What your saying is correct, My reason for saying NL100+ wont apply is as you move up the stakes, people become better at adjusting and also adjust much quicker.
Also the general standard is going to be much better.
for instance though, im pretty sure you could half pot air and 3/4 value at 10nl and maybe 1 person would notice. Even then, he probably wont make the correct adjustments
What your saying is correct, My reason for saying NL100+ wont apply is as you move up the stakes, people become better at adjusting and also adjust much quicker. Also the general standard is going to be much better.
It is certainly not as profitable an approach as it would be on lower stakes but provided that we are very good players is it still not the ultimate way to play on any limit? Sure people will adjust faster on higher limits but they still will be the ones who will have to adjust more to us that we will have to adjust to them (because they are the first ones who have to adjust).
I of course am totally unsure about this.
What would be a better alternative to this playing style regarding balancing on limits beyond NL100? Surely not balancing all and everything for balancing's sake? What is the middle road if there is any?
What I do so far is just take the most +ev line possible against a unknown. Then instantly, from then onwards consider how he is going to perceive the previous actions and how I expect them to influence his decisions.
Then depending how I think he 'reacts' depends what further adjustments i make, if any.
1) So if I chose to play like I described above until NL200 and switched to your suggested way (which by the way I consider to be very very sane, logical and awesome for that matter), would you agree that it is a very good strategy?
2) When playing as you suggested, how do you deal with the fact that other people at the table, not just the unknown you played against in the hand, saw you make such a play?
3) Another thought stormed my mind – when playing against unknowns on stakes beyond NL100, do you think about how they might try to exploit you since you are an unknown to them as well? Does it not affect your decisions? What I mean by this is that your strategy is very good and logical but other good unknowns might do the same. Is it even possible to take this fact into consideration since we know nothing about unknown players? The question might sound silly. It might even be silly.
I personally find 100nl to be the borderline. You get a mixture of good and bad regs at this limit.
Generally at 50nl and below, everyone is dreadful. They might be able to spot the leaks in our game, but they dont know the correct adjustments to make.
When it comes to other people seeing me play, I am normally aware of my general image at the table, its not something to worry about that much, as most people play too many tables, so cant pay enough attention to anything but their own hands. If i have just blown of 2 stacks on crazy bluffs or something, I will vbet super thin in the next few hands and bluff very little.
Same as if my hud stats are showing i have a 20% 3bet for that table I will 3bet much more for value and way less as a bluff.
When it comes to playing against people when I am a unknown, I find I can take really fishy lines early on, also run some big bluffs. Say for instance i check calls twice with KT on K43hhA6h and I am OOP, I will 3/4 lead river, turning my hands into a bluff. Its known to be a fishy value line so he only calls with the very top of his range. He wont view it as strong though once he finds out im a reg.
There are tonnes of things I think i do, its just very hard to put into words what it is I actually do, but bet sizing and ranges are something I put a lot of thought into.
If your playing vs me and you rep a narrow/weak range, expect to get lots of money thrown at you
So I must suppose that this is once again something that you learn from experience?
I think you can play "range-conscious" and not be too focused on balance, as in on the turn in a spot you could think "well the best vacuum play IS to check here but then that makes my range look like X Y Z and I want it to look like YZX so I'm betting" you wouldn't necessarily have to think well I'll use the same betsizing I would with other parts of my range as like you say that prolly won't matter too much mostof the time but I think being really conscious of how other people are constructing ranges for you (even if they are not) is very important
Originally posted by lilDave
I think you can play "range-conscious" and not be too focused on balance, as in on the turn in a spot you could think "well the best vacuum play IS to check here but then that makes my range look like X Y Z and I want it to look like YZX so I'm betting" you wouldn't necessarily have to think well I'll use the same betsizing I would with other parts of my range as like you say that prolly won't matter too much mostof the time but I think being really conscious of how other people are constructing ranges for you (even if they are not) is very important
This might be something I worry about too much. Im constantly thinking what I rep, how wide do i rep, am i capped, etc etc
So I started to ignore it for the past few days on Pokerstars, I have just started raising 30% of flops and cr'ing a whole bunch.
Ignoring the fact that I rep narrow, just relying on the fact 90% of the regs are just 24 tabling and see a raise and give up.
I think in general vs competent opponents, we should have a very well-balanced bet-sizing for Pre-Flop and on the Flop. For example, I 3X from MP and UTG and SB, 2.5X from CO and 2X from BU. If there is a fish acting behind me and I'm in late position, I might increase my raise size by 0.5X-1X to gain more value.
And of course maybe half pot on dry textures while betting 70% on wet textures. Maybe 40% pot in 3b/4bet pots.
The Turn and River leave the most room for bet sizing manipulation. It is not so easy for your opponents to pick up on bet-sizing tells on later streets since there are so many different combinations of Pre-Flop and Flop action and it is really difficult to keep track of anything. But if let's say you minbet the Flop with air and pot the Flop with the nuts, it would be pretty easy to recognise.
Of course vs fish, I just bet larger for value on every single street and try to bluff cheaply on dry boards while just going for huge overbets when I want to bluff them and I know they are weak.
