Yeah I don't have the theory behind this either, just know that I have multiple default ranges that were given to me by my coach. A couple things to consider when you are in game or while you are doing your off table work. First, is the limper a fish or a reg. By that, I mean are they limping because they are a rec player and are just trying to see a flop and make a hand or are they a reggish type player that is employing a SB complete strategy. Can't say that I have run into the latter on MPN. So I have a range for both of those. On the rec player range I have 2 sizes as a rec player isn't going to exploit me. The other thing to consider, if you have this info, is what is their VPIP and PFR. I 20/10 rec player limping the SB is completely different than a 70/30 player limping the SB. You still have to consider what their limping range could be and then what hands can you raise for value against those ranges.

Good luck!!

Well I haven't git into the theory as yet but I came up with an interim plan for SB who complete 1st in.

If I haz Ax I raise and cbet any flop,
If I haz paint + x I raise and cbet any flop,
If I haz 2 x broadways I raise and cbet any flop,
If I haz 89 soooted + I raise and cbet any flop,

There's a pattern emerging here ...

If I haze trash like offsuit connectors both lower than 9 (see I still dont know if that's correct, but going with it for now) I chk and if they chk I bet flop. I first take a note of if I have some idea if they F2flop bet most do), but if not I barrel, don't give a shit if the turn is scary or not. I'll do it with the nuts and I'll do it with air.
Some villains like the 50+/40+/ mob minraise 1st in and it's just BS, so 3bet the monkey with the holdings as above and play the same way.
note: no need to go balls out with bet sizing, most of these loosey-goosey guys will surprisingly play fit/fold regardless.


Now, this obviously is all villain dependent as usual. For example,


Some are 42/6/ as @fawltyfelix says and we need to be a bit more careful with the aggro stuff. Just play a hand and see if we can get to a cheap showdown (shouldn't be hard v what often turn out to be passive chk/c ...chk/c types), see where they guy is coming from and adjust accordingly.
Note we don't need a lot of hands to spot the different fish types, maybe 3 circuits and we're off and running.

I mostly play 20 hands if and I don't know (at least somewhat) the villain type on my right and the blinds by then I sit out because I'm being a button clicking fish.

Not sure if I got all of it down and I still have to work out some ranges for different types but that's the gist of it.

As per other positions, I'm slowly moving away from my default versus unknown hand charts anyway once I get a couple of orbits in. More to do on that to get it internalized yet though.

br back over 100 so maybe I'm not spew/iso-ing so much versus the no-foldem-hold-em gang. Be tight iso-ing them, I use my MP open range for now until I know better mathematically versus the different limp/calls, oh, and be in position if at all possible, they don't pull so many tricks.

Lot of work but should have some clue by the end of this month, then maybe, just maybe, I can go play a 'little' more competently at last ... maybe.

fuck I can waffle, beer.

So, the bb v sb limp stuff is going well, they do adjust but not very quickly and so badly I'm still making money from them. They just try limp/3bet and all that crap; silly buggers.

I tried not experimenting/trying things out etc for the last 3 or 4 days and attempted to put into practice the stuff I've learned so far. Mostly it's going super well, not always results-wise but just my play in general, like bluff-catching rivers and probe betting multiway and all that fun stuff.

Of course there are things I had to curb because they were costing me a lot of money. Things such as iso-ing from the sb has to be done with some caution with 3 limpers and very little fold equity pending, as did squeezing light although it works easily enough versus the standard nl4 scared regs as always. I also cut the chk/r stuff right down to nearly always value because of the lack of people willing to fold. It was the weekend after all ... !

In these very loose multiway games I think the idea is if they show weakness just bet, sometimes you'll get done a few bbs but I think it's still hugely profitable to take down even the odd pot here and there. Not only that but it's fun taking a 3 handed pot down with a half pot (and sometimes less) bet and an airball.


Here's a fun one:






This weeks challenge: be fearless.

done a lot more Fearless and it's working just fine if I pay attention. I didn't used to know what 43 looked like, now I'm playing it like the mighty JonVIP.

Note the bet sizing, you don't need all this 3/4 pot stuff a lot of the time.



So I'm going to stick with nl4 for now, just until I can play without getting confused as to what to do. I know a few moves now so it's a case of trying to put it all together into some sort of coherent and logical strategy; that should get a few laughs.

