thanks for the reply. i think that's pretty solid advice.

I sometimes feel lost when I'm in the blinds.

- Playing as BB in BTN vs. BB spots.
- Playing as SB in SB vs. BB.

Thoughts on different strategies etc.

+1

The stackot ratio (SPR) is low so there aren't a ton of implied odds that you need to be primarily concerned with. The value of winning the pot of size x is more important.

You can be less balanced in situations that occur less frequently because it is more difficult for your opponent to make a confident conclusion about your play.

Checking/calling in your spot with those types of hands is either fine or not sufficient given your results. If you consistently trap the people you do it do, keep going for it. If they adjust, think about how they are adjusting and therefore why they are adjusting, and then re-adjust.

As a default, checking as the preflop raiser is determined by your opponent. If that person is the stabby type, sure go for it. But keep your mind expanded -- are they the type to take one shot and give up if called? Then why not check air, call a bet, and fold the river if the turn checks through. If they bet the turn then fold. Etc, etc.

Very very complex and in-depth topic here. Can you break it down a little more?

some discussion on how to exploit polarised 3b ranges both IP and OOP, so which hands to select and post flop plans.

Allow me to begin by thanking you for taking the time to read and reply to all of us. I trust you will make good use of us mentioning those things with which we struggle--in the form of some literature--hopefully.

In my opinion, what I struggle with most is understanding when my image has changed over the course of a session, and, more importantly, over the course of several sessions, so that my opponent's HUD stats do not accurately represent how they are playing against me. Phil Gordon's Little Gold Book advocates playing a number of different styles--an approach he calls "Polarized Game Types." For those who decide on incorporating more than one strategy, he presents an example of some profiles a player could adapt over the course of a session:

25% playing 32/28/9
25% playing 30/26/7
25% playing 26/22/3
25% playing 24/20/1
= 28/24/5 profile (Gordon, 242).

Of course, I would love to heard your thoughts on this concept, but my question for you is:

We all know good game selection is +EV, but isn't there merit in also (meaning, not by intention, but because I play at an American site where sometimes there simply are not enough fishy games compared to the number of tables (12) I can comfortable play; I can play 20, but its not making me better so I do understand the difference here) playing against regs because if I want to move up then I am going to at least become better at playing against regs?

The average okay player at uNL and SSNL steals between 40 % and 60 % on the button. A lot of these players are quite exploitable, especially postflop (they often cbet too much). We have many different ways to counter their strategies, for example 3betting preflop. Another one could be flatting with hands that flop bluff catchers, and try to induce bluffs. Or we could flat with more semi-bluffing hands to checkraise flops to exploit that they have a range that is too wide, and can't continue when they bet? How do you go about choosing which strategy to employ vs. different opponents?

Sure. Also please list some topics or concepts that are confusing to you!

Let's make sure we're on the same page here. I am defining a polarized 3betting range as value hands and bluffs (suited connected, suited, connected, etc). Compared to a non-polarized range which additionally includes AJ, KQ types.

One difference just by actually looking at the ranges is the frequency of face cards. Against a polarized range in general you are safer bluffing/continuing on a board with a single high card or two.

With that in mind, if your opponent starts going wild on a low/medium card board, they're more likely to have something (from the suited connectors).

As far as what hand you should have, it matters less than people think. By the time a bet gets placed on the turn against a polarized range you're generally either way ahead or way behind, which means unless you have a monster you're losing or you can take it away with a wide range until you start getting called down.

Let me know if this is not comprehensive. I actually think I got everything but was surprised at how short it was so who knows.

Thanks. I get genuinely happy when I can help people who are proactive.

This is going to only come from you being focused on the stats last.

As far as switching up your play styles, it is definitely a good idea and definitely something people need to do more often. It's impossible for your opponent to adjust as quickly as you -- you are the one making the first adjustment and every hand you play before he figures that out is a significant advantage. However, it is useless against everyone but really good players. Everyone else has large enough weaknesses that simply focusing on exposing those outweighs all other options.

To me, the purpose of stats/HUD is to offer a convenience time-wise for things like multitabling; and identify patterns and weaknesses that others are not aware they have.

In the first scenario, the HUD has sort of become irrelevant because the short-term direct interactions that you guys are having are more important. Which means you've played with this guy long enough to know his basic traits like his overall aggressiveness, looseness, etc. BUT, the big difference is that you guys are playing a much more psychologically-based game than a statistics game. So ignore the stats and use the leveling/psychology interactions you have have.

In the second scenario, if someone is not aware of their weakness, they are not going to intentionally change it. If you are playing with them long enough to know those weaknesses, they should still be exploited like normal.


*Also note I vaguely recall being able to filter stats by last x days (on the HUD) on Holdem Manager.
I am a proponent of getting better as quickly as possible.

At midstakes, and even at SSNL, there are a good amount of regs per table. So, you don't need to practice against difficult opponents because you naturally encounter them.

