couple things i read in ltbr

the book is meant for mid stakes nl 3/6 and up. I'm wondering though if this paticular concept can be applied to the micro stakes. In the playing small pairs section of the book cole south talks about the following situation. We are in the blinds with a small pair. A lp player raises.

Stacks are 120bbs effective. He gives 2 ways to play the hand. The first is to 3-bet. That's the line i usually take. Assuming villain isn't a nit. The line i'm interested in is call then c-raise the flop. even if you don't get your set. It balances our range. They will stop thinking we have a set every time we c-raise the flop. It also does a lot to protect out hand. Our 7s or what ever have a good chance of being the best versus an aggro lp player.

It works best against people who have a high c-bet percentage. If some nit is only c-betting 15 percent of flops then he likely has us beat when he c-bets. couple more concepts i want to talk about but lets start with how you all feel about this one

one last key villain needs to be a frequent double barreler

In micro games why not just call with a shit ton of hands and c/r when we have more equity as a bluff and play our pocket pairs postflop in whatever way maximizes our EV? If we do this with PP we essentially should be c/r 100% of the time.

why are you reading a book meant for high stakes?

3betting small pairs at 2nl seems bad because no one folds to 3bets, 3bet KQ instead.

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Originally Posted by Micro2Macro

why are you reading a book meant for high stakes?

3betting small pairs at 2nl seems bad because no one folds to 3bets, 3bet KQ instead.

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I agree with the second sentence.

yeah, it's not necessarily bad or anything to be reading up on more advanced material - but when you haven't got a solid grip on the basics diving into more advanced concepts is just going to throw everything in your game off balance.

Tru dat fo sho

Tru dat fo sho

i think that some things used frequently in higher stakes will work at any stakes given the right villain. The 3 main criteria are they must be aggressive pf. They must have a high c-bet frequency. Last of all they must double barrel at a frequent rate. Lots of 2nl players meat the first 2 criteria but not that many meat the 3rd. If you are facing a villain that meats all 3 isn't it a good play regardless of stakes.

One thing i got out of the book that i think is good at any stakes is the idea of doing in depth studies of my DB. Example i reviewed my entire db and found that if a monotone flop is bet out the bettor will fold to a reraise 45 percent of the time.

Ok what line would you guys take at 2 or 5nl when you miss your set. No set no bet is the safest but that doesn't mean it's the best.

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Originally Posted by littleogre

Ok what line would you guys take at 2 or 5nl when you miss your set. No set no bet is the safest but that doesn't mean it's the best.

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it depends

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Originally Posted by Micro2Macro

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Originally Posted by littleogre

Ok what line would you guys take at 2 or 5nl when you miss your set. No set no bet is the safest but that doesn't mean it's the best.

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it depends

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Well how about in the situation that i gave in the op?

Or what if villain c-bets a lot but gives up and checks the turn unless he has a hand ? That happens a lot at micro stakes.

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Originally Posted by Micro2Macro

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Originally Posted by littleogre

Ok what line would you guys take at 2 or 5nl when you miss your set. No set no bet is the safest but that doesn't mean it's the best.

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it depends

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Exactly.

The problem here is that the reason why things like this work at higher stakes is that at those stakes the players can gauge board texture, what you are credibly repping AND understand the strength of their own hand in relation.

At 2nl you will make the majority of your money, and probably quickly provided you don't have fancy play syndrome, by getting value with your top pair, overpairs and betting your big hands strong. 2nl, 5nl etc are stakes where people really like to call. So concentrate on that, not making them fold.

You don't need to be capable of beating 200nl at 2nl. You need to be capable of beating 2nl so you can move upto 5nl, evaluate the play there and exploit it in the way that makes you the most profit. And repeat for the next stake.

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Originally Posted by littleogre

Or what if villain c-bets a lot but gives up and checks the turn unless he has a hand ? That happens a lot at micro stakes.

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If you are confident in your read that a player doesn't just fail to barrel a lot of turns but completely gives up, then that is definitely something you can exploit. But it's player specific, not general.

