is this close?

[Nate tha\\\' Great]

ILP, you really have to start thinking in terms of a range of possible opponent profiles in addition to a range of possible hands. Even if there are a lot of opponents who could never show up with one pair there, there are plenty of others who would and those hands are so much more likely combinatorially that they need to be given a fair amount of weight. Besides that, I'd think a player who is alert enough to go for the flop/turn screwplay might lean toward slowplaying if he'd flopped something like 32 or 55, which shifts the ranges further toward some hand that found a way to improve on the turn. I think this is a trivially easy 3-bet.

[ChicagoPoker]

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agree raising those hands is bad.

i think it is close. if he caps, then yeah fold river ui.

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How can you not c/c the river here? We've already invested a ton of bets. I see people pull this with Ax suited all the time.

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rofl, liar.

i'm starting a new thing on 2p2.

YOU CAN'T JUST LIE.

it comes from my personal life. i have a really fat friend who won't stop lying about hooking up with girls. well the problem is that no girl will come near the guy. so we made this statement into a way of life. if anyone ever just blatantly lies, we tell him. YOU CANT JUST [censored] LIE.

SO STOP [censored] LYING.

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uh, not sure wtf is wrong with you, lol.

not sure why you'd invest all those bets and fold to 1 bb. that's just plain dumb.

[Heisenb3rg]

The reason I 3-bet is not because of hand combinations of every possible hand that's beating you + two pair type hands..
It's because I see the average player slowplay the flop monsters too frequently.

This is a "gimme yo money" line in a raised pot, but this is a "the turn card improved me" line in an unraised pot.

I think there's a good chance he was raising the flop light (or didnt raise ATo preflop) and just made two pair on the turn.

Knowing how much action to give unknowns does turn into a sort of art. This is because of the vast variety of player profiles and sheer complexity of averaging it all.

[ILOVEPOKER929]

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ILP, you really have to start thinking in terms of a range of possible opponent profiles in addition to a range of possible hands. Even if there are a lot of opponents who could never show up with one pair there, there are plenty of others who would and those hands are so much more likely combinatorially that they need to be given a fair amount of weight. Besides that, I'd think a player who is alert enough to go for the flop/turn screwplay might lean toward slowplaying if he'd flopped something like 32 or 55, which shifts the ranges further toward some hand that found a way to improve on the turn. I think this is a trivially easy 3-bet.

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This is a pretty pointless post Nate. Stop telling me stuff I already know. I do think in terms of the range of possible opponent profiles. I know there are alot of opponents that can have just one pair here. Jesus christ, I know how to play poker. I was just trying to point out to JBA that whether he should 3bet the turn or not vs a typical tag is inherently close. I used my play as an example to show what I was talking about. I dont assume everyone plays like me. If you think this is a trivially easy 3-bet against a typical tag, then Im convinced youre 3betting the turn too much. The fact that a good, winning player like Jba even created this thread should clue you in on the reality that the turn play must be close. This thread would not exist if that was not so.

Nate, I highly respect your game and your posts, but I dont think any 2+2er has annoyed me more than you this past year. That said, I hope you never stop posting on 2+2 becuz many people appreciate your contributions including me, even If you do annoy the hell out of me. I also find my girlfriend annoying but I'll probably marry her.

[milesdyson]

i think the guy who annoys me the most is...

KODELAAM

see if u guys can figure out that code!

[ILOVEPOKER929]

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Knowing how much action to give unknowns does turn into a sort of art.

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Youre right Heisen, it is an art. Heres a simple example. Scary Tiger and Thehip41 are both strong winning Tags. Against Scary Tiger this would be an extremely easy turn 3bet. Against Thehip41, I would just call down.

[TheHip41]

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Knowing how much action to give unknowns does turn into a sort of art.

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Youre right Heisen, it is an art. Heres a simple example. Scary Tiger and Thehip41 are both strong winning Tags. Against Scary Tiger this would be an extremely easy turn 3bet. Against Thehip41, I would just call down.

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that's because scary tiger sucks at poker I do not. well, i suck to, but not at hand reading, or preflop. [img]/images/graemlins/grin.gif[/img]

[Nate tha\\\' Great]

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ILP, you really have to start thinking in terms of a range of possible opponent profiles in addition to a range of possible hands. Even if there are a lot of opponents who could never show up with one pair there, there are plenty of others who would and those hands are so much more likely combinatorially that they need to be given a fair amount of weight. Besides that, I'd think a player who is alert enough to go for the flop/turn screwplay might lean toward slowplaying if he'd flopped something like 32 or 55, which shifts the ranges further toward some hand that found a way to improve on the turn. I think this is a trivially easy 3-bet.

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This is a pretty pointless post Nate. Stop telling me stuff I already know. I do think in terms of the range of possible opponent profiles. I know there are alot of opponents that can have just one pair here. Jesus christ, I know how to play poker. I was just trying to point out to JBA that whether he should 3bet the turn or not vs a typical tag is inherently close. I used my play as an example to show what I was talking about. I dont assume everyone plays like me. If you think this is a trivially easy 3-bet against a typical tag, then Im convinced youre 3betting the turn too much. The fact that a good, winning player like Jba even created this thread should clue you in on the reality that the turn play must be close. This thread would not exist if that was not so.

Nate, I highly respect your game and your posts, but I dont think any 2+2er has annoyed me more than you this past year. That said, I hope you never stop posting on 2+2 becuz many people appreciate your contributions including me, even If you do annoy the hell out of me. I also find my girlfriend annoying but I'll probably marry her.

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ILP,

I'm speaking partly out of experience because I went through a very long phase where I was running bad and playing kind of real defensive poker and the two things really seemed to feed off of one another. And then I snapped out of it and started running normally again. The irony, of course, is that I used to be considered a LAGTAG back before a LAGTAG became a standard TAG, and I had cut a lot of my laggier plays out because I had "discovered" them to be technically incorrect.

