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

naked_eskimo

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I'm trying to get away from being a tight, ABC type player. I'm currently reading through Playing the Player and STOP! 10 Things Good Poker Players Don't Do.

Following the advice in those books, and elsewhere, takes me out of my comfort zone. In the past when I have tried to implement some strategies from books that I have read, or advice found online, I tend to fall flat on my face and spew money. I then get more risk adverse and just crawl back into my ABC bunker. I would like to get out of this rut.

I think part of my problem is that when I apply good advice, I either pick the wrong spot or I'm just not playing with a player base where that strategy is effective. I believe the fault to be mine, really, and not the game dynamics. I can't be the only player that plays with a group of players who are mostly too loose. They do tend to have seemingly no strategy to preflop hand selection. As such, they can show up in a lot of pots with literally any two cards. This means I run up against two pair river suckouts often. Things like that.

I want to 3 bet more preflop. I want to raise more without nut, or near nut, hands. But often my aggression is met with a call that finishes with a bad beat. So then my aggression withers as my stack evaporates and I pivot back to my version of ABC.

How do others pick your spots for aggression? Do you get played back at often? How do you deal with it? I understand that there will be an increase in variance involved, but it seems I always just run my face smack into a wall everytime I try to stray from my nitty, ABC style.
 
Oh boy... That's a whole lot of "it depends." And an appropriate response would be quite lengthy as you are really asking about general strategy.

Some general advice though:

You can generally play much tighter preflop than you think. Especially from early position. There are good resources out there for general opening ranges based on position.

Avoid playing out of position as much as possible. I can't stress this enough. It's not to say you should fold good hands pre flop OOP. But if you are going to play from the blinds with a raiseable hand, you generally should raise more than the size of the pot to try and end the hand ASAP, or to make the pot bigger post flop such that it's easier to justify getting all the money in.

When making "moves" post flop, a lot of what you want to consider is what are all the hands you could have given a board and what is a good way to play the weak, medium, and strong hands in that range vs your opponent's perceived range of hands. This is why often you should play big draws aggressively, as it gives you bluffs that have a lot of equity to balance with the times you are raising an actual strong hand.

Against weak competition, playing boring ABC poker is going to win most of the money. If you find opponents are never going to fold top pair to multiple streets of aggression, then bluffing becomes less important. If people are folding too often, or have shown they will lay down good medium strength hands, then you can punish them by firing multiple barrels more often.

Though again, against competition that call too often, you are best suited to play your big hands hard and fast. Don't think that your opponents are always cognizant of how tight you are playing. Often it doesn't matter. You could play no hands for an hour and raise and still get 4 callers.

This is some bare bones advice though.
 
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Yeah, like legend said, it's often a feel thing.
But I'll say this, if you play with a bunch of idiots, don't bother. You'll go broke. If I'm 3-betting "light" I'll only do it against players who are good enough to fold whatever they were raising with. Maybe I'll go after an opportunistic player who was raising in late position or on the button, but probably only if I think they're good enough to fold. I play a lot of cheap tournaments with very mixed crowds, and you have to identify your players. Some people are sticky calling stations who will call your 3-bet every time. You need to identify them and only go after them with the goods.
Another thing that I'll do when 3-betting "light" is to not be light. I like to do it with hands like 89 suited that can smash a flop, if I get called.
But to me, a tournament player, it's a feel thing, more than anything else.
 
Why are you wanting to raise light? Maybe some book you read or a pod cast you watched? One of the most important thing to grasp when you study your poker game is why advice is ( or isn't ) good. If you can't answer the basic question, "why raise light?"; you shouldn't do it.

If you villains aren't observant. If they don't make adjustments to your play. If the cast of characters are mostly or all level zero players, you don't want to stray from ABC poker.

However, no matter how obtuse your villains are they will eventually get wise to your game. This ***might*** lead to situations where you should stray from ABC poker. You didn't specify preflop vs post flop lines. But the reasons why you make a light bet often are different depending on the circumstance. I have some suggestions for a cash game. Tournaments are a whole 'nother situation.

