Analyzing Overcalls Against Nitty Players

This is the free version of the Crush Live Poker subscription podcast. If you enjoy this audio format of poker training and want to hear more complete episodes, check out our membership options at CrushLivePoker.com. Hey everybody, welcome to another episode of the Crush Live Poker Podcast. I'm your host here, Bart Hansen. Today's episode here for February 13th, 2025, is folding top pear and some OMC discussion. Not a whole lot in the intro here for this week. I played a session at the Encore on Tuesday of this week. The thing about this game, which has obviously become my regular game, this two, five, one K cap game, and going in during the day and playing like say like five to six hours only, having sort of a limited amount of time to play, it's really, really hard to put together one of those super sessions that I've talked about in the past. Super sessions being like over, say like a 300 big blind win, like over 3,000 at 510, maybe over like 1500 at two five because a lot of the times during the day the games are just a little bit nitty and there aren't guys splashing around or guys that are really willing to put their entire stack in when they shouldn't. So inevitably the only time you win very, very large pots is when you cooler somebody. Now obviously there's some room to bluff, but in any capped game you actually have to stayed there for quite some time to build the stack up. I mean I've still I've still done f very well in this game, but I just can't remember like the last time I was looking back at my records that I really won a a session that was over a grand. And again, that's a function of the fact that I'm only playing, say, five or six hours during the day, which tends to be a little bit on the nittier side. Whereas if you went to like a weekend night, obviously it would be much much, better. We always talk about how the if you have the ability to actually play at any time and you were only playing say like 20 hours a week versus 40 hours a week, your win rate should be higher at 20 hours a week. That is if you have the choice of the best times, which usually tends to be at night. Now I've been going in at a fixed time, so that really becomes not all that relevant because I'm going in at the same time each day. One of the other things that I noticed about this particular session, I got in there around, I would say, I started playing at 1115 a.m. I always talk about how I've been making it say like 20. Raise it up to 4x because of the fact that I mean there,'s a lot of other people that raise it to only 3x in that game. But if you're still going to get the same amount of action, raising it to 4x, why not raise to 4x with your good hands? But I just noticed right off the bat I wasn't getting the action raising it to 4x. I was getting the action raising to 3x, but I wasn't getting the action raising to 4x. So I actually started raising it back down to 3x, which is something that's not that common for me in this game. I like to go to 20, but if I'm not getting the action from some of the hands that I want to get, then you need to make the adjustment. Just like if you're in a really, really splashy game and you're getting a ton of action, then you should start raising larger. But what I noticed here was that I got into a couple of situations where I felt like it was correct to fold top pair. Folding top pair, how often do you do? Do you fold top pair? And I'm not talking about, you know, flopping top hair like out of the blinds. That's like a low top pair. I'm talking about a pretty static top pair. And normally the times that you are going to fold top pair qu,ote unquote, is usually when you're playing like ace X, just because you're V-pipping ace X suited, say Ace 9 down to Ace Deuce , more so than any other card, way more so than any other card. I mean, for the most part, unless you're completing out of the blinds with other types of hands, you're not really playing Jack 5 suited, things like that. So the only time that you find yourself having a top pair with Broadways is when you have a suited Broad way. So your top pair isn't necessarily weak, but if you're playing ace three, ace four, ace five, ace seven, you're gonna find yourself in situations where you might need to fold top pair quite a bit. And I want to go over a couple examples of that. And then I want to go over a couple of examples where I felt it wasn't correct to fold. Now, the two examples I'm going to go over that where I thought it wasn't correct to fold didn't necessarily involve specifically top pair, but you know what I'm talking about as I get into it here. So let's take a look at this first hand. Now the makeup of the table, again, I would say they were probably three or four for-profit players besides me at the table, and then three or four sort of losing players but nitty old men. So some for profit players and then some sort of loose passive nitty old men. Now the nitty old men were definitely are definitely going to be losing overall, but because they're playing kind of passively and not that many hands , again, it's a little bit hard to extract a ton of money from them. Although when they do have big hands, and you flop two pair or better, if you know how to maximize, then you can win some big pots. And there's another hand against one of these particular guys that I actually played where I felt like I might not have gotten as much value as I should have, even though I was the one with the pre-flaw le ad. So the first hand that I want to take a look at involves one of the for-profit players that sometimes plays 5'10, sometimes plays 2-5, is a decent player. I can tell he 's definitely a winning player. Kind of a little bit on the aggressive side for a full ring type of game, but definitely a winning player in this game. And probably even a winning player at 5'10, probably a moderate winning player at 5'10. So in this first hand, hand number one, all these hands of course are in the notes. Two five, twelve hundred effective. Okay , this was like one of these occasional straddle games, not straddle we weren't straddling all that much. Sometimes we were straddling. But then I kind of realized, you know, if you're the only one straddling, or if you and somebody else is