I busted someone and doubled my money, but I kind of feel like I shouldn't have been in the hand to begin with. Sometime tell me if I'm right or wrong here.

I don't know how to do all that hand description stuff I see people on here do, I'm kinda new to all this, so I'm going to try and describe this as good as possible:

Game- $0.01/$0.02 on Stars
Effective stack - $2.00 I think

UTG player ($2.00)= Raise to $0.06
MP = Fold
CU = Fold
Button Player aka ME ($2.00) = I call with 74 (I normally NEVER call with this kinda trash but I was in position and felt like if UTG player had high cards (which they usually do in this case) I could probably beat him if middle-lower cards flop. I also felt like being random lol)
SB = fold
BB= fold

Pot is now $0.15.

Flop comes 2 8 7

UTG Player: Continuation bet of $0.04
Me: Call

Pot is now $0.23.

Turn card: 7

UTG Player: Another bet of $0.04
Me: Call

Pot is now $0.31

River card: 4

UTG Player: River bet of $0.10
Me: Push all in
UTG Player: Call and Reveal Q5


I feel like I shoulda folded my pair at the flop due to the monotone board texture and that's bothering me a lot cause I feel like I made a mistake, but at the same time I feel like I was justified in calling due to the pot odds.

Was I right or wrong here?

Fold pre, not going to explain in detail why but there's a ton of material on calling raises preflop online. 74o isn't anywhere to be found in any article.

Yeah I usually never play these kinda hands preflop, I already know not to but I guess I was feeling extremely loose at the time

Did I do anything wrong postflop though?

Don't fold the flop for 25% pot bet. Raise turn against this ridiculous bet. Don't overshove river, if he is anywhere near capable of folding hands you lose a lot of value by not getting called with weaker hands.

Appreciate this feedback a lot.

What if he went all in at the turn though? Also what would have been a more appropriate river bet size?

He played it about as terribly as you did, so justice was served.

Can't believe he called your overbet ship on the river. You made it $1.75 to go in a $0.50 pot?

Hey, it is NL2. If you want to have fun, have fun and enjoy some cheap entertainment. After you suck out, be happy because you got the monies. Nothing worse than screwing around and then feeling bad when you win.

Your managed to raise a terrible UTG hand and flop the joint. Nice on him. He then managed to about price you in to suck out with whatever terrible (or good) hand you had behind him. Given how unlikely his hand was to win, betting .04, .04. and .10 wasn't the reward he should have been shooting for. All that to say, if anyone deserved to punt off a stack it was him. Be happy, he had it coming.

If you want to play winning poker, don't do this stuff. Read the FAQ. Post on the forum.

You mean if he stuck $1.80 in the middle with a 0.30 pot? He 6x the pot and you? No idea. Doing that, he should mostly expect to get called by the unconscious and people with better hands.

Fold pre, raise turn heartily and then lead river for about pot. This was played pretty badly.

Appreciate all the honest feedback people

Lol I hear you, yeah I definitely didnt feel bad about taking dudes money (quite the opposite actually) but at the same time I understand that just because I won doesn't mean I played well. This win didnt sit right with me because I felt like I made a lot of mistakes that I shouldn't have and just got really lucky.

I'm actually a winning player so far (not by a wide margin tho, also not saying much considering its .01/.02) but Ive learnt most of my poker through a combination of books and trial & error. Getting involved with this forum is probably the biggest step ive taken towards improving.

Don't worry, you'll be playing hands well and getting unlucky in no time.

I can't wait!

troll

great help , a credit to the forums

Stick to good hands and value bet and you will get better. Playing junk like this will hamper your development.

Also inb4 five5diamonds post a bunch of "???"

Doesn't the response to this depend significantly on the villain - it would be good to know a little more about the villain - is a UTG raise with Q5s representative of his preflop play, what is he like post flop?

Depending on the answer to this the play post flop might have more justification.

Pre-flop - fold

Flop - if we give villain all suited, broadways and pp then our equity is about 50%, so barring other reads the call seems ok,

Turn - I don't know whether as suggested above the raise is the right move - most/all (?) of the hands that will call will have us beaten, plus there is a risk of an all in reraise when we lose our 20% equity (from the draws to a full house which i assume is the nuts).

at 2NL i think its quite rare for poeple to fold a flush even to large river bets with a paired board - so on balance at this level his line seems to possibly be the strongest.

Just a fish myself, so interested to hear others refutations of this logic/ line of thinking

It still doesn't matter because 74o shouldn't be seeing a flop ever in this spot. It has 22% versus a random hand and it goes way below 20% when considering any raising range that includes Q5s. It's so tough to overcome this equity disadvantage and if we call 74o we're calling 87% of all hands there which is ******ed.

I agree that 74o should be folded, but the point i was trying to make was once we've decided to see the flop, and then the turn what the right play was then.

What was been suggested above was a raise on the turn, and it was that which i was questioning.

74o has 38.55% equity against any two, and 22% against a top 5% range.

Whoops, had some weird settings in equilab I used in another hand. Still the point is 74o is trash and almost never flops good.

So you agree you should fold 74o but then why would you care what any decision was after the flop? It's the same answer people ask when they 4bet 50% of their stack with some trash hand and then ask whether they should call a shove. The answer is that it should have been folded pre and any action after that is truly irrelevant.

You need to plan ahead in hands. In this instance, the hand should be folded preflop so the whole tree of outcomes in this hand would be shut down right there. There's so little merit in discussing this beyond the flop because you will (should) never encounter this spot in the future.

Now you'll probably say; what if I had some other hand and let's assume I have that. Well that's a problem because the board texture really doesn't allow you to play a hand the same way and then boat up on the river. The only boats/quads you'll have here are with 22, 88 and 77 and maybe 87s. Any of those hands really should raise the flop 99,9512% of the time, therefor this whole hand plays out different and again; it makes any decision you made irrelevant.