Poket 9's and hit a set OTF

I don´t think we can specify yet, if he´s likely to hold flush draw. Flush doesn´t come around as often as you might think. I prefer call OTF and raise OTT. Raising OTF, we isolate ourselves against overpairs and worse sets imo and villain has in his range a lot of overcards which didn´t hit, thats why I would just call OTF. Raise OTF is ok, we want to play it safe, but I believe just calling is better.

First, I recommend to sit always with at least 100bb at the table. Further I would most likely check call the flop as well and then you can shove most turns if he will bet again. Now you will raise more than half your remaining stack what looks extreme strong as well and I think check shoving flop would be even better than raising.

Cheers,
SDK1987

If your opponent plays very knitty, you might as well bet OTF. But in most cases I would check call OTF, and then bet OTT. If your opponent likes to bluff you can also call one more time OTT.

No way you don't raise in that spot

Definetly like check calling OTF, and then figure out future line OTT. Probably check-raising if opponent bets, if not then he would fold to turn donk anyway.

Originally posted by Dadramel
No way you don't raise in that spot

I agree with this. I would raise OTF too. I think we stack off overpairs and some flush draws so often that it is max EV line. I don't like slowplaying much.

Originally posted by SDK1987
First, I recommend to sit always with at least 100bb at the table. Further I would most likely check call the flop as well and then you can shove most turns if he will bet again. Now you will raise more than half your remaining stack what looks extreme strong as well and I think check shoving flop would be even better than raising.

Yeah I have it at 80% before it tops my stack up, but it's probably a good idea to make this 100%
wouldn't you be afraid for a possible flush OTT? that's why I've raised OTF

Originally posed by Dadramel
No way you don't raise in that spot

Just to clear it up for me, do you mean you would always raise or would you never raise in that spot? I could interpret your sentence both ways, but that just might be my dutch English ♦

Originally posted by la55i
agree with this. I would raise OTF too.

would you raise straight away or check/raise?

I think check raise will work just fine.
It is 3bet pot and he is cbetting. He has pocket pairs and flush draws that he probably doesn't fold vs xr.
His bet size in 3bet pot is quite big and I think you could raise maybe a bit smaller to make it look more appealing and then just shove turn.

By raising on the flop all we accomplish is getting called by hands that would have continue on about nearly every turn card anyway...
Don't forget that top set is a hand so strong and that blocks so many TP etc that it's nearly never considered a raise in a balanced split !

Moreover it's hard (and mostly useless again given the agression we'll face, the range we'll be against and the reduced SPR) to develop a balanced range of flop raise in 3bet pots so all the more reason to call, you have to stop being hypotnized by the fact that the flop gets twotoned, in term of ranges it doesn't amount to much it's mainly psychological and hence misleads player far too often !
Let's say the turn comes a king of heart : it probably hits villain range far more than any low diamond would, but I bet many players wouldn't feel it that way at all !
And I repeat : you won't get villain of his FD anyway when he does have one so let it fall if it may.

I don't get that logic.. We get villain to call our raise with both his made hands and draws and atm we are holding the nuts. It is correct to get as much money in as possible. Very often we will stack off villains AA or KK on the flop. And if he stacks off with FD it is way better than just calling and seeing him hit his flush.
Only situation where I think it would be correct to slowplay is if we think villain doesn't call our raise with many hands BUT he would continue betting OTT if we just call. Villain is in position here and very often if we just call flop and check turn he will check behind and see a free card.

The logic is based on several things : the first is thinking in term of ranges instead of just our actual combo. You'll find that balancing a minimum both a calling range and a raising range at the same time in 3bet pots is hard and fairly useless. (And you may think that balancing is unimportant in micro-stakes, in which I would disagree, when you split better your range, even vs fishes that can add to your winrate.) It's simply not a good idea to raise everything that hits here and to fold or call everything that doesn't hit enough, and I insist that it remains true even vs opponents that doesn't think really deep.
Besides the value of raising in 3bet pots is nearly completely gone as the SPR is smaller, the ranges are tighter and the leverage effect that you want to induce usually by raising flop is mostly gone. You'll easily go broke before the showdown anyway so no need to play that fast and let villain go away with his medium hands.

