Thanks for taking the time to spill out some of your knowledge, it's much appreciated. I have a couple questions for now(and likely more later!):

1 What types of hands do you defend from the blinds vs UTG/EP openers, particularly regs? Do you mix in some lighter 3-bets vs those who fold often?[/B] I often find myself folding small pairs and decent suited connectors like QJs/JTs because I just loathe playing oop with them. Then when I 3-bet it seems obvious that it's purely a nutted range. I feel my winrates from the blinds are pretty awful and I'm really trying to clean this up.

2. Is it possible for a good player(perhaps a big winner) to have a lower wwsf, say 40-44%? Is this statistic more style-related than anything else? I've always had a wwsf on the lower side and lose a decent chunk w/o showdown(but obviously do well at showdown). Sometimes I feel like I c/f way too often and just give up in pots and it frustrates me because I'm uncertain as to whether it's just poor hand-reading on my part or lack of gonads to follow through.

I cant believe Marshall has been when there are so many ****ing reatrds on this site, its an absolute joke. Im not aiming this at Terp specifically as I dont know the details/rules or whatever but its just seems ridiculous for someone who has taken the time and effort to do something like this.

Thank you Marshall it has defiinitly been the best thread for a long long time.

Nah I don't play that laggy. The reason my stats look like that are because they include HU play. I'm closer to between 27/20 and 22/18 depending on what the table allows me to do.

The games on Merge right now are crazy aggressive preflop so I'm playing even a little tighter.

Thanks.

It depends on how weak my opponent is, if he is a poor player I'll c-bet just about every board.

The best ones to c/f though are ones like QJ9-JT9-JT8-QT8 types.

Against strong opponents I will occasionally c/f ones like Q9x, J9x, QTx (but this last one a little less frequently because AK has a gutter).

Thx.

AQo+, 88+. I flat all these unless I have some kind of 3betting dynamic in that spot.
Of course I throw in light 3bets, but I just do it kinda sparingly and I 3 barrel all in a lot if I am called because like you said, we are repping a very narrow range for value, and if you have only AA/KK for value--which you should--those hands will be b/b/shove if called.

If you are never 3betting light this spot you will probably be okay, but I likely am losing a little bit less than if I just folded all the time.

I'm not sure the answer about the w$wsf because mine has always been >50% and is usually around 52%. I was reading Phil Galfond's old well from back a long time ago and he was saying his w$wsf was something like 45% however his w$sd was 55% or something ridiculous like that. W$sd for me is really good if I am above 50% but I also fight for a lot of pots.

I think the spots I take pots down without showdown are mostly when I two and three barrel in position. People are very hesitant to flat my turn barrels with weak holdings because I assume they think they are about to face a big river bet often and I fire the 3rd one with pretty good frequencies.

I'd say if you are frustrated in those spots it's likely a combination of poor hand reading and lacking the stones to follow through. If I was a poor hand reader I would lack the stones to follow through also though. I am confident in what I'm doing because I've studied it a lot and I pay attention to my opponents tendencies, i.e. who to bluff versus who to induce from versus who to just take to value town.

Finding a coach is probably the best thing for helping with this kind of thing.

Thanks for the thread learning a lot my ? is you talk early on in the thread about thinking about what to do with every part of your range this is something i have never thougt about and really not sure what you mean can you please elaborate on this topic. I think this is something that could help me out tremendously!! Thanks in advance

