Read this post and felt it was so good I had to print it I hope you put a video out since I believe I can learn a ton from your approach to the game. Thanks again.

Alex, would like to hear your thoughts on applying pot control OOP in a fairly common WA/WB situation.

Example:
100BBs effective stacks. A tight, aggressive, straightforward player raises from UTG+1 to 4BBs and we have TsTc in the BB. We know that villains PF raising range from UTG+1 is really tight, maybe something like TT+, AK and sometimes AQs. It’s folded to us, I think standard play is to call, pot is 9.5BBs.

The flop comes 6h6c2s, we check, and we expect villain to CB on this board with 100 % of his range, sure enough he fires 7BBs. I think standard play is to c/c here as well, a bet/raise just folds worse hands and allows better hands to call or rr. Some people may advocate a c/r here "to find out where we are at", typically I'm not a fan of that, but here that has some advantages as well.

Assuming we c/c, the turn comes another blank, 4d. We check, villain bets 1/2 pot, we ?

It would be great if we had reads whether he double-barrels or not, but without reads it's a tough spot. I usually will base fold/call decision on AF and WtSD here. Thoughts?

Well, that's what I was referring to in the first part of my post as "being at our opponents mercy". Obviously this is not going to be a very satisfying answer but to be perfectly honest: there is not really a way for us to apply pot control in such a situation.
What makes it worse is the super dry nature of the board: neither putting a small donk bet out there nor c/calling is going to overly worry villain here if he has a big pair like QQ+ (and most likely JJ too) so he will simply keep betting here knowing that it's tough for us to fold 88-JJ on such a dry board, there is not really a reason for him to slow down.
This might drastically change for example on a board like say 965 that hits our range pretty hard. In that case either donk betting or c/c might "freeze" villain at least for the next betting round and might therefore help us to at least apply a "certain amount of pot control".
To get back to your example: as mentionend in this case it is not possible for us to apply pot control. We might do something fancy like minc/r the flop but that again only folds out hands that we beat like AK (or a lower PP if he for some reasons opens those) and builds a pot for hands that beat us and are not going to slow down...
So yeah, c/c one street is sometimes ok but not always the best way by all means given that most parts of his range have us already beat and the other parts have 1) some equity to draw out and 2) the possibility to barrel us off our hand on later streets.
Most of the time, when being OOP, having a marginal hand and a villain with a tight range who knows how to use position to his advantage, c/f is often the best way to play these kind of hands.

Hope this helps...

great post Alex. =)

added to favourites

2nd on the vid request.

O and feel free to make more epic posts.

Ok thanks, again great post!

Wow, awesome thread...subscribed.

WP sir!

I've been eagerly awaiting this post for a while now and its was well worth the wait! Thanks for an awesome post.

Thanks again for all the kind replies!

I'm really glad that most of you seem to have liked it and have not been scared off by its epic length

Regarding the vid requests: I'm not really sure if this is going to happen anytime soon tbh, at least not in the typical form of me playing a session.
What I would rather find interesting though is doing a vid with HH reviewer so that I can just chose some interesting hands and discuss those...
So if someone out there knows a good software tool for that (like aren't they using some kind of HH reviewing software at DC?), please let me know as I'd also be interested in using that for coaching and stuff...
Split maybe?

Regarding more posts: there are definetely a couple of more topics out there so let's see what the future brings...

Great post!

bump

Just got round to reading this... took half an hour and it was worth every second

Nice work!

good stuff Alex!!!

Stellar post. It is like a novel you just cannot put down, until I see...

This is a bummer. You were on such a roll that I would have loved for you to 'outline your thoughts' on the other topics. I didn't want to be done reading yet.

Therefore I dub this post...

ts;wm (too short, wanted more)

Very well done on a topic that was in desperate need of elaboration.

RE made a good post about a year ago about "target hands" for your made hands

Can u please tell what is the link on to that post,thanks?

Hey Win.by.TKo, thanks a bunch for reading the post and for your kind reply!

