+++ May Cash Game Thread +++

LuckyChippy

LuckyChippy

Cardschat Elite
Silver Level
Joined
Jan 28, 2009
Total posts
4,987
Chips
0
Thanks, at 6-max for the past few thousand hands I've been running at around 17/16 with a 3-bet of about 10. I think I have the beginnings of that area down. I'm tight pre-flop though I may be raising too many hands pre-flop (I bet that's not a usual beginners problem lol). I think my 3-bet is high but not too high, I am 3-betting light, but I don't think I'm going crazy.
 
F Paulsson

F Paulsson

euro love
Silver Level
Joined
Aug 24, 2005
Total posts
5,799
Awards
1
Chips
1
Thanks, at 6-max for the past few thousand hands I've been running at around 17/16 with a 3-bet of about 10. I think I have the beginnings of that area down. I'm tight pre-flop though I may be raising too many hands pre-flop (I bet that's not a usual beginners problem lol). I think my 3-bet is high but not too high, I am 3-betting light, but I don't think I'm going crazy.
There's more than one way to play 17/16, though. I'm not saying that you're doing it wrong, but give me a positional breakdown of your opening ranges, and we can start there. Also your default ranges for 3-betting from the button, SB and BB while we're at it.

I'm a little confused about how you can be playing 17/16 with a 10% 3-bet range, because that seems to imply that you're either 3-betting the "wrong" hands (e.g. things you should be flatting with) or some other range of yours is a bit off. I mean, you're not 3-betting small/medium pocket pairs or suited connectors in position, are you?
 
LuckyChippy

LuckyChippy

Cardschat Elite
Silver Level
Joined
Jan 28, 2009
Total posts
4,987
Chips
0
I'm currently on my laptop so I only have around 3k hands, though they are my most recent ones over the past few days. I do believe they mirror my play over the past say 10-15k hands though.

My positional stats are (UO preflop):

Early: 8.1, Middle: 10.3, CO: 22.6, Button: 33.6, SB: 31.2.

This results in exactly 17.8/16.2.

As for what I 3-bet, I've only very recently tried to make adjustments to this area. Against most raisers I'm playing small and medium PP's for set value, calling with them.
I'm trying to adjust my 3-bet ranges to 3-betting for value and 3-betting hands like low suited connectors that can fold easily to 4-bets, but play well on the flop should you be called. I'm still very much figuring this out though.
 
C

ComplexPlaya

Legend
Silver Level
Joined
Apr 14, 2008
Total posts
1,347
Chips
0
That's exactly what I look like three seconds after saying "well, Mr. Hat, he obviously doesn't have the straight" and half a second after him showing me the straight.

Good thing he didn't ask Mr. Slave! Oh jesus, jeeesus christ!!
 
F Paulsson

F Paulsson

euro love
Silver Level
Joined
Aug 24, 2005
Total posts
5,799
Awards
1
Chips
1
I'm currently on my laptop so I only have around 3k hands, though they are my most recent ones over the past few days. I do believe they mirror my play over the past say 10-15k hands though.

My positional stats are (UO preflop):

Early: 8.1, Middle: 10.3, CO: 22.6, Button: 33.6, SB: 31.2.

This results in exactly 17.8/16.2.
Looks good to me!

As for what I 3-bet, I've only very recently tried to make adjustments to this area. Against most raisers I'm playing small and medium PP's for set value, calling with them.
I'm trying to adjust my 3-bet ranges to 3-betting for value and 3-betting hands like low suited connectors that can fold easily to 4-bets, but play well on the flop should you be called. I'm still very much figuring this out though.
You have the right idea. Or at least you have the same idea I do. I don't like 3-betting stuff with broadway cards in it (unless I'm doing it for value) since I don't want to be dominated by a calling range. My 3bets (in position) tend to be stuff like 63s and 87o and the likes. My value range depends heavily on how wide the other guy plays back. Unless I'm up against someone who 4bets wide I typically don't 3bet jacks (again, in position) and if they really hate folding to 3bets but don't 4bet often, I can throw in stuff like AQ as well because they call with dominated hands often enough (AJ, KQs etc).
 
LuckyChippy

LuckyChippy

Cardschat Elite
Silver Level
Joined
Jan 28, 2009
Total posts
4,987
Chips
0
Thanks for having a look at my stats and sharing a little of your pre-flop thinking. One thing that I'm drilling in to myself, and possibly the best tip for a beginner I've been given is think. Why, why, why. All decisions should be made for a reason.

I've never thought of just calling with JJ pre-flop except in FR to an UTG open. I understand your thinking though.

What types of hands are you calling with and why? Broadways? Or is it only pocket pairs? I can understand calling with paint as the button vs a cut-off open. Is this the only situation?

