Need to know Info with Several Big Hands

AK-postflop. If missed what is the best response IP, OOP? Multi-way I'm c/f most of the time.

AQ-I hate this hand sometimes. IP, OOP. Preflop aggressor or not. I'm cautious on a A high board . AK is going to rip me a new one here. Don't get me wrong, I'm v-betting every street in town. Until I get some agression back. Am I playing this wrong.

AJ-I don't exactly what the issue is here. But I'm loosing money(barely) with this hand... What could I most likely be doing wrong?

KQ-Preflop, I'm weird about this hand. Seems like a good 2nd best hand. IE if the K or Q catch, I'm still holding GK not TK.

QJs-Preflop.... Just wonder how people play this in what positions.

Ohh and of coarse:
89o-I'm shoving this pre correct? :wink:

answer to every question: it depends

you're not going to get the best responoses if you ask questions like these. it depends on position/villain(s)/stack sizes etc etc.

post specific hands with player stats and any reads to get the most out of this forum.

Well. Anyone is welcome to just choose a 1 If they can't answer most of them, and just throw in different variables, and what to do with said variables.
I'm rarely if EVER asking about a specific hand because I want to know what to do in THAT situation, When I post HH's I'm asking about thought process. Am I betting correct amounts, Is my reasoning for betting sound, etc.

As far as responding to exact HH's; Please, comment on my other 5 HH's thread.

id be surprised to see any of the regs post a response to this as it seriously sounds like you want someone to come along and tell you what to do with these hands in every situation.

im honestly not trying to be a jerk - just letting you know that the best posters far more often than not want SPECIFIC examples with as much detail regarding villain(s) so that they can give you the best possible advice.

do you expect someone to outline what to do against aggro/passive - loose/tight - shortstacked/deepstacked opponents on all varieties of board textures IP and OOP relative to preflop action with all the hands you listed??

the questions you've asked arent going to get you responses regarding bet sizing, reason for betting, thought processes.

also, you should be asking about specific hands so you can apply what you learn about THAT situation to OTHER situations.

just my thoughts. gl.

you are trying too hard here


it all depends on about a million factors

I understand. My questions are infact geared toward generalized answers. The reason being there are so many unknown villains at 5NL. I'm kind of looking for "Rules of thumb" That will at least act as a guide until a better read can be derived from villain. I'm willing to brake down more specific questions one at a time, and anyone willing to chime in is appreciated.


________AK_________
Preflop
Hero Raise MP1 Stack:100xBB
Villain calls MP2 100xBB
All others fold

Villain Unknown
Flop: J:h: 6:d: 2:s:

Hero: ???

Same situation, except preflop goes:
Villain raise4xBB
Hero calls
All folds.

Should I bet if villain checks? Should I fold if villain 2/3pot flop bet?

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Originally Posted by wellrounded08

I understand. My questions are infact geared toward generalized answers. The reason being there are so many unknown villains at 5NL. I'm kind of looking for "Rules of thumb" That will at least act as a guide until a better read can be derived from villain. I'm willing to brake down more specific questions one at a time, and anyone willing to chime in is appreciated.


________AK_________
Preflop
Hero Raise MP1 Stack:100xBB
Villain calls MP2 100xBB
All others fold

Villain Unknown
Flop: J:h: 6:d: 2:s:

Hero: ???

Same situation, except preflop goes:
Villain raise4xBB
Hero calls
All folds.

Should I bet if villain checks? Should I fold if villain 2/3pot flop bet?

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Here´s what I would do and why(dont know if that means much but whatever...):

Situation 1:
I would do my standard cbet( i cbet most of the time). Something around 2/3 of the pot. The reason behind this is to mantain table image(maybe not important in 5NL, so you can maybe disregard this one), but mainly because you get a lot of hands to fold(probably the range is: AK, AQ, 66-33, Axo and Axs no pair, all SCs), and you take the pot right there. However if you get called, with that board texture, youre probably beaten unless you hit on turn, and even then you could still be against AJ or KJ. So turn i would value bet if i hit, and then check river; or check most of the time when i dont hit.
He could also check/raise flop semi-bluffing or with a strong to very strong hand, so in this case i would fold vs an unknown.

Situation 2:
I would probably reraise pre.
This situation is very "villain dependant". But since you said he is unknown, maybe being careful is right. So check if he checks, and reevaluate after turn falls. Otherwise fold if he cbets 2/3 of the pot.
Maybe later when i play a similar hand against the same villain i would play this hand in a very different way, but after knowing his betting,c-betting, raising habits.

Well, as I said before, this is the way I would play this hand. In fact, this is the way I usually play it. So I´m very interested too to hear some comments and thoughts about whether I´m doing this right or not.

I applaud you for working on hard on your game first of all. Second of all, there are a lot of factors as others mentioned. You should always know when to play certains hand and why. Poker isn't about memorization, it's about adapting to every single last factor in each situation.

As for your hand. Do you not play at a room where you can datamine? Even if you have a ton of different players, datamine and table select for as long as you can prior to your session so you have a good amount of stats. Now, obviously you (should) know that your line depends on how they play postflop. For now, if you've played a lot of hands here, you should know what players generally have here when they take these lines even if they are unknown because most players here have the same skill level. What you then need to decide is how they'll play their range to a bet, raise, etc on the flop. Then you have to think about future streets and how they'll play against certain turn/river cards. Also, make sure you know an estimate of what kind of equity you have against their range too as the more equity, the more likely you'll win ld0. Not really sure if this makes sense but mess around with like pokerstove, learn some EV calcs., try to make reads in every hand, experiment, think of how certain cards will affect their range and what the best line is (should I semibluff raise flop and continue if an Ah hits on river?, etc). If you have a lot of free time it's a lot easier. I usually do this kind of stuff in class.

