Looking for some feedback on my strategy in an interesting spot.

The BTN straddles and is known to raise this straddle with a wide range. I am in the SB so I have to act first preflop and post flop. A raise is usually met with 3-4 callers.

I dont want to raise with hands that play poorly postflop because I expect to be OOP in a multiway pot so I developed a strategy of limp shoving hands some marginal hands that are profitable vs capped and weak ranges.

My default range for this is 99-JJ, AQo+. These hands are difficult to play in this spot. I added QQ for balancing purposes. That gives me 24 pairs and 24 unpaired premiums.

Against villains who I anticipate will straddle and raise their buttons wide, I add in 88 and AJo. Otherwise, I just fold these preflop most times although Carloose does limp then from time to time for cheap if he gets bored.

If there is no raise, I have the strongest range, but play cautiously post.

If there is a raise from the middle of the field, I “play poker” according to who raises, stacks, etc.

If my targeted villain on the BTN raises his straddle as expected, I shove and expect to take down the dead money or race with overlay the vast majority of the time.

Any feedback on this strategy is appreciated.

jacobsharktank said:

Hey dude, the limp/reraise against a wide gambly raiser is one of my favorite live cash game changes. If you're shoving, why don't you try it with like AJ/AT as well? If villain just opens up a ton once it gets through, youll have say 4 limps + his 5x or whatever, you have 9sbb when effective can be 20-lots. I know you used to come in short or play 1 bullet. If you have 100-150, a shove would be 100 over 45ish or 150 over 45ish where he then needs 2:1 or 3:1 

 

Can I ask why you want to limp/raise hands like 99/TT instead of raising and playing post flop, even accounting for the btn's wide raising range when limped to. I don't mind the idea of treating stacks like tourney equivalents, but if we have $200-300 and a $5 straddle, are you opposed to 3ish-xing and playing a bigger pot? put in 17 of 250 and you can set mine as the aggressor. straddled pots make it easier to get all in, and if youre still correct to be able to set mine, i'd like to do that because when i hit its far less likely someone who hits the board at all to get away from their hand. A92 on and 65 pot and you have 99. If you put in like 17 you have 230ish behind. so spr is only 4 now. this dynamic sort of only happens because you said even in straddled pots ep raises will still get multiple callers. because you get callers on your open, youre getting the right price as if you had called someone elses open in a multiway pot. you also can obv cbet some good boards and dbl barrel some good boards for value even. it becomes less and less likely, but because spr is 4, you imght even get trpile barrel value out of someone who has like top pair or pair+some kind of draw on some run outs too. just a thought!

1. If I add AJ and AT without adding some pairs, my range will become unbalanced and too wide. I do this sometimes, but not as a general rule like I do with my stated range. That one is not player dependent.

2. I dont raise 99 because it will go 3-5 people to the flop and I will only hit that set 12.5% of the time. Most times, I am looking at an over card, a ton of villians, and no hope after a flop c-bet gets called. I dont know if I can recover all the whiffed opens and unsuccessful c-bets the few times I do get stacks in good.

By limp shoving, I allow the table to tell me “we have nothing, but here's some money anyway” before I stick my stack in. Raising seems to give them what they want which is a chance to see a flop and try to hit something better than me by showdown.

If I have 99, I wont give them that chance. If I have AA, they can spin the wheel.

Julius187 said:

New to the thread after hearing about it on the thinking poker podcast, but figured I'd contribute as I play a lot of small stakes cash. So apologies for not knowing reads/tendencies if these are regulars as well as your own play style (these would all factor in to giving the best possible advice/analysis). I don't know what BMW is (I feel like this is a reference of a player type from a 2+2 thread but I can't find it)

 

Well what hands is BMW likely to show up with here? We block all the Axdd, so there aren't as many flush draws in his range, he can have KQ,KJ,QJ,JT,T9,98(?) more or less depending on how loose he calls pre throw in more SCs, one gappers. etc. I think much more of his range is going to be small overpairs (who folds these in 1/2?) like 66-99. I would think the bigger pairs are going to 3bet most of the time. He can also probably have all sets in his range too and those are consistent with a flop raise.

