Spoonitnow homework (Making Our Strategies More Robust and Avoiding Auto-Pilot)

In http://www.flopturnriver.com/making-...to-pilot-18055 Spoonitnow sets an assignment:

"Here’s your homework: Make a thread that has some reads you’ve picked up on players and how you would plan to use them in hands. Post how you are manipulating your default strategy to better exploit your opponents."

Because I haven't a ton of recent hands, and I play zoom (hence get reads a bit slower than someone playing normal tables) I could only find one really good hand to illustrate adjustments I make, I'm sure there must be plenty more but right now I don't have time to look through my DB any more than I have, so I figured I'd post this one hand so it'd remind me to look for more to add to the thread later.

Perhaps others could also post in this thread with their own hands showing adjustments they make and explaining their own reasoning behind their play.

Hand 1:

6max 25NL zoom.

Villain is a 14/9 nit. cbets a lot, but a 14/9 is rarely bluffing even if he does cbet a lot.

Hero (BTN): $48.06 (192.2 bb)
SB: $46.53 (186.1 bb)
BB: $25.58 (102.3 bb)
UTG: $56.24 (225 bb)
MP: $20.07 (80.3 bb)
CO: $47.33 (189.3 bb)

Preflop: Hero is BTN with T A
2 folds, CO raises to $0.62, Hero calls $0.62, SB folds, BB calls $0.37

First adjustment is to call with ATo. This is probably an excellent hand to talk about preflop adjustments, because it's a hand that I could play many different ways:

a. Against a fish opening/limping before me who I'll have position on, I'll isolate or 3bet for value.

b. Against a standard reg opening before me with no callers, I'll fold.

c. Against a reg opening before me with no callers when that reg folds to a lot of 3bets, I'll 3bet bluff with it.

and finally

d. Against a 14/9 nit opening, and on who I will have position nearly 200bb deep, I'll call with it and see what the flop brings. The nit makes this option even more attractive so deep by his unusually small open sizing.

Flop: ($1.96) K 8 J (3 players)
BB checks, CO bets $1.25, Hero calls $1.25, BB folds

Here is not so much an adjustment to this specific player, because I don't have so much of a read on him that I can really comment in detail on his cbetting range here, but as a "broad strokes" adjustment to the fact that he's a nit, I'm calling here where I might just fold against someone else.

We're deep, and that inclines me towards a call, but what tips the scales and makes this a "definite call" for me is that he's 14/9, so his range smashes this board - if I make my straight, he is likely to have something he can pay off with.

Turn: ($4.46) J (2 players)
CO checks, Hero bets $2.75, CO calls $2.75

He checks the turn, and I do not have a good enough draw to check it back, if I do, I'm basically giving up. Now what is a 14/9 checking on the turn with two different flush draws out? Well it's possible he could check a boat hoping I improve to a flush, but that's a small part of his range, so when he checks he mostly has stuff that can't take a lot of pressure, so although I felt like on the flop he might have a hand that could pay us off if we hit the straight, now I feel much more inclined to think his hand is of a medium strength - not weak enough to bluff with, not strong enough to bet for value again. Incidentally, on reflection, I really don't like my sizing OTT.

River: ($9.96) T (2 players)
CO checks, Hero bets $9, CO folds

The river is excellent for us, because the nit now feels even worse about all his one-pair hands, and even if we though he could have a ten (which I really don't) we block it.

There is no way our nit check-called a bare jack on the turn with both the flush draws out there.

Neither draw made it so it if he was drawing himself there is a chance we're bluffing with the best hand however I prefer a bet - I think he has Kx like always here, this would be an awful spot to bluff against a fish (because he'll call with K2o) or a reg (because he knows how unlikely it is we have a J and will bluffcatch sometimes), but against a nit it seems to me that if we bet big enough we can get him off a K.

This adjustment is I feel not just technical/stats based, but is about the kinds of boards that can be scary to a nit and about the kind of thoughts a nit has. To me, the defining characteristic of a nit is that they are scared of losing a big pot, so this hand seems like a good example of how we can exploit that fear.

If I'm going to be calling with a hand deep against a nit I'd like to have a hand that can make something sort of nutish. I'm likely 3b or folding this pre. Versus a 14/9 probably folding.

So you peel a gutshot on the flop because this board smashes his range and we have good implied odds when we hit our Q... but now we're setting up a multiple street bluff on a card where his c/c range could be strong'ish? (could have Jx, KQ, AK, AA)? Not to mention we're trying to rep Jx and only Jx when FD's brick, is a risky proposition here.

I take it you're betting a river brick 5 as well?

So you peel a gutshot on the flop because this board smashes his range and we have good implied odds when we hit our Q... but now we're setting up a multiple street bluff on a card where his c/c range could be strong'ish? (could have Jx, KQ, AK, AA)?

I seriously doubt he c/c Jx very often because of the two flush draws.

I think a nit can fold any one pair hand here a lot, so KQ/AK/AA are all the same hand from that point of view.

