SB 56%
BB %50
EP 45%
MP 53%
CO 59%
BTN 53%

flop c/r =7.6%; turn 9.5%

Fold to fewer cbets when you are IP (BTN/CO). What's your cold call % from the CO/BTN? When you're IP, you should be giving people a helluva difficult time. Esp. vs. people who cbet a high %. What's the average cbet% of your opponents where you have at least 1k hands?

It was marginal on both parts I think. I wish the stack would've went to someone else though; someone that I could have an easy time getting it back from!

Very interesting discussion about the CBet% etc. I, too, seem to notice how the more active I am at an average table of 25NL -100NL, the more succesful my CB% SEEMS to be. Up to a given 'point.' Unless a good player notices or I get too out of line. I've never taken a took at the stats before however. My CB% is a little higher IIRC. I'm not at my poker computer at the moment.

Let me ask you this, would you want to play 72o OOP against me in a 3bet pot? Im not saying Im a champ or w/e, but think about it, how comfortable are you playing a trashy hand like that against an aggro reg who has position on you, plus card advantage. We have three advantages in poker (position, card, skill) when u 3bet hands like 22 or 72o your giving up 2 out of 3 of those. Im a little swamped right now so dont really have time to talk about why 3betting small PP's that have a high EV is bad, but do a little research on it and you will find out quickly why it is horrible. Think mostly about the situation that I layed out for you.

We were before he gave me an example talking about this spot in a vacuum, as u know it makes it tough to give any kind of strat. I do however challenge you to show me a (realistic) spot where it is a good idea to be 3betting 22 OOP against anyone opening the button.

I was a little 'behind" on my comment too. I thought it was 3betting in general. and since for me "In General" means "In Position" since I try to make playing OOP the exception rather than the rule. I don't even setmine OOP, unless I know I can win a stack against a tight range.

My thought on when is it good to 3bet 22-66, was we are in the CO/BTN, and we are going against a TAG/sLAG that isn't going to stack off easily, and has a high fold to 3bet%.

Mpethy, could I borrow your style for one night? God I wish I could have your image sometimes. You could literally spend like 2k hands raising every single cbet any reg made into you and make gobs of money from how often they folded. I dont mean any offense by that and Im being serious, Im also sorry to see you struggle and Im there myself currently. If you want to keep your same style maybe you could find someone that has a large DB at 200 to give you some of xxbarexxace's hands to go over. He is the top winning reg at 200 and plays an aggro-nit style. I mean that guy is tough as hell to play against.

ran very g00t he did!

Yea I also dont set mine there, its just such a crappy spot because your hardly ever going to get paid off cause there is range is fairly wide plus your OOP and at some point in the hand your going to have to take this really strong "I have a set line".

I dont agree with your example, actually I use to untill I was corrected a few times. Your taking away all of the implied odds from your hand. If you get 4bet you cant call it off, if he calls ur always behind and when he folds you missed a chance to get any kind of action out of your hand. Your also going to have players behind in the blinds that are left to act and could give you action as well. If your read is that he wont stack off easy then why wouldnt you call, raise flop, bet turn, and bomb river if thats the case? Or hit a set and maybe just go for two streets with your hand, maybe betting a little bit smaller to induce some kind of tilt raise or get a thin call.

Yeah, I always root for the big fish to suck out against other people. I waitlisted for an hour last night to get on a table with a fish who just overbet everything. He kept sucking out on everyone else to get up to 12BI at one point. He managed to retain a good amount of that by the time I got there, I was able to take him out in two PF-all in hands for like 5BI profit.

Had to feel sorry for the one guy he victimized in particular. I was railing and there was one guy who was willing to gamble against him, but the fish sucked out on him like nothing I'd ever seen. The one time the victim actually had a monster in KK. Fish happened to have AA that hand.

I see your point, and change my mind also a few times. Now I am in the 'be specific" mode. So when I am talking about 3betting my speculative hands, I am thinking more of the 20/15 types that have a fold to 3bet%>85% and who will double barrel a decent amount and know how control pot size. . 22-XX doesn't have a lot of showdown value against these guys, so I pretty much have to win before showdown, and these guys like to fold to 3bet PF, so 22-XX is part of my range 3bet-balancing against them. Now if you make them "one and done" with their cbets, or change their fold to 3bet, or make them POW then I change my strategy.

What do you want to bet that those guys that have 75%-85% fold to 3bet numbers are 4betting like mad men? Look into it, seriously, its shocking. Oh and dont balance untill you get to 5/10, look into it, seriously, its shocking.

I will look at my 3bet strategy as this is an area I keep going back and forth on. As far as balancing, seems like every level I am at some reg from a higher level says "don't do x until Y". Balancing is one of those that keeps getting kicked higher. Maybe I give regs too much credit at NL100.