You can make light bets to "advertise". You must get the hand to showdown for this to work, but stealing a pot is just as good a result. Let's say you are short stacked - playing $15 in a $0.25/$0.50 game. One of the LAGs makes a raise to $3 from early position and gets a couple of callers. You might 3-bet/jam "light" with a hand like pocket sixes or AT. These aren't bad hands but a little weak for an overbet/jam. Your table image should have everyone muttering "aces" or "AK no good" or something similar. The goal is to suggest to the table that your 3-bet range is wider / wilder. Let's gamble!

Post flop, you might raise light hoping to isolate one of the loose aggressive players. Say you have :qc::jc: in later position and make top pair on the flop - :qs::8c::5d:. LAG in the small blind leads, folds out the original raiser but picks up a caller before your action. I might raise here, hoping to squeeze out the caller and freezing the LAG into check/calling. Again, your reputation is essential. That raise normally says "I have a set, pay me off sucker". Hero has no idea if this is a value bet or not. But the table isn't expecting top pair / good kicker / runner-runner draw.

Position is important. So are stack sizes. Light betting is a fancy play for an ABC player. There are times and places for fancy plays and then there are terrible places for fancy plays. Be situationally aware.

Tldr: If you don't know why to use the play, you shouldn't do it. This is a meta game play. Position, stack sizes and villain read(s) matter greatly.

And remember, have some fun! -=- DrStrange
 
This question is too big and too vague to really put into a post, but overall find spots where you have a range advantage or spots you don't have a made hand yet, but tons of equity.
 
"Why are you wanting to raise light? "

The reason I framed my way too general of a question with that focus is that a common piece of advice/strategy I see is to raise more with non nut hands. Raising light was probably the wrong way to phrase it, but if I am going to raise more often, then it will certainly be "lighter than I am used to".

One of my key problems is player reading or situational awareness. That is probably why I take good advice and then apply it horribly :)

Apologies for posing such a general question. I do thank everyone for their input.
 
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It sounds then like you’re asking more about finding spots to sqeeze more value out of your opponents by raising or betting with non-nut hands rather than e.g. what hands to 3-bet light with pre-flop.

I think you would get more ”value” by posting specific hands that involved one or several decisions that you were unsure of. It’s difficult to give much more general advice on the subject than simply stating that you should valuebet or raise with a range of hands where villain have enough worse hands that s/he could call with. Obviously, that will be very villain/situational dependent.
 
Double-post
 
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I agree. One pretty constant piece of advice or strategy I see often in materials is to raise more. And I think I should be, but I don't. I fall into the nitty, only raise with top pair or better category, so anything other than that would qualify as "raising light" for me, anyway. I was just wondering how others pick spots to raise with without having top pair or better. Often I find when I do, it can tend to backfire on me.

Last night, I tried an experiment. I was following some of the advice in STOP! 10 Things Good Poker Players Don't Do and I committed to going the whole session without a single limp (other than BB). It was good. I don't know that it made me win more pots over the session, but it certainly plugged a bit of a limp-fold-to-raise, limp-fold on the flop leak. If I committed to only raising if I entered a pot (or calling a raise), then I am not leaking chips every time I think "oh, it's only one big blind, I'll see a flop cheap" with 7,5 or something, only to be raised out preflop or miss and fold. It curbed my urge to play marginal hands OOP if I knew I "had" to raise with the hand. Plus, I can't be "priced in" when I limp OOP and some puts in a 3x or 4x raise that gets called around and now I have the odds to call. Then I end up playing a bad or marginal hand OOP for 3x or 4x, then folding on the flop. That probably saved a certain amount over the session.

I understand there are times when limping can be profitable, but I think I need to sharpen my post flop skills before doing that as it always just leads to me folding to a raise preflop or a bet on the flop when I don't have the skills necessary to win the pot without a showdown.
 
