PAHWM: A2s goes bananas

Even without results, there are 3 players getting it in. They can't all have straight flushes, so someone is doing this with a king-high flush and someone else has a lower flush or a set or something. Therefore, we can't assume someone has to have a straight flush, so we can't fold.

Not just this, but the reveal of V5's hand means there was a good chance (not sure how good, but at least pretty good) that had we raised preflop to "punish the limpers," we would have been 3bet and blown off our hand instead of winning this giant pot.

This is the only take away. That 1/3 players(regs included) are garbage and people are spending far too much time overthinking extremely trivial spots vs the average 1/3 population. The biggest mistake we can make at these stakes is not maximizing EV.

The mw discussion is interesting and very telling.

Raising preflop would have been awful, but unlikely V5 is going to 3! after limping behind in the SB with JJ. Just a passive fish.

Not sure how OP gets these detailed reads. Maybe he plays the same people all the time. I will notice if someone is playing normal or high raise and 3! percentage. Obviously donkish if limp/calls, particularly with very strong or very weak hands. Notice if someone misses value. Notice a questionable semibluff or not semibluffing a strong draw. Notice is someone is playing really tight or loose. Notice if someone doesn't 3! a QQ+/AK hand or 3!s light. Obviously notice if someone is aggro, etc. However, don't have OP's detailed reads that someone is a thinking fish, etc.

This hand is probably why Sklansky's low stakes book suggests limping in a lot because they will make mistakes postflop. However, he ruins it by suggesting limping Qxs, etc. in ep, which is just awful.

Don’t be so sure that V5 would not have 3bet. Look at how deep the stacks are. I would bet that V5’s thought process here is that if he raises preflop no one folds and he doesn’t want to play a bloated multiway pot with a super awkward SPR. But if we raise, and then it comes back around, now he can 3bet a huge, stack-leveraging amount and pick up a bunch of dead money at worst.

There’s definitely a chance he would just call and not 3bet, but I have seen people limp/raise their button with QQ before, so I’m not sure my analysis is super far-fetched here.

Not really, because V has pretty much the same number of 7hx combos as he has Jhx. Our equity was probably slightly over 50% all along, but we're going to lose quite often because when Vs hit the SF we're paying them off and we're going to get it in vs sets that have 20%ish equity against us. This time turned out to be on the positive side, but our equity vs the ranges was probably in the mid 50%s give or take every street including the river.

On other textures, going multiway is far more of a detriment because we can't bluff our draws. If we don't hit a flush, we lose. You flop a flush less than 1% and a flush draw about 11%. It's those 99% of hands that we will have a tough time realizing our equity. Just look at how scared many were of the 7h going so far as to suggest a fold. That was one of the 1% premium flops for H.

So what if he does? We're IP vs V5 and very deep. Unless he goes crazy with like $500, we can comfortably call his 3! and play poker. The shallower stacks that have position on us would be a tougher decision

A 3! pot would be a disaster with this hand. Playing a limped pot 6-ways is great. You usually fold the flop, but when you hit like here you may clean up.

Respectfully, you're wrong about how well A2s plays mw and you're equally wrong about limping in hands. We were in the straddle here and totally fine to check our option, that is absolutely no where near the same as limping in A2s from EP. That would be awful.

Also Sklansky? Really? In 2025?

Really huh? You're folding any time you make a pair? A gutshot? A backdoor draw to the nuts? What is likely to happen is you'll limp in **** hands from EP, butcher postflop and lose a ton of small pots before you win a big one.

This is exactly right.

I thought the Sklansky-Malmuth book was interesting, in part bc it created opportunities to challenge what seems like creative thinking gone too far.

In some games you can get away with limping Axs and other speculative hands in EP. (Q6s not so much.) But most 1/3 games I've played in the past 2 years have pretty regular preflop raises to amounts that destroy the playability of a weak suited ace.

Here I would check, rather than pump more money into the pot out of position.

+1

I meant with A2s, if there are limpers, sometimes the better play is to limp behind. Also, overcall a raise multiway. The more aggressive play is not always best.

As far as in ep, depending on how deep you and the table are and how to table is playing, sometimes you can limp A2s in ep or raise smallish or open raise to 5x or whatever. That is sometimes better than folding, because you can win big pots like this. In a tough game, it would be terrible, but you can make adjustments to exploit players who play loose passive preflop and can't fold postflop.

