How do you pick your spots to raise light? (1 Viewer)

[naked_eskimo]

These players do not see the forest for the trees. All they see is a bet in front of them and that's how much they need to call. They're not considering stack sizes, future streets of betting, or above all else, the actual ranges of what the Hero has here. The poor player just thinks in absolute terms of pursuing their hand for a price that may be higher than normal. But that doesn't matter to them. If they can hit their hand, they could win, so time to gamble it up!

That is dead on, bang accurate! To them, I am that poker nerd that talks about position and ranges as if they were important things.

 

[FiveThous]

Lately it has all been online on my poker mavens server. Two weekly tournaments with 15 - 24 ish players, but mainly ring games with anywhere from 5 or 6 or on some nights up to 10 players. We play .50/$1 NLHE

Prior to that, a weekly home game with the same group for the same stakes.

I'm not doing horribly. I don't track my live games well enough, but on my server I can run a script that provides a running tally of up/down for everyone. Since we started playing online due to stay at home orders, I am up just under $1400 One guy is up $4600, putting him way in the lead with another guy at $2700 and me trailing in 3rd at $1400 Some other guys are taking a beating, with a couple well over $2K in losses so far. We started playing on my server around April 2nd.

In a MTT, I think you can generally start to 3bet hands lighter as you get closer to a FT bubble. Players start to tighten up towards the FT or once they reach it hoping to cash.

 

[Degen_Ethan]

Try to get to understand opponent tendencies so you can choose good spots to raise as bluffs or semi bluffs. I may fast play draws against a player who isn't an absolute calling stations, or raise an aggro player when I have backdoors and they are c betting too frequently. Obviously, everything is situational, but always have a plan for how you are gonna play out the hand based on the runout. Think about what kind of range you put your opponent on, and would they fold that range to barrels on future streets. Know when its the right time to give up on a bluff. Trial and error.

 

[GenghisKhan]

My group sounds very much like OP's.
Many players willing to call til river to hit runner runner flush or straight or 2 pair.

My table image is that I mostly always play 2 face cards, good pairs, suited connectors such as 89.

I've been playing more aggressive lately, similar to @Kain8 's comments. And it's been paying off with multiple 1st place, 2nd place finishes in our Pokerstars tourneys.
Also, pretty much every game I have been chip leader at the halfway point.

When facing limpers, I've been raising 3-4x BB + each bb limp. Usually that narrows the sb, bb, 2 limpers to 0 or 1 caller. Sometimes 2 but not veryboften at that price.

Continuation bet on the flop+turn will win me a huge majority of hands. I rarely get to river or need to showdown.

The 1 thing I've changed though is my postflop bet size. Where I used to bet the pot, or 3/4 pot, I'm finding that 1/3 pot has the exact same results lately. Not sure if that will continue to be the case, we'll see.

The crazy caller will call no matter what. So why risk a pot size bet when 1/3 will do? If he hits his out and starts raising into you, it's much easier to fold.

But with a similar group as OP and Kain8 example, I'm winning about 70% of the hands on the flop, or turn. The ones that called to the river, and the river card is a flush/straight maker, this is where I'm no expert so I'll stop here lol.

 

[naked_eskimo]

I agree. I also have been adjusting my c bet sizing, with or without air. Finding more folds from people than I would have expected as well. Also, if someone sticks around to the river and plays back hard, I've come to learn that, with few exceptions, they are not bluffing.

I recently folded AA on the river after the caller raised my river bet on a dry, kigh high board. He flashed K7 off for two pair. Although the result was good (I saved calling a bet when beat), I still struggle with whether or not that is a good thing to do over the long run. The last thing I want is to become exploitable to any river raise.

 

[upNdown]

I agree. I also have been adjusting my c bet sizing, with or without air. Finding more folds from people than I would have expected as well. Also, if someone sticks around to the river and plays back hard, I've come to learn that, with few exceptions, they are not bluffing.

I recently folded AA on the river after the caller raised my river bet on a dry, kigh high board. He flashed K7 off for two pair. Although the result was good (I saved calling a bet when beat), I still struggle with whether or not that is a good thing to do over the long run. The last thing I want is to become exploitable to any river raise.

I think the nice part about having a home game group is you don’t really have to worry about whether you’re becoming exploitable like that - you’ll just see it happening. Either some guys will catch on and start doing it, or they won’t. And you’ll see it happening and identify it and adjust accordingly.
When you’re playing against unknown opponents, that’s where you really have to worry about holes in your game. And making the right adjustments against unknowns - I guess that’s what separates us from the pros.

 

[Schmendr1ck]

When you play the way that you do, it gets really boring even for the most patient of players folding over and over. Then you see someone winning with a holding for a 200bb pot and you question what the hell you're doing. If that player can win with that garbage, then so can I!

For a long time playing casino 1/2NL, this was a source of tilt and excessive loss for me. The damn donks would win pots with hands like this while I was playing ABC and slowly bleeding - WTF? I might as well start limping the trash like them, get lucky, and scoop a big one!

But in that type of game, it's ridiculously -EV. When you're at a table of players who hold ATC and tell you what they have nearly every hand by the way they bet, it makes no sense. You want to have a range advantage: better kickers, higher pairs, hands that can make the nuts.

As you play against better players, you definitely want to widen your range and add more plays to the playbook, but even then (at least for me), trash hands go in the muck the vast majority of the time.

One things for sure with free advice - you get your moneys worth. This is a terrible place to get better at poker. The AQ hand is exactly what you DONT want to do. Betting pot on flop and turn on such a dry board...you’re gonna fold out a lot of hands that you could get value from, and the remaining calling range has you crushed. So they flip over some garbage 2 pair that shouldn’t have been profitable pre, everyone chalks it up to lucky donk playing ATC, but in reality the postflop line by the button was 10x worse from an EV perspective

I agree with you and @Kain8 - you're both right. Some villains never fold top pair, and his line is going to be the most +EV line you can take. Others, you have to reduce your bet sizing to keep more of your villain's weaker hands in his calling range, so in those cases your line is better.