Quote:
Originally Posted by WCGRider
1) STOP CALLING PREFLOP. ASKDJFKLASJDFLKASDJFLAKS STOP IT! STOP IT RIGHT NOW!!!!
- Explanation: Calling preflop, in general is terrible. Most of the time in poker, you do not have a hand. You have something speculative. The SAME goes for your opponent. By raising, you take most flops down with a cbet and do not get credit when you hit. By calling they have control and you have to fold when you miss (unless you are c/r raising a wide range [even then its bad, just slightly less bad] but come on this is uNL no one is check raising a wide range.) Seriously if your stats are.
33/14
12/3
25/11
Dont ask me what the problem is. The problem is you play too much crap without raising it. Not that you should be playing crap, but playing crap aggressively is like a MILLION% better then playing it passively. There are TWO (ONE TWO) times you should be calling preflop (Unless you are setting up for a squeeze from a lag opponent but again this is uNL so that doesnt mean anything.)
ONE --- YOU HAVE A POCKET PAIR FACING A RAISE
TWO --- YOU HAVE A MARGINAL HAND (pocket pairs and suited connectors) AND A SMALLISH STACK HAS LIMPED BEHIND.
THAT IS IT!!! NO MORE CALLING!!!
Some of this is so wrong. I understand the point you're trying to get at, and I completely agree that many uNL players limp too much, call too much, or generally play too many hands. But advocating a 3-bet/fold strategy is not the way to get decent at poker. Yes, there are a ton of marginally winning MSNL regulars who play such a style, but they're marginally winning for a reason.
I agree with your statement about the PT stats though. If you're playing something like a 30/10 style, then you're basically one of the loose/passive fish that we all so eagerly seek. Because not only does that imply that you're calling too much preflop, it also implies that you're likely open-limping a lot too. Now, if you're stats are more like 22/11, then my immediate assumption would be that you're not open-limping preflop, but you're still calling too much. So while I agree with that part of the post, I think giving general advice like "don't call so much" is not going to be very helpful to these posters. Actually, not only will it not be too helpful, I think it may actually become harmful if interpreted incorrectly.
I think a lot of beginners rank hands in the following fashion. Since they view raise > call > fold, in terms of how much "strength" the action shows, then they believe hands are ranked similarly. This is just not true.
As an example, this could be one player's view of hands from strongest to weakest (when facing a raise):
Good enough to 3-bet: hands like AA, AK, ...
Good enough to call: hands like 88, T9s, ...
Bad enough to fold: obvious trash, 72o, J5o, ...
Given that a lot of uNL players probably view hand strengths in this manner, you're basically advocating that they push the top of the "call" range into the "3-bet" range, and push the rest into the fold range. I strongly disagree with this and I'll give an example.
Let's take a situation where hero is in the BB and villain is open-raising from the SB. Now, let's take a look 2 hands that you might 3-bet light: T9s, T7s. I could also add a "strong" hand like AA to the range, but let's say for now that I always want to 3-bet AA. For T9s, I think we can all agree that calling here is (generally) +EV, and 3-betting here is (generally) +EV as well. As to which option is more +EV, well I can't give you empirical evidence for one side or the other. If you don't believe me, well, study the game a little more.
For a player following your strategy, he might 3-bet T9s 100% of the time and fold T7s 100% of the time. Or another option would be that he 3-bets T9s 50% of the time and 3-bets T7s 50% of the time, while folding the rest. But if you're going to follow the second strategy, then, then it's basically always better to just 3-bet T9s 100% of the time and fold T7s 100% of the time.
But what if we did the following. Instead of 3-betting T9s and folding T7s, we called T9s (which is +EV) and 3-bet T7s. This would yield around the same frequency for 3-betting light, but now we have the EV from the times we call T9s. The only way this strategy is worse than the previous one is if:
EV(3-betting T9s) - EV(3-betting T7s) > EV(calling T9s)
Unfortunately, there's no way for me to prove this, but the difference in EV from 3-betting hands like T9s and T7s is not going to be that much, whereas calling with a solid hand like T9s, in position, is going to be worth much more. If the above equation is false, then my strategy of calling T9s and 3-betting T7s is almost always better than 3-betting T9s and folding T7s.
