I've decided to play 2-3 nl at the local casino for one max buy in per session $300. Both these hands happened in the first orbits of both sessions. Any and all thoughts are appreciated.


Hand #6 of session, all players have $250+ at table, 9 handed.
Stack sizes:
Hero BB: $300
UTG:$400
UTG+1:$255
UTG+2:300

Preflop: Hero is BB with AQ (4 players)
UTG Straddles to $6, UTG+1 calls $6, UTG+2 call $6, 5 players fold, Hero raises to $23, UTG calls $17, UTG+1 calls $17, UTG+2 calls $17.

Flop: ($92) A 7 4
Hero bets $60, UTG folds, UTG+1 raise to $232 and is all-in, UTG+2 folds, Hero calls $172.

Turn:8
River:2

Final board: A 7 4 8 2

UTG: showed AA

Turns out I was drawing dead.


Hand #4 of next session exactly one week later. I buy-in for 300 again, and all stacks at table are 300+, 9 handed.

UTG:$800
UTG+1:$500
(Hero) HJ:$300
BTN: $1100

Preflop: Hero is HJ with AA
UTG raises to $9, UTG+1 calls, Hero raises to $30, BTN calls $30, UTG calls $21, UTG+1 calls $21.

Flop:$125 K Q 7 (4 players)
UTG checks, UTG+1 checks, Hero bets $60, BTN folds, UTG raises all-in for $800, UTG+1 folds, Hero calls $210 and is all in.

Turn:8
River:4

Final board: K Q 7 8 4

UTG: shows 9 5 for flush and wins the pot.


Thanks for any thoughts/comments. Could I have folded? raised diff? played diff?

The first hand is not really a cooler. Generally when the bet goes from 60 to 232, one pair is not going to be good. Given no real read on opponent, I would just give V credit for the only information I have, which is size of bet, and fold. If I gain information later, I may be able to decide whether or not it was a good fold.

The second hand is a cooler, we got 10% of stacks in preflop, and ended up with a SPR of approximately 2. Granted, this is a multiway SPR of 2, not HU, however, we do have the nut flush draw and a wet board. After our bet and the raise, we have 245 in the pot, and 210 left, approximately the direct odds we need to draw, IF we are behind. Well played.

Thanks for the reply Buster. I felt like I was behind in the first hand, but i'm trying to work on the proper range play (maybe i should practice this at a lower limit for my roll). I reasoned that he could have a flush draw or A8-AJ. I felt that he had a set or maybe AK but how do I fold to that range, even though I felt like I should. He cold-called the straddle of $6 then cold-called my raise to $23. I reasoned AK,44,77, are the only hands I lose to, maybe A4s,A7s.


The A on the board changes things as well.


edit: I'm not trying to make the proper play range wise alone.

In hand #1 I agree that unless the villain is super aggressive and you have a weak image, he has you dominated 95% of the time. Stop to think of how many hands he will do this with that you're ahead of and how many you're behind (I'm working on this).

Second hand again, you have to put your villain on 2pair or better with his action. You are blocking the nut flush draw, where if you weren't one possible villain holding would be AK with the Ac. Since you're blocking that, you are either drawing to 11 outs if he has 2 pair or set, or you're drawing to 7 outs if he has a made flush. There are more combos of the 2 pair / sets if you put villain on a tight 3 bet calling range but it seems like a very loose game so it would be more 50/50. So split it down the middle and say you have 9 outs, requiring roughly 36% equity. This is roughly the pot odds (33%) so it's a close call but you have to recognize you're behind on the flop in that spot. I think the decision comes down to player reads, if they're a tighter player they will show up with way more non flush hands giving you more outs, especially since the top 3 Broadway are blocked. Like for me a tight player only has JTs, J9s, T9s, 98s, 87s for 5 combos compared to 36 combos of 2 pair or set.

Neither is a cooler. In hand 2, you're mostly against a made flush. You're getting 1.88:1 and only have 7 outs to hit your hand. Bad call.

Interesting, thanks for the replies and different perspectives. Funny thing that the correct(precise) play seems to be fold both when I thought both were coolers.

I used to make close folds like this all the time when I first started playing live poker and played way above my bankroll, maybe I need to re-adjust my game a bit.

