Hey Everyone,
Check out this hand. After the turn card, he had the flush but he checked into me so I figured he had nothing and bet 100% of pot. Did I bet or play this incorrectly? TIA.

PokerStars - $0.05 NL - Holdem - 9 players
Hand converted by PokerTracker 4

UTG+1: 102.6 BB
MP: 29 BB
MP+1: 28.6 BB
MP+2: 65 BB
Hero (CO): 100 BB
BTN: 47.6 BB
SB: 89 BB
BB: 103 BB
UTG: 48.6 BB

SB posts SB 0.4 BB, BB posts BB 1 BB, Hero posts penalty blind 1 BB

Pre Flop: (pot: 2.4 BB) Hero has 9 A

fold, fold, MP raises to 3 BB, MP+1 calls 3 BB, fold, Hero calls 2 BB, fold, fold, fold

Flop: (10.4 BB, 3 players) 2 2 9
MP bets 3.2 BB, MP+1 calls 3.2 BB, Hero raises to 9.6 BB, fold, MP+1 calls 6.4 BB

Turn: (32.8 BB, 2 players) 3
MP+1 checks, Hero bets 31.8 BB, MP+1 calls 16 BB and is all-in

River: (64.8 BB, 2 players) 6

MP+1 shows Q K (Flush, King High)
(Pre 43%, Flop 51%, Turn 91%)
Hero shows 9 A (Two Pair, Nines and Twos)
(Pre 57%, Flop 49%, Turn 9%)
MP+1 wins 61.6 BB

Don't post results. You will get better advice that way.

Why do you think villain had nothing on the turn? If you think he has nothing and jam here you fold out all their bluffs. I would be more inclined to check turn and hope they bluff river for me.

raising the flop is essentially turning ur hand into a bluff,just flat
you made villian fold all his bluffs and only carry on with hands that has significant equity vs u or hands that beat u.
flat the flop and fold to a second barrel on the turn, since villian is probably gona give up on the turn hands like QJss, he is only gona barrel if he 1). has 1 club
2). has an overpair
3). hit the flush

ur hand has very little equity vs his range

I'm not quite sure what the hell I was thinking. I guess I got overly excited about my two pair.

So you bet the turn because you thought MP+1's check meant he had nothing. People check with the nuts or near-nuts all the time in order to encourage you to put more money in the pot. When the flush hits, you should check behind

The bigger question is what should you have done on the flop. If you were going to bet, you should have bet much more, but perhaps just calling would have been better. To figure out which, you need to put both villains on ranges.

What did you think MP and MP+1 had when MP bet and MP+1 called the flop?

MP raised. He has a 29 BB stack.
MP+1 flatted. He has 28.6 BB

You're in the CO with A9s. Fold pre.

This hand plays pretty badly against short stacks, since there are no implied odds for chasing flushes, and you're not going to get good action with top pair.

As played, villain is checking to you on the turn because you raised on the flop. He usually has a flush draw when he twice calls on the flop, but he should really be 3-bet jamming everything he continues with (trips, 9x and FDs) because he's so short.
Your turn bet is bad because it's very hard to get called by worse. You have to go broke because of the stack-sizes, but you should never have reached this point in the first place.

Since there are only 2 other full stacks at this table, I would find another one. With so many 'ankle-biters', there's no money to win on this one.

To be completely honest, I don't really understand how to put somebody on a range. I do know that I think people are bluffing way more than what they really are, at least at these stakes. The possibility of either Villain having a 29o and having me beat or a 2Xo would have had me beat occured to me, but for some reason I just thought they would try and bluff to get me to fold knowing that I had a VPIP of 18.

FWIW I'm not certain whether I call, jam or 3b small but I'm not folding.

Eh, with live stacks behind jamming is bad, but I don't mind a 3b which commits against these two.

I'm probably not folding either, but I think OP should.

I'd probably fold pre-flop.



Any stats/reads/info on MP and MP+1?

I dont mind the call pre but I would have played the remainder of the hand far more passively. Call the flop bet, check the turn and fold to a large river bet.
The default play for a lot of players at the micros is to check when they make a strong hand or the nuts as they are preoccupied with outwitting their opponent rather than getting value for strong hands.

Difficult to play properly without putting villains on ranges.

Ranges have tops and bottoms. The information we can use to assign these includes betting/calling frequency (which is why a HUD is an important tool for online play) and the choice of action villain takes as others act and cards ere revealed.

The top of everybody's range is AA, so we assign that as top until villain does something that indicates he doesn't have that good a hand. Such indications could include calling a limper or a raiser.

Theoretically the bottom of everybody's range could be 32o or 72o, but the usual way of assigning a tentative bottom is from the frequency with which somebody enters a hand. People who only enter pots < 20% of the time have a higher bottom to the range than people who enter 2/3rds of pots. If you don't have a HUD to keep track of VPIP/PFR stats, you need to develop your own impressions to approximate these values. This requires you to pay attention to how often people get involved, and whether they do so by raising or calling.

