THIS IS great advice, and it can really help, apply it!

Yeah the new ones do.

You're missing the point. Against a TAG, if you have the option to call (i.e. it's profitable) then you should call. You should only 3bet bluff with hands that you can't call with. And you should 3bet bluff with the best hands that can't call (like suited connectors).

It's not exactly like that, it gets blurry around the edges but it works as a general rule.

Just to make sure I understand what you are saying:
The point is that against a player who opens a wide range in LP it is profitably to play ALL SCs, one-gappers etc. and as such we should be trying to play them all to maximize our profit.

The reason these hands are profitable is because our opponent opens a wide range AND that we are in position, right?

This might seem counter-intuitive to some people, but hands like SCs become more profitable as the villain's range becomes tighter, and they are less profitable when the villain's range is wider. This is because you have better implied odds when the villain's range is tighter (ie. stronger). Likewise, if the villain is more likely to auto stack off with TP+, your implied odds are higher and hands like SCs become more profitable. If your opponent is less likely to stack off in stupid ways, then SCs become unprofitable.

When the villain's range is something like 22+, Ax, Kxs, K8o+, Q8s+, Q9o+, J8s+, J9o+, T7s+, T9o, 97s+, 98o, all SCs, all suited 1-gappers, then you call with 76s and the flop is 762 or 663, the likelyhood of the villain holding something that he's willing to stack off with is so low. OTOH, if his range is more like 88+, AJs+, AQo+, KJs+, KQo, QJs then you expect to make much more on average when you do flop a monster.

As a corollary though, as the villain's range gets wider, hands that we might normally fold due to fear of domination become playable. For example, if a TAG opens UTG, we'd fold QJo on the BTN 100% of the time. But if the same TAG opens from the SB, we'd call QJo from the BB.

Oh sorry dunno what I thought there anymore. I got the point you made and loved it. Also maybe there are fish who call 3bet because they feel committed or whatever nonsense, but then like to fold to cbets? Well, probably getting my hopes too high.

It's profitable to 3bet SCs and one gappers as long as he's folding enough of the time.

The reason it's important to have position is that if we're OOP he can call with more hands profitably and we're in a tough spot OOP in a bloated pot. When we're in position we have control. He can't show a profit against us by calling OOP with a wide range. So we're forcing his calling range to tighten up, he's forced to 4bet or fold and if he's 4betting a massive range then we can shove a load of stuff profitably, etc. Basically he's forced to tighten his range.

Yes this makes good sense. Then however I'm not sure what Red joker meant in his previos post to me about 3-betting light against a wide range with SCs etc. Could you explain that for me?

EDIT: Just saw the reply

I was talking about 3-betting him, which wasn't clear I'll admit.

So in regard to dazarath's reply what were are doing is along these lines:

We 3-bet, he folds, we win. He is forced to fold a lot because he has such a wide opening range.

We 3-bet, he calls. Now we can asume he is playing a tighter range against which SCs are profitable because we're in position and he will stack off more lightly with his range.

Is this correct? (sorry if I seem persistent, but I would just like to understand why we're 3-betting these hands this way)

It's not that SCs are profitable when he calls. It's just that they're a lot more profitable then J5o. They also don't suffer from reverse implied odds that a hand like KJo or A9o would have.

The reason we're 3betting them is because he folds a lot (so we make a profit), we need to do it as a bluff for when we have AA/KK/etc. and they're more profitable then alternative hands.

A.ert, I misunderstood your post. I thought you were asking if SCs were more profitable to call with because the villain was opening a wide range, so my post was in response to that. Since you were asking about 3-betting with SCs, then my post no longer applies to that situation, but the point still holds in the situation where we are considering calling or folding.

So we are doing this because we'll take down the pot preflop a lot of the times and when we do get called we still have a decent equity. The point is that the times we take it down preflop along with the postflop equity we have make this profitable against a wide opening range, right?

I do understand that we need to disguise our monsters so that we'll get paid off when we have these, but if the play with the SC isn't profitable or breakeven I don't see why we should do it to the extend that was originaly proposed. If the play isn't profitably then I would think that playing like 25% off the SCs etc. would get the job done in comparisson to disguise our hand.

Against somebody who's opening 30 - 40% of hands from LP it's definitely profitable to 3bet a wide range because he won't have a strong hand most of the time.

