Feb 24

I called this one and got shown 88.

I called this one too and got shown AQ.

I folded this one.

----------------

http://weaktight.com/2053165

Good regular. Plays loose (29/22 ish) so has a wide defending range preflop here. He's the guy who had the AQ above. He's seen me check quite a few flops oop as the pfr with made hands, so I would think that he views my c-betting range as a little stronger than most here (although he probably expects me to c-bet this board ip very wide). I don't have any real history with him in pots where I'm the pfr in position.

I felt that this was a good three barrel spot as I can still have any set, some Kx hands (although not sure if he expects a value bet from them), and I'm obviously barrelling A5 and diamonds on the turn. Does this look good?

http://weaktight.com/2053166

This player was completely unknown to me but he'd been around the tables for a couple of minutes so far. In that time he'd been super aggressive. He 3-bet me the first two hands hu, and I'd seen him 3-bet and 4-bet on a 6-max table. He'd also triple barrelled all-in twice in the very short sample.

I felt like I could call preflop here as his opening range was really wide and if I hit top pair I could just let him barrel away. I think it's probably a fold though. Postflop my plan was to c/c thrice, but then I started worrying on the river as it seems a bit of a crazy spot for him to barrel. Maybe it isn't though as he might expect a lot of pair+draw hands to peel the turn. Call or fold?

http://weaktight.com/2053167

Random fish, no history at all. On the river I feel like he's bluffing an insanely small amount of the time. Does he do this for value with worse enough to call? Maybe a slowplayed AA or something retarded, maybe occasionally a bluff, J4, 65?

Feb 22

Results from yesterday:

http://weaktight.com/2040861

I called and was shown A2. I thought it was a fairly trivial call, but need to check right now.

http://weaktight.com/2040860

I called and got shown AQ. Again I thought it was fairly standard, but I'm not sure now. I think it probably has to be a call as he might shove worse for value sometimes, and if he check raised something that's now a pair and draw he could well shove it.

http://weaktight.com/2040875

Again I called and got shown 22. I think this is a call still as his value range is really narrow, and he shouldn't play his value hands like this usually.

------------------------------

So I think that maybe I'm stacking off/paying off too lightly. Maybe I need to fold more. I'll try and focus in on hands with these sorts of decisions for the next couple of days probably.

Here are today's:

http://weaktight.com/2044049

This guy seems a fairly tight regular. I've seen him flat KQo from the bb against a btn open, he's 3-bet my iso raise and folded to a 4-bet, and I've also seen him bluff twice oop after the flop was checked on 653AT. So he is capable of bluffing.

On the turn here it's just weird to me. It's another spot where I'm just sort of confused as to ranges. I feel like he should check raise his strong hands on the flop given it's 3-way, the middle guy folds, and I c-bet from utg 3-way making my range stronger. If that's true, then the only value hands he can have on the turn are 86s and A6s. It's fairly unlikely he calls 86s on the flop, so that leaves two combos of A6s.

However, do people play draws this way? I mean, he can have quite a few combo draws, and with the 2nd flush draw hitting he can have more now, plus he can have a pair and a flush draw.

I should note that he timed for a fair while before shoving. Do you call or fold?

http://weaktight.com/2044050

This one's against a good, pretty aggressive regular who often plays higher I think. He plays pretty loose so has a wider range here preflop than most regulars. He's seen me check the flop as the pfr a decent amount. I called him on the flop and river with AK on 85576 once and was right and since then he hasn't really been stabbing the flops that often. I've also seen him check back the flop and raise the turn when I lead once.

So when he checks back the flop and flats the turn I think his range is any pair under Tx, and sometimes trips (although I think he raises strong trips sometimes). I doubt he has Tx as I think he bets that. My range can be pretty wide in his eyes by the river I think, but I do think he'd expect me to bet Qx if I rivered it. Given that, I'm confused as to what his big bet means. It seems like it either is trying to get me to fold my obviously weakish range, or it's trying to level me into a call. I feel like he has to have 7x exactly to make this bet as I can't see how he can have Qx, and I don't think he has Tx (or bets it so big if he did).

However, he does have showdown value when he calls the turn, so he has to be turning something into a bluff for me to be good. Call or fold? Or raise I guess?

http://weaktight.com/2044051

This player's a regular who does some weird things. He's lead for half pot on the river oop after the turn checked through with A8 on KK8cc 5J. He can flat A8s from the bb against a co raise (although this doesn't mean he flats AXs v my utg from the sb of course). He can float the flop ip fairly lightly.

