I'd like some feedback from the gurus.

Scene:
UTG player is a young girl who likes to blind raise every hand pre flop. Everyone at the table has been complaining about her play. She has stacked almost everyone at the table so everyone's out to get her. I just moved from the must move. I was told by the UTG+2 player that she is a 20/40 reg. Unconfirmed but I don't think it really matters.

UTG puts out a blind raise to 12 (kill pot). UTG+1 (kill button) calls. I'm in MP with Ad2d4x5x. I thought about 3 betting considering UTG plays any 4 and UTG+1 knows this and thus calling wide, but I elected to call (mistake?) with a multiway hand. CO (old reg) calls. Flop is:

Ax5x9d

I have top and bottom pair with the 2nd nut low draw and backdoor nut diamond draw. UTG leads for 6. UTG+1 calls. I call (mistake?). CO calls.

Turn is the Qd giving me the nut flush draw to go with top & bottom pair & 2nd nut low draw.

UTG bets 12. UTG+1 calls. I call (mistake?). CO makes it 24.

UTG has never folded anything prior to seeing a river so she calls. UTG+1 folds. And I call (mistake?). I had a gut feeling CO made QQQ on the turn but what QQxx combinations could call the flop?

River was an offsuit 5. We both check to the CO who bets 12. UTG folds. Although I have 555AA I'm not happy with it. I called and CO shows 99QQ.

Pretty standard at low limits, but with the kill on, a pre-flop raise could have the benefit of driving out the guy playing queens. That said, some people will NOT let go of pocket pairs, particularly when they are somewhat connected and/or there's a bad beat jackpot they might qualify for.

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Pre I can go either way. Rest of the hand I would raise every street

Im no guru.
I think you made mistakes, but playing correctly would have cost you money in this runout. So, the point is to play correct.
Idk if the "old reg" would flat in position if you 3b, but they probably would which is probably right.
Anyway, if you cant raise this hand against two wide players, that is a serious problem. Most flops you will still be drawing, maybe to double nuts, and a larger pot gives you odds to draw to the low side, and back into random stuff to go with it for high.
As for the flop in this hand, you happen to be very thin for the high and 2nd best for the low. In FL08 sometimes this means jam the pot. But with the reads you mentioned, you wont get them to fold, but a checkraise on the flop may set up doubt in their minds as you bet out any turn card. This particular runout is really not the issue with the hand. Four cards means they can always have random nuts that you are not expecting.
All this is to say, that i would have raised pre and raised flop and lost more money, but that is FLO8.


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This

Can you clarify blinds and kill amount pre-flop?

Not too important I guess. Flop raise would be standard. As played I am ok with flatting turn.

River is one those limit situations where the pot is so big that its hard to argue for folding. We can at least chop. Some villains might even go for thin value with aq. Bet/fold is not a terrible alternative though if we don't need to worry about worse raising. We can get some cry calls.

My read was tight old reg BUT the girl was pissing everyone off for raising every hand. He seemed determined to get some of his money back. Would he have folded to someone new to the table? IDK

Good points. Think I was too focused on getting the other people behind me into the pot considering the effect the girl had on everyone. I should've tried to get max value vs their range.

pre flop - blinds were 2 & 4 with a half kill of 6. kill button was on UTG+1. UTG player blind raised to 12. UTG+1, me & CO call. both blinds fold.

I almost folded the river. My gut was telling me he had queens full but like you said there was so much money in there that I was hoping he has going for thin value with AQ

From your position and with the maniac having already raised, I would just call preflop. I want to invite players in. (From a later position, I would 3-bet pre.)

You have a ton of equity on the flop: gutshot to the wheel, second-nut low draw, backdoor nut flush draw, and your two pair might be the best hand right now, though it's vulnerable to any high turn card, which could give one of your opponents a higher two pair without making your low. I would raise the flop for value and protection.

The fact that the cutoff made a set of Queens on the turn is almost irrelevant. He flopped a set of 9's, right? He's not going anywhere.

Missing your flush, straight, and low draws is unfortunate but not uncommon. The cutoff's raise on the turn suggests a made hand of some kind, either top two pair or a set. I, too, would have called his raise on the turn and check-called the river.

Don't make hero folds in limit. On the river, you're getting 14-1 to call. Most likely he'll have a full house that beats you, either Queens full or 9's full or Aces full. But sometimes he'll have AQ. And sometimes he'll have something unexpected like 235Q for a missed nut low draw and a worse full house than yours, or 9TJQ with two diamonds, for two middle pair plus a missed combo draw that he's now essentially turning into a bluff—or even 234K with a King-high diamond draw that missed all 23 outs he thought he had and can now win only by bluffing.

