ohgodwhy

I wonder if that might even be a fold pre. At least with loose players behind I'd definitely fold this on the CO.

Well yes, these are certainly some pro arguments but at least for me they just don't outweigh the fact that you have to pay that much more rake to get them. Are you at least aware of how much BB/100 you precisely pay in rake and by how much more you have to crush your stakes to achieve the same winrate/hourly than on other sites?

side question: why would you want to play on Stars? I've been off for a while but isn't the rake still ridiculously high there at least on the micros?

Is that a standard call pre? I would want a somewhat active 3bettor to call here (esp. considering rake) which the 10NL population usually isn't?!

Well, should this at all be on a 25NL player's agenda? At least I can think of countless other corners to improve my game in before I'd start worrying about solver-optimality in certain corners of the game tree.

Isn't this one of the prime candidates to check back? Seems hard to imagine a strategy where I'd wanna bet this except in rare exceptional cases.

Just wondering: Are we betting the flop 100%? Because if we ever have a x/b range, then this would be a pretty decent candidate to put into, right?

I don't think he needs to know that. Assuming villain's hand is always AKK4ds (I don't know why you would make that assumption but anyway) the query tells him that on ~37% of flops he will have at least 33% pot equity. So the average equity will always be higher. If you want to calculate your EV precisely, then yes, you should know or at least approximate your average equity but for just knowing if we have a profitable preflop call given the assumptions, I don't think we do.

No, no worries. I'm just trying to come up with a strong framework for decision making and sometimes I have to clarify some things. ;) I can't argue with your sims without having a closer look at them myself. Just 40% VPIP seems too tight to me given stats, description and positions we are in + a ton of his top range probably has to be exluded due to his massive 3b%. For the rest I could be convinced that with all uncertainty and metagame concerns this might be too thin (I actually also just flatcalled ingame) but I don't think we need to make our hand much better than this to find a raise for value.

Well, you said we need 60% to raise and between this and 51,3% there's a huge difference. I also wouldn't say my range is the best-case assumption. Yes, he needs that wide of a calling range and I might be off enough on this to still make call > raise but I think it's very easy to underestimate this spot or his range because we're automatically interpolating too much with population or what we ourselves consider a reasonable playing style. Manics however are so rare and unique player types often playing so far beyond our imagination that I think it's always worth and necessary going into the details and seeing how ranges and numbers work out.

How do you arrive at these numbers? Rake at these stakes is 5% with a $0.12 cap. Assuming rake were uncapped to make calculations easier and more conservative isn't it just that instead of at least 1:1 to break-even on a raise I now need 1:0.95 which corresponds to ~51,3% equity?

Vs range of qj,33,22,any Kx,t9,t3s,t2s,3s2s I already have 55% equity and I wouldn't even be surprised to see him calling the river with Tx too.

Yes, that's what I figured. I guess, I just feel very uncomfortable with the betting line because I usually end up putting in a ton of money vs a fishy guy with still quite unknown tendencies. Suppose the turn is 3h. I guess in this case, we cbet flop on the small side and x/c any reasonable turn bet. I feel like he's then either going to bet the river in which case I have to make a pretty thin and speculative river call to win or he's going to xb and I'm pretty much always losing vs a weak to medium pair.
Same story if the turn is a Qs. Seems like on of the ideal cards to continue betting on but I don't expect him to fold much as a ton of his hands improved or is Jx+ anyway. So again I either have to triple off, not having a great grasp of his postflop/calldown ranges or check and concede the pot after putting in a ton of money.
Yes, sometimes I'll improve to TP and win a sizeable pot this way but I don't think my implied odds on those cards are super amazing. All in all just doesn't seem like a great spot.

Wait, I didn't say he's a good reg. I just have 60 hands of him and really no postflop reads.The regs in my pool are for the most part too tight, too passive, very straight forward and bluff way to little. His preflop stats could indicate he's more aggressive and better balanced than that but I don't have any real indication of this, especially in 3bet or 4bet pots.

