TT OOP - flat or isolate the fish?

The HJ is a nit - 13/10, no idea how he reacts to 3bets yet.

The cold caller is a 30/7 drooler.

Do you try to isolate the fish without any idea how the nit deals with being 3bet, or do you flat and play with relative position?

Poker Stars, $0.10/$0.25 No Limit Hold'em Cash, 6 Players
Poker Tools Powered By Holdem Manager - The Ultimate Poker Software Suite.

BTN: $26.86 (107.4 bb)
SB: $15.44 (61.8 bb)
Hero (BB): $25 (100 bb)
UTG: $56.67 (226.7 bb)
MP: $31.91 (127.6 bb)
CO: $25.79 (103.2 bb)

Preflop: Hero is BB with T T
UTG folds, MP raises to $0.87, CO calls $0.87, 2 folds, Hero?

I probably don't do this when I'm playing but I think you can consider folding too. I think 3betting is bad, HJ has a strong range of which we block his folding range and you haven't actually said how the fish responds to 3betting.

Flatting puts is in an awkward spot post flop, if the HJ applies pressure on most flops we struggle (postflop reads are important too btw) and we don't have the position to exploit the fish postflop either. We're put in a lot of spots where we face a cbet from the HJ and want to fold or the HJ doesn't cbet and the fish gets to see free cards. I'd much prefer flatting hands that play postflop in this situation and 3betting stuff with blockers as if the fish calls 3bets wide our 3bet bluffing range wants to block HJs calling/shoving range and play well against the fish which I think hands like A3s do.

So I'm going to suggest folding, unless we have postflop reads we can take advantage of.

Well, it's an interesting contribution, and not something I'd have thought of - I'll be honest, I am never, ever folding here. If the HJ does have a strong range, this is exactly a spot I want to setmine, and I don't really mind being out of position as it doesn't make much difference when we do flop a set. The fish being in the pot is a bonus, but I'd rather have it heads up with him, I'm just not sure if 3betting preflop in the hope of getting the nit to fold overs (or perhaps even JJ, but we don't know his reaction to cbets yet) and the fish to call with worse is best.

Holdddd up... why would we ever fold here??

We're getting better than 3.3:1 on a call... so seems like a pretty easy call with a nit opening. If opener was loose I'd contemplate squeezing to iso fish for sure.

i'd probably call this one but i am in general a fan of 3betting wide-ish value ranges to isolate cold-calling fish

Originally Posted by griffey24

Holdddd up... why would we ever fold here??

We're getting better than 3.3:1 on a call... so seems like a pretty easy call with a nit opening. If opener was loose I'd contemplate squeezing to iso fish for sure.

For the reasons I explained? Care to answer them if you think they're wrong which they very well may be.

We can surely mine here given our discount and fish in the pot and nit with prolly strong range. Other than that we can play pretty straightforward.

I mean.. even if there was no fish in the hand, we have a hand that we can profitably set hunt vs a tight nit range. So having the fish in the hand just makes it all the more likely we stack someone when we do hit a set.

I would call, and donk to iso fish on favorable boards (low boards) for our hand. If we get heat from HJ just drop it.

Originally Posted by griffey24

I mean.. even if there was no fish in the hand, we have a hand that we can profitably set hunt vs a tight nit range. So having the fish in the hand just makes it all the more likely we stack someone when we do hit a set.

I would call, and donk to iso fish on favorable boards (low boards) for our hand. If we get heat from HJ just drop it.

Just because someone is nitty doesn't mean they we are going to stack them every time we hit a set. If HJ is competent post flop I still think it's awkward.

Originally Posted by ImSavy

Just because someone is nitty doesn't mean they we are going to stack them every time we hit a set. If HJ is competent post flop I still think it's awkward.

No, but it does significantly increase the chance that we do stack them (or at least play a big pot) because so much of his range will be able to continue when we do hit a set. We're getting 40:1 implied odds on his stack here _and_ there's a fish coming along.

I expect the nit to play very straightforwardly if it goes multiway as well.

Originally Posted by ImSavy

Just because someone is nitty doesn't mean they we are going to stack them every time we hit a set. If HJ is competent post flop I still think it's awkward.

Most nits at these stakes are bad and will stack foolishly. They are also incredibly straightforward postflop so we shouldn't be particularly worried about playing postflop against them, even OOP as long as we don't plan on paying off nits.. Fish are even worse and we want to play as many pots with them as possible. This isn't a fold vs basically anyone.

22-55 is more interesting but I still think those are calls because of the fullstacked fish in the pot + the added implied odds from a 3-way.

If HJ is slightly less nitty and the fish is a slightly bigger drooler I'd squeeze for sure. Definitely a flat vs these two though.

Originally Posted by Carroters

If HJ is slightly less nitty and the fish is a slightly bigger drooler I'd squeeze for sure. Definitely a flat vs these two though.

Pretty much my thoughts, but I guess that's inevitable as a member of GS.

I'd just setmine here and fold flop unimproved

Originally Posted by ImSavy

Just because someone is nitty doesn't mean they we are going to stack them every time we hit a set. If HJ is competent post flop I still think it's awkward.

I agree, but we're not calling a 3b here with 10x effective or something to set mine.

