Excellent Post Xaston. And Kuso, your post is equally excellent for generating this discussion. My take: You are both correct.

Kuso is dead on for the low limit live NLHE games that I play, and for the online PLO8 games up to at least the 200s and even, from my limited playing time there, the 400s. The PLO and PLO8 games where I have been playing are 50%+ people short stacking, which makes a short stack strategy unprofitable (although I will still shortstack when the conditions are right), and I have been buying in full. Almost nobody plays a shortstack well; most short stacks are nut peddlers (which is a terrible short stack strategy). Playing a reasonable TAG for the full stack style (21/5 pre-flop) nets 8ptbb/100 so far this month, mostly at the 50s and 100s at Full Tilt and Stars. I do not make many moves at all other than stabbing at orphan pots (or repopping someone taking a stab at an orphan), and I can only remember one naked ace bluff (which failed).

In the low limit no limit live games, reading the player is of incredible importance. If the player is paying attention, then knowing your image and what that player perceives you to be doing is equally important. When dealing with unthinking donks, Kuso is absolutely correct that every bet needs to be for value, because that donk just might go to the felt with 4th pair no kicker. He does not want to be bluffed. This weekend I was called all-in by K6 on a 8633 board. I had K3 and he was drawing dead. No way I can bluff that guy. Another hand against a tricky, laggy player (who I knew considered me a weak/tight nit), I made it 12 to go from the CO with 75s. He called on the button. The board came 864 two hearts. I led out for 10, he called. Turn was Jh, I led for 20 (feigning a blocking bet), he shoved his last 80 and I called. He had 98 no heart. There, my image and the player were the main factors going in, but my bets, and the exact sizes of those bets, were for value. The only bluffing I was doing was c/b'ing in a HU pot or stabbing at an orphan (and quite possibly bluffing with the best hand). My frustration post of a few days ago had me floating flops and making turn bluffs against the non-thinking donk. Not value betting and value bet-sizing. So I think Kuso is dead on here.

Xaston: Absolutely correct for NLHE online from probably the 50s on up. The 11/4 set mining nits have taken over. The only real way to get them off their game is to play back at them in the right conditions, trying to get them off their games and make them play post flop without a set, which many (most?) of them are incapable of doing. I tried playing a set mining nitty game and it worked very well at the 25s, but not as well at the 50s. I had trouble with people playing back at me after the flop, and I usually did not have a read because I was at Ongame and running PT and 6 tabling ongame will kill all of the hamsters running my computer. Once the internet gaming legislation passed, I started going out to play live 3-5 nights a week, and after just a few hours of live low limit NLHE, I don't think I can ever go back to Multi-tabling NLHE online. Live is so much fishier, and the different skill sets involved in beating the different games really mess with me I think. So rather than constantly adjusting my game to a style like Xaston suggests for online NLHE, and back to a more Kuso-esque strategy for live play, I will simply play the games that best correspond with my skill set. Those games are low limit NLHE live and PLO and PLO8 online.

MT: yeah he could hit a 6. He didn't. So he was only drawing mostly dead. Which means he is drawing slightly alive.

Molina: Permission granted (If any was needed).

Oooops! Thanks

Screenshot of my Equity Calculator Graph for all PLO8 over the last week:



2.5k hands, about 60% at the 50s, 30% at the 25s, the rest at the 100s or NLO8 at the 25s or 50s. 21ptbb/100 (heavily weighted to plo25 (57 ptbb/100) and NLO25 (79ptbb/100).

So yeah, I run good.