vs presumably really terrible players with those pot odds in a multiway pot and when they probably don't understand position and therefore won't have a tight range anyway? I understand it's on the marginal side, but I don't see calling pre as a leak at all vs weak players, even OOP.

Agreed with the river bet sizing though I guess.

its just hard to play out of position unless u have a good idea of their tendancies and ranges. it could possibly be +EV to play it there, but i think its pretty marginal and the players would have to be truly terrible for it to be the case

What about set mining in a 3-4BB raised multiway pot out of position?

Ok so I'm trying to learn fold equity and for practice i did the math to get the fold equity you came up with. I'm just going to post the formulas as well as do the math.

The base formula to get fold equity when EV is 0:
EV(total) = [EV(fold)]*x + [EV(call)]*(1-x)

EV(fold) is what we get when the villain folds, which is pot + his bet

EV(fold) = $10.60 + $5.00 = +$15.60

EV(call) is total pot * our equity vs his range - our bet

EV(call) = ($50.30) * .3 - $19.85
EV(call) = 15.90 - 19.85 = -$4.75

EV(fold) = +$15.60
EV(call) = -$4.75

Break Even Fold Equity ( Same as above ):
EV(total) = [EV(fold)]*x + [EV(call)]*(1-x)

x = % of times he needs to fold so that we break even so we solve for X

0 = 15.6x - 4.75 + 4.75x
0 = 20.35x - 4.75
4.75 = 20.35x
4.75/20.35 = x

22.1% = x

when op said he just needed 23% fold equity to be profitable we still need to consider if villain will actually fold enough of the time. So we have to look at hand combinations he will continue with and what he wont.

Total 38 combination of hands:
KK = 3
AA = 6
JJ = 6
AK = 16
AcQc = 1
JTs (suited and none club) = 3
T9s (suited and none club) = 3
Total = 38

Hand combos you assume he would fold:
JJ, JT, T9 = 9

Hand combos hes calling us with
38 - 9 = 29

% of hands hes calling us with
29/38 = 76%

% of hands hes folding against us ( our fold equity in this spot )
24%

so we plug in our fold equity in this spot into the break even ev formula i listed earlier so we find out actually ev for the play.

EV(total) = [EV(fold)]*x + [EV(call)]*(1-x)

EV(total) = (15.6*.24) - 4.75 + (4.75*.24)

EV(total) = 3.74 - 4.75 + 1.14

EV(total) = +$0.13

So every time we make this play we are risking $19.85 and our expected value is pretty much break even. which makes this a high variance play. If just one read is off and our hand combo assumptions are changed then we go into the minus ev pretty easily

Anyone knowledgeable on this stuff please check my work :P

EDIT: *FIXED SOME ERRORS WITH THE HAND COMBO PART*

There is one more error I made with the hand combo's. Since I can't edit the post Im fixing it in the reply:

Hand combos you assume he would fold:
JJ, JT, T9 = 12

Hand combos hes calling us with
38 - 12 = 26

% of hands hes calling us with
26/38 = 68%

% of hands hes folding against us ( our fold equity in this spot )
31%

so we plug in our fold equity in this spot into the break even ev formula i listed earlier so we find out actually ev for the play.

EV(total) = [EV(fold)]*x + [EV(call)]*(1-x)

EV(total) = (15.6*.31) - 4.75 + (4.75*.31)

EV(total) = 4.83 - 4.75 + 1.47

EV(total) = +$1.55

As it stands you are risking 79.4BB's for on an expected value of 6BB's.

there isnt 16 combo's of AK, there is 12. he can also bet/ fold the turn with QQ.

you also forget the amount of times he can be bluffing with AJ/ AQ/ QJ and fold when i shove.

Ahh I see thanks for the corrections. For his range I just went with I saw in the post. I will redo the calculations again in a bit with the new hand range and post the results of the EV / fold equity of the play

Looking forward to more hand analysis when you get time!

awesome thread jack! but those calculations are quite scary, i cant see myself doing this +-ev/fold/call stuff while in a hand within the time limit..or are there some easier ways?

the idea is you do them away from the table and then apply them.

if you know roughly how much fold equity you have in certain situations, or how much equity you have against a specific range of hands... then you can apply those calculations you have done when you get to the table.

lots of situations are pretty similar in poker.

ur the man jack,

can u talk just a touch more about how bad set mining is for a sec. Id imagine ur playing 22-77 tho anyway in pos against raisers and even when your in the blinds. But u did add that u can bluff raise some flops or get to showdown cheap in pos. What percentage of the time are u 3 betting these hands in pos. or in blinds? assuming raiser is like 14/13 or better? Ive recently reread my power holdem strategy by negreanu and i think his thoughts on floating seem pretty solid and for the last day or too i think ive been incorperating them quite nicely (especially when the flush hits on turn and the pre flop raiser double barrels). So can you just flat them pairs and add more 46s and 58s type hands and float a ton to get the set value up in your opinion?

