GTO x Exploitative
Well... here we go!..
Preflop: standard.
Flop: I disagree with everyone here. On these type of boards I strongly suggest to check everything, including overpairs, sets and straight. QQ also would be check. Reason is that this flop is extremely good for IP caller, especially for loose caller who can have all sets and straights. On these type of boards, a lot of weak players start to bet OOP with overpairs and get stacked every time villain has straight or set. If you put this spot in piosolver it will show 90-95% check. For humans, it would be better to simplify and play 100% check and go from there. Betting with QQ is a bad play, however it's super good news that villain called you instead of raising. When villain calls this flop you can assume healthily that villain doesn't have set or straight, because villain should raise those hands with 100% frequency. Villain's call is awesome for your hand.
Turn: When villain called this flop, villain's range consists of flush draws, straight draws, two overcards and 7x hands. 8, 9, T, A and spade would be bad cards for you, because they bring A pair or two pairs, straights or flush. Second 7 is great for you because all villains draws missed and you should be very pumped. QQ is in a great spot and you should be happily betting here. You should never check, but if you check should do it with intention to check-raise. Especially with your queens, because you don't block straight draws and flush draws. Check is bad. Check-call is even worse.
River: As played on the river, you hand is a very clear check-call. You have a strong two pair hand, you block heart flush and you unblock missed spade flush draw. You shouldn't worry about T8, because villain would fold offsuit T8o preflop, sometimes raise them on the flop T8s and most likely wouldn't overbet with suited T8s combos on the turn. You block bet with a very wrong hand, because it is too strong to bet fold and weak to bet call. You want to block bet with hands that either easily bet fold, like 9x hand, or easily bet call, like full house. Block betting with QQ here is a huge mistake... As played though, when you bet and villain raises, I lean towards call, because of blockers. You unblock spade draws, which makes it more likely that villain has missed spade draw, and you block heart, which makes it less likely that villain has flush. I would fold QQ with a spade queen and call when you don't have Qs.
I'm sorry, on postflop you played wrong every single decision and deserved to lose this pot.
Hi there liuouhgkres, good evening, how do you do? Thank you very much for your candor and critics. It is paramount for our improvement to read to people who disagree. This is the way we form a complex process of thought.
You mentioned piosolver for the solution of the hand, that's awesome because it will provide us a GTO perspective of the game. Most of 2 NLHE players, from average regulars to complete fish, will elect to play a more Exploitative Strategy at the micros, instead of GTO Strategy.
I have nothing against GTO, I simply believe it doesn't work at the micros, and believe me, I tried a lot, and lost huge ammounts of EV trying to go GTO at the tables. So I decided to stop playing and evaluate what I really learned and applied playing poker.
Of course CardsChat helps me a lot with my gameplan and my study plan. CardsChat is like an university of poker to me.
That being said, I believe very much that if we play GTO at the higher limits (50 NLHE or higher stakes) we are going to have more success because we will be facing real thinking players, very hard to beat and so we must use the best strategy. (sometimes, of course, mixing some exploitative game with GTO)
But even good regulars at 100 NLHE will not play GTO when not necessary. For example, an average regular of 100 NLHE who is most likely to play GTO versus another regulars, raises in position and get called by a recreational player out of position. The regular has information such as stats and notes and volume of hands played to make the best postflop decision: he know that if it tries to play GTO with a player like this is would be less profitable, since we already know that recreational players are not thinking in levels of the game.
The regular will vary his bet sizings to be as much as exploitable as it is possible to be: the recreational out of position calls 80% of the time, so the regular in position opens 4x, having certainty that the player out of position is gonna call.
The regular picks some decent
equity in the flop and instead of betting small or checking, it will bet slightly higher bet sizings when it really has a made hand or a made hand plus a very good draw, because the recreational out of position simply loves to call! We deviate a lot from GTO when we are playing micro-stakes games, we almost never play it.
Betting this flop out of position versus a wild recreational is a bet for value that is going to be paid (good for us!) or raised (great for us!) a great chunk of the times.
On the contrary side, checking this low flop give us the riks of wild recreational to check-behind and complete its equity for free! Why sould we give our equity for free, knowing that the player will call in a wild nonsense frequency? We should be this flop versus a wild recreational almost 100% of times and it is a bet for value, not for bluff.
If the wild recreational called with 54 suited or one of the pairs that forms sets in the flop good for him! I don't believe, ever, that a wild recreational would slow play such hands such as two pairs, sets and specially straights (if the wild recreational puts chips in the middle with air can you imagine what it does when it hits a strong flop?)
We must bet this flop almost 90% of times against wild recreational. We must use even larger sizes, we can even bet pot very safe here and get called by a ton of trashes and marginal hands, in the best case a value hand that we beat (for example, the wild rec decided to call preflop with 99, TT, JJ, for instance, those are hands that the wild rec could be shoving river, given that the board is low).
Watching high stakes poker is a great way of wasting our time. We know that players who like to play GTO are playing crazy high stakes games such as 500 NLHE, 1000 NLHE and above. We hear about players like LinusLove or Charlie Carrell do this and that GTO move at the higher stakes tables, but it doesn't help us: high stakes poker are more showbusinness than reality, so of course they are show they are playing a "100% GTO Strategy" which seems crazy for the medium, small and low stakes.
I recommend not to watch higher stakes videos, specially if you play at lower stakes, such as myself 10 NLHE and under.
Regards;
Carlos 'Aballinamion' Barbosa
Regards;
Carlos 'Aballinamion' Barbosa