Axs is closer, but I am almost always playing a small pp in any position in a 1/3 game. I would always open raise or open limp in early to middle position, and generally over limp or call a raise with them. Sometimes, if it is going to be HU, it is better to fold them.

I said most of the time, you fold the flop multiway with A2s. I didn't say you should fold when you don't make a flush or flush draw. Most of the time, you don't have enough to continue with. If it is a 5-way limped pot at low stakes, often someone will bet 2/3 to 1 1/2 time pot. Then it is a really easy fold of A2s if you make a pair of aces, a pair of deuces, or a bdfd. Sure, you might not just check fold those in a HU pot.

I meant I thought Sklansky had good ideas about sometimes limping with speculative hands, as 1/3 low stakes players make mistakes postflop. However, the way he presented it, in terms of limping junky hand in ep when it usually wasn't going to get raised is bad, and showed he is out of touch.

I know you didn't settle on exact number on what you would have raised to preflop (I believe saying $75 would be nice if it would get the job done but you would have been comfortable going all the way to $150). If you take the higher end of $150 (which you mentioned in at least two posts, IIRC), what 3bet sizing are you expecting from V5 with $200 in the pot when it comes back to him? Even a 3x versus our $150 is $450, creating a $940 pot with just $1750 behind (i.e. SPR 1.9). A 3x of $125 = $375, creating a $790 pot with $1875 behind (i.e. SPR 2.4). Heck, the ~bestish case scenario against V5 is like he 3bets our $100 to $300... which still creates a very lame SPR of 3. Hardly an SPR to comfortably play postflop poker here.

And that's all against mega deep V5 facing a rather smallish 3x LRR boot. Against anyone else or a bigger sizing it's even more of a disaster.

GcluelesscomfortablepokernoobG

The highlighted is wrong. It becomes increasingly more wrong the worse your rake structure is. I feel like we're talking past each other honestly. Checking our option in this hand is 100% fine. Open limping A2s from EP is not, it's really not even close either.

You can open shove it too, doesn't mean it's correct.

Yes, these actually play much better than A2s.

You make those folds always? 6-ways flop A69r you're folding A2s to a bet?

Point is, preflop mistakes turn into more expensive mistakes post flop.

Don't want to debate whether Sklansky is good or not and honestly maybe if you're starting at 0 his book might still be ''good'' but also it's 2025. There's probably 20+ youtube channels that are better sources for learning than a poker book that suggests limping Qxs from EP is good.

The larger our raise, the less we are calling any 3! at all, but the V is 3!ing far less. If I'm betting $150, I expect to take down the $60 out there a very large chunk of the time and I expect to be raised virtually never and only by monsters. If I'm betting $80, I expect to get called more frequently and maybe 3!. When a "passive" player is willing to put in $400+ we just ran into a monster and can comfortably fold. A player doing that with JJ isn't passive and certainly THIS player isn't doing that because we saw him click back to $35 flopping a strong combo draw to the super nuts, and then betting $500 for like 25% pot on the river after hitting his flush. If he's betting that small after he gets about as great of a flop as JJ could hope for, he isn't the kind to start piling money in pre. He's more the type that even if he wants to 3!, he's probably going to click it way too small based on his actions observed in this hand. We bet $100, he is MAYBE clicking it to $225 because his betting actions were small bets relative to the pot that priced us in every street. Apparently, he doesn't get the concept of pot odds. So if this player is suddenly 3!ing to 4x, 5x+, or if we feel the need to go particularly large like $150 and he 3!s us to $400, we can fold. He has AA/KK, and I'd be surprised to see KK.

We can't play fearing that other players are going to play back at us because:

1: 99% of the time they don't even when they should. Almost nobody (including the folks who study on this forum) 3! anywhere close to a theoretically appropriate frequency when playing $1/$3.

2: It's part of the game and it's ok to fold when your aggression runs into counter-aggression, especially when players aren't being aggressive often enough. You aren't always going to win, and it isn't necessary to always win. You'll win often enough because most hands will miss the flop most of the time. Unless they have AA or KK, a ton of flops are going to miss them and they will give up too frequently, bluff too rarely, and bluffcatch too rarely.

