nl 1000 - big fold in a small pot ? - Page 2

On August 17 2008 16:28 [vital]Myth wrote: Show nested quote + On August 17 2008 13:07 CZechRaise wrote:   On August 15 2008 11:52 asdf2000 wrote: because if he folds then yes u were ahead congrats u made him fold and if he calls then congrats u have learned nothing and he may just be letting u take the lead with a weaker hand Ok, fair enough... makes sense. Don't you consider balancing your range tho? Providing villain is a capable player, he/ she'll get info we never raise 2pr (unless top two maybe) here so we are polarized to set, str8, str8 draw... It's clearly not the best option ... how about 2/10 times to mix it up though? no how many hands is somebody going to play with you where... 1) it's this preflop action 2) it's this type of board 3) you have this type of history 4) you're in this state of tilt or non-tilt 5) etc.

well, couldn't you be saying the same thing about virtually all situations that you'll run into in any given session?
i understand a lot of good players are just calling here apparently so i might be missing something, i guess i just don't get it.. i almost always raise this flop. what i see is 2pair on a scary board. even though it's still a small pot, i don't like running into a bad turn having to check it to the end. plus, it's a raise for info. if he calls, my experience tells me i'm ahead to a 1-pair type of hand and can milk him a bit later in the hand.

i mean, i raise so many hands in this situation, almost all pairs with a straight draw, so i definitely raise 2pair as well. i'm not really sure i care too much if he folds, if he doesn't have anything good he's probably not gonna put any more in the pot anyway, and if he has some Ax hand i'm just inviting a 10 to fall on turn or riv.
i dunno this hand along with the rest of the responses has me a bit insecure atm

On August 17 2008 18:09 Stygg wrote: Show nested quote + On August 17 2008 16:28 [vital]Myth wrote:   On August 17 2008 13:07 CZechRaise wrote:   On August 15 2008 11:52 asdf2000 wrote: because if he folds then yes u were ahead congrats u made him fold and if he calls then congrats u have learned nothing and he may just be letting u take the lead with a weaker hand Ok, fair enough... makes sense. Don't you consider balancing your range tho? Providing villain is a capable player, he/ she'll get info we never raise 2pr (unless top two maybe) here so we are polarized to set, str8, str8 draw... It's clearly not the best option ... how about 2/10 times to mix it up though? no how many hands is somebody going to play with you where... 1) it's this preflop action 2) it's this type of board 3) you have this type of history 4) you're in this state of tilt or non-tilt 5) etc. well, couldn't you be saying the same thing about virtually all situations that you'll run into in any given session? i understand a lot of good players are just calling here apparently so i might be missing something, i guess i just don't get it.. i almost always raise this flop. what i see is 2pair on a scary board. even though it's still a small pot, i don't like running into a bad turn having to check it to the end. plus, it's a raise for info. if he calls, my experience tells me i'm ahead to a 1-pair type of hand and can milk him a bit later in the hand. i mean, i raise so many hands in this situation, almost all pairs with a straight draw, so i definitely raise 2pair as well. i'm not really sure i care too much if he folds, if he doesn't have anything good he's probably not gonna put any more in the pot anyway, and if he has some Ax hand i'm just inviting a 10 to fall on turn or riv. i dunno this hand along with the rest of the responses has me a bit insecure atm

i'm not saying that your reasoning for raising the flop is insane, i'm saying that your suggestion of mixing it up for balance isn't good. and, yes, in a more general sense i am saying that about a huge % of spots you'll find yourself in postflop.

i think balance is pretty important in a lot of preflop spots when you're playing with good players, or at least the appearance of balance due to shifting styles with gameflow over time, but in postflop spots like this i don't think you should worry about it until you start to develop a pretty long history with somebody (who will likely continue to be in your games).

as for the reasoning in this particular hand...when you have bottom 2 you are either solidly ahead of a lot of hands that will continue betting (or calling) if you just flat the flop, but you are considerably behind almost all of the hands that will continue to give you action if you raise the flop. so raising this flop doesn't completely turn your hand into a bluff, but it makes it far closer to a bluff.

the bottom line is that, if raising this flop (against this player / in this type of dynamic / etc) isn't basically making your hand a bluff, then you should be getting roughly the same value from calling anyway, because of the way your opponent is likely to continue with the hands that would give you action to a flop raise. BUT, if it is turning your hand into a bluff, then that's obviously just bad. and i think we almost never have a good read that will tell us whether we are turning QJ into a bluff here, except against very nitty players and extremely 1pair-spew fish

you care if he folds the flop with a hand that is likely to 2nd barrel the turn with a high frequency, but will be forced to fold to flop pressure because of the board texture, such as some AXs that can pick up FDs, AJ, AQ, AK, KT, some rare naked TX, etc.

"if he doesn't have anything good he's probably not gonna put any more money in the pot anyway" - yeah sorta, but there are plenty of hands that aren't really good but are good enough to put another bet in, especially since your hand looks like it can be just 1 pair or sometimes a missed draw.

"i raise so many hands in this situation, almost all pairs with a straight draw" - if you think that balance is important, AND you raise a huge range here, then you can't say "if he doesn't have anything good he's probably not gonna put any more money in the pot anyway" because it's inconsistent with your own logic. either you look aggro enough to make this 2pair a value raise, or balance isn't that important and you won't really get a ton of thin action here even though you feel you play this spot very aggressively.

"i'm just inviting a 10 to fall on turn or river" - that's just scared thinking. yes, you let a ten fall cheaply. but who cares, there are less than four tens in the deck because a small % of his hands have a ten in them.

#22
#23
Good read. thanks

What I had in mind is that OPP is a regular which often implies long-ish history. There is also a good chance that he/she goes over some hands in PT etc.

Given the p/f min-raise we almost never flat with a set here (am I wrong?) -> hence why I was a bit worried we only raise AT/ T9 / naked T (possibly pr+T)? here.
I also assume it's 100BB deep (since there are no stack sizes).

I do, however, understand that balancing "for the sake of balancing" isn't always the way to go.


#21 "and if he has some Ax hand i'm just inviting a 10 to fall on turn or riv."
Your aim is not to avoid losses, your aim is to maximize EV.

imo gameflow & recent history >>> balance tailor your action to how u think he'll respond.
clear raise if theres a FD on the flop imo..
asis, fi you've been raising him IP in alot of hu pots then sure raise it here for value. if you've been floating him more then call and valuetown him on the turn. with no history then ya call, and get one bet in on every street is good.