blonde poker forum

Game is £1/£2 at the newly-opened Hippodrome. This table has been playing for about an hour and a half after amalgamating two half tables (ie. I have played a few hours previous with some at the table).

Stacks...

Me (BB) £700
Father (Straddle) £600
Villain (C/O) £650

The game has been pretty passive pre, generally only Ian or I raising IP over limpers. Villain in question has seemed pretty nitty, though on occasions a little stubborn post - recent history I raised over his limp, bet, bet on JJ39 board at which point he folded. Confident in my reads/assessment of my dad's game. I am probably perceived as (slightly overly) aggressive.

SB posts £1
BB posts £2
Straddle posts £5
UTG+1 limps £5
CO limps £5
SB folds
I call £3 with  9s Th (my dad has only bumped once from his straddle so seems fine).
Straddle checks

FLOP (£21) :  8s  Jc  Qs

What a life, I know.

I check.
Straddle bets £17
UTG+1 folds
CO calls £17
We.....??

Interested to hear thoughts on all options, excluding "Fold" naturally.

feels like a slam dunk raise, £65 i prob make it sets up dec pot/stack ratio on turns and rivers when we get favourable run outs

id prolly go bigger, river psr is not such a huge factor (its live, people call flops wider than turns, we have almost no pure bluffs). 90.

do you have a £100 chip? If not 4 £25's wll do. stare at everybody lookign at stacks etc, "well gotta find out where I am, Hundo."

Kick Father G under the table ldo. Taking £ off your old man just aint right! (Leave that to me and Mitch :P)

Money won off the father is just as sweet as money won elsewhere. I doubled through him half an hour previously AI with QJ on QJ9 when he had somehow found the K10. Jackball on the turn thank you very much...

With regards to the hand...

I guess my question centres around the concept of..."What is the optimal amount to inflate the pot (OOP with the vulnerable nuts with no redraw) on quite such a wet board". It feels like...

Obviously the optimal solution is to have all the discs in the middle (we have the blocker to the straight with the flush redraw). However, if we jam we lose value from our hand as villains pass essentially everything (can't really have a set as limped pre, don't think either calls off with two pair, both pass big draws due to impossibly poor price).

Just calling, whilst it keeps the pot small, seems a massive no-no, again for obvious reasons.

So....we're putting in a raise. If we look at two options....£70 and £100.

(A) If we make it £70 and are called by one of the villains there is now £178 in the middle. (Dependent on who we are called by Eff Stack is £525-575 on turn)
(B) If we make it £100 and are called by one of the villains there is now £238 in the middle. (Eff Stack is £475-525 on turn)

Are we not now in a horrible spot on a large number of turns? Basically thinking spades, tens, pair-ups and maybe even aces? Ie. something like 23 'scare cards'?

If we are assuming villain is relatively straightforward....what is our play on (a) brick turns and (b) 'scare cards'?



I'm rambling massively here....basically what I'm getting at is raising the flop seems the only option, but by doing so would seem to be putting myself in something of a coffin? Not too concerned against CO as think he will play v. straightforward but there's the possibility Father Gascoigne will take this opportunity to get OOL...

Tank make it 36 if anyone will spaz :-)

83 is a nice size

Deffo fold pre, and leading flop >>> checking imo.

This game sounds like a good one btw

really?

fold pre super deep for £3 with a non-gapper? No way.

I agree with leading.

Also that the game sounsd good.

Raise and keep betting as big as possible, if a bad card comes you can easily bet fold vs passive opponent.

I like £70 on the flop....... £77 vs Ian so he pays the rake when I scoooooooooop!

Also, calling pre all day.

Game was good, had been v good. Still got myself in a hole to start obv.

Didn't want to lead as hadn't done so oop all session so figured would look a bit iffy. Is this a spot live where such considerations are fundamentally irrelevant?

wow really? :P

Meanwhile Father Gascoigne is at work with the shares currently up 6.46%.

Echo the above, 100% call pre.

92 on flop

Easy bet folds on said "scare cards" otherwise ~150 turn, jam river

folding pre is obv better than calling,

problem is though, it's live poker where you only get 20 hands an hour so if you fold you dont get to play so I always call. plus you can flop the nuts and that's cool.

