A couple interesting hands.

Played two hands of note. My effective stack in the first hand was 260. Villains was around 200.

I get dealt. K8dd in the BB. UTG limps. 5 more people limp. I check.

Flop comes 29Jddd.

I bet 15. he calls.

Turn comes 10s.

I bet 25. He raises to 50. I call.

River comes 10h.

I bet 50. He shoves. I call.

He turns over A5dd.

2nd hand

I have chipped up to around 110 (only brought one buyin; been having problems with tilt).

I get dealt 1010cd in SB.

I raise a limped pot to 12. 2 callers.

Flop comes 256 rainbow.

I bet 20. Both call.

Turn comes 4.

I bet 30. Both call.

River comes 8.

I bet 50. Villain 1. Villain 2 shoves. I call.

He flips 79 and scoops.

Sorry about the lack of color in the hand histories. Tried to copy and paste. Fixed it as best I could.

In hand one villain is competent LAG.

In hand two Villain is LAG fish.

There's nothing to improve. Well played.

hand 2 you beat almost nothing on the river.

hand 1 your effective stack is not 260. your stack is 260. your opponent's is 200. that makes effective stacks 200. your 60 is irrelevant. cooler.

Hand 1: If villain is good LAG, then you played fine. Villain would have to be very tight for me to go into pot size control mode before the river with flopping the second nuts. Depending on the villain, the min raise on the turn might slow me down, but against a lot of LAGs I would have shoved over the top. His having a hand that is drawing to beat me is more likely then him having a better flush at that point.

Hand 2: It looks like your betting was light. Depending on how many limpers there are and how likely they are to call big bets, I would mostly go $15-$20 here raising out of the SB. As played, your pot would have been something around $40 on flop, so a bet of $30 would have been better. $20 gives too good of odds for the second guy to chase draws. When they both call, you should have either given up on hand or shoved turn.

hand 1 was a cooler

never fold a flopped k high flush ever

hand 2 you should have raise more pre, bet more on the flop, then b/f turn and then c/f river bc with 2 people u are beat 99% of the time

hand 1 is just a cooler plain and simplle. he easily could have a q high flush

hand 2 like i said raise more pre and bet more OTF

I think you need to do some reading on relative hand strengths.

Hand 1, cooler, nothing you can do

hand 2, check turn for pot control b/f river,

on hand 2, are you even ranging your villains? What hand could he have that would call your turn bet that you beat on river? There are a bazillion straight and 2p combos on the board. The only hand he could have that you beat is 99.

I really disagree on hand 1. Name one hand on a monotone flop that shoves on the river with a paired board that a LLSNL player has that the OP beats. It isn't happening often enough to ever call.

Agree on hand 2, for the same reasons.

Really appreciate the advice everyone. I guess that is a reason to post here. I am looking to continually improve.

As for hand one: Due to his betting I was not concerned with the turn/river. I (maybe incorrectly) had him on an A of diamonds with top pair. Probably should range better.

Hand two: realizing every minute I played this hand horribly. Bet sizing was poor. Should have bet harder post flop and c/f the turn and river. Have to learn to get rid of weak overpairs. Small hand-small pot.

Im going to continue to post hands here. I really enjoy the candid words. please continue.

Man I'm off today missed that the river paired. Thought the river put a 4 to a straight out there...

there is this thing that live recreational players do and it is one reason why they don't do so well.

Ask a recreational player to range a villain and they always narrow it down to just one hand.

The fact that you aren't worried because you put him on TPTK w Ace of diamonds is what rec fish do. Not trying to be mean, just telling you like it is.

Originally I skimmed through the hand and didn't see the river paired the board which makes it even worse for us. The fact that villain raised us on turn should immediately tell us he has a flush or set...

The fact you think he would raise you on a flush and straight board with AJo is pretty bad and you need to think a lot more about that.

In any event, welcome to 2+2, hope you stick around and put the work in.

Try not to post results in your OP, it will really taint responses.

Hand1: I love the flop donk overbet, I woulda bet closer to pottish on turn (say upwards of $35 into $40 pot). I *think* I get the rest of the money in on the turn; the minraise could be "I have the nuts, please don't fold" but it could also be a free showdown play. As played, I think I get all passive and perhaps check/call the river since board is now paired, or if I do bet it's too fold because I just don't think a worse hand is raising us now on this board.

Hand2: I'm fine with raising, I'm also not opposed to setmining (but I raise the majority of the time here against straightforward ABC players). Even though people probably shouldn't have a 3, I think I just check/evaluate; this is going to be a hard board for worse hands to call a bet on, plus we can possibly get away from hand if we see too much action behind us. I really dislike river; I see few worse hands that are going to be able to call a bet on this board, and calling a raise is horrible (even though I've lost track of pot size and we might be committed, please post pot sizes next time); it's also unclear if other dude called our bet, and if he did, makes river even an easier fold, but I would consider check/folding here.

GcluelessNLnoobG

OP, it sounds like your biggest flaw at the moment is post flop hand reading. In hand 1, why would the ace of diamonds with a pair min raise the turn? If villain wanted to play the flush draw aggressively it would've likely happened on the flop where there are 2 cards to come instead of just 1. In hand 2 what are you beating on the river to villain's shove? The only thing you can hope for is villain turning his one pair hand into a bluff and players at 1/2 are pretty much never making that type of sophisticated move.

My advice is to improve hand reading skills by playing a large sample size of hands. The fastest and cheapest way to do this is to deposit some money on an online site and play some .01/.02 or .02/.04 full ring cash games. You get in 2x the number of hands per hour per added table at a next to nothing cost. Yes the online game is different than live but it will still get you thinking about hand ranges and how to play accordingly. Get in a 10k hand sample size and I promise your hand reading skills will be miles beyond what it is now.