Glad you guys are taking the time to reply. I do appreciate it. I'm not really talking about getting them to fold a better hand though. Example a co player with a pfr of 13 percent raises. we call in the BB with 88. The flop is AT2. Villain frequent c-bettor and even if he does c-bet we feel we are infront of his c-beting range. Whats the play? C-raise flop or C-call flop?

The c-raise gives us the best chance to take it down on the flop. It also puts the most money in the pot when we are behind. Calling puts less money in but leaves us at the mercy of the villain. Against a person who rarely double barrels i guess it is ok to call then c-fold if he bets the turn. If he checks back the turn reevaluate on the river. Atleast that's how i usually play it in that spot. How would you guys play the same spot.

Situation 2 exactly the same but villain is a frequent double barreler. Aren't we better of c-raising then flating a bet on the flop and turn? it cost about the same but we are getting it in when we are infront of his range.

Again, it depends.

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Originally Posted by littleogre

Glad you guys are taking the time to reply. I do appreciate it. I'm not really talking about getting them to fold a better hand though. Example a co player with a pfr of 13 percent raises. we call in the BB with 88. The flop is AT2. Villain frequent c-bettor and even if he does c-bet we feel we are infront of his c-beting range. Whats the play? C-raise flop or C-call flop?

The c-raise gives us the best chance to take it down on the flop. It also puts the most money in the pot when we are behind. Calling puts less money in but leaves us at the mercy of the villain. Against a person who rarely double barrels i guess it is ok to call then c-fold if he bets the turn. If he checks back the turn reevaluate on the river. Atleast that's how i usually play it in that spot. How would you guys play the same spot.

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Firstly, you really want to be in position for this kind of thing. The problem with the situation you've given is you don't have enough specifics about the player. Is he betting all of his unpaired hands here if checked to? Gutters? How many of his TP hands? How many 2nd pair hands? Is he checking behind KK, QQ, JJ to pick up value on later streets? If flop checks through, do you lead turn? How much of his range is he calling a turn lead with? If you c/call flop with 88, he checks behind turn, is he calling 2nd pair if you lead the river? These are all the kind of things you should be considering while looking for candidates to do this against.

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Originally Posted by littleogre

Situation 2 exactly the same but villain is a frequent double barreler. Aren't we better of c-raising then flating a bet on the flop and turn? it cost about the same but we are getting it in when we are infront of his range.

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Since you're not likely to find very many players double barrelling at 2nl or 5nl without hands that beat your 88, I'd suggest you try to play much more straight forward than this. If you are intent on learning how to deal with double barrellers, again, you want to be in position first.

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Originally Posted by littleogre

Glad you guys are taking the time to reply. I do appreciate it. I'm not really talking about getting them to fold a better hand though. Example a co player with a pfr of 13 percent raises. we call in the BB with 88. The flop is AT2. Villain frequent c-bettor and even if he does c-bet we feel we are infront of his c-beting range. Whats the play? C-raise flop or C-call flop?

The c-raise gives us the best chance to take it down on the flop. It also puts the most money in the pot when we are behind. Calling puts less money in but leaves us at the mercy of the villain. Against a person who rarely double barrels i guess it is ok to call then c-fold if he bets the turn. If he checks back the turn reevaluate on the river. Atleast that's how i usually play it in that spot. How would you guys play the same spot.

Situation 2 exactly the same but villain is a frequent double barreler. Aren't we better of c-raising then flating a bet on the flop and turn? it cost about the same but we are getting it in when we are infront of his range.

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given the first scenerio you probably just have to c/f. if we c/r we're drawing to 2 outs so we have almost no equity when called, and it is going to be difficult to barrel oop in this spot without much equity when he calls.

i love op's threads. But I won't reply, cos whenever I ask a question there is a deafening silence.

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Originally Posted by daven

i love op's threads. But I won't reply, cos whenever I ask a question there is a deafening silence.

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Daven i apologize if you feel like i'm ignoring you. I didn't reply to your questions in that one thread because you contacted me via pm and i answered your questions in a return pm so i felt it would be redundant to answer them again in a thread.

