Okay so Tnix sent me 2 shorter hh's to review, first game is third game vs same opponent and he gave following reads:
Other game is vs different opponent.

Aaaaaah, the good old ftp turbo's! -hax imo.

Anyway, I don't know what your standard opening size is. Most people go minraise or 3x. Some good players I know do t75 or t80. I would advice to just minraise tbh. Reason for this is that it's the easiest way to get some good (postflop) reads on your opponent because minraising will in general open up someone's defending range.

HOWEVER, first hand, and you have a monster, I would raise to 3bb's as well. Thing is even most fish notice that when you minraise 4x in a row and then all of a sudden raise to 3bb's (yes, they DO notice this) so raising small with weaker hands and big with stronger hands is something which in general won't work, except against the biggest droolers out there or the huge loose tards. But since he doesn't know your openingsize, you can easily make it 3bb's here and try to get some more value.

I used to openjam JJ+ AK first hand on the lowest stakes (I think I did it up to $22s or something) and this works fine against the huge fishpool you'll meet there. Take note that openshove this range first hand, you will get called by ****ton of worse hands (low pocket pairs, A-rag, I even had someone call 64s and Q7o once). If you have a monsterhand second hand again, you can just jam and he will call so light now (you can even open up your "monsterrange" for the second hand, like 99-TT/AQ as well). Be prepared to have a hectic (mostly short) and very agressive match now though and try to use your image to your benefit.
Hmmmz, the reads you gave said clearly "he sees me as a spewtard" most likely. I don't get the raise preflop for that reason, just because you lack so much fold equity (preflop) and I expect him to float you on any flop with any pair or gutshot or better and you're going to have one hell of a time playing your underpair. If he really thinks you're spewy, you can even get in a decent portion of your stack in a limped pot (or even your entire stack) when you flop a set anyway so raising pre wouldn't be an option for me. I'd much rather raise JTo here than 33, it just plays so much easier/better oop.

Fwiw, even in a vanilla game vs a random fish, I wouldn't raise here if this is 2nd hand of the game for following reasons:
1) Most fish limp/call and limp/fold when it's still "cheap" is something they don't consider.
2) When you check couple of hands preflop, your oop will get SOME more respect later on. Although point 1) still will apply, but they're unlikely to float you really light and most of the times you will have no strong hand (it's hu, duh, nobody has anything) so you can use the extra fold equity on the flop/preflop.
Ok, so aparantly your std size is 3bb's early on. I would advice to test minraising a couple of games and see how it goes. You'll notice how much more info you get when stacks are still deep-ish.
With the notes you gave, this is a very very easy 4betshove preflop. Even if his valuerange is like 88+,AJ+,KQ then we still have 40% equity so we don't need much fold equity preflop to make up for that. But if he sees you as spewtard, he may be stacking off real light here (mainly smaller pocket pairs we're in decent shape against, and people 3betting those aren't folding them vs shove) so vs the worst of ranges we still have 40% and you have won every hand in the match so far so I think your fold equity preflop is really high.
K, 3bb's again.
Flop kind of dry, only gutshots available so I would probably bet 90 here. Anything from 90 to 120 looks good to me (unless you have a reason to suspect from previous games that a certain betsize will induce a spazz/float more often or something).
On a board like this, just bet half pot, villain won't float you too light in general.
Yeah I dont mind a fold now and then. There's a big difference in a fish' experience between raising 100% and like 90%. They have no idea about your frequency really, just let them know you don't raise ATC and a fold from time to time (especially after being active and winning most pots) is definitly in its place.
Hmmmz, interesting hand, preflop seems std for me, it's just a minraise and he seems to be doing it wide enough to defend here + we need some postflop oop reads imo.

Ok, so flop. Ehm, yeah definitly checkraise, in a vaccuum, it's best to assume villains cbet unless proven otherwise. Being around 37bb's shallow with TP2K on a drawy board is an ez stackoff anyway vs pretty much anyone.
Raisesize looks good as well, anything from 180 to 220 looks fine. Don't make it too big, it's heads-up, people usually don't have anything so you want to keep his floats in.

