Here is a situation I find myself in over and over again and I cannot find a proper answer to it:

I call a preflop raise (either flat a raise or a 3bet) OOP, flop comes bone dry, like Q72rainbow, T22 or K38rainbow.

Villain cbets and I know he just doesn't have it based on his cbetting frequency, preflop action and betsize. However, I did not connect either and have no outs, so I need to push him off the hand.

So I have two options:

- Either play the sticky guy, float and hope for a check on the turn
- check raise him and hope for a fold right there.

A float would be cheaper, but gives him a chance to hit his outs, while a X/R may end it right away, but it's expensive when I run into sets, overpair or TPTK.


So usually I X/R when the bet is weak and float 3/4pot cbets. This is probably too simple and I'm not factoring in all the variables.

Could anyone elaborate further?


P.S.: It's really just about those very static hit/miss flops, not stuff like A89 two tone, where I could use math.


Thank you

If you've somehow got magical powers and you know he is bluffing, then bluff him back. That said, you don't have magical powers and there is nothing wrong with just giving up on a hand when you have nothing yourself

Is in direct contradiction with

In general when you call raises and are out of position you're immediately at a huge disadvantage. On dry flops you don't have the big overpairs but he can, on A high flops you don't have AK but he can etc. Even if he has nothing, there is not much you can do about it. If you checkraise, what story are you telling here? You have very few good hands so you can only bluff very few times. You cannot just checkraise at will when you think he doesn't have anything because unless he's an auto cbetting bot he will destroy you. Just make sure you call flops/turns the proper amount of the time based on your range by folding out the weakest hands on every street and try to make the best of it.

For example on K38 rainbow, try to think of all the hands you call a raise with (and there is a huge difference between single raised pots and 3bet pots) and see how many hands you need to call with so you don't fold too much.

By the way because you can't do much against this, try to not call raises out of position. If you have too much trash in your range there is literally nothing you can do to prevent losing money postflop. It's basically preflop poker 101 (position and raising vs calling) and it works. Since it's hard to defend from this it might be a good idea to put other people in the same spot more often.

+1 in a nutshell

Kelvis, thanks for the time to write such a comprehensive answer.
I know about calling in position and I try to avoid it, but there are certain hands that I rather flat than 3bet.

Situations I do this are really specific:

- against multi tabling bots: when I see a guy on 4 or more tables with a cbet frequency of 80%+ and low betsize-> nit preflop, lose postflop, so based on his preflop range it's very unlikely that he hit something like 522 rainbow hard, but he bets it 1/3-1/2 anyways.

- against aggro donks/maniacs who attack the blinds with 4-5bb raises, 4bet shove with trash against any 3bet and I have a hand I like to play on the flop e.g. KQs (too good to fold, too weak to shove). They bloat the pot with mediocre hands and 100% cbet with 3/4 to potsized cbets to bully people off the pot, but shut down on turn and river when it gets expensive

Against anything else, I'd either 3bet or fold OOP.


As far as I can see, my check raises are +/- 0BB. They work a lot of times, but when they don't, I pay too much.


When it comes to floats, I'm a little bit in the dark, since the turn chances things a lot.

On the other hand, perhaps the problem can really be avoided by adjusting my preflop opening and 3bet ranges. I'll have a look at it.

Thanks again

Add some math to this statement, Foldelinio.

As an example if you C/R ½ pot and you get a villain fold 90% it sounds like printing money to me.

Now you do the math.
1. How much do you bet relative to pot size?
2. How often does your typical villain fold TO YOUR c/r ?

You might be surprised to see what numbers are breakeven for you.

I think you're right. I will look into this. Thanks

First, tight/loose is a preflop classification, you can’t really be loose postflop.

Your statement indicates that you lack a good understanding of ranges. That’s something you should definitely work on. A player who is very tight preflop doesn’t mysteriously start to play a lot of hands postflop, but the hands he gets to the flop with are pretty strong. So no, he didn’t hit 522r hard, but he has a pretty good reason to bet AA and is highly unlikely to fold, at least unless he faces massive resistance. That means in order to find out if he’s willing to give up, you have to bet your full stack over the course of the hand.

The best advice for playing with max 100BB stacks against people with a very tight preflop approach: fold if you don’t have it or know they can fold. NLHE is not PLO where equities run close preflop. Being at a significant range disadvantage preflop means that you either have to hit the flop hard or give up most of the time.

Yeah let's say someone plays only aces preflop, he will probably cbet close to 100% of flops unless it's really bad. And even if they start adding in "bluffs" like AK those hands still crush all the airballs you have.

The correct adjustment vs a cbet range that is both too wide and is bluff heavy looks like this:

a) expand bottom of value check raise range(taken from check calling range) near the margin.

b) expand bottom of draw check raise range (taken from check calling range) near the margin.

c) expand bottom of bluffcatching range (taken from check fold range) near the margin.

You're suggesting taking (b) to an extreme with the weakest draws that can't even call a bet, and you want to check raise these weak draws? Seems quite far from the margin.

Post flop play matters some here too because aggressive players make you fold more, which weakens the ev of weak draws and weak bluffcatchers, and passive players let you improve for free often, which benefits weak draws and bluffcatchers. I'd call much more liberally with weak draws and bluffcatchers vs someone that cbets both too often and with a bluff heavy range but plays passively after that on the turn and river than I would against a much more aggressive player that would force me to fold those weak draws and bluffcatchers more often on the turn and river.

No you don't need to push him off the hand. You should check fold no pair no draw in no limit holdem the vast majority of the time facing normal sized bets from 1/3 pot to pot.

