Haha yeah, well, there’s been a lot written on this topic, and you will even see some amount of disagreement in this forum as to what is GTO response to our opponent’s playing too loose. Generally, I perceive that LHE experts believe it to be GTO to tighten up when our opponents are playing too loose. And while this, too, is my own general position on the matter, there are certain game dynamics (especially at the higher stakes) that will prompt me to get more involved with loose opponents who are spewing—and really, it just comes down to whether or not I perceive an opportunity to run over the table. If I do, I know that I can make a big score, and I will lag it up. But otherwise, I think we’re supposed to play tighter when they play looser. But that’s such a general statement that it may not be of much relative value once you get into the nuances of this LHE topic

And also: I don’t mean to suggest that we shouldn’t play our normal aggro game when the kill is on. To the contrary! And if our opponents nit up when the kill is on, we should obv be attacking the Hell out of the blinds in position, etc.

GL!

I ran an admittedly simple blind vs. blind sim comparison. In the first sim the small blind could either fold or raise and in the second sim the small blind can only raise. This would be a proxy for an overly loose, splashy opponent in the SB.

In sim 1, the SB optimally opens 67% of hands, folding 33%. The BB's optimal play against this distribution is to fold 6%, call 59% and raise 35%. I'm assuming in this sim that the SB's option to call, which I did not include, would only add slightly to overall EV to comprise a GTO preflop range.

In sim 2, the SB opens 100% of hands. The BB's optimal play against this is to fold 0%, call 56% and raise 44%. I only ran this sim for 30 min or so, but I think it's clear that the sim's adjustment is to play more hands and play those hands more aggressively preflop.

This would appear to contradict the idea that we should adjust to loose preflop play by tightening up. This may be due to the simplicity of a blind vs. blind scenario or that we only have two players in the hand, but I think it's a good starting point to extrapolate a more complex multi-way preflop decision.

Ironically, even after ridicule from the community, it seems that the practitioners of no gambol, no future might be on to something!! Welcome your feedback and thoughts.

J Lot

First of all, mad respect for running your own sims and putting in the hard work of thinking through complex aspects of the game for yourself. As I learned the game and moved up in stakes, I too often relied on other people’s representations re sims, etc. and frequently what people published turned out to be dead wrong, disproved later by others who, like you, did their own “homework.” I don’t run sims anymore for myself, so, honestly, reading your post made me feel a bit lazy

That said, this is a topic that I have read a lot about over the years, and—again—a great deal has been written on it, so I would encourage you to seek out that work which was produced by better minds than my own.

For a number of reasons, your blind vs. blind opening range sims will not provide you full GTO strategy for playing back at opponents who are too loose. There are a number of factors missing from your sims that must be considered and accounted before we get to GTO.

And I’m sure I misstated/grossly-oversimplified my position on this topic earlier. There are certainly times when our opponents loose play makes it +EV for us to see more flops with a wider range of hands, etc.—especially when our opponents are preflop limping OOP, etc.

The last time I tried to suggest LHE tools/materials on this forum to someone, I got trolled/dissed/etc. And the truth is that others on here will have a better knowledge of what up-to-date resources are out there which cover this topic, so maybe someone could direct JLot to some of those, please? That said, I’ll see if I can find a couple of links to post a bit later, and I’d definitely try to find previous discussion threads on this forum that relate to this topic. Those threads will contain a ton of information, and even if much of it is contradictory, it will at least provide you a more comprehensive framework for working through this problem for yourself.

How loose does this Foxwoods 20/40 HK play? All the following assumes it plays quite loose, looser than a correct adjustment to the kill. So my prior is that GTO is being way way overemphasized here, because that's my prior about any live poker thread. But I'll play along.

PRACTICE
Setting aside the GTO stuff, loose opponents mean multiway pots. We profit by adding hands to our range that become profitable. "That guy played K9o and won a 25 bet pot so now I can play KJo" is not the way to do this. Playing more small pairs, suited connectors, etc. when we have good implied odds is the first part of how we improve our win in loose games. I think this is probably obvious but I didn't see it mentioned and not everyone who reads threads is necessarily at the level where that's obvious. Does anyone dispute that in practice that's how to beat a loose 30/60 game?

GTO is interesting and at times can be a great starting point as was said. But here I don't see the applicability of a BvB solved game even as a starting point. The whole reason we adjust to looser play in a Foxwoods de facto 30/60 with three blinds is because the game is more multiway, but a BvB game can't be multiway or have three blinds.

I think 2+2 LHE threads get deep into onto GT because people find GT interesting and because it's really essential to beating tougher games. I appreciate the GT. But I suspect rereading Small Stakes Hold Em is more useful to beating a game like this than solving HU subgames. I might be wrong though.


THEORY (sorta)

Seems to me there are two very different scenarios.

