Stealing pots after the flop using position

Are any of you using this strategy? This seems to work very well for me.

Lets say you are last to act on the button and hold A9o in a limped pot and there are two other people in the hand.

Flop comes 7s 2s 10d

player1 - check
player 2 - check
hero - bet 1/2 - 2/3 pot

My reasoning behind this is if someone had a pair or set they would bet it out because of the possible flush. It seems I am able to steal the pot with nothing or say low or middle pair like 90% of the time under these conditions. The other 10% are people looking to check raise with sets or just call to hit there flush.

Think about ranges and fold equity.

Let's say you're in a heads up pot, the pot is $10. You bet $5. This needs to fold out >=33% of his range to be profitable. This is why we love cbets.

(You're betting 5 to win 15 and 5 is 33% of 15)

Originally Posted by Ash256

Think about ranges and fold equity.

Let's say you're in a heads up pot, the pot is $10. You bet $5. This needs to fold out >=33% of his range to be profitable. This is why we love cbets.

(You're betting 5 to win 15 and 5 is 33% of 15)

Yes I know but I was talking about multi-way pots.

i'm curious as to what you meant by "BB?" if you meant "big blind," you cant be acting 3rd. i assume you meant "button." in which case, shouldnt you have raised it up, if limped to?

it sets up the cbet better, and may pick off the blinds...which is all you did by waiting until the flop. but...

by waiting for the flop, you gave the limpers chances to hit shitty two pair into your A on the flop (ex...A 3 6). good luck getting away from that medium sized pot when its limped.

i just think it would be better to raise it up, if attempting to steal blinds. dont limp and wait for everyone to miss because you wont know if they did.

Originally Posted by Pythonic

Lets say you are last to act...hold A9o in a limped pot and there are two other people in the hand.

raise. your hand sucks so try to take it pre.

Originally Posted by Ash256

Think about ranges and fold equity.

Let's say you're in a heads up pot, the pot is $10. You bet $5. This needs to fold out >=33% of his range to be profitable. This is why we love cbets.

(You're betting 5 to win 15 and 5 is 33% of 15)

aren't you betting 5 to win 10 here? your opponent is calling 5 to win 15.

Originally Posted by Chopper

i'm curious as to what you meant by "BB?" if you meant "big blind," you cant be acting 3rd. i assume you meant "button." in which case, shouldnt you have raised it up, if limped to?

it sets up the cbet better, and may pick off the blinds...which is all you did by waiting until the flop. but...

by waiting for the flop, you gave the limpers chances to hit shitty two pair into your A on the flop (ex...A 3 6). good luck getting away from that medium sized pot when its limped.

i just think it would be better to raise it up, if attempting to steal blinds. dont limp and wait for everyone to miss because you wont know if they did.

Yes, sorry I meant button.

Originally Posted by pgil

Originally Posted by Ash256

Think about ranges and fold equity.

Let's say you're in a heads up pot, the pot is $10. You bet $5. This needs to fold out >=33% of his range to be profitable. This is why we love cbets.

(You're betting 5 to win 15 and 5 is 33% of 15)

aren't you betting 5 to win 10 here? your opponent is calling 5 to win 15.

lol, I suck at pot odds - I don't actually know.

I can never remember whether or not the money you put in becomes part of the counted pot.

Originally Posted by Ash256

Originally Posted by pgil

Originally Posted by Ash256

Think about ranges and fold equity.

Let's say you're in a heads up pot, the pot is $10. You bet $5. This needs to fold out >=33% of his range to be profitable. This is why we love cbets.

(You're betting 5 to win 15 and 5 is 33% of 15)

aren't you betting 5 to win 10 here? your opponent is calling 5 to win 15.

lol, I suck at pot odds - I don't actually know.

I can never remember whether or not the money you put in becomes part of the counted pot.

you are betting 5 to win 10. you only need it to work 1 in 3 times to break even. you bet 5 and lose (-5), you bet 5 and lose (-10), you bet 5 and win (+10).........-10 + 10 = 0.

that doesnt consider the times you hit your overcards on turn, or draw. or times you were good with A high. but, give or take, its 1 in 3 with a 1/2 pot bet.

Villian ended up having AKo but if Im pretty sure what Im up against is it ok to fold here?

Originally Posted by Ash256

Originally Posted by pgil

Originally Posted by Ash256

Think about ranges and fold equity.

Let's say you're in a heads up pot, the pot is $10. You bet $5. This needs to fold out >=33% of his range to be profitable. This is why we love cbets.

(You're betting 5 to win 15 and 5 is 33% of 15)

aren't you betting 5 to win 10 here? your opponent is calling 5 to win 15.

lol, I suck at pot odds - I don't actually know.

