Well, I hope tetsuo isn't going to boot me for this, but I'm going to try starting more of a quasi-journal focussing more on the reads I'm getting on particular players, since I'm playing a lot of these guys rather frequently.

I'm going to kick it off with "Sam," who is one of the best players in our 2/5 and who, as I learned today made a liar out of me in a recent post concerning my relative position in the field of regulars at the casino: He had quite a bit more net earnings than I did last year, although I was kind of thinking he was a clear winner, but, as loose as he is (perhaps not relative to the game as a whole, but at least by my standards), must also suffer from some serious downswings.

Ok, he plays a LOT of suited hands at least from MP and LP, for sure things like K8s (which I've even seen him play to a raise) or even Q7s (which I'm not sure he'll play to a raise), and I THINK he plays a fair number of unsuited connectors. While he plays much "callier" than I do (I play a very raisy game with very few flat calls), he makes this work extremely well--also mixing in stone-cold bluffs when he senses weakness. I'll have to observe more carefully just how he works this. In any case, while his post-flop play is very different from mine, it does seem to work quite well. We also both have a lot of respect for each other's play and typically kind of stay out of one another's way without pretty serious hands. To date, I know I've won a bit more off of him than he has of me, but his play may regularly win more than mine off the rest of the table.

Last year, we actually weren't at the same table together but a few times, and I noticed pretty quickly that he was a good player. The last few weeks, though, we've been playing together almost every session, and I've started to notice what seems to me like a rather bizarre raising strategy.

The only hands that I've seen him INITIATE a raise with are in fact, as I recall: 43s, 44, and AQ. And I've seen him limp VERY frequently with big pairs--AA almost routinely, and I'm pretty sure KK and QQ as well as AK. He'll definitely call a raise with AK, and I've seen him re-raise both AA and QQ, so I assume he'll also re-raise KK (possibly not against me, but against most players).

Anyhow, this is all starting to look to me like an attempt to limp-re-raise from most positions (or limp-trap) on the big pairs and AK and then initiating raises only on middle pairs, SCs and AQ (which I have also seen him limp from EP).

I'm really thinking that a fairly conservative answer to this strategy might be to re-raise TT-AA (possibly myself trapping a little on AA and KK if I'm sitting to his left, since a re-raise is just going to shut out the field, and I think he's going to do a LOT of folding to re-raises) as well as AK, AQs and AJs.

TT-AA I feel fairly comfortable with here relative to the rest of the table. AJs I'm not sure about (AQs I think will also pass the test of at least having some serious outs against the rest of the table).

Sam usually buys in for around $400-$500, but is also usually fairly deep within a few hours. He also plays a lot of tournaments.

And, with standard raising quantities being $20-$25, a re-raise would put me in for maybe $75 (??) on the hands I'm talking about. If my read on Sam is correct, the trick would be making sure with these re-raises that I don't run into big trouble with the rest of the table.

How would you guys work this?

When I played full ring, my preflop raise % was only about 4% and I also limped AA / KK / QQ / AK in very early EP all the time. I think thats perfectly fine as long as you know how to fold AA.

I personally think its pretty hard to play a guy who seems to raise just about the normal percentage but half the time doesnt have what you think he has when he raises.

You probably need to be checking behind on the turn alot of the time when youre in hands with him.

On the floating part, I really don't know. I don't think he'll float 44 against me unless he hits.

I agree fully on your points about attacking this guy. Since he's one of the best players, I have no desire to really go after him. But, having a read, I do want to take a little bit at a time and respond appropriately to these raises. Whether or not HE has 43s or whatever, I'm planning on laying down KJo, etc. here. I just don't want to play it in a raised pot. So, as compensation, I think picking him off selectively and increasing my value on a hand like TT or AQs is a fairly balanced approach.

I feel like with that, I'm pretty much letting him do what he's doing with the rest of the table while getting some compensation for lost values on my part. Also, while I'm calling his raises with 66 (and he may have 44), I just go ahead and give him the pot with his CB if I miss, which is most of the time. But he's making me pay significantly more to try and set in these situations--and with little chance of stacking him as long as he's playing this strategy.

That also makes me wonder if I really should be playing these PPs at all to his raise unless there are a lot of other callers.

Another interesting aspect is how to play AA to this. If I'm to his left, I need to know whether or not he's going to call a re-raise very often (I think I'll find that out before too terribly long if we continue to be playing together as frequently as we have the last few weeks). If so, the re-raise is fine. If not, it might not be a bad idea to just flat call for a while with AA/KK, having let him do the raising for me. This is due to your other point about having the rest of the table fold usually to the $75.

Which brings me to yet another issue: Yes, they're going to fold usually to the re-raise, but no one is going to fold AA or KK, and I've seen some of these guys calling re-raises with hands like AJs sometimes (less so at this game, but that is the case at a nearby 5/10, and some of those players come over to this casino at times, so it's not a completely separate field). I think QQ will also almost always call, and JJ maybe. AK usually in this game.

Anyhow, just as note: If the calling range is AK and JJ-AA among 7 players with completely random hands, someone will call the re-raise about 20% of the time.

Hmmm... I'll run an EV calculation here for TT with that stat, which probably isn't too far off (note that if the field is already reduced by the time of the re-raise, I'm in better shape): Let's say Sam raises to $20, I have TT and make it $70, and there is $10 in limp/BB money already in there. The field folds 80% of the time, and Sam calls 50% of the time (this is a completely wild guess, as I really don't know what he'll do).

Ok, 40% of the time, I'm winning $30 with no contest. EV of $12 here.

If Sam calls, I'm winning $80 maybe 80% of the time but losing $70 plus my CB of $100 20% of the time (I'm also going to assume that if we start actually playing where we BOTH have some kind of hand, we'll break even). So, winnings of $64 here, less losses of $34 yields $30 total, and this occurs another 40% of the time, making $12 again.