Turn is interesting to discuss. Fwiw, I don't really like your line of c/c c/c. Especially with your image. Thing is villain will very likely ship a good made hand on flop (whether he has us beat or not) because of the board texture. Hands like TPGK or combodraws he's more likely to get it in on flop. Unless you think he's making a random float, like KQ or something, which I doubt, maybe you had some read from previous games, but even some of those he's checking them back and try to get to showdown, unless he thinks his showdown is non-existing like if he floated a hand like QT.
Thing is, the board paired, and it's a really bad card to bluff at for villain. He shouldn't expect you to fold a lot of the board, though idk how deep this particular opponent thinks. You go c/c c/c I guess because you expect him to fire his draws right? This just doesn't happen all that much. Draws rarely take this line on a board like this. If his draw is good enough (in his eyes), he's likely to ship the flop. If not, he'll probably think you gave up on turn and will check, hoping to improve, or maybe bet turn but will check back river because once you call turn your line is really defined to like 8x or some draws which decided to c/c turn but even then he will take showdown and won't bluff you.

Don't get me wrong, I'm not giving up like that just because the turncard paired the board. On turn, pot is 510 and villain has 845 behind. Given that he thinks you are spewy, I would bet smallish here to try to induce a shove from him. Something like 225 should give him the illusion of fold-equity (around 1/4th of an opponent stacks works best here in my experience). People tend to see this as weak and shove a really wide range here (even gutshots yes). Maybe he just has 8x and he was waiting for a good turncard to get it in... let him get it in then.

With the line you took, you're going to get valuetowned by trips ALWAYS and will only bluffcatch some percentage of the time. Depending of the opponents agressiveness (you should have a better idea of that) you should know a bit what draws he's shipping on flop and which not. If you think he's flatting all but the biggest draws on flop, then maybe you can c/c one street but I doubt a lot of people bet small turn with a draw to shove river here, looks like a sucker bet on turn to be able to shove river imo. With your image, I would just bet small and get it in.
Flop cbet is kind of big imo, I'd just go half pot and be done with the hand. You only have a bluffcatcher on this board so doesn't really matter how much you bet. Hands with 40%+ equity aren't folding anyway, so you're just betting to try and take down the pot and maybe you can improve or bluff at some cards when you get called to try to get him off a better hand (8x mainly obv).
Ehm, depends a little on previous games to either 3bet jam here or just 3bet to - say - 220 or something. Things like:
- has he seen you 3bet jam certain hands before? A-rag, low pocket pairs, K-rag?
- have you 3bet/folded while being shallow before?
- was there a lot of shoving over minraises metagame previous games?
I agree that 3betting to a normal amount would in general look pretty strong, so shoving would be my std to get called lighter I think (unless villain is braindead or villain thinks he has fold equity because I 3bet/folded shallow before). So yeah, nh, sick hold.
Limp is interesting, I think it's fine here actually. Idk if you did it in previous game so I will just assume you haven't. He seemed to be aggro to some extent from your description in the notes so I could imagine he 3bets a decent amount so limping a hand like this is fine. Most people (especially aggro ones) just love to attack limps all the time, especially the first one(s), with ATC, so if he raises to 3bb's I would be inclined to call. Something you can do to see if he randomly attacks your limps is do it a bit deeper stacked with like K2o type of hands and fold if he raises. If you raise next couple of buttons and then limp once more he'll definitly see it as weakness (most fish see it as well fwiw) so you can exploit that in mid/endgame with limp/shoving certain hands.

K so he pots flop, you have TPGK with a gutshot straightflushdraw. This is actually a very interesting spot imo. I thought about it a bunch and talked about it with some other players and came to conclusion that it's probably best to raise the flop. Don't get me wrong, flatting is fine as well, it's close imo, though I think raising is slightly more ev+. Reason for raising is that we control the size of the pot, and we have an aggro image, and there's a TON of bad turncards which can ruin action. If villain has two pair, we're ahead equitywise but almost each time we "suck out" villain is unlikely to put any more money in the pot (we're even a favorite against J8 fwiw, big fav against 87 and J7). So vs those hands we want to get it in on flop (obv this is like top of villain's range apart from flopped flushes/straight). Chance of villain having us drawing really thin is also not that big. Suited Ax there's a decent chance he raises pre, not always, but more likely than 93ss for example obv. Same with decent suited kings (although with this board only KQss and K9ss are strong suited kings possible). Thing is, there's so much value on raising flop, we're in position, villain views us as a spewtard, turn should be fairly easy to play irregardless of the card, and there's just soooo much hands we're in awesome shape against; he's not jamming them all or anything, but definitly calling a smallish raise with them to - say - 220 or something. Hands like 96 with a spade, any pair with or without a spade, if you're lucky he's jamming something like J-rag with or without a spade to try and protect his hand or whatever. So raise, flop is the street to get value from, not turn/river imo.

