Aggro monkeys

savrababa · Aggro monkeys

I have a serious problem when facing surer aggressive players when I am card dead.
I will try to lay down the average image of how such a match goes so that you can give me some insight.

I start off limping and get 4x raised or he raises 4x from button.
After this happens a few times I switch to raising 2x or 2,5x with my good hands and limp my great hands.
This does work in some of them but most of the time it just buys some time because sooner or later they will start raising my raises too.
My calling range against these guys is something like T9, JT+, QT+, K9+, A6+ and any pair.

When the flop comes down they pot it. Every time.

Now what happens here is that if I call 4-5 times and don't hit a hand I'm down to a 2/1 chip ratio.
If I hit a mediocre hand I might call a pot bet on the flop but most of them will fire pot on the turn too.

Now remember that this is not one specific player so I do not have these reads before the match so it is very easy to be even lower in chips after 20 hands or so playing really patiently and waiting for a good spot.

If I keep not catching hands I have the following options:

1) Tighten up even more and wait for a hand by the time of which I might be too low on chips or because I have not made 1 call on the flop even a complete donkey will often have alarm bells ringing and slow down.

2) Return the aggression by shoving hands like KJ or A3 pre , which even if I get called by a worst hand will most of the time put me on a 50-60% to get close to even in chips or loose the match, or raising all in on some dry flops which will get called by any pair by these idiots who have a range of any 2.

I've tried both and as you can see they are not working as I want to.

So the feeling I am left to with after those matches is that it comes so much down to variance instead of skill since there is so little you can do against them and end up depending on whether you are going to run good in the match or not.

I think I would have way less of a problem with them in a deep stack match where there is room to wait for a hand and not be too transparent but deep stacks will further more cut down on my already short volume and those reg speeds I play are filled with them at the $5 level

Any insight will be most appreciated.

Kim Cardassian

I wish I played more of those guys haha.

Your problem is you play too much of a small pot style. Against these guys you need to either: Take your good hands and just shove over their big raises. By good I mean A7+, 77+, KQ. With "floppable" hands (Mostly SCs, <A6s and pairs 22-66) call if they don't make it too big (x4 at 10/20 fullstacked is really the top imho). See if you hit something. If you flop a good draw (atleast overcard + FD), obviously check/shove it over their potbet. If you flop a monster (2 pair+), check/call flop and check/shove turn. Obviously adjust these ranges on the level of "monkeyness". But I've seen them call shoves with junk like KTo or A3s so many times that I just shrug when I run into AK.

At a certain point in the match (IE your absolutely sure he's full of shit when potting the flop) and you flop like middle pair I just find it easier to shove over his flop pot. Obviously the better play is to check/call and check/shove turn if he's the double barrelling kind, but with their ability to blow up the pot I think it's still +EV to take the easy decision and shove the flop.

The point is: conserve your stack so you can inflict most pain when you do get a hand. Calling is just bad vs these guys if you aren't willing to check/call flop and check/shove turn with middle pair. Just play big pots preflop and it's really easy since you always have a mathematical edge then and they will HAVE to adjust their sizes and frequency of raising.

And well, if you don't flop anything with the very good drawing hands or not get any good hole cards then that's just variance.

savrababa

That helps a lot man thanks.

It is true that I turn into a pussy against these guys and I think it is mostly because it feels so painful when I get fed up and shove middle pair over them just to see them call with 2 pair or something Smile

Basically I think the "monkier" a player is the more it makes me results oriented since I hate loosing money to such an idiot. Thus if I don't get a hand I start to get run over and end up where I mentioned above.

So I definitely need to work on that.

doodiewiz

Yeah I like to play these guys too and I know what you mean about getting low on chips but I know with a bit of paitence I'm going to get mega value when I hit. I also tend not to call with low pairs on the flop unless it's super dry because they're probably going to be barreling the turn and the river too and that tends to be when I loose the most chips when they pair up on the turn or river. I think with any two cards you have something like a 25% chance of pairing up by the river if you haven't paired up on the flop.

Edit: That percentage could be wrong. Would be good to know the answer to that question. Bad that I don't know how to calculate it...

Having a go. 6 outs right, so 52-6 = 46. 6/46 * 100 = 7.6%. At least this is how i think you work out odds, but I don't know how to calculate for two cards to be revealed...

Pltinum

So! here goes the calculation.

52-5=47 unknown cards

6 outs

so to the turn you got 6/47= +/- 12,7%
to the river 6/46= +/- 13%

= +/- 25,7%

Easy way of calculating is number of outs times 2 to the turn

times 4 to the river and add a few percent and you got it!

so six outs x 4 = 24 + a few percent= 25,7%