Sounded Simple and I discussed this one recently. Just to be clear, when I say I'm not committed that simply mean I don't want to get ALLLL of the money in.

Am I folding to a flop raise? Probably not, unless it is a complete nit. Against a set miner I pretty much am folding anything but a set to a raise because they have a set afterall! Now, against this particular player (a 14/14/inf over 30 hands) I think that he definitely could raise me with something like QJ on the flop - so I'm definitely flatting a raise and checking to him on the turn. This is extremely exploitable, but the good news is that players are not going to put you to the test with this move. They aren't going to raise the flop and get it in with less than top pair on this flop. It's pretty much completely devoid of draws and really any semi-bluffing hands. Plus, they aren't that good of hand readers that are saying "he just flatted so he has a hand I can push him off of". So, that would be my plan. If he bets big on the turn(at least 2/3's) I probably have to go into the tank and I'm not sure what I'd do... it's a tough spot. Although, I expect him to pot control with top pair and check the turn and then I can value bet with a pot-sized bet on the river.

I definitely tend to make some smaller bets than most people here, but I have my reasons. In this particular spot, as I mentioned in the video, I don't want to build a huge pot with this hand. I am perfectly happy with a half-pot/half-pot/half-pot line here against a looking-tight unknown. Also, in general I tend to make smaller bets out of position because in general I want the pot to be smaller when I have a positional disadvantage(this is getting into looking at your range and your strategy as a whole, which is extremely important). Finally, there aren't many draws that I have to deny implied odds too.

If he had called the flop then I probably would have put him on any pair and maybe something like a gutshot with A4/A3 or and OESD w/ 43. I check the turn a lot because our initial reaction is that he is aggressive(I would check 70% of the time). I call pretty much any sized bet and then I value bet pretty much any river(there just aren't a lot of scare cards on this board... the scariest one is an ace because AJ just improved to beat us but I think even on an A river you are better betting because QJ may check behind and AJ may or may not raise - either way you can fold to a raise).

The thing that Sounded Simple and I were discussing is whether its good to bet the turn or not. I definitely that it is ok here, but I like to take a conservative route against players that I don't know anything about... especially when their stats are looking reasonable. If I knew this player was pretty control-able then I would definitely bet-bet-bet because I get a ton of value of of Jx(and Jx doesn't raise me unless I'm beat). Now, if I'm against a weak-tight player I would be more apt to go back to checking because he may get freaked out even with something like JT and only be willing to call one more bet(also, we make up for some of our loss of value by getting more hands to call the river).

Hope this helps!

^

Yeah, I think a lot also depends on how you interpret the early stats and the "unknown" part of things. For me as I have a large DB "unknown" usually = "bad / loose" but thats on full tilt where things are more aggressive in general.

My line here against an unknown is to commit and I'm certainly happy if all the money goes in with me doing all the betting.
If however I have a read that they are semi-competent and they raise me then I have to slow down. Folding is a viable option in this instance but if I only have 30 hands on him then Im looking for the "tie breakers" like...
- Villan's original stack size,
- My image
- Any hand I saw him showdown or play aggressive
- His SN, (deadly serious, someone with the SN - "44BIGTOM1985AA" is more likely to suck than the SN " Tomgrinder")
- How quickly he called the flop bet.

The key thing here is not to autopilot bet/call, its probably not that far wrong against an unknown but with any sort of a read it can quickly become a spew.

Thing is that you are either hoping that they are bad enough to raise a J here for value, or that they are aggressive enough (rightly or wrongly) to figure that they can push you off enough of your range here.

I've toyed with the idea of opening a new account with an SN like XxSUPAPIMPNATExX and an accompanying userpic to encourage an aggrofish image... damn me for not thinking of these things when I first registered my account...

QFT. Krantz has spent some time talking about this too.

Thanks for the vid threads. I'll definitely be watching this.

Great explanation, thanks! I asked the question because I've had a couple of instances with AA/KK on superdry boards against similar villains where I half-potted the flop, got raised, called, and then check/folded to a big turn bet. It felt weak to me, but with no draws I just couldn't put them on hands I beat. I play nl50 on Full Tilt, and people do some pretty spewy stuff on there, so I frequently feel lost with overpairs OOP in these spots.

SS, do you play nl50 on FT? Would you agree that it's usually a fold against an unknown who flatcalls the flop and then raises the turn vs your overpair on a dry board? Or do you think the games there are typically aggro enough that I need to be shoving over a turn raise sometimes?