Unless hand runs out like this obv, turn looks fine, enough implied odds and he's probably bluffing some percentage of the time and giving up on river and we have a bunch of equity anyway. River std shove, I'm really wondering what villain had here tbh.
He seems to be minraising close to 100% of buttons so you could probably jam over the 80 here and it will turn out ev+. However, he doesn't seem to do it himself and you already did it once with the 99 so I would advice not to do it because creating a minraise/jam kind of metagame is not something you want vs someone who seems to be calling at least some percentage of the time oop and c/f's a reasonable amount (idk how true this is, we just had couple of postflop hands in raised pots and he seemed to play pretty straightforward).
Ugh, this is really weird spot. First of all, I don't mind the limp preflop, but don't start autolimping here too much. There's still a ton of value you get by villain folding preflop or calling and c/f'ing flop. Aparantly, this guy also doesn't autocheck flop but will lead out a ton and I would rather limp in hands that flop toppair well (like JT you did earlier) than a hand like K3 because aparantly he doesn't give up on leading/bluffing(?) and a pair of 3s will be quite hard to play vs a lot of agression unless you're comfortable enough calling him down on certain boards. Reason why hands like this are good to limp vs certain opponents is because on certain boards it's ez to win at showdown when it gets checked down but I don't think this type of villain will let you have it that easily.

I'm not results oriented by the fact that he donked out here again putting us in a ****ty spot, the reason why i suppose this is because on the J87sss board he bet/bet/bet and folded to river raise. His line makes sense for like either nuts or air imo, with nuts being either a flopped flush or (flopped) straight and I don't see ANYONE fold a flush/straight on the river there fwiw so he most likely had total air (or something like Ks4x or something, could be, but this just means he bet/bet/bet his draws and prolly made hands as well so it's kind of hard to bluffcatch that way).

So here, even if you did limp, I would just fold the flop. Reason for this is that stacks are really shallow, he won't give up easily, and we probably have only 5 outs and he's gonna keep firing and firing no matter what (toppair paired on turn, i'm quite sure this gives him more draws than i would put in his range on flop, but still, a lot of draws still have like 10 outs and we could be drawing dead and quite sure he's jamming river). I don't think you can profitably call flop here vs this opponent if you decide to limp anyway, unless you're prepared to call it down all the way (unless like a 9/8 comes off in which case all draws have us beat now).
Ehm, his limps will probably be pretty weak, and especially with 21bb's shallow stacks I would just make it 120 preflop. He thinks you're a spewtard, mashing the pot button he may decide to limp/jam a total crap holding (i HIGHLY doubt this opponent limps a strong hand so i would snap a limp/shove from him, less than 10% of the time he's trapping imo given he minraises so much).

Also, you should give him the chance to call with weak (dominated) holdings, not push him out. 120 preflop gives a little more manoeuvrability postflop as well, with 240 in pot (if he decides to call) and 720 behind. If you make it 140 and he calls and pot is 280 and he has 700 behind. Cbetting here will be more expensive and jamming with any piece of the board easier for him and we're going to be committed on a TON of ****ty boards when we cbet because there's too much draws in his range (obv you shouldn't be cbetting some % of these ****ty boards if you're not happy calling a shove) but I'm mainly talking about boards like 873 with a flushdraw or something. If he's jamming any pair/draw we have odds to call after we cbet like 160 into 280 (we would need 32.14% equity to call a shove, wereas 120 preflop and 140 on flop would require 34.52% equity if villain shoves over our cbet). Just look at following handrange if he decides to limp/call and jam over our cbet and see how close it is:

Board: 8h 7h 3c
Dead:

equity win tie pots won pots tied
Hand 0: 34.667% 34.23% 00.44% 78960 1005.50 { Ad9c }
Hand 1: 65.333% 64.90% 00.44% 149699 1005.50 { Kh6h, Kh5h, Kh4h, Kh3h, Kh2h, Q8s-Q7s, Qh6h, Qh5h, Qh4h, J9s-J7s, Jh6h, Jh5h, T6s+, 95s+, 84s+, 75s+, 65s, 6h4h, 5h4h, Q8o-Q7o, J9o-J7o, T6o+, 96o+, 85o+, 75o+, 65o }

See? You're making it too big preflop, and will be committed on a bunch of drawy flops where you have no pair at all but have to call a shove once you cbet. Just make it 120, play some poker. I wouldn't even mind 100 here tbh, just let him hang himself with a marginal holding.
Just step out of the box and stop thinking "oh, ima raise oop, so i have to make it >3bb's"... think about what you're trying to accomplish by raising, think about stacksizes, see how easy it will be to get the money in if you hit TP...
Yeah just check/fold, let him have a pot. No need to start bluffing someone who sees you as a spewtard even though we don't know if he knows there's not a lot of Ax hands in our range. If you lead out, you're gonna get floated a ton I think, and checkraising you represent like nothing. Vs some players that's not a problem, but this game we've been pushing him around a bit and I doubt he folds any piece of the board really.
Good that you minraise the crappart of your playrange. You folded last button so I would probably minraise close to 100% here apart from the occassional 92o.