But I now believe that I was making the right plays for the wrong reasons. I may have overestimated my equity in certain situations but I was developing a great table image in the process, making myself harder to read, and -- here's the key -- creating opportunities for my opponents to make mistakes against me. The theory is basically this: the more you try and play mistake-free poker, the easier it becomes for your opponents to play mistake-free poker.

In this hand you have a decision which is fairly close if your opponent plays "perfectly", but is not at all close if the opponent plays imperfectly. So I'd say that the decision is in fact not very close, since we don't know how well our opponent plays. Above and beyond that, I would say that erring on the side of aggression in close decisions has metagame benefits that outweigh the increased variance that you must accept. If I had AT here and you called down to showdown after my turn raise and won the pot with your set of 4's, I would mark you as someone that did not like to gamble and I'd think that would be advantageous for the rest of the session, because I'd take the small amount of profit that you were willing to exchange for reduced variance and make it mine.

[ILOVEPOKER929]

"The theory is basically this: the more you try and play mistake-free poker, the easier it becomes for your opponents to play mistake-free poker."

I agree 100% with this idea vs thinking players. A simple example of ultilizing this idea would be bet/3betting the flop with a simple flush draw oop in a HU pot. While this play will usually be technically incorrect. The confusion and distrust this kind of basic play creates for later hands is worth a lot more than its tiny cost.

However, against nonthinking bad players just taking the optimal line every time and trying to play mistake free poker is still where the money is at. The reality of poker for most players including me is that most of our income is going to come from these nonthinking bad players, so quite often we should be in this "play straight forward mistake free mode." For me, becuz I always surround myself with fish when I play poker, I seldom have an opportunity to take an "incorrect" line to make more future monies.

"In this hand you have a decision which is fairly close if your opponent plays "perfectly", but is not at all close if the opponent plays imperfectly. So I'd say that the decision is in fact not very close, since we don't know how well our opponent plays."

Jba refers to the villain as a tag. By definition a tag to me is someone who plays well. If he does not play well Jba may say wannabe tag or tagfish or bad tag, etc. Against someone who plays well, the turn play is close.

"Above and beyond that, I would say that erring on the side of aggression in close decisions has metagame benefits that outweigh the increased variance that you must accept."

I dont like erring on any side.

"If I had AT here and you called down to showdown after my turn raise and won the pot with your set of 4's, I would mark you as someone that did not like to gamble and I'd think that would be advantageous for the rest of the session, because I'd take the small amount of profit that you were willing to exchange for reduced variance and make it mine."

The only time I knowingly exchange profit for reduced variance is when I see a mildly profitable table but choose to do something else until a very profitable table develops. Whether I 3bet this turn with 44s or call down it will be becuz I'm convinced its the right play.

[Heisenb3rg]

That reply was freaking gold.. Just want to add to what your talking about with the metagame effect of agression.

There are a few "cautious" regulars in games that I play with, who play solid ABC poker that are like open books to other good players who are willing to take risks to exploit them. Why? Because once you get to a certain competence level in poker, every good player has a decent understanding of the textbook plays for most siatuations.

Textbook ABC poker however is still exploitable poker. It doesn't involve any 3-bet bluffs on the turn with air on a rag board, it doesn't involve any capping on the river with a weak hand. Surprisngly, Optimal poker DOES. The reason people don't play this way is there are widely known accepeted flaws of the avergae poker player. They call too much when it's obvious there beat and they have a strong hand. All the best players in the small stakes fall victim to this (for good reason).

Another example where ABC poker can leave you exploitable is slowplaying in small pots. Say the hand is four way. Flop comes T26 in a 5 way unraised pot and you are in the BB with 22. If SB bets, you almost definitly want to call. If you had only 1 pair, you would now likely want to raise or fold to protect your hand.
Unfortuantly this basically turns your hand face open to someone who knows exactly how you think. A good player who knows this could take a line that might fold a pair if you raise, and if you call, can fold AA with ease. The opposite of what you want.
The same is true to a degree for agression levels on certain boards (although not nearly as exact).

If I know a player is playing meekly and is unlikely to adapt to counter what I'm doing, I can exploit situations where ABC poker leaves there hand vulnerable.
I can often put in an extra raise in a close situation, because I wont have to fear hands that only slightly beat me coming over the top... Or bluffs.

example:

You raise 66 CO and get 3-bet by an ABC button, blinds fold and you call.

Flop comes 457 two suited, you check/call
turn comes 9 , you check/raise.

Now let's examine the hand from buttons perspective.
Let's say he has a hand like QQ, or AKs with a flush draw.
If you take the "safe" route and are frequetnly calling down instead of 3-betting, you give any pair/draw the ability to rape your range by waiting to the turn. If you get agressive by 3-betting some overpairs and your flush draws, it will make many hands think twice about trying to get value from your AK/AQ/AJ hands... Yes you may lose more to a set/straight, but by being more agressive, you've scared your opponents into behaving and being predictable. They will have a pair or a draw way more than they will have a monster.

This is also true with turn donks. If you are always "calling down" strong hands to donks on scare cards (like 3-flush just made, board just paired) then opponents can bet these cards very liberally with their marginal hands, because they wont have to fear a raise, but still will get payed off by worse hands because it looks like a bluff.

That being said, the metgame effects of agression are hard to quantify and many times playing a hand passivly is often both safer (easier decisions) and most importantly, more profitable. And FWIW, I also think for the hand in discussion, the decision is close.

* EDIT/PS *Is it sad that I enjoy talking about the meta game effects of agression in short handed limit poker more than the topics of 99.9% of my daily conversations? *sigh*