Here is a play from the book that i would never or very rarely use at 2nl, but for you guys that are playing 1k nl and higher it is a must according to ltbr. It's called the magic ace play. I don't remember the reasoning behind the play i'll have to read that chapter again.

The play is like this. The action is checked around on the turn. The river brings an ace. You check and villain bets. You should then c-raise according to cole south. this play honestly is above my depth at this point and certainty the depth of the average micro player. It involves 3rd and 4th level thinking the basis is he can't have or will rarely have shit because he would have bet the turn. I forgot the board needs to be draw heavy on the turn.

You know if you keep just sort of copy/pasting half of what someone says on some topic you're not only going to confuse the shit out of everyone else but you're probably going to confuse the shit out of yourself too.

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Originally Posted by spoonitnow

You know if you keep just sort of copy/pasting half of what someone says on some topic you're not only going to confuse the shit out of everyone else but you're probably going to confuse the shit out of yourself too.

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Even if some of us are not at the same level as the authors of the book that doesn't mean we can't discuss some of the topics in the book. Even if 99.9 percent of the plays are useless to most of us that visit this section of the forum. Yes i do pretty much copy and paste but i want to make it clear that someone else came up with these ideas. Would you rather i pretend that they were my ideas.

As far as confusing people goes honestly the concept of why he suggest c-raising with a small pair that misses the flop doesn't really confuse me at all. I doubt it confuses anybody else in this thread either. we may disagree about whether the play has any use at the micro stakes but i think we all understand it.

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Originally Posted by littleogre

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Originally Posted by spoonitnow

You know if you keep just sort of copy/pasting half of what someone says on some topic you're not only going to confuse the shit out of everyone else but you're probably going to confuse the shit out of yourself too.

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Even if some of us are not at the same level as the authors of the book that doesn't mean we can't discuss some of the topics in the book. Even if 99.9 percent of the plays are useless to most of us that visit this section of the forum. Yes i do pretty much copy and paste but i want to make it clear that someone else came up with these ideas. Would you rather i pretend that they were my ideas.

As far as confusing people goes honestly the concept of why he suggest c-raising with a small pair that misses the flop doesn't really confuse me at all. I doubt it confuses anybody else in this thread either. we may disagree about whether the play has any use at the micro stakes but i think we all understand it.

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Umm that's cool, but I think you missed the emphasis on the word 'half'. Well either that or you just missed the point entirely and went on life tilt for the 60-90 seconds it took you to type your reply.

Either way, for the sake of clarity I'll elaborate on what I was saying. When you ask about "plays" like this in extremely general situations, it's like when someone completely new to poker asks questions about hands that are entirely too vague, except you're being even more general than that.

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Originally Posted by spoonitnow

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Originally Posted by littleogre

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Originally Posted by spoonitnow

You know if you keep just sort of copy/pasting half of what someone says on some topic you're not only going to confuse the shit out of everyone else but you're probably going to confuse the shit out of yourself too.

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Even if some of us are not at the same level as the authors of the book that doesn't mean we can't discuss some of the topics in the book. Even if 99.9 percent of the plays are useless to most of us that visit this section of the forum. Yes i do pretty much copy and paste but i want to make it clear that someone else came up with these ideas. Would you rather i pretend that they were my ideas.

As far as confusing people goes honestly the concept of why he suggest c-raising with a small pair that misses the flop doesn't really confuse me at all. I doubt it confuses anybody else in this thread either. we may disagree about whether the play has any use at the micro stakes but i think we all understand it.

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Umm that's cool, but I think you missed the emphasis on the word 'half'. Well either that or you just missed the point entirely and went on life tilt for the 60-90 seconds it took you to type your reply.

Either way, for the sake of clarity I'll elaborate on what I was saying. When you ask about "plays" like this in extremely general situations, it's like when someone completely new to poker asks questions about hands that are entirely too vague, except you're being even more general than that.

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I actually thought i gave a fairly specific situation in my post about small pairs. I'll try again in a few but right now i am going to go eat.