Again, flopbet is quite big, why are you doing this? For some reason, he floated you with only one livecard but you have to assume that each time he calls you he will have at least 30% equity (which is gutshot with livecard) or better draw or have you crushed with a better pair. What you trying to accomplish with your bet on a board like this? His most likely holding is inbetween cards... either check back or let him bluff turn or bet smaller. I wouldn't mind a 1bb bet here fwiw, I think this guy will spazz raise over it and we can call his raise (or he will float like he did here with like 25% equity while we have position which is fine as well, there's a decent amount of turn/river combo's we either improve or can bluffcatch on). Cbetting 110 is just unnecessary and is turning your hand into a bluff. I think checking vs this guy would probably be best idea because stacksizes are awkward to bet like 80 and him checkraising to - say - 250 because we would need to put a big part of our (or entire) stack in to bluffcatch. So check back, call almost all turns vs this guy.

As played turncheck is fine, no point in vbetting, he's not folding a lot of better hands here and we have a ton of equity.

Note that it's pretty rare that I check back showdown value like here on flop but I think this is an okay spot unless you have an awesome amount of momentum from previous matches in which case you know 100% what to do vs a checkraise here on this board vs this opponent depending on his betsizing.
K so he checked back bottom pair medium kicker. I don't mind check flop/give up fwiw, drawy board, not a lot of hands he'll fold that are better and "betting for value" + "bluffcatching when draws dont hit" is just too difficult and not worth the effort in limped pots.

Just note his holding imo which will polar his bettingrange to strong hands/draws or air.
Wow, BET THE FLOP? He floated you with Qx on K-rag-rag board last time. I really don't get you here, sorry if I sound rude. First you check flop and then you bet like 88% pot on turn? Why you do that? You think he has a draw with a huge amount of equity now? Doubtful, I think he's leading out most draws on turn (DEFINITLY leading out straightdraws because they should have close to 0 showdown value with their highcard and want to pick up pot), maybe he's checking some flushdraws if his highcard is enough, but not always. Given that you cbet all hands so far (as well as the bottom pair on K34) I would just bet 100 on flop here and hope he doesn't buy it and thinks he has livecards or just that his highcard is good again. Either that or he's sick of you betting at everything and he'll bluffraise with a hand like 98o or something.

I know it's unlikely he has a piece of the board here, and balancing vs fish is unnecessarry, but please, bet the flop vs someone who floats with inbetween cards when you have an aggro image.
Stop cbetting so big, hu = no pair vs no pair most of the time. Use this wisdom.
It's unlikely this guy folds any piece on flop for 155 that he would call for - say - 100 or 110.

I would also fold pre I think, given that he floats kind of wide post (with the Q5 hand), good pointed out chicagory
K, flop check is fine, he'll bet most of his range here apart from SOME highcards (and he raises most highcards preflop i guess) and bottom pair so he'll bet all his hands which are in total crappy shape and are just undercards to our pair of jacks which makes this flop an easy c/c.

Ok, he checked back, which gives us some info about his hand imo: he has showdownvalue. Now that we actually know a bit more than usually, we can bet SLIGHTLY bigger to try and extract value from hands like 3x or Ax/Qx with a heart. I'd bet around 65 here, I don't think he'll fold a hand like 3x without a heart because it will look like we're (semi)bluffing the flushdraw. 50 is fine as well, though I think he will call most of the times on the turn here so we might want to charge him for it with a tad bigger bet.

Ok, so plan for most rivers is to c/c obv when hearts fail, just sucks that hearts come in now. He'll check back 3x a decent percentage of the time to go to showdown imo, instead of changing it into a bluff so river is quite an easy c/f.
Kind of close spot, I think I play it the same though.

