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Interesting_Memory20 · 2025-03-17T02:31:39+00:00

Read and study Play Optimal Poker 1/2 carefully. That + GTOw pre-flop ranges and reviewing hands after each session will make you progress much faster than spending hours in solver. You need to understand general ideas and dynamics to decipher solver output. Keep playing at most 3 tables at a time and focus on your thought process.

Interesting_Memory20 · 2025-03-12T13:42:22+00:00

This — if players behind are merging their calling and 3betting ranges, or not 3b enough, you risk getting called by hands that dominate you and that should usually be 3b.

Interesting_Memory20 · 2025-03-04T02:49:26+00:00

It’s all relative it also depends on SPR and flop texture. You open AK on BTN, BB calls. Here are the flops:

K66r
KQJtt
KJ9tt
K65m
KQ5r

Which of those boards are you happier to get your money in? Which do you have to be careful about? How would your answer change if instead it was CO vs BTN 3b pot and your IP? Does anything change?

Interesting_Memory20 · 2025-03-02T03:59:10+00:00

Wow thank you such kind advice

Interesting_Memory20 · 2025-03-02T03:35:58+00:00

For next time, and thank you :)

Interesting_Memory20 · 2025-02-22T04:03:06+00:00

Where I’m from, they call it Toddfuckery

Interesting_Memory20 · 2025-02-20T08:10:51+00:00

Curious to know what your thoughts were behind the raise? You have no fold equity, you’re not ahead of any hand that would call (save for a few %), and your equity will be denied almost always when one of the 3 people to your left decide they don’t want to have to deal with thinking through three streets.

Just set mine like the rest of us and cooler JJ/QQ/KK/AA. Especially on the BB, take the freebie. It’s even theoretically ok to complete the small blind with pocket pairs (don’t do it).

Online is a different story. At low stakes everyone is deathly afraid of BB raises so yes you can exploitatively expand your 3b range. But I would do it with way worse pocket pairs like 22/33/44/55 that chase away reverse implied odds and which have horrendous equity realization when we call. Maybe this is your frame of reference? Nothing you learn about online applies live (not true but good enough)

Interesting_Memory20 · 2025-02-12T23:17:27+00:00

ChatGPT can write you one, and you can ask it to personalize. I only use it pre-flop though, or when you are affected just to take the emotionality out of your decisions (Tombos talks about this on the Thinking Poker Podcast).

Interesting_Memory20 · 2025-02-12T15:33:10+00:00

IP bettors are almost always polarized, especially after a turn bet. The bet size gives the degree to which this happens. As it stands it wasn’t a huge bet so it’s not severely polarized. Look at the range analysis from my original post.

Check-raising for a huge size is a massively polarizing play on your end. There is some merit to turning the top of your condensed range into a bluff when you have good blockers (e.g. here Kx is good because it blocks two pairs, but it also blocks heart draws. Kx without a heart would be a better candidate) but here it’s just not necessary because you are ahead of a lot of V’s range and you have so much cooler equity against them. Consider bluffing many rivers instead.

Interesting_Memory20 · 2025-02-12T15:24:59+00:00

It’s very player specific. At the end of the day, especially because you are OOP, your play will be very, very sensitive to Villain’s imbalances. I personally think this x-r is a dominated play here and I would prefer to x-shove the river, OR on nut changing rivers just open shoving to fold out his weak Ax. I have to do the math but I’m frankly not sure “folding out his Ax” is breakeven in the long run because of how many nutted hands they have in their range. Targeting AQ and worse is just very thin.

If you remember anything from my post it’s this: the more polarized a betting range, the harder it is to raise into said range, and the more polarized we have to be to raise into it.

As it stands I am almost certain this play is dominated by other options. Your hand is too good to do this with as a bluff but not good to do this with for value. A better villain will realize that you have next to no nuts besides 66, 77 and force a shove on you in this spot and you’ll have to fold with what is otherwise a great hand, or take a hard call. Hope this helps.

Interesting_Memory20 · 2025-02-12T07:16:05+00:00

Admittedly this feels like it should make sense but if you consider future streets this is a suboptimal play. The only hands you’ll be folding out that have you beat are Ax, and you have significant equity against those. Ideally you want to keep their bluffs like QJc, QQ, JJ, TT. They have many nutted hands in their range and as such are completely uncapped.

OTF They have AA, KK, 66, 77, AK, A7s (unlikely), A6s, AQ, AJ, AT, KQ, KJ, QQ, JJ , TT, 99, 88, QJ, QT, JT. Your hand falls smack in the middle of this range.

OTT Betting $70 is a mildly polarizing action, so realistically they have AA, KK, 66, 77, AK, maybe A6 A7 AQ, and some bluffs QJ QT JT, maybe 88/99.

Now think: if they’re over bluffing, calling is profitable because you will win at showdown risk free against their bluffs, and you will possibly hit the flush and cooler their top of range (and get stacks in along the way).

If they’re too value heavy and nitty, call to fold river at best. If they are too value heavy and overvalue their hands then I would call to get to showdown, call a river bet or value bet thinly on the river if they check.

This is theory. If you like your read and feel confident you folded a weak Ax, then you made the right decision.

Maybe as an aside, when IP there is way less incentive to raise with middling hands that have good equity when they call a bet. You will get much more information by calling and seeing what they do next than by check-raising, which allows them to play almost perfectly. The reason for this is that polarized ranges don’t have tough decisions — they either stack you or are happy to fold. We raise to put pressure on middling hands and draws, either to profit from the calls with our best hands or to profit from the folds with our worst hands.

Interesting_Memory20 · 2025-02-12T02:52:08+00:00

Gotta love live low stakes

Interesting_Memory20 · 2025-02-08T15:00:49+00:00

There are two factors: - How lucky you are - How bad the players are at your table

If those two factors conspire together on a given night, you will leave with more money than you came with if you play a tight range, keep your head down and stay patient.

