Play this one with me. (2 Viewers)

[Legend5555]

Poker lessons/tutorials. I never tried CLP but heard it's good. One of the partners/owners plays in our game once in awhile when he's in town. I'm a fan of Upswing though.

I know you are thinking about this particular hand, but I think what would help you a lot is a better overall preflop strategy. What I really like about preflop strategy is so much can be learned away from the table. So basically have an overall baseline strategy and not just with what happened with this particular hand. I can tell you though of all strategies out there, there is exactly zero that raises to 2.5x in the straddle with two limpers ahead of you and you are super short stacked.

The preflop play is considered a mistake. Mistakes compound in NLHE as you go further down the decision tree. But since you’re playing just ~18bb in this hand it really doesn’t matter what happened too much post flop cuz you didn’t pay much for the mistake.

Checking or cbetting on flop - both lines are fine. For the rest of the hand... Say he didn’t suck out and you tripled up, would you feel you played correctly cuz you won? You probably wouldn’t think about the hand as hard right?

So IMO the better way to approach it is to review your overall preflop strategy since that is the first decision on the decision tree.

Brings up a great point. Often we only analyze the hands we lost and not the ones we won. Just because we won a hand, even a hand where we were best the whole time, doesn't necessarily mean we played it well.

 

[DrStrange]

Late to the party, but I have a huge amount of practice playing in just this type of game. So . . . . .

Straddling short stacked is a bad idea. A really, really bad idea. If you want to gamble, go play a table game with a < 2% house edge. I'd be shocked if that $6 is worth $3 and hero doesn't have enough implied odds out of position, short stacked vs a table filled with fifth graders to make up the difference. Far better to fold UTG blind and take a walk.

Hero's rep is likely not tight. Tight players don't straddle like this. And the times they do straddle, there is meta game reason to do it. Often to try and disguise their true playing style vs a table of ever changing casino players.

As for the hand.

Preflop: Hero gets lucky and finds a top 2% hand playing 18 straddle/blinds. The pot is $22 when the action gets to Hero - two $6 limps plus $4 in dead blinds plus Hero's 6 straddle. Jamming $102 into $22 seems wrong unless hero has reason to think someone will call. I think I would size this so hero has a pot sized flop jam with one caller - $102 - x = 2x + $22 Solve for x and get $26.67. So I propose a preflop raise to $25 on top or $31 all-day.

As played, Hero gets two callers - fine. I am proposing jamming any flop without an ace. The pot is $72, Hero has $87 remaining. Turns out Hero flops top set. Excellent, jam. Hero already looks wild and reckless. No reason to think he doesn't jam with J9s or any other hand. No fancy plays, no tricks. Let's play for <tiny> stacks.

We need to be clear that a lot of poker logic is pointless in this type of situation. The origins of this hard are nothing like ABC poker. The villains may well continue with all sorts of silly stuff. This hand is an opportunity to gamble. I suggest hero accommodate this sort of urge.

Hero might still lose as the cards lay. I expect he might - the open ended draw is getting almost reasonable odds if Hero shoves. Even better odds if villain feels he wins if he spikes a pair on the turn/river.

As played the hand replete with misguided fancy plays and mistakes from villains & Hero alike. Ultra short handed poker is smash mouth poker - bet/raise or fold. Hero folds or goes to war. Tricky trappy has a place in deep stacked games with sophisticated villains. Not here.

DrStrange

PS a $1/$3 with a $100 buy-in is a GREAT game if there is no rake. Most players make terrible preflop mistakes. Hero playing a proper short stack strategy is going to harvest a ton of expected value, feasting off all those preflop mistakes. There is a lot of variance, but the game is going to be super easy. Two decisions every hand, most of which will be automatic. Hero should fold a lot. The rake is like a turd in the punch bowl - it spoils the party - because a ~$6/hand rake is death to Hero's win rate.

 

[Legend5555]

Late to the party, but I have a huge amount of practice playing in just this type of game. So . . . . .

Straddling short stacked is a bad idea. A really, really bad idea. If you want to gamble, go play a table game with a < 2% house edge. I'd be shocked if that $6 is worth $3 and hero doesn't have enough implied odds out of position, short stacked vs a table filled with fifth graders to make up the difference. Far better to fold UTG blind and take a walk.

Hero's rep is likely not tight. Tight players don't straddle like this. And the times they do straddle, there is meta game reason to do it. Often to try and disguise their true playing style vs a table of ever changing casino players.