Thing why I would 4betjam here:
- he 3bet/folded before
- his raisesize doesnt really look all that strong to me; mostly low-mid pocket pair or two highcards who want to be committed postflop (and we're doing fine against a range of 22-88 with a little bit of fold equity)

Even if he doesnt 3bet low pocket pairs and his range is something like 77+ AT+ KJs+ then we have around 40% equity. There's 450 dead money in the pot, we have 40% equity when called in a 2430 pot which means we lose around 243 each time we get it in which means we need around 35% fold equity or something. I was thinking we'd need a little less fold equity here fwiw, correct me if I made a mistake here. I'd still shove though, reasons:
- we have at least SOME fold equity
- even against a strong range which doesn't include smaller pocket pairs we're around 40% equity
- his raisesize is unlikely to be a monsterhand (fwiw im already surprised to see TT here, i doubt people do it with QQ+ fwiw, maybe some combo's).

It's not easy to skew this into a range, you can obv try to and start adding handcombo's in pokerstove which is fine. I think it'll add up to around 45-ish% in which case we don't need a lot of fold equity to make up for the 5% equity disadvantage we would be getting it in with.
Still, with his sizing like this, I really think this is a weaker hand vs most villains here. Don't be results oriented you see TT here. YES, i've seen a bunch of people 3bet/fold here! No, this is usually not a hand as strong as TT! I'm not going to be pokerstoving because it will look manipulated with the # of combo's i put in for each hand, but my grasp of a 3bet this size is (when they want to get it in) medium-low pocket pairs (almost never, ever TT+ tbh), or unpaired highcard hands.

Idk how else to explain this fwiw, I could've gone the easy way and say that "this is his range, don't get it in" but getting it in here is going to be best option against almost every villain apart from the nittiest i guess, with these stacksizes and this betsizing because his range is weighed towards non-nut hands.
Std obv, nh.
I wouldn't mind a minraise here fwiw, limping close tbh, it can go either way I guess. Just be prepared to call down with a pair of sixes now imo when it's like 2nd pair on the board on somewhat drawy board.

For some reason, he didn't bet flop, stabbing looks fine. Note that in a limped pot, a 1bb stab will look a hell lot weaker than like - in this case - t70. 1bb just looks like a stab, period. People check, you hit bet to try to take the pot, that's what it looks like, no other excuse. Given that he lead out most of his hands so far in limped pots I don't think it makes any significant difference vs this opponent because he's going to be c/f'ing a ton anyway. Just realize that 1bb get floated/bluffed at more and use it to your advantage (especially if you do it in midgame and like 3 times in a row or something).
Yeah I'd just minraise vs him tbh. Try to steal his blinds, stacks are shallow, so far we have no reason to believe he shoves light over minraise while 12-20bb's shallow so we can try to steal his blinds as much as possible. Once he has a piece of the board postflop he doesn't seem to fold and plays most hands aggressively so try to let him fold preflop before he catches a pair or draw.

Ehm, checking back flop, hmmmz. I think he'll bet turn a decent amount of time once we check flop, he lead/led(?) out a couple of times full pot so he probably is doing it with a somewhat wide range so I figure you have a ton of fold equity when you bet flop and it prevents us from getting bluffed at later on because our hand isn't that easy to bluffcatch with.
What are you doing? Check preflop is fine imo, check on flop as well, on a board like this, I'd probably checkraise tbh and try to take it down. Reason for this is that he bets air/nut kind of hands and checks back his showdown. You trying to let him fold 2x or highcard on turn? Unlikely... This guy will always call you on this turn when he checks back flop imo, ainec. Given that you say he sees you as a "spewtard" and on river you only rep like trip T's I don't see any point in betting here whatsoever, once he checks back flop and this turn comes, just give up.
I would probably limp with this hand fwiw. Either that or openjam which would be ev+ as well unless he has like a perfect callingrange which I doubt.
Reason for limping is that he allows it, and he bets big (if he bets) and J8 flops kind of well and we keep dominated holdings in by limping and he can go broke when we have him outkicked.
If you minraise, stacks are really shallow, and he doesn't have to jam a lot over your minraise to make minraise/fold an ev- move. You need around 42% equity when he jams preflop, and stacks are really shallow so he's going to get it in light. It's still close, probably a fold if he does shove over your minraise here, but minraise/folding 12bb's shallow with a hand like yours is always going to be close and it's kind of hard to estimate his shovingrange at this point of the match. I didn't expect him to flat all that much tbh, especially not with a hand like his.
I usually start using nash around 12-13bb's and J8o is a jam for 13.3bb's so ez all-in here. Minraising just creates really awkward postflop stacksizes as well.