Since you don't have any stats or reads for us, we'll have to look at putting people on ranges by assuming these villains are typical poor short-stackers.

You start putting people on a range the moment they act. MP opened with a raise, so their is nothing limiting the top of his range. He could have AA or another high PP, or AK. Because he raised with several people yet to act we can assume he thinks he has a good hand. So we can expect him to have two broadways, or an A, a PP, or SCs or better. If you had been paying attention to his past action, you might be able to eliminate some of these by knowing that he doesn't play them at all, or that he limps with them.

When MP+! calls, this should indicate that he also thinks he has a good hand. But because he didn't raise, he most likely doesn't have AK or a high PP. If he was playing well, the bottom of his range should be better than MP's too, but we have no indication he's a good player.

The flop comes, and the pre-flop raiser leads out. Given that it's a flop that neither of his two opponents likely hit, the fact that he bet doesn't tell us much. He could be continuing with air. However the size of his bet might mean something. It is unusually low for a c-bet. Unless we already knew he was clueless about bet-sizing, I'd take it to be polarizing. He's either very strong or very weak - within the bounds of his opening range. Very strong would include holding 22 or 99, both of which are possible holdings for his pre-flop action, but because you have a 9, there is only 1 combo of each available to him. If he bet with a single 9 or a PP, I'd expect him to have bet bigger - about what you did. There are not many X2 in his pre-flop range. So likely the best he connected with the board was with a flush draw. If it is a flush draw, it probably is either the nut flush or has two cards higher than a 9 (What other flush draws could he have open-raised with?). Interestingly, his bet size gives himself odds for a flush draw, if nobody raises. I'd say he's probably got a FD, or air in the form of overcards. Just a slight chance of a boat or quads, small enough to ignore.

MP+! calls again. Would he just call such a small bet if he had connected well or has an overpair? Not likely. So either he's on a draw or he has a hand he thinks has showdown value, and yet isn't a PP > 88. So he's probably got a weak 9 (Q9, J9, T9, 98) a small PP (not 22), or two clubs which are probably both higher than a 9. Like MP, there are not very many X2 in his pre-flop range, so you don't need to worry about trips.

So now that you have an idea of what you might be up against. Lets look at your action.

Something you need to notice about the flush draws these two might have is that they pretty well have to have an Ax or two s > 9, otherwise how did they act as they did pre-flop? That means if either is on a flush draw they not only have the nine outs for the flush, they also have 2 outs for the red Aces (and possibly 3 more if they have another broadway), or 6 outs for their two broadways. When you bet 9.6 into a pot of 16.8 you are giving the first to call odds of 2.75:1 but a player with 15 outs only needs 2.13:1 to properly call, and a player with AQ-AT only needs 2.36:1 to call. If the first player calls, the second player can properly call if either of his flush draw cards are > 9.

So betting only 9.6 was bad move. What about betting more? How much more? If you bet enough so that either player would have to go all-in to call, that's not a good idea either if either player has the flush draw and an ace (11 outs) or more outs. The rule of 4 and 2 tells us that with two cards to come, 11 outs have a 44% chance to win (5:4), and the pot will be offering better odds than that at 48.8:22.8.

Is there an amount in between that would work? What if you bet enough that the first villain is only getting 2:1? How much would that be? You' need to make a bet that called the current bet and doubled the resulting pot, so 16.8 +3.2=20, 20+3.2 = 23.2. You'd need to raise to 23,.2, which is more than either has left. So there is no bet you can make which denies them proper odds to make the call if they have a flush draw with two overcards, which is a likely holding for one of them.

For that reason, you should just call the flop. If the turn is a non-club, you can can call another small bet. With villain's stacks at 22.8 and 22.4, and the pot at 20 if it's checked to you, a shove by you here would technically deny the first villain proper odds to call, but second villain would have ample odds if first villain called. I'd probably check back.

If turn is a club, and either of them bets it, I'd probably fold. I'm also checking back for sure.

This can happen when you haven't already put them on something.

Why would they have acted as they did pre-flop if they had 92 or X2? You can discount such holdings here.

Incredible amount of info. Thanks everyone. Unfortunately Bovada doesn't offer 2NL. I think I'm gonna get Blackrain's book "Crushing The Microstakes" and work from there. In the meantime I'll track my stats to see if the book and forums help me improve or if I'm hopeless. Thanks again everyone.

Also on the subject of putting people on a range, I wrote this a while ago and it's still mostly accurate.

http://forumserver.twoplustwo.com/32..****-dr-1367194/

lol wow! I have't finished reading it yet, but your old thread changed my thought process a bit on ranges.

Like just now I was watching a hand I wasn't involved in and someone min raised the turn and I immediately thought he probably has J7. Sure enough he showed down with J7. I know you're not supposed to put people on a particular hand, but that was like the most obvious thing that stood out on the turn.

In a vacuum state people don't usually get out of line unless they have 2 pr+

Incredible article! Or so it looks, lol. Thanks for sharing. I'm gonna slowly make my way through it to ensure I comprehend AFTER I read the articles you link to for prior reading!