As for the hand.

Preflop: Hero gets lucky and finds a top 2% hand playing 18 straddle/blinds. The pot is $22 when the action gets to Hero - two $6 limps plus $4 in dead blinds plus Hero's 6 straddle. Jamming $102 into $22 seems wrong unless hero has reason to think someone will call. I think I would size this so hero has a pot sized flop jam with one caller - $102 - x = 2x + $22 Solve for x and get $26.67. So I propose a preflop raise to $25 on top or $31 all-day.

As played, Hero gets two callers - fine. I am proposing jamming any flop without an ace. The pot is $72, Hero has $87 remaining. Turns out Hero flops top set. Excellent, jam. Hero already looks wild and reckless. No reason to think he doesn't jam with J9s or any other hand. No fancy plays, no tricks. Let's play for <tiny> stacks.

We need to be clear that a lot of poker logic is pointless in this type of situation. The origins of this hard are nothing like ABC poker. The villains may well continue with all sorts of silly stuff. This hand is an opportunity to gamble. I suggest hero accommodate this sort of urge.

Hero might still lose as the cards lay. I expect he might - the open ended draw is getting almost reasonable odds if Hero shoves. Even better odds if villain feels he wins if he spikes a pair on the turn/river.

As played the hand replete with misguided fancy plays and mistakes from villains & Hero alike. Ultra short handed poker is smash mouth poker - bet/raise or fold. Hero folds or goes to war. Tricky trappy has a place in deep stacked games with sophisticated villains. Not here.

DrStrange

PS a $1/$3 with a $100 buy-in is a GREAT game if there is no rake. Most players make terrible preflop mistakes. Hero playing a proper short stack strategy is going to harvest a ton of expected value, feasting off all those preflop mistakes. There is a lot of variance, but the game is going to be super easy. Two decisions every hand, most of which will be automatic. Hero should fold a lot. The rake is like a turd in the punch bowl - it spoils the party - because a ~$6/hand rake is death to Hero's win rate.

Hero has $102 with $22 in the middle and jamming is a mistake? Why? You don't elaborate. What is wrong with taking down $22 right now with no showdown?

By encouraging a call, likely 2, we are just making life annoying on the flop and increasing variance for no good reason other than wanting to "gamble" more than is necessary. If there are going to be some flops we aren't comfortable jamming, then take it the guess work out and jam pre.

I get that you are advocating for an exploitative line that may be more profitable, but it's a bad overall strategy. If we aren't going to jam 18bb pre with QQ, then what hands are we doing it with? Any? Plus if our opponents are indeed bad, then then I expect they have hands in their range they will call the jam with, like AT, AJ, 77+. They almost certainly can't have QQ beat. So either calls or folds are both perfectly fine.

I would discourage any urge to try and gamble by wanting calls. Gamble by putting opponents to tough decisions. Or gamble that they are bad enough to call a shove. Don't gamble by letting people see a flop when you have a hand that actual has a decent amount of bad flops (~29-30% a K or A comes on flop).

 

[DrStrange]

I think Hero can make more money playing QQ "normally" than he can jamming and taking down the $22. Two notes 1) Hero might always jam here with any two cards with the expectation of getting folds 2) Hero might jam here and anticipate a call or two. The keys are consistency and table reads. What Hero should avoid is giving a betting tell - jam with top quality hands and playing the other hands in a more normal way.

Perhaps "mistake" could have been better phrased as "not optimal" Getting +$22 on an out-of-position straddle can't be a bad outcome.

 

[Legend5555]

I think Hero can make more money playing QQ "normally" than he can jamming and taking down the $22. Two notes 1) Hero might always jam here with any two cards with the expectation of getting folds 2) Hero might jam here and anticipate a call or two. The keys are consistency and table reads. What Hero should avoid is giving a betting tell - jam with top quality hands and playing the other hands in a more normal way.

Perhaps "mistake" could have been better phrased as "not optimal" Getting +$22 on an out-of-position straddle can't be a bad outcome.

You say you are concerned with a betting tell, but what range of hands are you advocating raising to ~$30 here with that isn't very similar to a jamming range? And how is that range not as face up as a jamming range? At least jamming gets more folds and allows us a slightly wider range. Our range is already tightened considerably by stack size. There shouldn't be that many bluffs in any raising range in this spot anyway.

