Hello,
I'm new here, so first of all thank you in advance for taking the time to read this and give me a feedback

Here are the stats of my HUD for the villain:


Here's the hand:
Hold'em No Limit (€0.05/€0.10)

Seat 1 (Button): Villain (€12.91 in chips)
Seat 2: Player 1 (€6.22 in chips)
Seat 3 (BIG BLIND): Hero (€10.39 in chips)
Seat 4: Player 2 (€11.31 in chips)
Seat 5: Player 3 (€11.11 in chips)
Seat 6: Player 4 (€16.36 in chips)

Player 1: posts small blind €0.05
Hero: posts big blind €0.10

*** HOLE CARDS ***
Dealt to Hero [Ah Ac]
Player 2: folds
Player 3: folds
Player 4: folds
Villain: raises €0.15 to €0.25
Player 1: folds
Hero: calls €0.15

*** FLOP *** [6h 5h 4c]
Hero: checks
Villain: bets €0.26
Hero: raises €0.46 to €0.72
Villain: calls €0.46

*** TURN *** [6h 5h 4c] [2h]
Hero: bets €0.62
Villain: calls €0.62

*** RIVER *** [6h 5h 4c 2h] [9d]
Hero: bets €2.09
Villain: raises €9.23 to €11.32 and is all-in
Hero: folds

Uncalled bet (€9.23) returned to Villain
Villain collected €7.04 from pot
Villain: doesn't show hand

Here are my considerations:
1. I flat called preflop because he has a 90% fold to PF 3bet rate.
2. I check-raised to protect my hand.
3. He went all-in on the river, which can mean a few different things, all of which made me doubt, and here’s why:
- If he had a flush, it would have been at the very best king high, as I had the ace of hearts. Being so tight, he would have probably bet but not gone all-in.
- If he had a set, a straight, or a lower flush, he would have called as he did and then called the river, but it’s unlikely he would go all-in.
- He has a 50% rate of WSD, which means that either he makes bad calls (which I doubt because he’s very tight) or he also makes some big bluffs on the river and sometimes gets called by loose players as we’re playing Zoom mode.
4. I folded because, despite this chain of thoughts, I preferred to focus on the main stats (tight player, not usually aggressive) and because I thought of the hands that I could actually win if I made the call. Since he was all-in, even if he was bluffing with a double pair or a set, he would have won if I called with an overpair. There were no hands that I could put in his range that would have justified his moves and my call at the same time except QQ+, but even those premium pocket pairs would have been unlikely to make him call a check-raise, a cbet on the turn, and then go all-in on the river.

So, to sum it up, what did he have?? :-)

I am thinking now that I should have made a hero call to gather information for future games and also because I could have had some equity left with my aces.

What do you think? I’m eager to read your interpretations.

Thank you in advance!

MrMBCN

3-bet preflop. Even with large fold percentage he is clearly a super passive reg who just waits for hands so he won't build big pits for you and when you just flat you give him the SPR to have what happened in game happen quite frequently.

The rest of the hand is I thi k an overplay. Both players have 2-pair, sets and straights and you're taking a highly filtered line. I would either donk , check call flop and if I do xr then I'd just be checking turn and feeling uncomfortable if he bets. River blocking makes some sense but yeah very easy fold vs raise

Thank you for your feedback. I agree with you that I overplayed this hand, where I could have easily saved some chips.
2 things though:
1) I am not a fan of 3 betting every single time I have a premium hand, because at this level player fold too much to 3bets. I wanted them in and I also want to mix moves, to keep them guessing and make it harder for them to read my moves.
2) What do you think he could have had on the river to justify an all-in? My point is that, since I blocked the Ace high flush, I do not see a tight reg like him going all in with a lower flush or, even lesser, with a set or a straight when there are 3 hearts.

Thanks,
M

Why did you play passively pre when you had the nuts then go apeshit when you had little more than a bluff catcher? Why are you trying to blast worse hands out of the pot? This is microstakes though so its either a punt or a massive exploit versus folks who cant fold draws and OPs

Yeah, you're right, I went mad on the flop, but there's also some history with this player that I did not mentioned in my post. Perhaps, he actually read my hand, although it would be kind of hard, as I normally never slowplay QQ+. I just did it this time with him because I noticed that he always fold to 3bet unless he has a premium hand.

So, probably a bad move from him, not considering that I could have the nut flush (and that would totally be my range for calling from the BB, like with A5s).

Anyway, probably here I'm giving too much thought to his move, while I should focus more on my mistake: I got mad because for one time that I slowplay aces, I got 6h 5h 4c for a flop. this is the kind of things that trigger me and I need to learn to control.

Thank you for you contribution Dude45,
M

You do not need nutted hands in your flatting range. Given that SRP are played at very deep SPRs, it isn't very common that 1pair is all that nutted. You will always have other hands in your range that outperform the overpairs so the flop uncaps your range anyway and you have no reason to keep overpairs in it when you can lower the SPR, deny equity and get value.

This guy is a tight but still reggy looking player. Hell likely underbluff spots but doesn't mean he won't value jam a good flush

Honestly, my English is not that good when it comes to poker, so I do not understand what you are saying about not including nutted hands in my flatting range. Would you be so kind to explain to me in some other way?

Thanks,
M

3bet preflop 100% of the time here on the BB to about 1.25€ (roughly 5x his BTN raise).
The hand sample size is not big enough to have reliable data on his fold to 3bet% and even if it was high you still 3bet AA here.

Flop XR and sizing looks fine. Population in general overfold at low limits to XR so him calling it should make you super cautious.

100% Fold to river shove at 10NL vs what is looking to be a tight player with only an overpair. Too many nutted hands in your opponents range. Looks like a flush or 87s to me.