These aren't sophisticated players who are going to have well-balanced ranges and thought out strategies trying to exploit you. They play their hand. When they make it obvious they have a real hand and you don't, fold. They aren't going to suddenly start 3!ing you more frequently with random trash because they recognize you are raising light. They 3! because their hand is whatever level is high enough for them to feel comfortable putting in more money preflop. And when a fish tells me he has a big hand, I appreciate it because it saves me from making the error of bluffing off my stack.

Yami, this is the sole post I'm responding to, where you make it seem like we don't care if we're LRR'ed cuz we'll often be able to comfortably continue and play postflop poker, when in reality if we face a LRR we'll almost never be able to continue. In fact, your next response doesn't even really seem to disagree with that? Even in the best-case scenario you outline, where we raise a small $100 and in some universe only get ~minclicked to $225 by the only guy we have position on and is deep, we're still setting up a basically unplayable horrible SPR of 4.

All's we're saying is that *if* we're LRR'ed then we'll almost never be able to continue. That's all we're saying, nothing less, nothing more.

GcluelessNLnoobG

On the "playability" discussion, hypothesis I'm not actually sure how to measure or prove out: A2s when played from first position (let's ignore the impact of the blinds pre) has higher EQR in equilibrium with more opponents than fewer.

I'm not sure that is actually true, or how to prove it, but I think that is the core of what is being described in terms of "playing well multiway". Somewhat intuitively, it seems like taking the hand massively multiway lets flushes and flush draws comprise a much higher percentage of non-giveups versus going HU, where you have to be realizing top pair or you are in a world of pain.

I can also see the argument that most of playing weaker suited Aces for a raise pre is about fold equity rather than post-flop EQR, but in that case it becomes a question about the merits of folding such a hand in various preflop configurations. Maybe the ultimately hypothetical here is imagine an RFI from EP, multiple overcalls, and picking up A2s in the SB.

I think you could argue that A2s _on the BTN_ wins more when there are limpers than if it's folded to you, at a 1-2/1-3 game. I'm not even sure that's true (winning the blinds a lot, and/or stabbing flop and winning a raise 60%+ of the time is _a lot_), but I can see how you might argue that.

But every GTO chart I can see is open folding A2s UTG in a 9 handed game. And it's a mixed (~50%) 0EV open in LJ for 2bb. So I'd want a lot of sources if you think more players = better.

To be clear, I don't strongly believe in that hypothesis so much as I was trying to make a falsifiable statement in terms that can be measured. Unfortunately I don't know if we have solved NLHE nearly well enough to make concrete statements about the EQR of a specific hand seeing a particular flop(s) 6 ways. But in particular all I was asserting in the hypothesis is that A2s would have higher EQR say 6 ways than HU, both from first-to-act postflop. Not that either situation is necessarily plus-EV against realistic ranges, even.

I'm not sure GTO preflop charts are going to be particularly useful here, just because any form of strategy from EP that faces GTO opposition is not going to end up significantly multiway. All the chart would really say is that it's minus-EV to play A2s with 6+ preflop GTO opponents left to act (even with ante and no rake, a bare +0.02 open from the LJ only).

Even in the broader discussion, I think I am only trying to compare the merits of overcalling a hand like A2s versus raising it - like in the "ultimate hypothetical" of seeing it in the SB after an open and overcalls (from LLSNL fish, not GTO opponents) does raising or calling have higher EV? They might well both be negative and the right play is a fold (depending on open size probably) but I am not even trying to explore that branch.

It's been a while but did some work on this with poker friends and hands like A2s were folds when EP/MP opened and HJ/CO/BTN called and we were in the blinds. Looking only at flatting these hands obviously as we're trying to decide how well it plays mw. The only hands that gained EV were pocket pairs.

This was also based on RFI's of 2x, 2.5x and 3x I believe and rake structure was an online stake. Can't remember if we did 100nl or 200nl. Point is, these hands become increasingly worse flats when the RFI is higher, which isn't uncommon in live and the rake structure is worse, which is always the case for live.

One thing that's hard to quantify is how do live recs play. Do live recs overvalue flushes? Yes. Do live recs suck at folding? Yes. This all increases EV but genuinely no idea how we'd put that in a solver.

