Played limit poker on Stars for a living for 7 years until they booted us Americans. Afters millions of hands of limit poker, there's never a situation that greatly perplexes me. However, making the transition to NL (goofed around at 25NL-100NL online, maybe 10K hands or so), and I'm continually perplexed as to what to do in many situations. In a way, it's kind of cool, but I'd rather get back to crushing.

Would love some input on some hands I played recently that seem like they are fairly standard spots.


Hand #1

Loose passive Vegas 1/2 game; my first 30 minutes at the table.

Get 44 UTG. In limit, this is a turbo muck; in NL, it seems like a hand you can set mine with, but way too weak to raise, so I limp (I have nothing in my limit game that I limp with UTG, so I hate limping and it feels wrong).

Fold this? I'd probably pitch 22/33, but the game was loose passive, so I thought I'd come in. A 3x raise would get 4 callers easy, and I wouldn't want to bloat a pot OOP with a hand that needs so much help on the flop, so I limped.

We see an unraised, 4-way flop of 664 two-tone.

Blinds check, and I bet $6 into a $8 pot. Everyone folds, and the BB calls (late 50's foreign guy who I would, if this were a limit game, stereotype as a fishy nit based on my limited experience of his demeanor at the table).

Turn comes J, no flush. I bet 3/4 pot at $15. BB essentially min checkraises, to $35. I call $20.

River pot = $90. Blank ace hits the river, and he bets $35.

This feels like a call, but calling seems so puss. I mean, he has at least a 6, obv, but what's the best play? I've got $120 behind and he has me covered.



Hand #2

Same 1/2 game. Pick up aces, and, after seeing how much people are willing to put in pre, pop it to $12 after a limper. Blind calls, and everyone else pitches.

Blind is a 40's female. Seen her put in some nice sized calls pre, then pitch for small bets on the flop.

Flop ($27) comes:

8 T 3

I bet $20, and she min checkraises to $40. I call.

The turn brings another ten:

8 T 3 T

She checks. I check back.

River ($97) fills the flush:

8 T 3 T 5

She checks again (?). I go for a value bet of $55.



Hand #3

J9s on button. 3 limpers, I limp.

Flop ($11):

T 8 2

Everyone checks to me, and I bet $6. Everyone folds except for Euro dude in the blind wearing trendy sunglasses and MP.

Turn ($29):

T 8 2 Q

They check, I bet $25, Euro calls with little to no hesitation, and MP folds.

River ($79) brings:

T 8 2 Q 9

He donks $50.



Any thoughts on any streets of any hands greatly appreciated. Thanks.

#1 - shove!

#2 - I'm guessing she's going for the good ol double checkraise with trips but when you checked behind and the flush got there she is now in check call mode. Only realistic value to be had is if she holds JJ-QQ? I'd either check back or bet small/fold.

#3 - raise pre? as played, obv it's either fold or call depending on your read of villain.

lol @ hand 1, jam it in there

and it is okay in live 1/2 to make a $6 raise pf, because pretty much everyone who would have limped for 2 will still call and it discourses raises that would price you out

You're not a fish, sir. You are just learning a new game like when I went from Omaha to hold em and stud.
1. I'd probably three bet shove his ass. As played, ship it. Depending on table dynamics virtually all pairs can be played in no hold em. If you are getting lots of loose passive limpers who call too much post flop, always play them. Under the gun I would probably limp, although I will raise a hand like that from that position for balance. An observant opponent will notice that when you limp it means a vulnerable hand and will punish you from in position.
2. Fold. Flop check raises from donkeys are usually flopped sets or draws. A set brats you and the draw hit.
3. Raise pre. Makes the later streets clearer.

First, bet and raise more pre. Opening bets at 1/2 are often 5bb to 8bb, and the raise with AA after limpers should be 20 or more.

Hand 1: Bet more on the flop. If the pot is small, less then $10, I often over bet the flop. People will still call with terrible hands because it doesn't seem like much money. As played, shove river. You will loose to A6 here an annoying percent of the time, but it is still +EV because most people will call with any 6. If villain has been particularly tight, I may just call.

Hand 2: Check behind. The min raise on flop is usually either trying to freeze you from betting again with a flush draw, or a set. Either way, odds are your loosing by river. Depending on villain, betting the turn might be a good idea here, but it is very villain dependent.

Hand 3: Depending on villains, I either check behind or bet more on flop. River is bad for you, but absent any better read on villain, I'm calling with a straight.

1) Your hand is way to small to only call. Shove's good- I think any raise smaller than a shove screams "I have a boat" You're usually looking at 6x. J6 and 64 are possible, but stack off to it and move on to the next one- from the big blind he has every single 6 in his range at this point. Shovey.
Also- I think limping 44 trying to setmine is ok. It becomes a harder spot when you limp, someone makes it 12 and gets a caller and it comes back to you. Calling 10 is not great, folding is w/e.