I know these are some big questions and I thank you again for your responses.
 
LuckyChippy

LuckyChippy

Cardschat Elite
Silver Level
Joined
Jan 28, 2009
Total posts
4,987
Chips
0
Also, does anyone know how to mark a hand for later review while playing? I have no idea and I'd like to start doing it.
 
F Paulsson

F Paulsson

euro love
Silver Level
Joined
Aug 24, 2005
Total posts
5,799
Awards
1
Chips
1
What types of hands are you calling with and why? Broadways? Or is it only pocket pairs? I can understand calling with paint as the button vs a cut-off open. Is this the only situation?

I know these are some big questions and I thank you again for your responses.
My button calling range (default, not adjusting for tight/loose opens) looks something like 76s and better SCs, J9s and better one-gappers, 22-JJ, suited aces depends on position of PFR - AXs if it's CO, AJs+ if it's UTG, varying in between, don't like offsuit aces very much and typically don't flat anything worse than ATo and that's versus a CO open, KTs+, KJo if it's CO opening, KQo if it's UTG and... er... Did I forget anything? Oh yeah, QJo. Also JTo if it's CO that opens.

Pokerstove format of range: JJ-22,AQs-A8s,KTs+,QTs+,J9s+,T9s,98s,87s,76s,AQo-AJo,KJo+,QJo

... which puts my default flatting range at about 14%. My button 3bet% is 9% (says HEM), which means I should have a VPIP of about 23% on the button (when facing a raise). But I'm comfortable playing all of these hands postflop, and if you're working your way up from a solid foundation, probably toss JTo/QJo and use only AQs and KJs for the one-gappers, also keep out most of the suited aces and probably ATo. Suited connectors, you can trim out 76s/87s/98s. You don't really need to play KQo either except versus CO, and... I guess that covers most grounds. Add the rest of those hands once you feel you've nailed this range and can play all of those hands very comfortably.

Also, does anyone know how to mark a hand for later review while playing? I have no idea and I'd like to start doing it.
There's a "table" HUD that shows up. In that, you can click on hands you've just played and they will show up in a mini-HH in a new window. At the top of that window there's a check-box. Click it, and you can then sort for hands you've marked that way in HEM by selecting "Only Show Marked Hands" in the Reports tab. If you're using PT, I have no idea.
 
F Paulsson

F Paulsson

euro love
Silver Level
Joined
Aug 24, 2005
Total posts
5,799
Awards
1
Chips
1
Hey, cool. I just sorted the last three months in HEM for positions and filtered for "facing a raise." HEM says my button VPIP is 23%. I apparently know my ranges!
 
cjatud2012

cjatud2012

¯\_(ツ)_/¯
Silver Level
Joined
Mar 12, 2009
Total posts
3,904
Chips
0
I like this 6-max guide theme that's going on here... Very informative. I guess on a somewhat related note, how wide can we open on the button? Or on the cutoff? Like 35% and 30%? Less? More?
 
LuckyChippy

LuckyChippy

Cardschat Elite
Silver Level
Joined
Jan 28, 2009
Total posts
4,987
Chips
0
I'm glad to help, tee-hee.

Thanks FP, you've been a great help. I feel like I've got something to go at, get my pre-flop game super solid, and then I can build from there much more easily.

Thanks again.
 
LuckyChippy

LuckyChippy

Cardschat Elite
Silver Level
Joined
Jan 28, 2009
Total posts
4,987
Chips
0
One last question....for now....

These ranges are for a standard TAG? Say 20/17? Obviously I need to learn how to adjust to tighter/looser players and I feel it's better I learn that on my own for the most part.

Am I right in thinking that, for a looser player we 3-bet more air type hands, our bluff range widens, and our value range widens to more calls?

For a tight player we want to call less with dominated hands, broadways and such, obviously still calling with our PP's. Do we 3-bet less? I guess there's less value in it as we'll be getting 4-bet more.
 
LuckyChippy

LuckyChippy

Cardschat Elite
Silver Level
Joined
Jan 28, 2009
Total posts
4,987
Chips
0
I've got the urge to grind now :) just waiting to see what FP says and then I'm ready. Or 15 mins, whichever comes first lol.

Some really good advice here, not just for me, I'm glad this mini discussion got going, +EV for a lot of people I'm guessing :)
 
LuckyChippy

LuckyChippy

Cardschat Elite
Silver Level
Joined
Jan 28, 2009
Total posts
4,987
Chips
0
I like this 6-max guide theme that's going on here... Very informative. I guess on a somewhat related note, how wide can we open on the button? Or on the cutoff? Like 35% and 30%? Less? More?

