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Hello, and welcome back to another episode of โAsk SplitSuit a questionโ, I’m James โSplitSuitโ Sweeney, here for ThePokerBank.com and today weโre here to answer one of your questions. Todays question comes from Ron K and Ron actually asked a multi-part question and this is going to be part 1. Ron wants me to talk about โFlatting hands vs a table full of unknownsโ. So let’s talk about that.
Let’s just assume a table of total unknowns. We just sat down, it’s our first hand, weโve never played with any of these people. We donโt recognize a single person, have zero information whatsoever and what are we going to flat them with? Flatting is when we call a 2bet whether they open-raise, whether they isolate, whatever, weโre just calling a 2bet and what do we want to do that with? Well first and foremost whenever I call a 2bet, I’m always doing so with a plan, some idea of what I’m going to do when my hand hits and when my hand misses.
Is this a situation where I think my opponents going to do a lot of check-folding on flops? Is he going to cbet too much and play turns very face up? Whatever it is…thatโs with information. When youโre at a table of total unknowns, you donโt have that information. There is no such plan, so youโre kind of reduced down to defaults. And whenever youโre reduced down to default actions, it means you[re reduced down to default ranges. So when I’m in a situation like this, I’m usually going to be flatting very very selectively, not very often at all. I’m usually going to be taking setmines when the math is correct and the stack sizes are deep enough vs the open-raise that sort of thing.
[box type=”info”] Not sure how to setmine? Watch this quick video for setmining tips[/box]
When I’m at a normal table, I’m going to consider set-mining from say middle position and I’m always looking behind me for squeezers etc. But again at an unknown table we donโt have that information so I’m definitely going to be looking for set-mine situations, I’m definitely going to be set-mining a little bit more as a default, especially from later position because thereโs less players that could possible squeeze. Getting less players to contend with and I have a situation where I’m going to have position more often if I do so from late position, which is obviously good for us. It also makes post-flop a tremendous amount easier.
Other than that, I’m not going to be doing much flatting. I’m not going to be calling many raises with Ace-X suited or that sort of thing, simply because I donโt know if its going to be good, I donโt know if the implied odds are right, I donโt know how I’m going to make money the large chunk of the time that that hand misses. I did a full video about playing weak aces preflop if youโre interested, how that kinda hand-type hits but its not very well and it’s in a very very specific kind of way. So its not the kind of hand-type that I want to do a lot of calling with.
I’m usually going to veer away from doing a lot of calling, from any position with junk broadway hands like Queen-Ten or King-Ten suited. I’m going to be very very selective with those, and especially when I’m out of position. In-position โฆ. probably not even at a total unknown table. Those are the kinds of hands that I usually want some information some idea on how far I can take top pair postflop. If I donโt have that idea, how the heck am I going to play the third of the time that it hits? Its going to be very very difficult to do so.
So I may call some strong double broadways that I wouldn’t default 3bet, like maybe an Ace-Queen against the middle position raise that sort of thing but I’m going to be pretty selective. Again, not giving action a tremendous amount of ways, and I’m not giving action with every suited gapper, or every suited Ace, or any double-broadway combo…and even more so when youโre out of position. Be very selective with these hands. If youโre calling here more than 10% of the time I can almost guarantee you that youโre leaking and even if youโre calling at say 10 or 9.5 percent, that could still be a little bit too loose especially if youโre not particularly strong post-flop. If youโre still building your postflop skills thatโs OK, but donโt put yourself in spots where you have no information and youโre trying to figure the best line with a range that probably isnโt super correct.