Also u said earlier on in the thread that not getting it in with ak pre for 100bbs was a leak? I've had spurts where i thought i was cole south and tried to apply this but it has torched me in the micros. I could only stand to be looking at aces and kings so much so i quickly abandoned this and probably didnt stay with it long enough as im sure its a high variance play.

Later u stated in the thread you realized repoping a cutoff open and shoving over 4 bet with jacks was starting to look bad. This kinda stuff seems heavily read dependant and especially since i run the outdated pt2 life is hard(no 3bet stat). Any thoughts about the ak or jj preflop shipping dynamics would be appreciated. Hell im scared to ship qq most of the time.

Oh, and one last thing. I thought i remembered in the classic galfond cr vid that he made, that one mistake he saw was people 4 bet folding to shoves when they had odds to call even with connectors. My membership expired a long time ago so i cant look at it now but that was a classic vid so im sure u remember it. Now im sure this doesnt apply to micros but do u fold ur trash when your 4 bet gets shoved on?

oh, and of course in the example above when i said the flush hits on turn i mean were raising and smallish

another move i like is when i call raise in bb and flop goes chk chk is to chk raise turn smallish, that move has worked like 90 percent

Getting it in preflop with jacks shouldn't bother you until NL100+ and playing 6max.

Idea is when you start 3betting light especially IP, people will notice it. After a couple of times they'll probably start 4Betting you light, so shoving with jacks is profitable. But don't just go out and 5bet shove jacks everytime you can, you'll be spewing away money.

For AK it's just the same, let's say I raise CO, BTN 3bets me, now what he can have ? Aces, Kings, Queens, AK, other pairs, trash, SCs, whatever. So here you should 4bet since you don't wanna call with AK OOP. Once you 4bet to let's say 23-25BB, you just can't fold anymore to a 5bet shove, because it would mean you 4bet was a bluff and not a value bet.
You have to call 75BB to a pot of more than 125BB so like 1.66:1, so you need like 38% and you range against QQ+/AK is 40%, so you need to call.

Now the thing with SCs is quite odd, I don't see how you would be commited to call 5bets shove 100BB deep when you invested only 25BB and need 38%. You roughly have the odds against two overs, but asa your opponent holds a pair you're in the shiznit.

Hope it helped, i'm off to bed, feel free to ask questions, i'll answer tomorrow (and jack will prolly too, since, after all, it's his thread )

nice thread, I'm in for the updates

thanks for the reply

Yea, all my concerns are 6max. it sounds like u might be saying dont worry about it go ahead and shove jacks below nl 100? or are u saying dont do it (like i think)? Because in my experience the regs are nitty and the fish are passive

so i guess we need to establish the fact that the villian can 4 bet lightish or 5 bet shove lightish before we shove or call the ak and js off for stacks? I suppose its time to upgrade to pt3 cuz no way i can make these reads 6 tabln

ok say your read is villian doesnt 3 bet light or 4 bet light if u 3 bet him, then do you fold ak and mayb set mine jj? also if villian is nitty and he opens utg do u not even 3 bet the ak(ala fees ebook) or maybe not even call the 1 raise? are u in the camp of dont 3 bet 10s or ak or aq unless ur gonna stack off to 4 bet or do u 3 bet fold here in some situations?

the galfond vid at cr is pretty old and mayb people usually 4 bet to 3x back then instead of the 2.5x to 2x that you see now more commonly

it kinda depends a lot on position and game dynamics (what has been happening lately that might influence a decision).

sometimes in position you want to flat call with a hand like JJ or AK if you are that scared of being 4bet, or if villain is folding to like 90% of 3bets. however, out of position you probably want to 3bet, both for value, and to avoid tough decisions post flop when you get a bad board. if i 3bet though, then i am most definitally stacking off regarding any crazy action behind me.