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I agree. One pretty constant piece of advice or strategy I see often in materials is to raise more. And I think I should be, but I don't. I fall into the nitty, only raise with top pair or better category, so anything other than that would qualify as "raising light" for me, anyway. I was just wondering how others pick spots to raise with without having top pair or better. Often I find when I do, it can tend to backfire on me.

Last night, I tried an experiment. I was following some of the advice in STOP! 10 Things Good Poker Players Don't Do and I committed to going the whole session without a single limp (other than BB). It was good. I don't know that it made me win more pots over the session, but it certainly plugged a bit of a limp-fold-to-raise, limp-fold on the flop leak. If I committed to only raising if I entered a pot (or calling a raise), then I am not leaking chips every time I think "oh, it's only one big blind, I'll see a flop cheap" with 7,5 or something, only to be raised out preflop or miss and fold. It curbed my urge to play marginal hands OOP if I knew I "had" to raise with the hand. Plus, I can't be "priced in" when I limp OOP and some puts in a 3x or 4x raise that gets called around and now I have the odds to call. Then I end up playing a bad or marginal hand OOP for 3x or 4x, then folding on the flop. That probably saved a certain amount over the session.

I understand there are times when limping can be profitable, but I think I need to sharpen my post flop skills before doing that as it always just leads to me folding to a raise preflop or a bet on the flop when I don't have the skills necessary to win the pot without a showdown.
Just don't ever open limp or even be the 2nd limper would be my general advice. If the game is playing very passively preflop in that everyone is limping but never really folding to raises after they limp, then you can limp with the more marginal parts of your range and just try to make hands. But only if you don't think you will have a raise from behind you after you limp. This can be more profitable if your postflop skills in inflated pots aren't up to snuff.

Now if people are limping and folding, then you again shouldn't be limping. You should be raising in position to try and isolate a single limper (maybe 2) and knock out everyone behind you. Raise size should "generally" be 3-4x + 1bb per limper, + 1-2bb if raising from the blinds.

Again, very general advice.
 
Hey @naked_eskimo what type of games do you play usually? Cash, SNGs, MTTs, sure the theory should work throughout these games but it might help to know your preferred game type.
 
"Never limping" is a dubious strategy for many home games. I know there are strong advocates for a punish the limpers preflop approach. There will be games where never limping is a good approach, but you have to know what you are doing and why. < Eg a seriously TAG player can be effective with a never limp preflop plan because they fold their speculative hands preflop. And a competent LAG can also play never limp as part of their basic game plan. >

I would go so far as to say any poker guide that advocates a never limp strategy without an extensive explanation of the approach and when not to use it should be avoided. Never limping is a 'fancy play'. It can lead Heroes to take lines where they play high SPR hands in a low SPR environment where they lose money.

Our Hero in this thread could benefit from a never limp plan in two ways - if he is committed to a tight, position oriented preflop hand selection, then raise a away! Or as a way to mix up Hero's game, a couple of hours of "never limp" might prove beneficial. Or maybe not.

Hero needs to be mindful of hand selection and stack depth. If the game plan is never limp, he should be folding most of his speculative hands preflop unless the effective stacks are deep. The last thing a TAGish player wants to do is find himself playing a high SPR hands in a low SPR environment playing against villains who stack off on second pair. You prosper in these games because you value-own the villains, not because you bluff them out of their winning hands.

DrStrange
 
Hey @naked_eskimo what type of games do you play usually? Cash, SNGs, MTTs, sure the theory should work throughout these games but it might help to know your preferred game type.

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.
 
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For some perspective, I am working my way through a couple of poker books right now. The main one I have been focusing on is STOP! 10 Things Good Poker Players Never Do (Ed Miller, et al) Those 10 things specifically are:

STOP TILTING
STOP OPEN LIMPING
STOP PLAYING IN BAD SPOTS
STOP LIMP RAISING
STOP LEADING WEAK PAIRS
STOP PAYING THEM OFF
STOP MAKING SAME BET
STOP RE-RAISING ONLY NUTS
STOP SLOWPLAYING
STOP PLAYING BAD HANDS

Been trying to incorporate some of the advice from each point into my game. The stop open limping section was written by Doug Hull. In it he challenges the reader to commit to 3 sessions with no open limping AT ALL. Thought I would try that as an experiment. As noted, it does help with folding speculative hands.

