I need to be humored...

[ggbman]

Alright guys, sorry if these situations seem very standard, but a friend and I have found ourself s adamantly defending opposite sides of the argument to the point where i feel one of us (him) has lost all touch with poker reality. But i wanted to post some of the stuff so see if i am insane, or if perhaps the situations are less clear cut than i percieve them to be. Here are some situations...

Situations 1- UTG opens in a 5 handed 20-40 game. He is probably about a breakeven player, might win or lose a bit. He's a little too loose, peels a little too light, and has average, solid aggression for this game. It folds to you on the button with 44, do you 3 bet or fold. The other relevant factor here is the SB is a bit tighter and won't make liberal cold calls, the but the BB is an aggressive lagtard and will call all sorts of QJo 89s type hands.

Some other questions for follow up on this situation...

1.) what are your approximate 3 betting standards here?
2.) In a pretty standard but maybe a bit more aggro than usual mid limit game (say 10-20, 15-30, and 20-40) 6 max approximatley what % of the time would you guys estimate one of the blinds sees the flop before it gets 3 bet before the action on them? Obviously many factors can play in here, but im just looking for a ballpark.
3.) Lastly, when you do 3 bet in this situation, even as a good player, would you tend to think that position and your postflop edge compensate enough to allow you to make money postflop? (I.E. if you ingnore the dead money in the blinds, can this still be a +EV situation for you)


Situation 2.)We are coaching a friend in a 5-10 limit game, a bad laggy player (prolly about 35-40, 13-15 preflop) opens in the cutoff. You have 33 OTB with no reads on the blinds. Fold or three-bet? If you fold, what is your rough 3 betting range here? Hypothetically say he calls, and he check calls an AK9 rainbow board and checks a complete dud turn... Do you bet or check here? Is it close and why?

Like i said guys, i know some of this might seem routine, but i would appreciate if you would humor me with some response to the specific questions i am curious about, and i am also curious some people's ranges and answers because i find it amazing the discrepancy that winning players responses can vary in the situations. Thanks for the time...

Gabe

[Scary_Tiger]

Fold both of the hands preflop.

Check behind turn, fold river if you do 3-bet and he c/c AK9 flop.

[HOWMANY]

Fold both preflop and bet/fold turn in the 33 situation because I feel like giving a 6-10 outter a free card when he is potentially folding if we bet is a disaster.

In situation 2 I would much rather have a JTo type hand than 22-44.

[donger]

I would:

Fold both PF. I might 3bet 77+ KJs+ in the first one.

Bet fold turn with 44 in the second one (unless the guy has some history of loving to screwplay bluff, etc). I think one big problem with doing anything but bet-folding is that even his spewy bluffs are usually 6-outers, so we're really over a barrel v. his range when CR'd. Also, most peeling hands we're beating are 6-outers, so giving a free card and snap calling the river stinks too.

[The Funky Llama]

I would say that hand 1 is a fold and hand 2 is close but probably a fold too.

[joker122]

"the BB is an aggressive lagtard and will call all sorts of QJo 89s type hands."

i call with those hands too...

[JDalla]

[ QUOTE ]
"the BB is an aggressive lagtard and will call all sorts of QJo 89s type hands."

i call with those hands too...

[/ QUOTE ]

...for one more bet, not 2 (not sure if that was the scenerio or not).


oh, and fold both hands PF

[jfk]

[ QUOTE ]
Fold both preflop and bet/fold turn in the 33 situation because I feel like giving a 6-10 outter a free card when he is potentially folding if we bet is a disaster.

[/ QUOTE ]

Folding is standard but it isn't off the map to three bet either of those hands.

Peter Rus had a 2+2 mag. article back in the spring about playing these small pair in just the way ggbman's friend recommends; isolate, jam and represent. If I remember the advice in the Fromm DVD correctly he is advocating isolating with position with just these sorts of hands.

