Thoughts on these cash game strategies?

quick

quick

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As many of you know I play both online and live. There's three particular strategies (or some might call "lines") that I either employ myself or see other players employing. They stand out to me as potentially being either a line that is hugely profitable or can greatly limit the potential profit in a particular hand depending on variables of the hand itself.

So that said what are your thoughts on these lines that people take. Are they profitable, too risky, too conservative, too predictable? Looking for any and all input and opinions:

Line 1: We want our villains to pay for their draws. And we want them to pay when they are not getting the correct odds to call. So we want to make sure our bet accomplishes that goal. I see lots of players online over betting pots against a single villain when a scary draw heavy board comes out. Live sometimes. But in both environments you either see players who bet way too much to block a draw OR bet way too little giving odds to call. I tend to strike a balance.

I want to bet enough so they aren't getting correct odds, but not so much that it scares them off or is blatantly obvious I have a hand I'm trying to protect. Some players feel that the goal of a big bet to give bad odds is to induce a fold and take the pot right there. I feel like that reduces the potential profit and doesn't seem like a generally long term +EV play unless we're running a bluff here. So my strategy has been to bet just slightly more than is needed to give bad odds to call and chase. Thoughts?


Line 2: The betting your own draws line but not small pot building/exploratory bets but pot size or larger bets.

I've seen this a lot more at 6-max than full ring and at first it baffled me. Why would you pay money to potentially a.) block your own draw if villains fold and b.) end up missing your draw and needing to either make a huge river bluff or take the loss. Over time I came to understand that this move was employed at times when one is already holding a decent hand (i.e. TPTK or TP) on top of a strong draw like flush or straight. So you give yourself a chance to win the hand at showdown even if you miss the draw. I also realized that this often confuses the villain and can screw up your own betting strategy if you're trying to block the draw. You start to wonder whose blocking who. I've experimented with this more recently but have had difficulty in determining the correct bet size...if i bet too small they call sure and I build a pot...but if i miss then I'm stuck wondering whether I'm behind on the river. If I bet to large on my draw, I risk them folding and I've blocked myself. Thoughts?


Line 3: The tank/river shove or the check raise river shove. I hated this move early on. It didn't seem +EV at all because if we're not building the pot throughout the hand, how often are villains calling a huge over bet into a small to medium size pot? Sure if you're shoving all in 20% of the pot, you'll get calls more than if you're shoving 300% of the pot but for a while I struggled to understand this logic. You're either risking way too much to win a small to medium size pot if your shove bet is much bigger than the pot or you're simply missing out on value when you hold the best hand and expect to be called by a weaker hand or a bluff catcher. However, I started testing this line out at 6-max on very specific boards where I'm holding the best hand and found it surprising how many calls I would get. For example if we;'re on a flush draw board and we hold a set and villain keeps betting, turn brings a likely flush or a high card and villain only bets a small amount, we call, hit a full house on river...we can then either check/shove as they'll likely make a small bet or just tank then shove and get called by what I assume is someone who doesn't believe the large overbet shove and calls hoping to catch a big bluffer. What I mean by this is that I've been trying out this technique when we hit a huge hand on the river that seems very unlikely to have had hit given the betting lines thus far in the hand and the board texture. Thoughts on this?


Discuss.
 
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Sidetracked

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I don't think any one strategy is good for all situations and opponents.
 
Masi2197

Masi2197

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The strategy is placed by the player depemdiendo the tournament, their rivals and their stack ... so any strategy is good if you gave success
 
rari458

rari458

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Great breakdown of the strategies! I myself see a lot of the Line 2 style occurring online, aggressive marginal hands.
 
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