The well: MTblue

[FishSticks]

MTBlue -

I know it's beating a dead horse a little bit, but could you expound a bit more on the stuff Echo is asking? What types of things about individual players affect this decision?

When I raise light from LP and a 20/18 type 3bets me from the blinds, I don't know if I should be ditching junk hands mostly, taking a flop since his range is wide (but then often facing a big cbet when I'm unimproved), looking to 4bet light, or what? Also, when I have a real hand in this situation, I want action and don't want to blow him off a junk SC and want to at least get a cbet out of him - but I don't want to just flatcall big hands and 4bet weak ones since it feels backwards.

I know this is vague and player specific, but if you could talk about the factors that affect your decision process and planning here it would help me out.

Thanks much!

[MTBlue]

His range reraising range is always going to be narrower than your lp raising range. The gap concept applies. You need to figure out how wide his reraising range is. He is risking somewhere in the realm on 14BBs reraise+ 18BB cbet to win 3BB. (32BB to win 3BB) If you only defended with QQ+ and he always cbets postflop. He'll lose money. That being said if you feel like you have good control over your opponent postflop then I suggest taking the flop with a wider range of hands.

The only time the light reraisers are effected is when they get you to ignore the gap concept and you start calling with any two and stacking with any pair/draw.

[FishSticks]

Interesting - thanks much. Sometimes I feel like if I just laydown to their repeated 3bets, I'm getting run over and it's no good. Do you recommend tightening up your preflop raising at all in spots like this, or just keep raising and feel fine about ditching non premiums to the repeated 3betting?

How do you figure out his 3betting range? The vast majority of times he 3bets me (or someone else) the hand isn't going to showdown, so without a huge sample how do you go about assigning a range with limited information? Do you have standard 3betting ranges you sort of start with for a 21/18 type of guy and work from there?

[SonOfWestwood]

Thanks a bunch for doing this.

1. Since you'd never get to see an opponent's cards who does this, what sorts of things does a player need to do for you to pick up on the fact that they can make a reasonably "good" lay down? Something like AJ or KJ on a J high board, for example. And, is this even something I should waste my time with at the SSNL level?

2. And, more generally, regarding hand reading, are there other specific things that, if you see, you conclude that the player does this or that?

3. Say you've decided to add to your pre-flop 3 betting range against a particular player. Assume 100 BB stacks and that you have position on him. Do you prefer to add suited connectors first or more "junky" hands, like J8s? My thinking is that suited connectors are a bit too good, to 3 bet with, as we'd love to take a flop with them and would hate to get raised off of them, where as something like J8s, we don't care as much if we get raised off of it, but I'm not sure if it's "good" to 3 bet with things like J8s.

[Tickner]

in todays 100nl games (especially on partypoker) there are many many players who play way too many hands and overvalue all of them.

Is it better to:

1) Tighten up and only play your strongest of hands preflop and post flop vs this player, as to assure you will almost always have the best hand

or

2) Loosen up preflop vs this player to get into a lot of post flop decisions with him, in order to entice him to make the most mistakes vs you?

Also, what are your thoughts on continuation betting in general, both OOP and in position?

What are some ways that I can get myself more motivated to crush small stakes and get into the MSNL player pool as quickly as I can? Any pointers for the move up?

Thanks for doing this!

[tgr0ss]

Discuss how your playing draws, Combo to regular oesd and fd =] Seems to be one of my biggest leaks, on when to call what odds to play for and what not.

[SwimStrong]

[ QUOTE ]
What concepts did you find the hardest to understand or learn throughout your time playing? Any AHA moments?

Also Do you have any experience playing live? If yes, how do you feel about live games?

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I think you skipped or didn't see this question. Thanks for doing this.

[MTBlue]

The shania post made me go AHA. I've played a little live but its slow and kinda boring.

[MTBlue]

[ QUOTE ]
Interesting - thanks much. Sometimes I feel like if I just laydown to their repeated 3bets, I'm getting run over and it's no good. Do you recommend tightening up your preflop raising at all in spots like this, or just keep raising and feel fine about ditching non premiums to the repeated 3betting?

How do you figure out his 3betting range? The vast majority of times he 3bets me (or someone else) the hand isn't going to showdown, so without a huge sample how do you go about assigning a range with limited information? Do you have standard 3betting ranges you sort of start with for a 21/18 type of guy and work from there?

[/ QUOTE ]

First look to see if any trash goes to showdown. Secondly, its a % deal the villain can only have premium hands 5% of the time max mathematically. 99+ AQo+

[Tickner]

[ QUOTE ]
The shania post made me go AHA.

[/ QUOTE ]

linky anyone?