If opponents correctly play looser because the starting pot is bigger, then perhaps we can assume they play well postflop too and so knowing GTO is good to protect ourselves against expert play.

If opponents play looser just because they're reacting incorrectly to the kill, that's prima facie evidence (though not conclusive) that they may not play well postflop. If they don't play well postflop then we profit by adding hands that let us exploit their poor play postflop, as well as any poor decisions to enter the hand preflop. Which is what I said above.

I mean I colud be barking up the wrong tree but this:


sounds like a completely different planet than the sorts of HU games being discussed immediately above. What am I missing?

Yeah, seems like you and I are on the same page here. You touch on several of the factors missing from JLot’s sims. And I’m also probably throwing out the term “GTO” too much when all I really mean is “optimal strategy.”

I don't think the solution to crazy loose play is to tighten up, as much as it is to play different stuff (you know the drill, ATo/KJo becomes trash, AJs becomes a monster, 98s/44 becomes playable from like every position, etc). There's a lot of value in these game types in making flushes, straights and sets while your opponents chase two pair.

I totally agree with this. It’s more a matter of making several different kinds of specific adjustments to your game, depending on game conditions, than it is about just playing tight in response to loose. I apologize if I muddled this thread by misstating/over-simplifying my position earlier.

All I really meant to get the OP to think about is that he or she will have to consider how the kill will alter opponents’ play when the kill is on, and then be able to execute in real time once OP has assessed how the opponents’ altered play is rendered exploitable by the increased stakes.

You're in the small blind. Action is folded to the button. Button is VPIP 50 PFR 30 PF3B 20, but in particular their button RFI is 70

What should our 3-betting range be against this player? Should it be greater or smaller than our 3-betting range versus a tight reg with stats like 32/25/15 and a button RFI of 45?

I mean, really. We are obviously going to play wider against the single loose player than against a tighter one.

Adding more players isn't going to change this.

Also note that "we should tighten up with a leg up" is not contradictory to "we should loosen up in a game full of loose players." Imagine two kill games, one full of nits and rocks and the other full of happy action players. Our ranges in general are going to be rather wider in the action game than in the nitty game. And in both games we tighten up with a leg up. In the action game our tight leg-up ranges will be wider than the corresponding ranges in the nitty game.

I suppose this is slightly closer to how I imagine the Foxwoods 20/40 kill than was the BvB game, but it's still pretty synthetic. I thought the point was that kill games play extremely loose extremely multiway, not that kill games are typically populated by one player who's out of line.

That's not saying the theory doesn't apply--I would play looser with the appropriate hands, e.g. 22 and T9s from any position if not many pots are 3-bet. But it's a huge leap between SB 3! btn ranges and a game where there are 10 bets in every pot preflop (and the blinds are 1/3 and 2/3 of a small bet, to boot). For example in the above example I'd consider 3! A2o from the SB. I doubt we should even be playing A8o for $20 more in the SB in a multiway $30 kill pot.

Regarding the FW 20/40 game specifically, has it been a good game? When I visited FW in May, everyone I talked to told me to avoid the 20/40 LHE as it was full of nitty regs.

"Naah, you don't want to play in that game, kid. You want to play in our game. . . ."

has this game died at the woods?

It went about 14 hours on Saturday. Started eight, filled in 30 min, and had a big list afternoon into evening. Half the table was new to me.

I don't know whether it's gone since.

weird
there seems to be fewer tables and less frequency since the kill started

The game was tailspinning anyway FWIW. The fact that it's a go on a Thursday is somewhat of a big deal.

Not a surprise. I think kills are bad for the longevity of games.

truly sad watching limits demise....
2/4 everyday
4/8 always on promo days spotty on non-promo days
10/20 virtually only on Saturdays or Monday madness
now 20/40 tailspinning
Foxwoods was a solid place for limit

is borgota now the mecca for limit

It has been for years, really. Action pops up at Foxwoods, in Philly / MD / DC as well, but the biggest and most consistent games have been at Borgata.

This being said, keep an eye out for the Encore Boston Harbor games. I know for a fact that there's plenty of people in the area who like limit poker. It's just a huge pain to get to Foxwoods.

thank you

But really only weekends / holidays / tourney series weeks.

20/40 40/80 80/160 ( most weekends) none of this during the week (for the most part)

This is wrong. Prior to the intro of the kill, the game was declining rapidly. The advent of the kill significantly rejuvenated the game. A separate factor came into play just as the kill was rejuvenating the game: Two pros who started the daily games quit poker to focus on their other careers. We had about 15-20 days with no game until everyone got on the same schedule: Thu-Sat and sometimes Wed and Sun. Now the games are amazing!!! With 2 fewer pros, many players are joining the game.

Sent from my SM-N960U using Tapatalk