Strategy Re-Jig Thingy

Hmmmmmmm, I've been up 5 Bis today at 1-2, and then lost them again, all in the space of 1k hands or so. I made a conscious choice to ramp up my aggression again, but to be honest I've implemented that rather haphazardly, and my thought process doesn't seem to be super present much. When I'm playing my best I seem to own souls all session, whereas at the moment it all feels rather 'grindy'.

Anyway, updated year to date!

So getting somewhere with 1-2, but volume has been pathetic (which is hopefully now fixed) and although the 4bb winrate is *acceptable* I just feel like there's so much more to come from me.

So yeah, I really want a new technical plan to get my teeth into, and the aspect I want to focus on is the area of flop. Cbetting or not, stabbing or not, etc. I want to get my head again around why not cbetting is generally so much better than doing so. The answer, I suppose, in a nutshell is that you are generally in possession of more information and thus able to make better decisions.

I believe there's a mental weakness in 90% of regs, including me, that explains why cbetting, barreling, 3betting the flop, check raising the flop with value is so prevalent, in a lot of spots where it should not be. let me give an example of a hand I saw today.

Duckslayer2k: folds
Fiude: folds
lipreTTT: folds
C1awViper: raises $5 to $10
Red Nugget8: folds
viebu: raises $20 to $30
C1awViper: calls $20
*** FLOP *** [5h 2d Jc]
viebu: bets $47.76
C1awViper: raises $57.24 to $105
viebu: raises $65 to $170
C1awViper: raises $843.85 to $1013.85 and is all-in
viebu: calls $311.49 and is all-in
Uncalled bet ($532.36) returned to C1awViper
*** FIRST TURN *** [5h 2d Jc] [9c]
*** FIRST RIVER *** [5h 2d Jc 9c] [8s]
*** SECOND TURN *** [5h 2d Jc] [Ah]
*** SECOND RIVER *** [5h 2d Jc Ah] [9h]
*** FIRST SHOW DOWN ***
viebu: shows [Qh Qs] (a pair of Queens)
C1awViper: shows [5s 2h] (two pair, Fives and Deuces)
C1awViper collected $511.34 from pot
*** SECOND SHOW DOWN ***
viebu: shows [Qh Qs] (a pair of Queens)
C1awViper: shows [5s 2h] (two pair, Fives and Deuces)
C1awViper collected $511.34 from pot

 Now, ignore the (fucking mental) preflop call and focus instead on the flop raise. Whether he knows it or not, he's raising simply because he knows he has the best hand, wants to get value from Jx+, but more importantly because he doesn't want a jack or ace or whatever to turn and have him call turn or river bets behind. He wants the money in NOW because NOW he's ahead. If he got all in, and a jack turn, then he'd be all ohhh FML, but it'd be entirely his fault.

Why? Well, because he could just call the flop bet, get the same value from QQ+, but have the ability to fold turn or river if it came Jx or maybe K turn A river or whatever.

I'm probably not explaining this well, but the same urge that made Claw raise this flop is present in a ton of hands. We make some sort of top pair, see how the board might get messy, and bet to protect and get some money in NOW. Very often though our opponent is going to bet his OESDs and GSs and flushdraws himself anyway, plus some other bluffs, and not have the ability to raise value and value town us more, and also give us tons of information through the bet or raise size. Calls don't give us a ton of information..... sometimes they cap a range, but generally we bet, get called and are like uhhhh on the next street.

Instead we can go into check mode, read the flop & turn situation with all the millions of parameters now open to us. Did he bet the flop? What size? What's the PSR, and how do the two mesh? What about the turn? Again, what does his size say? All the while having our opponent play against a range he's not familiar with, that of a very strong checking range.

Assuming we stay alert and focussed, we can then set about winning all sorts of pots we'd usually have no way to win through simple bet bet. CC flop CR turn, flop check check 2x turn, CR flop smallish and pot the turn, etc.

I'll still bet with value where protection is a real consideration, but probably be quite imbalanced in this regard.

Preflop, I've been mental for probably 60k hands now and I'm getting less and less respect. Seems counter intuitive, but I'm going to start 3betting less value and instead have a stronger range for raising and check raising when we're the cold caller. Again, it's all good but a change-up keeps me refreshed and interested and should hopefully fuck people up too.

I'm going to 4bet bluff more too, as regs basically go off PF numbers on this and mine's been around 11% for a long while now. I'll just 4bet loads of bluffs and flat the rest probably lol.

So in a nutshell, less flop bets but more backdoor trickery. Flop raises as the cold caller. Turn ones too. Win money.

dan