Is this a -EV play?

D

Daithi

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Got wrecked by this guy and nearly punched a hole into the wall next to my pc as I am on a losing streak since joining GG. About 9 buyins down. Each day I lose more than I win no matter what I do! The worst thing is that GG doesn't save hand histories so I cannot analyse if I have serious leaks in my game, or a huge bad run, or bit of both. They have very basic reporting where I can see I have a bad run shamrock. My all-in EV graph is all below 0 on about 2k hands since joined. But my personal opinion is that all-in EV is only a tiny factor.

Anyway, so my biggest hand samples are at Full Ring cash, but GG has this 3blind FR which no one plays and it's all 6max.

Reluctantly I started playing them, as I know there's more aggression in comparison with Fullring. I started with single table first (no hud, serious note taking) to really practise and utilise implied pot odds in action, which I believe I did well. My +EV investemts never actualised. For example having a 12-15 outers on the flop IP. Started to build the pot and was being called whole way through. My outs never hit and I had to give up on River (at least 6 times). My sets don't flop. On the Turn I would build with a smaller bet or check sometimes. Sometimes mixed in a bluff raise after floating the flop. I was definitely running awful in that area where I was investing into implied odds which never came, so my investments are lost. Allin EV does not take that into account.

Anyway, this guy was multi-tabling like 3 tables. I was too at this stage. We played each other on another table as well. I had only around 20 hands mental note on him, quite small. He was aggressive preflop. A lot of 3 bet and squeezing from HJ, CO. I saw one showdown and his cards were very loose in comparison to his preflop aggressiveness. Here I was SB. I have a rag Q7o he is BTN. Normally I would fold, because just sometimes you get that hunch. I said to myself he 3bets lite a good bit he knows the drill to give up sometimes. I'll go for a tough 3bet to make him fold. The problem is that we was stubborn and couldn't lay down his KTs. I hit Q, so I have something to work with. 3 diamonds are slightly worrying, theres a possible Flush draw so we'll watch out for the diamond. I kead out to reassert my Dominance. Besides I have a bluff catcher and I am expecting his range to be loose to expecting him to attempt to outplay me. Not worried about the Flop flush which is only like 1%. Ace comes and I am worried now that he might have an A rag. He didn't fold my cbet. I am exercising pot control and curious what's his move. He bets 1/2 pot. I am hoping he wont bet the river. River I get 2 pair. I am certain he will pay dearly for his annoyance. I wanna stack him.
I bet, he reshoves and at that moment I knew he has the flush. But at this stage I had to look him up with 2 pair.
That was the last hand that made me quit GG poker cash games.

Was my play entirely bad in the context? P.S. I usually keep pots small from the Blinds even with AQo most of the time, unless isolating. I would even AK I would flat/3bet around 40/60, sucks missing the flop OOP. It was just taylored to his gamestyle.
 

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MrHachiman

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I think I have identified what happened to you on this occasion because it has happened to me too. You should not let your rival"s tendencies affect your game in this way. To begin with, you do not know your rival. That is, you can do it if you are obviously watching a great filtration in your game or you need to defend of his aggressive game so that it does not exploit you, but I do not think this was the case since you only had less than 50 hands of this opponent. That is a sample with a lot of variance that will only make you modify your game to adapt to something that you are not sure if your opponent is doing. So clearly pay in BB out of position with Q7o is EV- independent of the rival.

Even if you know he raise with nothing, it is very difficult for you to flop a hand of value once he has paid even out of curiosity. Although flop top pair can not be 100% sure that it is the best top pair. So, leaving your buyin with this hand is an error regardless of the context. Also, he is going up from the Button, if it were in SB it would have a little more sense.

The best thing you can do if you are starting is to play an ABC game and not modify it unless you are sure that your opponent is making big mistakes. Your game will be solid and winning and will help you not to make mistakes. Look at it this way, if you play correctly you will be earning money consistently when your rivals do not.
 
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Daithi

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I think I have identified what happened to you on this occasion because it has happened to me too. You should not let your rival"s tendencies affect your game in this way. To begin with, you do not know your rival. That is, you can do it if you are obviously watching a great filtration in your game or you need to defend of his aggressive game so that it does not exploit you, but I do not think this was the case since you only had less than 50 hands of this opponent. That is a sample with a lot of variance that will only make you modify your game to adapt to something that you are not sure if your opponent is doing. So clearly pay in BB out of position with Q7o is EV- independent of the rival.

Even if you know he raise with nothing, it is very difficult for you to flop a hand of value once he has paid even out of curiosity. Although flop top pair can not be 100% sure that it is the best top pair. So, leaving your buyin with this hand is an error regardless of the context. Also, he is going up from the Button, if it were in SB it would have a little more sense.