I can never remember whether or not the money you put in becomes part of the counted pot.

After your money is in the pot it is part of the pot. Not before.

Calling is just fine.

Betting the flop is just fine.

You should tend to bet about the size of pot here, even consider regularly over-betting a bit. If the pot is $10, then $10, $12 and $15 are all good bet sizes IMHO. DUCY?

looks like you are protecting a strong hand vrs the flush draw? and gets rid of pap marginal hands that may call weak bets.

I don't like to bet half the pot as its asking for aggression, even betting the pot has to only work 50% of the time. And it is what you want to do when you have hit a hand as well.

Why the hell are you seeing a flop with

A) A weak ace
B) Unsuited
C) Unconnected

The whole idea is -EV preflop... you are hoping that no cards 10-k come an blatantly invalidate your 9, you are hoping that no A comes so you don't have to worry if your kicker is good or not (half the time it's not), you're hoping no flush or straight draws come, I mean there is no possible flop that is good for this hand.

Raise preflop 5xbb if you think you can steal to look like you're clearing out the fags, anyone with gold will reraise and you save yourself some money, you DEFINATELY don't want to see a flop here, unless you can magically predict a 9-high flop or 3 aces flopping. This looks like a "I limped in on the button so I can steal your shit play", what if one of them has a pocket pair or a ten and saw the same crappy flop as you did and is waiting to checkraise?

remember, no one else has shit, either. or they would have raised pf, too. there isnt a TT lurking in there to "re-steal" a limped pot. thats just as stupid.

what you may find is someone else with crap who hits a ragged flop. or someone with bigger balls than you who re-raises your steal. crap like that.

but, you arent going to see too many solid hands that limped here, unless the player is deserving of a "donkey note."

again, steal it preflop, steal it post flop, i dont think it makes a big difference. but, by waiting for the flop, you ARE giving even shittier cards a chance to beat you. and, i dont want to take that chance, myself.

Originally Posted by Fnord

Calling is just fine.

Betting the flop is just fine.

You should tend to bet about the size of pot here, even consider regularly over-betting a bit. If the pot is $10, then $10, $12 and $15 are all good bet sizes IMHO. DUCY?

It will fold out a huge part of their winning range (even middle pairs) and it has something to do with the fact that % of getting a fold is NOT proportional to bet/pot ratio. The "S" shaped logistic curve in NLHET&P book shows that.

t also mixes up well with overbetting big hands and cleans out our Ace outs.

DICY?

Originally Posted by Technooo

Why the hell are you seeing a flop

He has position and a pair will often be good.

Originally Posted by Technooo

Why the hell are you seeing a flop

He has position and a pair will often be good.

A safer variation on the OP's strategy which works well for me - let's say you limp into a multiway pot with no raises preflop (eg sc's late or on the BB) and don't improve with the flop. If everyone checks the flop then bet the turn - you have a very high chance of taking the pot down.

Basically stealing on the flop is suspicious when you haven't shown strength preflop. Turn bets gets much more respect and the lack of other bets suggests no-one has a hand.

Originally Posted by Fnord

Originally Posted by Technooo

Why the hell are you seeing a flop

He has position and a pair will often be good.

Then why not play every hand on the button that you don't feel like raising for a limp?

What if the blinds raise? Most ranges that a blinds would raise from invalidate an A9 hand. And anyway you're giving the blind a free flop with any 2 so you get no info there.

I can feel A9 suited, (I think suited makes a huge difference here), but I think opps fold to your A9o on the flop here only when you have them beat, and the pot only gets large when you are beaten heavily.



Do you feel me? Basically, you're waiting for the flop to raise a very small pot, when the pot is exactly the same preflop, and you don't want to encourage multi way pots or telegraph your hand's weakness. That gives you a little momentum to C-bet going into the flop.

Technooo is right about what he says but I should have used a suited connector as a better example. I am never limping on the button with A9 unless it is suited.

Originally Posted by Pythonic

Technooo is right about what he says but I should have used a suited connector as a better example. I am never limping on the button with A9 unless it is suited.

i would think that most times you would raise A9s on the button in a multi-limped pot. you arent likely to blow any of the limpers out, and you start building a pot for the flush draw early.

usually, i will raise these to 3-4X. not much, just a "sweetener." again, balance it out with other stuff, too, though. things i want to see multi-way will get smaller pfr's. things i dont want to, get bigger ones. if there are 3 limpers, i will raise AXs to 3-4X. if i have AKo, i raise it to 6-8X.

players this low dont recognize the difference, imo, as long as you are doing both consistently....and your opening raises are only 4X with AKo oop.