again about passive players

[giallorosso]

I told you before i have problem dealing with passive player when i have a good hand but their is better

this is an example. what do you think?

PokerStars No-Limit Hold'em, $0.25 BB (6 handed) Hand History Converter Tool from FlopTurnRiver.com (Format: FlopTurnRiver)

MP ($24.75)
CO ($5.65)
Button ($31.70)
SB ($37.25)
BB ($28.90)
Hero ($43.45)

Preflop: Hero is UTG with A, A.
Hero raises to $1, 1 fold, CO calls $1, Button calls $1, SB calls $0.90, BB calls $0.75.

Flop: ($5) T, 5, Q (5 players)
SB checks, BB checks, Hero bets $3, CO raises to $4.65, Button folds, SB calls $4.65, BB folds, Hero calls $1.65.

Turn: ($18.95) 3 (3 players)
SB checks, Hero bets $9.25, SB calls $9.25.

River: ($37.45) 2 (3 players)
SB checks, Hero checks.

Final Pot: $37.45

[mixchange]

1) Raise more preflop, to say $2, you need to thin people out with big PP and isolate. You dont want a lot of callers, just one at a high price, maybe two.
2) Bet the pot or 3/4 of the pot on the flop.

I'd be most afraid someone has two pair, like a Q10. I suppose it could be a set of 5s but that would be pretty silly betting.

[Pelion]

HH looks screwed up. Wheres CO on the turn?

If CO is very passive I might fold to the flop raise. If SB is the passive one I value bet the river (which is probably a push given stack sizes)

[giallorosso]

passive one is SB, co does not scarry me, co had set (T) any chance of a good read here?
BTW a 2 $ rise at this level an this table means only the blind 99% of the time, do you think is the right move?

[mixchange]

You have to make it more than $1, minimum make it $1.50 to go. The 1010 definitely calls there, and you love it if they call, it just didn't work out this time.

Key is to be making bigger bets more often to get callers on your AA and KK. When you enter preflop, enter with a good sized raise, sometimes mix it up with small pp's and scs. don't just play vanilla or you will just get blinds...because if your a vanilla TAG player, we all know when to avoid you pre-flop. sounds like your raises are a bit too vanilla...which works more in 10man rings, not so much in 6man.

CO disappeared on turn because he was the shorty all-in.

theres absolutely no way to read the CO. his stack is so small its almost irrelevant. there's no way you fold to a pot sized bet on the flop when you have AA, so you can ignore his actions

[swiggidy]

You have to make it more than $1, minimum make it $1.50 to go.

uhh, not necessarily. You only need to raise more pre-flop if you are getting 4 callers every-single-time. $1 standard should be fine.

[mixchange]

I might agree with you swigg if the stacks were smaller, but we have 5 full stacks here and most of them are over for the limit.

I play at this limit sometimes, and maybe its just my style, but I toss out the $1 like candy on pps, scs... doesnt look like much to me.

[pokerroomace]

i don't think you should raise more than $1 pf. $1 is good. at most i would say $1.25

you shouldn't be worried about CO at all. he's a tiny stack. he's not even in the hand IMO. let him get all his chips in. he could easily have TP with a wide range of kickers or even a worse hand.

SB is the problem. if you know SB will check a strong hand on the river. then you should probs check. if you know he is loose/passive and could have AQ/KQ, etc. then you should bet the river.

i think you should probably bet the river here. i don't play on stars though. i know that on pokerroom you are definitely getting calls from players with weak hands on the river. but apparently stars is a higher level of play

i don't agree with your advice mixchange. it sounds to me like our a loose player. i think you should make your standard preflop raise 4xbb + 1xbb for each limper. if you're betting 8xbb pf you won't get much action and when you do you'll be beaten. and players can afford to wait for a good hand if you're raising so much pf.

your strategy might work against weak players at the lower stakes. but against stronger players, you'll get punished for overbetting a lot preflop. even at the lower stakes you'll make more with normal sized bets.

