@madorjan: I dont think its that hard to qualify an action if you look at the game from the beginning till the end.
That in itself is an oversimplification, or just plain wrong. Since you've got so many unknown variables especially in the early game, you cannot plan out a hand preflop. 44 is a monster if a 4 is on the board, can be a nice valuehand on nothing-boards, can be a strong bluffcatcher, a straight-up fold, or a bluff, depending on the action and the board. You can't look at a hand preflop and say "this serves x purpose".
I think if its on 44, then calling is definitely better than capping. However I want to point out, that I dont decide between continuing /folding by claiming this, Im only looking now on 44 not on your overall ranges here. The reasons are some of one I mentioned above, and I think the most important is which I havent really defined yet but was heading towards so far is that you have to make a decision on the flop and this is really important, because that is a tougher decision with 44 that you may think.
No it isn't. It is, if you play exploitatively and don't know your opponent. But if you a) know your opponents' tendencies or b) play balanced, this decision is as easy (or hard) as anything else. It is considered tough, because it's an unusual and uncomfortable situation for PEE-players, therefore it has to be tough. It really isn't.
What is gonna happen (I suppose) that you cbet. What if you get flops like Axxx or Kxxx or both or even if there is a T9x flop and your flop c-bet is raised, you say 'eek' with a 44 cause your cap got shitty.
And hence why I don't cap anything in general. There is absolutely no value in it, unless it generates fold equity preflop, and delays the decision to the flop. Well put. However, a T9x board is super-easy, since there are an awful lot of bluffs out there, so super easy calldown (in a 15SB pot, are you kidding me?), on Axx you probably peel one, depending on xx two, etc.
What I say is that they will know, that your range is weak overall and if you cbet you will be an easy target for overfolds and at the same time isolation ( should it be a v-bet or a bluff). You will be either overbluffing the board with your 100% cbet or underbluffing cause your nonpair hands (mostly on high card flops) often hit something and the bottom of your range will be pair heavy.
"Your capping range is weak on this A hi board..." - said no man ever.
You have shitton of Ax and Kx in your capping range, and yeah, in that situation 44 tends to go to the bottom of your range, so what? A) you still should have some weaker stuff, suited connectors QJo, etc, and b) once again, so what? On non A- and K-hi boards your 44 will do much better. You will always have some cards at the bottom of your range, and they're gonna have around the same relative strength against your opponents' ranges.
Thus with a range that contains 44(+...?) I think you should have a checking range cause its not that strong and it can be exploited with flop raises.
Nope it cannot be done. Folding a hand that you capped preflop is NOT being exploitative. Folding wrong hands is. I really don't get why you think it is exploitable to fold 44 in the right situation. (My guess would be that you want to justify your flop b/f with 44 - been there done that.:))
If you would check with a balanced range like that, now that would be a question, but also OOP with initiative 3 ways in a capped pot... who the hell can establish a range like that ? And thats the bottom line here , flop decisions are critical here and you have to bear that in mind what you are going to do with the 44 in postflop mode, and therefore its not a good candidate for a cap for me, I would cap here with something like 88-99 for value (and for sure) and thats considering all negative circumstances, like adaption of the opponents and playing postflop OOP with initiative .
If you have a 'flat everthing ' range on the BB it can be exploited with a flop check(back) range plus a bit wider pre range knowing that BB wont ever cap pre and will check the flop 100% of the time OOP.
88-99 is super-funny starting hand chart-based lolz. 44 may be a borderline capping hand here (I think not, but may be), but say 55, 66 are just supersnap caps. It really comes down to PS's old articles and material (here we go again...), where playability is overrated and therefore low PPs are being frown upon. Unguarded on 2p2 said stg like "you should not fold pocket pairs preflop ever" or stg like that, not sure if that's the exact quote, but the thing is - even tho I don't agree with it, it's much closer to the truth than "I'll just play the absolute best pocket pairs in the 50% range vs 30% range situation". I had this low PP-phobia for a while, cause yeah, with the standard PEE-mindset they're awfully uncomfortable to play. It is their nature, they most usually are complete bluffcatchers with no equity in the pot whatsoever. We're used to having at least 5-6 outs with our bluffcatchers, can hope that we may hit, etc. Not with 44, nope. Makes much less of a difference than you might think.
So I think neither solutions are perfect and if there is a case when either capping of flatting is better that the other, it mainly depends on your flop decision, which is not going to be perfect if you either bet 100% or check providing your range contains 44. Its practically sort of a 'hole' in the game, neither bluff, nor value and its really somewhere around or perhaps rather below break even.
It definitely won't be either of those, not even mentioning that you don't want breakeven here, you want more than a -1SB/hand loss.
And just one more thing. You mix balance and exploit arguments here, I tried to highlight them with different colors. This kind of a mix is dangerous, cause the logical structure of both views are completely different. You can use exploit in balanced play, but balance play should be a base for exploitation. You can also use balance in exploitative play (tho much harder and... well, rougher), but then why do you care what's at the bottom of your range. See, it's all a little bit wishy-washy to me, ideas that promote your thinking rather than logically congruent ones. (And don't misunderstand me, I used to do that all the time, and still do for some extent, there is no problem with that - until you are still convincable.)
@Boomer: don't you think it would be nice to select the posts about this discussion and copy these onto a new board?
4
J
but i recon the ranges cant be the same...