Well FP says my stats look good, so around 30% on the button. But we need a reason why. We shouldnt be going, this looks pretty, I'll raise. We need reasons. If we have nits in the blinds, we can open nearly every hand, if they're super nits then we can open every hand. They're just going to fold and it's easy money.

If we have a fishy calling station in the blinds, we want to open hands that play well against them. That means broadway cards that will make TPGK and when he makes TPBK they will pay us off. But we don't want to play with trash against a calling station. We want to value town him and not get in to awkward spots with medium pair and worse.

I'm much better at telling how to play against fish lol, against good players, I'm not sure how to adjust. I guess your standard opening range, good cards and things like suited connectors that will play well on the flop, PP's.

That's my opinion, but I am the one asking for advice ITT :p

EDIT: 4 posts in a row without, I hope, spamming. Do I win a prize?
 
thepokerkid123

thepokerkid123

Visionary
Silver Level
Joined
Jul 31, 2009
Total posts
917
Chips
0
I like this 6-max guide theme that's going on here... Very informative. I guess on a somewhat related note, how wide can we open on the button? Or on the cutoff? Like 35% and 30%? Less? More?

A range of 100% on the BTN, imo.

I'm starting to convert a bit to a little tighter, but anything up to 100% is fine for an open raise on BTN.

CO is really dependent on how tight the BTN is.
 
LuckyChippy

LuckyChippy

Cardschat Elite
Silver Level
Joined
Jan 28, 2009
Total posts
4,987
Chips
0
A range of 100% on the BTN, imo.

I'm starting to convert a bit to a little tighter, but anything up to 100% is fine for an open raise on BTN.

CO is really dependent on how tight the BTN is.

Opening 100% OTB regardless of villains is bad IMO.
 
thepokerkid123

thepokerkid123

Visionary
Silver Level
Joined
Jul 31, 2009
Total posts
917
Chips
0
Table selection should give you nits on your left, even good regs are fine because they'll get out of the way unless your raise size is too big (i.e. exploitable).

I agree though if they're too loose then you tighten your range and actually make more money BTN vs blinds. Dropping your range back into the area of 40% is necessary in these situations.

When you're open raising from the BTN, loose is right.
 
blankoblanco

blankoblanco

plays poker on hard mode
Silver Level
Joined
May 16, 2006
Total posts
6,129
Chips
0
if good regs let you profitably open 100% of buttons then they aren't good regs
 
Wes747

Wes747

Visionary
Silver Level
Joined
Mar 30, 2009
Total posts
550
Chips
0
100% is very exploitable. Definitely not a good range.
 
thepokerkid123

thepokerkid123

Visionary
Silver Level
Joined
Jul 31, 2009
Total posts
917
Chips
0
This one is so far past being even in doubt...

Drop your raise size to 2-3bb and the blinds cannot profitably defend against your ATC, even if they know you've got ATC.
 
thepokerkid123

thepokerkid123

Visionary
Silver Level
Joined
Jul 31, 2009
Total posts
917
Chips
0
Just to be clear, the only reason to raise a tighter range is to exploit them more post-flop and it takes a lot of extra profits post-flop to make up for all of the money you'd make unexploitably pre-flop.
 
blankoblanco

blankoblanco

plays poker on hard mode
Silver Level
Joined
May 16, 2006
Total posts
6,129
Chips
0
This one is so far past being even in doubt...

Drop your raise size to 2-3bb and the blinds cannot profitably defend against your ATC, even if they know you've got ATC.

um, the blinds are allowed to 3bet. good players will 3bet the shit out of you if you try this, and they can pick the right parts of their range (i.e. the top and semi-bottom) that makes it super hard for you to do much about it with your ATC. and then they can flat with a middling part that plays fantastically well against ATC. also if you're planning on c-betting a bunch -- which i'm pretty sure you are since you will usually have air -- they can even flat preflop with whatever they want and then c/r the hell out of you on the flop because you have junk the majority of the time. etc. etc. like i said, if you can profitably raise 100% of buttons with "good regs" in the blinds, i doubt they are actually good regs

i'm curious what stakes do you play?
 
thepokerkid123

thepokerkid123

Visionary
Silver Level
Joined
Jul 31, 2009
Total posts
917
Chips
0
They can't 3bet often enough without being too exploitable themselves, that's their problem.

2bb is the more effective size for this so I'm going to use that as the example, the bigger the sizing the less effective this wide range is.

BTN and both blinds have 100bb, BTN bets 2bb, blinds have posted a combined total of 1.5bb, BTN needs to take the pot down uncontested about 60% to show a profit. Assuming we lose every single time we're contested. Remember if the blinds actually play back at us quite wide, we're going to play back fairly wide ourselves and are not going to lose all of these where we get contested, but since it's really hard to quantify (and I just suck at maths) I'm going to ignore that and assume we always lose.
So we need them to have an average VPIP in the blinds of less than 20 each. (!)

