Having someone dominated isn't just having a better hand, it is that your opponent has one (worse) card that when he hits it doesn't change the situation, hence "dominated". AK dominates AT, TT dominates AT but not AK.

And if you're getting folds from 78 on Q72r then you simply bet 90% here and print money on folds. Flopping top pair or better is very very rare on such a flop, JT9dd would be a completely different story. I don't know why you think 78 folds here because that's about the best hand it's ever going to make, I suspect that you triple barrel any top pair here on such boards and what you're left with on the river is opponents having only two pair or better which is why you think people fold middle pair to one bet.

JTs is a weaker hand than AJs, although it shares many characteristics. It's especially playable in late position and used for semi-bluffing, because it hits so many boards. It suffers from the same problem as AJs (or KJs/QJs) in that when it makes top pair, it's still not particularly strong, as it can be outkicked. I open it UTG (6-max), and usually call 3-bets with it if I'm in position (e.g. vs a 3-bet by the BB), but it's only breakeven in those spots. You'll find it most useful in single-raised multiway pots where you're in position. e.g. UTG opens, CO calls, you call on the button. Just don't go crazy if you make one pair. If you don't have a draw to the nuts, don't put much money in the pot, and generally you should fold top pair on the turn if a villain barrels into your JT on Jxxx or Txxx in the micros, unless you also have a straight/flush draw. Very occasionally, the board will come Q98 and you'll stack QQ+. Most of the time, you'll just have a gutshot, so it's just a case of speculating, like you would with a small pair. If the flop is no good, get out early on. If you flop a combo draw, you can get more aggressive.
To be clear, JTs is a really nice hand that flops a lot of draws, but it doesn't make as much money as KJ or AJ etc, so don't treat it like the nuts unless it actually makes the nuts!

Thak you for explaining the dominance, I was imagining something else under that term, I just thought that dominance == better hand.

And no, I am not triple barreling top pairs; I was doing that with TPTK but I stopped it after I find out that I am losing too much on it. So I rather control a pot on one or two streets.
I think that people are folding middle pair on one bet because I usually do so.... not always, of course, it depends on flop.


I get it, thank you.

Today it was hell; $-40 on NL5.... and moreover I dont get it. I am really unsure if its bad variance or if I just put the money into villains pockets. I have really no idea. There were days when I saw I am just playing it bad and thats why I am losing. Now I am unsure. I know I am doing mistakes but I dont know if I am losing so much on variance, my mistakes or both.
I am posting some hands (the losing ones.... I dont have almost any big winning), so I will be glad for any comment.... and except of that I also very much want to know if I would be losing much less if I would play those hands correctly.

Sorry about the downswing.

Hand 1 and 2 are coolers. In hand 1 villain's line looks super strong but it's consistent with AA/KK as well as higher sets/straights so I don't think there's much we could do here. As we're in position I'd consider waiting till the river to shove, as he seems intent on barrelling. With our huge raise, we're going to be folding out some of the hands that beat us.

I don't like the min raises in hand 3. I think it's fine to raise his donk on the flop, but go bigger. The turn completes the OESD if he had that on the flop, so I don't really see merit in raising here. Again you're narrowing down the range of worse hands that can call you. If you do raise, you might as well shove with the stack sizes. If he's on the flush draw don't give him the chance to see the river and then fold.

Hand 4 we definitely want to bet flop. If another diamond falls that's pretty much going to kill our action. Villains will still call with a decent piece of the board. I hope your min bet OTT was a misclick. Otherwise it's FPS for sure. When he clicks back your min-3bet it looks a lot like we're up against a boat. There just aren't that many flushes left after your hand and the board (QJ is the only really likely combo). Having said all that, not sure we can really get away from our hand. If we didn't have the nut flush then maybe.

Hand 5 looks pretty ok to me. I'm always a bit unsure about how to deal with the potential reverse implied odds of chasing draws on a paired board.

So, I think basically these were pretty much coolers, but with a few mistakes (FPS, bet sizing issues), albeit I don't know if these would have allowed you to get away from any of the hands.

You are absolutely right. I should have just call.