[giallorosso]

i see the point you are making here but i still found myself in difficult spots when i rise sc or pp. Should i rise them only in unrised pot from lp or button or can i loosen up even more??
what about if there are limpers before me?

thanks

[Miffed22001]

on that board, call the raise lead the turn fold to a reraise.
yoyu could fold the flop if opp is ultra-passive, but that seems awfully weak/tight to me.

[zook]

Value-bet the river against a passive player. A little more on the flop, otherwise it's fine.

[pgil]

the thing is, in this hand the SB check/called a bet and a push (albeit a small push), so he either has a really nice hand (ie set/ 2 pr) or a drawing hand. The fact that you bet on the turn leads me to believe you put him on the drawing hand, but then the problem is that you did not bet nearly enough.

If you are unsure here against a loose passive player you might be better off betting the turn harder and checking the river behind.

Against a tight passive player it's probably a check on the turn, then call the small value bet on the river/check behind.

[zook]

The fact that you bet on the turn leads me to believe you put him on the drawing hand, but then the problem is that you did not bet nearly enough.

Half-pot is fine to deny odds to draw to the flush. Sure, a little more is better against a loose passive player, but not absolutely necessary.

[bode]

$1 is fine for a pfr at this level. i love when people advocate making a 8xBB+ pfr.

[mixchange]

your strategy might work against weak players at the lower stakes. but against stronger players, you'll get punished for overbetting a lot preflop. even at the lower stakes you'll make more with normal sized bets.

I agree and disagree. I agree my strategy works on weak players at lower stakes, and this is 25NL. I would never play that way at 100NL or 200NL, that would get me torched. It also seems to work for me at 50NL, but my flop % is a bit lower and I have to shift gears more often.

I also advocate playing pots with weak players in general, and avoiding pots with stronger players. I optimize my strategy for weaker players because they are who I make my money from. I ditch tables with stronger players, seeking the weak.

You can win a lot of money with practically A2C by raising preflop and sneezing at pots at 25NL. When people notice this, you shift gears into a tighter style and suddenly you have people willing to gamble with you on your good hands. What being a careful LAG does is get you business on your big hands. There is more variance, but when a set hits with an ace out, shockingly some people will go all in on the flop if they have AK.

25NL for the most part there are 4 categories of players
1) good, solid regulars (not many of these, just avoid pots with them, very easy to spot)
2) maniac short stacks (fold to them until you have the right hand, then take their whole stack)
3) weak-tight players (only plays strong hands, but then won't continuation bet, just cbet them and fold to their strength)
4) loose-passive (lots of calls with wide ranges of hands, calls fetching draws, make raises that are just enough for incorrect drawing odds and you can make quite a bit)

I disagree you will make more with lower sized bets at 25NL, I have made much more money now than I ever did with TAG at this limit. Different styles work for different people though. The key at 25NL is that there are mistakes piled upon mistakes and the play is quite scared.

[mixchange]

i see the point you are making here but i still found myself in difficult spots when i rise sc or pp. Should i rise them only in unrised pot from lp or button or can i loosen up even more??
what about if there are limpers before me?

thanks

PP's are less opvious to play than scs, imo. If there are 3 overcards, your cbet is roughly equivalent to cbetting with A2c. Pre-flop call bets up to 4x bb as long as the raiser has at least 15x (20x is better) the size of the raise in their stack. Look to flop sets, if you don't, bail. When you get used to this, ditch the 4xbb restriction and pay attention to the raise in relation to their stack, theres lots of talk about implied odds, but there is a whole thread about that. I use 15X as a general rule. It may sound odd, but it's great to call with 55 if they have AA and they make a 4x raise. You have great implied odds if the set hits.

If nobody raises, don't raise. You want to play in a multiway pot with as many callers as possible, hoping when you flop your set someone else hits 2p or TPTK, or decides to chase a draw. Do not bluff at multiway pots.

For now just look to flop sets and get paid.

