I’m not trolling about that being a great book, no.


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What I mean to say is yes I realize when we do something like check AJ preflop there is some inherent value there; however I think you don't give enough credit to the amount of equity we are sacrificing pre-flop and are consistently advocating inferior lines.

I also think you use examples of how villians will play vs us that is somehwat unreaslistic and uncommon to support some of your positions.

Examples would be we should check AJ in the BB because when the button open limps 45o and the flop comes AJK we can check call 3 times and let him triple barrel off.

Or we should not 3 bet JJ 5 ways pre-flop because when we lead the T34 flop the UTG raises is going to raise all his random 2 overcard hands and clear the field for us

As for your examples, I iwll try to adress them on a case by case basis

Example No. 1: You opponent thinks you play tight. You should now be inclined to just call. The reason for this is that if small cards hit and you raised, your opponent may be encouraged to try to steal from you when he does not make a hand. He might bet if you check, he might raise if you bet, and in no-limit he might float your continuation bet. Ironically, if you do just call, win the pot, and show your hand, you will confirm to your opponent that you are a tight, unimaginative player.

(1) well our opponent sucks and clearly isn't going to have anything close to a GRO bluffing frequency so who cares if he tries to steal the pot from us. Thankfully we are allowed to call with AJ hi when he bluffs to often. Now we gain the equity postflop and we ake money when he bluffs to often postflop. Not to mention that he sucks he's likely to bluff in jsut terrible ad straightforward spots that are very easy to adapt to.

Example No. 2: Your opponent thinks you play loose. This is actually a very tough situation to be in. The reason for this is that hold ’em is a game where you often prefer a tight image, and a loose image will not allow you to maneuver your opponent when you are out of position. Specifically, if you check on a later street your opponent won’t be afraid that you might be trying for a check-raise since you usually have a weak holding. This means that calling is probably the best strategy against most but not all your opponents.

(2) Well if your assunption is we can't raise pre-flop because our oppents will jsut bet with inpunity when checked to because they don't fear out checkraise (lol) we can raise preflop and then just (a) bet later streets or (b) check raise later streets. If we are able to both raise pre-flop and check raise big streets at a high freuqnecy this doesn't seem like a determent to raising pre-flop but rather a bonus.

Example No. 4: your raise will now accomplish is to get more money into the pot (with the best hand)....

Let just stop here for a second and think it over....

and it won’t have any of the other good psychological effects. Your opponent won’t fear your holding, and if a big card flops that does not hit your hand and he makes a small pair, he will stay with you. And if he makes a hand of moderate strength, he should be quick to raise you on a later street.

so whats your plan when we check pre-flop and get the same flop vs our oppoent. It comes Q66 and we check fold, it comes K24 and we check fold....

Who really cares if he fears our holding when we have a good hand and he has some piece of **** that he open limped the button with. Sure sometimes he calls down the QT5 flop with 56 but certainly hes calling down the JT5 flop as well.
- my point is hes liekly going to play his range the same on most board vs an agressive action by us whether he raised pre-flop or not, and if thats true then sacraficing the pre-flop equity advrangtge is just stupid....

Which brings us to the origional premise that you can make that up in spots where we don't take an agressive action. Yes we make some money when we flop and A or J but a high eprcentage of the time we are going to flop nothing and have to play the hand oop which will be extermely tough to do.

on lots of baord textures we will have close to 50% equity at best vs a button open limp range and have a very hard time realizing our equity. our opponent will be able to play bear perfectly on several flop textures once we check it to him

Shame on you for writing something like this. I do not consistently advocate inferior lines. The opportunity to make most of these unusual plays only comes up occasionally and just because the opportunity occurs, it doesn't mean that the play is then correct to do.

MM

I set mine here. 3 betting is folding no one and any overcard you are sunk.

Calling hides the strength of you hand which makes you a ton when you flop a jack. And allows you to easily fold on most boards that miss you.

5 way action? Totally silly to reraise even if you think your hand is best.

You can also represent a lot of different boards by just calling. 4-4-7, you can check raise. or lead out.

Calling gives you more fun ways to play certain flops.

It is okay to donk bet on certain flops with 5 way action. Limits the field a lot. 4-9-J, if I have 6's in the blind and cold called, I might just donk a bet. See what happens.

I guess we are just going to disagree. I don't think it is ever correct to check QQ 7+ ways for example. I don't care if its a very unusual or rare spot, I don't think its ever correct and I think when new players come on here trying to get better at poker its going to do them quite a disservice.

I don't think its almost ever correct to not 3 bet JJ (unless UTG only opens like QQ+ or something). I think just calling 5 ways vs a bunch of bad players and weak ranges is clearly an inferior line (as does every other poster on here). Also, I'm probably right

I don't think its ever correct to check AJo preflop when the button open limps and the sb folds despite what examples you give. In fact, I even recall somebody asking Phillip Newall (who I assume you respect quite a lot, ((also good book)) if he can think of a situation where he would check AJo in that spot and he said no. So at least in that instance he's wrong or you are....
I'm curious which one you think it is?

I don't mean any disrespect or anything, we just disagree on several spots and ideas as we are both very stubborn people. Also I'm probably right.