In general though you did a huge mistake pre flop by not 3betting with the nuts. You want to lower the SPR (Stack to pot ratio) making your opponent commit more money and thus putting him in tougher situations. If you just call here you uncap your opponents range and if he doesn't flop good you let him off cheaply. If he does flop good situations like this happen where you don't realize your equity with such strong preflop hands. You simplify the situation significantly by 3betting as well, your opponents range gets capped if he calls.

This is the standard range for BB vs BTN 2.5x raise (give or take because of the rake) -

Also I see you're using some kind of HUD (Think that's PT4 right?) to export the hands to the forum if so there should be an option to have it formatted for 2+2 forums, because this is super unreadable.

You not need to protect your flatting range as you're range will become uncapped on the flop and the high SPR
ensures that overpairs will not be that nutted. In essence you make your hand more nutted by 3-betting given you have no need for protection in flatting line

Thanks for jumping in. Yes, I use PT4, I will use the appropriate format for export next time for sure, sorry for the mess.

I understand what you say, based on GTO and decisions taken by the AI, but can you apply this approach to small stakes 100%? Also, I still believe that flatting some strong hands make sense every now and then, to make you more unpredictable, especially between regs that after some time start to know each other even without the help of a HUD. Perhaps not with a guy like him, who wont pay me anyway unless he hit the flop hard.

My point is, when I play at higher stakes, where people don't overfold to 3bets, I don't certainly slowplay monster hands, unless I have a specific read on somebody (which never happened so far). But at NL10 I feel like sometimes I need to adjust to the meta.

For instance, I noticed that from time to time a strange wave of madness rush on the tables, like a snowballing effect and people get more and more aggressive until something happens and it cools down (have you ever noticed something similar?). During these weird periods I narrow my range preflop as well as bluffs on later streets and, unless I have some specific reads against it, I play strong hands super aggressively, even reraising on two streets to go all-in at the end, while a reraise at micro and small stakes is considered a super aggressive move normally.

Do you think that AI models always display the best course of action? Because I think they do not address history between players and psychological variables like the one I just mentioned or a player on tilt.

Thanks for reading this
M

People don't overfold to 3b at micros. Being afraid that someone will fold when you have a good hand is a pretty serious leak that will cost you a ton of money.

I will try to address point by point.

Simple answer would be - no, you shouldn't apply a pure GTO approach 100% of the time in small stakes or at any stake really. You adjust based on your opponents mistakes.

Longer answer - In general the way you learn how to play in poker these days and the way to maximize the win rate is by learning how a GTO would play and adjust based on your opponents mistakes (such as you mentioned too high fold to 3bet% which would mean you 3bet with a wider range (more hands), if he calls you know that he has a tigher range.)

For example this would be a GTO range in equilibrium (If you don't know what that means I highly suggest you read up more about GTO and read this great post - https://forumserver.twoplustwo.com/1...tions-1796129/)



But if he has too high of a fold to 3bet% his range might look more like this (For example all under 100% frequency hands fold) -

Thus you exploit him by 3betting wider.

Same concept applies for other mistakes your opponent makes.

You have a fundamentally wrong way of thinking, few people including me have already explained in this thread why you shouldn't flat such strong hands like AA instead of 3betting.

You're making your life much easier by 3betting here instead of flatting because you're uncapping your range not to mention you make the game significantly easier on yourself by lowering the SPR and if your opponents calls you know that he has more holdings of hands like middling pocket pairs, 87s. Refer to the image I posted above, how many hands are there that have a 3 in them? ZERO So that would make your life much easier you won't have to worry so much about your opponent having flopped a straight (Of course this doesn't mean he couldn't go out of line and have a hand containing 3x.

Also, your win rate in poker generally comes from fish AKA recreational players instead of regs. Generally regs won't be making as many mistakes thus not generating you much win rate (if anything you lose money playing vs decent regs because of the rake) and you just want to play solid baseline poker vs them. But that doesn't mean you still don't adjust to them, for example if you find yourself vs a tighter reg which this looks like one you should open a wider range of hands.


I've already explained that he sample size is so small that you shouldn't really factor in that F3b% stat. With that said I will give a guess and say that he likely does overfold vs 3bets because of his tighter VPIP and relatively small sample we have of his F3b%. But that doesn't excuse flatting with AA in this spot.

This is either because there is some fish/whales at the table or it just so happens that people get stronger holdings at once. That's poker.

They always display the best course of action in equilibrium. Your job is to know how to adjust from the equilibrium to exploit the mistakes player make.

Not to be too results oriented, but you flatted PF because villain had a high fold to 3-bet percentage. Had you three bet and gotten him to fold youÂ’d have won 2.5 BB. Instead you flatted and lost 36.8BB. How would villain folding pre be so terrible - it would have netted you 39.3 BB.

Certainly you arenÂ’t hoping villain folds pre when you have a premium hand. That was not my point. Poker is a game about the long term, though. Villain folding pre to our AA happens, and that is factored into our long term win rate. Villain wonÂ’t always fold - not even one with a 90% fold percentage. That factors in too. As do the hands where our AA gets cracked and we lose a stack.

We canÂ’t control what villains do or how the cards run out. The best we can do is make good decisions. 3 betting (or 4-betting or 5-betting if villains actions allow) with our AA 100% of the time is the correct action. If villain is over folding to 3 bets, flatting AA is not the correct adjustment. The correct adjustment is to 3 bet him lighter. You can take a lot of chips from that villain by 3 betting with almost all of your opening range. Those chips will more than make up for the EV you lose when he folds to your AA. Additionally you will be playing more deceptively. When he does call, villain wont know whether you have a premium hand or just some speculative one.

You don't exploit villains who over fold by flatting your monsters pre. You need to over bluff against them

Welcome!


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