NLHE Cash- General thoughts, strat and tips

grantorino

OK I'll start this off with the following caveats

There are far more qualified people posting on this board to post in this thread than me, and I would hope they do so. I am a winning micro stakes cash player, but I have hardly played at all in last two years (due to other commitments)and was never anything other than a low volume rec player. So some things I say may likely be wrong feel free to point it out if any of you think so

If you are looking for a do this with AK oop, follow these steps to beat NLHE this wont be what I will be posting. I hope to go into more about how to think about situations, and will probably use very few specific examples etc. This wont be like Teddy's excellent ( and extremely intimidating to me trying to start this) hyper HUSNG stuff, partly because I haven't the time, partly because he's more knowledgeable than me, but mainly because NLHE cash is a much more nuanced game, and the answer will often be it depends.

I'm not claiming to be particulary knowledgeable and guys like fivanovic, chris, lambert, borin and others would have farmore to offer than me and I hope they contribute here ( and also correct me when I'm wrong)

Im going to start with something simple, yet vital, that applies to all forms of poker

grantorino

What do you not do enough?
3 bet for value?
 3 barrell bluff ?
Maybe
But a big problem for a lot of players, especially less experienced ones is:

You dont THINK enough

This is stuff you need to think about  every time you act in every single hand. Most of my mistakes come when I fail to do so, or if I start doing it midway through the hand after my c/r bluff is flatted and I’m oop with no real plan. Here is a list of some stuff you need to think about. I’m sure I forgot some, so feel free to help out guys. 

What was the action before me?
What ranges can I assign to that action?
Whats my perceived range if I check/call/bet/raise?
What are the likely actions behind me if I check/call /bet/raise ?
Which parts of their ranges check/call/bet/raise?
What cards have I?
Whats my plan if there is a bet or a raise after I act?
 Is this plan different depending on who bets/raises?
Whats my plan for future streets? 
On different board run outs? 

Note that you don’t need to even know your own cards to answer the first 5 questions. Sometimes they wont matter much for  some of the others either.
 
Theres very little you probably didn’t know already in this post. Obviously as poker is a game of imperfect information you wont always have full correct answers to these questions. But you will be a better player and able to work out the best actions more consistently if you think about what you do fully each time before you click one of the buttons.For new players this seems like a massive amount to think about, and in a way it is. But the more you do it the easier it gets 

grantorino

Some poker math
EXPECTED VALUE (EV)
Expected Value is defined as the sum of each possible outcome multiplied by the probability of that outcome
Eg if I bet £1 at 35/1 on rolling 7 on a roulette wheel with 37 numbers my EV is
35(1/37)+(-1)(36/37)≈-0.03
This means I lose 3p on average every time I make this bet

In poker we want all our decisions to have a positive expected value.
If you are calling and closing the action for the hand (ie you are all in and last to act or on the river and last to act)
EV= (Amount in pot)(% of time you win)-(Amount to call)(% of time you lose)
The percentages are expressed as decimals
Note that EV calcs only work when the correct values are put in. % you win is also known as equity and you are generally estimating its value. If you don’t have a reasonably good estimate the calculation is useless

So let’s say there is 130BB in pot after villain shoves in a hu pot on the flop and its 70 BB for me to call with nfd. I  estimate my equity here is 30%
My EV here is (130)(0.3)-(70)(.7)=-10
So I lose 10 BB on aveage when I make the call. Therefore I should fold.
 
What equity do I need to call?

To work out the equity required for a breakeven call: 0(EV)
(Amount to call)/(Amount to call+Amount in Pot)×100
 (For anyone interested that formula is derived by subbing in x for %win, 1-x for % lose and setting EV =0)
So in this case
70/(70+130)×100=35
So if we think our equity is above 35% we should call here

Couple of things to note:
 I haven’t included rake in these calculations 
EV of folding is always 0. You do not own the money already in the pot, so when you fold you neither win or lose money
 

You can use pokerstove to help you estimate your equity in situations. Im sure a quick google will find equity for some common spots

When your action does not close the betting for the hand your EV is much more complex to estimate

jams88

A couple i would add that are important for cash games where you play the same villians regulary

What do I know about this players style/tendencies?
How can i use this knowledge to my benefit?
Can i be called by worse?
How the **** have i got into this mess...again?

Lambert180

I think you're being a bit modest OP... When I was first trying to improve at cash games and going on the clinic loads your posts were among the ones I always thought were miles better than most and I always listened to.

Will chip in with more when I have some time but one thing I'd say is to not put so many situations down as 'standard' and to view every single street and new action as a new scenario... for example...

1) Loads of people say 'well you called the turn, so now you HAVE to call the river cos it's a blank'. That's just not the case always, it all depends.... people's range to 3barrel is rarely the same as people's range to 2barrel. Every single street is a new decision and you should look at like that and re-assess their range each street.

