Pretty much all unknown

Poker Stars, $3/$6 Limit Hold'em Cash, 9 Players
Hero pair of 8d8c

Preflop: Villain is MP2
3 folds, Villain raises, 3 folds, SB calls, BB folds

i felt 88 might be too weak to 3bet but strong enough to call.
But probably better to 3bet or fold here (leaning toward folding)

Flop: (5 SB) 4 A Q (2 players)
Hero checks, Villain bets, SB calls

i guess here i have an ok draw with probably no SD value for taking the line of c/c all the way to the river.

A)I kind of like the plan to c/c flop and turn and fold river ui and call down if a diamond hit.

B)But do some here advocate a 3bet because imo it is possible i might fold a better hand by barreling the turn like pocket JJ, weak pair of Q maybe or any 2 high card that would forfeit their equity.

I am not sure which line is best but i prefer line A.

Turn: (3.5 BB) K (2 players)
Hero checks, Villain checks

that is interesting, so villain surely do not have an A but maybe a pair of Q ? K or even weaker ?


River: (3.5 BB) 2 (2 players)
Hero ?

Anyone advocate a bluff here ?
i mean a value bet here is probably bad and c/c seem pretty weak and makes it easier for villain to value bet correctly a K and maybe even a Q ?

c/f seem pretty unfortunate because i was ready to put one bet on the turn but if i had to put a bet on river i think the only option is to put it has a bluff ( not value bet) or simply to c/f since c/c seem terribly weak on the river .
He could bluff true but the range that villain should have would crush 88 here and i just do not think villain holds that much bluff in his range anyway ( like 25% of his range right?).
So since villain should not even have that much of bluff in his range mind has well give up the c/c option ?

The only option appear to bluff or simply c/f the river.


toughts?

ps: after reviewing my hand before posting and returning on the flop play , since so many bad cards would kill my hand on the turn ( like here) for the c/c option on the river, maybe the right option was going to use my weak pair of 8 with a diamond and play it has a semi bluff flush draw on the flop and just barrel it off ?

You're the SB? Standard Dogma is never to call in the SB first in after a raise. Doing so decapitates your range and makes you VERY easy to play against post flop.

Flop you kinda gotta peel, river I think a bluff makes very good sense given where you are in your preposterously narrow range.

Preflop is bad. What range does a generic BTN -3 range open and how is 88 doing against it?

River is a trivial bluff. If he calls with something that he shouldn't, make a note for the future and don't bluff him.

Edit: here, I have a scenario for you, here's 88 versus a slightly nittier TAGs generic BTN -3 open:

Looks like 88 is doing fine equity wise. We also blow BB's equity out of the pot, so we end up with an equity flip for 7 SB after investing 3. Seems good to me.

I'd give up on the river. Everything calls you and everything beats you

So no one might use a c/r bluff here since 88 seem to have no SD value or barely on this board ?

I'd never c/r for value so I wouldn't bloof that way

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But I gotta stress your range is a disaster

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You never c/r HU OOP for value on the flop ( like when you call a raise in the BB)?
Anyway thx for the responds guys.

Now the truth ...

Actually I was the villain in this hand with KJs (spades) and imo I played it standard (imo I do not think betting the turn and risking to get c/r is worthwhile).

I used this hand because I find it interestingly enough because I would often be in a similar situation if I would be in the BB ( since I never 3bet in the BB unless the pf raison is the SB).

Usually I would probably played it like he did but after seeing the other side of the coin, I was thinking that maybe a c/r on the flop and played it like a bluff would of maybe be better because I would fold a lot of better hand (TT/JJ) and hands i would like see folding ( 2 high cards like TJs,etc ) on the turn ( instead of letting them check the turn behind with 2 over and a gutshot or getting bluffed successfully on the river ) and probably any queen as well on the river if i barrel off I think.

Maybe I am wrong but knowing that even if I have a pair (88), the range I would face in BB make 88 a hand with basically no SD value and basically, disregarding my pair, I have a low flush draw and I should act accordingly .

Thoughts ?

I think your opponent's preflop was bad.

I think check raising flop is suicide as this hand stands to have some showdown value. Plus no one folds anything to flop check raises.

I like your turn check and I would pretty much call any river that isn't a 4th diamond, expecting to lose

i meant i wouldn't c/r the river as a bluff here.

Yeah I can't think of any hand that works as a check raise bluff as your range is really capped here at KJ and maybe a weak ace w/ no redraw trying to not get xr'd, so I don't expect you to bet very often at all.

ho i see, yeah of course.
i was talking on the flop.


JDR, welll after seeing the hand from BB POV, i just think 88 has like almost 0 SD value when you take into account his range from UTG 6amx.