I'm not sure what the situation is at uNL, but if it's something like 1-3 regs per table, then you could absolutely play the odd session at the toughest tables. Drop down the number of tables you play and really think through every decision. Upping the caliber of your opponent and not focusing more is wasteful and leads to these false assumptions of skill (whether you win or lose will likely be determined by variance if you're on autopilot).

The only way I would feel comfortable 12+ tables (I used to play 6-8) was if I did a lot of work away from the table about ranges and opponent-specific strategy. I'm not sure there are few enough regs to justify that.

This is perfect, thanks for clarifying.

The first step is to define what 40-60% means. Is it a top 40% of hands or is it 80% of all hands but folding a bunch of them sometimes. If it's the latter scenario you're playing against someone pretty skilled (making button raises based primarily off table image) and I would just fold a little more than them. However, when I did enter pots I would be 3betting more often because there's actually a lesser chance they have a good hand. Here's what I mean:

Let's say I steal 60% of the time and I will raise with the top 20% of hold'em hands every time I have the chance. That leaves the other 40% of hands when I raise the button for the rest of my range. If the rest of my range is the next 40% of hold'em hands, I will always have a top 60% hand. However, if I'm able to raise 90% of hands, aka 20%-90% to fill 40%, that's an average of the top 55% of hands instead of the top of the 20%, giving me a hand from an average of top 75% of hands, a weaker range than top 60%. These numbers aren't exact because the decision to raise a hand is not binary (it's "sometimes" and therefore weighted) and the ratio of 2:1 isn't being applied to the 75% to make it exact, but it's a good estimate .

Against the "normal" button openers, we generally should keep a balanced action against them (as this situation will come up a good amount of times): fold sometimes, 3bet sometimes, flat sometimes, check/call flop, check/fold, check/raise, lead out on flop, etc etc.

Doing everything is great for balance, but it also ensures we start looking for information about his play style. Does he defend really well against 3bets? Then we'll start doing that less. Is he bad at facing donk bets? Then we'll begin to do that more. Is there something regs don't do well at this limit? Then start off attacking that one the most. It essentially allows us to learn his game as quickly as possible.

If the player is really bad, just do whatever action will exploit their obvious weakness and don't stop doing it.

Hey, thanks for your replies so far.

Question: how do you plan a hand vs specific opponent type (i.e. TAGS, LAGS, NITS)? If we're 200bb effective on the button with AKo and the flop is something like Q82r, what goes through your mind, and how do you proceed?

I'm also a but confused on SPR and how it should be utilized.


Thanks in advance

hi
concepts/topics i struggle with: bet folding and specifically the sizing we choose when deciding if we are bet folding...cause when i decide to do it im also value betting and think im targeting the weakest parts of there calling range?

bluff raising pre flop raisers oop and ip on the flop or turn, i am unsure on wat textures/boards to do this? is it all really villian dependent? or is there sum specific boards/textures we should be applying a lot of pressure on?

trying to construct a chk/r bluff and chk shove value river range?

+1 to this, I also have another more specific question related to this:

How do we play hands with medium strength but are too strong to fold pre-flop to BTN/CO raises by average TAG regs when we have hands in the BB/SB such as JQo, KJo, K10 do we 3 bet as a bluff as there range should be quite wide? Presuming villains only call with better hands like KQ. With JQs and KJs I would usually flat call.

Obviously this is somewhat opponent dependent, just in general though against an average TAG opponent.

More topics that I struggle with:
Playing OOP with medium hands V Late raiser.
3 bet pots OOP with second pair or pair between top and second

This might be too general of a question but how do you construct your calling range from CO/MP vs UTG/MP. I know it depends on how much does a player open,how he plays post and how squeezy the guys behind you are, but let's say utg opens 18%, you have 22-66 in mp and guys behind you are somewhat standard regs, not squeezing more than 8%. Are baby pairs a fold?What about AQo, KQo etc..
Now let's say you're in BB and the same UTG opens (everybody else folds). What is you're standard range for calling here. From sb you're probably playing a lot tighter, what do you do with 88 and BB left to act?

Sorry if too easy of a question and wasting your time here

Keep coming with the questions guys. At the moment I'm tied up but will be able to get to all of them today.

Should clarify: no question is too easy or too difficult. If the topic is too broad I'll simply ask you to clarify it, no worries.

But keep continuing the list topics and concepts you struggle with or find confusing.

Also got my old account back, fitting for post 2500

Hi Greg,

How do I minimize the variance in playing against uber fish? I have taken some nasty losses against fish that play ATC. For example:

3Bet AA. Flop is A24. Stack off by the river against a calling station that flips 35o.
4bet AK. Flop is A9x. Stack off and lose to 99.
3bet KJ. Boards runs J346J. Lose to 52o.

I don't know how to minimize the damage here. Hopefully, in the long run I will make money from their loose decisions but in the short run I am taking ridiculous beats (in my mind).

As far as concepts, I would like to learn more about 3, 4 and 5 betting light at the micros. Is it worth it?
And how do we deal with ultra aggressive players that raise everything they see? I feel like they are also high variance opponents.