So, we've got $24 up to this point.

But now let's take the 20% where some other player at the table calls. If Sam folds (50%), I think I can still take down the pot half the time with my TT. But I lose about 2/3 of my CB as well when I don't take the pot down. So, I win $100 here half the time, and lose $150 half the time for a net loss of $25. So, we have a subtotal here of $12.50 times 20% or $2.50 minus. So, this isn't too worrisome. Also note that if they re-raise ME, it's going to be rare, I"m going to assume AA or KK and obviously just go away normally (barring their giving me odds to set).

Tough is when both Sam AND someone else at the table calls. I'm not at all sure how often I win this one, but now we have a pot of $220 or so, and, if I CB, I'm going to have to CB about $150. I'll try this in a way that's probably a little optimistic for me and still assume that I win half the time. Ok, I take down $150 half the time here, and lose $220 the other half for a net of -$70. But this only occurs 10% of the time anyway. So, the net result is only -$7.

I guess that still looks pretty good, as the overall EV is a win of $14 on my TT in this situation--which is actually pretty decent for TT at about 3 BB/hand.

Despite Sam's being a very good player, I also think it's important to attack these raises with a fairly reasonable frequency, because he's taking away my ability to play KJo, which is actually a moderately profitable hand in a limp pot, and he's also devaluing my little pairs by making me pay more to see a flop under circumstances where setting is unlikely to be terribly profitable.

ice, I think your raising strategy is more difficult than Sam's, if my take is correct on both of you (by the way, he does know how to fold AA, but I have seen him lose a few hundred on it in limp pots). I think (perhaps due to the unwillingness to call big raises that we've recently discussed) that Sam is actually NEVER raising QQ-AA or AK as first to act from any position. At least I never saw him doing it the last few days (he wasn't playing Sat.), and he'd always turn over a little SC or little pair when he did raise as first to act.

There was also another loose player (this one a LAG, which Sam really isn't; Sam's post-flop play is fairly tight, although he's also good about mixing in bluffs at the right time, just not excessively) on Sat. that I think is a winner although he had a horrible run that night (he hit a calling station), and I've only played with him a few times, so he may not be quite as good as I think. I will say that his big loss against the calling station wasn't really all that bad: He checkraised big on a SC with flush draw AND open-ender (which I liked, although I wouldn't have made the raise quite so big), then moved in for $800 on the turn after missing, and calling station called with a K-high flush draw and top pair, both hit the flush... (I didn't like the turn bet, and he really should have had a better read on the calling station)

Anyhow, he raises to $15 maybe 70% of the time but $20 or more with a real raising hand (including AQ but also AK, etc.). While you can't rely on it completely (occasionally you'll get this $15 raise on a big hand), I think these $15 raises at this game are a good spot to re-raise to around $50 on JJ-AA/AK. This strategy also counteracts some of the difficulties we've been talking about regarding raising $40 right off the bat in LP given limpers.

On a more journal-ish note: I finished up $361 for the night on Sat. after playing pretty badly. Hit two huge hands early and was up $500 in the first 15 minutes, although I should have extracted more value from one hand. Then had a 7-hour run of horribly cold cards and lots of missed AK hands with action, and I also made some sloppy plays during that stretch, which actually had me down a little after 8 hours of play. But I was still feeling fairly fresh and the table had gotten pretty active, so I stuck around for another hour and ended up having another nice little run during that time.

Here's a hand I should have played differently: I have AhQs in CO and raise to $25 with just one limper to my immediate right, get 2 callers (limper is a pretty bad player). Flop comes K-high with all hearts, and a very aggro player bets $35 into me, limper folds. I should really have flat called here but instead raise to $100, and aggro player (with over $1,000 in chips) fires $200 more (total of $300) at me. The way he plays, I think he has either a set or a little flush (obviously smaller than mine if I could make it) and thus fold. But I really would have liked to see the turn there, and his passive bet would have allowed me to do so for cheap.

If he's a good LAG, isn't he going to be able to get away from the hands that you reraise him w/ JJ-AA...? Wouldn't calling and trapping work better, and maybe reraising w/ some SCs...

Some for sure. He also has a lot of respect for my bets. I know he'll raise any A pretty much always.

A lot depends here on position, though. If he's to my left (he was a few seats to my left Sat. nite), and I limp JJ, for example. He makes it $15 and gets 3 callers to me, I can re-raise to $50-$60 and thin the field very nicely. If the whole table folds, I still drag $60 uncontested on my JJ. I think he'll try to call if at all reasonable, simply for purposes of not letting his raise get taken away from him--although if I'm re-raising JJ-AA and AK, I'm not attacking him so often as to take away his game completely with regard to the rest of the table.

Also, on the SCs, same scenario: I'm getting in very cheap to see a mildly raised multi-way pot here a lot of the time. I think that really improves my situation on those even though I'm not going to be able to bet a whole lot--but I do get in for cheap with nice pot odds.

Anyway, at FR, I prefer fairly moderate attacking strategies against odd raising strategies largely because it's hard to maintain balance if you fire away excessively at them, and you can get some rather difficult potshots coming in from the rest of the table, too. What I'm generally looking for against these types anyway is a little extra compensation for for the medium-strength hands I'm sometimes laying down--while avoiding getting too far out on a limb without a hand.

To Kenny: Sorry this has gotten so long so fast. It really just revolves mainly around the counter-strategy for the one player first mentioned (the second player is less difficult, I think, as he's just pretty much classic LAG, and seems to be pretty decent at playing that way).

Any particular hand selection? I could just go with any hand I intend to play if my read is accurate...