Preflop:
A 60bb shortstack opens UTG and I flat at the BTN.

Flop:
UTG cbets $0.20 into $0.37 which is on the smaller side and it doesn't look like he's trying to get it in. As a weird 60bb stack he probably does not recognize he can bet smaller on these dry boards to balance his range. This assesment is with some reservation though because sometimes he will have a hand and will be looking to get in in, but I think it is save to say his range is weighted towards hands that are weak and will fold to a small raise. Also, he is shortstacked and more likely to fold mediocre hands than a full stack if I raise, especially since he is oop and has to play 2 more streets. I also put him in a tough spot here because if he raises he's practically commiting himself. And if he does raise I can just fold.

So I do raise his $0.20 cbet to $0.45 to say I got this queen, I think it should be a tad larger of a raise though. Say I had made it $0.48, then I would need 45.7% equity. Basically fold-equity. Let's see if I have that:

I think he continues with a range of about 6.1%:


That means his preflop range needs to be 6.1*100/54.3=11.2+% hands, if he needs to fold out 45.7% and continue only with 54.3%.

This is 11.4%:


So if he opens this or more UTG, -according to my assesment-, a raise to $0.48 on the flop would be profitable without taking into account our hand-equity.

- Is my assesment right? What say you?

Intuitively this makes little sense I feel. A 1/2 bet on this texture doesn't mean weakness at all. He won't fold or raise to this bet 100%, he can still call and he can still call with hands that are strong (8x, Qx, sets, overpairs).

Put it this way, he is never folding a hand that beats 66 on this flop so raising is pretty bad. Raising a shorstack fish is also bad as they don't like to fold and you are going to make the SPR such that villain should fold less of his range with a 60bb stack.

If you are going to bluff use a hand with equity/blockers (J10s, 109s, 56s, 4x).

Also 66 has some SDV at the moment. If the turn is a 5/7 maybe you can start bluffing but against this villain you should really just be focusing on value.

pedantic spew, you need to work on fundamentals, you've overcomplicated your strategy in a highly abstract and esoteric way that has no relation to the game as it's actually played or should be played. You need to get the basics down correctly before making ambitious finesse protection / bluffs which are highly situational and opponent specific. Familiarize yourself with common lines and ranges by position. Poker isn't about reinventing the wheel, it's about tapping in to the vast resources made available to you starting out by much better players than yourself, and heeding their advice when you are a beginner. Most of what they will encourage you to do is to SIMPLIFY your strategy, as it is always better to start simple and add layers of complexity as you become more familiar with strategy, than it is to start out overly complex without a full grasp of what you are doing.

to begin with, this hand should not have occurred, as you should not have cold called 66 vs an UTG open with 60 bb effective

Default play for Qx on that flop would be to call, not to raise. so when you raise, you dont really say you have a Queen. Your trying to sell a stronger Hand wich is less believeable.

Fish dont plan hands. Fish does not know he might be committed or not or that he will have to play 2 streets oop. Fish just "Do" things.

No because he does not cbet his entire open raise range.... also the range you gave him to continue with is very unrealistic.

he will continues with any straight draw and any Qx, 8x, 4x

It would seem that you're running before you've learned to walk. It's great to think in depth about the game like you are but as amazin said, you need to learn fundamentals. A great question to ask yourself is: of the range that you call preflop, what hands make the most sense as a raise? Here you're posing it as if you can raise with any two and profit and 1) that's not the case and 2) you'll get destroyed if/when you move up to play intelligent players.

This is also very true and a very bad assumption about the people you play against.

Fold pre and fold flop.

It's good to try and think on a higher level, but you've taken it too far in this case. If the PFR is any other seat, then you can bluff raise this flop at times. That is very table / image dependant.

In this case, we're just overcomplicating a very straight forward hand. Not uncommon at microstakes, but something to work on.

Play solid poker before you play advanced poker. Learn to walk before you learn to run.

Many people never get out of micro by playing too fancy.

this board is still very seldom raised in a SRP as the coldcaller facing a c-bet. That's one thing that OP needs to work on specifically, figuring out how to construct ranges post on different board textures with different ranges in play. In practice, I am going to be defaulting to calling essentially all continuing range here as the IP player.

Still somewhat moot as this is a fold pre

Wow thanks all for these comments, reading them now, a lot to take in, will be back with response.

I am trying to work on fundamentals at the moment. This hand does not illustrate that. I am trying to get the basics down atm and really trying to simplify things overall, but it's hard for me to find out what the basics really are.
That is why I am playing Zoom poker atm, so I don't let myself be carried away by table dynamics and are forced to play a more standard game, or develop a standard game.

But there are still hands like this one where I let myself be carried away, these hands should not occur. I should be more disciplined. I was wondering about the preflop call with only 60bbs.

Anyway, I will work on fundamentals and simplify things as much as possible for now. And cut the crap.

You are right this makes no sense intuitivily and 66 having sdv. But it's hard to realize my equity. Anyway I don't want to debate this hand anymore as I really should be focussing on standard game. I should not have posted this hand, but then again if I didn't I would not have got these valuable responses.

