jjpregler said

theginger45 said

A few questions and points based on your phrasing here:

1. How easily is ‘too easily’? This question has no answer with the phrasing you’ve chosen.

2. She could be ‘making a move’, but if she is, she still has to have two cards in her hand. What range of hands could she be making this move with?

3. How much of a pushover is ‘too much of a pushover’? Can you define this mathematically?

4. How hard should you have fought to win the pot? Is there a number you can put on it?

5. Your question about cEV is the only useful question on this list. It’s the only metric you can actually use to make a decision. Check-folding has a cEV of zero in every spot, so you just need to evaluate betting and check-calling. What are the advantages and disadvantages of each one?

A lot of your language in these posts suggests you believe you should be ‘fighting’ for each pot. This is only going to get you into bad spots. Poker isn’t a ‘fight’ where the person who wants it more gets to win the pot. Sometimes you’re not going to win the pot no matter how hard you try – you simply can’t possibly hope to have that much control. Learning to recognize an unfavorable spot and move on from it is an important skill. This is a good example of a spot where that skill would be useful.  

I am obviously using poor wording and not making myself as clear as I need to.  It is hard to convey everything in a short post.  Let me try again. I fully agree that cEV is the only metric to measure a play.  

A weakness I found in my game that I am trying to correct is my turn and river play.  I see videos and lessons of pros creating equity in post flop spots that I am not. There’s no such thing as ‘creating equity’. You can take advantage of fold equity or realize your raw equity, but you can’t create equity. Equity doesn’t mean EV or profit. Therefore, I am leaving equity on the table.  I look at a spot and where the pro creates equity, I found I would not even make it to that spot because I would have folded earlier or if I made it there, I would have played passive.  I am too nitty in post flop decisions and I can increase my expectation by learning to identify these spots where I am playing too tight/conservative and then learn the appropriate response in those spots.  This is absolutely true. It’s hard to play super tight and make money.

Whatever that difference between a pro and my game is the term I was trying to convey. Don’t focus on ‘pros’. Plenty of ‘pros’ aren’t very good, and plenty of non-pros are very good. Focus on EV, not trying to play like someone else. Weakness, passivity, whatever that something that a pro has that I don’t is the word I was trying to convey with the terms “weak” or “too easily.”  Whatever that difference that allows them to create more equity than I do. Whatever they have that I don’t in those situations is the term I am trying to convey. There’s nothing that they have that you don’t. They’ve just done the work to calculate the EV of a spot away from the table, and used that work to improve their instincts in-game. You can do this yourself – there’s no secret. 

Ok, so question 1: Was this a spot where I was too tight Again, how tight is too tight? There’s no ‘correct’ amount of tightness. There’s only EV. If it’s a negative EV play, you can fold the 2nd nuts. and folded when there was equity Again, don’t confuse EV with equity. to be had by making another choice? (By your responses, I can see that you both seem to agree with my fold, so this part is already answered.)

Question 2:  When I analyze my entire range on the flop and QQ being near the top of my check range, do I have to consider not folding to defend my checking range?   Or is that not as relevant in this situation?  And if it is not relevant, why?  Defending your range is more relevant when readless or playing against good players. Doesn’t seem like either of those apply to this spot, so making exploitative plays based on your reads on villain seems better.

Hope some of the bolded helps!