Ok short of posting exact hand used in the book this is as specefic as i can be. The most important factor from what i can gather is they must be a frequent triple barreler. Not sure if many micro players actually triple barrel with out a strong hand. Another important point is he says we are not turning our hand into a bluff. He is talking about situations where we are in front of villains c-betting range.

Lets use the following contrived example. We are in a 1/2 game with 88 in the BB. It's folded around to the button who raises to 8. Effective stacks are 100xbb. His button pfr is 20 percent. Our EQ would be something like 51 percent at this point. We don't wanna risk being 4-bet though so we just call. Flop is 7s5sTd. At this point via ps our eq is 50.578 Villain c-bets. We feel we are still in front. We'll say he tripple barrels 80 percent of hands where he raised pf and c-bet. The author prefers a c-raise on the flop over flat calling all streets. It cost about the same but has a few key advantages. Another reason is it balances our range. If we only c-raise with sets then an observant player will say hey this dude only raises with sets. Balancing probably has no place at the micro's though. Now if we mix in c-raising small pairs with c-raising sets our sets get paid off more.

uhhhhh nobody triple barrels at 5nl-. scratch that, nobody triple barrels til you get well past where i'm at right now (50nl). so i wouldn't start applying these "plays" at your stakes, BUT if you're just bringing this up for the sake of discussing poker theory:

if this author's a successful 1knl player, then i don't feel very qualified to critique his analysis of such a standard spot, but i don't really get c/r'ing here. he says that "it cost about the same" to c/r as it does to c/c 3 streets, but let me F that P: "it costs about the same when we're behind and wins us WAY less when we're ahead." so other than the "it makes our hand easier to play argument" i don't really see how c/r'ing has more EV than c/c'ing.

as for his argument for balance, there are PLENTY of hands that ACTUALLY have some fucking equity against his conitnuing to a c/r range in our range, so i don't see why we need to turn our 2 outer into a bluff here. we're going to have Axss here sometimes and things like QsJx and so forth, so just because we don't turn split pairs into bluffs doesn't mean a raise is always a set and he should snap fold bottom set and worse.

one more thing, someone who has a BU PFR of 20% at high stakes is A) almost never good and B) almost never the type to triple barrel, be good at hand-reading, etc

Just thought I'd mention the authors were Cole South and Tri Nguyen, who both beat high stakes etc.

i know. that's why i started the post off with "i don't feel very qualified to critique his analysis of such a standard spot, but...."

i proceeded to give my thoughts anyway 'cause i figured OP was looking for some kind of discussion beyond "well if cole smith said it, then have at it"

It was just a FYI for people who didn't know, etc.

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Originally Posted by surviva316

uhhhhh nobody triple barrels at 5nl-. scratch that, nobody triple barrels til you get well past where i'm at right now (50nl). so i wouldn't start applying these "plays" at your stakes, BUT if you're just bringing this up for the sake of discussing poker theory:

if this author's a successful 1knl player, then i don't feel very qualified to critique his analysis of such a standard spot, but i don't really get c/r'ing here. he says that "it cost about the same" to c/r as it does to c/c 3 streets, but let me F that P: "it costs about the same when we're behind and wins us WAY less when we're ahead." so other than the "it makes our hand easier to play argument" i don't really see how c/r'ing has more EV than c/c'ing.

as for his argument for balance, there are PLENTY of hands that ACTUALLY have some fucking equity against his conitnuing to a c/r range in our range, so i don't see why we need to turn our 2 outer into a bluff here. we're going to have Axss here sometimes and things like QsJx and so forth, so just because we don't turn split pairs into bluffs doesn't mean a raise is always a set and he should snap fold bottom set and worse.

one more thing, someone who has a BU PFR of 20% at high stakes is A) almost never good and B) almost never the type to triple barrel, be good at hand-reading, etc

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one important point we are not turning our hand into a bluff. We are trying to take it down when we have positive EQ. He doesn't actually discuss what to do if they call or raise our c-raise but i would imagine that against most players it would be time to give up the ghost.

Oh and i don't feel qualified to critique and second guess him either. That doesn't mean we can't discuss they plays even if most are useless at my levels.

You should try to post some hands you've played where you feel you can apply these concepts, that would be more useful.