Then there's also the flipside of that right. How well do we play these hands post-flop? This thread is kind of the perfect example because even when flopping flushes, some will play it as passively as possible and essentially win the min. Yes some will go for the max.

Long story long, I remember a lot of speculative hands that people think play well MW actually do not at all. Except for PPs and these are easier to explain. When we do make a set, especially live, we'll more often than not be playing against people who can't fold pairs.

So I think neither situation is +EV is correct but I don't know about 6 ways. I assumed the more players the worse the EV gets but that could be wrong, I genuinely don't know. I looked at an open, a flat and then us being in the blinds.

The btn especially live will add tons of EV yes but again one of those things that solvers can't really provide. There's no option to have the solver play as live recs who somehow end up donking the river for 150bb with the J-high flush.

I know in GTO land this hand is often a fold preflop and maybe a bluff 3!.

In low stakes, it is usually better to overlimp or call a raise if it looks like it may go multi-way. At some tables, it is a good open raise or limp in ep. The results of this hand show it. Hero stacked multiple people who didn't even have a flush or a set. On this kind of board, some fish won't fold a straight flush draw. If you can get in for 1xBB and then stack someone with flush over flush, you get excellent return although you usually fold the flop multiway.

You can make other good hands with it besides a flush or flush draw, and there are some situations where you can bluff. However, in a 6-way pot, you definitely don't want to continue with a pair or bdfd. That would be really bad.

You obviously can't call a limp-3! or usually any 3! with this hand. You want to get in cheap with it.

Yeah so I think you are looking at flatting in the blind versus folding - I was actually more curious whether flatting is clearly superior to a 3b from the blind. Both are interesting comparisons, but it felt like the thread earlier was debating the value of some kind of "squeeze" rather than folding.

I would argue a statement like "A2s plays well multiway" is arguably true even if the hand is a fold in a scenario like that.. it might play better mw than HU but still just not be good enough there.

Yeah super hard to say. Playing live it's almost impossible to get granular data but I do think I make an obscene amount of profit from making thick value and getting calling stupid wide by fish. I might be leaking by overcalling a 4x open or whatever here (as I will probably do with enough fish in the pot), but if so I think it's a leak for the small amount I lose for frequently giving up. Good players just won't put you in an "RFI and 3 flats to you in the SB" spot anyway.

I wouldn't say that an SPR of 4 is "unplayable horrible". If you set up a situation in GTO Wizard where the SB limps, BB raises, SB LRRs, BB is calling with A3s 100% with an EV of 0.1. So it's obviously borderline, and A2 is a notch wider than the solver is playing vs a perfect solver V. But that is also with an SPR of 2.77.

So on the con side, its super thin to begin with and a notch wider than a solver, and V is likely playing a more condensed range which in equilibrium means we should play tighter.

On the pro side we can play a little wider than the solver pre in most $1/$3 games because Vs will make much larger mistakes post flop than we will, especially when we are IP. And we're a bit deeper than the solve which should imply we can play a bit wider with hands that are capable of becoming the nuts.

So I tend to think that its ok if we play slightly wider than a solver pre because the pros outweigh the cons and Vs become particularly uncomfortable when the pot gets large. They won't make the big bets light as often as they should, and they will overfold to bets that are small relative to the pot because its a lot of real dollars. So in large pots, our skill advantage is amplified.

For me, I'd be fine calling something up to the $300ish range which would put us around 3.5x SPR. I don't know where my exact line would be, it would be somewhat dependent on my spidey sense. If I were a perfect player, I think calling $400 would be just fine. I'm not so that is probably stretching too far. V bets $250, I'm calling and happy to play the hand. I think at $250 its a clear and easy call.

this is trueish but its very very rake sensitive and i see them trending back towards flats even vs the higher rfi sizes as we get deeper which makes sense

also like the ev's are fairly close at equilibrium and quite honestly you should be outperforming solver substantially vs the fields you guys are playing. i cant tell you which nodes the ev is going to come from but i am very very certain if you have ever opened up multiple gtowizard preflop solves and compared them you are going to play infinitely closer to well / optimal than random rec at 1/2 or 2/5 lol

this stuff very very easy to compare if you use gtow fwiw. you can either just set up the experiment and flip between rake / open sizes or have it up in multiple tabs and compare (i know u have done this but am saying for other people perhaps following along in the thread)