SC's are much less straightforward than pps, so I would focus more on pp because the play is straightforward and you can get great results. Playing sc's on the other hand can get expensive very quickly.

start out by playing sc's with at least an 8 in them. I've found my most profitable sc's to be Q10 from my Poker Tracker stats. Eventually you can play smaller sc's as they can have awesome implied odds as people think "no way he called a 4x bb raise with 4 6" (e.g. board is A 5 7 8 and push all in thinking they have you outkicked with AK). This is obviously too tricky right now, start out with higher sc's.

Only raise sc's from late positions. This gives you the upper hand to cbet/semi bluff the pot. If the ace hits, definitely cbet. Otherwise for now it might be too complicated of a play for you. Right now focus more on semi-bluffing pots, say we have J10s for the following 2 flops:

Ks 5s Qh -- this is great, you are around even with top pair and you should make a 1/2 pot sized bet as you have an OESD and a flush draw.
8s 2s 9h - You are ahead of everything except a set as long as your overcards aren't shared with villain.

In the above two cases I bet 1/2 the pot. If you flop an open ended straight flush draw, be willing to go all in as you are almost always ahead.

Pay attention to odds and don't chase with improper odds. You can cbet on the flop with sc's as you have fold equity, but fold to a re-raise and don't bluff on the turn. Flush's are also much easier to spot than straights, and many players will shut down when it is out. The implied odds are less than you think. I'd rather my straight hit than my flush.

[pokerroomace]

What being a careful LAG does is get you business on your big hands. There is more variance, but when a set hits with an ace out, shockingly some people will go all in on the flop if they have AK.

You'll get a lot of players stacking off to you with AK when the flop comes A hi and you flopped a set. you get it if you're LAG or TAG.

a couple of months ago there was a period where i would play hyper aggressive at the 6 max 25NL tables. i didn't do it for long but i was winning playing that way.
one thing i gained from playing this way was that i got much better at cbetting and stealing pots. i was trying to steal nearly every pot when i was playing like this. then when i went back to the 25nl 10 handed tables and started playing tight again i started stealing a huge amount of pots when i raised pf but missed the flop. i wasn't capable of making this play before. if you try playing TAG you might find that the skills you've gained from playing LAG might help you win more playing TAG.

if you're consistently winning then don't change your style and move up the levels.

also, why are you playing 25NL if sometimes you play 100nl?
i used to do this as well. a couple of weeks i was playing 100nl at party. but i've now decided to play in a structured way and i'll only be playing at 100nl once i've beaten 25nl and 50nl. (when i have a br of $2k)

[dioufy77]

raisng to $2 is stupid. $1 is 4 times the big blind and that is a good size raise. you should always raise the same amount pre flop no matter what you have if you have decided you are going to raise. This makes it harder for your opponents to read. If you raise to $2, you are overbetting the pot significantly

[pgil]

The fact that you bet on the turn leads me to believe you put him on the drawing hand, but then the problem is that you did not bet nearly enough.

Half-pot is fine to deny odds to draw to the flush. Sure, a little more is better against a loose passive player, but not absolutely necessary.

being kind of nit-picky, I know, but the bet is actually a little less than 1/2 pot.

More importantly, though it may deny your opp express odds, I think with our hand here (AA) we will be forced to call/will call a lot of smallish (in relation to the pot) river bets if the flush hits giving our opp plenty of implied odds on the play, making the call a correct play. if opp has a pair plus a flush draw then he has more than enough odds to easily make that call. at least if we bet more, we put him to a decision.

plus it makes it a lot easier to play many river cards with less money behind.

[mixchange]

What being a careful LAG does is get you business on your big hands. There is more variance, but when a set hits with an ace out, shockingly some people will go all in on the flop if they have AK.