Could not agree more about this point. No way to fold river. Again, even if you folded and saw that you saved a bet, you would be incorrect to do so. Unless that person practically jumped up and yelled "yeah baby" on the turn.


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I would raise this hand preflop. There are certainly situations where I would just call with this particular hand, as it is a hand that doesn't really benefit from isolating heads-up. But given that you already have two players who are definitely playing the pot with essentially random hands, and likely more given how you describe the table dynamic, you can raise it for pure value (value that especially emerges multiway).

I would definitely raise this flop as well. It is reasonably likely you have both the best high hand and the best low draw, and even if you don't, you still have several ways to win; you'd also like to protect your equity against other Axxx hands. Turn could go either way; raising or calling both seem fine to me. And obviously don't fold on the river.

I gotta raise this pre. I get you want a pot, but there are already 4 people with money in the pot before you act. This hand has plenty of high opportunities as well and needs to be raised pre.

Slam dunk raise pre and on the flop. You want to put in max bets preflop. The flop her range is wide and your hand is great but prefers as few players as possible. Let the higher stakes player be your aide in getting this heads up

just to clarify, this is only when it is heads up right? because in this scenario the UTG player folded and I called. But what if 3 players saw the river and say the CO makes the bet and the UTG calls instead of folding, do I fold then or do I still call?

so even if you have a solid read on a player, it doesn't matter? we still call hoping he was bluffing?

i ask because a few days ago i played about 6 hours of 4/8 limit and i made a lot of thin calls on the river only to get smashed. lost 4 buy ins. if i had trusted my reads i could've avoided them, but i kept going back to this post. i was so upset with myself because I've never lost 4 buy ins before and i must've looked like a total fish.

i mean, it's 4/8. how often are these players thinking on that level? making those kinds of plays? it seems to me like at the lowest stakes, rarely are people bluffing. most of the time if they miss they check it back.

Be careful to compare apples to apples. Having a full house is not a thin call, with 14-1 odds to boot. If you stacked off 4 buy ins you likely called more than 1 bet in multiway action when you are caught in the middle. In limit poker if you can beat a bluff with one last call, and that closes the action, you have to be damn sure you are beat to fold. But if it is a bet and a raise around to you and you can not close the action with a call, you need a lot to call.

Apples to apples.


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Don't fold the river. Seriously, this is the decision that you're questioning?

Even if players are rarely bluffing, your hand is strong enough that you can beat some of their value bets. And if UTG called instead of folding, you should certainly still call because the fact that UTG just called instead of raising means you can almost certainly beat him.

I was in a game where we had many flops capped pre flop. I was sitting in seat 10 and had 2 aggressive "play every hand" type players on seat 9 and seat 3 so most hands were kill pots. I was in a dream situation. They did the raising for me (they would raise KQJ3! In EP!). I just sat there waiting for good A2 & A3 hands. But every time it came down to the river vs either player I got smashed. Last hand I played it was a $200 pot BEFORE the turn. Seat 3 was UTG & the lead aggressor. Board ran A2TJJ. I had A2KQ. Turned the nuts with the royal redraw. I didn't raise the turn 'cause I was getting hammered all day by these 2 luckboxes and was just wishing for once I get a safe river to raise them with. Board pairs on the river. He check raises me. He shows 2286. Yes. 228 ****ing 6.



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I have been there my friend. FLO8 seems like a game that should favor a sensible player versus the aggro lockboxes. It is, but sometimes it takes a while.

Two things.

When you are in such an "ideal" situation, strap in it is going to be swingy. If that is uncomfortable for you, IT IS OK TO SIT OUT.
If you are too far out of your comfort zone you will start to make mistakes.

Secondly, being a total aggro donk in FLO8 is not optimal (obviously) but not as far from GTO as you would think. The large pots preflop actually give those players a wide path to make lots of crazy plays that are not as -EV as you would think. The vast majority of aggro luckboxes are oblivious to this, they just know they can sit down to FLO8 and jam every hand and have fun watching everyone else tilt.

Advice? If its short handed, you must sit out unless you are very familiar with aggro short handed limit poker in general.
6-9 players, hang in there and favor position more in your starting hands. A3 UTG may be unplayable where A3 OTB is usually playable, for instance.


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