a fun 97s hand

[James.]

snowball, let me preface this with an appreciation of your posts as of late. i don't know if i just haven't noticed you before, or you're just stepping it up but i've been impressed with your arguments/comments in a few threads now. good job.

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1. meta plays are only good when you you expect your opponents to notice, and you expect them to react in a way that is both predictable and exploitable by you.

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i agree. as i said, when i'm not getting action i look for opportunities. i don't premeditate them, but if one presents itself i might take it. such is the case here. we can disagree on the merits of this particular spot to do it, but i can't disagree with your above statement. even in a 6max game with seemingly crappy players, it's at times necessary. i've got thousands of hands with these guys. game selection at 3/6-10/20(what i mostly play online) forces you to play with the same opponents over extended periods. when there are only two or three tables going at any given time, this is unavoidable.

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2. You have to either expect to play a very long session with your opponents or you have to expect to play them repeatedly in the future

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again, i agree. it's funny, but most everyone has PT now. even the "fish". this provides a history of data. if i can do something to help buck the trend of what that history predicts i'm going to do, i can help increase my opponent's errors. in other words, if i get them thinking against the actual trend i come out ahead.

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3. You have to showdown your hand or there is zero value in your play

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i guess i disagree a bit here. if you don't showdown there isn't "zero value". sure, there's some risk involved. but i still achieve a bit of my intention just with the action of the LRR.

when considering these plays, the biggest thing to factor is the cost versus the benefits. if i am able to showdown, i need to be called down one additional time to make this play worth it. since i can likely count on more future action than a one time calldown, the risk of not showing down has the benefit of overlay from these multiple future extra calldowns.

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2. In general, in LHE, the pot will often become so large in relation to the betsize that your ability to steal a pot for one extra bet has MASSIVE value. Therefore, in most LHE games, achieving a loose image is just shooting yourself in the foot.

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another post for another time, but over the years i've sort of come to a different conclusion. i'm seriously wondering if smart LAG play isn't the style that can yield the highest profit potential in today's shorthanded online games. it's very difficult to properly play, and the variance can be huge but that doesn't mean that there isn't a huge upside to the excessive action you gain as a result.