Regarding the last part: well, you know I really wanted to get this stuff posted but after I had finished part 4) I realized that it was already 7 word - pages long. If I would have known that there were so many people out there that would take the time to read through this than I would have def finished as planned when I started it (with verbalizing 5) and 6) and going into more detail on 7) )...
However, I really was kind of afraid that this post would be too long already and that even less posters on here would try to tackle it if it was even longer.
So yeah, if it turns out that there is interest in a "sequel" (aka verbalizing 5) and 6) ) then I might try to come up with this sometime in january...

Excellent question/request. We have all, and will all continue to... struggle in this situation. It IS a common bind and to know the best strategy for the situation is crucial to your long pokering journey.


Alex, for this response alone, you may have earned the coveted Strat of The Year trophy.

Difficult situation made easy. Yeah it seems weak-tight....but this is a perfect time to exercise a bit of pot control by folding.

+1 million

Again, awesome post (understatement of the year)(bump).

Excellent, excellent post Alex. It cost me a lot of money before I learned the lessons contained in your post, and I gleaned some new insights as well.

I have list of about 15 posters who I follow in the micro and small FR forums and you've been on it for a long time.

Def. worth a read even if you're a more advanced player, but it should be required reading for the beg. to intermediate NL player.

Thanks king, really much appreciated! What's the prize - money for that trophy btw?
Thanks JH, that's a sick image!!!

I read this post every week.

So I think I really improved my play in situation where I've got an overpair or TPGK on a drawy board and thanks to this post now bet the turn instead of checking for pot control. But I'd really like to hear your opinion on the following hand. Villain is unknown and instead of TPGK we only have TPMK. The big difference, as I see it, is that now villain's calling range also contains TP hands with a better kicker besides the draws (let's just assume he'll raise two pair+) so it's really a trade off between letting villain pay to draw and keeping the pot small with a very marginal hand...


PokerStars No-Limit Hold'em, $1.00 BB (7 handed) - Poker-Stars Converter Tool from FlopTurnRiver.com

UTG ($82.90)
MP1 ($62.50)
MP2 ($106)
CO ($100)
Hero (Button) ($100)
SB ($90.50)
BB ($100)

Preflop: Hero is Button with J, 10
2 folds, MP2 calls $1, 1 fold, Hero raises to $4, 2 folds, MP2 calls $3

Flop: ($9.50) J, 5, 6 (2 players)
MP2 checks, Hero bets $6, MP2 calls $6

Turn: ($21.50) 5 (2 players)
MP2 checks, Hero bets $13, MP2 calls $13

River: ($47.50) 9 (2 players)
MP2 checks, Hero checks

Total pot: $47.50 | Rake: $2.30

bump

Nice post Alex! The concepts you discussed are ones that I've been thinking about for the last couple of years, but I like how you articulated them. I did have a question about range balancing. In section 4, example 2, when you advocate checking behind with top pair (of aces) on the flop, I like your play, if you consider it all by itself (without any history or future actions). However, my concern is, doesn't that play also necessitate checking behind with a lot of pocket pairs on dry, A-high flops as well? In that case, what should our plan be for the following streets? If our villain leads after the turn bricks (e.g., board of A 9 2 4 holding Q Q), would we want to bet, raise or fold? And how about the river? Also, if the villains checks into us on the turn in the QQ scenario, is it plausible to get 2 streets of value out of anyone but a mega-fish, or would we just get value on the turn?

Let me contrast that with another balanced approach you can take with dry, A-high HU flops: c-bet roughly 2/3 pot whenever you're the pre-flop raiser and it's checked to you - sometimes you'll take it down with KK or make an easy laydown to a strong check-raise, or get at least 2 streets of value out of a worse A on the flop and another street (depending on the board, the villain, and the line you take).

I assume you think some version of the first approach is more +EV overall against the typical 25 NL or 50 NL player -- perhaps you could explain why, taking into account the trickiness of the underpairs in your approach?

Thank you!