The second thing is simply maintaining villain range large to maximize our winrate, to put it bluntly thinking only about valuing overpairs and FD when you flop a set is like thinking only about valuing QQ-KK when you get AA preflop, then you could say it's ok to simply open shove preflop, hoping to get called at least by QQ and KK, it's +EV and faster, right ?
Saying a line is +EV doesn't make that line sound in itself, of course when you flop a set (or get AA preflop) pretty much everything you can do will be +EV by nature, lucky you ! But it's not a reason to value cut ourselves by making decisions easy for villain with most of his range.
You can rather choose to think a little more and gets villains to make more mistakes with a bigger part of his range, that's what playing poker is all about.
And then again I repeat that fearing a diamond is inept in which villains will go all the way with his flush combos anyway so by raising flop we don't escape bad beats, thinking you've played better when you lose vs a flush because you're raised early in comparaison with having just called is wrong. When villains has real equity and combos that he really likes, you can't deny him them, you need to deal with it.

I don't think balancing is so important here. And I think our overall range is still balanced, we can still be check raising him with both value hands and semibluffs. I have stacked so many overpairs in spots like this that I believe playing it slow and "balancing" is waste of time at the micros and that way we won't maximize our value.

We are in a 3bet pot and villain cbets. His range is already quite tight and if I understand you correctly you also think that villain would go all the way with his flush draws anyway. I think by calling we don't keep villains range much wider and eventually it doesn't matter much. If he has something he will either call our raise or shove on top which would make us happy, and if he doesn't have anything he will give up his middle strength hands OTT anyway.
I wouldn't raise flop because I fear a diamond. I just rather put as much money in the pot as possible while we are ahead because I know it is quite likely villain will call anyway. The more money we get in on the flop, the better. Even if the turn comes a diamond we made the right choice when we put the money in OTF.

So this:

so by raising flop we don't escape bad beats, thinking you've played better when you lose vs a flush because you're raised early in comparaison with having just called is wrong.

I actually think the hand is played better if we raised. That means we got more money in the pot while we were favorite to win the hand and ultimately this means that we will make more money on the long run.

Originally posted by la55i
I don't think balancing is so important here. And I think our overall range is still balanced, we can still be check raising him with both value hands and semibluffs.

I admit that it happens to be quite possible in this specific spot, it's just that I went on a general explanation about the spirit in 3bet pots. But do not forget that I said "balancing BOTH a raising range and a calling range", if you put too much value/equity in your raising range, what will you profitably call with and vice versa ? In the end playing so straightforward is a leak and really simplifies the life of villain.

Originally posted by la55i
I have stacked so many overpairs in spots like this that I believe playing it slow and "balancing" is waste of time at the micros and that way we won't maximize our value.

Once again it's that sort of sophism I can't understand : it's like saying you prefer to open shove AA preflop and hoping someone gets QQ or KK and call ! Wasting your time (cleverly) is part of playing poker, deal with it.
And raising doesn't maximize our value, it just force us against the top of villain's range who will go broke anyway, congratulations.

Originally posted by la55i
We are in a 3bet pot and villain cbets. His range is already quite tight and if I understand you correctly you also think that villain would go all the way with his flush draws anyway. I think by calling we don't keep villains range much wider and eventually it doesn't matter much. If he has something he will either call our raise or shove on top which would make us happy, and if he doesn't have anything he will give up his middle strength hands OTT anyway.

OK maybe he won't make many mistakes, indeed. But the only way to know is to let him the opportunity to make some ! Or no use to play poker, villains might not be exploitable so why try to win at this hard game at all ?

Originally posted by la55i
I wouldn't raise flop because I fear a diamond. I just rather put as much money in the pot as possible while we are ahead because I know it is quite likely villain will call anyway. The more money we get in on the flop, the better. Even if the turn comes a diamond we made the right choice when we put the money in OTF.

So this:

so by raising flop we don't escape bad beats, thinking you've played better when you lose vs a flush because you're raised early in comparaison with having just called is wrong.

I actually think the hand is played better if we raised. That means we got more money in the pot while we were favorite to win the hand and ultimately this means that we will make more money on the long run.

I still think this line of thinking is completely wrong but I don't see how to explain better than I already did.

You don't have to explain it better, I understand what you mean. Our way of thinking is just different. While I understand poker in theory and GTO at some level I have chosen to play with exploitative strategy.

