I have 32 hands on villain and he's 31.2/18.8. ATS is 66.7.



At this point, I've played my hand so weakly, I think I might induce a bluff with a check. Wishful thinking?

I fold this most ott pre depending on the BB. there are many issues with cold calling anything not considered strong in the SB.

I would XF river. not very many people take this line as a bluff and he might even value bet AK/AQ

I expect most people to put you on some sort of pair or ace hi that isnt folding

3bet pre or fold.

As played, I agree with Kaos and think you should be XF the river.

looks fine the way you played it

I know you wrote "many issues" and maybe this isn't the place to get into it, but I'm curious about this. Obviously we're OOP and that hurts us. I think I have a hard time understanding when that hurts me more than my hand helps. By that I mean, I think in this spot my hand has equity against villains range.

One thing that I probably discounted too much is what the BB might do. I can't get to my DB right now, but I remember he was pretty nitty, so I wasn't too worried about him making a move.

it depends a little who is bb, but calling pre is probably fine. obv we're miles ahead of this guys button opening range. i think postflop is ok too.

If you're going to play this out of the blinds you have to be 3betting the button, it is not a calling hand really except maybe if everyone else is already in the pot and you're hoping to hit a miracle flop. Maybe if the button is very tight and folds to cbet alot there is a good shout for calling with the intention of cbetting regardless.

BTW what's wrong with taking down the pot by making him fold a worse hand? You're defending your blinds after all.

For me though i don't think i'd be 3betting this too often, unless BTN was particularly FT3B strong, fold preflop in most situations.

As always it depends.

I'd love for you to expand on this. It's unclear to me why I would want to 3bet. Is is it for value or a bluff?

There's nothing "wrong" with making him fold a worse hand, but I tend to think of my plays as either getting money from worse hands and getting better hands to fold. My concern about 3betting is that I'm always looking for a fold from villain, as I think when he calls I've now got a big pot, I'm out of position, and I no longer crush his range. If I'm 3betting solely for a fold, why not do it with a hand that has less value against villains opening range.

Sure. It's a bluff, you basically don't want to be called with that hand and based on his stats you should have some idea of how loosely he is stealing. Even if you don't have stats specifically for stealing you can get a reasonable idea from VPIP and PFR. A decent chunk of your poker winnings must come from taking down dead money, not always to showdown. At the micro stakes i have personally found that there are certain moves that scare your average micro donk player. One of them is the 3bet from the blinds.

You don't want to do this so often villain notices, but you want to do it occasionally and also play your strong hands the same way. It always helps if you've shown down a monster from the blinds too.

For me i don't feel that A rag really has much value out of position like this. You don't really want to do it with complete crap like T6o etc because you don't really have any kind of hope postflop should villain call. It's nice have something that could happen in your favour. The only times i play A rag anywhere on the table currently are:

- To steal the blinds from cut off or button.
- Raise a limper occasionally.
- Limp behind preflop in a multiway.

I keep it relatively simple as most opponents at the micros play their holdings only and not the opponents and a bit of basic theory. I think the reason this is not a bad hand to bluff like this from the blinds with is:

- Most players who have read any kind of poker theory will have read the advice that they should steal the blinds often, alot of players do it. You know that most of the time they are quite wide.
- If you catch an A there is a good chance you are leading. This can get a bit hairy and most of the time i'd be hoping i'd take it down preflop. All you're really trying to avoid here is the button completely owning you with steals.

You have to weigh it up ofcourse, you need to have an idea of how often button folds to your 3 bet vs calling in order to decide whether to keep doing it. Generally against most players at micros you should be leaning on them until they pick up on it and resist. It's also not a terrible idea to actually get called in these situations, but very sparingly, so you don't do it against calling stations. It depolarises your image from "big hands only" in the blinds.

The TLR is: It depends but you don't want to be seen doing the same things all the time in any given scenario so defending the blinds here, betting for value with a strong hand and therefore mixing up your play a little is good. It also keeps things interesting and you may learn a little something about villain such as _always_ folding to 3bets!

Good luck.

When you are in the SB, it is a really bad seat. The BB is a much better seat because if the SB folds, we close the action and get a better price.

When we are SB, we face the possibility of BB squeezing us. This is a good spot for them to do this because BTN range will be really wide and SB would tend to 3b anything good.

Also if they are not that good of players, SB will try calling lots of stuff to defend their blinds against the BTN stealing range (especially true when someone min raises BTN a lot) and that leaves BB with a highly +EV opportunity to squeeze BTN+SB.

Another downside is that when you call in SB, you give BB decent odds to complete in BB and crack anything you have. Which isn't good.

And furthermore, you have bad relative position when BB does call (and will profitably with a wide range)

This means, that when the pot get checked through, as it often does, the PFR will cbet and you will be sandwiched between BTN and BB and have no idea what BB will do.

So you have limited information in a MW pot and are always going to be OOP if you put any more money in the pot.


I don't like calling river, seriously guys.

Even he his bluffs some %, you not think the amount he can value bet thinly since we rep so very little of hands, more than makes up for those bluffs.

He could value bet ace hi, but most people dont go that far, but he for sure could bet a lot pairs, and it doesn't look like we are folding.

from my experience, most players are considered passive and we shouldn't be too worried about him taking us off ace hi otr

i would not call river, but i think he has air or something weak too

3betting this every day of the week and twice on Sunday. Deffo not afraid of the Bb squeezing us here. It's 4nl for crying out loud. I also don't rly see the merits in calling a suited ace oop. Even against btn were going to whiff the flop the majority of the time and end up folding to his cbet or double barrel.

not gonna read all that.

I would 3bet this OOP all the time, top of my folding range imo.

Flop and turn are fine, c/c, lead would be pretty atrocious

I dont think many villains are capable of thinking but the river is such an obvious spot where he can vbet thinly and no one is folding that I think its probably a fold.