Poker Hands and Strategy

Congrats on those who picked 325 on my sizing (even though doing what I do isn’t necessarily correct).

Firstly, the debate for flatting.

At a 100bb stack depth I would not have a 4bet range with those raise sizes, particularly in position vs the 3bettor. With only needing to put two bets in to win stacks we can even flat from OOP and call down on good boards/CR AI on wet boards repping draws.

Unfortunately/fortunately we have more money/depth this time so setting a lower SPR is the goal (a flat would leave an SPR around 9-10 which is hairy). So raise it is.

For sizing, we have a few options but I think the 300ish range is about right. We are against a very strong range when he 3b! the BB, he shouldnt be folding too often. As long as we make it at least 300, we can get stacks in by the river by betting down.

So we make it 325 and our villain calls.

FLOP: 660: 6h 3c 2h. We hold the Ah

He checks and we

Flop we…
  • Check back
  • Bet 100
  • Bet 150
  • Bet 200
  • Bet 250
  • Bet 300
  • Bet 400
  • Bet 500
  • Bet 600
  • Bet more than the size of the pot

0 voters

Bet 400. If he flats, there’s 1460 in the pot and we have 1275 in our stack on the turn, feels like that’s a pretty easy spot to play.

If he jams or raises I’m probably getting it in and resigning myself to the fact that he’s got a set some of the time. If he flats, I feel ok about him having TT-KK pretty often and I’m probably just jamming the turn if checked to, but if the turn bricks (basically any card 9 or lower) I might be tempted to bet like 425 on the turn to tempt him to do something stupid.

2 Likes

It was like printing money back then.

1 Like

People will never understand. It isn’t the volume that shocks me but the consistency. You could make predictable income 6-tabling low stakes limit, the # of bad players was so high. … And that was just my experience, I know many made real bank.

2 Likes

If you play with him a lot flat and flat 3 streets makes a very fun dynamic going forward, ensures you don’t stack yourself regardless of texture and keeps all his bluffs in.

As played, 300/400/jam gets you there and prices in his JJ by the river. I don’t see why you’d near pot jam the turn ever.

2 Likes

Yep. I made $100k+ a year playing 1/2 and 2/5 and was pretty bad by today’s standards and probably only a little above average by the standards of the day.

The best was if you both flopped top pair back then, regardless of kicker, you were almost certain to stack your opponent no matter how deep stacked.

Yep. I made $100k+ a year playing 1/2 and 2/5 and was pretty bad by today’s standards and probably only a little above average by the standards of the day.

Yeah, completely the same.

1 Like

Same here. It was easy to make money at that time. I was never very good and only played a couple of hours per day around work, but I covered my rent for long stretches of time.

2 Likes

Also 10x+ opening was completely standard!

1 Like

Variance wasn’t invented until about 2016, if I remember my online poker history correct.

2 Likes

I remember one guy I played with a ton would only call with his entire range except QQ+ which he would open 15x.

1 Like

Other thing was you could crush the opposition easily but then they also added insane rakeback on top.

2 Likes

i miss rakeback and all the rakeback jokes
but yeah, even if you just played breakeven you could still make good money. crazy.

1 Like

I’d be inclined to take the same line with AA and AK. So, I’d lean towards down bet the flop with my entire range and either check or jam the turn.

I sucked because I never had rakeback. I also never used a HUD and did worse when those became more common.

This was my experience. Never seemed to deal with insane downswings are lengthy breakevens until later in the 2010s.

Now in PLO cash I gotta deal w/stuff like 70 buy downswongs, even though I’m a decent winner over a long-term sample.

I made Supernova Elite in 2010. That was like a guaranteed $115k rakeback for the year IIRC and then nice rewards to start the next year as well. Ahh those were the days.

6 Likes

Jesus that took so many hands. Props!

1 Like

I did SNE three years before Black Friday. The first year I did it I lost my job as a prop in early July. I started SNE with almost no points on about July 10th. I played 12+ hours a day every day through the end of the year. I had an insane migraine on December 29th that I tried to play through as best as possible but couldn’t. To make up for it I had to add a bunch of sit-and-gos to my normal 24-tabling for the last couple of days which sucked because I did not know how to play them. Shrug. Was fun, wish I could do it again.

4 Likes

Results.

I ended up betting 250. The general plan at the time was to give him enough rope if he decided to do something stupid with overcards, and to make sure I got at least one bet in vs overpairs.

In hindsight I don’t actually like the bet. If I get called the pot will be ~$1160 and we will still have $1400+ behind. The SPR is fine, I just think that

  1. Given it is a 4bet pot and I hold two of the aces, he doesn’t have many unpaired hands in his range, since will likely just call pre OOP to a good player in a hand with not a lot of dead money in the pot.
  2. He should be fairly inelastic in regards to which hands he calls once with when facing a betsize. Whichever decisions he makes with KK-TT on the flop, will likely be the same whether I make it 200 or 400. As such, going the bigger sizing is the way to go at this point. I don’t think the guy is that bad that if we make a small bet, he thinks “shit, got to protect my hand vs AK” and then either C/R flop or lead the turn.

In hindsight, I really wish I had gone 400 or 500 and really targetted JJ+ on this specific flop given stack depth.


Regardless, we bet 250 (it might have even been 275, I honestly don’t remember) and he thinks for a bit and calls

TURN: 1160: 2c

He checks, we have $1400 back. What is the plan

Turn Plan
  • Check back and pot control
  • Check back, nuke river to look bluffy
  • Bet 300
  • Bet 400
  • Bet 500
  • Bet 600
  • Bet 750
  • Bet 1k
  • Shove for 1400

0 voters