In for Plenos. Plenty wet enough to get called by lots.

Squeeze pre >>>>>>>>>>> fold> call

If I squeeze pre I am c85% confident I will get spite peeled/raised by my dad.

I raised to £69......and got two folds, with the CO open folding  Aspades  7s

Funny old game.

He's a bawse that's why

Got to keep me in my place as Gascoigne Jnr!!

Defo not this. You're almost always getting peeled by Father G and the limpers then we're oop with Thigh vs a bunch of people, all with hands that can dominate us, we're rarely dominating, we aren't suited and don't flop well. I'm certain that squeezing pre is the worst option.

Fold/complete pretty close.

Well it's easy to exploit just make it bigger to where we expect 1/2 callers who will fold a lot ost.

I think lack of squeezing is really weird thing I've saw from live players. Never understand it.

So why would we complete ?

Playing with initiative vs weka ranges who have limped behind and will have weak ranges on a lot of flops and turns is just such a big thing. 

Cos fish dont fold pre yo

fyp :)

yes true, cos if they folded post but not pre, then squeezing would be super profitable of course.

In this instance I'm specifically not squeezing pre for two reasons:

1. I'm oop. With or without the initiative I don't fancy this 300bb deep (yes its less cos of the straddle) with a pretty poor hand, especially when...
2. I expect to get 3b out of the straddle a considerable amount of the time if I try to pick up the 'dead' money. Even if Gascoigne Snr only peels I am far from loving life.

If the situation is Ian in the straddle, me on the BTN and a couple of limpers, i will squeeze v often as even if he 3bets me I am happy to peel/find the 4ball with other parts of range cos "he knows that I know"

Mine would be literally the complete mirror image of this

Yeah +1. Completing is okish here i suppose cos we're deep with bad players in the pot

why don't we want to squeeze?

genuinely very interested as its definitely my standard in these spots, but if folding/calling is better would definitely be happy to reconsider as its definitely a regular thing n live cash games.

Squeezing the button would be fine.

yeh its not even questionable imo.

Just everything Alex said about why we can't do it oop. People don't fold and it just gets messy. It's added variance you don't always need in a soft live game.

so we think their limping range = their calling range to the squeeze? i definitely disagree here and if we get HU to a flop then its totally fine. just flopzilla a limp behind live range, its going to be awful. we can double barrel and show a profit im sure.

I'm sure it would be +ev, but do you really need to take such a high variance line in a very good game like this? Additionally if the guy thinks his dad will peel can guarantee the limpers will as well

if its +ev then yes. folding/calling probably -ev so its taking the best optimal line in the hand right? if we make it 30 here or something i very much doubt we will ever get more than 2 callers, and probably very very rarely get more than 1. their ranges are super weak here.

We really will, if the first guy peels then every fishes favourite word "value" comes into play and we're 4way oop most of the time. Cbet £75 and even if we get one caller it becomes messy straight away. We just don't need it.

There is value in not wanting to get in a £600 hole, with the fish then suddenly realising he's got to leave, when we simply could do the standard make hands get paid in this game.

Whether a squeeze (it's a limped pot isn't it so not 'really' a squeeze) is good or not depends completely on the texture of the game and your image at that precise moment. Sometimes you just 'know' that everyone is playing snug right now and you've got a good chance of it getting through (or of getting only one caller and then making a profitable cbet on a ton of flops). Other times it is clear that the whole table is in no fold'em mode, in which case a squeeze would be utter suicide. Often the most important factor is your feel/read on the first couple of players to act after your squeeze (in this case it would just be Ian cos there aren't that many players in the pot)... because if one of these guys calls you are almost guaranteed a domino effect.

In the right spot a squeeze can be profitable in this type of game but, like I said, things have to feel just right. When I am playing well I make this move about once a session (I'm talking about squeezing after a raiser, rather than limpers as in the actual hh) in a loose weak game like this and almost always get away with it because I have judged things just right. When I am off my game a little I often try this move at the wrong time and feel like a complete muppet. So it is all situational. However, IMO in general a squeeze is usually going to be a slightly losing play in a loose 1/2 NL game full of cally wallys. And of course if a raise does not seem profitable at this precise moment then we have a nice easy call preflop, even though unsuited.