7 way limped pots are all alike; every heads up pot is heads up in its own way.


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This thread makes me want to throw myself under a train.

I just happened to wander through the LHE forums for the first time in a long while. I don't plan on making that mistake again soon. It was good to see some old school posters though.

I’m down with going for exploitive value on the margin in short handed spots particularly on the late streets in heads up pots. I don’t consider AJo preflop heads up vs a single limper to be marginal. Maybe you could talk me into checking A5o but probably not A9o.

Fundamental theorem of poker. If you reraise pre flop any reasonable hand should continue no matter what you have. Gave most two card combinations correct odds to play. Now slow playing hand a bit and executing correct check raises you allow opponents to make mistakes.

When pots regularly go 5 ways,

Ur gonna make money alotta when you cold call your good hands
Ur gonna make money alotta when you 3b your good hands

We all win

Also in the event where the ev diff between 2 lines are unclear (which is very true for mw pots), I rather take the most intuitive line because I assume that is the line most players take.

I want to take the line least deviated because then I'd know there's more symmetry when other players are in my spot, and thus there is no difference in our ev for that exact spot.

I'm sure if we take a poll, 3betting would be the preferred line.

So in the world where raising is better,
If I raise, I breakeven
If I call, I lose (everyone else is raising)

In the world where calling is better,
If I raise, I breakeven
If I call, I win

I rather breakeven by always raising as opposed to being right in one world and wrong in the other

(Maybe there's a fallacy or mistake in my logic, but no risk < risk where the ev diff between the deviation is unclear)

This thread is hilarious.

holy crap, this thread is hilarious. never realized what I was missing when I stopped reading this forums.

pretty sure this advice is contrary to the ed miller book winning in loose games.

Horse has been stabbed beaten and turned into glue.

Semi-grunching (I read the first 100 posts), but to me, this is the crux of the Mason just-call argument preflop. Real hard to prove one way or another whether just calling pre does in fact present frequent enough of opportunities to increase our chances of winning the pot.... But the logic in the above post does make sense, and is a credible defense to just calling.

That said, throw me in the 3-bet preflop camp. I think the immediate equity advantage gain will out weigh the chances we catch the correct flops with the right people flopping the right thing in the right position to be able to help us get to knock out overcards or whatever else might be out there that may be able to make a hand better than jacks and will decide to fold for 2-bets in this smaller pot...

statistician here and this whole discussion hurts me deeply lol. first, obviously mason is right in the example provided.

similarly, and just as obviously, mason can be wrong depending on a vast number of unobserved variables.

in a perfect world, we'd simply simulate the whole thing with every single assumption agreed upon and every single decision point varied step by step to compare the overall ev of each outcome.

but, we don't live in a perfect world. we don't have an ability to execute this simulation properly given how quickly the tree explodes. it would take years to do it right and the gain is minimal, so nobody will do it.

also, only mason is truly acknowledging how difficult it is to juggle N changing variables in your head with varying assumption values at once. he's also not trying to do it, himself. he's simply pointing out how a given example works out "his way" in the hopes of others being able to apply that simplified logic in a similar situation. many people apply it too readily or don't fully understand the application and thus make mistakes.

the worse news is that it's hard to even gauge by how much mason is wrong when he is wrong b/c that whole hand is unobserved and has too many variables at stake anyways. and by the same token, it's hard to gauge how often mason's simplified situation will come to pass and how much it would cost to apply it wrongly when it looks like it has come to pass but actually hasn't (b/c the rest of the hand plays out differently). we simply can't know all this.

but the good news is that we can whittle down tons of variables to a few of the most important ones if we isolate a given situation:
- will the bb raise if you simply complete the sb?
- will the bb raise the flop if bet into when he holds only overcards?

those are the simplest, but there's lots of others to take into account (if we check instead of betting, will a later agro player raise the bb's bet allowing us to 3b/OR can we depend on this later player to bet the turn allowing us to k/r | the various cards that can come on the turn that change our mind w/ this strategy).

the bottom line is that limit poker is exceedingly complex and anybody in this thread who says mason is dead wrong or dead right is almost surely wrong. there's lots of shades of right and wrong here and the degree of each depends on a ludicrous number of variables and an even ludicrousier number of values that those variables can take in an optimal simulation.

so please remember that nobody here can really be dead right or dead wrong imo.

and my favorite post in this whole thread by far is David's!!!! WTG DS!!!

I thought this was a good hand, and expertly played. I wonder what other posters think about this one.

The FToP is not valid in multiway pots. See "Morton's Theorem" (q.v.).

Hi UpHillBothWays:

Thanks for an excellent post.

I just want to point out that in these situations another very important variable is the size of the pot.

Best wishes,
Mason

Ty Mason, and yes ofc, pot size is a major determinant.

i also should have stated what my personal opinion is and for that, i turn to schneids b/c he nailed it head on: i'm in the 3b pf camp as when playing live i err on a simpler and more straightforward game. i've found that gets the money. sure sometimes i would have wished i played it differently (as i would have in the hand mason outlined); however, more often than not i believe straightforward play (i.e. taking large equity edges when offered) in these spots gets the most money, and if not, it's not by a lot.