If you want to make an argument that our opponents are really bad, then maybe make this play with AA or KK. I think QQ just has a few too many bad flops. But this line becomes horribly exploitative. Not that there isn't time for that, but it's not really good overall strategy.

 

[Changster]

Hero has $102 with $22 in the middle and jamming is a mistake? Why? You don't elaborate. What is wrong with taking down $22 right now with no showdown?

Because it's not balanced. What other hands are you raising to 18bb with? A normal/pretty widely accepted strategy for a pre flop raise is to raise 3x+1bb for every limper (I'm designating the straddle as the bb here). 2 limpers here = 5x = $30 here. You can exploit here by adding 1 or 2 bb's if you think you will get a call or two, which with QQ you're happy to. I'd probably size it to around $35 and then you have a super easy shove on the flop.

Hero is not afraid of any over cards on the flop given the wide range of limp callers. The money is going all in no matter what.

Honestly, this is a super straight forward and easy hand. It's not interesting at all. Not trying to be high and mighty... it's just what it is.

 

[DrStrange]

Hero likely has his own level of risk tolerance but for me, my raise range is something like top 15% of hands.

I never ever straddle short stacked unless the table has made such an agreement < i.e. play an orbit of $1/$3/$6 >. So it is raise or fold, with the folds meaning "I have a bad hand"

Hero should not have a three range betting plan a) jam with a monster b) raise with average plus cards c) limp with the rest of the range. If Hero's plan with AJo or 88 is jam as well with QQ, that would avoid giving a bet sizing tell even if it opens Hero to some RIO risks.

 

[Changster]

Our range is already tightened considerably by stack size. There shouldn't be that many bluffs in any raising range in this spot anyway.

Nope, my range does not change because of my stack size. I am still going to use my bb range.

 

[Legend5555]

Hero likely has his own level of risk tolerance but for me, my raise range is something like top 15% of hands.

I never ever straddle short stacked unless the table has made such an agreement < i.e. play an orbit of $1/$3/$6 >. So it is raise or fold, with the folds meaning "I have a bad hand"

Hero should not have a three range betting plan a) jam with a monster b) raise with average plus cards c) limp with the rest of the range. If Hero's plan with AJo or 88 is jam as well with QQ, that would avoid giving a bet sizing tell even if it opens Hero to some RIO risks.

That's the exact range I was thinking should be jamming here 77-88+, AJ+, possibly KQs. IMO this is an even clearer jam spot than it is in a tourney because in a tourney you have to worry about going bust. So I think jam that range, check others. I don't like raising 25-30% of the stack and potentially having to fold post. If you are going to put that much of your stack at risk, just jam and eliminate further decisions.

Again, what range do you advocate non-jam raising here? Because it seems bad if you do it with hands that potentially have to fold post. And if you are willing to jam that whole range on almost every flop, I think that's a bit spewey.

 

[Legend5555]

Nope, my range does not change because of my stack size. I am still going to use my bb range.

That can't possibly be correct. Stack size matters a lot in what range of hands you can profitably play. Even more so from out of position.

 

[Changster]

That can't possibly be correct. Stack size matters a lot in what range of hands you can profitably play. Even more so from out of position.

Ummm, no.

Preflop it's range vs range. It's pure equity vs equity. Equity does not change due to stack sizes. Thus my pre flop range is not going to change. I'm raising hands that I feel I'm ahead of, and I'm also raising certain bluffs that have strong equity.

Post flop that's when implied odds help determine your continue range, etc. That's when stack sizes come into play.

In this situation there's no reason to raise bigger or smaller because of your stack size, except considerations of your stack to pot ratio post flop. With 18bb effective pre flop I'm happy to raise to a normal size but adjust a tiny bit so that the stack to pot ratio is about 1 on the flop.

 

[Frogzilla]

Ummm, no.

Preflop it's range vs range. It's pure equity vs equity. Equity does not change due to stack sizes. Thus my pre flop range is not going to change. I'm raising hands that I feel I'm ahead of, and I'm also raising certain bluffs that have strong equity.

Post flop that's when implied odds help determine your continue range, etc. That's when stack sizes come into play.

In this situation there's no reason to raise bigger or smaller because of your stack size, except considerations of your stack to pot ratio post flop. With 18bb effective pre flop I'm happy to raise to a normal size but adjust a tiny bit so that the stack to pot ratio is about 1 on the flop.