Had the toughest of games yesterday and it took me around 1200 hands to get +2BI. Didn't run great but these guys were like this:

45/3/0, 50/0/0, 30/0/0 47/2/0 blah blah blah on 3 tables. And then the play of the day was to minbet three steets with top 2! So when I iso with whatever and whiff the board it's chk/f time to a minbet 3 or 4 handed. Luckily, my patience is infinite, honest it is and I sat and ground it out a few bb at a time, not getting all in all night. so, no-foldem-holdem it is then.

Those games are so hard and so tiring to keep your wits about you, a win is a boost for the study. Not sure what to study next, maybe take a back seat and consolidate for a week, we'll see.

The mrs had to cancel her appointment with her doctor yesterday because she got too ill to attend; irony?

Run good, have fun, do not sit on my right.

Well well would you believe it, I played so bad this morning and even tilted a stack off for -2.5BI. I thought I'd got over that stuff but obviously not, although to be fair there's always the nit who has AA v your KK on a day like that as well. Played better later on but it's to late then init ya fish; YU NO SIT OUT!? Tilting is so last year.
The mrs isn't very well and it's affecting me more than I thought it would so won't play today now. I'll make some bread and watch a few vids instead, do some study and all that.

Have fun.

Mrs still not up to the mark so I probably wont play much today unless she falls asleep later this evening.

I will however, be studying my preflop 3bet ranges. As far as my little opinion goes, it's a 'thing' that hand charts are only for when I sit at a new game v unknowns, as on anonymous tables ( I rarely play reg games, all that pass the parcel with the blinds hoping to cooler someone; jeeze, get a grip guys).
I used to stick to the charts with the fervour of an evangelical American but lately I've changed my mind and prefer what I'm going to attempt, i.e. dump them after a few orbits and use adjusted ranges instead.
Sounds easy until we lose a pot or two then it's back into the shell we go at micros. Well I'm trying to outgrow my shell is all.

Calling a 3bet OOP:
I need to know the 3bet size first, some people are nuts. Then it's look at how often villain 3bets but I wont get enough info to decide if they 3bet a lot more IP than OOP - or if they just hate me in particular - in anonymous games, so I'll go for the population range as close as I can until I get some numbers/reads.
Was reading that higher stakes players don't fold to 3bets much but then there's the skill discrepancy fo course(!), whereas at mini-micros they're mostly too tight. I say mostly, there's always the 35/25/15 on my left making me fml isn't there! Hence this study of the theory bits.

So I get the bet size and a range for villain, which lets me make a calling range versus said range. My calling range would be a 'Raw Equity' one but apparently I need it to be a 'Realised Equity' one a s well - and therein lies the nub - what the fk is that all about!

Back to the articles it is then. I'm enjoying all this, even if some of it is a little redundant in my games at the level I play.

Fun stuff but a lot to get through, so it may take a while. It just seems to me that 3betting is one of those things hardly anyone appears to be comfortable with at lower limits so that would be a huge profit margin for me if I can get ahead of the curve.

I'll go get PT4 later today and run a population report for this stuff and see what I can do from there. There's all that postflop 'Do they check to check/fold' in 3bet pots to get to grips with as well. Big task for me but I'll give it a punt!

Got any ideas you know where I am ...

... cover me, I'm going in ...

I can't really show it or explain it that well, but the way I was taught to construct my 3b defend ranges was slightly different. This is my default ranges that I use. I was actually taught to take a a match up, like BUvBB, and select a 3bet bluff they would have, potentially one of the weaker ones. Then I basically have to construct a defense range of Raise%/Call%/Fold%, of my initial OR range, that makes the EV of that 3bet bluff 0 or put another way, it makes villain indifferent to folding or raising with that holding. So basically need to calculate the total EV for villains 3b bluff, if you raise(4b) call or fold. This was dealing more with villains who are 3betting polarized. Its pretty complex so you may just have to figure out something more simple for your needs.