+1 for that comprehensive answer!

This.

If you want to learn how to x/raise, look at population tendencies and you'll see x/raising is not profitable at all unless you have nutty draws or 2 pairs or sets and sometimes TPTK

They'll literally float you with 22 on a K74 cause LUULLLZ HE HAS 65!!

Then you barrel the A turn and he calls with 22 again cause LULLLZ 22 is ahead of his x/raising bluff range

Then you x the riv and he x's back and beats you w/22...

well anyway, x/raising should be primarily for value

Villain deserves to take the pot more often cause they are IP and you are OOP - it doesn't matter much bc you only have to have a winrate that is better than -100bb/100 in the BB anyway.

You can just opt to x/raise your nut hands even at 100NL and still crush it.

x/raising backdoor nut hands is more an advanced play and you need to know how to navigate different turn and river textures and exploit villain using their HUD stats

And you don't need to play advanced to crush 25NL

Consensus seems to be you don’t have to get fancy to beat this game. C/r your strong hands, call in between, fold the rest.

At 5NL I'm check raising 2 pair + and sets for value along with some draws and I get a ton of folds. Yesterday I got called by 88 on an A63r flop and called a turn shove on a Queen, but that's pretty rare. I think people will call down with mid pocket pairs a lot vs cbets or chk/call to showdown as the preflop raiser, but I think they fold quite a bit to check raises, especially on the turn.

I can't edit my post but I should note that when the check raise does get called they very often fold on the turn. I'm not really sure what type of hands they're calling with / putting me on as I definitely don't check raise enough generally floating and playing passively. I'm still a bit tilted by a middle pocket pair calling a double check raise all in on the turn the other day so I really am interested on the tendency of the micro population. I'd take a look at my x/r hands but my HEM/PT4 trials just expired and I'm cheap

When it comes to micro games, the thing that puts most people on tilt is the fact that there are so many different kinds of players you need to adapt to when you really have no clue how to do that.

There basically is no population tendency, there's only a difference between sites that allow HUD's and sites that don't. On HUD sites you can find 2-3 regs per table, on HUD sites, you are lucky if you find one per 4 tables.

Thing is, you need to play passively against a station, value bet the top of your range since you have no bluffs.
However, against an aggro donk you need to tighten up and overpolarize your range i.e. tiny value range, wide flattening range and tiny bluff range.
Against a shortstack you don't play small PP for sets or suited connectors because they rely on implieds which you don't have in this spot.
Against nits, you need to open up preflop and tighten up postflop as soon as they call your cbet.

The higher you move up the limits, the more the population tendencies seem to merge, which leads to some kind of boundaries for the optimal strategy everyone plays within. GTO becomes much more important and the extremes are cut out.
So for example while there is one drunk simpleton every half hour who finds it funny to push all in every hand in 2NL on Friday nights, I haven't seen one in 25NL yet. Same for uber nits who buy in short limp in or minraise with trash and get eaten by the blinds.

To really crush low limit games you cannot learn "the one" strategy, but you need to adapt much more to each and every player and your ranges will be all over the place.

For the most part it's best to use a tight agressive baseline and go from there. No need to read hands in 2NL since you won't "outplay" your opponents. They outplay themselves.

Vs a Station you treat your hand as one level higher than what it is

2nd pair is top pair

Cbet A hi flops smaller than 1/2 pot and also monotone flops smaller than 1/2 pot bc they are scare flops vs fish

I cbet 2nd pair good kicker 2 times IP and x river and it's hugely profitable bc they call with 3rd pair, gutshots, A hi's, weaker 2nd pairs, 4th pairs and backdoor draws and also K hi's on AQ4 when you have Qx

There IS population tendencies it's called population analysis. It's an average of what the player pool does, you need to use this when you encounter a Reg with let's say 100 hands and you don't have specific reads just yet.

"Having no bluffs" is not a good way to say it - "bluffing with equity" is fine vs a station as long as you have 6 or more outs and if the board texture OTT favors their calling range then you x behind - you can even min bet as a block bet vs the really passive ones so they don't bluff you off a weaker draw

Man I have seen uber donks auto shoving ATC even at 500NL live and 100NL online - Player tendencies don't merge that much the higher the limit - Most regs are still pretty bad and should not be playing those limits. My database shows the top 10 regs I believe are the best at the 50NL limit show an avg winrate of -2bb/100 over 90,000 hands

This shows 95% of regs are breakeven or losing at their limit and only a very select few move up

But you got the idea, you need to play specifically vs specific villain's - Like I cbet 1/3 pot w/QJ on a QJ2r flop earlier today because I have a note that says "Reg is a Monkey and attacks weakness, induce bluffs"

He then spazzes out and x/raises to $8.5 my $1.5 cbet then overbets the turn - he cc'ed BB w/5To and x/raises huge a backdoor st8 draw then overbets OTT when a 9 hits.

I just milked him for about $34 when if I cbet 2/3 pot my top 2 pair he would have snap folded most likely. This is why I say LAGs suck below 200NL, you can manipulate them so hard.

So you need to take notes and learn how to manipulate villain's to act the way you want them too.

Vs nits, if you find 1/3 pot cbets or vs missed cbets work, keep using that with your bluff range and steal tons of pots for cheap...no need to bet 1/2 pot that is not efficient vs many nits, etc

If you overbet as a bluff on broken draws and they call you, change to overbetting with value, etc.

Thanks for the food for thought. Very interesting stuff, especially the smaller than 1/2 cbet on scare flops. Could save some serious money here