Are you then advocating sticking to an ABC TAG'ish strategy up to 5/10?

Its my opinion that playing tagfish at any level above 50NL anymore isnt going to make you any kind of decent winner. I just think people try to balance in spots where there is no need to.

You're a much stronger player then I, so i'll defer to you in the BVB 22-66 example and evaluate my thought process.

I'm also starting to agree about the role that balance players in a 100-200 players game. Ronfar and Vinivici are two of the biggest PS winners, and both are nits that play very sound postflop poker. PF stats are just the beginning...

doesn't it really depend on Hero's stats/image. Like you probably don't need to balance as you are wider than the average 2p2 uNL player so you already have some balance, but if one was nittish..they need to have a wider range (call it balance) against the regs they do see. I do agree that balancing for balancing sake is just as bad a "metagame purposes". My point with the 22, wasn't that auto 3bet it, more of I have a known villain and I believe this has higher success rate (right or wrong, I will look at it and crunch some number). I wouldn't do that move against unknowns or just to mix things up.

I do think that people will make an attempt to play back at you even at 10NL. I tend to have very laggy stats (accounted for by the fact that I'm playing over half my buttons). I'll notice that there are guys who seem to 3bet me like every time I try and open a pot. I'll shut it down for a while to see if they are doing this to anyone else. They aren't.

It can get annoying, but it's been a hidden blessing. I'm getting better and better at learning how to deal with these guys.

There are villains that adjust at 10nl???? WTF? Either you need to pay more attention to table selection or the games really are getting harder.

You've been making some pretty good points, but I look at it this way: My long term win rate with small pocket pairs (22-66) is 37bb/100 hands. In the situations I choose to 3 bet them to defend my blinds (villain on an apparent steal, has a high ats and a high fold to 3 bet) my win rate with 22-66 is 73bb/100 hands.

When i cold call small pockets out of the blinds (as i will do if the villain is a nit or has a very tight<15% ats, my win rate is -12bb/100. This is far better than folding, but the fact that it is still negative illustrates just how ****ty it is to be oop against a tag with a strong range when you have a hand that is going to hate about 88% of all flops.

I don't know poker theory for ****, but I am pretty good at poker empiricism. For instance, I know Baluga Whale advocates a fold or 4 bet strategy with rare calls when facing a 3 bet. But I fold 48%, call 34% and 4 bet 18%, and I show a 120bb/100 hand profit calling 3 bets whereas most of the Tags I see following Baluga are losing about 100bb/100. This is not a knock on Baluga's theory, but on its application by fallible people at the tables. Somebody told me my 3 strategy of reacting to 3 bets is exploitable. My response was, "ldo, and I'll start worrying about that when they actually start exploiting it." In a vacuum, in theory, it may be better to flat from the blinds with small pockets. In practice, at the tables, my win rate 3 betting them in appropriate spots is twice what it is in other situations.

This post made me laugh considering the big pot we played the other night on a monotone flop. I was relying on our respective images when I bet/3bet that flop, but had to concede you the hand when you called and then bet the turn when I checked to you. gh.

also, my image only matters against a very few players, those that are cognizant of it. Most of the unknowns treat me the same way they treat you. If you doubt that, check your flop c-bet success % and compare it to mine. But that is why my style is still profitable--because the majority of the pool does not adjust and play me much differently than they play you.

Not a lot, this isn't a common occurrence. Plus, I play exclusively deep tables. And the ones who do play back at me pretty much only have the 3bet in their arsenal. They really don't want to be playing postflop.

But check out my last post on the BBV thread. Someone who was trying to play back at me every hand, it seemed. He wasn't doing this to anyone else. I was able to catch some hands, but he was clearly threebetting me light.

This made my head asplode that you could call and 4bet so often against 3bets and show a profit, while I fold 80+%. But then I realized its because of your significantly better range in these spots... I'm pfr 18-25% depending on my mood, meaning calling 3bets is suicide for me.

67%

I recently climbed from 2nl up through the micros, all in the last 6 months or so. 10nl is the first level where there are players that adjust, I found. Avoiding them is the answer; there's not a whole ton of them.

well, it is partly due to that, but it is partly due to my image, too, and it is partly just exploiting people's aggression. For instance, I 4 bet/fold small pockets about 50% of the time from early position and show a nice profit doing it.

Most of the time I call 3 bets, it is when I was raising first in and will have position postflop. I call as often as i do because I don't care about the cards I am holding at that point. I am simply planning to raise any flop if the villain is aggro, or execute a call bluff against a tagfish. those plays are not reliant on the cards I have, but if I have some equity that's nice too.