I suspect that although 25NL games can be agressive, they are so straightforward on the turn and especially river, that you're probably thinking in terms of what happens at your games - ie. that someone will notice I rep narrow and will bluffcatch, wheras in my games if someone calls the river here with a K it's normally because they are loose and passive postflop, rather than that they know they can only beat a bluff. I think people actually realising that I'm unlikely to have a J and bluffcatching is going to be limited to perhaps the top 5% or even 2% of 25NL players.

Not to mention we're trying to rep Jx and only Jx when FD's brick, is a risky proposition here.

I take it you're betting a river brick 5 as well?

Now I remember - I've already posted this hand!

Yeah, I take your point - I think the main thing to learn from this hand for me is that I should be aware if I'm going to bluff of when I rep narrow enough that people might notice how unlikely I am to have it.

Yes, I'd have bet a brick 5 as well. I think I'd have bet anything other than a K or another J.

I'm really glad to see somebody doing this work. The last person I can remember actually working through this type of thing on my suggestion was m2m about two or three years ago.

Nice advertising

Originally Posted by spoonitnow

I'm really glad to see somebody doing this work. The last person I can remember actually working through this type of thing on my suggestion was m2m about two or three years ago.

Thanks, your strategy articles and particularly the way they give people _specific_ things to go away and do for themselves are excellent. I think often people are right when they say "you've got to do the work for yourself" but they then leave new guys without anywhere to start, because they don't know enough yet to know what to work on. Thanks for the articles.

Here's another hand for this thread:

Villain here we have only quite a small sample on (66 hands), but IME that is normally enough to get PFR to converge, and here he is 20/11 suggesting someone who is not a complete drooler but who does call too much preflop and is likely to be somewhat tight-passive overall. Now obviously someone could have been dealt a few nice cold-calling hands in a row, but as a preliminary read I think saying he's likely to be weak-tight is not a bad start.

Hero (BTN): $49.20 (196.8 bb)
SB: $33.52 (134.1 bb)
BB: $46.21 (184.8 bb)
UTG: $44.25 (177 bb)
MP: $31.45 (125.8 bb)
CO: $31.81 (127.2 bb)

Preflop: Hero is BTN with A K
3 folds, Hero raises to $0.75, SB folds, BB calls $0.50

First adjustment: Make it a little bigger on the button because I have a great hand. It's not a read based adjustment, just general exploitation - I wouldn't do it if I had 500 hands on both blinds (ie. they have 500 hands on me), but here I didn't have much history with either blind, so I can assume they won't notice too often if I just bet bigger with my value hands and smaller with my bluffs. I could probably have even got away with 3.5bb here.

Against people who I thought might notice my varying sizing, I would still vary my sizing sometimes, but now not according to my cards (hidden information) but instead according to who is in the blinds (information already available to the table) making it bigger against someone who'd defend lighter and smaller against someone who was tighter in the blinds. So now I'd be betting the same size with my entire range, but varying the sizing according the the opponents tendencies.

Flop: ($1.60) 4 A 8 (2 players)
BB checks, Hero bets $1.25, BB raises to $3.75, Hero calls $2.50

WTF - we've been raised. Quick - stack off. Hold on though, is someone who we think is likely to be weak-tight raising his draws? Is he raising AQ or even AJ BTNvBB because of the loose aggressive dynamic those spots often involve? Often, against regs, I'd be happy to stack off here and chalk it up to a cooler when they show up with 88/44/A8/A4/AA, but against this specific villain I think I'd now prefer to play a small pot.

EDIT: I only just noticed how deep we were in this hand, so in any case I wouldn't try to stack off on the flop against a more aggressive, standard TAG. However, the general point about making the adjustment of deciding I'd prefer to play a small pot still stands.

Turn: ($9.10) Q (2 players)
BB checks, Hero checks

So I check back the turn.

River: ($9.10) 2 (2 players)
BB bets $5.25, Hero calls $5.25

A bigger bet could make me go two ways.

1. I might fold to it, believing it to be for value and therefore bigger
2. I might call it, believing it to be an attempt to push me off more of my value range.

I'm not entirely happy about why I have those tendencies when considering the size of a river bet I'm facing, and I'm not saying they are correct, but they are my thought pattern so I might as well admit to them.

Given his sizing though, giving us about 3:1, I figured he could still have been raising a draw and that my read could have been incorrect, so I called.

Results: $19.60 pot ($0.88 rake)
Final Board: 4 A 8 Q 2
Hero mucked A K and lost (-$9.75 net)
BB showed 8 A and won $18.72 ($8.97 net)

And lost a lot less money than I would have done against someone who I was sure would raise their draws inclining me to just stack off on the flop.

So, I'm not happy that on the river I didn't stick with my read, but I also figured I might have induced a river bluff from a bricked diamond draw by checking back the turn, so that also inclined me to call. He could also be good enough to thinly value bet like AJ here but I wasn't thinking that at the time.

Comments on the hand in general are welcome as well as comments on the adjustments made - I'm not holding this up as an example of how to play a hand, and in some ways I don't like it too much, but I did think it was a good hand to post to illustrate where I'd deviate from my standard line because of a read.

That is a really good point about considering player type when facing a raise, esp on the flop when you can save a lot and aren't near committed.