I tend to be drawn to poker books that seem to offer simple language and simple strategies. A list of ten things not to do is something my brain will lock on to and absorb quickly and easily. If I want a dozen or more starting hand charts, I'll reach for one of my Jonathan Little books on NLHE or one of his books geared towards smaller stakes. I have about 5 of his books so far.
 
For some perspective, I am working my way through a couple of poker books right now. The main one I have been focusing on is STOP! 10 Things Good Poker Players Never Do (Ed Miller, et al) Those 10 things specifically are:

STOP TILTING
STOP OPEN LIMPING
STOP PLAYING IN BAD SPOTS
STOP LIMP RAISING
STOP LEADING WEAK PAIRS
STOP PAYING THEM OFF
STOP MAKING SAME BET
STOP RE-RAISING ONLY NUTS
STOP SLOWPLAYING
STOP PLAYING BAD HANDS

Been trying to incorporate some of the advice from each point into my game.
All great advice. I’m not sure what exactly you’re asking about in the OP, but you might be overplaying middle strength hands. Bet a polarized range on those rivers..value hands that beat at least 50% of the opponents calling range. Bluff with hands that are almost certainly gonna lose if you flip them over. Everything else you check. For example, if you have 3rd pair that isn’t gonna get paid off enough, but will win a fair amount at showdown, just check back.
 
"Never limping" is a dubious strategy for many home games. I know there are strong advocates for a punish the limpers preflop approach. There will be games where never limping is a good approach, but you have to know what you are doing and why. < Eg a seriously TAG player can be effective with a never limp preflop plan because they fold their speculative hands preflop. And a competent LAG can also play never limp as part of their basic game plan. >

I would go so far as to say any poker guide that advocates a never limp strategy without an extensive explanation of the approach and when not to use it should be avoided. Never limping is a 'fancy play'. It can lead Heroes to take lines where they play high SPR hands in a low SPR environment where they lose money.

Our Hero in this thread could benefit from a never limp plan in two ways - if he is committed to a tight, position oriented preflop hand selection, then raise a away! Or as a way to mix up Hero's game, a couple of hours of "never limp" might prove beneficial. Or maybe not.

Hero needs to be mindful of hand selection and stack depth. If the game plan is never limp, he should be folding most of his speculative hands preflop unless the effective stacks are deep. The last thing a TAGish player wants to do is find himself playing a high SPR hands in a low SPR environment playing against villains who stack off on second pair. You prosper in these games because you value-own the villains, not because you bluff them out of their winning hands.

DrStrange
I just want to make sure you didn't misconstrue my post as literally advocating to never limp. Because that's not what I said. In an abstract GTO strategy, never open limping is very likely correct. But obviously when trying to play to exploit, limping can certainly be correct. Even more so when stack sizes aren't super deep.
 
You prosper in these games because you value-own the villains, not because you bluff them out of their winning hands.

Poker for us mere mortals (Not @Rhodeman77 @Bmeister51 ) is this principle over and over. You don't bloat pots with bad / speculative cards and poor position.

I think @naked_eskimo has just been card dead as of late. 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 :7h: :4s: 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!

If and when (it's a pretty big if mind you) players start adjusting to your raises and tightening up their ranges against you, then you in turn can adjust to that. But if you're habitually playing the top 10 - 15% of hands in late positions, raising, and still getting multiple callers over and over again preflop, you don't have to change a thing. You're getting way of the best of it and your share of the pots will fall your way if you keep the faith.

Postflop is an entirely different animal but if you're raising appropriate amounts given the amount of limpers before you, pots should be at the point where you can leverage your whole stack to get the rest of it in on the turn.