 

Sets are not folding here, so I think our value target should be the small overpairs. If we shove, we take the play away from him to make the last bet with his weaker flush draws, and we also make him have to make a hero call with his small overpairs. While probably exploitable, I think a better option is to make a really small 3bet to $95-$100 or something weird like $101. No matter what we do we are going to look strong, but we want to offer him AMAZING pot odds to continue as almost all of his range is drawing dead against our hand. He's going to look at this bet thinking wow I'm probably never good here, but how do I fold when its $42 more and theres like $200 in there? And then we hook him with a $65 turn bet. Our river shove probably doesn't get called too often, but I think it's worth it to get more money on the flop from a range that's going to have a hard time continuing no matter what you do.

BMW is just a code name for a guy I know.

What do we do with Ad8d here?

Calling was my second choice in this spot over clicking it back. How do we play most turns after cold calling flop?

Thanks everyone.

The problem I faced is that I had a hand that I know I could play for stacks with a ton of over pairs given that this is a very loose 1-2 game and my shove looks like a flush draw. I fully expected at least one of them to call me with hands like TT, 99, and combo draws. With that being the case, I did not want to let any over cards or blanks roll off on the turn and I definitely did not want the turn to check through.

Maybe my issue is with the stack sizes meaning, I think this is clearly a shove with $200 and clearly not a shove with $400.

Hate to keep harping on the Ad4d hand, but I got some feedback from Andrew about it because I am going to use it in an article for Learn.Pokernews. He said he would shove it as well (as a default unless you think a small exploitive raise would work better) and referred me to one of his articles to read.

…..ree-hunch/

From the article, 

The lesson here is to be conscious of situations where your opponents will correctly put you on a very strong hand range. This is not the time to slowplay. A good hand reader is not going to try to bluff you or overplay a second best hand, but he will take free cards in hopes of hitting a miracle draw. The best you can do is bet your hand hard, bluff any time you happen to show up with an unexpectedly weak hand, and hope that your opponent makes a crying call with something that’s a little too good to fold.

In all honesty, I still like my play. The choice seems to be between

A. call and check, hoping they bet the turn

Even with all the arguments for doing this, I am still very afraid that they would check the turn with some of their bluffcatchers that would possibly call as flop shove, but may be scared off by turn cards.

I am targeting BMW primarily due to the strength he has shown and his better pot odds. VW is an after thought unless he has an overpair which I think he would call with. Hands that I think BMW would bluffcatch with on the flop, but that are vulnerable to turn cards are two pair, some overpairs, and combo draws. Bad turn cards include

a. A,K,Q,J,T because they devalue their medium over pairs

c. 2,3,5,6 because they devalue my hand as well as their draws and non top two pair hands

c. diamonds because they devalue their non flush hands

The only cards I can be happy to see are 7,8,9 and even these are not great since a lot of the hands I want to get called by are draws.

Generally, BMW played like he liked his hand on the flop and way more turn cards would change that than not. This is especially true with draws that miss on the turn. If he's bluffcatching, then I need to play my hand the same way I would play a bluff. If he's drawing, I need to allow him to do so with two cards to come instead of just one.

B. raise smaller, hoping they call three barrels

This could definitely get called on the flop. I just think a lot of BMW's hands that would call it would also call a flop shove, in which case I have the same problem of him getting away when faced with the many scary turn cards. Generally, if I am out of position with a big pot hand, I need to try and play a big pot.

I think I would of hated life worse if I'd 3-bet smaller, gotten called, and they fold to a turn bet with a hand that might have called a flop shove. Even though I would have made more money, I would have wished I'd shotten (is this a word?) for the stars.

C. raising all in hoping they call with a bluff catcher or combo draw (getting almost 2 to 1 in BMW's case)

Being OOP, I felt like this was the best I could hope for. I guess this is why being OOP sucks.

Gareth Chantler said:

Maybe I am underestimating your competition? 

I think this may be the case. BMW is fishy preflop, but he is a good hand reader post flop.

