(Strategy) I Need Help Here

[Renton]

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fold

[/ QUOTE ] renton, you said call sometimes, 4/bet some others for a 2/4 NL TT hand.

Is TT the lower limit for calling against a decent reg that 3/bets "lighter"? I dump anything below 99, unless as pokerboy says, they are very tight, or just really horrible.

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yeah TT is the limit

[Albert Moulton]

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So, I open with 88 in say MP1, and get raised by a decent player otb. Our effective stacks start as say 110bb.

So, let's say we both have $220 in a 1/2 game.

I've openend for $7, and he's made it $21. It folds around to me.

I've read the 3-8 rule and stuff, but I'm trying to make it practical here, and I'm a bit slow at these things.

Can someone help me with some clarity please?

Thx.

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Min-raise or open limp preflop.

Min-raises work plenty fine live because I do it a lot. I do it with AA sometimes, too. I rarely get reraised light. Most treat it like a straddle.

For more analysis of why this makes sense in a game like you describe, see NLHETAP pp. 131-134. There's a picture of 8 [img]/images/graemlins/heart.gif[/img] 8 [img]/images/graemlins/club.gif[/img] at the top of pg. 131. The example is not perfect since hero in that case has a 70bb stack where as here you have a 110bb stack, but you are still in the "medium stack" zone, as opposed to being really deep enough to raise a good amount in MP1 and still play profitably if you run into a big reraise.

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With very lage stacks, increasing your chance to win a huge pot if you flop a set is most important, so you should raise a modest amount.
But with an in-between stack, about 70 times the big blind, the most important consideration is making sure you don't get reraised off your medium pair. p. 134

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So, I think a limp here is often better than a $7 or $8 raise, and a min-raise is better than a limp. Just be sure to open min-raise on occasion with AK/AA to keep BB honest if he's the type to try a squeeze play with a big reraise once you get a few callers behind you.

As played, I like folding to the reraise because you will be OOP on the flop, and therefore will have a hard time maximizing your implied odds when/if you flop a set. On the other hand, if you raised to $7 on the button and got reraised the same amount by the BB, then I'd probably call due to having better position post flop with which to either extract more value on those occasions that I flop a set, as well as occasionally setting up a steal by floating his cb and betting/raising on a scary turn card. The float/steals work best if your bet or raise on the turn still leaves a full pot-sized bet behind both you and your opponent for potential use on the river. That "hammer of future bets" will give you a lot of extra fold equity.

[bottomset]

albert,

your posts are always amusing

[Albert Moulton]

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albert,

your posts are always amusing

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Yes. But I actually read this junk in 2+2 books. I'm always amused at how many of the concepts in those books get bad reviews in the 2+2 forums. This time I even cited the page number.

Now, I might be misunderstanding the concepts in the text, but I think I'm pretty close.

[bottomset]

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I'm always amused at how many of the concepts in those books get bad reviews in the 2+2 forums

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a ton of the critcism comes from players that are much much better at NL than Sklansky and Ed Miller, and have massively more experience in online games(live is a different world)

[Albert Moulton]

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I'm always amused at how many of the concepts in those books get bad reviews in the 2+2 forums

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a ton of the critcism comes from players that are much much better at NL than Sklansky and Ed Miller, and have massively more experience in online games(live is a different world)

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If one of those guys could write a good book, then I bet he'd make as much in royalties and endorsements as playing cards. I'd buy it.

As for the OP, he has a valid stategy concern about whether to call a reraise OOP with a medium pair for about 10% of the effective stacks. The root cause of his problem was the size of his raise from the position he was in with the kind of hand he held and the effective stack sizes. For example, if the players had many more chips, then calling would be a no-brainer. If OP had a better hand, say AA/KK, then reraising would be a pretty easy option. But with 88 OOP, he has a problem.

One valid alternative for OP, at least theoretically, is to raise less. It decreases his immediate risk, and increases his implied odds. Concerns about telegraphing hand strength like this is fairly easily countered by playing bigger hands like this some percentage of the time.

But, I do have to say that I play live and so just because this stuff works for me doesn't necessarily mean that you should try it at home.

The most controversial lines from NLHETAP seem to be the book's stand on variable pfr-sizing as being superior to standard, fixed raise sizing. Most forums tend to favor the fixed raise sizing in the neighborhood of 4xbb+1/limper (+/- a bb or two). But I have yet to read a convincing refutation of NLHETAP's and PNLHE Vol 1's well-reasoned arguments that variable raise sizing preflop based on a wide number of factors, including hand strength, is the best way to maximize your EV post-flop. In fact, the whole notion of SPR and "planning your hand" in PNLHE Vol 1 is built around a strategy of variable preflop raise sizing.

Edit: I went ahead and cross-post a question in the Theory forum about NLHE preflop variable raise sizing vs. 4xbb + 1bb/limper. I encourage all of you with strong feelings on the subject to post something there so as to avoid cluttering up this strat post.

[mack848]

I calculate that you would need to win ~68% of his remaining stack on average to make a call for set value alone profitable. Against a decent villain, this seems unlikely, so calling here would only be profitable if you were able to take the pot down without a set a % of the time. I think it's a fold (although I call these myself far too often vs. Villain's who are too good to pay me off sufficiently to make a call +EV)