Well, my experiences from microstakes are that quite everybody is falling when possible flush comes to the board. I have quite big money from it because any time it comes, I bet a lot and they are almost always folding. If I have the flush, I am waiting for the next street because then they are somehow not so much folding. I dont know why is it working like that but it is (on micros.... I suppose that on higher tables it different).
The min raise is very often provocating villains to raises if it is done well. Many people on microstakes are trying minbets to make oponent fold if he checked "check/fold" in the GUI. So the point is wait a lot (maybe even from your timebank), villain is bored and checking e.g. check/fold. And it is working sometimes, I already saw stacks like $2 folded on $0.05.
However, it is also pissing people if somebody is doing that. Therefore it is very typical to be raised on minbet (I think there is no deeper logic in that, just emotions).
And it really happened, so in fact I did the minbet exactly to achieve what I achieved. Why not?

1. you're technically ahead, but not far ahead. dominating is like 3:1 favorite. you're dominating 88 and 99 but they may very well fold to your 3bet. if he calls, he's left with QQ and JJ, which dominates you, and a bunch of hands that you're slightly ahead of (5:4 or so). you're not doing very well vs that range.
2. you know you're not very far ahead of his calling range, and that's why you don't mind if he folds, right? if you had AA will you be thinking "if he folds then that's still a victory for me"? that's when you know you've gone wrong.
3. even if 3betting in a vacuum is +ev, it's not the most +ev. you know TT is ahead of the range of an open raise. You can call in position, keep worse hands in, and still stand to win. you need to show that 3betting is better.

you cannot think like this. if he 4bets, it's an easy fold because you're way behind his 4betting range, but that doesn't mean you should be happy about it. because:
1. if he has AK: if you know he has AK you would shove, and hope to win a flip. but you don't, and by letting him 4bet you just forced him into forcing you to fold.
2. if he has AA: you could've called, hit a set and felted him. you denied yourself this opportunity by letting him 4bet.
simply put, not getting to see any more cards, not being able to win the pot, and losing 10bb is never "good". you do not *want* to get 4bet, and the possibility of being 4bet is a reason to not 3bet.

please tell me you're joking... do you fold pairs to one bet?

whether you are valuebetting or bluffing has nothing to do with what villain actually has and everything to do with what your intentions are. If you 3bet KK and villain has AA, are you bluffing because it turns out that you would have wanted him to fold (of course he's not going to)?

you have to have a plan, and your intention is to either get a certain range of worse hands to call you or a certain range of better hands to fold. whether villain actually has a hand that falls into that range just indicates whether you were right. And even if you are wrong doesn't mean your plan was wrong, and certainly better than not having a plan. Of course you don't know what they have - that's the burden of the game. If you make a bet where all better hands are calling and all worse hands are folding, it doesn't matter what they have - you're always going to be wrong

1/ Sorry, I badly understood the term "dominating"; I thought that it means "being stronger".
2/ Well, if they are close to my calling range, I consider it as victory. If they are a lot behind, I consider it as bad. So if I have TT and I make AQ fold, I consider it as good (but its also good when he calls). With AA I of course consider it as bad (I want him to call or raise).
3/ OK, in this you are right. I just dont know how to judge that, so I will believe your experiences. There is no math way how to figure it out because the math cant predict human acting.

Well, yes and no.... the problem is that if I dont give him the chance to 4bet me, he can go there with AA and I have no clue (because he can have also AJ).
So if the flop shows AKJ, there is not a problem to fold with TT. If the flop showes 259, the AA will get more money from me (definitely more than I would give him preflop). But yes, if I get T, I can get even all the stack from him.

Well, it depends. Top pair or overpair I am never folding on one bet (unless the bet is like all-in, then it depends on the flop, but I would quite fold).
Middle pair very much depends on the flop (but e.g. 78 on Q72 flop I would fold).
But bottom pair I am folding mostly on one bet (unless there is some good draw). And underpair always.
According to the way how you are asking me the question I suppose its very bad?

True.

