Personally i’ve stoppes slowplaying monsters pre flop (atleast in early stages) because i run in to shi like this too often. Still happens sometimes though even if i open for 3-4x
It’s pretty simple from my point of view. Pre flop play is only a small part of overall poker skill. If someone is better than you by a lot post flop, it makes the most sense to play the most that they can with you post flop. Re-raising you pre flop would mean less post flop play with you. The marginal equity you sacrifice from never 3! is dwarfed by the information advantage in the hands of someone with superior post flop play. Beyond that, the raising range of the general population is very strong on replay, so coming over the top is just generally a bad idea against unknown players. Outside of the highest stakes tables and tourneys almost everyone is an unknown to everyone else.
You can’t really be better by a lot post flop multi-way though. You have to be better than everyone, and by enough to overcome the positional disadvantage your going to have almost all the time. Given that the optimal play is going to be to check and fold a lot, you’re really relying on everyone else at the table being really bad to be able to make being passive pre-flop profitable.
Of course there are spots where it makes sense, but we’re really talking about people who do this as a default, not as an exploit.
Sounds like slow play to me. Or maybe caution. We all know that AK is just 2 cards. If it doesn’t improve AK gets crushed by any pair. Going all in with AK is at best what? Usually 50-60% roll of the dice against almost anything? Personally I would have many considerations about reraising to all in with AK. Not the least of which being, do I seem to be on a cooler or a heater? How close is the bubble? How many players might call me? What am I up against for chip stacks. Risking an all in pre flop has way more to do with than just having certain cards. Just the way I play.
Would you call an all-in with AK? Most people will in most spots, but that’s a less good option than being the aggressor because you have zero fold equity, and that’s something AK really benefits from.
Slow playing AK just doesn’t make much sense either. It’s not a made hand, and if you do hit, what hands is your opponent going to call down with that wouldn’t also have called a 3-bet?
It’s not like it’s terrible to just call, but if people aren’t finding a 3-bet with AK, their 3-bet range is just going to be way, way to tight. When that’s the case, you never have to play post flop against their 3-bet, and there’s a massive branch of the game tree you don’t get to experience - hence the glass ceiling.
And then there are the folks who get upset with you for raising pre twice per orbit. You;re ruining the game for them with your bullying. : P They fold and someone else calls and sucks you out and then they chirp in the chat, “serves you right for all your stupid raising.” I love those folks and keep notes on them. They’re very profitable. ; )
Ha! Had a player do exactly that yesterday in a tournament.
I’ve had people come over the top when they think I’m pushing it, and I’ve reraised others when I think they’re out of line. It’s part of the game. Telling someone you don’t like being raised isn’t a good idea, though.
Called plenty of all ins with AK. But almost always start the hand behind when calling a pre flop all in with AK. So other considerations become much more important than calling with AA, KK, or QQ. OP said there were multiple players in the hand already, so at least to me, calling or shoving in that situation seems to be very loose.
Of course that may be why I only have a little over 31 million chips after nearly 132 k hands
If people don’t react to your 3 bets it’d make sense to up them. Try a five bet or something instead of just making a play that you think doesn’t work.
I tend to agree, but I still find people’s opening ranges to be too tight to 3-bet without premiums(jj+ really).
I prefer to flat call opens with hands that play well multiway like suited broadways and connectors, gappers. We’re fine overfolding as an exploit to people’s opens, since they are so tight. A lot of times I’ll be in a spot where I would have opened say A10, but now that someone has opened I just fold, because my hand is dominated far too often and doesn’t play well multiway. Generally an open from the field gets 3-4 handed, and we want hands there like j10, qj, 7-8s, 10-7s etc. The field can’t get away from overpairs, and so the implied odds of flatting hands like these and playing without the betting lead is profitable long term. Generally they are willing to go for 2-3 streets with an overpair, and if they’re not they will crying call too often on bad boards.
And you’re right, we are relying on people playing too weak passive, but that’s what the replay population does. The population IS too weak passive. Their checking ranges contain far too much air and weaker made hands and are unbalanced. This allows us to steal a lot of pots on the turn and river when the action is weak. It also means we can value bet more thinly when we have an average made hand, because people will call too much with that weak checking range. Their check raise frequency is far too low which means we can lay a price in a lot of situations, either for draws or value.
It might seem counterintuitive that we can steal more pots and value bet more thinly at the same time, but we can exploitatively size in an unbalanced manner to accomplish what we want given the bet sizing patterns of our opponents, how many checks there are, and timing tells. This is also part of why I referenced people being unknowns to each other. You can play very unbalanced if you aren’t regularly playing with mostly the same people. There are no huds on replay and good luck defining a whole player with a few notes on one occasion, people play emotionally and their styles change from day to day and table to table.
