Mr Brier - I respectfully disagree

[motorholdem]

I just read Mr. Brier’s article and one part struck a chord that has been bothering me for some time. I wanted to write and get some thoughts on it, so here goes.

Please keep in mind I am not as experienced as most of you folks. In fact, I thought the play by Mr. Brier in the first hand was, rather odd. I think that if a novice had posted it there would be feedback such as “stop chasing with an unimproved Ace, you are lucky the board paired.” I thought the play look Fishy, so that shows you what I know.

Anyway, the point of the post is about disregarding loose players.

I follow different forums and read as much as I can, and what I keep seeing as a common thread about loose, aggressive players is commentary similar to that posted about “Perry”, as extracted from Mr. Brier’s article below.



According to MR. Brier, “Perry’s cap meant nothing.”
With all due respect, why do Mr. Brier and other posters completely disregard the bets of loose players, simply because they are loose?
I fully understand that one has to consider that Perry is “less likely” to have the goods than a tight player. But even if you say he is 2 or 2.5 times less likely to have the goods, you can’t write EVERY bet off by a loose player on EVERY turn of EVERY hand.
The most common analysis seems to be “he is loose, therefore he MUST have nothing.”
This is far from correct. Loose players catch as many good hands as the rest of us - they don’t catch less “quality” starting hands just because they are loose. And we all know that loose players tend to get “more” out of their real quality hands because their bets, raises, and re-raises are less respected. Also, they have the ability to turn a garbage board into a good hand by the very nature of some of the marginal hands they play.
Sure LAGs may lose more in the long-run, but categorizing all their bets as meaningless just because they are loose is folly. Yet, how often have we seen posters talk about doing this very thing. “Oh, I wasn’t worried about Freddy’s 3-bet, cause he’s in every hand.”
So, I would like to pose the question. How can people summarily dismiss a loose player as almost being a non-entity in a hand, just because he “might (or even probably) have sub-optimal holdings?
I don’t ALWAYS put a LAG nothing. It seems that a key part of Mr. Brier’s rationale in hand #1 was concluding that Perry could not possibly have ANYTHING, despite his betting. And that rationale formed part of the reason that allowed Mr. Brier to continue on with the hand.

Feedback is welcome.And don't be gentle - lol

[TheHip41]

I complete agree with what you are saying.

N river mr. brier.

Anyhow, the question I'm wondering is, what do you do when Mr. Tighty 3 bets the turn. Do you call 1 more bet because the pot is 'so big', or do you realize you have trash and fold?

I like the fact that you analyzed what each player has, but looking at that flop, and the fact you got 3 bet by a tight player means you are drawing to 3 or 0 outs. You have to draw and no pair.

I don't see anything wrong with folding the flop.

[All-In]

I agree in part to what you say but I like the way Brier played this hand even though he did get lucky on the river. The maniac's cap pre-flop doesn't give you any useful info. A true maniac would cap in this spot with just about anything. Keep in mind, the player behind him is tight AND predictable. You don't need always need a hand to win in situations like this. Brier basically said that he thought he didn't have the best hand but could force the tight player to lay down a better ace.

[The Dude]

When Jim Brier says "Perry's cap meant nothing," I take that to mean "He's capping with just about every hand he's playing here, and I don't have to worry about him dominating my hand." There are tons of players whose cap here is good news for a hand like AJ. Sure, he could have AA or another dominating hand, but we knew that before the action got to him.

What Jim is saying is that AJ gets value out of Perry's cap - against Perry's range of hands. His primary concern is the player to his left.

I like the way Jim played this hand, even though I don't recommend it to beginners or in small stakes games. Don't take what Jim said out of context. It's not like he's got 22 out of position, and is going to see a flop 3-way because "Perry's cap means nothing." AJ is strong against Perry's range of hands.

[EnderW27]

AJ might be strong against Perry's range of hands, but not against Steve's.

So what's going to happen is that 1) Steve has an Ax where X > Jim, an ace flops, and Jim loses (over the whole course of the hand) 5 small bets before he realizes where he's at.
2) Steve has a large pair, blanks flop, and again Jim loses at least 4-5 small bets before he realizes Steve's beating him and he's drawing to 3 outs.

In this particular situation, blanks flopped and Steve had the big ace, which is the right combination to push Steve off the hand on the turn. Still, knowing Steve is absolutely beating Jim preflop, has position, and it will take at least 5 bets to determine in what way Steve is beating Jim, can Jim's line of play be profitable in the long run?

