naked NFD IP

Not sure why I'm wading into the "pre is solved" debate, but maybe I'll figure it out before the water touches my scrote...

Pre is solved - okay, sure. I mean, yeah, we all know the basics, and even those of us who can't or don't want to memorize a bunch of charts should still have a not-too-vague sense of how wide is too wide to VPIP pre.

To me, the question of whether or not any individual player can profitably VPIP any specific hand in any specific situation is going to depend on some variables that would need to be assessed live, while seated at the table.

It's sort of like asking if someone can swim. Yeah, I can swim. It ain't pretty, and I ain't fast, but I won't drown in anyone's pool. Can I swim if I'm tossed from a boat going down rapids? Never tried it. Not sure I want to try it.

Turning off the aquatic metaphor generator - VPIP'ing KTo might be +EV with the right combination of variables / assumptions. We can deviate from solver-approved ranges sometimes, so it seems a bit perfunctory to begin and end a discussion by pointing to a chart as the only acceptable continue range.

That said, the onus will always be on the individual player to PROVE that they can make it +EV to VPIP any given hand (can't help remembering the contentious QTo thread from a few months back). I'm not Alan Keating, but I've occasionally been just as OOL as he routinely is, and the only thing that saved my stack was being able to out-play my opponent.

So...yeah, if you can't out-play your opponent, probably best to just fold KTo pre. But there are some folks who can figure out how to make it +EV, like this guy.

Because he'd been getting hit by the deck the last couple of hands, and might be on a bit of winner's tilt. Which doesn't bode well for a 3! getting through and a lot of 3!/f KTo is the prospect of getting the original raiser to fold, fair, but B'll at least be in position.

Most Vs raising me on a monotone board, I'm going to lol and default to they have it. Then again, the opponent is Banana so... In any event, this V appears a bit sticky.

I'm agreeing with you that it's likely a mistake to call; I'm just curious about how big a mistake it is.

Preflop is such an obvious fold not to be worth talking about, but the rest of the hand is quite interesting given stack depth.

The flop raise should get a lot of instant folds from Ax without a diamond, given the opponent is OOP and there is lots behind. But if not then the turn barrel folds those out.

Yes I'm inclined to agree with OmahaDonk that the pairs with a diamond (to which you could add QQd) probably fold a fair bit. But are there enough hands remaining that call flop and turn but fold river, compared to thick value? He has about 5 flushes, all the AA/88, maybe some JJd, rare 33, some A8s/A3s. Would be frustrating if he turned two pair with AJd. We need more than just the Ax to fold, unless we think that the Ax with no diamond get sticky for two streets but fold river, which seems unlikely. Will he fold out the two pair hands?

Yeah, seems like a troll post. Tight passive opens UTG 5x and calls big flop x/r. Range is probably AA/AK/AQ and 2nd or 3rd nut flush.

i think post is ok if you jam the river. bet sizing on multiple streets sort of interesting and we're not really supposed to see much raising on mono but is likely oop is messing up flop strat and raising becomes decent counter / just becomes ok with our hand and incentives and u aren't going to play enough with him to worry about him noticing / adjusting / exploiting. i think b100 ott doesnt make that much sense with stacks / ranges and you either want to go b65ish or geo (b120?). you need him to make some fairly large folds (sets pure / potentially lower flushes or good bluff catchers with single diamonds) but the circumstances seem decent for it

i think if you want to vpip you are better off 3bing

i dont really get why people think this is a troll post. v consistent w his posting history and the hand is interesting. if u r unable to see past him flatting pre w KdTx pretend he has KQo

Fold pre.

Post, I guess if you're going to go nuts without a flush, then this is the hand to do it with.

I don't think this is a good spot to go crazy. What is his UTG 5x raising range (he may have a limping range)? Maybe 99+/AQ+ or even JJ+/AK. If it is lighter, it likely includes more aces for top pair, 88 for a set, and suited broadway for high flushes. When he calls the x/r, he probably has AQ/AK/AA or a high flush, often AxQd or maybe AxJd.