Well, one thing is what I wish, other thing is the math, so:
If I have TPTK and villain has flush draw, I must bet enough to make the pot odds bad for him (to not give him the next street for too little). If I do so, of course, its good for me if he calls (because the odds are good for me, bad for him), but the math of my action is making him fold (if I bet enough to make his pot odds bad to fold).... even if it is nice if he is stupid and call anyway (its happening on micros very often, they are calling quite whatever with draws), I am betting to make him fold (even if I wish him to stay, I am betting too much for making it viable for him).
E.g.: I have Ah Ks, flop comes Ad 9d 2c and villain has Kd Qd. I am something like 2:1 favorite (aprox). In this moment I want him to call as much as possible. However, I need to bet here enough to make his pot odds bad, so in fact I am betting to make him fold (even if I want him to call, but my bet is sized to make him fold).
That example we are talking about is quite the same. If I have TT on 952 flop and villain has AK, I am betting here to make him fold. Of course I want ideally bet enough to make his odds bad AND he would call anyway. But my bet sizing must be higher (so it is making him fold).

OMG.... I am even today again getting beated like set by higher set, flush by fullhouse, now even fullhouse by higher fullhouse, I cant believe that. Or playing more than 100 hands in a row without winning a cent (not just feeling, database agrees), lost whole stack just on preflop raises/calls with missed flop or hitting a flop and being forced to fold on turn/river.
I never thought I will say that but I start to understand that idiots who are writting everywhere how the site is rigged and this bull****.... well, its a bit exaggeration that I understand them, I know they are idiots and there is no reason why PokerStars would do that (they dont want to lose a customer), I know its just a variance.... but WHAT THE HELL AND WHEN DOES IT END!!

However, it is even good in something: I can train how to not tilt.... it can be very valuable training and I can use it in the future xD

And here we go, KK vs AA.... AGAIN, MY LOVELY EVERGREEN!
Was that all-in flop mistake? I did it because of possible draws (I absolutely didnt expect AA there because of that call preflop).

if you're going to fold 78 on Q72 why did you play 78 in the first place? what are you hoping for?

Yes, if I know his cards, only one of it is good.... but as long as I know just some range, both can be good (as well as both can be bad) at once.

I am sometimes stealing blinds with cards like 78, so I am hoping for fold preflop.
Otherwise I never play such a hand.

I really don't know how to explain it any better. Maybe I'm horrible at explaining things, but I'm not saying anything that's any different to what others have said in this thread.

There's 2 reasons to bet. To get a worse hands to call, and to get better hands to fold. You can't make a bet that will simultaneously achieve both, so you have to make up your mind whether betting will achieve one of these things. If you can't make up your mind, don't bet.

This is one of these situations. You seem to realise that your hand just isn't strong enough that you clearly want your 3bet be called. And obviously you can't get JJ+ to fold. So don't 3bet

Your argument is that even if AQ calls it's not bad. And you're right, it's not bad. But calling TT is clearly good, so you need to argue that 3betting is even better.

I'm saying if you called a raise preflop with 78. Not saying you would, but you're arguing that on Q72, most people will fold 78.

If you think people will fold all hands worse than TP, you should be bluffing at every flop

you're not betting TT on 952 to get AK to fold. You're betting to get hands like 88 to call.

if for some reason, his range doesn't contain hands like 88 that you can clearly get value from, then guess what? *drum roll*

DON'T BET

It's actually more subtle than that if you're looking at a more pure equilibrium. Not betting because your opponents range is weak as trash isn't a reason to not bet, mainly because you're printing money on folds if you just bet 100% of your range there.

In general you want to (value) bet when your hand has good equity against your opponents range and then let him make the decision of what percentage of his range he needs to call to prevent being exploited. Let's take the TT example where OP 3bet (and I don't think he should have) and we're left with an overpair on 9 high flop. It depends on how well we do against the opponents range, if we have >>>50% equity we want to valuebet, else we check. In this case I would opt for a check because our opponent has a set/JJ/QQ a decent amount of the time and his other hands (two overs) almost always have good equity. This is why I would check, not because our opponent has a hard time finding hands he can call with. If our opponent somehow calls 3bets with complete trash and we have 75% equity versus that on this flop we bet and let him figure out how loose he needs to call in order to not be exploited. That means he probably has to call some AQ/AK/pair/bottom pair hands because else he would be folding 80% of his hands which would allow you to bet the 5th ace and a napkin every single time.

Of course there can be other reasons to check, like inducing bluffs later, in order to catch enough bluffs you need to transfer some value hands to your checking range else villain can just bet 100% when you check and win.

I think I get everything what you wrote now and I agree.
The only problem is with the part I quoted.... how to find out if I want to make worse hands to call or better hands to fold? But I suppose that if I would be able to answer this question in any situation, I would be great poker player, so this is basically what I need to learn (and I suppose you cant answer the question in one comment).