I posted a thread a few days ago along these lines:
http://forumserver.twoplustwo.com/sh...14&fpart=1

[The Dude]

[ QUOTE ]
AJ might be strong against Perry's range of hands, but not against Steve's.

[/ QUOTE ]
How exactly AJ does against Steve's range of 3-betting hands, I don't know. All Jim says is "he had a real hand." I'm prone to give Jim the benefit of the doubt, since he would have a better feel for what the situation was - what Steve and Perry could have.

If this hand were played in Vegas where there is a 5-bet cap, then I would much more inclined to say 'fold.'

[me454555]

[ QUOTE ]
On my immediate left was a player who we will call Steve. Steve played in a tight-passive manner. He was a marginal winner in low and medium stakes games because the other players gave him action when they should not have. Steve did not bluff or semi-bluff. When he raised he had a real hand.

[/ QUOTE ]

While Steve won't bluff or semi-bluff, is he capable of raising the best hand on the flop? He probobly knows that Perry is tilting and likley capped w/nothing. Once you call, he also knows that you don't have an overpair and he is likely ahead. If Steve has AK, he may very well raise flop costing you an extra sb. If you are fairly sure he will raise the flop w/AK or AQ then this is a clear fold instead of a marginal call.

[BugsBunny]

Steve played in a tight-passive manner. . .Steve did not bluff or semi-bluff

This type of player will almost never raise with just 2 overcards on the flop. Especialy since Steve was not familiar with Perry since Steve had recently entered the game. That means that Steve is much more likely to think that Perry has a real hand of some kind and will therefore be even less likely to raise the flop with his 2 strong overcards than his passive nature would usually dictate. This last quote negates the part of your post where you say "He probobly knows that Perry is tilting and likley capped w/nothing". In fact the opposite would appear to be true. Also note that Perry is not tilting, that appears to be the way he always plays (based on Jim's comments).

I suspect that if Jim thought that Steve is likely to raise here with AK or AQ he would have folded the AJ

Also note that Jim makes a mistake where he says if Steve had a bigger ace I still had three outs. Ignoring redraws he actually has 6 outs. 3 for a win and 3 for a split.

I like the way that Jim played the hand. Note that he also says he would fold if Steve raised and Perry reraised. With Perry being Perry I suspect that he would reraise pretty much anything if Steve had raised. In that situation Jim could be pretty sure that Steve had an overpair in which case he would have, probably, 3 outs. Although he might have as many as 6, or be drawing dead. But on average I think assuming 3 outs would be about correct. So getting an immediate 10-1 and facing a possible cap a fold here is correcct.

If Steve raised and Perry just called I think Jim would have to call here since he would be getting 18 to 1 and closing the action.

I think you'd be more correct to argue his preflop call of 2 cold than to argue his call on the flop. The preflop call was more marginal IMO, given a tight passive player, with position, raising preflop. The fact that he's predictable makes things fuzzier though. Predictable players are always much easier to play against both because they're easier to read, and easier to manipulate.

I also think that if Steve were the kind of player that might lay down a strong A here to a flop raise (even though he's getting odds to call) than a flop raise could be a good play. But if Steve will correctly call a raise here more often than not then raising the flop doesn't gain you anything.

[AnyTwoCanLose]

If hitting a 6 outer on the river makes a player a genius... it seems like everyone I play on PP is brilliant as well.

If a K would have rivered, Brier wouldn't be presenting this hand as evidence of his genius.

The only thing this hand shows is on any given single hand, any two can win.

[sublime]

the whole hand IMO is filled with close decisions (besides the river of course)

preflop, i can see a fold here pretty easily. one of the great things about players like the CO is that they rarely 3-bet without really strong hands. they might cold-call with hands they think are better/equal to the openers hand, but they rarely 3-bet. the presence of tha LAG puts some 'loose' money in the pot, but also puts you in the precarious position of being sandwhiched between an aggressive opponent and a decent player with a hand this is very likely better than yours. not saying a fold is a must by no means, but its a viable option.

on the flop, i think jim doesnt take the fact that CO doesnt know much about LAG into account as much as he should. in this spot the CO would have a somewhat difficult call to make on the flop with overcards if jim had raised. so IMO, he probably could have accomplished what he did on the turn with a flop raise.