Hey all,

I built my roll up at NL2 and I was having a go at playing NL5 on stars. I have read pokeys thread advising that you should play your same game at the new level, but I am having trouble being 3 bet from the blinds when I am in the CO or on the BTN with hands of weak-medium to medium strength.

My question is, am I playing these situations right?

Villain is 27/16 over 61 hands. The hands occurred in this order, a couple of orbits apart.




Here my hand feels too weak, so I let it go.




Here my hand feels too strong to fold pre, but a horror flop means I can't continue when he leads at it. Should I 4-bet pre to fold out his hands like KQs, KJo, At, AJs etc?

I'm not getting the odds to set mine, but I can continue on flops like Jxx, Qxx etc?

Thanks in advance

His 3bet sizing is a bit big so you might not even have set mining odds in hand 2. I used to struggle with this too and one thing I will say is don't worry about it; I used to try flat ridiculous hands because I felt I was folding too much to 3bets but there's enough money in the micros to not have to worry about fighting back against these guys all that often.

Don't 4bet bluff 99, it's an awful hand to do it. The A5s hand would be a better hand to 4bet bluff as you have a blocker but 4bet bluffing really is not necessary at NL5 so I wouldn't advise doing it anyways. If you are getting 3bet a ton just narrow your stealing range against these guys, also make sure you get a decent sample size before you do start trying to play back as they might just be on a heater.

What you do is largely going to be read specific. Giving villain profile or stats would help a lot in the decisions. It would also help to give an idea of your table image at the time. If you're multi-tabling, sometimes you might feel like you are getting 3bet a lot, but it's actually that you are getting 3bet from multiple people. There is a big difference if one person keeps 3betting you or multiple people occasionally 3bet you.

On the first hand, I would probably fold. If I thought the BB might be a good LAG, sometimes I like to 4bet with junk like this the first time I get 3bet just to see what they do and kind of set the tone for the table dynamics. If he shoves, he knows that you can 4bet fold and that can be used to your advantage later against certain player types.

That second hand, he probably isn't raising you too lightly considering you were first to open and have position, but once again, it depends on who the player is. I will say, on that flop, he made a big cbet. Not knowing anything about the player, it looks like he is pushing you off the hand. He is either crushing this flop or he hates it. I wonder why if he is crushing that he is leading out so big? You should be watching the table and try to get reads on how people play their monsters and how they play their bluffs and how far they carry on with them. Information like that will allow you to get better input here and make better decisions.

*edit* just noticed you had given the villain's stats. I somehow overlooked that the first time. Those are kind of reg'ish stats. Given that, on the second hand I would call at least one street because he definitely will bluff that flop. I would call there with any hand I would continue with. I wouldn't be raising monsters or marginal hands like yours. Considering it's a 3bet pot, I bet he doesn't go too crazy and double barrel bluff the turn. I would fold to another bet, but a lot of times he will take one stab and give up.

^^ +1. In general I would go with his advice. Folding is not a big mistake in either hand.

What is the villain's 3bet percentage? How often is he restealing from blinds%? If it is below 4% and 15% respectively, you should fold Pre to the resteal. The villain could just be on a heater.

If you have a good image at the table, and if you have a read that he is donk betting with trash on the flop and he can fold against you. Then, b/f the flop w/ the 99 to $2.50. That flop clearly hits your range, and the villain will fold a lot of his mid to low pocket pairs and drawing hands that he would donk bet with since he has the initiative. c/f the turn.

I can give further stats, but the sample size is extremely small.

I don't have any specific reads on him so far.
He is positionally aware (higher VPIP from LP than EP, seems pretty reggish?).
He is 18/9 out of the BB.

He has folded BB to steal 33% of the time (1/3).

This is the only hand I have seen him take to showdown (and it's from the BB),

Vill is BB




I would say I am tight for 6max in general, dependent who is in the blinds etc if trying to iso a fish but my starting hand selection even on the BTN is pretty strict.

I've shown down two big hands, a set of tens vs KT where I got it all in on the flop and QQ on a board with all unders. No big bluffs, I have generally only fired on barrel with AK that miss without significant draws (i.e. gut shot with AKo).

I guess I should have raised his donk in H2 because he the AK falls well into my tighter range.


I'm trying to get more out of my PT3, how do you find a players 3bet? Is it on the general tab?

I guess the 'exploitation' of his large 3bets OOP would be to flat with a premium (so the SPR is good enough to get it in OTF) or 4 bet call it off (depending if he will stack off pre)?

I am single tabling at the moment, I was 6-tabling 2NL but I really want to increase my skill and try and beat NL5. I took a shot and ran at -3BB/100 earlier over a couple of thousand hands.
Really trying to work on my poker education and then add in an extra table (to increase volume) once I know I can sustain some kind of win rate.

I don't know how to use PT3, there is a software forum on 2+2 for that. 3bet% is a nice stat. It looks like you don't have much stats on whether he is out of line with restealing from blinds.

So, just play the hand straightforward. If he is getting out of line, check out this thread from earlier this week:

http://forumserver.twoplustwo.com/69...eg-bb-1214031/

Use the search button and look for how to counter aggressive BB's and stuff like that. There is probably a sticky on this somewhere.