This hand is more of a "help me with a mental block" hand than a "did I play the hand correctly?' hand.

Villain in this hand seems like an LP, but a less incompetent one than usual - he coldcalls too much preflop but doesn't seem to make ridiculous plays postflop. He's HJ and I'm BTN in this hand.

4 limpers including HJ. I'm on the BTN with QTo. Too weak to raise, too strong to fold so I call. SB completes, BB checks.

7 players, 7sb. Flop is Q84r. UTG bets, 2 callers and I raise. Blinds fold, UTG and callers call. My plan, obviously, is to get to showdown as cheaply as possible if my hand doesn't improve. If my hand doesn't improve taking the free card on the turn is a no-brainer, and I'm probably calling one bet on the river especially if I close the action.

4 players, 7BB, turn is T putting four suits on the board. Check, check, villain bets and I raise. Checkers fold, villain looks at me astonished and says, "What the hell are you raising???? What the hell do you have?????" I just smile and he calls.

2 players, 11BB, river is a K. Villain looks at me and says, "all right, I check!"

This is an absolute, total, no-brainer bet-call. There are SO many worse hands to get value from here, but for some reason the K spooked me. I checked behind. This is a mental block, I've studied the game and I know it's very very hard for the villain to have me beat and there are a LOT of worse hands he'll call with to get value from in that huge pot. The villain even gave me a tell - yes, it could have been a reverse tell (maybe that's what spooked me) but at 4/8 tables villains are usually honest and transparent with their emotions.

Maybe I should have posted this in the psychology forum - why in the world am I still getting spooked in such easy, inoccuous spots???

Maybe my time away from the live game has affected my perception, but I'll fold this preflop.

I think even in the ultra-nitty advice from Lee Jones, QTo is a call from the button.

About what % of hands do you think you should play from the button after 4 limpers in a loose-passive game?

Oops. Thought we were two off the button. Disregard.

Don't know if you're looking for actual advice here but the one thing I would say is sometimes it's good to take an extra 15 seconds or longer and make sure you're decision is made for the correct reason. LHE is one of those games where I see others (and myself) making decisions too fast. In a situation like this I try and remind myself to take a moment, breathe, and think the situation through.

River definitely a bet. That doesn't mean it's a bet / call.

You're getting spooked because you're thinking of hands that beat you instead of hands you beat. The flop raise is thinner than the turn, you can work out the numbers but a lot of hands like AQ or QJ may show up in his flop range but also Q9 or Q8 or whatever.

In my experience, weak players such as you have described don't try to figure out what other players have until they have a strong hand and encounter someone that is repping a lot of strength. I could be very MUBSY, but I too would proceed with caution at this point. Best case scenario is you are ahead of T8 or chopping the same hand you have, otherwise I think he has J9 or a set.

That said when he just calls the turn raise and checks, I think you have to bet the river.

A long time ago Bill Chen once told me to disregard anything anyone said in the hand, and just follow the logic of their checks, bets, raises, and calls.

Of course, he said this in the middle of a hand, so maybe I was supposed to disregard it.

I like betting this river, and I really don't like folding to a raise.

If I follow you correctly:
Villain limped pre.
Villain called someone else's bet on a flop of Q84r and just called your raise.
Villain donked into you on the turn Ten, then seemed genuinely flustered when you raised again, so he just called.
Villain checked the river with a speech that indicated he was still flustered by your turn raise—and more scared of that than of the King on the river.

There are really only a couple of hands it makes sense for him to have here: T8 and QT, and of those two, T8 is more likely. (I suppose he could also have T4s if he's a really loose player.) The flop doesn't give him a strong enough hand to raise or back-raise, so I eliminate sets and flopped two-pair combos from his range. I suppose he could have pocket Tens, but you have a Ten, so there's only one combo of Tens left—and he might've raised with that hand preflop. When he bet the turn, I thought he had either T8 or J9 (for a straight), but with J9 he would've reraised you—or, if he wanted to be tricky, flat-called more quietly, looking to check-raise you on the river.

In other words, the King changes nothing. He would not play KQ this way (or KT or K8 or K4 for that matter), he would not play KK this way, he would not play AJ this way—and those are the only hands you were ahead of on the turn that could possibly beat you on the river.

