NL 100/200: how much should i focus on image

[billzfan86]

Okay so alot of you stars full ring regulars on 2+2 have seen me on recently (ryancmu, pokerboy1, ianbarns, bottomset just to name a few off top of my head) on stars playin the last month (due to the full tilt update not being compatitable with PAhud for over 4 tables) and I was thinking about my play after a recent 15k hand breakeven streak,

okay so here is my delima, I was noticing that I was gettin stacked a good amount with overpairs, when i looked over many of the hands it went somehting like this.

raise preflop, villian call, lead on flop, villian raise me, shove, villian calls and stacks me

Now I tend to get off of hands if i think im beat but a lot of the time since i run 18/12/4.5 with 85% C-bet that i feel like people are playing back at me.

so my problem is how much should i think a villian is playing back at me and how much should i be able to lay down semi strong hands, ovbiously this is player dependent and i know to dump qq on a dry board against a 36T rainbow flop against a villian with 1.25 agression, but should i tone down the agression and looseness so i dont have to worry if people are paying attention to it or not? I run 6-10 tables now so i dunno I feel like dropping tables wont help beucase its not so much watching a player but watching them against me. I dunno any suggestions would be good beucase ide like to pull out of my drought.

[diebitter]

It looks like with overpairs you are adverse to holding back your money until after the flop. Turning the hand to two rounds of betting is not really a great idea with full stacks (pefect with shortstacks) at these levels, as it plays directly into players holding pp and maybe sc/sg hands. In fact you'll start getting followed around.

Your tendency will be noted and ever more exploited. Don't be adverse to laying down overpairs to action like this on the flop. At least quit shoving to a reraise (whether it's improved or not).

Also mix up your play some maybe. Don't be frightened to check-raise here as well as betting out, improved or not. Mix up your game to be less readable.

[_Sundance]

To really know if you have a problem here you need to also look at all the times they folded to the shove or called with a worst hand/big draw. Additionally, for observant opponents, your cbet p&l will go up slightly when you've missed the flop since they will be less likely to represent a big hand when their pp missed.

Doubtless some people are playing back at your cbets but knowing the frequency with which a particular opponent is doing this on a dry board is tricky. Aggression factor will help but maybe also look at the C/R % on flop - although this is not the % for the line you gave in your example, it indicates how willing the opp is to raise light. Certainly, reads are gold here. If you have seen villian raise the flop with missed pp and get caught or folded to a push after raise then it makes the push easier - if you have seen villian do this >2 times then probably an easy push.

A big problem (not neceassirly one you can avoid) with this line and 100bb is that it offers the villian with pp very wide +ve odds, i.e. flop pot = 10bb, you lead for 8bb, villian makes it 25bb - your raise here is uncomfotable as you can then probably not fold - it offers 93bb to a big hand. If stacks were 150bb, you could think about making it 50-60 and folding to action. If stacks were 60bb then it's less painful to push and his preflop odds were not so great. You could consider calling the flop and c/r the turn - at least you trap some more bluffs here but of course sometimes villian will move ahead on turn/river.

In terms of your actual question on image - you need to be careful that observant opponents don't come to understand that you will always stack off with an overpair when raised on the flop without becoming tight weak.

You probably need to develop the image that you will only sometimes stack off in cases like this but that also you will sometimes push back over the top of a raiser with nothing - you can use your reads/stats to help balance this.

[billzfan86]

carter i dunno what your name is on stars or if you have played with me but its hard for me to tell if you are being more generaized or not becuase for most players this is true but I consider myself more agressive and loose then many other regular players so i feel like a lot of times im getting played back but I dunno i guess im looking for tips on noticing people who would be prone to play back becuase i feel like some players play back at me when but i wouldnt notice it becuase they dont play back at most players

[diebitter]

Reads are what you need. If you play more than 2 tables loose preflop (and maybe 4 tables tight preflop) then reads aren't that great except for the very obvious. You then have to fall back on stats and fold/call/raise to cbet stats and suchlike.

Reads are very +EV here to play opppnents best. Us one/two tablers know this, and I'm sure many multitablers know it too but prefer the buffer of many tables/tighter play to earn their bread.

I may have played you, but probably not. I'm donkin the low limits for a while yet to build BR, but I'll be up there sometime.