When should I be looking to Bet/Fold?

http://www.deucescracked.com/forums/8-Micro-Stakes-Online-NL/25944-When-should-I-be-looking-

BalugaWhale:

its pretty simple actually--

being passive means only raising for value.

when youre playing against someone who is going for value, count the number of worse hands that can be going for value vs the number of better hands. if theres a lot of worse hands, you cant fold. if there arent, you cant call.

so, hand 1 is a call, hand 2 is a fold, etc., hands 3-5 are folds, etc.

you should rarely ever take a c/c line against a passive player for obvious reasons (youre bluff catching and they dont bluff).

And wtf is up with your min3-bet on the river with the 2nd nuts. make a real 3bet for value.

Sounded Simple:

I think we all know that bet/fold is the line best suited to when opponents calling ranges are wide but raising ranges are narrow. Sounds simple (pardon the pun) but its true and we all actually know this.

I think the problem most uNL players have is the fold part. Folding isn't fun, I hate it and I bet you do too.

For me the biggest reason I hate folding isn't that I have to fold a good hand its that I might be folding the best hand, that does annoy me.

So I think the problem that underlies here is having confidence in your hand reading abilities.

So with that in mind I recommend this exersise:

- Open HEM/PT3 and filter for

> Single Raised Pots

> Final pot >180bb (shorter stacks are easy to play anyway)

> You are OOP (because this is tougher)

> You cbet and are called HU

> You bet the turn

> You saw a showdown

Manually or in excel note the

> Player Type

> Flop SPR

> Board / Board Type

> Positions

> Villains turn action

> Villains hand

Your hand or who won is not relevant, now look at the info you have on what player types are doing on the turn with what holdings.

You may want to get more specific with the filters once you see patterns emerge.

WiltOnTilt:

the reason that bet/folding is such a powerful exploitative strategy is because people don't bluff raise later streets often enough in general. This is especially true vs players we deem "passive" as BW said. So in general, we should be betting later streets when we feel like we're a favorite when called and/or when there's value in winning the pot now to protect our share (equity) of the pot. This is why thin value betting has become so prevalent as you move up, because people have figured out that they can bet for extremely thin value against many players because they'll have an easy response vs further aggression. Eventually (and to some degree, now) people will realize that vs thin value bettors they need to slowplay more and bluff raise later streets more, but we're not to that point yet (and vs the fish, by definition, we'll never be at that point) so continue to bet away for value and continue to make good folds to raises vs people who either aren't bluff raising very much or value raising very many worse hands.

In terms of post game analysis, do like BW said. Count up the worse value hands and estimate how often you think it's a semi bluff. Of those hands, count up the combos (review Math of NLHE series for help on that) and figure out the value and semibluff combinations. See what your equity is vs that range in pokerstove, then figure out how many bluff combos you'll have to add in there to be able to continue in the hand (if any). Compare the number of bluff combos you'll need to the number of value hands you have already counted up. How does it look in comparison to your pot odds?

Hope that helps

WoT

Suited Connectors, Implied Odds, and You (Theory/Math) by goofyballer

http://archives1.twoplustwo.com/showflat.php?Cat=0&Number=6996709

maddog2030:

I wrote a program to do these exact calcs over a year ago, and came out to the same ~25% you did, so your math is probably good (some of my numbers were also verified by BruceZ of the probability forum).

Because I wrote a program to do this, I ran through a number of other types of hands that you may be interested in. For instance, suited one-gappers come out to 23% to flop OESD+,2pair+. So basically, most anytime you're willing to play a suited connector, you should be willing to play a similar suited one-gapper also.

Summary of hands:

Suited connectors: 25%

Suited one-gappers: 23%

Suited two-gappers: 18%

Unsuited connectors: 17%

Suited aces: 17%

Note: This isn't the end-all, be-all, as it doesn't take into account draws to the nuts, etc. But it's a relatively decent gauge on the strength of those various types of hands to each other. 

binions:

I looked at this long ago. My posts are somewhere in the archives.

If you factor out flopping flush draws on paired boards, and straight draws on paired and 3-flush boards against, I get 23.5% or 3.25:1 against flopping 2 pair or better made hands or at least an 8 out draw for suited max stretch 0-gap connectors.

21.3% or 3.7:1 against for max stretch 1-gap suited connecttors.

18.5% or 4.4:1 against for max stretch 2-gap suited connectors. 

Jamougha:

you will also flop some useful top pair hands with a AXs; less so with the smaller connectors.

If you have e.g. A8s against a reasonably tight CO opening range (say 22+, 2 broadway, A8o+, Axs, 65s+, 86s+, two suited cards 9 or higher) then you are 49:51 with their range and typically getting good pot odds + position. With 65s you would be 37:63 and it would be rather harder to judge where you are. Your call is justified more by pot odds than implied odds. 

c strong:

"A good play may be to call with these in position only".

This is really important. With a small PP you don't mind being OOP so much, as you'll usually be playing fit or fold on the flop. Extraction is easier in position, but you should still be able to get stacks in with a set OOP against an overpair, TPTK etc.

With an SC, though, most of the time when you're continuing on the flop you'll have a draw. These are so much easier to play in position, where you have the option of checking behind for a free card if it's checked to you, betting or raising the flop to disguise your hand and possibly take a free card on the turn, etc. Much harder to play them OOP where none of your options are great: check/call looks like a draw, you have no FE and may not get odds to draw; leading may mean you get raised or floated so you can't take a free card; check-raising may mean you put a lot of money in to draw etc. 

linuxrocks:

One thing I wanted to add is the equity of playing the SCs after flopping a pair. The odds of flopping a pair that's not paired is 30%. The equity obviously is not that great, but there's certainly some value in backdoor draws, hitting your second pair, trips etc. This is especially true when we are the one raising or re-raising. This, I think is the big difference compared to small pairs. They are almost useless, if you don't hit the set.

Calculating equity of a middle pair against a pre-flop raiser is quite a hairy calculation, but I am guessing it's much higher than the equity when small pairs don't hit set on the flop.

Calling to Re-Evaluate by JH1

http://microstakesgrinder.blogspot.com/2009/03/calling-to-re-evaluate.html

There is a major difference between calling to re-evaluate in a single raised pot as opposed to calling a raise or check/raise and evaluate. Most people make the mistake of calling a flop raise or check/raise to "re-evaluate" the turn when they should have evaluated the strength of their hand versus their opponent's range before calling. JH1 gives some very good examples in this blog post and does a great job explaining.

A Common Leak When Facing Flop Raises/Check Raises by I vi ii V7 (2p2)

http://forumserver.twoplustwo.com/78/micro-stakes-full-ring/psa-common-leak-when-facing-flop-raises-check-raises-342272/

The tl;dr of the PSA is this: Calling raises and check raises with hands unlikely to improve and planning on folding to further aggression is a leak because most people fire the turn with 100% of their flop raise/check raise range. If you have a specific read that contradicts this, then go with your read.

Fix Your Redline by JH1 (2p2)

http://forumserver.twoplustwo.com/78/micro-stakes-full-ring/3-000-poasts-fix-your-redline-561533/

This thread was started on twoplustwo on 8/17/2009. JH1 discusses one of the major flaws that contribute to steep negative redlines and that is the call and re-evaluate line or better described as the bloat/fold.

Additional posts:

#12, 14, 16, 17