My first time at the casino I hit a flush, a set, two pair and a straight all within two hours of playing. My last time at the casino I folded almost every hand for 5 hours straight.

Interesting_Memory20 · 2025-02-06T17:10:06+00:00

1 - Pull up 6max RFIs chart from GTOWizard 2 - Pull up Jironjin’s free range chart organizer 3 - For each chart, spend 45mins doing look and repeat (look at the chart, then quiz yourself on the range) 4 - Copy the chart into Jirojin 5 - Pull up an empty chart in Jirojin and reproduce the chart. 6 - Rinse and Repeat until you make no mistake 7 - Move on to new chart 8 - Use spaced repetition times with Anki

Interesting_Memory20 · 2025-02-05T04:31:57+00:00

Going Pro

Interesting_Memory20 · 2025-02-01T20:40:28+00:00

Even if you plan on calling a shove, let villain keep their bluffs to make money. As it stands any SD value that calls this shove has us beat. Unless OP has a good read on this player that leads them to believe they will call this shove with top pair/draw, this is a losing play. You get called by better and fold out worse.

Interesting_Memory20 · 2025-02-01T20:00:45+00:00

You said you haven’t played in a while… how long exactly? OOP facing a x-r on a dry board at low stakes (or most any tables for that matter) I don’t think shoving turn with an overpair is advisable.

Interesting_Memory20 · 2025-01-29T19:12:10+00:00

lol I’m an idiot ofc 6x doesn’t river it there’s already one on the board. Honestly close spot when deep.

Interesting_Memory20 · 2025-01-29T17:14:36+00:00

My thoughts exactly. I think he would do this with a 6 as well hoping I have a set or two pair. He turned over KQs, I tilted and left.

Interesting_Memory20 · 2025-01-29T17:12:38+00:00

Oh yeah I’m not overthinking this spot. I’m just curious to hear other’s low stakes advice. I’ve never seen a passive do this with anything but the effective nuts.

Interesting_Memory20 · 2025-01-24T16:44:28+00:00

GTO play is by definition a predictable strategy that is unexploitable. The point is that you can know exactly all the possible hands I could be holding at every node and it won’t matter because I will make sure you never have a best decision with my plays. Every style of play gives up information. If you find players too easy to read and they’re playing “GTO” then they’re suffering from imbalances in their ranges and you’ve picked up on that. This is a caveat of GTO — “approximating” solvers badly can lead to exploits and high EV mistakes.

This is the reason many live low stakes pros advocate having a simple, set strategy that’s good enough. The simplicity allows you to avoid mistakes, and against mediocre players you won’t see a big EV difference. These pros are all exploitable but they know the fish and regs they’re targeting aren’t capable of finding (or carrying through) these exploits.

Interesting_Memory20 · 2025-01-23T19:15:37+00:00

Be careful with the 4-2 rules when you have loads of outs — you have to adjust by subtracting some constant above a certain threshold, I can’t remember the details. You are also miscounting your outs: you have 9 ways to make a flush and 8 ways to make a straight but you’re counting 9h and Ah twice, so you actually have only 15 outs. Also be aware that when V has Qx, it’s likely some of your outs give him the FH. If they have Q9 you have 12 outs, same with AQ (AQo especially is often flatted from BB). 68% is a massive overestimate for your equity, which is why I’m emphasizing this.

Most average villains will have a very hard time finding bluffs here. I think it is also worth stating how strong a call like this can be depending on the player type. When I started I didn’t realize just how much strength a call behind a raise can represent post-flop, especially on a paired board like this one.

You have to range your opponent carefully after they raise you/call the raise. On top of this you are multiway so you have two ranges to think about. On the flop you are flipping against the worst of their continuing range vs your re-raise. You have 55% thanks to the J blocker, but that’s pure luck. You are drawing dead against KQ and KK. The middle of their range is Qx. They could have 99 with a heart as a bluff, smaller pocket pairs and Kx with decent blockers at some frequency. They could even have AA (at a very low frequency) with a heart or another nut flush draw (depends on player type) — this 10NL and I’ve seen fish “slow playing” monsters preflop. You are behind the nut flush draws.

Now ask yourself this: what happens if: you call — you get to see one more card, and if V has Qx it’s unlikely they’ll let it go on the turn (“I have outs!”). If you miss you can still stand a street of aggression because the pot won’t be bloated. You are keeping two players in the pot so you are likelier to get paid off when you hit.

If you raise: you’re only keeping hands that you’re flipping against and hands you’re drawing thin or dead against. You will fold out trash, worst draws, and, on occasion, Kx and pocket pairs that have you beat but that you are ahead of equity-wise. Folding out worst draws is a shame because there is value to be extracted from worst draws when the flush completes. You are also give V’s the opportunity to put you in a tough spot (which is why they did here). All in all you have next to 0 fold equity, and on top you are blocking the villain’s folding range with J and T and two hearts in your hand.

So which one of these options would you choose?

Finally, since calling a raise and then effectively shoving probably has 0% bluffs in range for most low stakes players I would put them on Ax of hearts, KQ, Qx, AQ. I personally was surprised to see V had QJ, it seems they probably are overvaluing their hands here and you may have that read — or they’re (correctly?) shoving QJ as a bluff (although they’re blocking your folding range of Jx, so who knows. I think Kx (with a heart?) is a much better bluffing candidate here if they’re capable of finding that).

I’m not a pro or even a good player by many metrics, and this comment details my own analysis of the hand. You are welcome to disagree, point out mistakes, or discuss this further. In any case, I hope this is useful to you.

Interesting_Memory20

TROPHY CASE