I don't think it's actually that easy. A bet can be for more than one purpose. If you bet and fold out overcards that would have check folded or whatever you're folding out hands that have 25% equity against you, thats valuable. It's the combined reasons that together make it a good spot to bet or not bet.

I bet 88 on 6710tt because villain can fold his overcards (folded 25% equity share in the pot) ASWELL as call with worse hands like draws and 7x. Ofcourse he can also call with hands that crush us but thats poker.

It's important to understand WHY you are doing something in poker but it's not always black and white. Understanding that a bet could have more that one purpose in some spots made it easier to think about it than tearing my hair out thinking IS THIS A VALUE BET OR A BLUFF???.

That's why I only pointed out why you should value bet. It's not the full picture.

Yes sorry I wasn't aiming my post at you specifically just wanted to voice my opinion as there was some discussion about value / bluff bets.

Haven't read everything 100% but I believe OP has the tendency to bet to fold out hands that are worse, just to win the pot right there. That is clearly a mistake, folding out hands that have 12% to improve on the next street is just way too little, you should be happy if they call. Remember that you don't have to actually win the hand for a bet/check to be correct. If you check behind and a weak hand that had very little chance of winning actually got there, then that's just bad luck. You don't need to force bad hands out if they have a shot at winning because you'll lose the hand sometimes if they see more cards, just accept that it will happen every now and then.

I understand what you're trying to say, too. There is value in protecting your hand. It's not like getting AK to fold is worthless. If on the 952 flop his range consists of only KQ, AQ, AK and KJ, and those hands will never attempt to bluff - they will only bet again if they improve, then it's worthwhile betting to protect. However, you don't even know if you have the best hand. If he has QQ or JJ, the amount you lose immediately outweighs the amount you gain from protecting vs hands you're likely to win against anyway. Also, you may get bluffraised, etc. The value/bluff paradigm is nowhere near the be-all-end-all of poker strategy, but it's a very good guide to playing with a plan, and at the moment you play without a plan more often than you come up with the wrong plan against villain's range.

Hand reading is the difference between a good player and the next best player. At the moment, your problem isn't you putting people on the wrong hands. You need to have a sound plan, e.g, I'm betting to get value out of these hands. Then, you get to showdown and you can see how often villain actually has those hands. If you have no idea what you want to happen, then it won't matter what villain shows up with, and you won't learn anything.

Yeah definitely agree with this.

Op - back to the hand where you flop the nut flush and check flop min bet turn. I guess it's good to try out new, unusual lines sometimes. But I think at your (and my) level of skill/experience you're better off sticking to the accepted wisdom.

It's also hugely exploitable if you bet big on a monotone board when you don't have it, and play like that when you do. Not so crucial at micros/Zoom but not a great habit to get into.

Mainly though, you're just missing out value again vs the worse hands that you want to come along. Your min bet/re-raise line looks so strong that you're only going to get played back against by boats and the very unlikely one combo of lower flush.

Much of the advice we've been giving in this thread is summarized much more clearly in Splitsuit's 6 minute video:


Learning little things from individual hand analyses is all well and good, but it's probably costing you money doing it this way. You're probably better served by learning the fundamentals before hitting the tables, or you'll just be burning money. Check out Sweeney's playlist of Quick Plays for more of the standard stuff you simply have to understand if you want to progress.

Yes, you are probably right; I didnt realize but I am probably doing that.
I saw the videos QuickPlay and I like the "too strong to bluff" concept, I am definitely doing this bad.

Yes, I mostly do. However, sometimes I cant resist to think out something new. I hope I just invented quite a good way how to play aces preflop; however, it works just on Zoom and I suppose the people will notice that I am doin that in some time.
I am doing it for few days and I got called many times by quite weak hands (KTs and so on). When I have aces and everybody before me folds (if they are in, I just 3-bet), I write into the chat something like: "YEAAAAAH, I have AA, call me, guys, HOHOHOHO!!!!" And go all-in. Suprisingly they ARE really calling (yet) and my C-won with aces in last days went like 3x more than before. I suppose that even at Zoom I will be noticed soon xD

Great video, thank you, it gave me a lot.
I also saw all the other videos of that guy.... 95 % of it I already knew, but good anyway.