So on the river I think he can still have 88, 55, 66, and then maybe A8s, and he can probably have AK as he doesn't 3-bet much. This seems like a really great spot for a check raise from him though as AQ is so close to the top of my range and it's not an easy call at all. However, he probably expects most 2/4 regs to be suspicious enough to look him up with AQ and AJ here. Of course, I'm often using the ace as a bluff card in his eyes too though, so even if he does think I'll sometimes call with AQ then he might still bluff raise. But then his 99 hands would be good. Yada yada.

Call or fold? Or raise?!

Feb 21

I'll start with results to the hands in the last blog:

Hand 1 - I folded. I honestly can't see him ever doing this for value with worse than KQ, and it'd be a suicidal bluff (given that you all said to call I think this is true).

Hand 2 - I'm really not sure on this one. I tend to prefer betting these flops as otherwise my c-betting range becomes really weak on them, however I do see the merits of a check back and I'll probably start doing that now and see how it goes. I really wasn't sure on this one, but in the end I folded for a few reasons. 1, It's kind of obvious I have an ace and I don't think people try and bluff you off that on the river here most of the time - plus I have obviously have AT and AJ quite often. 2, It's kind of really difficult for him to have anything to bluff with. I doubt he's pure bluffing and 3-barreling that often, and he might just check down KhTx or KhJx or similar if he has them on the river. KQ backdoors it's way there too which is a consideration as KhQx or KxQh has to be a decent part of his flop semibluff range. Also, there's no reason I can't have a flush or set which protects me from being bluffed somewhat (and I can have more flushes than him as he should realise I'm opening all hearts on the btn).

Hand 3 - I think raising the flop sucks here without knowing what to do to a shove. I think we'd have to raise/call against almost all regs here if we did raise, and that doesn't seem like it can be the best play. I think there's merit to shoving the turn however. I folded the river, although I didn't really like it that much here as he should expect me to call the turn with so many pair and draw hands. Plus, he bets the turn small enough to barrel the river big and thus have more fold equity. I think I should've called this one.

---------------------

The month's going really badly at the moment. I'm honestly not sure what I'm doing wrong right now so I'm just trying to review and play a lot to get a bunch of hands in and see if it'll turn around. I think I'm making some mistakes in big pots which will be adding up. So sorry if any of the hands I put seem trivial - I'm just trying to make sure I'm playing ok.

Here are some hands for today:

http://weaktight.com/2040861

This is against a fish that seems really aggressive. I've only just joined the table but he's played almost every hand so far and been raising over half of them preflop. This is the first time I saw him limp call. My plan on the turn is to raise/call, or shove every river if he calls. When he donks the river into me do I call or fold?

http://weaktight.com/2040860

Again this is against a fish, but I've literally just sat down and only have 7 hands on him. He's played 5 of those and not raised any. He check folded two flops and check called two when he had a medium pair. Turn - call his all in or fold?

http://weaktight.com/2040875

This one's against a regular. Again I don't have much of a sample. This is the first hand I've seen him flat form the sb, but it's only from 5 samples. He 3-bet one of those and folded the others. I do have some notes on him - he check raised with a flopped flush on K86, and he also 3-bet me small blind on blind on 742 flush draw flop and I folded.

Obviously his line here is pretty weird with anything (and honestly not good in my opinion). Given that he probably defends a pretty tight range from the sb by flatting I think his range for flatting the flop is something like TT-22 (although I think he 3-bets TT sometimes, and check raises it sometimes), then AQ-AT, although AQ probably gets 3-bet and ATo folded. I don't think he should be check raising any strong hands on the turn given it's a good card for me to barrel so he should be check calling to let me fire the river.

So it seems to me like he'll have 99-33 turning itself into a bluff, or AJ a ton of the time here. Therefore I decided to call turn and call any river. What do you think?

Some river decisions

Here are some hands over the last few days facing a river decision:

http://weaktight.com/2030101

This is against a player that I don't know at all. I assume he's a reg but I'd never played with him before and this was his 2nd orbit I think. I think it's a pretty standard triple barrel for value, then when he raises me on the river it's less than a min raise. What range do you think he has here, and is it a call or a fold?

http://weaktight.com/2030103

This guy's a reg that's definitely on the looser side. I only had around 40 hands on him at this point, but he's playing around 35/29. I don't have any reads on him though yet. I assume he defends my 2.5x btn open fairly wide out of the bb. Again, I think this is fairly standard to the river. What do we do to his pot shove?

http://weaktight.com/2030104

Here I defend preflop as this guy had 3-bet a lot over 30 hands on another table. This was his first orbit against my btn from the sb. Once again I think it's fairly standard to the river, and call or fold there?

