where do you draw the line with suited A's in the sb vs. a co open?

I draw the line at the bottom and then realize they are all on top of the line

Ty unguarded

I wish I could take credit for this but I have not yet tried to interpret your wide range of mannerisms while acting. I feel like the hands themselves are difficult enough to play without trying to engage in physical tell roshambo, at least at this point.

I did find it to be a useful excuse for saying you had to have a king high flush that one time when I called your AT but the truth is I was having a hard time putting hands in your range, because my own range is probably unbalanced in that particular spot.

I later was able to realize I could be value betting KK in that spot. I also think AT is the right part of your range to delay until the river there but I wouldn't have thought of it myself on the spot. I'm still trying to figure out what bluffs might be in someone's range there. Anyway this other hand was a few weeks ago so not sure if you even remember, but it was one I thought about quite a bit.

Thanks for the advice Unguarded. It is sometimes difficult to separate the mental game from the poker theory. The question is usually: am I making a bad play because I don't know the right play or because of a mental game issue?

It's also very difficult to evaluate one's own mental game. Still, I know it's an area I've focused on a lot and will continue to.

I guess if it were easy there would be a lot more high stakes crushers out there.

Are you saying there is no value with our hand? You can't say 2nd pair strong kicker is a bluffcatcher on that board. Especially when it's short handed.

If your hand is strong enough to call river then you could raise the turn.

It really depends on the villain. OP did admit that he was taking a shot and I'm sure regulars know this and try to run them over. I still like the raise on the turn and it's for value, not a bluffcatcher turning into a bluff.

Hey Unguarded, first of all GREAT posts in this thread thanks!

With the quote above...you say most of your online opponents will play in this way in this spot. Are these good opponents mostly? Do you think this is the optimal way to play this scenario?

@ spirit
Unguarded made a good post on how SB should be polarized on turn. Lots of bigger pairs and weak no-SDV hands. JK is not so hot against that range.

That said, turns out SB is a bit more aggro with barreling. He seems to barrel any pair, draw, or Ahi. Armed with that read, raising JK is going to be quite profitable. a wide turn range will be very good putting SB in a lot of awkward spots.

Let me put it this way... I think barreling almost everything on the turn in this spot is god awful. The vast majority of regs will call flop/raise turn with their good hands. By barreling excessively, we are making their standard play absolutely awesome. We are owning ourselves.

So I feel like we def need to check a decent amount. But which hands? I would c/f a8/a9 no flush draw. After that, I do think small pocket pairs and AK make the most sense... we have showdown value, but a turn raise (which happens a lot vs. a typical reg) is a nightmare. I like A4/A6 with spades so that we can sometimes have a strong hand on the river after a c/c... and again, because getting raised is sucks with these hands (though not as bad as with a small pocket pair). If we are playing someone we expect to play with a lot, we should also have a small c/r range on the turn. I prefer hands that can handle or almost handle a 3bet, but that block as few of villain's potential betting hands as possible. So AA is a good candidate for a turn c/r imo. Maybe throw in 44 a very small % of the time since getting 3bet when we have AA isn't exactly pleasant.

Think of it this way... we know most regs are going to call flop, raise turn with their good hands. How to we counter this? Easy... by not barreling crappy showdownable hands on the turn. Tbh, I have c/c'd the hell out of these turns for years to counter the call flop ---> raise turn spam we see from most regs. And I also see that the bots tend to take this approach, so I do think this strategy has a lot of merit. I have always been very happy to see that a reg barrels the turn excessively and feel like it gives me a nice edge over them.

I would expect this to be a couple clicks wider, especially against a most-likely-known smaller limit player who is moving up and a bit unpolished. Key holdings that might barrel off to river are 910s and like 98s. I call river and lose most times for the right price.

So, over 90% of the time Unguarded donk checks the turn we can bet with impunity? Is that ok? Maybe it is. For real.

There are parts of my game that I feel are super easy to play against cuz I do them all the time and I always have the same thing and people just don't respond appropriately (bet-3 betting flops comes to mind). But at the same time I feel more inclined to take DD's line here for the simple reason that when I donk check I just tip my hand way too much, aka weak showdown.

Do your opponents never bluff when checked to?

From another thread:

more tl;dr just because it's easy to play against, that doesn't mean it's not the most +ev play. I don't claim that my ranges are in fact the most +ev way to play this spot, but that's my goal. Against bad players? Sure go out on more limbs and try to exploit by putting your opponent in lots of hard spots. Against good players? Not that I'd know but I think lots of spots should pretty much play themselves and end up with both players nodding satisfactorily because they both know the play was standard.

The river pause-bet means big hand almost all the time.

Or value betting KQ or ace little.

/answered

needing to raise turn b/c you will call blank rivers is 100% flawed reasoning and pretty strange it keeps coming up. Turn call seems totally fine and as played i'm not sure i fold any river. The jack on the turn as well as the ace on the river are both good barrel cards and given the price you're getting seems like a thin but necessary river call.

You actually played every single street incorrectly (the turn is debatable).

Preflop - you need to 4 bet instead of just calling. Take the damn lead against a pro who likely has a very wide 3 betting range in a short handed game. If you 4 bet pre, and continuation bet on the flop, he would've folded on the flop.

Explained in a slightly different context - for only one more small bet that you're risking (the 4th bet preflop), you get to represent a way stronger hand than most of his range, and because YOU probably rarely 4-bet, he would've put you on a very strong hand and folded his A high.

Flop - how the F do you call this flop? As played preflop, you need to fold here. You have K high, which is basically never good, and very often you are dominated (only have 3 outs).

Turn - As played preflop and on the flop, just calling the turn is not bad, but raising is better.

River - As played, you should've called. Apparently, you had the losing hand, but for those pot odds, you need to call. Villain could've easily had any pocket pair under your Jack (that didn't make a set), and decided to bluff the river because the Ace is a great card to bluff, and he wanted you to fold your Q or J. For those pot odds, you gotta call the river.

You actually played every street incorrectly. If you care about your money, don't play 100/200 anymore.

this is a limit holdem forum

You mean you don't cap 15% of your range against strong players preflop and then fold getting 8:1 on a call against the exact same range we're supposed to 3-bet 15% against?

If you don't raise the turn with this hand, what hands do?

Even the guy that thought it was a NL hand wanted to raise turn, lol.

Hero never has a Q here?

OK, so maybe even our entire flop range delays til turn, KJ is still very high in that range on this turn.

Kinda surprising coming from you imo
Dont you find this flop kinda pretty dry ?

Great hand CL.
I would probably call river but folding some small % of the Time seem fine .

Are you really 3betting this hand vs a player as good has you postflop?
I might be wrong but i suspect you oraise a bit wider here on exploitative factor . (Has CL Being the factor in question )

If not, props to you DD.
Pretty difficult OOP for me.


Lol, did not realise i was on this dead forum ....thought was medium stake

Is the flop an automatic call? Except MarathonMan7 everybody seems to think so.