straddling, you're never going to really be able to overcome, especially from under the gun, the amount of money that you're losing by straddling. I mean, the whole purpose of straddling is to sort of get the game larger, but if you're the kind of the only one doing it, unless there are very, very extreme situations where there's no raising pre-flop at all, then it's not going to be positive EV. And then it's debatable. There is no button straddle at Encore, but you know, it can be debatable whether or not button straddling can sometimes be positive EV for the most part to keep it simple. Anytime you're putting in any type of dead money from whatever position, it's gonna be at least slightly negative EV, and especially from under the gun. So I had kind of found myself straddling, but it wasn't really picking up. So I was like, well, I'm not gonna just give money away. So I kind of stopped. In this particular hand, there was no straddle. It was early on in the session, two five, twelve hundred effective. I'd want a couple pots, I was up a couple hundred bucks. And I opened AC to diamonds from the hij ack to 20. This was very early on when I hadn't sort of lowered my sizing down to 15. The other thing too, if you take a look at this makeup of the table, OMC types that aren't calling as much to 20, but maybe they are calling to 15, and then for-profit players that are three betting at the right frequencies. If you have that type of lineup, then probably raising smaller is correct because you keep the pot smaller where you can defend a little bit more in a cap format if you do get three bet. And then of course you're getting the action from the hands that you want. But this was before I went down to raising to fifteen for the most part. So I go to twenty from the hijack with Aceated Diamonds, cut off one of these for profit players, younger guy that I just talked about. He three bats to sixty-five. And it gets back around to me. So it goes 20, 65. I mean, the pot is 90 and it's 45 for me to call. So I'm getting about two to one. It is somewhat of a late-ish position open. It's probably, it's probably pretty close. I mean, I think you could make a case here. If you opened early, this would be one of the bottom hands from out of position. If you opened early, this is going to be one of the bottom hands that you're opening. And if you're trying to fold off some hands from that spot, you might fold off some of the worst suited aces. But I thought it was pretty close. I mean, he only made it 65. He didn't really make it four X, so maybe if he had made it four or five X, I might have folded. But I decided to make the call. And the pot was 130 bucks going heads up. The board comes out, ace of spades, king of clubs, three of hearts, ace king three. And you can obviously get into this situation here when you play suited aces, especially defending to a three bet , because you're behind to bigger aces, you're behind obviously to pocket kings, and then if you get some scary kind of Broadway cards, you're behind to a lot more. So the pot's 130 I check. He bet sixty, which is kind of a little bit of in-between sizing. There's really nothing for me to do here but continue here with a call ace of spades, king of clubs, three of hearts, I have ace eight of diamonds. So now the pot is $250 , and we go to the turn, and the turn is the jack of spades. So it's ace of spades, king of hearts, turns of three of hearts, ace of spades, king of clubs, three of hearts, ace of spades, king of clubs th,ree of hearts turns to jack of spades, backdoor spade draw, ace of spades and jack of spades are out there. I check, and now he bets 150, which is interesting because this bet does start to, I would think, kind of polarize him him a little bit. I don't know if he's necessarily betting here with like ace queen or ace 10. I think you do a lot of checking back here with ace queen ace 10, specifically in a three-bet pot. Not maybe not so much like in a single race pot, heads up against somebody, say in the blinds, but it's not like he went super, super small in the flop. It is a three bet pot, and I did check call. So maybe sometimes like ace queen is bet and then maybe like check back if you're never really getting say two pair to fold. Again, backdoor spades came in, but the only thing that that really changes if he was like properly structur ing and say like three betting some sort of suit connector like five six of spades, which is possible, but I check and he bets 150 into 250, so about two thirds. Ace King three jack with a backdoor flush jaw. And at this point, I just don't think that there's anything I can do here but fold with Ace 8. When the turn brings in some forms of two pair, some Broadway straights, and also too, somehow, if I'm ahead, also gives the guy with the lead more equity in their hand because they pick up some sort of draw. You know, you have this subset of hands where you're pretty far behind, and then maybe some hands might pick up a draw. When he bets this card, I think you have to be prepared if you're going to three back, if you're gonna defend to a three-back with sort of, I'm gonna say bad pseudodaces, and what I mean by that is like ace eight and below. You do sometimes have to fold, especially to the second barrel, especially when a Broadway straight comes in. I mean, ace king three, this turn was a jack, if the turn was a queen, if the turn was a 10 , I think they're pretty much very, very similar, I would say. Now, if the turn was like a six or something like that and he bet again, I think you have to continue, and you might play a little bit of fifth street chicken where you call and you're making it look like you're gonna call and you're basically playing a game of chicken with the guy from out of position, whether or not he's gonna bet again. Now, if the turn was a six and he bet 150 and I called and let's say the river was a deuce and I checked, and then he bet again. Sure, I have a decision to make. Absolutely have got a decision to make. And we talk about these boards where I'm not always for betting pre with Ace King heads up, but if you're in a situation where the your opponent is always forbidding Ace's Kings, your opponent, like in my position, and ace king, then my opponent might know that I mean, what's