lakong says

Good post. Lots to think about. I find when playing live that many of these moves work best on good thinking players. Many bad to mediocre live players will not fold top pair medium/weak kicker hands, especially when the game is not very deep -- and most games I play in LA are not that deep at the 2/5 or 5/10 level.

However, if the player is pretty good they will often talk themselves into folding. Just a few weeks ago I was playing a 5/10 game at the Hustler and called a PF raise from the button with a hand like 66. I missed the flop but the guy bet a flop like JT4 and I quickly called hoping to get him to check the turn. He did check the A on the turn and I bet figuring to take it right there by representing an A. I figured him for a hand like KJ or a pair like 99 or 88. He thought for a long time and called. The river was a blank and he quickly checked again so I fired out a nice value bet of around 2/3rds of the pot. He went into the tank and eventually folded. Everyone was discussing what I had and what he needed to call. They convinced themselves that I had to have at least two pair. NOPE!

05/17/07

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Note: Because of the nature of this post, it's more applicable to MSNL than HSNL, and won't help you much at nosebleed stakes.

Getting the most out of a guy telegraphing an overpair or a huge draw when you have a monster is pretty easy - just don't slowplay and all the chips will be in the pot soon enough. When you don't have a monster, your action is also pretty easy - just fold, unless you've got something with enough outs or implied odds to continue. Running big bluffs on people with big hands doesn't pay.

Of course, people don't always have a big hand when they bet, and rarely have a big hand when they check. Nevertheless, it also doesn't pay to blindly bet/raise trying to pick up every medium or large pot just because the villains aren't showing any strength - even bad players will eventually catch on, and decent ones will quickly start trapping you. So the trick here is to read villains' hands well enough to know when their hand is OK, but cannot stand much heat, and take away a decent portion (not all) of these.

This is a very broad topic and can't really be covered with one post, mostly because every player has a different set of tendencies. But almost everyone playing MSNL and even many HSNL players will telegraph their hands to you in their own way, especially in limped pots and given multiway action. (Limped pots are great for this because the average hand is weaker and people are less willing to contest them. You can often get a hand like JT to fold on a J64 board in a 10 BB pot, where the same bad player will happily stack off for 100 BB if you raised PF.)

When you are not the initial aggressor, the trick here is to recognize when somebody is trying to exercise pot control. In an MSNL 4 or 5 person limped multiway pot (generally, this will be a live game), when the first or second limper bets less than 2/3 of the pot on the J64, rainbow flop, they are very likely to have exactly a weak to decent jack. Most of the time they're called in one spot, they will either check or blocking bet (underbet) the turn; if they are raised, they will either call and check/fold the turn, or fold immediately. This is the type of board and hand on which a late position float is profitable; you can see if anyone else overcalls, the other guy doesn't typically have much, and unless you have 72o, your hand almost certainly has a decent number of outs if your planned turn bluff doesn't work. The more outs you have, the better a float is; keep in mind that something as weak looking as 87 with a backdoor flush draw might turn out to have 40% equity in the hand!

When you *are* the guy taking a stab at the pot in the first place, you should pay attention to how likely the people in the pot with you are to fold to second barrels and how likely they are to have draws. If everyone checks to you on that J64 flop when you have the button and you have a tight image, it's OK to bet with almost any two cards, as long as your opponents aren't so bad that they will call down with something like 76 over multiple streets (very few are.) There aren't many draws out there, the checks say nobody is likely to have a jack (but since you're on the button and overlimped, you very well might), and even if someone calls your flop bet, they will probably not call a turn bet. BTW, keep in mind that if one of the blinds calls your bet on this board, they are far more likely to have a jack than when a limper check/calls, instead. Limpers here will sometimes take cards off with very little, but because there are people behind them, the blinds have a tighter range. That doesn't mean they won't still check/fold lots of turns, though.

Some other things to look for to identify opponents with weak or medium strength hands that can be taken off them:

-people who will raise PF and cbet most flops, but usually will not bet the turn (and if they check the turn, usually check the river as well)

-people who limp a lot from early position and weak lead on the flop

-any sort of weakish looking bet (more applicable online than live, since live bets are undersized)

-when the player quickly checks any scare card (a third flush card, an ace, a straight completing card), especially on the turn - even if they call the turn, a river follow through is nearly always profitable (bonus points if you actually are merely semibluffing on the turn)

Against decent or good players who are unlikely to put in a full stack light, you should also consider otherwise rarely used alternate lines. Let's say you are in the blinds and defend a hand to a middle position raise in a full ring game. The flop comes 872, and you know that this player is unlikely to have hit this board. What is your plan?

Note that I didn't say what your hand is. No doubt, you'd probably check/call some hands, check/raise other hands and maybe bet out a few. But most of the time you check/call, you also check the turn, most of the time you check/raise, you will lead the turn, and if your bet on the flop gets called, you will probably check scary turns and bet random ones - again, regardless of your hand. These are all natural tendencies and your opponents get confused when you go against them - so, when you think they missed the flop, consider doing that. When you are against a thinking, but straightforward opponent, check/call, betting a board like 8723 with a hand like 65 will often get better hands to fold cheaper than checkraising the flop would have, and if you then follow through on any river, good players will frequently even talk themselves into folding overpairs.

I'll be on vacation for a while, but should be back posting in a couple of weeks.