Yeah I learned my lesson in the K9o hand. Being OOP devalues my strongest marginal hands enough that I dont need to raise for protection, especially multiway with a guy already doing the betting. Nothing wrong with going into bluff catching mode. PokerSnowie does this a lot actually.

I think I am getting better since I am running into fewer and fewer hands I feel the need to post. Thanks for all the help guys. Here's one I may have screwed up.

$1-2 game.

Effective stacks $400

UTG raised to $7. I called in the CO with 7s7c. The BTN called.

Pot $20. Flop 6s5s4s. Checks to me and I bet $10. BTN calls and UTG folds.

Pot $40. Turn Th. Goes check check.

I did not bet the turn because I would not know what to do if I got re-raised. Betting didnt make sense to me because he wouldn't fold better and he may check raise me with worse like draws. My plan was to check call so that I could see the river cheaply.

Pot $40. River 8s. Goes check check.

On the river, I hit a miracle and felt like I needed to try and get the most out of it. A pot sized bet seemed too little for this hand. Overbetting seemed too strong and may allow him to fold the Ks. I decided to go for a check raise expecting him to bet a Ks and not be able to fold a hand that big to a check raise if I gave him decent odds to call. I envisioned a bet of around $25 and a raise to about $100. I felt this would work better than a lead out of $100. Instead he checked back the AhKs.

Yeah, he probably not turning AsJh into a bluff. But he could raise big enough with a made hand (particularly one with a flush draw) that I wouldnt want to call with one pull at a two outer.

If I bet, I am definitely betting more than half with this hand because I expect him to only continue with Ks or As. Js and Qs would be a stretch for this guy.

With Ks, I think he is morely likely to bet call if I check than he is to raise if I bet.

With this being my target, I expected him to try for value with it after I bet weakly on the flop and checked 2 streets. This would give me a chance to go for more value. (Most people are never checking back Ks in his shoes and I didnt expect him to either)

Just feels weird to make a small bet targeting weaker hands when so much of his calling range is near the nuts.

I'm working on this article. It's too short and I've run out of things to say. I know I screwed this hand up by playing it passively, but I had to have made some other mistakes in here somewhere that I can get another 100 words or so on. 

Cash Catastrophes: Over Relying on Verbal Tells

The Hand

It's my regular $1-$2 no-limit hold'em game. The effective stacks are about $185 and I have the villain covered. A player limps the button (BTN). I raise to $10 from the small blind (SB) with KdKh. Both the player in the big blind (BB) and the button call. There's $30 in the pot.

In our game, players chop when folded to in the blinds. BB in this hand jokingly called BTN a chop blocker when he limped. After I raised, he said “I would've raised if you hadn't” before he called. This comment made me think that he most likely had big cards or a pair.

The flop comes 9h6d5c

I bet $20, BB raises to $40, BTN folds, and I call. The pot is now $110.

BB would not raise this flop with big cards so he most likely has a pocket pair below KK and AA which I think would have reraised preflop. My hand is way ahead of TT-QQ and way behind 55-66, 99. This flop raise feels more like a set though. I'll call and reevaluate on the turn.

The turn brings the 7d.

I check. He bets $70 and I tank call. The pot is now $250.

This definitely feels like a set now. I almost wanted to fold, but if he plays the over pairs like this, I am ahead of his range.

The river is the Th.

I check. He goes all in for $64 and I sigh call.

He shows Td9d.

The Problem

When BB made his comment about wanting to raise preflop, I put him on big cards or a pocket pair. Once I had that read, I completely denied the possibility of him having anything else. This caused me to overestimate the strength of his range. In my mind, there was no way he could have 9x on the flop because I did not put it in the range of hands I'd expect him to make that comment about preflop. Had I known his range was wider than just sets and overpairs when he raised the flop, I would have played it more aggressively.

The Lesson

It's completely fine to take verbal information into account when playing live poker, but with all information, take it with a grain of salt. Use what you hear to discount certain hands from your opponent's range, but do not eliminate them completely.