The best thing you can do if you are starting is to play an ABC game and not modify it unless you are sure that your opponent is making big mistakes. Your game will be solid and winning and will help you not to make mistakes. Look at it this way, if you play correctly you will be earning money consistently when your rivals do not.


I agree with you that the sample was small. You must remember that this is no HUD and you go by 1# Primary classifications e.g. LAG 2# Notes along with them e.g. P: 3bet HJK, Doubke Barrel TQo. You don't have much more really. Only the general classifications and notes on how they differ from those generalisations. Ex. high fold to 3bet.

On the one hand I do agree with you that the sample was small. I should have observed him for longer. On the other hand he showed a notable trait, he 3 betted about 3 times in 20 hands and I saw one showdown and he had garbage. That is a trait that should be noted and not brushed off. But I should have stayed away and focus on fish, his traits were TAGish/LAGish. I was bitter that he squeezed me earlier and losing 5 days got to me too. I picked a fight with a tough dog. To be honest it was Fit-or-Fold. I wasnt expecting to hit the queen on the flop and the plan was to give up if he called. But I did hit and he hadn't folded.

However, I don't agree that you should not adjust to tendencies. I think you do. Otherwise you play ABC. ABCs are considered bad regs. You'll get crushed playing ABC 6max. You get blinded too often. You get squeezed too often. But I agree to start off ABC for certain amount of hands.

P.S. I was leaving my BI with 2 pair.

Btw, my defend was from SB. I erroneously posted it as BB in original post.
 
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V

Vulpix

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I'm not sure if anyone else is having the same problem, but it is difficult to see the attached image, even after zooming in, but I think I understand the idea of what is going on.
"My outs never hit and I had to give up on River (at least 6 times). "
Without any context or further information, you may not always want to give up on the river. Try bluffing the river and see how it works :)
"Not worried about the Flop flush which is only like 1%"
While it is true that it is unlikely to flop a flush, when facing agressive action on such a flop, you should 'update your probabilities' with this new information.

As for the hand, when facing a BTN open in the SB, it is usually best to play a 3b/fold strategy, as it can be difficult to call and play out of position, especially when the BB comes along. Villains range will be the widest when opening on the button (OTB), so you are correct in 3-betting them light, but Q7o is too light. Better hands would be suited connectors (like JTs, 76s, etc), A2 - A5s because they can flop flush/straight draws and top pairs, and so on. Playing Q7o will be difficult because you can't make a flush or a straight, and the pairs will generally be weak. As mentioned, you let villain tilt you and negatively impact your decision making. There are many useful books that deal with the mental game, perhaps the most popular are by "Jared Tendler". I would highly recommend his books, and they will likely improve other areas of your life, too :) It isn't exactly clear how to handle such an agressive player, but in general I think you should simply play much tighter, and occasionally mix it up so that they will give you action when you have a hand. There are different ways to approach/solve the problem!

Lastly, I will say that it is easy to underestimate how much variance is involved in poker. For instance, if you have a (true) winrate of 5bb/100 over 50k hands (generally considered a solid winrate) there is a 13% chance that you will be losing over such a sample despite being a winning player! There are calculators online that will show you the impact of variance. I can't seem to post a link, but perhaps others can.

Good luck with your poker journey, and remember to have fun!

-vulpix
 
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3gdata

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[/Quote]Even if you know he raise with nothing, it is very difficult for you to flop a hand of value once he has paid even out of curiosity. Although flop top pair can not be 100% sure that it is the best top pair. So, leaving your buyin with this hand is an error regardless of the context. Also, he is going up from the Button, if it were in SB it would have a little more sense.


I agree with this. Even if you suspect your opponent of being very loose, playing Q7o on SB is a -EV play. Of cause you have to make a stand if some opponent makes wild moves every time, just don't do it with really garbage hand, and especially with a garbage hand plus being OOP. You just need to slighty widen your range againgst them.

P.S.: I don't fully trust online poker too, but your play in this case is just -EV, accept it.
 
D

Daithi

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Even if you know he raise with nothing, it is very difficult for you to flop a hand of value once he has paid even out of curiosity. Although flop top pair can not be 100% sure that it is the best top pair. So, leaving your buyin with this hand is an error regardless of the context. Also, he is going up from the Button, if it were in SB it would have a little more sense.


I agree with this. Even if you suspect your opponent of being very loose, playing Q7o on SB is a -EV play. Of cause you have to make a stand if some opponent makes wild moves every time, just don't do it with really garbage hand, and especially with a garbage hand plus being OOP. You just need to slighty widen your range againgst them.

