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What's Your Edge

Sawcruhteez's Poker Blog

April 14, 2009

So what I have realized is the more money that you put in preflop, the less skill that will come into play, and therefore the less advantage I will have over the weaker players. This is because the more money that is put in preflop, the shallower the stacks become for post flop play. This makes so much sense to me, but I am just starting to understand this concept.

The reasons for 3betting light are, your opponant reacts terribly to 3bets, or to set yourself up for value later down the road. There really shouldn't be any other reasons for 3betting light, so I have to get away from doing this so much. Players these days are really starting to adjust to 3betting light a lot better, making it a much less profitable play, so therefore it is up to me to try and figure out what the next profitable play will be to replace that one.

So basically the conclusions that I have come to are too

1. Keep 3betting the right players in position, because players still react terribly when they are calling 3bets OOP, and I think this can still be extremely profitable against the right kind of players

2. I am literally going to try and never 3bet light OOP, I will see how long this lasts, but I am honestly going to try and never 3bet light OOP.

3. I still have to defend my blinds, so what I am going to start doing is calling OOP. Since I learned the game through CR, this move has been made to seem as if it is the worst possible play in NL poker, but I am going to start doing it more because I feel that I can play OOP more profitable my flat calling than 3betting light.

What I am going to start doing is flatting from the blinds with hands that have equity and seeing a flop. There are now many different ways that I can win the pot, and I am going to try and do so without c/r'ing. I just think c/r'ing is a pretty spewy play no matter what the holding is. If you only do it w sets this becomes extremely exploitable, and if you start doing it w draws you get in really tricky situations when the preflop raiser flats your c/r and you miss you draw on the turn.

So what I think might be the best play in the gams nowadays is to flat OOP and lead the flop, on a bunch of different board textures, and even in multiway pots. Cause when you flat pre, and then lead you taking back the aggresion in the hand, and he now has to react to you. I find many players will just go ahead and fold to this bet, and this bet causes most players to play fairly straight forwardly. The pre flop raiser usually will only raise if he has a big hand, at least an overpair or better, and I can proceed accordingly. Most players nowadays seems to react so horribly to the "donk" bet, that I think it could be the next line that starts becoming extremely valueable. So I am going to start doing it, and try to completely merge my range so that opponents have a really difficult time putting me on a hand range.

Here are some examples, if an aggresive player opens in late position and I have KJ suited in the BB. I am going to flat and then lead out on a ton of flops. I will lead out with top pair hands, I will bet/3bet with big draws, if the board comes down A high I will almost always lead. Or if it comes down super dry I will go ahead and lead, and then bet turn also and this usually gets a ton of folds.

So I think I can definitely flat call suited connectors and one gappers and pocket pairs profitably from out of position. I don't have to win the pot every time, but I think that I will be able to make enough moves, and not c/f often enough, for this play not to be profitable. And it also looks so much stronger, say an aggro player opens in the CO and someone flats on the btn (anyone but a loose passive) and I look down at 54s. Usually I would think this is a great spot to sqeeze, but this play just literally gets no respect, and it probably isn't profitable OOP. However I just flat call and the board comes down AXX, KXX or even QXX, I'll just go ahead and bet into the preflop raiser, and this puts him in a really tricky spot. With someone left to still act behind him if he has JJ or lower there isn't much at all he can do, unless he has the top pair. So I'll just bet into him and pick up the pot a good majority of the time.

So I am going to try to bring as much skill into this game as possible, which would then lower the variance as much as possible. This is a goal that every winning poker player strives for, and I am going to go about it by trying to not put to much money in the pot when I am OOP, and keep the stacks as deep as possible, so that I have as many opportunities as possible to make the correct decisions. Then when IP I will just jam as much money into the pot as my opponent will let me, and I think I will be able to make much better decisions with a lot of money in the pot when I am in position. It always sounds soooo much easier than it really is, so hopefully this works out as planned, and this should smooth my transition from 50 to 100NL.

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Apr 15, 09 13:45:35

Cold 4-bet bluffing is the new hotness, lol:

http://www.pokerhand.org/?4115588

Obviously, this should be rarely done. I only pull this in absolutely perfect situations, and this was one of them. Both villains are solid TAG's and the SB is a known light 3-better.

schlucky1