Everybody is right and I will do: fundamentals, simplify!

your posts are great. I am glad that you didn't get defensive, and accepted criticism. Your initial post also shows that you have a very active, analytical mind. That is an asset to you as a player, and if you keep at it and put in work, you will develop well with that attribute. You also have a grasp of math, even if you are applying it incorrectly in the wrong spots, that will help you immensely as you learn what to apply it to. I also like the math, and like to do crazy numbers stuff with the game. Since playing cards is such an individual journey, pretty much everyone starts out reading a lot of stuff, going off in a lot of different directions, and then finally finding their way to a path where they are developing in a good way in an objective sense.

stuff for you to work on with fundamentals :
pokersnowie preflop advisor : This is an awesome (free!) tool to look at preflop spots. It is completely free, and you will be given good guidelines about what to play in what position facing a certain action. You can adjust wider or tighter, but they are a good way to start visualising what baseline, average ranges do and should look like in today's game.

GTO+ : if you spend 75 dollars on this, and start plugging in snowie ranges for preflop and solving spots, you will develop a lot more rapidly than you otherwise would be able to. I can't stress enough how useful this is for people who like to analyze the game. As you are working, you should still be simplifying, as although you are working with some big ranges sometimes, you will notice big patterns that you can latch onto. IE, this range is not leading middle pair in this spot, and is always check calling it. It doesn't want to checkraise that hand, it wants to checkraise something else with less showdown value, like this other hand etc. etc. This also comes with the caveat that if you don't know what you are doing, you can get some misleading results, but if you have any questions about how to solve a certain spot or what sizings you should use for a solve, you can always ask those on a forum like this one, and there is a lot of info on that as well.

peter clarke's 6max series : https://www.youtube.com
/watch?v=tImuoMA9PFw&list=PLCWJctxpFzxk1nVtYAKtaMNK VF_WLd6ck
peter clarke is probably the best content creator for beginners imo. He also wrote a book called "The Grinder's Manual", which is worth every penny and more. He explains things concisely and simply, and goes into theory, but in a very practical way. He also has a course on RIO for beginners which comes with a free month of RIO essential, the course is great for beginners, and is a great starting point for 6max cash.

good luck, and continue posting hands that trouble you!

i am also beginner but sorry this is way too complicated for me

1) When I play against short stacks at these levels, I play if and only if I can demolish their entire stack

2) I would not set mine against a short stack. My hands would be heavily weighted towards TPTK (AJ+,TT+) so if they shove my open raise or on flop, I call their all in bet comfortably.

I would fold this

coming to your hand

3) what are the cbet and fold to cbet stats? that bet looks like a 1/2 pot cbet.
once you min raise, any short stack with AK,QJ+,44,88,TT+ is shoving all in here.
he called ..it is kind of lame from a shortstack..so I am guessing some Ax or ATC that whiffed the flop

4) so bottom line - fold pre ; as played, call flop evaluate turn. Bet all non broadway turns, else check to the showdown if possible

66 is not a call vs SS

Man, this is a treasure. I owe you a beer. Thanks a ton

Read the Grinder's Manual pdf (can get it free trial on scribd)

Don't play until you have read it.

Re-read it constantly when playing, you'll get better quickly (best thing for a beginner)

Oh and watch Charlie Carrel microstakes series on youtube (this is important)

It's great that you guys came up with actual resources. I got The Grinder's Manual by Peter Clarke and it first glance it looks exactly like what I need! And then he has more content online. Thanks! great! This is what I need.

Bookmarked Charlie Carrel as well and going to look at snowie preflop advisor too, didn't know it existed.

Sorry, no can do .. it's almost 600 pages . I do't know if I may paste a screenshot of the table of contents, but here is the main table of contents for the book:

Introduction
Opening the pot
When somebody limps
C-betting
Value betting
Calling opens
Facing bets - And of action spots
Facing bets - Open action spots
Combos and blockers
3-betting
Facing-3bets
Bluffing the turn and river
3Bet pots and balance
Stack Depth
Appendices

Your loss. You need to read what you don't need to read due to discussions you yourself have had in this thread.

You said "fundamentals, simplify" and then responded to an awesome suggestion by saying you won't try it because it's beneath you.

I have played over 1m hands (albeit not recently) and beat microstakes for huge wr's before moving up. I have read the first 50 pages today and am mind blown by this book. Fee's was the best book we had back in the day. This is an amazing resource and I plan to read the entire book more than once. Not because I grind poker these days, but because I always loved discussing and reading poker content and this is the apex of it so far.

You got it wrong me thinks - I meant I am going to read the book, but I can't not play poker until I have read it! 600 pages fgs.

Ah, it definitely sounded like you were saying you can't read it because it is too long. The first 50 or so pages are absolutely fantastic and coming back to the game recreationally, I would have never reviewed PF play at all other than going through som HH's.

Ah no I read the preface and skipped through it, the book seems amazing. I am for sure going with this book and not read many other things meanwhile.

But you know - a player needs to play every now and then

66 is not a call vs anyone, ever (outside of bb). 3bet it like ~15% of the time vs full-stacked raise from CO regs or fold (fold is far and away the default action).

Whenever I go on a downswing I tend to re-read it just to hash out fundamentals and get thinking about the game. It's so accessible it's insane. The layout is unbelievable for content that can very often be super dry (I struggle with Matthew Janda's works).

O what o coincedence, I also just got Matthew Janda's book, but I think I will leave that one for later on.

I know a downswing can let you question yourself and crumble your confidence in your game, at least it does so with me. So it's good to have something fundamental to fall back on, it's like drinking a potion of self-confidence. I used to watch vids, but this Peter Clarke book seems very promising. I hope I didn't rob anybody getting it for free.