Round these parts PB was a highly respected poster. If he said you were doing something wrong you should re-examine your game and take his advice

... high.

Way ahead of their range on JT5T when they open the HJ? What is 'way ahead'? Do you think good 40/80 players are peeling the flop with any ace high we beat? Name these hands that we are crushing.

I open down to 33 in HJ, so preflop isn't the worst imo. And I can only find 73% of my range to continue with on this flop and that includes the 33.

If it's AcQc then checking turn is bad. If it's AQo it's OK. I'd be more inclined to check back AcQx than AxQc.

That thread got ugly pretty quick, so I decided to stay out of it.

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I think fine except open wth 22

funny, i originally read the turn action as check, bet, call -- my mind just filling that in as the standard play.

i actually 22s river decision between donk & c/r in the case where the PF 3bettor has the lead the whole time is more interesting than any question raised by the hand as played.

To your hypothetical, I think it's an easy donk so we can 3b (then cry call).

You were called a fish for your horrible postflop play and thought process, not your preflop play.

Great spirits have always encountered violent opposition from mediocre minds. - Albert Einstein

Albert Einstein communicated his thoughts a little friendlier than PB did.

I disagree. i think this is a great hand to check back on the turn in a medium stakes game. The big draw means we are going to get to raise a very decent number of rivers for value, and the ace high makes our hand a nice bluffcatcher.

i hear it has been like 60 names deep

Not the kind of "line" that's being talked about but I confirm that with 4 games going yesterday people who got there after about 3 were reporting a 5 hour wait

what's this thread? link or what to search for please?

i mean how bad of a mistake could T9s from UTG be? we're 100% raising QJs and at least most of us would raise JTs, so 1 below that can't be terrible; however, to be honest i'd probably fold it a large chunk of the time. i definitely fold 98s a vast majority of the time utg if not all the time in a standard 9-10h game. when the game is playing tight and/or my EP raises aren't getting action, or as a curve ball, that's when i'd add these types of hands to my EP range.

this is the thread.

enjoy.

I'd also add hands like T9s if every hand is going off 5+ ways for a raise.

There was a thread a couple months ago where most agreed good players wait for the turn w/ everything HU oop. Which I guess makes sense if nobody is going to have a checkback range.

I think it's easier to achieve some sort of balance this way.

It's similar to the reason most players c-bet 100 percent heads up. It's a balanced strategy and it's easy to implement, whereas once you start checking stuff back you have to think much harder about what to do it with and when.

But certainly if you are looking to exploit rather than to balance, than you want to have different aggression strategies, both as to when to check-raise and as to WHAT to check-raise, against different opponents.

Hard to say raising 22 in HJ is correct without any information on button or blinds. I normally wouldn't open 22 in the HJ without any reads or history against the players in the cutoff, button, and the blinds.

As ZOMG said, turn bet seems standard with AcQc but also depends on whether or not HJ has a history of check raising turns. I generally balance between checking the turn or betting the turn based on how I want my opponent to play later in the session or based on how I think my opponents have viewed my play thus far at the table.

Hi maka:

While I agree that folding 22 in the HJ is probably correct, raising with it can't be wrong by much. In fact, it's my opinion that raising with 22 UTG in a nine-handed ring game isn't wrong by much (but it's more wrong than raising with it in the HJ) and it's still wrong. It's just the way small pairs play.

Best wishes,
Mason

Mason-> where do you stand on the theory vs evidence debate? I ask bc I have over 500k hands from myself and a few other very good lhe players that, when filtered to the hj open with 22, show a decisive loss. I'd suspect this is bc the hand doesn't play well on many turns/rivers and you're stuck between calling down w worse or folding better so often. 44 is my cutoff from the hj and CO and I raise any pair from the button in position for the whole hand.

how much do you have it losing? and how many samples of 22 in HJ do you have (ie, after filtering)?

i'd have to dig up my backup drive and load it all. i can make the above statement though since i have my range results sheet and the "baseline" is "all hands that break even or make money opening in each position Xhanded"). if it's just below 0 or slightly negative, the hand would be in the "expanded range" sheet where i added anything -0.1<x<0 to each position's range.

so i can tell you it's <-0.10, but beyond that, i don't have the specific #. i also don't have the N but it's probably around 100-150 so not that many (times it folds to HJ * times we have 22 precisely in the HJ over 500k hands).

Hi UpHill:

I agree that open raising with 22 in this spot is a losing play, but I don't think it loses much. Thus your word "decisive" is unclear to me exactly what it means. In addition, when I play and have 22 in this spot, it's always folded.

However, that doesn't mean that good players will always fold it, and some will play it knowing that it's a slight (not decisive) loser. In our book, Hold 'em Poker for Advanced Players David and I wrote the following on page 1:

Then in the footnote we wrote the following:

However, in the games I play this approach is not necessary since I'm frequently against some players unknown to me, and also, against players who have moved to a GTO style, this approach should not work since their strategies should not be affected (much) by reacting to how a specific opponent may play.

Best wishes,
Mason