Okay, suppose you indeed minraise, he calls. Ugh... flopbet is fine, smaller than usual though i would just make it 120 here, won't matter that much in fold equity (probably nothing) and we lose less when he actually has a hand.

Turnshove...... Ehm, this guy isn't folding. No way. He's calling any pair here. There's probably even some Qx hands in his range which floated the flop. So in general you will have around 15-20% equity when called so you need him to fold way too much to be good here. He's only folding his draws/random floats really, so just check back, try to hit. You tried to bluff him earlier (and not just this game you said) and he noticed this and he's not folding anything. Betting flop is fine to pick up the pot, shoving turn is imo quite spewy.




















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END OF GAME 1! NEXT GAME IS VS SOMEONE TOTALLY RANDOM DIFFERENT!

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ughehuzgfuizefhezfbhuiqeifobzpfbezfbuqpze
stop betting so big
seriously
i mean it

This is the reason why you should smallball more (definitly smallball at early stages to get a grasp of villain's range. We don't know anything here:
- what's his limping range?
- what's his limp/calling range?
- does he float in position postflop?
- does he turn made hands into bluffs?
- does he bluff busted draws?
- etc etc
All really important stuff we would try and get some reads on in the first stage of the game. Don't get me wrong, I don't mind the preflop raise. I would make it 90 tbh first hand, just to invite him in the pot with weaker hands and get some postflop reads. I would occassionally make it 100 or 110 myself, never more though.

Ok, on flop, why the big bet? This is a serious question. Do you think someone who limp/calls 76o will fold on this flop? No! We have a bluffcatcher vs draws, equitywise, but we will have a ****ty time catching bluffs unless we improve. Just bet half pot, be done with the hand. There's only a very very small percentage of hands/villains that would float with stuff like 22-55 if you bet 100 and fold when you bet 150 imo. Also, when we do improve like here, what's the rest of the plan? Already 1/3 of a stack in the middle when he called our flopbet.

My line would be here to raise 90 preflop, 90 on flop, 200 on turn to get value from JT/QT/QhXh/JhXh/KhXh/Q6/J6 and maybe a stubborn Tx and the pot would still only be around 760 and i had 3 streets of value already then check river and expect it to be checked back a lot with weaker made hands and when he bets I'm probably calling (depending on sizing/timing tell) because most people fail in thin value so they would have nuts/busted draw here.

Again, not being results oriented, but I would just fold this preflop. You just won a big pot and I think villain will shove a very wide range here (or at least 3bet, or never, ever give up postflop when he defends) so just fold pre.
Yeah, just c/f, let him cool off a little. Having a tilted aggro villain is never fun because you're more often gonna have no hand instead of a strong hand.
Meh, you only did one button raise so far so raising to 3bb's now will probably go unnoticed so I don't mind it.
You could opt to stab here oop, but c/f'ing is fine too.
I'd just minraise here fwiw. With these stacksizes you're kind of pushing the edge of raising to 3bb's because that's over 10% of villain's stack and if you're opening wide enough he can jam a bunch of hands here.
Ehm, I don't mind a check back here and check it down. As long as you call when he bets turn because I expect him to stab a decent amount of the time with almost any hand.
This is a call obv, though I would definitly not raise to 3bb's here unless you have a read that he defends a wide range of hands but c/f's a ton of flops.
Pre looks okay, flop fine as well. Ehm, I think leading turn is best option here though. He checks back so he probably has some sort of showdown value or weak draw and the turn is a perfect card for thin value from Ax hands with a diamond or gutshots with a diamond. River sucks a bit to bluffcatch here so I would prolly c/f it once he calls turn but there's a bunch of rivers you can check and he'll check back his AJ with a diamond or similar hand thinking he has showdown and you got some value on turn. Remember that in most cases checking back flop = showdown, and they will usually call one turnbarrel and check back river hoping to win showdown.
Okay, so you changed to minraises pre, great! Any reason for starting to do this vs this villain or just semi-random or...? Would be interested in your thoughts.

Fwiw, I don't really hate a flop check too much here. I would cbet most of the time though, just to pick up the pot and dont become too predictable (no balancing vs fish, I know, but still, betting when hit and no betting when not hit becomes visible to all but the biggest ******s, even over a small sample).
Reason I don't mind a checkback is that he didnt stab his J4dd last time he defended when chance of having showdown value wasn't too big although he would have to be able to handread a bit before he could be able to find that out.

