First of all, sorry for the lack of updates/responses to everyone's blogs. I have been dealt a very difficult project at work that is taking a ton of effort to get off the ground. It's an important project, it's interesting, and I'm looking forward to working on it...but as the project manager, I am a big bottleneck at the beginning and so I've got to bear down and get things in place. Once things get rolling, the guys doing the actual work will take over, and I can get back to focusing on the truly important stuff...cards :). I got an iPhone and have been able to check in on your guys blogs using it (Google Reader for iPhone is awesome), but it takes way too long for me to type anything on the touch screen, so I've pretty much been lurking, unfortunately. If you've got a hand/issue not getting enough love, feel free to email it to me if you'd like my input (for whatever reason ;). I believe I am up to date reading, though.
I've really slowed the hands down the last couple weeks, too, and have done no study either. This hurts, obviously, but even before then, things were just going tough. I was forcing the play...playing when tired, thinking about other stuff, etc., so I just decided to bag it, and it was for the best. I was still green in EV and way red actual, but I'm positive that a significant chunk of the poor results came from playing my B/C game...hell my A game isn't good enough yet to guarantee anything, so it's really bad when I'm not on it. July is going to be a brutal month, maybe my worst ever $$ wise thanks to another encounter with 200NL.
So, here's one of the issues I've been thinking about. Sometimes you'll see a video or a hand will come up where Hero makes a play in order to push Villain off a marginal hand. Let's define a marginal hand as top pair or worse (against some guys top pair is the nuts, but against us, since we're supposed to be reasonable, I would say that top pair is at the upper end of a marginal hand). How do you guys know who is capable of folding it when shown strength (say a c/r or a double barrel, or something beyond us just betting)?
When the cards are shown down, we can only get a read on those guys who refuse to fold a pair. But when they fold, who knows what they have? They might have just folded a pair, or they might have folded their crap, and since it's much easier to have crap than a made hand, it makes sense to assume they folded crap.
I'm not talking about the very loose guys who we know won't fold anything anyway...I'm talking about all those guys who have somewhat reasonable stats, at least in terms of VPIP/PFR and postflop aggression.
Is it a mistake to assume at 200NL and below that people are not really prone to fold TP at all? Or do you guys assume that if they have somewhat reasonable stats that they can fold TP to strength unless you actually see them showdown a one pair hand when shown strength?
1 comment:
I think trying to push someone off of top pair is going to be a leak. I mean, I like to think of myself as a reasonable, but not great opponent. If I have top pair on the flop and you have the lead in the hand, I am calling the flop obviously. If you bet the turn and I still have top pair, I am still calling. And if youa re a reasonable opponent and bet the river, only THEN am I in a tough spot. Depending on villain and board texture and kicker I may call or I may fold. My point here is against a solid reg, trying to get them to fold TP is gonna require three barrels and even then might not work.
Now as for other marginal hands, such as medium pps, that is completely different. Put yourself in the shoes of the person with a medium strength hand. Let's say you have 77 on a K28 flop, and I have the lead and I cbet. You have three options basically, a call, a fold, or a checkraise (I am assuming in this example and the last we are OOP). I hate a fold and I hate a checkraise even more, as 77 has showdown value. So most likely, you call. Now what cards makes you wanna fold to two barrels against a standard aggressive reg? For me, these cards make me unhappy: A, Q, and J. I still may fold anyways to a double barrel without those cards, but those cards would almost assure I fold a medium pp.
So I think against a reasonable opponent, you can definitely try to get people off of medium pp and middle pair. However, trying to push someone off of top pair imo is gonna be a leak, it is too strong of a hand to try and push someone off.
This is just what I think, others might have better advice.
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