You are not going to make your money getting 1/3 players to make hero folds. So either flat call the flop or check back the turn. When you flat call the flop, you can maybe make a play later. When you check back the turn, you need to give up unimproved, because he has a strong range after calling the x/r, and it wouldn't be believable to bluff a blank river.

This is like saying "science doesn't know everything" ... which, sure, but extrapolation guesses based on what we do know is going to be a lot better than making random stuff up we haven't proven false.

I would bet Pablito is fine with this, so seems like a weird argument to be making when you both agree?

KQo is a pure fold CO vs. UTG, and AQo is more of a fold than a call.

If we pretend H is on BTN, KQo calls about 30% of the time (for robot sizes). Wouldn't be shocked if the best exploit is to pure fold KQo pre. on BTN.

Kind of surprised you are trying to shrug this difference off.

As sub said for KQo on BTN the solver only calls on flop, but kind of shrugs about OP's line as slightly worse EV and that could be made up by V also being worse than perfect.

Solver mostly shoves river. With KKd/KdQx being the main bluffs, with a bit of TTd (lolz).

It is also shoving a bunch of flushes though, even JTs. So again, how this changes when we go from one combo. of KQo to 9 combos. of KQo-KTo is not going to be good for H.

No one who’s played any amount of time with banana the past twelve months is folding AxQ/Td to a river shove here. He’s been over his skis, chairlift, and mountain for a good while now.

i would be shocked if the best exploit wasn't to pure vpip KQo otb in your context ip deep vs a fish. charts are good for a baseline but you are playing 1/3 live lol. you are not playing 6 handed vs 5 tough regs

i think the hand is relatively interesting and i think people have basically no context to evaluate hands which is why everyone just keeps shrieking that pre is bad and this must be a troll thread. also more and more games have antes in one form or another so you should be able to understand how to play with wider ranges anyways. i find the thread to be representative of most of whats wrong w the forum tbh

Has nothing to do with ''no context to evaluate hands'' but Banana's recent threads. From playing ''500nl crushers'' HU to calling 67bb shoves with 98s to clicking buttons with 44. If you don't see a trend and ask questions I'm not sure you're paying attention.

I'll grant you post-flop is interesting. Pre-flop is not and if I was banana, I'd be folding KQo too.

yeah idk alot of ego and trying to be right / smart on here while very little actual analysis / solver work

I just spent two minutes trying to figure out if there's anything to be learned between the read in the OP and the reveal. Don't know if this qualifies, but here goes...

Setting aside the pre-flop decision, the post-flop play is worth examining. With the read we had on V, and the Kd in our hand, it seems really unlikely V has a flush when he opens UTG. It seems fairly unlikely he's opening QXdd or worse from UTG.

The debate we should be having is how best to go about making V fold a value hand that isn't a flush, but is almost certainly AX or QdQx at a minimum when he bets this flop. I definitely think we can get QdQx to fold by the river, and we might be able to get AX to fold by the river.

I don't know if it's better to start our bluff on the flop, or delay until the turn. But if we do start a bluff on the flop, it seems like we should be committed to following through with it, by betting three streets. But it's not clear if we need to bet large on all three streets. Multiple barrels, even for smallish sizes, may appear as credible as betting bigger.

My gut feeling is that we don't necessarily need to start our bluff on the flop, and we can wait until the turn. Even if V has AX, or AA, he can't love the monotone flop if we flat call his flop bet. When he c-bets small, it seems very unlikely he's going to bomb the turn for a large size if we call.

He could check turn, but if he bets, he'll likely go for a small size. We could start a bluff by betting when he checks, or raising when he bets, or we can call again and hope to make our hand on the river.

Aggression has its place. But very often, its place is on later streets, after our opponent has shown weakness, or at least some level of uncertainty. We never gave him a chance to tell us how much he liked his hand before we pounced. His 1/3 pot c-bet is fairly in-line with what theory suggests on monotone boards.

Forget that we have the Kd in our hand and the board is monotone with the Ad out there. If we just look at the fact that V opened from UTG pre and c-bet the flop, he hasn't shown any weakness, and that alone should dissuade us from contemplating shenanigans.