Specific spot

Thanks to Chris for the reply yesterday - it was exactly what I needed and definitely reminded of a few things I used to do and have slipped out of the habit of. Also thanks to him for sweating me and looking over a couple of hands - those things really make a difference when you're in a rut.

I have a specific situation I want to look at today, and then I'll go back to some session review/hand review tomorrow.

I want to look at when you get check raised and hold a value hand where if you get it in on the flop you won't be doing that well, but if you wait till the turn there are a lot of bad cards. I saved a few of these but they're all on my old desktop so I'll try and give an example.

Say 100bb deep at 5/10. We have AA, raise to $30 and get called, and the flop comes QJ9hh. We c-bet $45 and our opponent check raises to $145.

This is a spot where I'm actually not sure of the best play. Assume our opponent is a reg that's not crazy aggro but not a tight player either (somewhat normal). All two pairs and straights are in our opponent's range (as well as 99), and I doubt they're raising KQ in this spot. They can have some flush draws, but they're going to be strong ones with a pair or straight draw usually.

If we 3-bet and get it in it seems like we'll get it in against a really strong range and it'll possibly be a bad play by us. However, if we call what's the plan? Are we only stacking off on any 2-7 or A? What if it's a heart?

The problem I have as well is if it comes a T and he bets, well this reduces his value range as he probably won't bet two pairs now and might not bet sets. So it seems like some of the terrible cards will allow him to bluff us off the best hand.

This is a spot where I'm just confused. It seems like it's a decent spot for us with AA, but I'm actually unsure of how to play it.

General preflop strategy

Yesterday was probably the worst poker day for me this year. I didn't lose that much money, but I deserved to. I played really bad, my mental state was sort of tired, and I wasn't thinking at all well throughout. It's sessions like this that have a huge impact on your winrate over a couple of months. Just because I didn't lose much yesterday itself doesn't mean I'm "off the hook" and those sessions don't matter. They do, and they'll show at the end of the month when I post another shitty winrate.

I'm not going to go through hands from the sessions today or tomorrow - I want to focus on a couple of things that are specifically bothering me instead. Today I'm going to ask about a couple of general approach things.

I feel like I'm either way too weak or way too spewy at the beginning of matches right now. I need to find a happy medium. One thing I have trouble with is knowing what to defend to 3-bets without knowing the player at all. I hear from a few people that certain hands are too loose without knowing anything about them, but then when I think about the fact I open between 90-100% of hands at the start of a match, and I'm only defending 10% (if that) of hands to a 3-bet at the start then 3-betting me is too profitable. I know they might not be exploiting it yada yada, but let's be honest - most regs at 2/4 and higher are.

1. So, first question, what range of hands would you defend as standard at the beginning of a hu match against a regular you know nothing about?

My next question is about 3-betting and 4-betting ranges. I used to pretty much 4-bet super wide for value at the start of a match against a reg until jungleman saw me do it with either 88 or AQ and said it was way too light. Well I'm not sure about this. I see quite a few regs shove some stupid hands over the first 4-bet - this happens regularly enough to place a decent amount of emphasis on it and apply it to the "average reg".

I also like 4-bet shoving hands like 44 as it's pretty much impossible for them to exploit for that one hand. Mathematically, if they call with AQ+ and 99+ to a shove then they need to be 3-betting something like 14% or more for shoving 22 to be profitable. I think it's safe to say that this is easily true with most regs at the start of a match. I know some people don't like that, but if you take 44 in particular I think it's -EV to call with it, it's zero EV to fold it, therefore if it's +EV to shove it surely it's the optimal play?

So, my approach at the start of the match against a reg used to be (I'm unsure now) to 4-bet/call 99+, AQ+, shove 22-88, and then flat some big suited cards. I don't really flat too many suited connectors at the start.