Turn is actually quite an interesting card. I think you can make him fold some better hands (Kx mainly, maybe 3x or low pocket pair), he might also call with worse (worse flushdraw or wheeldraw) from time to time and you will rarely get checkraised here imo. I don't know how well of a handreader this random villain is but you should have Ax a decent amount of the time here. Again, flop/turn check can go either way. A reason for why I may be tempted a little to bet turn is that he will almost always call river if a heart comes.
Sizing looks good, I usually do pot+1bb oop unless I have a reason not to.
Wow, how can you not cbet here? For real... This is like the perfect spot for a semi-bluff cbet and the perfect villain. He doesnt stab much, doesnt seem to aggro and we have 6 clean outs to the nuts. Why would you not bet here? Hoping to check it down and 4-high is good?
Wtf are you doing? Why you defending 82s preflop here oop to a 3bb raise? Even against the dumbest opponents I would probably fold this oop vs a minraise... This just doesn't flop good enough to ever make it profitable...
K so he's a bit pissed because you won last pot I guess. Too deep to consider calling here, even if his range is wide.
Fwiw, he seems really ez postflop so I would minraise here. He just doesnt seem to stab when miss or anything and gives up easily so far.
Why are you potting flop here? He doesnt seem to be stabby/floaty, just cbet like 80 or 100 and be done with the hand. You trying to fold out weaker pairs or draws with not a lot of equity or what? Seems like your bet does that and only that imo... no reason to bet pot, given how you didnt cbet a lot, I think this is actually a spot where fish fold 3x or 4x hands.
Close, given how relatively passive he is when we're not cbetting. I still think I'm betting flop and be done with the hand fwiw, although this opponent doesnt seem to adjust to bet=hit and check=no hit/showdown.

Thing is when you start checking things down too much when not improving, villain can actually very profitable call a very wide range preflop because our openingrange is big enough and he's getting 3-1 on a call pre when we minraise because he will be able to see 5 cards a bunch of the time and will outdraw. Even if he never bluffs...

Thing about random fish is that in general they will defend too wide and will c/f too much flops so a big part of your profit will come from raising and taking down the pot with a cbet. I know these spots are all pretty close but checking back when you think you have showdown is just not the way to win most pots and only really passive villains like this will not exploit this. Especially on a board like this it's not unthinkable villain folds better (A-rag, maybe even bottom pair given our lack of cbetting which he couldve picked up) and calls worse (hands like his, one livecard + fd or something). We will also be able to bluff some cards later on when he calls, or bluffcatch when the turn bricks and river is an offsuit K/Q and he leads out, or improve by hitting one of our (likely) 4 outs (something else to consider when cbetting: improving or being able to bluff on a later street and win a bigger pot).
Pretty close spot imo. Don't see too much fold equity but we barely need any. I expect to see a lot of A-rag and small pocket pairs in his range here, but also like any two broadways and given that this is almost never AQ+/QQ+ shoving is super std and we either flip (pocket pairs), little behind (Ax), or big fave (broadwayz).

done and agree

Can't wait to acually review HH's 1-4 on days off. Spamz0r ftw

sweet! I only got mega-flamed in like 3 or 4 spots.



Since I played those games, I have switched to starting out raising to 2.5x instead of 3x. And to be honest, the spots where you see me switch to minraises, and it looks kinda random...

It really sort of is. I suck really really really bad at doing math on the fly in my head, so I rarely know what the effective stacks actually are, so it's really hard for me to stick to rules about raise sizes.



I'm actually probably going to start minraising instead of 2.5x from the get-go, because I can already tell what a difference the smaller raise size makes in the turbos.

As a bonus, then I don't have to worry about "well ****, should I be 2.5xing here or 2xing?

I also appreciate the comments on cbet sizing a lot. For what it's worth, a lot of the times you see me bet bigger are because of the texture of the board and what I'm trying to rep. For example, the ATx with 2 hearts board, I'm almost positive I intentionally bet bigger because I think most players make a bigger bet when they have the A there. Then again, sometimes I don't really have a reason for my betsize, which I know is a bad thing. After reading this, I'm definitely going to try to focus a lot more on betsizing, and what I'm trying to accomplish.

I'll try to respond to some of the other comments tomorrow. Right now I gotta get to bed.