It is an interesting hand postflop, likely very useful discussion to be had, replies probably influenced by op’s past poasts

Solver preflop ranges are sort of relevant, as it is HU and villain is probably opening close to a solver UTG range. It is different in that there is a good chance it will wind up multiway. I would probably call with AQo here, but fold KQo. Would call or 3! KQo is other circumstances.

Everyone competent knew not to play KTo before solvers and there aren't many situation a solver would tell you to call a raise with KTo even a small percentage of the time.

Not surprising villain had AA, as villain's preflop range is strong, and hero's aggression probably folds out a lot of villain's hands. Hero's whole postflop approach is not that bad. Problem is villain has AA/AK/AQ a lot from preflop.

You've said similar in other threads, and I still disagree. After thinking about it a lot my assumption is that you are often playing 2-5+ in a small pool, where playing pots IP against the biggest fish is a requirement and people will notice if you fold a lot. Plus the fish opening UTG might have a range where calling is fine, and they might bluff or call down bad/light when you hit etc.

Also being deeper would make me want to call more than solver with K8s/Q9s instead of KQo, so when we hit this flop we can pile in as not a bluff.

SB's reads are always a bit sus, but in huge pools 1-2/1-3 I've played in when "tight passive guy" opens 5x UTG KQo is in bad shape vs. range, and if you call there's a significant chance at least one blind calls. Then almost nobody notices if you just fold, and if they do it's 0.2% of the pool or whatever.

I (and I assume most ITT) could also shrug off calling KQo a lot more, everyone does non-perfect actions (even me, and maybe even you 😉 ... but after a certain point it's hard to keep shrugging, also each extra pip of offsuit compromises the solver lines more (so it becomes harder to evaluate, at least for me).

FWIW I'm not sure I'd describe postflop as "interesting" ... I think OP's line was fine in general, and other lines are also fine ... I kind of suspect that against this specific type of V though we get most of our value from the flop x/r and should lean a lot more towards checking turn (but that's kind of guessing, and not evaluating).

what % of your winrate personally do you think comes from recs?

i dont really think the way to beat live low stakes / recs is to refer to equilibrium charts.

btn strat vs 5bb open 12.5% of hands 10% / 2bb cap rake. for arguments sake q9ss / k8ss are -.38bb / -.29bb respectively

personally i think you over realize in both nodes and also the open is a bit wider (and 3b defense worse / postflop play going to be drastically worse than simming would indicate)

but you are entitled to your own viewpoint and i am not going to get sucked into can i play this hand profitably ip vs rec (i can and if you can't you have really large issues in your game that are not going to be addressed by mindlessly regurgitating solver output in novel form)

I think this is very difficult to answer ... some recs have such huge holes in their game that they are spewing to everyone. But some recs. do very weird stuff that is confusing (at least to me) and I wouldn't be shocked if I win less than some other regs. from them.

On the other hand a non-trivial amount of regs. have no real idea wtf they are doing, they just seem to have patterns they follow which exploit the clueless recs. ... so if the betting for your hand doesn't follow their pattern they will mostly do the wrong thing.

Sure. I'm one of the idiots that tried that, for a bit, and I agree with you.

The way I try to think of it now is more like "this is roughly what I think equilibrium would do, so how does V's range differ from equilibrium and how should I change my range in response" ... obviously that's more complicated, and I can get it wrong. But here I expect V's range to be a tighter and more merged, so we can just fold a lot more with the parts of our range that interact with that (and are dominated). So I would rather call Q9s/J9s and fold ATo/KTo.

Also KQo has some problems postflop where more than one good thing needs to happen ... or you are trying to bluff him off of A high hands on 7 high flops.

Like if the flop is KT5r and he bets into you, we kind of have to call but hope he stops betting.

almost certainly, >100% of your winrate is coming from recs

you want to have a different strategy vs recs than you do vs regs. playing defensively vs recs is missing the forest for the trees in many many ways in many many spots

am not really trying to have a back and forth about this. if you got have anything insightful beyond "i dont believe you" im open to continuing the conversation. the fact i very likely spend more time than the entire forum combined studying and am telling you this should at least make you stop and think.