I mean yeah vs a BU/ CO or SB i would ratehr a c/c down and flipping on the river if no diamond hit but in this situation, i am really far from convince that we have SD value here to take a passif line, more that i think about it.

A lot of better hand should fold if we barrel off ui or hands we would like to see folding on the turn like 2 high card with gutshot ( when a K do not hit of course)

i mean imagine SB here would of c/r and no K hit , I would fold the turn wrongly with lots of outs and if a K hit , a Q could fold as well.

Taking a passif line vs a strong range seem to make it too easy to play perfectly for the villain here ( me) on the turn or river.

Spewing on board that crushes his range just because he has one of the few combos you beat and ended up sucking out on you, sounds like a way to make it even easier.

i get that, but we actually do need some bluff in our range no ?
i mean here we do not have a lot of 8d in our range ( or similar hands like lonely 6d,7d,9d,Td,etc.) for bluffing purpose anyway.

ps: btw when you say few combos, we still target like 30-35% of his range (at first glance but i might be a bit off but not that much if my feel is right) to make him fold .
seem profitable for the cost and force him to pay us when we have the goods.
guess i need to run the numbers...

Why? To make him fold exactly 99-JJ no diamond? What are you trying to bluff out? There are very few better hands you can make fold. And the few better hands you'll occasionally fold out are out weighed by the fact you just turned your nut bluff catcher in to a bluff and have to barrel to get a fold. And that's if TT even folds on a non-diamond run out.

what are you calling a "bluff?" Are you bluffing him when you c/r and make him fold KJ of black? Best case scenario is this is never a bluff but some botched protection/value play.

Why do you want to turn a pair into a bluff when you have plenty of non-pair hands in your range you could bluff with? Why are turning eights in to a bluff when there are so many other hands you could choose from?

If you c/r the flop and he calls what is your plan on basically every runout that doesn't contain an 8?

But if you answer there needs to be some weird understanding that we're basically talking about 88 being the bb since the hand was botched pf and we're already in hypothetical land

Also I disagree and feel you missed an easy turn bet

Montrealcorp, read this advice a bunch of times.This is a really hard leak for me, and I assume others. There's this tendency when we get lost in hands to want to take aggressive actions. In my mind, the high stakes players look at people trying to do well in the mid-stakes and they see us making this mistake fairly often.

Well that was my point all along.
I feel our 88 hand do not have much SD value on this flop and a lot of cards simply kills our hand on the turn (T,J,K).
I kind of disagree too about only folding 99-JJ, I think when the K hit on turn any hand like pair of Queen and lower could fold on the river.
If no K hit on the turn, folding like KJ,KT,JT with 10 outs is good too imo.

But he, I guess I am probably wrong and I will think more about it .
But like I said earlier, yeah great hand for 88 to play has a bluff catcher if I was facing BU or CO, range are lot different....

Ps: OMG , so if you get c/r on turn when you bet a K on this turn in my position, you fold or call and fold river ui ?
I just felt my pair of K played much better here as a bluff catcher .
My range would already be big enough to value bet this turn ( even the TJ hit a hand much stronger than a lonely pair of K).
I should have lots of pairs of A, 2 pairs, set, flush, straight already ....

Montrealcorp, ask yourself, if he check raises 8d8x, then:

1) what better hands fold? 99-JJ no diamond is all I can think of.

2) what worse hands call? KdJx, KxJd, 7d7x, 6d6x, 5d5x is what I'd continue against a xr against that doesn't beat 8d8x. So 17 combos, while I can also have all of the strong hands as LJ (K hi flush, JTdd, T9dd, AA, QQ, AQ). Plus, since I have all those strong hands (plus AxKd) to raise turn with, that's a good 24 value raising combos on the turn. Bluffing KdX on the turn sometimes puts 8d8 into hell. Not only would 8d8 have to call a turn raise, but it'd have to fold or bluff raise river because it won't have equity to call despite it beating parts of my range (in fact, I'd say on a brick-brick runout, it'd have ~9% equity versus me). But at 9.5:1 on a river call, it's just not getting a good enough price.

So essentially, 88 ends up sticking $ in and folding on this board against KdJ no matter what, it's just more expensive if it xr. It's usually smart to not choose bluffs that end up getting expensive with bad RIO. At least with a Kd bluff, you can feel confident on your equity and feel confident on a river fold in a big pot. Or a pure bluff, where you can just give up if faced with aggression.

KJ hands can not have ten outs

it may work better at lower limits but i think you're over estimating how often you get a queen to fold. Whether they're correct or not your balance plays are going to like spew to bad players and make good ones realize they need to call you down. I'd just shrug with a Q when you c/r the flop and have already committed to showing down no matter the runnout. Because it doesn't take many data points to figure the guy 3 barreling 88 on AQx K board is always going to have enough garbage in his range