So pretty sure that 1st paragraph just made things worse and confused things even more I think the aha for me when I did this and finally got the ranges, was that yes you can adjust to higher frequencies, but you don't have to per se. That if you are really well balanced between raises, calls and folds, you can't really be exploited and if anything they will start to value own themselves by 3betting too much. So I used to get really aggravated with these 3bet monkeys and it would tilt me a bit, but now it doesn't bother me. Once I know them a bit more I can start to adjust and add in some 4bet bluffs and then they really start to own themselves by 3betting too much. My ranges do adjust with different 3bet sizings

The raw eq vs realized eq is a bit simplier to explain and visualize. You can use one of yer fancy equity programs to visualize it. Put in a normal MP open raising range and compare the eq of that range to an offsuit Ax. Like A6o or A8o. See how much equity that Axo has vs the entire range. Next put in a couple of suited connectors like 98s or 87s and see what the equities are vs that same range.

So I already know that the eq of the Axo is going to be higher. This is raw eq because of the A. So some people may deduce that cold calling A8o from the BU vs MP open would be better than calling a suited connector. So they eq is higher, but that eq just realizes extremely poorly. A8o is going to be dominated by a lot of better aces. It can't really make very many nut hands that are going to get paid very often. However something like 98s isn't going to be dominated that often, where it is actually going to be making a decision to call down TP for 3 streets or something like that. However it can make nut straights, flushes, decent 2pairs so the lower eq that it has preflop, realizes much higher postflop.

So realization is kind of like suited vs offsuit, connected vs unconnected, IP v OOP. Suited and connected stuff realize much better and you also can realize eq much better when IP vs OOP. Stack depth can also come into play. Versus short stacks you want more raw EQ that you can just flop TP with and GII. You don't have enough room to maneuver with the suited, connected hands and not enough of a stack to win to offset all the times you call pre and just XF

The realized eq stuff was gone over in an example of Janda's book, Applications of No-Limit Holdem. I think Ryan Fee does an article or short video about it as well, touching on 4 GTO concepts

Hi @fawltyfelix , thanks for dropping in - and thanks for confusing the clarity with that first para.

From the 3rd paragraph onwards, that's kinda what I'm trying to achieve, it's just taking a bit of getting adjusted to. I actually have Janda's book somewhere to so I'll go find that, thank you for the reminder.
I'll find Fee's vid if I can to, he's 'quite' good, isn't he.

Thanks for making such an effort, it's a bit more than I expected. I think we're the only ones who come here apart from my muttley and she's only looking for sausage.

It seems from what you write poker is on the upswing at least, I know mine is even with a mini-bankroll.

Catch you later and we hope you have a fun weekend, from me and Mrs Mal.

My pleasure and thanks for the salutations.

Yeah things are going pretty good atm, after a horrendous December(which should be the best month in theory). I just kept running into tops of ranges and probably calling down a toolight, thinking these guys were being loose aggro, but really just having nutted hands. I am winning at around 7.5bb/100 @10NL this month over about 10k hands and I still play a little 4nl everyday for about 30 min as a warm up and I am beating that at +20bb/100 over a really small sample.

I got the bankroll almost back to even, after the December train wreck(with bonuses and rakeback). So still down overall on MPN since i restarted over there at end of November. I think if I continue with my studies and improvements and, as you like to say, keep my wits about me, I will be moving up to 20NL fairly shortly. I have the bankroll for it. Just need about another 30-40K hands of winning poker, break even at worst, to start taking shots.

This is the Fee article(I think the video is linked in the article): HERE

Oh, I think you'l do just fine sir, just fine. And thanks for the link to, I will def use it.

However, it's 10:30pm here so it's wine - o - clock again for now.

Later buddy.

Lots of BS betting today from bad regs;

$0.02/$0.04 No Limit Holdem Prima
6 Players

Blinds 0.5BB/1BB6
UTG Player 2 $188.25BB
UTG+1 Player 3 $93.5BB
COHero $100BB
D Player 5 $108.75BB
SB Player 6 $352.5BB
BB Player 1 $126BB
[/divbox]

-----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------


And then this stuff;

$0.02/$0.04 No Limit Holdem Prima
6 Players

Blinds 0.5BB/1BB6
UTG Player 2 $118BB
UTG+1 Player 3 $78.75BB
COHero $107BB
D Player 5 $45.5BB
SB Player 6 $374.5BB
BB Player 1 $116.5BB
[/divbox]

Must have been my Timex stare down.