You don't *have* to 3bet a wide range, I'm not forcing you to. We can disguise our strong hands plenty by only 3bet bluffing a small bit. If you're not comfortable doing it a lot or it doesn't fit your style of play then don't.

Well, if we stand to gain money when 3-betting I would certainly consider it

Thanks for taking the time to explain this to me.

No problem, you're very welcome.

Only make changes to your game gradually. Trying to cope with new situations and adjusting to a new image all at once can be difficult.

Ok few questions.

1. Raise all PP from any position at 6max? Call a reraise up to 1/9th of effective stacks? Also are effective stacks including what has already been put into the pot or is this dead money now and you only include what remains in the players' stacks?

2. Limped behind? Please explain this? Is that when they limp in early position?

I have a lot of problems playing shortstacks and I think they are a major pain at uNL getting it in with them preflop. Say they have 20BB in the BB, I raise it up to 4BB on the BTN with AJo and they shove... call? A lot of the time they tend to turn over medium-low PPs I find.

Any advice on playing vs shortstacks (50BB > ?!)?

Don't raise to 4x if there's a 20BB SS in the blinds. Especially if he's in the BB.

This really depends from the SS-player, IMO. There are so many really, really bad playing SSers. If there's one of this kind sitting in the BB running 35+/10 I have no problem to look him up wit AJo.

Right, I've read Parts 1 and 5. Where are parts 2, 3, 4? They surely must be stickied in sequence somewhere? You are great OP. And when's the part about balancing value bets against pot control coming out?

I'm almost always calling AJo if I open in stealing position and get reshoved on by an SSer. That doesn't change the fact that it's a mistake to open to 4x with an SSer in the blinds. It's even slightly worse if the SSer is the BB, because he can shove a wider range given that the SB has folded.

Two of the reasons SSers have an edge in a full-stacked game is that full stacks open too wide of a range and they open for too much. If you were playing a 20BB 6-max game, would you open hands like 87s UTG? Would you make your standard open 4 BBs? The SSer is effectively playing a 20 BB game while the rest of us are not. The reason why they can make money is that for the full stacks to adjust to the SSers, they would lose EV to the other full stacks. So there's this tradeoff between playing vs the full stacks and shortstacks.

Generally, the EV you lose to SSers is less than the potential EV you can lose to full stacks, so people just keep playing the same without adjusting. But there are some minor adjustments you can make to reduce an SSer's edge on you without giving up too much EV vs the other full stacks. One of them being not opening to 4x with an active SSer in the blinds when you're OTB.

How much then, if it's not 4bb?

My personal preference is 3x if there's an active SSer in the SB and 2.5x if there's an active SSer in the BB. Some people like to do 2.5x, some even like to do 2x. I think it's a mistake to over-adjust for the SSer (by raising only 2x) because you're then giving the full-stack amazing odds. This is especially true if the full-stack is in the BB, so if the SSer folds the full-stack can call your raise getting 3.5:1 and closing the action.

When the SSer is in the SB, he can't shove quite as wide of a range because there's still a player left to act, hence the 3x open. When the SSer is in the BB, the SB can't call quite as wide of a range because of the threat of getting shoved on by the BB, so the fact that you're laying the SB better odds is not as much of an issue.

Makes loads of sense. Thanks for greatness.

great threads

Brand new player here. Know the rules and am quite capable of losing large sums of money with no problem.

I am amazed by this thread. The sheer amount of information contained in here just blows me away.

I just wanted to check on some hand evaluation concepts that I've derived from this thread in relationship to calling/raising/folding...

I think I can define four basic hands:

1) Top Hands: AA/KK/QQ/AKs (maybe?)

These are good hands because if no one hits, they stand up really well. We raise because we want to get rid of hand type 3, which might hit, and we're in good position against hand type 2.

2) Good/OK Hands: AQs/TT/99/High SCs

We can call on these, in good position, because we might hit, and we're still better than the lower hand types, so it's worth it to stay in, if possible.

3) Weakish: Mid-Low PP/Low SCs

We can raise on these hands, because it both helps hide type 1 hands and gets more money into the pot for when we do hit. Because if these hands hit, they can be monsters.

4) Garbage: The rest

Fold, fold, fold.

Am I anywhere close? Be gentle.

Thanks,

Kaz