Stack size is absolutely a factor in opening ranges and some of the training sites will offer different ranges based on stack depth. Usually it’s a bigger topic in tourney focus because those spots are so much more common, but the same theory applies to cash. And there are absolutely implied odds preflop if both players have stacks behind.

Short stack cash isn’t something I study because I am never in that position in a game, but from tourney ranges and small adjustments for no ICM (towards aggression), 18bb seems to be short enough where you play push/fold, especially two limpers. I’d probably want at least 20bb before I’d consider any other open size.

Would you agree at least that if we had $80 back instead of $103 that all-in is the right move?

 

[Legend5555]

Ummm, no.

Preflop it's range vs range. It's pure equity vs equity. Equity does not change due to stack sizes. Thus my pre flop range is not going to change. I'm raising hands that I feel I'm ahead of, and I'm also raising certain bluffs that have strong equity.

Post flop that's when implied odds help determine your continue range, etc. That's when stack sizes come into play.

In this situation there's no reason to raise bigger or smaller because of your stack size, except considerations of your stack to pot ratio post flop. With 18bb effective pre flop I'm happy to raise to a normal size but adjust a tiny bit so that the stack to pot ratio is about 1 on the flop.

Let's take what I consider an easy example. If you have $100 in a 2/5 game and have a smaller pair (22-77) in early to mid position, raising as normal isn't likely very proitable. You don't have enough stack depth to maneuver post flop to win when you don't hit. Part of the reason raising these hands is profitable on a deeper stack is you can win a large pot post when you get a set. With only 20bb, you just can't win a big enough pot when you do hit to offset the times you have to give up or lose to another marginal hand at showdown. Same reasoning works for calling a raise with a small pair.

If you are correct, then if I'm willing to open JTs from the cutoff and the SB 3bets me, if I assume their range is ahead of mine, then I should fold regardless of the stack sizes. It also shouldn't matter whether I'm the raiser or caller. That just isn't correct. Implied odds are a factor preflop as well.

You are right that equity doesn't change based on stack size, but implied odds does. And NLHE is a game mostly about implied odds when we talk about winning the big hands. There are hands you just can't profitably play on short stacks because most of their value is in implied odds. So if you don't vary your range based on stack size, then you are making a mistake.

 

[Changster]

Stack size is absolutely a factor in opening ranges and some of the training sites will offer different ranges based on stack depth. Usually it’s a bigger topic in tourney focus because those spots are so much more common, but the same theory applies to cash. And there are absolutely implied odds preflop if both players have stacks behind.

Short stack cash isn’t something I study because I am never in that position in a game, but from tourney ranges and small adjustments for no ICM (towards aggression), 18bb seems to be short enough where you play push/fold, especially two limpers. I’d probably want at least 20bb before I’d consider any other open size.

Would you agree at least that if we had $80 back instead of $103 that all-in is the right move?

I don't know anything about tournaments or ICM considerations since I have never played a T in my life...

Implied odds pre flop - yes sorry I guess I didn't quite phrase it correctly. With stacks behind yes there's a ton of implied odds pre flop. I play a lot of deep stack poker with multiple 400bb+ players on the table and I'm extremely careful with AA cuz continue ranges get so wide. Usually when the pot is 1000bb the AA is no good, lol.

$80 instead of $103 - in general, if the stack to pot ratio gets really awkward then I'd just jam, yes.

 

[Legend5555]

I don't know anything about tournaments or ICM considerations since I have never played a T in my life...

Implied odds pre flop - yes sorry I guess I didn't quite phrase it correctly. With stacks behind yes there's a ton of implied odds pre flop. I play a lot of deep stack poker with multiple 400bb+ players on the table and I'm extremely careful with AA cuz continue ranges get so wide. Usually when the pot is 1000bb the AA is no good, lol.

$80 instead of $103 - in general, if the stack to pot ratio gets really awkward then I'd just jam, yes.

Not having any real tournament experience is probably why we are missing each other here. I play both, and as a general guideline, if the pot is 20% of my stack and I have a hand I want to raise, my default is to jam with that range of hands. It's not exploitable (since we are only jamming all our playable hands) and almost always profitable as the calling range for others (even if we assume they only call when ahead) is so narrow that the pot size offsets the equity loss when called.