This means that I use my reads and population tendencies and try to make as much money as possible by exploiting my villain. I theoretically can be exploited too but I just simply do not worry about that since it is very rarely going to happen at the micros especially on stars where player pool is a lot bigger. And I can adapt if I get exploited.

For example if villain checks to me twice I can barrel him like hell with 100% of my range. I guess you would not do that since it is not balanced and can be easily exploited, but at the micros I have noticed that it is the max EV line (or at least I believe it to be).

That preflop AA open shove example you gave is basically the same. Of course I would open shove AA if I think that someone will often enough call me. The only difference is that in this hand it is a lot more likely that we get stacked. My experience tells me that in a spot like this we will quite often stack villain with overpairs or nut FD+overs, and if he folds he probably would have given up OTT anyway so there is no more value in just calling.
This strategy can be exploited, villain can start making exploitative folds. But this is NL5 so how big part of population will do that? And maybe they will stack off their pockets anyway and hope I have a flush draw.

It's not that I like GTO and fancy complicated balancing while you go for maximizing your value vs bad opponents, on the contrary with your line you are NOT exploiting villain, it's me who is more !

I think part of the problem is you reason only with flop equity, hence raising flop (with the nuts) is obviously always better on the flop ALONE. You broke vs the top range of villains on the flop, you win a lot and you go on thinking your play works very well, it's a biaised.
What you need to see is watching the EV of all the lines on all streets and try to maximize it all globally, no need to use the scary GTO words if you don't like them, it's just that it's actually more beneficiall globally to call here.

It's like you were saying "I go broke with AA preflop and my EV preflop is great so fuck off with your fancy line", indeed, but you fail to see that the EV you "gain" by broking preflop on the preflop line is only EV you'd have also gained flop if you had seen one ! (Or in 3-4-5bet preflop instead of the only open shoving line but whatever)

When you say you exploit villains and value more flop, it's simply not true, you help villain go away with the medium-bottom of his range, which is the contrary of exploitative play right here, and what you "value" flop is something you will broke against virtually every time with my line too so there no advantage, only drawbacks.

For your exploitative examples, I disagree : I would indeed overbet the river after a villain checked twice, no problem with that, it's not about trying to be inexploitable everywhere and all, really, I just talked about balancing about correctly preflop and flop, which are the streets it's the most important to be even vs fishes because they make less mistakes and the global maths of the theory is more important that the little adjustements you can make vs their type of mistakes (for what you actually know about rather little).
And for the story of AA preflop, keep in my mind if you shove you nearly only get called by QQ-KK, that's why it's so stupid !!! You are not "valuing" anything, if you open normally then QQ-KK will 3bet you and you'll stack off either way !

Thanks for your comments guys!

It's really interesting to read 2 different strategies/approaches here. To be honest, I can see the logic in both approaches and I'll have to do some more reading on several subjects to truly see the pro's and con's of each.

@MyFloxyBaby: I definitely see your point in regards to being scared of the FD, it will be interesting to see when I review my hand history were I got "scared" of a FD and it actually hit.

Originally posted by MyFloXyBabY
And for the story of AA preflop, keep in my mind if you shove you nearly only get called by QQ-KK, that's why it's so stupid !!! You are not "valuing" anything, if you open normally then QQ-KK will 3bet you and you'll stack off either way !

I would agree that often only QQ-KK will call when you shove preflop, but isn't part of this move to also prevent people with half-decent suited cards to stay in the game and maybe hit their FD if they're lucky? Or is that, in your line of thinking, exactly what you want because the FD often doesn't materialize and therefore you can make more money in the long run? If the FD actually does show up, you will just happily fold the AA then?

@la55i: would you also have this line of play in the higher limits or would you play differently then?

Originally posted by TheTrain
I would agree that often only QQ-KK will call when you shove preflop, but isn't part of this move to also prevent people with half-decent suited cards to stay in the game and maybe hit their FD if they're lucky?

It's indeed the (stupid) thinking behind that kind of donk shove you sometimes witness fishes doing, they are so afraid of bad beats that they want to scare away opponents and it's obviously completely counterproductive. The point is in poker you don't want to escape bad beats, as bad beats are the very sign you played well, with lots if not maximized equity, and if you want to influence that too strongly the only thing you'll end up doing is reducing the realisation of your equity.

