Have dropped back to 200nl today in order to rebuild confidence back in the comfort zone.
4 hours played so far and up 6buyins :)
Moving up for a while certainly makes your current game seem like a walk in the park when you go back down. I think this is because I find it easier to trust my reads when bankroll issues aren't playing on my mind.
A couple of examples:
Open raiser is a fish, button is a reg. Great spot to 4bet but probably would have felt less comfortable with it at 400nl even though it is the same great spot!
Yep I folded KK preflop. Cut off is decent reg and min cold 4bet from relatively unkonwn Big Blind had me saying to myself "Can I fold KK preflop?".
Well, rightly or wrongly, now I can!
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8 comments:
I once told a good friend of mine, who is a really really good player at 5/10 that I folded KK preflop 3 times in my life when I started playing and every time the guy had AA. He told me I made three mistakes. He is right.
Mr Fickle - fan of ur blog sir - I respect your game and am interested to hear more of your thoughts on the AQ hand.
Basically I like flatting in this spot more. I see how cold 4betting here is plus EV but think it may be better to do so with a more polarized range. I mean if we are 4 betting AQ as a bluff (I am assuming you are folding to a shove) then buttons range must be decently wide. Would it not be more plus EV to flat and keep the fish in the pot with a hand as strong as AQ? And cold 4bet bluff with AXs and KXs?
Also your "Please Learn That..." section is the nuts :)
@btimm: Maybe this was my Tommy Angelo moment and folding tptk should be easier now right?
@rr55: thanks for your kind words!
I am indeed 4betting the AQ as a bluff. In position I may consider flatting but I think cold calling oop in a 3bet pot just leaves us playing guessing games vs 2 opponents. Playing oop sucks in genereal, Button is a decent reg so will be suspicious of our call and can use his position to own us. Fish is getting a decent price to call too. Am interested why you think flatting is most +EV line as I actually prefer a fold to a cold call.
Button is a reg with decently wide range vs co open and I don't think it matters too much what our hand is as the cold 4bet gets a lot of folds. AQo has great card removal qualities though.
I agree with Mr. Fickle about the AQ hand. OOP is the devil.
Here is what I was thinking when I posted :
-Flatting allows us to play in an inflated pot with a fish a good chunk of the time. The value of flatting in this spot is dominating the fish with a top pair type and and valuetowning him - which should be easy to do in an inflated pot. Also the button may see our cold call as strong but fish will think the opposite imo, If he has TPMK he will be more worried about being dominated by the 3bettor than us.
-We can also expect our AQ to be an equity favorite against the buttons 3bet range. But I totally agree that his position more than overcompensates for this. All the EV I see really is see is against the fish - which I think is huge.
-What do we know about the buttons 5bet shove range? Does he percieve us to be capable of 4bet bluffing in this spot? If he does his shove range may include JJ or even TT. Especially if he expects us to slowplay AA here to keep the fish in. Anyway if he is shoving JJ here and we are 4bet folding AQ then he is owning us. Avoiding getting owned here helps us get back a bit of what were giving up to him by flatting oop. If we only 4bet bluff with Ax or Kx here and he winds up shoving JJ we can fold without making a mistake.
-It really isn't a good spot for the button to bluff - In his eyes he is facing another good player cold calling with what must be a strong range that contains some slowplayed monsters and a calling station fish who is a bad candite to try to bluff on his own.
-For the times we do end up just vs the button flatting AQ here balances and merges our range. I think he will mostly put us on 99-JJ or slowplayed AA. This means he will often barrel cards that actually hit us as a bluff. And our percieved strenth will let us ourplay him on some flops if our read/stats on him indicate a decent spot.
Wow this turned into what is likely an overthinking FPS rant hehe. Still not sure where I stand...
I'm still not convinced there is huge value to be had vs the fish if we cold call! A lot has to go our way to valuetown him (we need to hit, we need fish to hit too with dominated hand, we need reg to get out of the way etc). I see where you are coming from but there are reverse implied odds to and it just doesn't work for me.
I had no reason to expect reg to shove TT/JJ and even if he is and we fold it is still profitale to 4bet bluff if his 3betting range is wide enough. He is not automatically owning us by having us 4bet/fold AQo and if he does start to open up his 5bet range having seen us 4bet/fold in this spot then we can adjust accordingly. Mario style.
Although I hate to admit it. I think you are right ;)
It was fun to think through anyway.. nh
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