Quote:

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Poker isn't about memorization, it's about adapting to every single last factor in each situation.

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Thank you BTW. This is exactly what I've been trying to say though(not clearly obviously), I don't want to know EXACTLY what to do in these situations vs all opp.'s, I was curious if there was a set +EV vs unknown. Or a commonly accepted +EV choice vs Unknown since there tend to be so many.

The most I do in the way of researching my oop.'s is notes and PT Database, and I rarely have Showdown hands vs opp.'s if any at all. Not enough to determine much about an opp. anyway. I use PokerStars, And I'm unfamiliar w/ Data-mining.

my line against unknowns: assume he or she is competent until he or she has given me reason to believe otherwise.

Wellrounded. If I told you to stop posting things about your hands and what you should do, and asked you about the villains ranges and what he would do with what hands, would that help?

Im not sure I fully understand what you're asking. If I do understand then yes, It would. I have minimal knowledge about how to apply player stats to ranges. And knowing what villains would do with what hands depending on said stats would be tremendous help. I appreciate you're taking a minute and giving some thought to where I'm comming from BTW.

Quote:

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Originally Posted by wellrounded08

Im not sure I fully understand what you're asking. If I do understand then yes, It would. I have minimal knowledge about how to apply player stats to ranges. And knowing what villains would do with what hands depending on said stats would be tremendous help. I appreciate you're taking a minute and giving some thought to where I'm comming from BTW.

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Jyms, I'm impressed with the advice/comment you made here.
OP, I'm going to spell something out..

Walk before you can run.

Here's a first step for you, try to apply pre-flop ranges to pre-flop stats .

time to think about this one. There are 169 types of hands pre-flop, but these differ in frequency. There are 1326 distinct hands.

List the possibilities for:
AKs
JQo
TJ (ignoring suited vs unsuited)
39 (ignoring suited vs unsuited)
89s
TT

now, check that you got 4, 12, 16, 16, 4, 6 for these respectively. If not, try again or post here in case i stuffed up!

From this, you can start to develop ranges from stats. Obviously sample size is important here, but you start to get an indication of the type of player range from 100hands, and the style of player from less.

If villain has a pfr of 2 then he's raising 2% of 1326 hands, which is about 26 hands. This is pretty close to JJ/QQ/KK/AA/AKs (28 distinct hands). You obviously don't want to be 3-betting this player.

Start to play with a few other percentages.
You'll find that there are 13x6=78 distinct pair hands, 78/1326 is ... I'll let you do the math.
I think that spending an hour playing around with hand frequencies and a calculator will be time well spent.

Remember that ranges out of the blinds and from the button are non-standard. Also remember that unpredictable hands turn up some time, a 13-7 may be raising 86s from MP, but it's unlikely...

Once you got this better understood, you'll be a step closer to crushing micros. Also see the aussie's wise words here:
http://www.flopturnriver.com/phpBB2/...65.html#748123

Also, most of your biggest leaks are probably pre-flop and on the flop. Sounds as though you're not applying the absolute basics of pre-flop play that you've read and read and read...
Play with a starting hand chart for a while. Stick to it. Don't even think about trying to polarise your range or confuse your opponents. See what happens. And read isf's guide to beating micros http://www.flopturnriver.com/blogs/a...kinsfan/page/4 - it may be the most useful thing you'll ever encounter. Especially note this:

Quote:

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Originally Posted by IowaSkinsFan

Rule #1: Play tight preflop

When playing loose and passive players, much of the time we find ourselves versus ranges that are surprisingly balanced. The opponent isn’t raising with his semi strong hands, medium, or weak hands. Because of this, bluffing becomes tough, as it always is versus a balanced range. Therefore, you don’t want to find yourself without a hand versus these opponents. And what’s the best way to always find yourself with a hand? Playing tight preflop. Like, really tight. In a datamine of 100nl this month, guess what the stats were for the two biggest winners in the game? 12/10 and 12/6. You don’t have to play that tight, but there’s really no reason to play a lot of hands versus players who have no clue.

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Quote:

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Originally Posted by wellrounded08

AK-postflop. If missed what is the best response IP, OOP? Multi-way I'm c/f most of the time. Why are you seeing flops multi-way with AK? you shouldn't be calling raises with this hand, you shouldn't be limping with this hand, etc.

AQ-I hate this hand sometimes. IP, OOP. Preflop aggressor or not. this is a leak, stop calling raises with AQ until you're better. I'm cautious on a A high board . AK is going to rip me a new one here. Don't get me wrong, I'm v-betting every street in town. Until I get some agression back. Am I playing this wrong. probably

AJ-I don't exactly what the issue is here. But I'm loosing money(barely) with this hand... What could I most likely be doing wrong? fold AJ from EP, raise from late position. Don't call raises with AJ

KQ-Preflop, I'm weird about this hand. Seems like a good 2nd best hand. IE if the K or Q catch, I'm still holding GK not TK. Fold pre from early and mid-position, open raise or raise after limpers from late position, never call raises

QJs-Preflop.... Just wonder how people play this in what positions. ignore how other people play this hand, . Think about likely good flops, how do you feel on these flops? scared? good. Now focus on folding it pre-flop

Ohh and of coarse:
89o-I'm shoving this pre correct? :wink: i know this is a joke, but read and try to understand the answer. It depends how balanced your range is, how deep you are, previous action, whether you're open shoving or shoving to defend the SB vs a serial stealer etc...

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