preflop play

id actually just call. though capping seems okay because of the potential big range both Button and SB has.

There isn't much difference mathematically beetwen call and cap.

By calling you are putting 2bb to a 9bb pot 2/9*100% = ~22%
By capping you are putting 3bb to a 12bb pot 3/12*100% = 25%

So you can profitably call/cap as a underdog!
If you have enough equity I would say that you should cap.
You will have a postdraw initiative and by calling you narrow you range so they know that u can't have a big hand.

Put some range in Equilab and you see how you stand.

Hi!

Spot where calling is far far inferior to capping whatever you are going to play.If you have 67s and want to expand you range then this is a perfect spot to cap,same goes for AA,JTs,KQ,66,.........capping has one other cool affect,you get huge FE and bu will sometimes fold certain hands in this spot(like A2o,J7o or whatever weak he was stealing with) and that is huge boost for your equity in addition to dead money.

AJ is obviously premium here and you must not be folding...if you look at bu OR range,AJ is decent favourite and vs Sb 3bet range you are still being ahead especially since his range includes huge amount of Ax,Kx,Qx hands.

so easy cap and I would do it with prolly A7o(A9o for sure and A8o seems clear too) depending on the players but with suited Ax you can even go down to A2s(however puting it at A5s is safe enough)

Originally posted by Dawnfall26
Hi!

Spot where calling is far far inferior to capping whatever you are going to play.If you have 67s and want to expand you range then this is a perfect spot to cap,same goes for AA,JTs,KQ,66,.........capping has one other cool affect,you get huge FE and bu will sometimes fold certain hands in this spot(like A2o,J7o or whatever weak he was stealing with) and that is huge boost for your equity in addition to dead money.

AJ is obviously premium here and you must not be folding...if you look at bu OR range,AJ is decent favourite and vs Sb 3bet range you are still being ahead especially since his range includes huge amount of Ax,Kx,Qx hands.

so easy cap and I would do it with prolly A7o(A9o for sure and A8o seems clear too) depending on the players but with suited Ax you can even go down to A2s(however puting it at A5s is safe enough)

i agree with some of ur points but i dont think caping with A7o or A2s or even playing these hands against BU raise & SB 3-bet can be positive because these type of hands post flop against aggresion have lot of negativity which may lead to more leaks than gain

avoiding playing with such hands is much better than putting urself in trouble

I think this thread is interesting.

Some points not mentioned so far:

1.) We have decent position.
2.) So does the button. He is unlikely to make any mistakes this hand vs our (perceived) range. If he is loose (say 50%) and folds the bottom of his range (say J7o) preflop getting 5:1 he is making a (marginal) "equity-mistake".
3.) We have a discount prize.
4.) We are playing versus two ranges simultaneously, not versus a button steal range or an SB 3-bet range.

If we play, of course we are capping. I am always open to having three ranges in each situation, but here, any playable hand belongs to the capping range. The calling range just happens to be empty.

Point four above is tricky. It normally argues for tighter play. This is super-clear in NL versus tight opponents (for which the gap concept applies). In this spot, it might argue for pretty loose play, since we might be able to get last position on the turn or river. We have position on the stronger of the ranges. A huge part of SB's reason for 3-betting in the first place is to make us fold stuff like A7o.

I think I personally play too tight in this spot. Having said that, I think that 76s is totally the wrong type of hand to play here. It just hates 3-way pots, it just hates preflop capped pots.

/Johan =

Hi!

There is some truth in what you said and also some errors.

1.I dont understand how you meant that discount prize argues tighter play...it argues much looser play due to better prize that you are getting.

2.yes we are playing vs 2 different ranges simultaneously but so are they. You said that if somebody folds J7o they make marginal eq error is not really true.They are getting very good prize and we are more than happy with any hand if they are capable of folding these

3.hardest part is to say what actual range in this spot is gonna be but Im very positive that 67s is not the worst card to play here....it actually loves multiway pots,playability is great and since it has 0 SD value is a very decent bluff hand due to huge amount of FE equity which you imeditally produce by capping. Its basically the same with all these 78s,89s,J8s hands,equity is always aorund 25-30% which is close not that far from fair share and with FE+chance to make bu fold right away its good to have the bluffy part of your as well.This way it will be really hard for Sb light 3bettors to play vs you.

Sure if they are nits or SDbound fish then no,you dont want to play 76s,J8s,A2s and other simmilar stuff it is intended vs TAGs/LAGs

Hi Dawnfall!

From where do you get the idea that I am anywhere arguing for tight play? [Well, that 76s example is arguing for folding that particular hand. Read on]

1. I didn't say our discount on playing (we have posted a BB) argues for tighter play. What is really a confusing error in my post is that price (cost) and prize (like in reward) are two very different things in this context. It should have been price. My mistake.

2. The button is not getting a very good price for playing his J7o. He is getting a decent price, thats all. His pot odds are 5:1, his equity is something like 22.5% when using 3-bet vs Button open for the small blind and something like (66+, A5s+, ...) for us. We are a little bit happy that he folded. We aren't jumping up and down with joy.

3. Small suited connectors primarily like cheap m-way pots where m > 3 and cheap << capped. HU pots are decent too because you can bluff and semibluff profitably if your opponent can fold. I doubt that you can do that here.

This is a good illustation of where playing versus two players (ranges) has deep impact. After the flop there is 12 SB in the pot. Suppose you bluff here. The next player will get 13:1. Say that the odds are 4:1 against (20%) that an opponent folds incorrectly. Heads up, this is an unusually profitable bluff. The chans that both fold incorrectly is 4% (=0.2*0,2). This is still optimistic because the first fold will increase the chances that the last player stays in because he just gained some equity.