the best possible hand that I can have here? Like pocket th rees, ace three, on say if it was ace king three, like six deuce or something like that. So, you know, the better the player, the more you I would say sometimes you have to defend down. And I think it would really depend whether, you know, what the sizing would be on the river on say Ace King three, six deuce, if you were to bet again. But here, when the straight comes in and puts another Broadway card out there, I think it's a relatively easy fold . And that's exactly what I did. I did not get a reveal, by the way. Now, moving on to the second hand, which actually was against the same opponent. This is not a three-bet pop, by the way. It was quite interesting. And I was thinking about this because I'm like, wow, is this too exploitable in terms of what I did? Is this too you know too exploitable of a of a play in terms of what I did? So in this particular hand, no straddle , two five, one K effective for this hand. And this guy opens, he had moved seats. I think he moved a couple of seats over. So he opens from plus one to fifteen. So he opens to 3X . A couple of OMCs call in between MP and the cutoff call. And I'm on the button here with ace nine of hearts and I decide to overcall. Now, obviously you are incentivized to squeeze when there are dead callers in between. But what I noticed about these OMCs and where you can go wrong, you know, you're kind of a it it really kind of depends on the OMC. But where you can start to go wrong is squeezing these guys when they just have stronger hands that they just don't three bet , and or when you start to over-isolate them with my kind of pre flop rule of thumb, which is, well, I'm going to open a hand that I was going to open for anyways and ignore one limper. Like you get an OMC like limp in from up front, and then all of a sudden you're thinking, well, I'm going to ISO like six, seven, and diamonds. The guy shows up with like ace king or some sort of really strong hand from up front. So you've got to watch what type of OMC some players are, and you need to adjust. If a guy is limiting in with strong hands, you should call an audible and maybe you start to really only isolate with the hands that you were going to open from anyways from early position, almost treating it like there were a couple of limps, like the general game plan for a couple of limps from up front. In this situation, by me overcalling and not three betting, that was a little kind of the adjustment that I was going to make. By the way, too, my opponent, the initial guy who opened a fifteen, he played pretty I wouldn't necessarily say s snug, but he was playing the right hands from the right positions. So I wouldn't really expect him to be all that light. So I decided to overcall here on the button with ace nine of hearts. So he opens to 15, two MCs call in between, and now and I overcall the pot of $60 , the blinds fold out that we saw that hell a lot. I did not have really loose blinds. Again, it wasn't even a three bab three blind game anyways, but didn't really have loose blinds to necessarily have to worry about getting out. And we go four ways to the flop. So the pot is sixty dollars and the flop comes out, ace of c lubs, queen of clubs, seven of diamonds. So ace queen seven. So it's pretty textured board and it gets checked over to me. So plus one checks, the two omcs check, and it's on me. Another thing about these types of OMCs, and I don't even know uh I would tend to doubt that they're necessarily doing it intentionally, but you've got to watch the types of guys that do a lot of checking with top pair. I'm talking about from the OMC's perspective. An OMC, here's the thing about an OMC: like if he raises pre and he flops top pair, especially on a dry heavy board or an overpair, you're not going to see a guy check all that much. I mean, there that's obviously exceptions. But in situations that I've noticed, especially lately, if they don't have the lead, like in this particular situation, where they're calling in the middle, there was at least one guy there that was doing a lot of checking with top pair. And certainly checking a queen, checking flush draws, playing all that stuff kind of passively. So the fact that the two guys in the middle didn't bet doesn't necessarily mean that someone doesn't have an ace here. Now, with that being said, ace nine is a little bit different than like ace deuce. Ace Queen and Ace King obviously beat Ace Nine, so does Ace Jack and Ace 10, but I still beat some other aces as well. So it's close. I mean, if I had like if I had overclaw with like ace three, ace deuce with this type of dynamic, maybe sometimes I'd check this one back. But I decided to bet 35 because the OMCs I, think are, still going to peel off here with a queen. So I bet 35. And now the pre-flop raz or check raises me to 13 5. So I go 3 5 into 60. He now check raises me to 13 5 . And the two guys in between fold. So the pod is like 22 5, and it's 100 for me to call . And I'm looking at the board. Ace of Clubs, Queen of Clubs, Seven of Diamonds. I've got Ace, Nine of Hearts. I can't really pick up anything here. I don't even have a backdoor flush draw. And I also thought that it w that it was a lit it oh man, this one is really, really close because I would think that he would want to bet with value hands here from up front quite a bit because the OMC guys were so passive , but at the same time, I didn't think that he was like check raising here with just like pure air or something like that. Could he have had a hand like King Ten of Diamonds? Where or some sort of other hand where he was basically checking to see what the guys from up front were gonna do. King Ten of T diamonds, of course is a like a gut shot, King Jack, something like that, some sort of front door flush draw, like five six of clubs. Like if I put if I put myself in this guy's spot, and let's say I had opened with five six of clubs from up front, and that that is kind of light, and you get called by two M two OMCs in the field, and then then another winning player, in this case, which was me, and you flop a flush draw on this type of board from up front. I think the play here a lot of times is to check and see what happens. It's not necessarily with the