I agree that this would be much better on the button, and I'd need a reason NOT to make the play rather than a reason TO make the play. Also I think that in this texture of game this works much better in a limped pot like this one rather than in a raised pot where you are 3bet squeezing. Tbh, provided you don't need to make concessions to variance (and that's a big IF, since we all do) this is the sort of play that you should often just be going ahead with if you are unsure one way or the other. Because it is never going to be absolutely terrible, and it will put you in spots that will help you learn and improve.

Postflop... Ed you seem to be thinking about this situation the wrong way with all this 'raising would just put me in a coffin' stuff. This would be the right way of thinking about things if you'd flopped the nuts with no redraw on this board at PLO (in which case BTW, depending on the action you should very often check-fold given your position and stack depth). But you can't be as scared of monsters under the bed at NL. And even less so when you're worrying about future monsters under the bed. Leading is fine, but I'd lead BIG - perhaps even for an overbet. You're likely to get at least one or two callers on this texture of flop even with a very big bet, especially as I'd presume a fair few of your opponents are not even remotely price sensitive. Check-raising is also fine, but again... check raise really big, for the same reasons.

I'm sure it wouldn't.

There'd have to be pretty specific circumstances / ppl in the pot to make this a +EV squeeze pre. In 99% of live cash lineups this is mega spew.

Don't think calling is going to be -ev in this game, and if folding is -ev I'll give you the money myself

Thank you very much for such a well constructed and helpful post Mr HoneyBadger.


Was confident that if I squeezed here I am picking up a couple of calls most of the time. Also there is the very real possibility that my dad 'sits me down' with a re-raise cos he knows there is a real possibility I am squeezing light.


Not seeing monsters under the bed - realise my post probably came across rather negatively for a man who had just flopped the nuts 4-way. This was just a result of poor explanation on my part rather than my feelings towards the hand.

Leading with an overbet was something I didn't really consider. To be honest I'm not sure I even thought about leading for too long - felt quite out of flow with the game to date and the check-raise felt a lot more 'natural', though of course that isn't to say such an option is correct!! Think mentioned previously also that I was yet to lead oop in the session so perhaps there was an element of me wanting to keep actions consistent here.


So...in summary and as played, our options are:

(A) Lead flop big for an overbet.
(B) Check-raise flop big, with a plan to bet-fold scary turns/rivers?

Regards option B, is one of the benefits of check-raising really big that theoretically we fold out all but the strongest of draws making bet-folding on possible scare cards through the streets easier?

I reckon you are thinking about things the wrong way Ed, a little back to front in fact. We don't want to 'fold out all but the strongest of draws'. We want an opponent to call our big bet with whatever made hand and/or draw he holds. On a flop like this it is extremely likely at least one opponent has a pair or a draw, and it is also pretty likely someone will have some sort of combo hand like a pair plus gutshot or similar. My advice to bet really big was not to force opponents to fold these types of hands. On the contrary, it was based on the fact that most weaker players will NEVER fold hands like this on the flop, no matter what price you charge them... so let's take advantage of their likely lack of price sensitivity by making them put a TON of money in the pot with hands that are worse than ours. This is precisely the type of flop on which opponents' calling ranges are likely to be extremely inelastic (i.e. they will call a big bet with the same ranges as they will call a small bet). Their ranges shouldn't be inelastic on this type of flop, but they usually will be. So we bet really big to exploit this, not to force them to fold.

Reading between the lines, it looks like you may be a little too concerned about losing a big pot (I'm not specifically talking about this hand, more my inferences from some of the things you have said in this thread). You should stop worrying about this. Sometimes the most profitable play makes it more likely that you will lose a big pot. But you still need to take the most profitable line even when this is true.

I like it, and I think I've got it.

Thank you.

I know why it looks like squeezing would be better than calling but you literally CAN'T make those moves in 9handed live games with meh offsuit hands cos it never, ever, ever works.

it's been limped round, why does it matter if the hand was initially full ring?

3 more people to get through?

I've had to eliminate these squeezes as people just go "Not you again" and do something silly. I'd much rather peel 9To and squeeze K7ss though