Quite surprisingly, for the pure bluff to be profitable you need 25 SB in the pot and extremely weak opponents whose odds against folding incorrectly are 4:1.

/Johan =

Well about discount stuff was just missunderstanding but not really that important anway...

...so ok lets approach this in another way. Lets say that capping 67s is not good here.What are you going to cap? since 67s is bad I would also assume 78,57s,J8s and all these "low" speculative hands fall out. So we just cap premiums right?...now he is really making(if at all) just a slight mistake by folding J7 and even hands like A2o since your range is just super strong(something like 66+,KJ+,A9s+,ATo+ I guess) and what do you expect to happen postflop when you are up against 2 solid players.Vs such range they can play almost perfectly and that is something that is much much worse than if you go and spew a bit with hand that has slightly inferior equity just so that you can expect more action when you actually have AA.

Ok,you can say...we will not just cap premiums but a few stronger speculative hands...like QJs,JTs,maybe 9Ts... first of all,do these hands equity really differ that much from the one of 67s. No it doesnt in many regards its even worse since brodways suffer slightly more from domination and 67s is going to be dominated only by few pockets more and A7,A6 while JT has to deal with super many Jx,Tx combos all of which are better. Also I would expect to have slightly more implied odds from 67s thinking that its more likely for them to expect JTs than 67s.

About the fact that we deal with two ranges simultaneously...what you wrote is again true but imo misses a few very important facts...yes fold equity is lower and since pot is bigger they will be more likely to call us down lighter but...

I think it is much easier to ilustrate this on an example... lets say we cap 72o and flop comes A92.We obviously bet,you next to act are getting 13:1 with KJ or 44 being second to act,are u really going to call?and there is not just KJ,44 that you have but many many other hands that will not connect here. Fold equity in multiway pots gets another perspective and the one with preflop initiative most of the time has the upper hand.
Another interesting thing,speaking from experiance is that when you cap, people tend to play much much muuuuuch more straightforward against so even though they are getting great odds our FE is still very high since their ranges are relatively wide+67s has decent amount of equity anway.

To be honest I see good players cap here with very wide range and sometimes 67s is not really on the bottom of it:) its just a perfect spot to be a bit spewy and better your image.

Ok I will also say that all this is certainly not needed to put in action on microstakes. Just folding 67s is totally fine and even just capping premiums is fine as well.Image has very little importance on these stakes its just that discussion started and I just had to paticipate...

You are perhaps beginning to convince me. Let me try to summarize your points as I perceive them.

1.) Since we can be pretty sure that the button is going to fold some hands due to our capping, then we should turn that knowledge into actual value. This can only be done by expanding the original straight value range.

If we play our straight up value range, then if the button folds the bottom 15% of his opening range, then nothing much is gained for us. The button did not make a mistake. If we throw in a couple of low-equity hands into our range, then the button might still fold his worst 15%. The button now makes a few mistakes.

2.) At some point the button realizes that we have a very wide 4-bet range. In reality, our range is not that wide, but it contains a few surprising hands. The button is forced to continue playing the worst part of his range much longer in the pots. This is turned into value for us since the big value part of our range gets paid off better.

3.) The non-value part of our range is not just a simple extension of the value range. That is, we don't play QJs and stuff like that, but we play 76s for reasons of dominance and the element of surprise.

4.) In the end, we have a capping range that is well-balanced, and hard to play against. Some hands may not be very profitable individually, but the whole range works better against good TAGS and LAGS better than a straight value range would.

Did I get it right?

/Johan =

first... my 72o example was lol since we have a pair,I meant complete air:)

about your 4 points...

Point 4 is the best one, straight range is going to be heavily exploited, meanwhile well balanced one will not.This is basically almost the most important issue when you reach thougher games.Any action can be justified if it is well balanced

point 3. ... no I didnt mean we wont be playing QJs,imo that is the hand that should be the default capping hand since equity with QJs is above 30% anyway,what I meant was just to show that 67s has its own advantages comparing some other bluffing hands that I would assume you have there

point 2. ... yap,lets call them surprising hands:) thing is I dont draw a strict line which hands I fold/raise and actually I fold 67s sometimes and sometimes raise 45s.All this depends on how I think Im percieved at the table,oponents,how I am running,... all these minor details.If I was being super spewy last few hands Im definatelly leaning toward folding,however when being more abc Im definatelly raising

poin 1. ...I would put it like this... I dont really care if bu is capable of folding or not but if he is that makes is super great.

I think capping there with total air hands is bad but with good speculative hands that have huge implied odds I like it very much.You keep mentioning these as low equity hands,I dont think so.Equity wise they are at around 25-30% which is not super far from 33 fairshare. If you add a bit due to decent FE and implied odds they should do at least breakeven on its own.On the contrary hand like A2o has higher equity but Im sure that 67s will do better in the long run...so I think that this equity stuff should not be looked so strict, other important factors like implied odds,FE,oponents,... can make quite a difference to it.

and then I would add point 5...which I think is left unmentioned and imo most important... to make it harsh and short...preflop is quite unimportant in though games.... well,sure it has a great impact but in comparison to all other streets is by far the least important... that imo is the biggest change from micro/low stakes to mid/high....on microstakes playing good preflop game basically decides the winner since postflop can just be abc... on hgiher stakes 95% of players know how to play preflop and many realise that standard TAGish style can actually be very exploited since it can be exploted...the main difference then comes in postflop play where many are still going to be abc...best way to exploit these guys is by expanding your preflop range so they will inevitably have to play differently or be dominated....much can be said on this topic