It also avoids all awkward decisions. I don't want to set up a SPR of 1 going to the flop with a hand that has a lot of bad flops. That makes it way too hard to realize our equity. If you jam you get to realize all your equity when called. And often we win without having to showdown. In this particular instance with QQ, it may not be the most profitable line, but jamming QQ (as well as AA and KK) protect our range when we jam AJ or 88. And those hands play far worse post flop so I don't want to raise and get called and then jam or fold when I don't know as much about my equity. And they are too strong to just check pre in this spot against the limping ranges.

 

[Changster]

Let's take what I consider an easy example. If you have $100 in a 2/5 game and have a smaller pair (22-77) in early to mid position, raising as normal isn't likely very proitable. You don't have enough stack depth to maneuver post flop to win when you don't hit. Part of the reason raising these hands is profitable on a deeper stack is you can win a large pot post when you get a set. With only 20bb, you just can't win a big enough pot when you do hit to offset the times you have to give up or lose to another marginal hand at showdown. Same reasoning works for calling a raise with a small pair.

If you are correct, then if I'm willing to open JTs from the cutoff and the SB 3bets me, if I assume their range is ahead of mine, then I should fold regardless of the stack sizes. It also shouldn't matter whether I'm the raiser or caller. That just isn't correct. Implied odds are a factor preflop as well.

You are right that equity doesn't change based on stack size, but implied odds does. And NLHE is a game mostly about implied odds when we talk about winning the big hands. There are hands you just can't profitably play on short stacks because most of their value is in implied odds. So if you don't vary your range based on stack size, then you are making a mistake.

If I have 77 UTG with 20bb effective, I'm still raising my normal size (say, 3x). I'm not adjusting my RFI range because of my 20bb's. I'm also not raising more or raising less at this point in time. If faced with a call or 3 bet I'd play it accordingly.

Sorry I said incorrectly that implied odds are never a factor preflop. They are when stacks are deeper. But not short stacked. I would just play it quite standard.

 

[Changster]

Not having any real tournament experience is probably why we are missing each other here. I play both, and as a general guideline, if the pot is 20% of my stack and I have a hand I want to raise, my default is to jam with that range of hands. It's not exploitable (since we are only jamming all our playable hands) and almost always profitable as the calling range for others (even if we assume they only call when ahead) is so narrow that the pot size offsets the equity loss when called.

It also avoids all awkward decisions. I don't want to set up a SPR of 1 going to the flop with a hand that has a lot of bad flops. That makes it way too hard to realize our equity. If you jam you get to realize all your equity when called. And often we win without having to showdown. In this particular instance with QQ, it may not be the most profitable line, but jamming QQ (as well as AA and KK) protect our range when we jam AJ or 88. And those hands play far worse post flop so I don't want to raise and get called and then jam or fold when I don't know as much about my equity. And they are too strong to just check pre in this spot against the limping ranges.

Sorry but raising to 18x is absolutely exploitable. Super easy. Call/raise when I have QQ+/AK, fold all else. Then again I don't have an open limping range. If I'm facing an 18x RFI then yeah, call/raise QQ+/AK fold all else. If I see this person opening 18x with anything wider than QQ+/AK then I adjust wider too.

Over folding is a form of exploitation.

 

[Legend5555]

Sorry but raising to 18x is absolutely exploitable. Super easy. Call/raise when I have QQ+/AK, fold all else. Then again I don't have an open limping range. If I'm facing an 18x RFI then yeah, call/raise QQ+/AK fold all else. If I see this person opening 18x with anything wider than QQ+/AK then I adjust wider too.

Over folding is a form of exploitation.

Raising 18x with money behind, sure, that exploitable. But not when there are no decisions left to make though. Think about what else I said, it's about getting to realize all your equity in spots where you don't have enough stack to play post. Think of your whole raising range in this spot. If you raise your typical raising range here to say $25-30, then the majority of your play on the flop is jam, or check/fold. It's easy with hands like QQ+, but much harder with AJs, AQ, AK, 99-JJ. You just put a quarter of your stack at risk and now you often have less information about the your equity unless you actually got to hit the flop. You have a MUCH clearer idea of your equity pre than post with the non premium hands.

Like I said the pot is so large already, that the shove with a reasonable range is ALWAYS profitable even if you get called only by better hands. You can't say the same for trying to play post flop with an SPR of 1.

 

[JMC9389]

Don't think you played preflop poorly. In a short stacked game after that flop, I would have jammed with the set of Queens. I would have made more money out of calling station and make Mr. WSOP think I either had a set or A3. If Mr. WSOP was a half decent player, there's a chance he would have folded even with the open straight draw.