P.S.: I don't fully trust online poker too, but your play in this case is just -EV, accept it.

The Hand's face value would be -EV. But this was played for Fit or fold defend. Only I didn't fold.
 
D

Daithi

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I'm not sure if anyone else is having the same problem, but it is difficult to see the attached image, even after zooming in, but I think I understand the idea of what is going on.
"My outs never hit and I had to give up on River (at least 6 times). "
Without any context or further information, you may not always want to give up on the river. Try bluffing the river and see how it works :)
"Not worried about the Flop flush which is only like 1%"
While it is true that it is unlikely to flop a flush, when facing agressive action on such a flop, you should 'update your probabilities' with this new information.

As for the hand, when facing a BTN open in the SB, it is usually best to play a 3b/fold strategy, as it can be difficult to call and play out of position, especially when the BB comes along. Villains range will be the widest when opening on the button (OTB), so you are correct in 3-betting them light, but Q7o is too light. Better hands would be suited connectors (like JTs, 76s, etc), A2 - A5s because they can flop flush/straight draws and top pairs, and so on. Playing Q7o will be difficult because you can't make a flush or a straight, and the pairs will generally be weak. As mentioned, you let villain tilt you and negatively impact your decision making. There are many useful books that deal with the mental game, perhaps the most popular are by "Jared Tendler". I would highly recommend his books, and they will likely improve other areas of your life, too :) It isn't exactly clear how to handle such an agressive player, but in general I think you should simply play much tighter, and occasionally mix it up so that they will give you action when you have a hand. There are different ways to approach/solve the problem!

Lastly, I will say that it is easy to underestimate how much variance is involved in poker. For instance, if you have a (true) winrate of 5bb/100 over 50k hands (generally considered a solid winrate) there is a 13% chance that you will be losing over such a sample despite being a winning player! There are calculators online that will show you the impact of variance. I can't seem to post a link, but perhaps others can.

Good luck with your poker journey, and remember to have fun!

-vulpix
I don't know why CC uploads the pics in such low res. Try this...
https://imgur.com/a/wQmPgSO

I really have to agree with you on almost every point! Especially on the fact that the Q7 was too light. I was actually thinking about this last night and came to the same conclusion that a 3bet range needs to be either very Tight QQ+, AK (Mix in occasional flat calls, especially with QQ); Light, here I would exlude broadways for their reduced flexibility and ability to make nuts. So I would go for JTs, 9Ts, 89s. Broadways would be better for flatting.

Then there's air fit or fold like 64s, 83s, etc. But I would not do em oop or almost never. Unless high sample on bad reg who folds to 3bets way to often.

The Q7 was a poor choice because it can make a decent pair with awful kicker and can't improve. In my case it miraculously did and it was really sicknening to lose with 2 pair. The A2s-A5s are tricky. Yes they can make the wheel and nutflush, the top pair can cost you dearly with that kicker. But for sure much better choice than Q7. It was a bad hand to 3bet with.
I noticed that its really difficult to get paid from flush draws or straight draws OOp. But the size of the pot might encourage more bluffing. I'd expect the 3bet/call A2-A5s from the blinds will have huge variance, as I'll have to give up most of pots unless I flop a draw. Top pair alone, if villain calls my cbet twice has me dominated.

Lastly, I disagree with the betting River. Id say one of the most important skills in a cash game is the mastery of Cbetting. They alone with River calls and River bets affect most of your winrate.

If you triple barrel lite or with semibluff and get called on the River and lose, you are burning crazy amount of bankroll. Now don't get me wrong I bluff the river sometimes when I sense villain was on a draw. But when the villain is a reg that doesn't give in to your Fcbet, Tcbet, he will always look you up on the river. It's burned money imo. And remember you lose the most from the river as the pot is the biggest.
 
Alucard

Alucard

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There's a lot of shady stuff going around GG & the whole network. Winning players getting banned & their accounts frozen, collusion etc.. Check on 2+2 forums there are a bunch of articles.
No comment about the hand cause I didn't take a look.
 
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Daithi

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There's a lot of shady stuff going around GG & the whole network. Winning players getting banned & their accounts frozen, collusion etc.. Check on 2+2 forums there are a bunch of articles.
No comment about the hand cause I didn't take a look.
Hmm..interesting. Anyway, I took my bankroll out last night and going back to a site where I can used my tracking software. All hands will be replaced with Villain, thats fine, but at least I can see my leaks.
 
VisionNutz

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Hmm Q7 pre flop..... yep low EV mate its a cash game right? Sorry I cant read all that stuff in the picture because its very blurry


Its a cash game and you enter the pot with Q7 - there's no pressure from blinds since the blinds stay the same and you can afford to fold.
 
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