Professional No-Limit Hold 'em Volume 1 Review Thread

[mojed]

I'm not sure whether I interpreted the limp reraise correctly when I read it, but it thought the point of a limp reraise was this:

If we were to raise to 10BB preflop, we would be offering poor implied odds (assuming 100BB effective stacks) for drawing hands to call; we have a good SPR. But when called, we are likely to be dominated as such a large raise is only called by a tight range.

Now if we limp, the villain raises to 4BB and we reraise to 10BB, we may be offering the villain decent implied odds to call for set value given that they raised (and now have to call only 6BB), but when we consider the preflop action as a whole, they've still put 10BB in preflop with a drawing hand. Essentially, their call of our reraise is fine (from an implied odds perspective), but their original raise is incorrect if they'd known we were going to reraise to 10BB.

This situation arises frequently in no limit on the flop as well. Say it is checked to me on the flop and I semi-bluff, then get reraised all in, but I'm offered the correct odds to call (because of the size of the bet I've already put in the pot). My call of the all in is correct from a pot odds perspective (is +EV) because of my previous action. But the play on the flop as a whole is -EV (for these specific hands, I'm not considering range vs range here).

[threads13]

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Such as?

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Our opponents are going to pick up hands. Imagine their delight when they have AK or QQ+ and we're limp-reraising in EP with junk. Suddenly we are the ones stacking off with weak top pair hands and they're making money on us.

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Yes, but this isn't "exploiting" us. If we were to raise they would still play 3-bet those hands and the net result is the same only now we are putting in th 3-bet.

I don't think Sunny is saying that you will always make money by doing this. He is saying that against the range that our opponent will raise/call with this approach will sometimes be better than raising and being OOP with an SPR that is in the danger zone.

Basically, sometimes the pros outweigh the cons.

[fraac]

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Yes, but this isn't "exploiting" us. If we were to raise they would still play 3-bet those hands and the net result is the same only now we are putting in th 3-bet.

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Aren't you exploiting yourself there, so he doesn't even have to pay attention?

[curious123]

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Bottom line...if you look at global ranges of both our hands and our opponent's hands, as well as ranges of possible flops and actions, the points you make [snip] simply don't hold up
-Sunny

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Ironically, this is exactly what I would say about many of the points made in the book.

[Matt Flynn]

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There is a problem I'm having with some of the SPR stuff.

While it's great that the idea is presented to manipulate the pot preflop to make it correct to stack off with our good "top-pair" type hands, nowhere does it discuss the adverse effects, or collateral damage, of doing so in certain spots. I'll give you an example.

On page 270 hand no.2. We have kings UTG+1. We want to get close to 10% of our stack in preflop to hit our SPR, and our effective stack size is 100bb. So we limp and then do a mini-reraise when the button raises to 4BB. We have achieved our correct SPR so everything is good, right? Wrong. While we were achieving this goal, we left a huge area to be exploited in the process. Namely, we:


[img]/images/graemlins/club.gif[/img] Gave out a ton of information about our hand.
[img]/images/graemlins/club.gif[/img] Made it profitable for our opponents to play against us.

Our astute opponents are going to really tear us up by playing this way...

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Hi 1pOkerboy,

First, thanks for your later compliment!

Hey you've got a point. As I've said a few times the split between volumes was changed late in the game as we realized the whole global way to approach hands wouldn't fit. We wanted to get SPR out. PNL1 is more introductory, so we gave the parts most relevant to loose easier games. You should _NOT_ plan primarily for commitment in "tougher" online games unless you or your opponent are shortstacking.

One of the concepts we pound on in discussing the global approach is information and ranges, which speaks to your concerns. Yes, if you give up too much about your range, limp-reraising can create a big problem. So you can either not limp-reraise or you can do something to expand your limp-reraising range enough that the information leak isn't too costly. However, unless you can easily get to "happy commitment" SPRs you always have to be careful about allowing someone to put you on a very narrow range early in a hand.

In terms of "offered implied odds," adding in AK (or better half of AKs and a couple other hands so you're mixing up yur AK play) reduces that problem b/c you won't be stacking off every time to their sets.

Does that answer your concern?

Matt

[1p0kerboy]

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You should _NOT_ plan primarily for commitment in "tougher" online games unless you or your opponent are shortstacking.

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I agree with this.

I still find SPR useful in certain aspects of online games. Most notably is when I'm involved in pots with bad (loose) players who have bought in for 40-70BB.

Against the tighter competition, I do like the approach of planning hands around stealing. Sometimes the cost of this is playing top pair-type hands at awkward SPRs. But with some good hand-reading skills, one can easily get past this hurdle.

I'm looking forward to volume 2 nonetheless. I thought parts of volume 1 were great.

[oakrdrzfan]

Very good thread and it is helping my understanding of SPR more and more.

I have been limp re-raising AA, KK, and AK sometimes to assist in hitting target SPRs at NL25 and 50. Especially when there are agg raisers behind me with large stacks. I dont do it much at passive tables or against lots of short stacks. It has made commitment decisions much easier for me. Stacking off TPTK and overpairs with SPR in the 13 range was a big leak for me previously. The book has helped me in these situations. So have Threads13 posts as his posts cover a lot of the concepts of the book. Thanks for that.

[1p0kerboy]

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Yes, but this isn't "exploiting" us. If we were to raise they would still play 3-bet those hands and the net result is the same only now we are putting in th 3-bet.


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And then when they put in the fourth bet and we have to fold we lose all of our equity and the money (10% of our stack) that we have invested into the pot.

Or worse yet, when they call (to trap) and stack off with the best hand on the flop.

Either way, they are getting the best of us.

[threads13]

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Yes, but this isn't "exploiting" us. If we were to raise they would still play 3-bet those hands and the net result is the same only now we are putting in th 3-bet.


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And then when they put in the fourth bet and we have to fold we lose all of our equity and the money (10% of our stack) that we have invested into the pot.

Or worse yet, when they call (to trap) and stack off with the best hand on the flop.

Either way, they are getting the best of us.

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Haha... if we l/rr KK and they have AA then yes they will get the best of us. Most of our l/rr's will be hands like AQ+/KK+. This means that most of the time that we do this they WILL NOT have a better hand. If they do have a better hand, they are going to have a +EV play - sure. However, that is not an attack towards the l/rr - that's poker! It happens!

I think argument you are trying to make here is not consistent with the point you are trying to make. Of course part of their reraising hands are big hands! You play against their range and if their range is making a mistake here then you are doing well.
If we have KK and they have AA... they sure will tend to get the best of us.

I think you are getting hung up on the being too exploitable thing. Most of the time that you pull this you are going to have a big hand. If they happen to start trying to screw around with you then you adjust. It is that simple. It is not a be all, end all thing.

It sounds like you think that all opponents will instantly know what you have because you l/rr. Ok, but if they put in greater than or equal to 10% of their stack preflop they aren't going to be able to have enough wiggle room to do much with it anyways. On top of that, they shouldn't know your range EXACTLY.

[1p0kerboy]

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Most of our l/rr's will be hands like AQ+/KK+.

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Then you are giving away too much information by limp reraising. In which case you should raise more to make it less profitable.