2) People say things like 'you can't 3bet/fold JJ because that means you must have been 3bet bluffing with it'... again nonsense. You can 3bet hands for value and then a later action (a 4bet) changes the situation. For instance you can 3bet JJ or AK for pure value against someone that never folds to a 3bet BUT if they are someone that never folds to a 3bet, but when they 4bet it's literally KK, AA and AK, then obv you shuold fold. It doesn't make the intial 3bet bad, cos they'll be calling with worse lots, just the rare times they have AA/KK/AK you have to 3b/fold.

grantorino

Reasons to bet

People often give a variety of reasons to bet

" because Im ahead"
" to make him fold"
 "to protect my hand"
 "to see where I am "

When thinking about betting, remember Slanskys fundamental theorem of poker. Roughly paraphrased it states that you make money every time your opponent makes a mistake (By this it means if he had perfect information ie could see your cards). So we always are trying to make our opponent make a mistake

There are 2 reasons to bet. If you get to an advanced stage there may be some more, but the main 2 cover the vast majority of situations

We bet for value when we think worse hands continue

We bet as a bluff when we think better hands, or hands with enough equity that they should continue, will fold

We will look at the reasons above again
"because I am ahead"
is not enough of a reason on its own. We need to be ahead of his range AND he continues with hands that are worse. There are cases when we are ahead a lot but getting value is almost impossible 

" to make him fold"
is ok, if we are pretty sure he is making a mistake by folding

"to protect my hand".
 Well we don't really protect our hand if he calls, so if we think we have the best hand and are betting enough that calling is a mistake we want a call so we are really betting for value

"to see where I am" is nearly always bad, certainly without cast iron reads. If he folds we had the best hand, so we don't want him to fold. If he continues we had the worst hand so we don't want him to call. So hopefully you can see why this is a bad idea. In general NEVER bet for information

Now people may come on and start giving other reasons to bet, and sometimes there are other considerations. But imo, if you think about can I bet for value? can I bet as a bluff? before I click my action you will make a lot of good decisions

77Chris91

Nice thread GT!

Will chime in myself if anyone wants to discuss something in particular

grantorino

3betting pre

Don't think this is a strong point of mine, so feel free to argue if anyone disagrees with any of this

So you have decided you know some basics, now you decide to be a balla like Phil Ivey etc, you wanna 3bet more than AK, QQ+

First of all think are you 3betting for value or as a bluff
If you are 3betting for value, villain should call with a range which you beat.

How many times have you seen "I 3bet AT from sb v btn cos this guy opens every btn. Board comes A hi and Im getting action , wtf do I do now" Usually they mean I don't think villain can have worse Ax, so Im in trouble.

If you are 3betting for value villains calling range is more important than his opening range. We want him to call/4b so its what he continues with that's important. Yeah in the example above AT is ahead of his opening range, but if he only calls 3bets with a very tight range then you are turning your hand into a bluff

But whats that I hear you say, he folds loads so 3betting will be +EV? Yes you are correct. But if we 3bet every hand he will adjust. So I need to have ranges for calling and 3betting.

I 3bet for value with hands that he will call with worse
I call with hands that beat his opening range, but not his continueing range. ie it is +EV to call but not to raise
 
Yeah but what about bluffing? Yeah you can 3bet bluff. It helps balance your range, get you some action with bigger hands and more importantly its fun, who doesn't love bluffing?

So what hands do we 3bet bluff?
Hands that are NOT strong enough to flat call profitably

So I can bluff atc cos my cards don't matter if Im bluffing?
Kinda, but not really cos sometimes Im gonna get called/4b, and its nice to have something that might get me some equity postflop/or if I 5b bluff and get called

Usually these should be towards the better end of hands you are not willing to call with. Blokers are nice to have to

When working out 3b ranges opponent tendencies are very important. For example lots of good players have extremely narrow 3b call ranges oop, they will 4b or fold nearly all the time. So think about what your 3betting ranges should be like v these guys

Against players who call 3bets a lot widen your value range and bluff less often
Against players who rarely call, bet a polarised range, a narrower value range mixed with some bluffs

Always have a plan for what to do
(a) if 4betted
(b) if flatted have a plan for postflop

Also imo, if you are starting to experiment a bit with 3betting, most people start blinds v btn. I think it might be easier start 3b co from btn, much easier play 3b pots ip

grantorino

Hi

Any topic anyone wants me to discuss here? Don't mind continuing to post stuff up, but don't know if anyone getting anything from this, I'm pretty sure the other players who posted in this thread know all this kind off stuff already. Also if anyone disagrees with anything I posted I'd be interested talking about it 

jimb0d1

Keep posting grantorino. Playing out of position tips please 

jams88

3betting post was pretty spot on took me a long time to learn that on my own and there is all is in 1 convientent place.

Anybody new to 3betting read this read and reread this untill you have absorbed everything that is there it is explaine
Anbody who know about it all ready read this and reread it make sure you understand aw fully as you think you do.