Thanks so much for doing this!

btw, I told you before you even looked that there was a spot I got super-stupid and flatted OOP with 82s.

lol

I've also heard from a number of people now that I check showdown value way too often. (A high, king high, bottom pairs, etc)

I have what I thought were pretty good reasons for that, but your "they get to see 5 cards all the time, and are getting really good odds to do so" argument pretty much trumps anything my puny brain has come up with, and is something that I think I was on the verge of coming to on my own, given the number of times I check down with AK only to find that the ****er playing J6o OOP to a raise rivered a 6, and would have folded the flop 100% of the time.



Another part of this is that if I'm cbetting A high, I tend not to ever think of it as a value bet, and the "poker betting rules" are pretty firmly entrenched in my brain, so if you're not value betting, then you're bluffing, and I don't like bluffing when I probably have the best hand anyway, but don't think I can get called by many worse. But there are a lot of boards where you can actually value bet ace high and expect to get called by a lot of worse hands. Letting that sink into my brain will probably help a lot too.

fwiw, if you had like AQ on the AT6hh board first hand of 2nd match, i wouldnt mind a bigger bet since his calling/foldingrange will be about the same and he has no idea of our general betsizing so we can only try and maximize our value there
but people just dont fold pieces of the board, ever

about the checking back showdown: also think about the fact that when you check back, you have a decent amount of (possible) outs vs a better hand at that moment
it's not just the fact that you can take down the pot at the flop, but when you get called and have like bottom pair + A kicker or two overs, there's still 5 or 6 cards in the deck that can significantly improve your hand and win a big(ger) pot after cbetting... note that you will hit 5-6 outs (+ maybe some runner straight or flushdraw) around 20-25% of the time when you get to see turn + river which is quite a lot, especially since we're in position and can check back turn whenever we want to

Just read the first game and solid review for sure. The 55 hand is really a puke spot and the extra 50 chips from villain makes me want to jump out the window. If he makes it 300, i insta shove, but extra 50 chips is like urgh.

Not a big difference in shoving/folding though i guess, and i probs shove and cry to spamz over msn after i lose the flip.

Awesome review. Again, so very kind of you to do this.


(Also, if you care, irregardless is not a word. Regardless means what you mean when you say irregardless.)

Spamz, you said it's a bad idea to 3x because "he can shove a really wide range here" (and exploit us). But since the villain was not the type to shove a really wide range, how is that valid (in this game)?


Also, I always lol because you're like "NO REALLY, STOP DOING THIS" like you've been telling the guy over and over for weeks.

You get half points.

Sweet. Does this mean I'm on my way to a prize, say a toaster?

wow spamz, no wonder you crush everything

mmd really looking forward to these reviews - again TYVM !!!

awesome read spam, been looking forward to this

Solid review, as always. Your thought process reminds me why I started to play poker in the first place. Good job

great review. if theres anything i can reitterate its your analysis of limited check back with showdown value on flop situations.. spot on.

Again, thx for doing this Spamz!! One of the most helpful threads in this section of the forum

these reviews are so helpful ty spamz

Just started reading ......but only a quarter way through first game..so just a small coment.......please dont think im having a moan ...but when you review your next one s.. ...... can you go back to putting the hand numbers in like you did on insane steves http://forumserver.twoplustwo.com/58...e-33-a-601215/..............the reason being is that i can be reading for about half a hour and have no idea where i am in the game....its also good for jotting down hands you wanna go back too.....love reading these ...i have allready changed my default pre flop with reading these........when you gonna do a video for HUSNG?

Obviously great as always. Def agree about the earlier comment re 3x being exploitable though. Why do we care about that when he is flatting with j4. Much prefer limping wider and 3x a slightly tighter value range v a donk who still flats all out 3x raises extremely light.

Your betsizing advice post flop seems gold to me though, thought 3/4 pot bet would havr a lot more fold equity than 1/2 pot but since i have changed it seems you are right , the difference is tiny. Great point about 1.25BB getting more folds in limped pots though.

lol +1

Havent read it yet, just dropping by to say thunx and much to spamz0r

Depends a little... in the second game i think villain was slightly frustrated after losing such a big pot early on; note that he jammed the hand afterwards
vs some people 3x later on between 20-30bb's will not be too big a deal, but you have to know for sure that they:
- defend superwide
- c/f a ton of flops
- dont jam over raises too much

just the fact that he jammed over our minraise 2nd hand imo shows that he's unlikely to sit back tight when stacks get shallower; even if it's a somewhat tilty shove, i expect him to do it some more in later spots
also note that the shallower the stacks get, the less likely villains will be to flat (unless theyre braindead), and the more likely to jam
if you're like 1k deep and you raise to t120 then you can expect way more calls instead of jams than if you were only 800-ish deep