You'll get a lot of players stacking off to you with AK when the flop comes A hi and you flopped a set. you get it if you're LAG or TAG.

a couple of months ago there was a period where i would play hyper aggressive at the 6 max 25NL tables. i didn't do it for long but i was winning playing that way.
one thing i gained from playing this way was that i got much better at cbetting and stealing pots. i was trying to steal nearly every pot when i was playing like this. then when i went back to the 25nl 10 handed tables and started playing tight again i started stealing a huge amount of pots when i raised pf but missed the flop. i wasn't capable of making this play before. if you try playing TAG you might find that the skills you've gained from playing LAG might help you win more playing TAG.

if you're consistently winning then don't change your style and move up the levels.

also, why are you playing 25NL if sometimes you play 100nl?
i used to do this as well. a couple of weeks i was playing 100nl at party. but i've now decided to play in a structured way and i'll only be playing at 100nl once i've beaten 25nl and 50nl. (when i have a br of $2k)

Great post, thank you for your time. You may be right, sounds like I am just going through natural progressions you and many players have already been through. Maybe I need to try being tighter and see if I run even better while using my skills learned in being a LAG.

I'm not that experienced and just had stuck to playing TAG until recently. After reading half of Harrington v1 (much better w/ pot odds) and Gordon's green book (pre-flop bet I've cut out some chip leaks and I'm runing even better. 25NL seems even easier. I'm still at about the same flop % of 35% but I'm raising much less with certain cards and winning bigger pots on sets letting others limp and not wasting on sc's that miss and cbets that fail.

I've really been using cash lately to fund my tourney buy-ins, and my roll isnt enough for 100NL and barely so for 50NL. Been running badly recently at the MTT with 4 consective bustouts on heavily favored hands late in the tourney, plus the usual range of coin flip busts. I need to rebuild my roll reliably, 25NL is perfect. I was doing well in 50NL before the MTT swing, so I will move up when re-rolled properly. I just didn't want to risk going broke on variance, which is high with a LAG style.

[mixchange]

raisng to $2 is stupid. $1 is 4 times the big blind and that is a good size raise. you should always raise the same amount pre flop no matter what you have if you have decided you are going to raise. This makes it harder for your opponents to read. If you raise to $2, you are overbetting the pot significantly

According to poker theory, yes it is an overbet. The actual mistake filled play however I've seen on 25NL suggests that a $1 raise does little to thin out many hands. I need at least $1.25 to thin most people. For some reason at small stakes people just think "eh, another 75 cents isnt much" and call anyway, but a $1 or more additionally seems like too much.

do you play much 25NL? At higher stakes I stick to the 'basics' more, but at 25NL there are too many calling stations not to 1) thin people out if you have AA or KK and 2) take advantage of calling station mistakes

[Miffed22001]

preflop raising, epecially opening the pot shouldnt need to be so large, afterall we dont suck postflop to pay every piece of crap off that gets lucky do we?

Bet size should be not be a consideration, you should just c-bet a standard amount every time. The skill should come from checking when youre expected to bet and betting when you should probably check at times or take a free card. Amounts are pointless particularly on the flop. If someone is calling a half pot c-bet on a board you pretty obviously hit hard then theyll call a 3/4 pot bet as well.

[mixchange]

Let me get this straight - if I have AA and I know if I bet $1 I will get 2 callers, but if bet $2 I will get 1 caller, I should still only bet 1?

[pokerroomace]

Let me get this straight - if I have AA and I know if I bet $1 I will get 2 callers, but if bet $2 I will get 1 caller, I should still only bet 1?

you don't know that. i do play a lot of 25nl. at pokerroom if you bet $2 pf everybody folds. if you bet $1 you will usually get between 0 and 3 callers.
if you are raising $2 with AA then you must be raising $2 with a few other hands as well. otherwise everybody will fold your bet. you'll be losing value here too.

raisng to $2 is stupid. $1 is 4 times the big blind and that is a good size raise. you should always raise the same amount pre flop no matter what you have if you have decided you are going to raise. This makes it harder for your opponents to read. If you raise to $2, you are overbetting the pot significantly

this isn't completely true. i always bet 4xbb+1xbb for each limper. but more advanced players bet different amounts in different positions. ie. less in early position and more in later position. keep the pot small when OOP and a bit bigger when you are in position