I’ve had several spots like this in the past week. I use the smaller size for equity denial, as I don’t want to put in a bigger bet and only get called when I’m way behind, and hands like KT should just be folding anyway.
But they don’t fold. Nobody seems to fold to 1/3. I’ve used it as a cbet on semi-dry flops and gotten 3 calls, and then I can’t range anyone on the turn.
Am I being results-oriented, or should I consider making an adjustment?
EDIT: similar phenomenon for flush draws, but with the sizing bands shifted way up. If someone has the Kx or Ax on a monotone flop, I’ve found it takes 1.5-2x sizing before they’ll even consider folding.
Should I just keep betting 2/3-4/5 pot like a regular guy, or just exploit like crazy and hope I don’t start running into sets/2pr/overpairs too often?
I know theory says we should be happy they are calling against the odds, but dammit, sometimes I just want my equity denial.
my opponent in this hand was one of the very best tournament players on the entire site, so I don’t think “dumb enough” applies
but your point is well taken
regardless, my question remains: in spots where I don’t have thick value, should I start sizing up for equity denial when I feel I’m ahead but vulnerable? or is it better to use a size that they WILL (incorrectly, mathematically speaking) call, and live with the variance in order to maximize my chip EV?
for ring games I’m comfortable quickly saying “the latter”
for late-stage tournaments, where ICM is a thing, to me the answer is less clear as to what should be my priority (chipEV vs. equity denial / stack preservation)
You try playing him. Then tell me how bad you think he is
RPOS qualifying stages just finished; @_snowman finished 1st and 2nd on the two distinct leaderboards. In Nordic Warriors last quarter, he and I tied for the new league record of 7 tournament wins in a quarter. In that league, he finished well ahead of the field for #1 in Hold Em and not far behind me in O8. He’s very, very strong.
That said I don’t think he’s trying to play GTO; from what I’ve seen his style is very exploitative. I imagine the thinking here was something like “meh, blinds are small and this hand plays well enough postflop, i’ll limp and outplay them… oh, guru raised, well he raises quite wide and I’ll have position the entire hand… hmm, he checked flop and this turn card doesn’t hit him often, I could still be live, and I can steal plenty of rivers, let’s take one more off… oh look I made top pair.”
anyway in retrospect as played I like my sizing and decision to bet on both turn and river just fine. I should have cbet flop; that was a poor decision on my part. I am being a little results oriented whining about the K hitting him on the river. It’s better for my range than it is for his, and he can fold some of the smaller available pairs.
It really doesn’t. People get carried away with GTO prescriptivism and I think you’re making the same mistake.
Even granting that it’s just terrible to limp KT from EP, seeing a player make 1 mistake really doesn’t tell you much about their overall strength. It’s not like he called an all-in bet on the river with 1pair on a 4-flush, straightening board or something.
It is not even GTO, it is basic fundamentals principles.
but it does, think about it. Context matters I understand that, but you cant mess up a really basic play. Let’s be real, the player pool here is like golden era of poker.
So I don’t really remember this hand too much, but here’s what probably happened. Given the delay in my response pre flop, i was probably away from my laptop when the hand started and when I got back to the laptop I had a few seconds to react, so I just hurriedly and mistakenly hit the call button instead of the fold button. Had I been there at the start of the hand I definitely would have folded. Younguru raised a little bit, and he raises quite often in that position with a wide range, and the raise wasn’t that big, so I just hit the call button. A larger raise would have easily gotten me off that hand. No, I don’t usually play KT from EP, not even LP to a raise. Luke’s analysis of the hand is pretty much spot on. Had he made a sizable bet on the flop or turn i would have folded in a heartbeat.
@Punlsher, if you base your determination of player on one play, one mistake, then you are making a fundamental mistake and that can come back and bite you, so be careful about doing that. When I first played Luke, I thought he was made several mistakes in his play, his bet sizes when he bluffed, showing his bluffs too much, over betting his hands. But as time has progressed, his results speak for themselves and he is a damn good player. I really enjoy playing against him and trying to outplay and outsmart him, which isn’t easy to do.
Luke, sorry this didn’t answer your questions, but wanted to let you know that other than why i limped in the first place, your analysis was pretty accurate.