You would have got much more sensible answers if you hadn't posted the results... Both of these hands are tough beats here, the 2nd is pretty sick... The 1St you can maybe out down, but honestly, not really....
The villan in hand one limp, calls pre-flop, no way any person on this forum puts ak or aa in his range.... He could have sets, on the flop, but on a drawy board I'd happily stack our hand vs this villan given the pre-flop action, and the fact it's only 100bb.... If we had some reads then maybe we can fold, but vs unknown I don't think so...
The 2nd hand, we have an over pair and the nut flush draw.. 100bb deep there is no possible way you can fold.....
I think your raise sizing pre should be bigger on both hands, but honestly you didn't play either of these hands horribly, and anyone who says otherwise is just reading the results...

But flop #1 is actually extremely dry. No I'm not putting AA in villains range but AK is easily a cold call hand at this level. So with his line I'm putting him on AK, 77, 44, and even A7s which beat us. AJ/AT are the only hands we are ahead of only if the villain is Fishy so I would weight these pretty low. The only draw is 56s and most of these games they will play passively instead of jamming it in...

Agreed on my pre-flop raise sizing, especially hand #2.

I felt I should be raising 4x after the first hand AQ(session) at this particular casino, then I don't follow through on the next session(dissapointing when you learn but don't apply). Also with the stack sizes in hand #2, my re-raise should definately be bigger. With the BTN's call I think both players will still probably call but atleast I would have charged them more.

Both hands are fine. H1 you may be able to find a fold as some players will never fire huge bluffs (and even fewer are going to be raising a worse hand for value) But calling AQ is correct in theory, so if you don't have that read, calling is fine.

Your preflop sizing seems small, in a live game I'll generally raise more than pot because people are calling larger raises anyway and (at lower stakes) rarely playing back by 3betting wider. H1 I'd go $35. H2 I'd be 3betting to $35-40 (3x+calls) because sometimes I'll be squeezing, sometimes I'll have a hand like KQ or even JJ that doesn't have crushing equity and want to have a chance to win the 8bb pot outright. If you're almost never 3betting, not concerned about that balance and are just trying to entice loose calls with specifically AA, $30 is fine.

Show me a villan that limp calls ak from ep, and I'll show you a fish who we should 100% call down with tp2ndk.... OK maybe that's an over simplification, but you get the idea....
There is a bunch of diamond hands villan can be going crazy with here, 56 is possible also, 58dd, 35dd, 36dd, bunch of kxdd and qxdd.... As well as worse aces.....

If you regularly fold that spot for 100bb I would suggest you are playing very exploitably, and whilst I'm not to worried about that in general, I think this is a spot we should be maintaining our calling range.

Op I hope we are taking notes on our villains. H1 we have a limp/call with AA.

Hand 2 we have a utg open and 3! Defend with 56.

Also notable is that In neither case was anyone "making a move".

As for the post... one hand per post, no results in op will yield far better feedback.

As for the hands, I like slightly larger opens over multiple callers in the straddled pot.

I like a bigger 3! In hand 2.

This is possibly supported by the number of callers in each hand in your game.

H1 I need evidence v will play draws this aggressively to stack off here tbh. This seems like a cooler only because v showed up with the unlikely AA. Had he flopped middle set it would seem more standard.

H2 start by recognizing this is a pretty poor flop for our hand. We block the nfd and most AK, the board blocks most reasonable remaining FDs. There are 2 Broadway's, its multiway. It's not exactly wa/wb but we are mostly only seeking value from AK (6) KoJs (3) random Kx (there should be only a few KJs KTs) maybe (2) AoJs. We are behind KQ (9), KK (3), QQ (3), 77 (3), flopped flushes (5 or so depending on calling ranges pf ).

We have the nfd and there are really few naked spades out. We block broadway draws so gssd combos are lessened. So we aren't giving up much even if we gave a free card here mostly 2 and 3 outers. Given this specific flop and our blocker multiway I don't hate a flop check tbh. It also puts some flop checks that can call a bet in our range.

When we do choose to bet, betting flop on the smaller side as we did was good as we are again targeting a likely small number of relatively weak hands and betting an amount that loses them makes it a bad bet. So our flop sizing is fine.

When we are raised holding the nfd blocker on this board we are mostly hoping that QoJs or KoJs called our 3! Pre And decided to x/r ai on this flop. Since people tend to call more with suited hands esp in a 3! Pot and since semibluffing into the 3 bettor who has the nuts, top and middle sets and TPTK+nfd in his range with less than a nut draw is probably unwise. The shoves we are ahead of are mostly those in the 5% or so of spazz we typically expect.

Note that this changes significantly when we hold two red Aces for example or on something like KsTh7s.

It's hard to flop flushes so that's unlucky. But think about what you are seeking value from, what hands can actually call and what hands are consistent with villains action. And yeah we haz AA with the nfd 100 bb deep so stacking off will never seem too bad.