No troubles. If I felt that my opponent would do something like this with J9o or something I definitely would be betting to get it in from the get-go. Those type of opponents usually jump out to you though cause they are generally 50/20 types.

Thanks for the vid T13.

Did anyone else have this problem! Megaupload just seems to hang!?

I play NL100 when on Full Tilt however I did play a reasonable amount of 50 there and most of my students play NL50.

As to how I'd view an unknown at 50NL rather than 100NL I probably still swing my decisions based on some of the reasons above. One other thing I forgot to mention is that I'm more inclined to ship this situation on a Friday evening than a Tuesday afternoon - should be obvious why.
Not that I'm like "yay weekends top pair for stacks every time", its just a consideration.

Back to facing the hypothetical raise of an overpair....
The key to this game is figure out the villans range, what's your equity against this range and how do you maximise (PNL Vol1)
In this situation it's probably easier to figure out the equity you need and then work backwards to the range.

I don't recall the exact hand in threads vid so I will make one up...

Made up example 1
We have K K and have our flop C-bet min-raised on a 3 7 J board.

Ok lets assume the villan is a nit who will only ever play sets this way.
You should know off the top of your head that your equity is <10% here.
So that's a snap fold, question is... where is the point in terms of adding hands to the villan's range that we can say "screw this I has overpair" and get in?

Well, bust out pokerstove and see how many overpairs or TP (under your KK) the villan needs to have to make it +EV to get in now.
You should also have in your head that any underpair is ~10% equity to your overpair so simply add up some combos yourself.
I suggest you do this yourself but the quick answer is only a couple, so if they play AJ and QQ this way then you can commit in whatever way you feel is most profitable.
Playing with stove you will see just how few combos it takes to totally swing the balance.

*That's not to say that you just jam over the raise, you need to be sure you don't fold out the part of his range you need in. Reel that fish in.


Made up example 2
We have K K and have our turn C-bet raised on a 3 7 J 2 board.

Here I'm going to discount 22 but the calculations become much the same, the guy pretty much needs to never be doing this with QQ or AJ for you to fold.
The nice thing now is that you don't mind him folding worse hands so much (of course you prefer he calls) because the pots probably going to be so big that it's got enough value to take down...... omnomnomnomnom.

So in general you have to be pretty sure that the unknown is a true set-mine nit to get away from the overpair??

Well, yes and no.

Thing is, there are a lot of players who will only raise a set in this spot. Remember also that we are totally crushed by the setminers and maybe 60-70% against the guys with sets + top pairs so when you are looking at that unknown then he needs to be the looser type probably 2/3 of the time for you take the auto stack off line.
With reads this can be a really easy fold or a really easy shove.

This is the judgement call so that's going to depend on stakes as well so yeah Im a little happier the lower I'm playing here.

^^good examples and explanation SS, ty

I've been losing money at times by folding when I shouldn't in these spots, so this is something I'll continue to work on.

I SWEAR I saw this name in one of my early vids and made fun of it....

I was assuming I'd made it up, but it's possible I tripped over an old 2NL memory.

Just noticed this thread now. Thank you very much threads13. DL'ing now.

Just to add a couple points to what Sounded Simple is saying. The way the action goes affects your opponents range of hands which affects how much money you are getting in the pot. If you take either one of his hands and say you bet twice and just get called. I'm extremely confident I have the best hand so I'm going to be putting a solid bet in on the river. Most players will not be able to just call with a set twice. Also, I'm more will to get it in if it is a situation where I have position, especially if I raised first in from LP and my opponent called from the blinds. Now I think that a villain is calling down lighter so I'm going to build the pot bigger(bigger bet on the flop and turn) and be more willing to get it in.

There's just many variables to consider, but it call comes down to range, equity, and maximize.

Great video, thanks for doing this!

One thing I'd like to say about the randomizer: I think it's a good thing for deception, but ONLY for that. In a certain single spot, only one decision is the one with the most +EV. Of course we cannot know which one this is for certain, but we have to guess. The only reason to choose a different option, is to increase value of future hands.

This leads to two conclusions:

1. Against bad, inattentive opponents there is no reason for deception, so we should play same spots the same way EVERY time.