From my end I like to go very large with opens like 6-10x the big blind depending on the table. Generally this gets 1-2 callers and maintains a range advantage, since people call a lot lighter than they will open. I’m sure this works less well at the highest stakes. My experience is mostly from 50k-250k buy in tourneys.
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@tarae I might be in love
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I do quite well in Replay MTTs with the following baseline strategy:
-vary opening size based on position and who is in the blinds (population will not notice or fail to respond properly - we won’t get exploited)
-standard open 3.5x (mostly to thin the field and start building a pot to either win with value or steal post flop)
-3bet wide and use a large size (4-5x + 1bb/limper) - again, they won’t counter properly so we won’t get punished
-can bail out almost any river by just betting huge if villain is capped based on prior action
-maintain a loose hyper-agg image to get called when we have thick value; the ostensible drawback of this approach (getting called down light when we bluff) is not much of a worry against Replayers
-limp behind with almost ATC in the early stages when SPR is high, as players make too many and too substantial errors postflop
-finally start playing something remotely resembling “real poker” only once tourney is in late stages and most stacks are < 30bb
My strategy is fairly similar, a lot of changing size based on position and blinds, my hand type. I size bigger but yeah not in late stages. Probably this has to do somewhat with our different buy in levels too. Limb behind almost ATC above like 80BB, and in cash games if the whole table is very limp happy, usually is.
The main thing you do that I don’t is 3-bet wide and large. That could again be a function of buy in level, but I find myself just getting shoved on far too often in those situations with hands I really can’t call with. Would you mind expanding on why that strategy works for you? Would you change anything at lower buy in levels?
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I do this no matter the buy in; I entered a 7.5k MTT yesterday for fun and ran pretty deep before losing a flip. IDK, I just don’t get shoved on all that often, and I have almost 350k hands played on Replay.
I find this works because players hate continuing for a significant portion of their stack with anything but their absolute top of range. Some will fold up to AQ if they haven’t committed themselves yet. If called I cbet usually quite small (20-30%) to incentivize them to cap themselves; thereafter it isn’t hard to navigate turns and rivers profitably. I do still use discipline with my cbet frequency, mostly based on whom the board favors (using what I think V’s range is, ofc, not what it should be at equilibrium).
OK, I don’t 3bet EP opens that light. But an open from CO or BTN? Yeah I’m gonna 3bet KJs at a very high frequency, and as weak as 65s (at a lower frequency).
Interesting. I’ll definitely try mixing that in versus CO/BTN opens then. My sample was pretty small on here when I made that determination, and also just tied to the logic of their range being too tight. I c-bet at 50 pct pot, and on like 60 pct of boards. I don’t know enough theory to be much more accurate than that. But it looks like the idea is if they call 25 pct pot twice we can blast a lot of rivers. I’ll have to start using the slider more and experiment.
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Yeah there are lots of benefits to using a small cbet size:
-we get to bet more flops without getting punty
-we incentivize villain to reveal the strength of their hand (if they just call 25% pot on J92, how much AJ/QQ+/2pair+ do you think they have?)
-we preserve stack depth so our bluffs have more fold eq on later streets
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That’s actually the correct, solver approved play in most spots. Even AJo is a fold against an open quite often.
I basically agree with everything else you’re saying, but think it backs up the point I was trying to make. I wasn’t trying to criticize people for not 3 betting enough, just saying that when that’s the case, the game is easier and more limited. I don’t think it’s as dramatic a difference as some of my earlier post may have implied though either.
It’s still an incredibly difficult game and takes a lot of skill to exploit the Replay pool, so although I do think the ceiling is there, I also think it’s high enough that no-one really needs to worry about it. There’s still always plenty to learn.
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Remember my Simplified Replay Ring Strategy? I actually don’t think I’ve ever been a bigger winner on this site than when I was testing that strat.
How boring! =-P
This is a good outcome. Obviously not as good as them folding, but better than them calling and you getting stacked post with a dominated hand. The hands you want to avoid 3-betting are the ones you really can’t fold but are also likely behind.
eg KQo is often just a flat from the BB, especially to an EP open. Exact hands might vary, but the basic philosophy is generally sound - 3-bet polar - your best hands (that can always at least call a 4-bet), some of your weakest hands that continue (and then fold to a 4-bet), and rarely the stuff in the middle.
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