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Yep.

I don't think I fold either hand but when j play 1/3 It's in a super loose room where id good in both hands most of the time.

Your raise to $23 in the first hand is too small.

Hand 2 is fine - and you could fold flop depending on who raised. Reads of players is pretty important in live poker.

I agree with raise sizes also

agree that both hands are coolers, but you need to raise bigger preflop

H#6:

Our preflop raise is way too small, imo. It gives all our opponents 20+ IO. With all this straddled dead money in the pot and being OOP, taking it down preflop ain't a bad result with A high, and otherwise I'd like to offer poor IO and setup a trivial stack off situation postflop with TP. I'd probably go $40ish preflop.

Here's why we have to go larger. The SPR is now < 3 and the board is drawy and we have TP2K. It's highly unlikey we're going to be able to get away from our hand. If were not going to be able to get away from our hand, we can't offer good IO preflop. As played, I just PSB the flop to setup a turn shove. Not in love with our sizing as this 2/3 PSB commits us but leaves a PSB behind for what could be an ugly turn; I'd rather get in more on this street when likely ahead. I also call the shove.

Oddly played hand by Villain, although his slowplay preflop did manage to get our chips (I would have folded to a limp/reraise).

GcluelessNLnoobG

H#4:

Again, preflop has the same problem as H#6. When we 3bet with these types of hands with this stack size, we'll setup a super small SPR where we won't be able to fold postflop if we flop TP/overpair. So if we won't be able to fold postflop, we can't give good IO preflop. Here we gave pretty decent IO of about 17+. I would have 3bet to $50 preflop to give poor IO of ~8.

This flop we actually don't mind dragging out over multiple streets since everyone is drawing so thin (if no one has outflopped us), as our overpair is probably good and otherwise we have the nut draw to back us up. I'm cooler with the smaller betting here to try to get some value over multiple streets. Also calling the shove.

In both cases, you can't fold postflop, so if you're setting up this situation preflop, then you have to make sure to give your opponents worse IO by raising larger.

GimoG

Throw nx raise sizing out the window, imo, it's meaningless. All that matters is the stacks behind and the IO you are giving your opponents. I usually like to give my opponents poor ~8:1 IO if I'm not going to be able to fold my hand postflop (and I don't think you should have folded either of these hands postflop given the very small SPR), so simply raise accordingly.

GimoG

Grunch...

H1: Look to at least 5x your opens after a limper or two.
You didn't need to bet that much on the flop.
You could've found a fold.

H2: Your 3bets should generally be at least 4x in position after an open and a call.
You should've bet less on the flop, or possibly checked. You're not looking to get three streets on a monotone flop with aces.
You could've found a fold.

Makes sense. How are you calculating IO preflop?

As I say, if I'm not going to be able to fold postflop, then I typically like to give poor IO of ~8:1 (mostly so that setminers ain't gonna make any money off of me cuz that's right around their odds, minus the times I don't stack off with like KK to their set on a Ace high flop, or the times I resuck out on them for stacks).

So just do some math.

In first hand, there is about $20 in the pot and we have a $300 stack (let's assume this will be the effective stack as there are those who cover us). So an opponent can win $320, therefore I divide that by 8, which = $40, therefore I raise $40 on top of the $6 for a total of $46. We don't have to be exact, so $40-$45 or whatever is in the general ballpark.

Ditto for the second hand. Again there's about $20 in the pot and we'll assume our stack of $300 is the effective stack, for $320. Divide that by 8, that's $40. So raise that on top of the $9, for $49. Again, don't have to be exact, but anything in the $45-$50 range is going to be in the ballpark.

If you think offering 8:1 odds is too conservative, then feel free to bump it up to like 10:1 (where the math is even easier as it is just moving a decimal point) or whatever. But offering like ~20:1 IO is just way too much if we're unlikely to be able to fold postflop (which we probably shouldn't in these small SPR pots), and starts making your opponents loose preflop calls profitable, imo.

GcluelessNLnoobG

Thanks, I appreciate the math. Definitely going to try to be more aware of preflop sizing and IO going foward.

Raising an absurd amount just to avoid giving an opponent correct implied odds to set mine is absurd. You are giving up so much value from weak hands that are drawing nearly dead. Also you can just not pay off your whole stack when someone who is folding 90% of hands while watching movies on his tablet wakes up and raises turn

Really the best defense against set mining is having a pfr range that includes non-premiums. If people are calling 5bb pre and check folding flop 7/8ths of the time you are printing money.