Its a bad idea to overuse this play or make it standard to three bet any pair, but if done in spots Gabe's friend's advice isn't all that out of line, plus it will really change the complexion of a game once you get caught.

[admiralfluff]

situation 1:
1) I'm envisioning a 35/17/1.5 type player here. Easy fold. Easy fold against almost everybody.

2) This question is either poorly worded and makes no sense, or I am illiterate.

3) I start thinking about a 3bet around 66, and usually will pop 77.

situation 2:
I fold preflop almost always. I pop 55. 44 is borderline, but usually fold. I don't know what I would do on the turn without reads when he calls the flop. If I don't have specific reads, other than that he is a crazy lag, I'm getting to SD so I guess either b/c or c/c. I actually don't think it matters much.

I think your edge in these borderline situation comes almost entirely from dead money preflop. Having position and skill will only adjust where the border is.

[ggbman]

Heys guys, thanks for the input so far and please keep it coming. Here are some of my thoughts...

I think situation one is a fold. I don't 3 betting a HUGE mistake, but i think it's definitley an error here. 2 years ago i don't think anyone would 3 bet UTG raises with 44, and IMO since then the game conditions have shifted considerabley in a manner that makes it much worse to do so. Specifically, i think the fact that

1.) Blinds cold call 2 more now often nowaways and generally looser and more aggressive weak draws
2.) Players generally showodwn more and peel lighter, making it harder for you to know when to stop ( I think a great indicator of this is my buddy wanting to fire the turn in the 33 hand after we are called on a AK9 flop)
3.) The fact that on average we lose more postflop with that hand than we win with it
3.) The fact that on average ($$$-wise)i think we are going lose money postflop due to being semibluffed and having to make marginal-bad calldown to often

So on average here i feel this is a losing play, but what really set me off with my buddy was his insistance that postflop we can extract value from bad A high call downs with a higher frequyency than we ourselfs have to make a baddish calldown on a drawy board or get semibluffed off the worst hand. (Which i think can happen fairly often and is VERY costly) I mean we don't think that shittiness of AK/AQ capping us and leading T92 baords, or QK, JQ, KJ type hands checkraising us with their gutters on the flop and us being in tough spots, OR the possibility that the blinds will CC with mediocore hands that kill our equity, OR the chance that the blinds actually have a real hand to cap us with, OR the fact that UTG could have an overpair already makes this a pretty clear fold? Do we really think that even with expert play, flopping a set 13.5% of the time, sometimes extracting valiue from A high, and getting 1.5 small bets of dead money in the pot SOME of the time will compensate us for all the aforementioned factors? I mean purley from the amount of times we can c/r by draws on bad boards for our hand (which is basically most flops)you can make such a larger mistake by folding the best hand in a 9-10 Small bet flop that even the inferior play of marginal player probably won't make up for it.

As for hand 2, i think we should fold preflop for most of the same reasons. 44 is usually my cutoff when i think the CO isn't too tricky and the blinds are a bit tighter, and if the CO is aggros postflop and the blinds are looser, i might want 55. As the fact that my friend, who i feel has a good conceptual understanding of the game, think the turn should be bet with 33 seems INSANE to me. It's a good bet against specifically JT, QT, and QJ, which is obviously just a small part of his range. Yes sometimes he decided to suck and peel some other non-pair hand, but on this board, here you usually just have 2 outs and he is rarely folding. A bet seems absolutley terrible to someone who will just check call 3 barrels with a weak ace or k7o or whatever he has. The fact that

A.) My friend doesnt see that as the case in what a percieve to be a cut and sry situation and

B.) This is exactly the kind of logical flaw that will cost you money if you want to 3 bet 44 from the button against an UTG open

Is disturbing me a great deal because i feel like despite a good overall grasp of the game, he has talked himself into rationalizing certain situations that i would consider medum-type errors into being standard for his game and this is contributing to frustrations he is having with the game. I want to hear some responses to my opinions here and know if I am just over-reacting to his play/thoughts here... and if i am by all means tear into me.