2. How do you play against 3-bets against an unknown reg at the start of a match?

And finally, what hands are we 3-betting/5-betting to begin with. I probably only start out by 3-betting TT+ and AK, and flatting AQ, 99 and below. I think this is probably a mistake but I'm not sure. Then I 3-bet bluffs obviously depending on how often they open their button. Thinking about what gives me the most trouble, I think I should be 3-betting a lot at the start as it's hard to know what to do given they're unknown. Now, if I'm going to start out 3-betting a lot, I should probably throw in more value hands as well as good hands to 5-bet shove with to sort of protect myself. So if my 3-betting range was 22-AA, AQo, AJs for value (that I'm 5-betting), this is 8.6% of hands, meaning if I 3-bet 25% to start I'm getting it in with a third of my range (rather than about 10-15% of my range with TT+ and AK). This sounds like it'd be a better strategy, and the fact other regs shove liberally to the first 4-bet suggests they've found that it works from experience, but it could be spew.

3. What are your standard value hands to 3-bet at the start? And what hands are you 5-betting with?

That'll do for today.

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http://weaktight.com/1969112 - He had AJ.

http://weaktight.com/1969113 - He tank folded. I'm not too keen on this one though, and I think if I bet the river it should be a little smaller to rep a wider value range or something.

http://weaktight.com/1969114 - This one worked. I think it should if you pick someone who's sane/good, but I probably didn't know enough to make this play, and most 2/4 or 3/6 regs probably just shrug and call a 5 here.

Feb 3

I only ended up playing 86 hands against this guy. He was definitely a reg, but I didn't know anything about him before the session. The match started out quite aggressively (I've been trying to 3-bet more) and I've lost a stack to him already by 3-betting 77 and then shoving into his TT that 4-bet.


http://weaktight.com/1969112

$2/$4 No Limit Holdem • 2 Players • PartyPoker

Generated by weaktight.com.

Hero	$416
BB	$834

• Pre-Flop ($6, 2 players)Hero is SB
• 

Hero raises to $12, BB raises to $40, Hero calls $28

• Flop ($80, 2 players)
• 

BB bets $44, Hero calls $44

• Turn ($168, 2 players)
• 

BB bets $92, Hero calls $92

• River ($352, 2 players)
• 

BB checks, Hero checks

This hand is fairly soon after that. He'd been 3-betting a lot so I think defending ATo is fine. I also didn't think he was 3-betting hands like AJ, KQ, KJ as his flat was quite high. I feel like I need to float this flop as good things can happen to me. We can check down and I win, I can bluff if I think it's a good spot to, he might barrel the T and A, etc. He bets the turn again and I think it polarises him to AA, AK, KK, 4x. I also think he's barreling all gutshots, flush draws, and just pure air a lot given the K. I think I need to call here again. River seems standard.

I guess I want to ask what line I should be taking postflop as standard without much history given my reads so far.

http://weaktight.com/1969113

$2/$4 No Limit Holdem • 2 Players • PartyPoker

Generated by weaktight.com.

SB	$1,021
Hero	$416

• Pre-Flop ($6, 2 players)Hero is BB
• 

SB raises to $12, Hero raises to $40, SB calls $28

• Flop ($80, 2 players)
• 

Hero checks, SB checks

• Turn ($80, 2 players)
• 

Hero bets $64, SB calls $64

• River ($208, 2 players)
• 

Hero bets $165 ...

This one's pretty much straight after. I hadn't 3-bet him since the 77 hand so I thought he might think I'd tightened up. When he flats I think this flop smacks his range pretty well so I decide to give up. When he checks back though I decide to double barrel as I don't think he really has anything strong enough to call. I can represent a few things as well - a flush that was looking to crai, a Kx that was pot controlling, even AA pot controlling. This look ok?

http://weaktight.com/1969114

$2/$4 No Limit Holdem • 2 Players • PartyPoker

Generated by weaktight.com.

Hero	$693
BB	$738

• Pre-Flop ($6, 2 players)Hero is SB
• 

Hero raises to $12, BB calls $8

• Flop ($24, 2 players)
• 

BB checks, Hero bets $16, BB calls $16

• Turn ($56, 2 players)
• 

BB checks, Hero bets $42, BB raises to $108, Hero calls $66

• River ($272, 2 players)
• 

BB bets $176, Hero goes all-in $557 ...

Here's something I was always going on about to you Chris. To check raise the turn for value he obviously needs 5x or 33. He'll check raise the flop sometimes with those - especially given we're deep. If he doesn't c/r the flop he'll just c/c the turn too sometimes. So he doesn't have that many value hands. Not only that, but if I flat and shove over his river bet he can't ever think I'm bluffing and he should fold a lot of those value hands. What do you think?