Okay I'm going to give you one extended look at how this is done about one type of situation, I'll even mimic that there is a dialectic going on between two people to describe this situation:
Here's the action: 100bb effective, btn opens 3xbb with KdQh, sb folds, bb calls holding two cards. The flop comes Jd Td 6c.
I'll be the coach here and the other guy will just be student, I'll be typing for both of them though so that you have a better idea as to what you should be doing:
Coach: Okay so if it's checked to us here what are we going to do?
Student: BET!
Coach: Yes, but why?
Student: We have poor showdown value, so trying to check it down is a bad option, we have good equity with our open ended straight draw, maybe he will fold now, maybe he will call maybe he will raise, I have no problem with him taking any of those three options.
----See guys, this is the beginning stages of how a game plan forms.----
But of course it goes quite deeper when we start to think about our opponents potential actions, our then potential reactions to his actions, and additionally, whatever card falls on the turn
So we bet 5bb into this 7bb pot and are checkraised to 15bb
Coach: So what do you think is the correct action now? We can fold, 3bet, or call.
Student: Folding is out of the question because we have position and most likely 8 outs to the best hand. 6 outs to the nuts, 2 cards will make us a straight but also put a 3 flush on the board. Calling seems good.
Coach: What about 3betting?
Student: We need to know villains most likely holding when he takes this line.
Coach: YES, so what range of hands is his line congruent with?
Student: Set of 6s, set of TT's, JTs, KQ, NFD, Q9dd, 89dd
Coach: For the most part that is pretty close, so given this set of hands, is 3betting our best option?
Student: Clearly not because if we 3bet he will just 4bet all in with most of those hands and have us crushed.
Coach: Correct, so re-raising is not an option, and folding is definitely not an option either, that leaves calling. Calling helps us to make our range appear wide to our opponent, and gives us the ability to realize some equity.
-----
So far at this point we have gotten through preflop and flop play, our standard game plan for facing these types of situations from here on out should be to c-bet the flop, and if raised to call the raise and proceed unto the turn. At this point, you now should have a gameplan for every potential turn card that could fall off the deck.
Ah- What should we do on Ah? This is obviously a great card for us as we make the nuts and now pull ahead of sets and two pairs, and also his NFD has picked up top pair. How do we expect our opponent to continue with the majority of his range?
Student: I think all sets and two pairs will continue betting, as will all his semi bluffs.
Coach: So the only question left at this point is whether we should raise and try to stack whatever hands he is willing to get in now, or is it better to call and continue letting him bluff (or risk letting him get there and beating us). ----I'm not gonna answer this, this is something you have to figure out on your own.

Okay what about Kh turn, if he continues betting into us, we still have a strong draw to the straight, and we have a pair in case he happened to have been raising with something like AJ we are now ahead of that. If we are bet into, it's just a clear call and re-evaluate on the river.
----
Qd turn, a little trickier but roughly the same scenario as the Kh except now we have back door 2nd nut flush draw.
-----
Jc What about on this card? How should we react on this one?
Tc is going to be extremely similar to Jc, do we have any reason to treat it differently?
9h Another nutty out for us, does this change how we might want to get the rest of the money in the pot when comparing his original holdings to the board?
8s How does this card change things?

I could make up 50 different scenarios on the spot and be able to tell you exactly how I would react on every potential turn and river combinations because I've gone through these situations and worked out my game plan. This is what I'm talking about when saying formulating a game plan by discussing it with others has helped me so much. If I know all the answers to the situations before they come up, I'm very prepared and I'm a step ahead. Some of the situations become very interesting when it becomes time to turn hands into bluffs given certain actions and such, but that's the fun about poker, figuring these things out for yourselves.

I realise i wrote alot here, got a little carried away but hopefully you can answer some of my questions. Made me realise how little I know.

Say you hold KThh in these two scenarios. One v an UTG open you're CO, and two v a CO open and you're BTN. Villain is positionally aware tag.

Should I be thinking..
'I'm more likely to 3b bluff with blockers v UTG and flat on the BTN doing well against his range in terms of dominated hands'

or..

'I'm going to call v UTG because his range has a lot of stronger hands and i'm going to 3b v CO because his range is weaker and I can play a 3b pot comfortably IP should he call'

and what factors influence this decision? fwiw i originally thought along the lines of the first thought process but then saw the second thought process come from a highstakes reg so I was wondering if you could add an opinion?

ty for doing this.

also, as a general strategy v 3bets, how do you decide whether to 4b/f or call, i assume position is one factor, what else though, blockers? equity v range pre? playability of hand? likelyness of domination?

I used to think I should 4b stuff like A2s/KJ OTB v BB cos of blockers but recently changed my mind on the basis that my A has good eq v KK QQ JJ by taking a flop plus if he has Ax himself it's less likely he can make top pair so I can float more IP.