I would be less dependent on what type of player I'm playing against in this type of a situation. 200BB in position in a raised pot is profitable no matter what so play it confidently!

When we get to a dry flop that we "miss", the question becomes: how badly did we miss? In this instance, it's probably one of the better flops we can have (having not hit a pair or a draw) against a range. We have two overcards against everything but KQ/AQ/2pr+, we can rep every gutshot, every pair, etc. We also have a good ace high.

Given that, I'm definitely betting out here. If I get check/raised, it's a pretty simple fold unless I think the opponent is messing around, then I will call and continue.

This is also a board where you could double barrel literally every single turn in the deck, so just think about that for a minute.

SPR is essentially another way of defining implied odds. For example, whenever we are facing a bet with less than a 4:1 SPR, we can pot and be all in. If you go by a technical approach you've find a big ratio to be around 8:1. Now you have options on how to continue playing the hand, and you can start to think about giving odds to draws.

At .50/$1, the average raised pot is $7 and we have something like $95 behind which is something like 13.5:1 SPR. In other words, we are very cognizant about how the hand plays out after this decision. In a re-raised pot, you're looking at less than 5:1 after the flop. Inherently, you take SPR into consideration ("the pot is big enough", "there's not enough behind") but actually identifying it as SPR and defining a line (~8:1, ~4:1, etc) just helps get you in the proper mode quickly.

I personally never put too much effort into it because it's very related to what we intuitively do anyway.

Thanks!

Check my reply and let me know if you need more information.

This is a great rule of thumb for everyone:

The more often a situation occurs, the more balanced we must be. The less often it occurs, the less balanced we must be.


In this example, facing a LP/BTN raise from a regular is a situation we will get into a number of times against that player. Therefore, we initially have a balanced strategy. From another post of mine:

Against the "normal" button openers, we generally should keep a balanced action against them (as this situation will come up a good amount of times): fold sometimes, 3bet sometimes, flat sometimes, check/call flop, check/fold, check/raise, lead out on flop, etc etc.

Doing everything is great for balance, but it also ensures we start looking for information about his play style. Does he defend really well against 3bets? Then we'll start doing that less. Is he bad at facing donk bets? Then we'll begin to do that more. Is there something regs don't do well at this limit? Then start off attacking that one the most. It essentially allows us to learn his game as quickly as possible.

If the player is really bad, just do whatever action will exploit their obvious weakness and don't stop doing it.

Here's something that I've never heard others mention and I've never understood why.

BTN opens with KQ, we 3bet KT in the BB, he calls.

Oh crap. Right? Not exactly.

The fact that we share cards is bad when we hit top pair. Oh, you mean the last two kings in the deck? AKA 12% of the time? The other 88% of the time, we've increased the chance of our opponent having nothing. Of course, we have initiative, which means that we inherently will win more often when no one has anything (provided we are sufficiently aggressive).

Since it's not like we get stacked every time we flop a king (sometimes it's not top pair, sometimes the board is awful, etc.), and against his range when we do flop a king we're still ahead, the penalty for having a worse kicker isn't that bad.

Keep in mind this is different than in a raised pot because if our opponent folds on the flop or turn, we win fewer chips compared to in a 3bet pot.

There are a ton of situations like this in poker. Most of them wind up ranging from: secretly leaking a ton of money, to squeezing out an extra bit of profit.

Because this is the case, my default against a lot of players is to just fold the PPs/KQ (I think AQ is too strong against many). If I do not know specifically what I am going to do postflop to extract extra money, it's going to be pretty tough to. Add in the myriad of unknown variables behind me, and it's not really a great situation to put yourself in.

People tend to follow rules of thumb too closely, so intuitively I would expect people in the SB to fold too often and in the BB to enter pots too often.

My decisions in your second example become based off the player, my table image, who's winning, etc. If I don't know anything about that, I'd probably fold those marginal spots if I had activity on my other tables and call if nothing else was really happening.

This might seem almost like a joke but it's not. We are going to want so many things in poker "some of the time" and that little trick about action on other tables is something that you personally can use to your advantage because your opponent has no idea what you're using to determine your action. You, on the other hand, do; and, you wind up being balanced with those hands which stops you from getting pounded on in the blinds because you can show up with a tougher-to-define range postflop.

In my opinion, playing against an uber fish calls for maximizing your winning and everything else falls behind.

The sole exception is when you both are in situations that are temporarily special. The easiest example is when you are 200bb deep but can only buy in for 100bb. Now we don't actually make all our decisions based off the EV of that hand alone; rather, we must also take into consideration the value of remaining close to 200bb deep with the fish.

The cliff notes is that being that deep against a fish outweighs almost everything.

These are just bad beats, don't change the way you're playing these hands and accept that there is lots of variance in poker. Next time you see something post a sick graph, make sure you look for the breakeven stretches/downswings. Count how many hands they are and you'll be pleasantly reminded that everyone has their ups and down.

Thanks a lot for taking the time to answer these, this helps so much.