Limping KTo is not bad anyway. I’m sure it’s technically a mistake, but the EV difference between folding, limping or raising is going to be tiny (there’s no rake and am empty seat). People likely make more mistakes against limp (mainly not raising enough), so as an exploit it’s probably +EV.
Anyway, to the original question, I don’t think equity denial is the primary reason for many bets, and certainly not when using smaller sizes. You can only really deny equity on boards where your opponent doesn’t have many implied odds hands. That probably applies on the flop, but less so on the turn. The delayed cbet here is for value - there’s still a lot of hands that will call that you’re beating, but less so if you use a larger size. Like _snowman says, they would have folded to a large bet, but you don’t want that when they’re drawing to only 3 outs. Flush and straight draws likely aren’t folding to the larger size though, so there isn’t much equity denial available.
it’s very difficult to not be results-oriented when I make the right play and lose to a low-probability outcome; sometimes it’s just helpful to have another thinking player confirm that this is in fact all that happened
@Punlsher one last thought on the meta of this discussion and then I’ll leave it at “agree to disagree”
In another thread on the forum, I was gently critiquing my good friend @Asuronetorius for what I saw as focusing too much on the idea that other players were “donks.” I (and I believe @lihiue as well) pointed out that even if this was true, that probably wasn’t the most productive way to think about how others play. some players are truly on here just clicking buttons because it’s not real money, but for the most part, people are trying to win and they do things for reasons.
even if those reasons aren’t always strictly “correct,” there is actionable strategic insight to be gained from taking an empathic approach and attempting to understand why opponents play the way they do. you can’t do that if you’re just writing them off as “bad” whenever they do something that’s nonstandard or suboptimal at equilibrium.
the wonderful thing about NLHE is that it’s infinitely dynamic. no matter how good solvers get, there will always be plentiful opportunities to profitably deviate from optimal strategy, because our opponents are humans and literally incapable of executing a perfect GTO strat. if you watch top pros/coaches analyze with Pio or other solver tools, they almost always emphasize that especially when solver is relatively indifferent to different actions, there is usually one that is better than the others “in real life” as it constitutes a more profitable response to the unbalanced lines our opponents will take. check out Saulo Costa or Uri Peleg, for example, both highly respected coaches with a long record of stellar results at a high level—I didn’t come up with this stuff; I learned it from those guys, who are much, much better than me at poker.
if you’re willing to write another player off completely on the basis of a small sample of suboptimal plays, you’re denying yourself valuable opportunities to understand better why they play the way they do, and adjust your own counter-strategy appropriately to exploit those tendencies.
finally, we’ve had several good talks about theory now, you and I—but talk is, as they say, cheap. why not join Nordic Warriors and hop in a tournament or two to find out for yourself if you’ve actually “seen everything you need to see” about @_snowman’s play? I suspect beating him will not be as easy as you think
Stop being so insecure buddy.
You seem to forgot how I play, cuz you keep trying to box me as only GTO player lmao
cuz betting pot flop and then 3 betting shoving turn with 2nd pair sure is solver proved
I don’t see how anything I’ve said could be construed as “insecurity,” especially given that I’m not even talking about my own play
Nor did I say you are a GTO player, but sorry if I’ve overemphasized that aspect; I’m just responding to your continued insistence that anyone who limps KT from EP a single time can’t possible be a good poker player
I mean when you put it that way, doesn’t it sound a little hyperbolic?
EDIT: oh, and I imagine flop B100 and turn 3! shove with 2nd pair IS solver approved in some configurations
you went on a huge rant because I said the bar is low if he is among the best on this site. and you want me to challenge snowman. that’s being insecure.
I’m not continuing insisting, I could careless if players are good or not, I only see how they are playing and how to exploit them.
nodelock can make anything proved smh
By the way, you seem to know so much, what is the point of this post? I’m pretty sure you know the answer to your own post.
re: your last Q - I already said in my response to @lihiue that I basically already knew the answer, and was kinda just seeking reassurance. I’m as psychologically fragile as the next guy. Sometimes it’s just good to get confirmation from trusted sources/colleagues, even if “in my heart” I already “know” the answer.
I still don’t see insecurity in any of the responses you’ve highlighted. You made a claim; I disagreed. We talked about it
But I am with you, this seems no longer productive. On to the next, and good luck at the tables <3