2) Check/minraise at 1/2 is usually pretty strong so it's weird that she checked turn.
I'm not sure what you think you're getting called by here that's worse. An overpair (JJ) might take this line of "I'll raise the flop with an overpair and fold to a 3 bet" so that they avoid harder turn decisions and that will call, but it is possible that she takes this line with a flush draw? OESD?

3) I don't like calling the button pre- raise is good, fold is meh, call is not great. Flop and turn are fine. You're chopping this a lot, losing sometimes, winning sometimes? I don't think I'm ever folding or raising.

Hand1: easiest shove ever...
tl;dr the rest

hand 1: limping only if I feel like there's a good chance pot will be limped, or we'll get a multiway pot against a single raiser. River is a clear shove, nobody can fold trips.

hand 2: is tricky b/c I find that minraise to often be top pair that's just clearing out your whiffed AKs, and then of course the top card pairs. I'm less worried about the flush than I am about trip tens.

hand 3: sure smells like KJ, and the backdoor flush came also. bleah. I'm a big nit in these situations and would probably puss out and fold, invoking "don't go broke in an unraised pot" in my head.

1. Ship river
2. I like the bet. I think u will get a call sometimes from jj-kk
3. Kind of a tuff one and it would help if u knew his tendencies such as does he ever vb thin? Or does he always check call with med hands if the board is coordinated. This bet is typically polarized, either he made the flush (or straight) or missed his draw. But having said that there is only one draw that missed which is 79. He might have qj or j9 for a split. 6c7c is possible as well as something like Ac8c. Do u think he would make this bet w/ Q9? I don't trust euro guys so I probably call here. If he has a flush good for him.

Hand 1:

I'd open limp any small pocket pair in this game (see newly created related thread).

The flop is one of the few times where we can overbet the pot and no one will notice / care. Bet two red $5 chips for a total of $10. Anyone who is calling $6 is calling $10. It immediately increases our profit ($4 per caller), plus makes the pot bigger for bigger bets on later streets.

I'd probably also bet 3/4 to full pot on the turn. Since we're in position, I don't despise a call. But we've still got more than a PSB left for the river, so if he checks we'll have to overbet shove. I don't necessarily want to blow meh hands out of the water with a big raise (obviously he's never folding a 6). I might do some retarded minraise just to make the river shove easy.

I don't understand why we're thinking of just calling the river. We're crushing far more 6's than we're losing to. Shove and get paid off. We started the hand with only 80 BBs; we should never be thinking of doing anything other than getting all our chips into the middle over three streets with this hand; only in a super dooper deepstacked situation could we start to reconsider this.

GcluelessNLnoobG

Hand 2:

Nice raise size as it accomplished what should be our goal with big overpairs (IMO): HU to the flop in position.

I also bet fairly healthy on this flop. We need stack sizes, but I would consider folding to the check/raise. I'm being totally sexist/ageist here, but I don't think she's semi-bluffing a draw. But, I'm also being totally MUBSy I guess.

I also check back the turn. We're only ahead of semi-bluffing draws, which I still don't think make up much of a typical 40 year old woman's hands here.

River is interesting. You would think after our turn check she would have to bet her T or boat or flush for value for fear of it checking behind again. I just don't think there are a lotta hands that are worse than ours that are calling, with the exception of QQ/JJ (who could easily just call preflop, whereas I'm thinking KK would usually reraise). The benefit of betting is that (unless we're nearing pot commitment) we can easily fold to a raise (she's never raising anything we're beating on this board). Would 99 pay off a bet? Meh, I'm pretty weak at thin value betting.

GcluelessNLnoobG

Hand 3:

I like it the whole way to the river.

I like the overlimp preflop. We have a hand that'll play well multiway and in position. I just think we make more money long term with this hand by getting cheaply into a multiway pot and value betting postflop when we hit versus trying to get all aggro and winning lottsa smaller pots by simply raising/cbetting.

I like the smallish bet on the flop in position here because (a) it can often take down the pot for cheap (people are either folding or continuing and the bet size doesn't factor much into their decision) while (b) it offers ourself nice odds to draw if called while building a pot in position with decent equity.

I like the biggish turn bet. We hit, let's get big value.

I always fine these rivers tough. There's four-to-a-straight (and we're only chopping at best now if he has a straight too), plus a flush. But there's also lottsa two pair. This is really player dependent for me, but I probably lean towards a call (although I'm not sure that is right since a lotta times we're playing for a chop).

GcluelessNLnoobG

People overbetting and missing value all over the place ITT.

Would you mind elaborating on specifics, please?

Thanks for the feedback thus far, guys.

I just read hand 1--preflop is ok, but standard for me is to raise all PPs in EP (see the other thread). flop was fine, probably raise turn, river ace is NOT a blank!