Example 8 handed, $100 stacks for all playing .50/$1:

3 limps to you on the button holding :as::qc:. There's $4.50 in there already with the blinds. What raise size at this point now allows you to get your stack in on the turn after you also bet the flop? Preflop decisions lead to geometrically larger decisions as a hand continues that you choose to stay in. Not only that, but there's a lot of dead money out there for the taking. If you bring the hammer down on the table and raise to $10, one of 3 things happen:

1. Everyone folds and you gobble up the $4.50.

2. One of the limpers or the blinds re-raises you. Against a vast majority of players, you can happily fold as they're not doing that with a hand that's worse than yours. Maybe they're doing it with a hand you're flipping against, but even that is a bit of a reach.

3. You get anywhere from a single to multiple callers even after your large raise. THIS is what the raise is meant to do. Assuming you get 2 callers from the limpers, there is now $33.50 in the pot and you have $90 left.


Flop comes :qh::5s::8d: giving you top pair, top kicker. Both of the limpers check to you. You do not pussyfoot around and bet $10 - $15 here. You must bet close to, if not the full pot.

Say you bet $30 and get one caller. The pot is now at $93.50 and you have $60 left. You don't even need to look at the turn card, you just see what your opponent does. If he checks, you bet the rest of it. If he leads out for any amount, then you can evaluate what you need to do. By and large though, you should be getting the rest of your stack in as the pot is larger than the money behind. If your opponent sucked out on the turn or flopped a set on you, them's the breaks. But the times they'll call off with :qs::js: or :kh::qd: is what you're making money on which are far more plentiful than having a set stack you off.

If you're not thinking critically about your preflop raise sizing in order to accomplish the above, then definitely start doing so as this is how to win against a lot of opposition that play inferior hands.

I hope you start to thrive more in the future!
 
Since we started playing online due to stay at home orders, I am up just under $1400
This shocks me. Based on everything you’ve written, you sound like either a beginner, or somebody who’s just not very good. I’m not trying to be mean, that’s just the impression you given in this thread.
 
This shocks me. Based on everything you’ve written, you sound like either a beginner, or somebody who’s just not very good. I’m not trying to be mean, that’s just the impression you given in this thread.

Not offended, no worries there. Being candid and open with myself is crucial to getting better. Same goes for anyone offering advice or critiques.

Not a beginner. Been playing poker about 15 years. Been playing the same style and the same game, mostly, for all that time. I have played in local casinos maybe a dozen times, probably a little less. I used to play online a lot for real money, but not for a long time now and was not a winning player overall online. Now, it's just my weekly game pretty much and now with my online server.

I watch a lot of poker. I try to read about strategy. I am trying to develop into not just an ABC type player. I'm not good at all, but I'm never the worst player at the table. I am, however, the biggest nit at the table, I think would be fair to say. I think about the game more than anyone that I play with. I want to be better.
 
Poker for us mere mortals (Not @Rhodeman77 @Bmeister51 ) is this principle over and over. You don't bloat pots with bad / speculative cards and poor position.

I think @naked_eskimo has just been card dead as of late. 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 :7h: :4s: 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!

If and when (it's a pretty big if mind you) players start adjusting to your raises and tightening up their ranges against you, then you in turn can adjust to that. But if you're habitually playing the top 10 - 15% of hands in late positions, raising, and still getting multiple callers over and over again preflop, you don't have to change a thing. You're getting way of the best of it and your share of the pots will fall your way if you keep the faith.

Postflop is an entirely different animal but if you're raising appropriate amounts given the amount of limpers before you, pots should be at the point where you can leverage your whole stack to get the rest of it in on the turn.

Example 8 handed, $100 stacks for all playing .50/$1:

3 limps to you on the button holding :as::qc:. There's $4.50 in there already with the blinds. What raise size at this point now allows you to get your stack in on the turn after you also bet the flop? Preflop decisions lead to geometrically larger decisions as a hand continues that you choose to stay in. Not only that, but there's a lot of dead money out there for the taking. If you bring the hammer down on the table and raise to $10, one of 3 things happen:

1. Everyone folds and you gobble up the $4.50.

2. One of the limpers or the blinds re-raises you. Against a vast majority of players, you can happily fold as they're not doing that with a hand that's worse than yours. Maybe they're doing it with a hand you're flipping against, but even that is a bit of a reach.