Originally posted by TheTrainOr is that, in your line of thinking, exactly what you want because the FD often doesn't materialize and therefore you can make more money in the long run?

Yes, that's the formula to win at poker, you want to let villains do the most and greatest mistakes possible and pay for them, minus the small but enraging fee of lady variance.

Originally posted by TheTrain
If the FD actually does show up, you will just happily fold the AA then?

I never "happily" fold AA
(But if I do think I have to yes I try to find that fucking fold button)

Originally posted by TheTrain
@la55i: would you also have this line of play in the higher limits or would you play differently then?

I might not use the same line on higher limits. It depends on my villain's skill level and population tendencies there.

This is a 3bet pot and because hero opened from MP I think BTN's range should be quite tight. Also his range is probably polarized. His value hands will very often call a raise OTF or shove on top but even if we just call to keep his bottom part of range he most likely gives up OTT with those hands.

Here I actually did consider what happens if we just call and how we would get more money out of villain but I just see the following happening:
With his 3bet bluffs he will most of the time check behind and give up OTR if we bet and with his value hands he will go all the way. So I just didn't see much more value in calling and imo it is bad to let him see those free cards. He might have Ad3d as a 3bet bluff which will check behind OTT so that would be letting him see free cards with a flush draw.
Does he fold QQ-AA vs raise? I would say definitely not. Does he fold AdKd? Not. Will he shove on top of our raise with QQ+ because he fears the flush draw, I would say yes, quite often. Does he keep on betting A3s without FD OTT in a 3bet pot when we called flop cbet, probably not.

So by raising I believe we get action from so big part of his range and the rest will give up anyway, that I just don't believe there is any more value in calling. This would be different in higher stakes of course because less players will overplay their big pockets. There it might be more important to have good stuff in check calling range. I wouldn't use this line often vs a good reg.

I can be convinced that calling is better option here. Someone just has to tell me where is the money. How do we get more value out of villain? What trash hands he will keep on barreling? To me calling and raising basically looks the same. We will get it all in against the same range. Only difference is that I would do it already OTF when favorite. The argument that calling is better relies on a belief that villain would keep on making mistakes with the bottom part of his range, which I simply don't believe will happen often enough.

Originally posted by la55i
Also his range is probably polarized.

That's why it's not really efficient to raise, it's common sense.

Originally posted by la55i
Does he fold QQ-AA vs raise? I would say definitely not. Does he fold AdKd? Not. Will he shove on top of our raise with QQ+ because he fears the flush draw, I would say yes, quite often.

I stack off those hands with my line every day too, it's pointless to talk about them it won't make a difference.

Originally posted by la55i
I can be convinced that calling is better option here. Someone just has to tell me where is the money. How do we get more value out of villain? What trash hands he will keep on barreling? To me calling and raising basically looks the same. We will get it all in against the same range.

Either it's completely wrong, or you happen to have found a spot, flop, with a decent SPR, versus a non completely degenerate villain, on which we have virtually ZERO fold equity by raising, and if it's the case, I must say congratulations ! You deserve the Nobel Prize of poker or something

Originally posted by la55i
Only difference is that I would do it already OTF when favorite.

If it's the same range, we don't care which street we go broke, stop being hypnotized by those damned equity diggits when they don't mean a thing.
We could even imagine in your reasoning that calling would be better because we could FOLD on a diamond turn lol. Either it's true and we must call, either it's wrong because villain will continue to agress loosely even on a diamond turn, and I'm right.

Originally posted by la55i
The argument that calling is better relies on a belief that villain would keep on making mistakes with the bottom part of his range, which I simply don't believe will happen often enough.

One thing is for sure : if you don't let him make mistakes, he won't. Just try, you have nothing to lose here. The only bad beats you risk are negligeable and should be impossible to evade by taking another line anyway !
I could return the favor : the argument that raising flop is better rely on the fact that some turns will significantly kill the action for a significant part of the range that would have gone broke flop, and I don't see that coming.

PS : for those interested in the maths and theory of 3bet pots I suggest watching Matthew Janda's videos serie on the subject, easily findable on Youtube (I think I have the right to mention Youtube's videos because it's not a concurrent right ? Sorry if not)