As a counter, you could argue that 3-betting both T9s and T7s > 3-betting just T9s. But if you're 3-betting T7s 100% of the time, then you're also 3-betting T8s, 97s, 98s, 87s, etc etc 100% of the time as well and now you're falling into over-aggression.
You'll notice that the examples I've given so far have been preflop situations. I do this because it's easier to get my point across using preflop rather than postflop examples. Also, you may notice that I specifically picked examples where I was in position, rather than OOP. This is because I'm an advocate of avoiding marginal situations while OOP, especially if you're a beginner. For my above example, yes I would call T9s in the BB vs an SB open. But if I was in the BB vs a BTN open, I would be more likely to 3-bet or fold.
I look at hands more like this (this is an over-simplified summary, of course):
Hands that are good enough to 3-bet for value
Hands that are good enough to call (sometimes 3-bet)
Hands that are good enough to 3-bet occasionally, but not good enough to call
Hands that are bad enough to fold
Namely, I've inserted an extra set of hands that I feel are good enough to 3-bet occasionally, but I would never call with them. I think this is a concept that many uNL and SSNL players don't understand correctly.
I had a conversation once with a guy I know who plays uNL. He told me he started widening his 3-betting range to something like AQ+/99+ (it might have been vs a UTG open, I can't remember). I asked why he's 3-betting hands like TT/99. And his reasoning (which is the exact reasoning you don't want to use) was that 99 is too good just to call and it's decent against the villain's opening range. Ok, first of all, you don't determine your 3-betting range by opening PokerStove and saying "Ah ha! 99 has 60% equity vs this guy's range, therefore I 3-bet".
Later he went on to say something like "except when I'm in trouble when I get called" or something to that extent. Like he's not in a great situation when he's called or he's uncomfortable in that situation. That's funny, because that's the exact reason why I don't 3-bet 99 in that situation. If you're "in trouble when you're called", that means that you feel his calling range is stronger than your hand, so you can't be 3-betting for value. Therefore you are 3-betting as a bluff, even if that's not how you see it. If you're going to 3-bet 99 as a bluff, it's much better to call for set value and 3-bet 87s in the same situation as a bluff.
This seems like a very simple, and yet very important concept to me, but I have never successfully explained this to any of my SSNL/uNL friends. It's very possible that I'm just poor at explaining poker concepts, but I'd like to think it's more of my friends' inability to break out of the box that they've stuck themselves in. Yeah, they're not very good players if you haven't guessed. So, I will try to explain this again with another example and hopefully someone will get what I'm trying to say.
I raise AJ UTG and the board is J98 two tone. My opponent donks into me. He has a wide range of hands here. It could be anything like a pair + draw, two pair, set, draw, lesser 1-pair hands, and some air. Given that range calling here is obviously +EV, so folding is not an option. Now the question is whether to call or raise.
A lot of poor players will think something like:
"Oh, my hand is too good to call so I raise!"
"I need to protect my hand so I raise!"
"I want to see where I'm at so I raise!" (God, this and the previous one tilt me like crazy.)
"Oh, I'm ahead of most of his range so I RAISE!"
But this logic is incorrect. If I raise here, it will be difficult for my opponent to call with many worse hands than mine, but I never expect him to fold a better one.
So basically from my point of view, if I raise, he calls with all hands > AJ and folds most hands < AJ. In this case I'd be better off raising with a draw like KT or even air like AK. Since I never expect to be ahead when I raise, then the fact that I have TPTK is irrelevant. But the players I mentioned above think (incorrectly) only in terms of their own hand.
Applying the same concept back to the previous preflop examples. If I never expect to be ahead when 3-betting a hand like T9s or 99, but I also feel it's +EV to call with those hands, I am much better off 3-betting a trashier hand (which is still in ok shape when called) like T7s or 87s, and calling with the medium strength hand instead.
Sorry for the rambling, and I'm sure most of this post may have turned out to be pretty incoherent, but if even a couple posters are able to learn something from this, then it was well worth my time to type it out.