3. You get anywhere from a single to multiple callers even after your large raise. THIS is what the raise is meant to do. Assuming you get 2 callers from the limpers, there is now $33.50 in the pot and you have $90 left.


Flop comes :qh::5s::8d: giving you top pair, top kicker. Both of the limpers check to you. You do not pussyfoot around and bet $10 - $15 here. You must bet close to, if not the full pot.

Say you bet $30 and get one caller. The pot is now at $93.50 and you have $60 left. You don't even need to look at the turn card, you just see what your opponent does. If he checks, you bet the rest of it. If he leads out for any amount, then you can evaluate what you need to do. By and large though, you should be getting the rest of your stack in as the pot is larger than the money behind. If your opponent sucked out on the turn or flopped a set on you, them's the breaks. But the times they'll call off with :qs::js: or :kh::qd: is what you're making money on which are far more plentiful than having a set stack you off.

If you're not thinking critically about your preflop raise sizing in order to accomplish the above, then definitely start doing so as this is how to win against a lot of opposition that play inferior hands.

I hope you start to thrive more in the future!

Great post and great advice. Thank you.
 
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
 
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
^^^This.

It's a huge fallacy that you need to bet near pot as a c-bet for a variety of reasons. If you know your players well though and they will call even with dominated top pairs, 2nd pairs, gutshots, then by all means bomb away. But to get max value from a more reasonable player's whole range you need to learn how to bet size appropriately given the board texture, # of opponents in the hand, position, and opponent tendencies.

Dry boards with few draws, and especially ones where top pair is unlikely to change, you can bet smaller. Like under half pot. Because it's hard for anyone to have anything. You would do this with nearly your entire range.

In multiway pots you can bet smaller. Which seems counter intuitive, but it's because people need to be very careful about calling bets when they aren't closing the action. And people can't call as light in multiway pots because they have more people to contend with.

Just some examples.
 
In multiway pots you can bet smaller. Which seems counter intuitive, but it's because people need to be very careful about calling bets when they aren't closing the action. And people can't call as light in multiway pots because they have more people to contend with.
If you're playing with people who know how to fold, of course.
 
One things for sure with free advice - you get your moneys worth. This is a terrible place to get better at poker.

I appreciate the argument and counter argument, though. You get to consider multiple opinions and maybe some will click better than others. That's not something you can get reading a book usually.
 
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Strategies are game dependent, there is no "one size fits all", and given the context of what I gleaned from the initial post this is how I feel to approach it.

I can't be the only player that plays with a group of players who are mostly too loose. They do tend to have seemingly no strategy to preflop hand selection. As such, they can show up in a lot of pots with literally any two cards.

you’re gonna fold out a lot of hands that you could get value from

If you're playing with people who know how to fold, of course.


This is the crux of it all here. Loose preflop standards generally don't translate into excellent folding skills when these players get a piece on the flop. LAGs are a whole different topic to discuss that don't really apply to this discussion, but my understanding is that the players in this game aside from the Hero are loose passive. If they're willing to chase their two pair hopes or their draw to the ends of the earth, why are we trying to give them the proper (or at the very least a cheaper) price to do so? 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!

With a massive range advantage against a lineup of this type of non-observant player, you ought to be at the very least raising larger preflop to allow you larger bet sizing as the hand continues. I'm not saying to vary your raise sizes on the cards you hold. I'm saying that the rationale of raising in this type of game is to take this type of player for everything they've got in one fell swoop. They're not playing back at you with air, checkraises are undoubtedly a signal that you're currently behind in the hand, and having top pair with any kicker is a license to continue. Knowing how simple it is to play against this kind of player, the betting and decisions you need to make can also be very simple.
 
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