in regard to small pairs 22-77, a lot of those dont have showdown value (i.e. it will be real tough to know if you are ahead on most boards), so therefore you are playing to hit a set or give up. as i already said, due to the amount you need to win from opponents its going to be damn near impossible to break even in the long run unless you are against some super whale fish.....

when you flop a set, its going to be hard to extract value because most flops miss most players. if u have 22 and the flop comes A72, you are only stacking AQ/ AK vs most people. thats a tiny part of someones range.

however, you could decide to use these as 3bet bluffs. i mentioned this before (maybe in another thread) that you need 70% fold equity if you 4bet to 3.5x, which you will get from most opponents and certainly from the vast majority of regs. now, if you break even by 3betting pre flop (by them folding 70% of the time, you break even due to what you risk relative to the pot), then whenever we flop a set we are guarenteed profit and whenever we dont, we have already broken even from our pre flop play.

hands like 64s are ok to 3bet too, these have some value especially when called by 2 overs such as AJ or something... however its hard to show a profit by flat calling and hoping to hit big due to the 1 gap element - 65s is a lot better than 64s. primarily, you want to be 3bet bluffing hands that are too weak to call a raise, however they play ok against villains 3bet calling range, and therefore become profitable due to the fold equity of 3betting


i havent seen the vid where galfond says it correct to call with connectors.. maybe he had a read on whoever he was playing, but calling a shove after u 4bet with suited connectors isnt going to be profitable.

as for negreanu, he is pretty passive and prefers to outplay people post flop rather than turn into an aggro monkey pre flop. however, outplaying people post flop is a very difficult skill to master, and as such, its probably better to try and play a better post flop game since thats relatively very simple.

fyp


For above, don't 5bet shove with jacks preflop unless something tells you the guy is probably 4betting bluff. I don't have the time to do the maths but you can prolly do it by your own, just assume that when you're called your against QQ+/AK, so try and stove that range, then find out how much equity you have when called (how much $ you win on average) and how much you win when you aren't called. Then it's easy to find out how much FE you need preflop in order for the shove to be profitable. (also depends on raise/3Bet/4bet size obv.)

Again, there's no harm to fold to a 4bet, even with Jacks or AK. Calling is the worst since you can't profitably setmine, and with AK you'll only see 2 cards, and with jacks you'll probably wanna stack off when your jacks are an overpair to the board, in which case you'll often get called only by QQ+.

Keep it simple at the beginning. fwiw I seldom 3bet AK when UTG raises and I have position, just because i'm often folding out the range of hands I want him to call with (KJs, KQ, AJ, AQ, etc) and make him choose between a call or a 4bet with hands against which i'm at best flipping (maybe not AQ). For nines and tens it's probably the same, I 3bet if he can call with small PP, with SCs, or if i'm oop. Else I mostly call and play postflop poker.

o.k. jack,

all right im almost satisfied. I dont want to irritate you cuz i do appreciate your posting. Do i have this right when i say that u dont personally flat anything but ak jj and mayb aq in positon when raiser is tight. Well you hinted that you might flat with 65s (or you might have been saying that you'd rather 3 bet 65s than 64s) so mayb you might flat most of the 0 gap connectors. Would you do this flatting only against tight raiser and 3 bet these a good amount against normal players? I understand suited connectors have 5 percent more equity against AA than the small pairs and you can play them aggresivly on some flops for fold equity when you didnt exactly nail the flop, but it seems kinda odd to flat the connectors but fold small pairs sometimes. I guess you probably flat the pairs against tight raisers tho right?

More on pairs. Are u 3 betting 22+(all pairs) in position 100 percent against non nits or folding sometimes. If folding what percent roughly? are u 3 betting a ton of these small pairs in the blinds or folding alot?

3 bet sizing. do you pretty much always 3 bet to 3.5x in and out of position assuming normal stacks

You might feel like this is getting redundant but i just need a little more precision as alot of poker decisions are pretty marginal.

summary: it seems like you never flat except rare cases when the raiser is tight and that you are folding pairs and 0 gap connectors some portion of the time which im not certain of yet. This means a ton of 3 betting (if your(i say your universally here) vpip is over 15) so I guess i can see where your ak and jj preflop stackoffs could be profitable

*been following the thread, love how it's been going*

I played 3k hands of 5nl today and made a couple observations...

I've been improving with my BvB play a lot. If you're good at it, it drives people in the micros crazy. Since I started truly applying range-based thinking I've been dominating shorthanded (3-4) and heads up situations. My opponents have trouble figuring out my next move and end up losing value by checking too often where they expect me to fire.