So I think calling off all AQ here is burning money. Few regs in my pool have a reasonable 4b bluffing range at all and there are very few strong draws on this board to begin with. I also bet he doesn't expect me to fold AQ to his sizing scheme which makes it further unlikely he's bluffing. I can get on board with defending some AQ here from a more theoretical standpoint but wouldn't be surprised at all if this is a correct fold more often than not.

Its Microgaming.

I just feel the need to play a ton of hands when I play vs someone who's playing close to any hand and being super bad postflop. I feel like making a big mistake by not widening my range to a significant extent or at least leaving a ton of money at the table. The reality however is that it gets me into a ton of marginal, often multiway spots postflop where I'm likely messing up quite a bit.

On the other hand, when I'm nutpeddling for hands, it's quite easy for a maniac to attack and put a ton of pressure on my very condensed range, especially in PLO where the texture changes every so often.

Idk if I'd classify this as a bluff, at least it's some sort of hybrid. It seems more like an exploitative freeroll because bluffing means, he has stronger hands than mine in his x/c range and I very rarely see that happen. I could be off on this but that has been my premise and the crux I was asking about. Yes, from a theoretical perspective, QQ is probably an even better bet/bluff but I can still see shoving this being profitable.

Are we then actually also flatting AA here or do we split our range and mix flatting and 5betting AA along with a few 5bet bluff like AQo?

Vs a total unknown (likely) fish, I think I'd make an unhappy but disciplined fold. Just an unfortunate spot really. Vs a range of sets, 88, A7, 75s, 53s, 64s, 86s we're basically just flipping and we still have to worry about BB having slowplayed a set. I also doubt the average rec has a wide enough raising range here as lot of them are quite passive and fit-or-fold postflop. Having a read on his tendencies can change things dramatically of course. Still, vs an unknown, I think I prefer a fold, partly also to dodge the super high variance in a very marginal spot at best.

I'd say AK gets 4bet close to 100% preflop and I'd also be pretty surprised if a player who appears to be pretty tight and straight-forward shoves KQ for value OTR. I'd also go off the assumption that a player like this less frequently floats the flop and therefore underbluffs the river all of which makes it a pretty thin x/c if you ask me.
I can totaly see this being a super easy call on higher stakes but I'd be surprised if it is vs the average nitty NL50 reg.

Agree, I think I'd also bet flop smaller if I decide on betting this vs a SB range. I think it's a pretty easy fold as played because noone at these stakes is bluffing enough like this but if you bet turn and river bigger, you can b/f even more comfortable.

Gii in this spot 4way vs unknown is just pretty bad. Since there are so few reasonable value hands in his range, you could call turn and hope he slows down on the river but in reality it's probably just a turn fold, especially since you block the Qs. People just don't bluff enough in that spot and I think you'll see Q4s or 88 before you see KQ or JThh.
And yes, definitely 3bet this pre, especially if the blinds are fishy. TP loses a ton of value multiway.

Imo pretty std defend pre. I would only fold vs tight BTN opening ranges.
I don't mind postflop as played depending on how strong your read is. River depends a lot on your opponent (and maybe your affinity to embrace variance) but we have one of our better bluffcatchers unblocking hearts and most of his gutshots, he has a ton of possible bluffing candidates and I find that overaggressive micro regs go for it a lot (and don't vbet thinly enough).
Not to mention this calldown has metagame value, too.

I totally agree with your analysis, Phil. If Essential was understood mainly as a starting point for beginners, I think the content was way too advanced and therefore certainly underpriced. If I have a look at the most recent NL/PL Essential videos even right now, they show stakes around 0.5/1 and up rather being rule than exception. In fact, I always had to select pretty thoroughly to find content applicable for my stakes (NL/PL50 and below) and hurting my game by absorbing too advanced concepts, playing styles and thinking patterns which won't work or even backfire in my games was quite a big risk.

I think Essential should have been and be focussed a lot more towards lower levels and ideally have the more advanced concepts being moved to Elite or even a 3rd tier and pricing option in-between (following the forum classification). Not saying the pricing change isn't justified but I don't think it alone solves the underlying problem.