We are calling 0.67 with 24ish behind, so getting 36x effective, and hitting a set 10% of the time. This realllly isn't even close. Folding here is a disaster imo.

jesus christ people are advocating folding TT to 1 raise closing the action?

Originally Posted by bikes

jesus christ people are advocating folding TT to 1 raise closing the action?

No, I brought it up to discuss. It's well worth noting the merits of every option and I learnt from it thanks to some helpful posts.

usually call, occasionally squeeze, never fold

Originally Posted by ImSavy

No, I brought it up to discuss. It's well worth noting the merits of every option and I learnt from it thanks to some helpful posts.

Unless you are a rank beginner, meaning you learned hold'em this week, you should seriously consider the option of never playing poker for real money again. I'm not trying to be a dick. Some people are just better at games, game theory, math, intuition etc. that lend itself towards playing well at poker. You would probably be better off focusing your energy on career, interesting hobbies, social life, etc. (probably good advice even for many people who are good at those things)

Originally Posted by Lukie

usually call, occasionally squeeze, never fold

Taking this a bit further, in isolation, I think calling is the best play... meaning it will show the highest expectation. Even out of position playing relatively straight forward, TT will show a profit with medium-deepish stacks and especially with a fish in the mix.

Raising should also show a positive expectation adding fold equity and equity when called, but you would have to fold to a 4-bet to the nit, and you're put into some tricky spots OOP when you get 1 or 2 calls. You should still 3-bet sometimes though just for balance. I don't have a specific % to give out other than IMO you should clearly call more often than raise.

Originally Posted by Lukie

Unless you are a rank beginner, meaning you learned hold'em this week, you should seriously consider the option of never playing poker for real money again. I'm not trying to be a dick. Some people are just better at games, game theory, math, intuition etc. that lend itself towards playing well at poker. You would probably be better off focusing your energy on career, interesting hobbies, social life, etc. (probably good advice even for many people who are good at those things)

Yeah, I'm awful at all those things. Thanks.

Originally Posted by ImSavy

Yeah, I'm awful at all those things. Thanks.

To explain the hand a little better (kind of), you have to understand different factors that affect pre-flop hand value. With 100bb (i.e. somewhat deepish) stacks, hands like pocket pairs, suited connectors, and suited aces go up in value. Being out of position makes it go down in value (somewhat mitigated by closing the action pre and having good relative position on the flop-- meaning common flop play is for the pre-flop raiser to bet and then you see what fishie does).

Well TT is a really good hand, it makes sets and is still very often playable depending on the board (meaning you can win some small-moderate sized pots without making a set. Just don't get stacked on a 9 high board unless you have a really good reason to.)

I wish I had some old databases showing hand profitability in different positions/with different action but it should show a solid profit here, behind only JJ+, AKs, and maybe AKo/AQs. Curious what the opinions are on that last one actually.

Originally Posted by Lukie

I wish I had some old databases showing hand profitability in different positions/with different action but it should show a solid profit here, behind only JJ+, AKs, and maybe AKo/AQs. Curious what the opinions are on that last one actually.

In my DB TT is right around AKo and AQs:

TT: 126bb/100
AKo: 132bb/100
AQs: 111bb/100

AQo I do considerably worse with: 18bb/100. If other people do much better with it, perhaps I should look at how I play it - I probably don't play it aggressively enough (if others see much better bb/100 with AQo) - would be interested to hear some numbers from other peoples databases.

It's hard to give any general advice but one other thing to consider is you get AQo less than 1% of time (12/1326), so it's very likely that the sample size is too small to give an even remotely accurate winrate for that specific hand.

Originally Posted by Lukie

It's hard to give any general advice but one other thing to consider is you get AQo less than 1% of time (12/1326), so it's very likely that the sample size is too small to give an even remotely accurate winrate for that specific hand.

Well, I've got an OK sample for it (2200 times dealt AQo), that's including old stuff in my database from before I took a long break from poker. But if I filter for just last month, I got dealt AQo 700 times and made 16bb/100 with it.

Maybe that's a normal winrate for that hand, it just seems surprisingly low (it's not doing much better than Q9s or T9s for me), I wonder if I play it a bit weak-tight or something.

Oh boy, am I glad we brought this up (and I looked in my db).

Filtering for when I was PFR, I win 42bb/100 with AQo. When I cold call with it, I lose 40bb/100.

That probably shouldn't surprise me as much as it does.

Originally Posted by BorisTheSpider

Oh boy, am I glad we brought this up (and I looked in my db).

Filtering for when I was PFR, I win 42bb/100 with AQo. When I cold call with it, I lose 40bb/100.

That probably shouldn't surprise me as much as it does.

You might find Leakbuster worth a free trial and purchase, as the results can be quite surprising - I bought it earlier this year and provide some detail in post 24 of my blog.

FWIW with AQ:
PFR: 122bb/100
Call: 65bb/100

Originally Posted by BorisTheSpider

Oh boy, am I glad we brought this up (and I looked in my db).

Filtering for when I was PFR, I win 42bb/100 with AQo. When I cold call with it, I lose 40bb/100.

That probably shouldn't surprise me as much as it does.

But at least you lose less than 75bb/100 which is how much you lose should you fold it from the blinds every time. -40bb still seems intuitively bad, but improve your post flop play and don't start mucking it pre flop all the time.