Not much poker going on though, had to pay for the washing machine to get fixed (R.I.P. BR) and Chrome has given up on me - or more like at least my PC has given up on Chrome.

3 tabling like a boss on 20e today. Don't laugh, it's not THAT fuckin' funny ok!? AND won 2e so there, meh.


Beer - o - clock it is then, have fun.

When I get to move up I'm going to miss the mini-micros:

$0.02/$0.04 No Limit Holdem Prima
6 Players

Blinds 0.5BB/1BB6
UTG $199.5BB
UTG+1 $477BB
CO $86.75BB
DHero $101.75BB
SB $100BB
BB $64.5BB
[/divbox]

A timely double given I was at 17e and getting owned. Up to 29 now so crushing like a road roller eh ...


Have a fun weekend.

He does have 2 Pair with only 1 over card to his bottom pair on the board!!

Yep, nice call sir, nice call.

Mrs mal has kindly donated $5.50 so I can play the 8:30pm OPL season opener tonight on Party. I can't play the PokerVIP $11:00 as well though, just didn't have the nerve (for nerve, read bollox) to ask her for more!

I wont be in many OPL this time round with a 30E br, but if I can make one here and there it will be a nice change of pace and a bit of fun.

Gl if you're in it, ya gotz ta be in it ta win it, init.

Don't worry too much, PDDS at any stakes, not that I am much higher, and of course you already know this. Thought I would share this with you.

Had seen this guy do this move preflop a few hands ago then proceed to just jam the flop. So Kind of knew I had a live one. So when this flop came I was kind of hoping for the same thing, but he didn't do it Hence the turn donk to induce.

Dammit and it's nosebleeds nl10 to. So jealous! did they reload?

OPL opener was the usual bs, doing ok 'til I played Q5 in the BB like a fish and lost to a limped utg 22 on 2QQxx for stacks. Sigh, maybe next time.

Br at 33e, so +4e after I played like a fish again this morning. Lost a BI v a standard limp/rr from a 38/6 and I fell for it like a muppet with QQ; tit.
Not playing nearly at my best lately, just winning because they are so bad. The mrs having a tough time makes it difficult to focus so I may take today off, we'll see how it goes later on.

Have fun.

We grinding the OPL this season buddy?

@Jon-PokerVIP Would love to but unfortunately the washing machine engineer ate my br (cost £200) so will miss most of it this time round. Hopefully by next time I'll have some money again, hopefully. I did play the pre-OPL and got dumped out but I will play some freebee ones and one or teo others if I can. I twas nice to see so many in the Party one, hope that support keeps up.

Have a fun one.

Yeh see if you can get a nice cash and then get in some others!

So, the old fishy really annoying min raise? Or just ship it and close my eyes?



Hardly won a pot on the other table of course; standard, but I only posted it to show those goal to reach 1 million in 1 year guys how it's done.

Now THAT is a challenge to sub to!

-----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

So anyway, as can be seen, tried a little FastFold on Party for a few sessions and it's quite frustrating to have 15e on one table and 9e on the other and when ya get asked how much you're ahead you reply - ' 'Bout tree fiddy is all.'

Taking notes is hard and I hit plenty of spells of just folding trash. What I tried all this for was to see what my stats would look like over a better sample and this seemed to be the way to go.

Seems I'm too tight at 21/15/4, although when it's you who's stealing/raising first in the 3bet isn't going to be great. My standard table stats show me as a bit more aggro than that. Hhmmmm ... maybe I can open up the old ranges a bit in these passive games.

Good things are 3.5x bvb works better than 3x and 2.5x from BU and CO seems to get a lot of folds. Obviously I pump the chips in when there're fish in the blinds or I have a monster and the sb/bb is a nit, nit's can't fold big hands = easy game.

I'm iso-ing limpers to 5x IP which gives me room to cbet small (1/2 pot is loads) a lot and mark those who limp/fold or limp/call. I do like a limp/call chk/f guy. I play a lot tighter from the blinds but still iso quite wide.

Anyhooo, I need to find out if I'm tracked or not but no idea how long it takes to show up in here. I'm sure I went through here to register but didn't play for ages after so I'm a bit sketchy.

Hope the weekend went fun for you all. Maybe I'll get to play a couple of OPLs before the end, but if not, there'll be next time round for sure.