Thoughts on incoporating 5b jamming 22 33 type hands into an overall strategy?

Thoughts on when you feel like your hand is fairly face up, but your pretty much at the top of your range facing a third river barrel? I assume try not to let your range get into that situation...but it seems like 'how can he think i'll fold, but i'm at the top of my range'

Would you mind showing a hand where you made a big bluff or a big call, and sharing your thought process behind it?

Thanks again for a really inspiring thread.

hope you don't mind if I chime in here

both scenarios are similar, but also different

in both scenarios you should be checking to see who is acting behind you. if there are scum/squeezy regs you should be less happy flatting since you'll often be squeezed out of the pot. KThh also faces some domination issues.

BTN vs CO you'll need to worry about getting 4bet more than if you were CO vs UTG. obviously you don't mind folding KThh when you face a 4bet, but it is something you should keep in mind.

also check their fold to 3bet, f3b by position, fc in 3bpot, 4b%, and just how often they're going to give you credit vs not give you credit

Did Marshall get banned again?

seems he did :\

unrelated, but who is the girl in your avatar?

idk, i just found it on 4gifs.com a long time ago

me too, been bothering me ever since :\

Free Marshall!

why is he banned?

hes handing out too much valuable information for free.

Thanks for doing this Marshall, I feel I have a very solid pre flop game, my post flop game needs a lot of work especially when it comes to bluffing/semi-bluffing/double and triple barreling. I feel like I give all the players credit when there isn't any or that they're on a draw. I feel this is the case because sometimes I have a value range but my opponents has me dominated. I think the better players who beat the higher games adjust quickly based on metagame and feel and not necessairly based on a HUD.

I know my questions are very generic, but I'm wondering how you would defeat the following type of opponents. I feel the answers coming from you will help me with my game a bit. I feel these opponent types are the ones I run into frequently in a 6max game on a small site.

1) Super Aggro type playing 75/55 raises 6x pre, 3 bets 33% and bluffs often. How would you play him in position? OOP? Are you willing to get it in with just top pair?

2) An average 18/14 reg in a 6 max game, straight forward. Best way to play them in position? OOP?

3) Fishy 40/12, limps often and calls isos 50% with a wide range. Likes to play any 2 suited with a paint card. Best way to exploit IP? OOP?

obviously very general, but I'm also looking for generic answers and what things I should look for to adjust my game accordingly.

I'm honestly not sure what I wrote that broke the rules and got me banned the second time around. Both times I was banned were posts I made while on Ambien, and I know I do get quite wacky when that stuff is in my system. I'll try not to make anymore posts when on Ambien in the future.

If we are going to keep this thread alive though I'd like to encourage you guys to try to come up with questions that are a bit more interesting for me to answer.

An example of an interesting question would be like the one about the different kinds of multi-tablers, or about the differences between particular players. Or anything that promotes more out-of-the-box type thinking.

3bet or fold the KTs when his opening range dominates you. 3bet or call KTs when your range dominates your opponent's.

Blockers are pretty minimal as far as swaying my decision one way or another. I know a lot of high stakes players use them as a factor but I just don't think it really matters that much. I could be wrong though.
Playability of the hand matters the most to me. If it's good enough to flat the 3bet I will pretty much never 4bet it. If it's barely not strong enough to call but it's a situation I feel my opponent is light to 3bet AND won't 5b bluff me, that's when I 4bet. -- Keep in mind though, my 4betting percentage is very low. My preflop game I think is very similar to durrr's (I think we employ the same strategy, he just does it a ton better).

Yeah I do a lot of value calling with A high in 3bet pots in position. Stack depth is really important here though. If I am holding like AJo and am 150bb or deeper I'll usually lean towards 4betting it more because I ask myself "if I flat the 3bet, and an A or J high flop comes, will I be comfortable calling down 3 streets all in?" If the answer is no, I 4bet or fold.

Clearly it's good to have these hands in your 3bet range against players who 4bet bluff too much as even if you are wrong when you 5bet and are called, you usually aren't in too bad of shape. Also another thing to note is that A2s-A5s are just as good for this purpose and might be a little bit better.