AIPF with AK when effective stacks are 100BBs or less seems like a terrible play sometimes, but I do think it's +EV even this low. There is a bit of FE here against players with a clue if you're the one making the shove, and you're ahead or flipping a lot of the clueless ones. I've debated with AK at 2 or 5nl but I see now it really is just variance... I think I won all my preflop AI's with AK today (including one that got 2 callers, and after the board ran out, I had Ace King high).

I'm currently working on, among other things, what jack said about river value. Since the last time he mentioned that, it started really sticking out whenever a situation comes up where I miss a ton of value with a river check. I'm comfortable with a cautious approach as I get better at it, because it seems like people love to raise the river. I'm also working on finding river calls when villain's line is tending towards FOS, and getting comfortable with truly focusing on 3 and 4 tables at once.

One thing I don't like is that after a recent venture at 10nl it seems like there are a hell of a lot more strong players there. I had trouble finding good tables and got my image torn to shreds a few times, forcing me into an overly tight style.

dont know how to split up the message to reply to individual bits so bear with me...

i flat a lot in position. i will flat with A2-A5s, ATs-AQs (usually 3bet AK), other suited broadway cards, hands such as T8s, etc. the problem with hands like 64s is that they dont have much showdown value - the paired hands you make will be middle pairs and therefore hard to know where you are in hands.
T8s etc can make top pair hands which are easier to play. the straights they can make will be on boards such as 9JQ/ J97, which will hit more hands that a tight player plays (such as QQ/JJ/QJ/AQ etc) than 64s will because 64 will make straights on 345/457, which will miss most tight players ranges except for when they specficially have an overpair.


again with pairs, i am 3betting the ones which dont have post flop value on their own. so 55 and lower mainly. 66-TT, i can usually play profitably post flop without having to make a set, as i get more favourable boards.

as for sizing, i would say 3.1x is fine in position - a pot sized re-raise if you have that button on the site you play. out of position you want to make it a little bigger, so aim for something like 3.5x as this will cut down on your opponents implied odds.


and yea, i mean i 3bet probably 8%+ depending on the table, my vpip is usually about 25% though

i meant pre flop here, i apologise.

just to re-iterate, its easier to develop a strong pre flop game that makes post flop play more simple, than it is to try and develop a good post flop game. its also extremely profitable if you really try and maximise your pre flop game as much as possible. post flop you should just worry about value betting and dont try to pull of too many bluffs until you have good knowledge of your opponents

i would say that if you are a nit post flop (rarely bluffing, just value betting), but have a really strong pre flop game (playing like 21/19 with a 5% 3bet), then you will be able to beat up to NL100, and probably even NL200 if you are in the right games

These were my exact questions as well in regards to your statements on setmining. I will add that I will only look to setmine a small pp when the intial raiser has a stack of 20x or more of his raise.

the problem is its still going to be hard to stack someone as it doesnt take a genius to see you are trying to build a pot post flop and most people are likely to get away from top pair.

also, you will find as you move up that people start squeezing more and more, therefore you are going to just be wasting $$ flatting in position because you will have to fold to the 3bet behind you.

Jack: thanks so much for this. I think there is really a market for this kind of analysis and instruction. Too many poker books are for the brick and mortar pro, typically playing at higher stakes than me. Yes, there's lots to learn from these books, but it doesn't really do it for the advanced beginner playing low stakes on-line. I'm reminded of the Silman books in chess. Before him, most books were for grandmasters written by other grandmasters. It was very hard to follow. Then Silman's books went after the 1600-2000 ELO range, and that's where all the money is..... And btw, it was his instructional work - playing more games with advanced beginners - that made him realize there was a real need to write books for this market. Similar to what you're doing by playing lower stakes.

Harrington's books are fantastic. They have helped me more than anything. But it's only in his second volume of Cash Games where he addresses the style of play found at the levels I play. His chapter on this was great, but I'd love to have more. Your hand analysis and thought process presented here could really find a niche in the market. Just a thought!

My only (very minor) complaint is that you seem to use a lot of jargon. Am I the only one who can't follow it? As an example:

his stats are like 22/11 which means his pre flop game has leaks.

What does 22/11 refer to? Should I know this. :-)

A little less jargon would be great. Or at least explain it the first time you use it. I'd appreciate your help here, as well.

Again, thanks! Looking forward to more!