Ok, so ignoring how profitable that is. Wont raising ATC cause them to play back?... um, how? They're in the blinds, good blind defence is occasional 3bets and otherwise lying down and playing dead.
If they call, then we get a ton of equity. Calling is obviously really bad vs a range that's so wide we've got to dump the vast majority of it to a 3bet.
If they 3bet then what sizing are they going to use? 3x? 4x? 5x+?
3x= BTN raises 2bb, SB folds, BB raises to 6bb, hero faced with a decision to call 4bb getting 2:1 pot odds. SPR of 7.6 (after the call), IP. We're calling pretty wide here.
4x= BTN raises 2bb, SB folds, BB raises to 8bb, hero faced with a decision to call 6bb getting 1.8:1 pot odds. SPR 5.8, IP. Not as good as 3x but we still have a fairly wide calling range but villain is risking 33% more than when raising 3x and the only real additional problem caused for us is the SPR, but the increase in raise size gives us two advantages: first, he has to do it less frequently, second we can fold more often when he does 3bet.
Once we start going 5x and higher it turns into the same logic as why we never raise 5x+ anyway, we're risking too much for what we gain.

There's a whole bunch of complicated stuff when we take this post-flop, but in the interests of keeping this at a readable length, I'll just leave that subject with just: If you're unexploitable pre-flop you're making money from that position, just don't spew horribly post-flop, and you gain a lot of equity every time you're allowed to see a flop. FWIW, I think your cbet % should actually be really low just because your range is weak, but again, that takes some explaining.


There was a bit of a typo in one of my previous posts saying that the blinds can't defend profitably, well, they can if we ignore the amount of blinds they have to give up. They can get out of the way most of the time and 3bet occasionally and their without blind stat will be positive because we're folding a lot more than we're playing back but in order to do this they've got to give up a ton of blinds.
 
Last edited:
F Paulsson

F Paulsson

euro love
Silver Level
Joined
Aug 24, 2005
Total posts
5,799
Awards
1
Chips
1
One last question....for now....

These ranges are for a standard TAG? Say 20/17? Obviously I need to learn how to adjust to tighter/looser players and I feel it's better I learn that on my own for the most part.
Well, my VPIP/PFR is 22/18, I think. I'm not on the right computer to tell you exactly but it's in that vicinity.

Am I right in thinking that, for a looser player we 3-bet more air type hands, our bluff range widens, and our value range widens to more calls?
You mean versus a looser player? I guess you could mean "if we want to play looser" too, but answering versus a loose opponent: It depends on how he's loose. If he opens very wide and calls a lot of 3bets, then the obvious adjustment is to widen our valuerange (possibly a lot) and not bluff so often. In fact, versus someone who doesn't fold often to 3bets, we don't have to have many bluffs at all in our range, if any. If he opens wide and 4bets often, then we should also widen our valuerange, but only to include hands we're somewhat happy shoving over his 4bets, e.g. TT/JJ. A lot of people start adding AQ to their range as well, but I don't. There's a huge equity drop between AK and AQ versus an all-in range, and AK isn't even in that good of a shape to begin with, even versus bluff shoves. So against a loose/aggressive player, I keep my bluffrange intact and widen my value range just a smidge (adding TT and JJ, essentially).

For a tight player we want to call less with dominated hands, broadways and such, obviously still calling with our PP's. Do we 3-bet less? I guess there's less value in it as we'll be getting 4-bet more.
I know I mentioned domination issues above, but outside of cases where our SPR is low, I don't worry too much about domination. You can still flat AQ on the button versus a tight UTG opener, because flopping an ace versus AK isn't going to cost you your stack. This is not the case if you flop an ace with AQ vs AK in a 3bet pot. And I do not make my 3bet bluff range thinner against tight players. They still fold often enough. I do make my value 3betrange tighter though, specifically only 3betting AA and KK versus their UTG opens. I could talk more about that (and some people might be surprised that I'm not valuetowning QQ on the button) but I'll leave it for now.
 
Jurn8

Jurn8

Legend
Silver Level
Joined
Jul 3, 2008
Total posts
5,348
Chips
0
Ok, so ignoring how profitable that is. Wont raising ATC cause them to play back?... um, how? They're in the blinds, good blind defence is occasional 3bets and otherwise lying down and playing dead.

really?have you seen some of the aggro low/mid stakes games? You would just get 3bet the shit out of like you should because good blind defence is about adjusting to players/table conditions, same as any other form of poker + if your stealing a tonne you have to do something about it. If you then start calling wide, their value range just increases and bluff range tightens.
 
Real Money Poker - Real Money Casinos Top 10 Games
Top