Two things:
Sometimes I'll make calls because I find myself at such a strong point of my range that there is no way my opponent could assume I have such a strong hand.

If it appears that my opponent expects me to call I'll just about always fold unless we are in some sick leveling war.

I'm in Vegas ATM and on my laptop so I don't have my database with me.

I'm not sure if I'd define a big call the same way a lot of you guys might. I can think of two hands I played recently off the top of my head that you might think were big calls though I wouldn't necessarily call them that.

100bb deep @ 3/6NL HU
I open Ah5h OTB to 3bb
Villain flats BB
Flop 8s7s5d (pot: 36)
Villain chks, I chk back
Turn As
Villain chks, I bet 24
Villain c/r to 108 total, I call
River Jd (pot: 252)
Villain overbet jams
I call, he shows 66

It's pretty simple cuz I knew he was a smart thinking player and I expected him to checkraise the turn given my range appears capped and it's very difficult for me to have a flush unless it's specifically 5sXs. His abnormally large turn checkraise indicates to me that he isn't trying to get value and is just trying to take advantage of my capped range.

It looks like I have some kind of Ax like AT or AJ or something and if he was value checkraising a flush or two pair there's no way he'd make it so huge raising to 108 over my 24 bet. If he was going for value he'd go smaller so that I could call.

River I wasn't happy that T9 got there because that's a hand I put in his range, but when he jams, he bails me out and makes it a pretty easy call as the river overbet is congruent with my read of him trying to push me out of the pot on the turn. Having two pair is pretty irrelevant for me here and if I just had an ace I would still call as I think he is so polarized here.

Just try to make any kind of top pair against this guy then never fold. Don't bother raising him either unless you have some kind of strong draw. Be willing to let a lot of marginal hands go against this guy until you find the right spot, because he will spew no matter how long you wait.

Ummm okay here's a bunch of random advice against a guy like this:

Hammer this guy when you have position on him. 3bet lots and fire multiple barrels if he flats your 3bets. This is the type of guy that is very easy to exploit by reading his bet sizes and turning made hands into bluffs when it appears he has just a little bit stronger hand than you. Just play reasonable holdings against his LP opens when in the blinds and err on the side of aggression in spots like if you flat KJhh and the flop comes Qh7d5s go for c/r and continue barreling when you pick up equity. If you flop top pair with the KJ play it more passively.
Just constantly iso him with all kinds of holdings in position. Pay attention to his tendencies postflop when you decide to check behind on the flop. Some of these guys will auto barrel turn and river, some will only ever bet when they have it. You can essentially play perfect against this guy if you can read how he plays after you check back the flop because against some you can delayed c-bet bluff with impunity, and with others you can check back 2nd pr good kicker or top pair weak kicker and induce tons of bluffs from him.

It's obv still a good idea to c-bet a lot on boards that he is likely to miss, you just gotta pay attention to how he plays against your c-bets. How light will he peel? How often will he c/r and with what types of hands? That type of stuff.


All 3 of these types are super easy to beat.

wat?

Just curious, would you ever consider folding river against BB, a 59/30 fish who is agressive postflop and hates to fold (considering the price we get). To give you a feel, he has stabbed every missed CB in single raised pots so far (100%) but folded the few times he's been c/r'd. He has close to 100% cbet himself and fires any board if he's PFR, even multiway pots. I only think I've seen him fold to flop cbet a few times out of dozens of opportunities.

Anyway it just feels like I'm never ever good here all the times I've been in this spot.


Grabbed by Holdem Manager
NL Holdem $1(BB) Replayer
Hero ($134)
BB ($406)
UTG ($84.40)
UTG+1 ($49.34)
CO ($129)
BTN ($132)

Dealt to Hero A K

fold, UTG+1 raises to $2, fold, fold, Hero raises to $9, BB calls $8, UTG+1 calls $7

FLOP ($27) K 4 Q

Hero bets $25.75, BB calls $25.75, UTG+1 folds

TURN ($78.50) K 4 Q 9

Hero bets $58.87, BB raises to $371 (AI), Hero calls $40.90 (AI)



HH's probably isn't the purpose of this thread, but just wanna know what you think about it.