2. Deception can only effectively be achieved by showing hands. So there is no reason to ever fold a hand that we could continue playing with a +EV. If we want to achieve deception, we should rather sometimes play a worse hand the same way in this spot than folding a good hand.
eg: You would never fold AA in MP, just for deception. If you want to get more value from AA in MP, you should rather play more other hands in MP. This is an obvious example, but applies to any spot where calling/raising is more +EV than folding. You should not start to fold the good hands, but to (occasionally) play the bad hands.
If I didn't get it wrong, you even randomize in spots where playing a hand is better than folding. You might choose some very high percentage like 80 percent. But I don't really see why folding 20 % in these situations is a good thing.

I disagree on a couple points.

Deception isn't the only reason. It's something that's hard to explain, but deception isn't the only reason to make a play. Here's an example. Say you 3-bet AKs and get called by a good thinking player. The flop comes J7x with two of your suit. I like two lines here, and both of them are solid. Open shove and check-raise all-in. Now which one is better? Eghh... hard to say. They are pretty close... I really think the crai is slighty better and it also helps balance my checks against this guy so I will crai 70% of the time and open shove 30% of the time (I'll open shove with sets, with top pair, and other stuff too). Against GOOD players there are often spots you will be in where you have more than one reasonable line. So, it's good to use both. You weight them on the profitability of the line. Now, if you have the nuts and you are checked to on the river and you only have a half pot bet... you're always shoving. It's not just about deception, it's about weighting an action for what it is worth. Often actions aren't worth always doing.

Now as far deception only being valuable for gaining value on future hands... this is obviously incorrect. Here's an example. Say I raise otb with A2o and get a call from an aggressive player. The flop comes A75r and he checks. I check. He bets pot on the turn and river and i call and he shows up with 54s. I wouldn't have gotten this much value if I had just bet the flop. The reason why I got this value is because I played my hand deceptively. I underrepped the hand and allowed the aggressive player to try to bluff me off a hand that I wasn't folding.

I say in the video that against bad opponents I don't randomize. So I agree with that.

Your second big point... I think you're missing the point of using it. I don't use it to determine when I should fold(actually I do but if very specific situations where I should be calling some but not always). I obviously would never fold AA in MP, but sometimes I'll fold 99 on the turn when i flat pre and on the flop and athe flop comes A8x. In this case I should be calling the turn sometimes as to not get ran over (absent any information).

I might have spoken wrong, but this is a very specific scenario if we are talking preflop. For example, if I am 4 off the button and I have KT. Say I'll raise this like 60% of the time.. the 40% may be a fold if I think limping isn't profitable. I choose the number 60% because I don't think this is a hand "worth" playing 60% of the time in that spot.


I hope that makes sense. Like I said, it's difficult to explain.

I'm actually agreeing to all you said.

I should have made more clear that I was talking mainly about situations, where the decision is continuing with a hand or folding. In these spots, there is no reason to ever fold a good hand, even if we only do it 10 % of the time.
But if you say that you don't use it that way, I have to take back everything I said. As I said, I wasn't completely sure about the way you use it.

However, I remember one such hand: You had KQ on MP3 (I think) and two bad players in the blinds. It was folded to you. Not that you did use the randomizer, but you said "I raise this 90 % of the time". Maybe I'm just nitpicking here: But where is the point in folding this 10 % of the time? I wouldn't even fold this 0,01 % of the time, because I don't see any value in it.

Sorry for double posting, but I'd like to add one thing: You misunderstood me here.

I said: That doesn't disagree with what you said. If we think that by checking the flop to increase value on turn and river is better than betting straight away, it is because we think it's (overall) the play with the most +EV. So the only reason NOT to check the flop, is to increase value in future hands.

If I'm 3 off the button I'm actually still pretty conservative. That is the first position where I start REALLY adding in some hands. However, I wouldn't say I would fold it 10% of the time, I will limp it 10% of the time. The point is that it's not a hand I'm in love with, and if there are two good players to my left it's not the type of hand that I want to play OOP in a raised pot with because I can end up in a very difficult spot.

Did I notice that there were bad players in the blinds? If that is the case I totally should be raising 100% of the time.

I really should probably do a video just dedicated to how I use it.

Right, but it's not the only reason. It's a leveling thing also. Say if your villain knows that we will check with a weak ace. Now if all of a sudden we bet, he knows we probably don't have a weak ace. It doesn't just confused their hand reading in the future, it also confused it presently.