You were confident enough in your hand to raise the turn; his response to your raise should have confirmed that you were tied at worst and most likely ahead (actually, I don't think he would've gotten so flustered by your turn raise with a QT; I really think he has T8 here). The river changed nothing, yet your confidence in your hand disappeared.

You want help with a mental block? Work on hand reading, that's my advice.

lol Preflop is debatable. This hand is even worse value at these stakes due to rake and more strong hands in limper ranges.

Flop, your plan should be to get value. Why do you play this hand preflop if you aren't going to bet it down on a clean runout? Yes, most likely cards will come that are dangerous, but you should be betting the river on running 3's for example.

I'm actually a little nervous when a low stakes villain starts talking and dark checking. That could mean some surprisingly strong hands. One hand it definitely doesn't mean is J9. So I'd bet this river. It doesn't really improve anything i'd expect a live 4/8 drooler to have except like KQ.

Advice to you DTXCF: post hands without interstitial thoughts. Your concerns about game flow / live reads / etc are just confounding variables if anything. And if you're so easily thrown at the table, I may recommend wearing headphones while in a hand.

I don't think preflop is debatable.

Hand waiving but I'd rather have hands like Kxs, 22, etc. i think we should have a lot of hands but mostly stuff that can make monsters sometimes versus decent hands more often

I'd fold Q9o without a second thought here, especially with rake considerations. QTo is meh. But probably fine.


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I think Q9o is also a limp from the button according to Lee Jones.

Hands that dominate QT: AQ, KQ, QJ, AT, KT.

What portion of the limper ranges do you think these hands comprise?

I also think you're deeply undervaluing top pair as a "decent made hand."

If we're going to argue ad verecundiam, perhaps we should choose someone more authoritative than Lee Jones? He's a great guy, a total mensch, and his book did turn me into a winner two decades ago, but I think we all agree that his recommendations are, shall we say, flawed.

Being that you checked behind in this case, I guess what you can do is have the Villain show down first (as is your right) which will tell you what his actions meant in this case and make a mental note of it.

OP, you need to be thinking about ranges throughout the hand.

HJ overlimped pre-flop, called a bet and then called a singe button raise on the flop on a Q84 board, donk-called a T on the turn, and checked a K river.

The pre-flop overlimp means he probably doesn't have a big pocket pair, and probably has a bunch of suited hands of various quality, plus all sorts of offsuit connected hands that fish love to play multiway.

He called the flop. He could have a queen in his hand; probably not AQ, as he probably raises that pre-flop. Or an 8, or somewhat less likely a 4. Maybe he could even have a gutshot with or without a backdoor flush-- so let's add JT, J9, and T9. And some fish peel a flop with ace high, so maybe he has Ax as well-- I think every ace has a backdoor straight draw on this board.

He also could have a LOLslowplayed set- 88 or 44. Most fish will raise 2 pair on this flop, though, so let's say he doesn't have that.

Now he donks a T turn. What does that tell us. He could have J9 and got there, or he could have QT or T8 or T4s that have 2 pair. He could have also decided that your flop raise was somehow a free card play, and just have Qx. Or maybe he now has a pair and a straight draw (JT, T9) and figures he has a lot of outs. Or maybe he is donking a set looking to 3-bet

He calls your raise. That means he probably doesn't have J9 or a set, as those hands are likely to 3-bet. So what is left in his range? Well, I would say it is this: QT, T8, T4s, Qx, JT, T9. That's it.

Of that range, only a single hand-- KQ-- is improved on the river. The remainder of his range includes all the weaker Q's, which will call your river bet, T8 or T4s, which will call your river bet, and QT, which you will chop with. JT and T9 might also call because the pot is so big.

You crush his range. This is an obvious bet-call.

+1

It could be that his advice still applies to live 4/8. But we aren't going to be making a ton of $ with one pair in 6+ way limped pots at 4/8 anyway.

If the ultra-nit is limping QTo from the button, then it is certainly wrong to fold it. My choice here was because of the extreme tightness of the WLLH advice pointing in favor of making the call.

Uhhhhhhhhhh..... No. This is very, very, very wrong.

If you can get one pair in every 6+ way limped pot at 4/8, you would make a lot of money. (Edit: Where that pair is a broadway card and your kicker is a broadway card. The value obviously decreases as the pair and kicker go down, but a broadway pair is nothing to scoff at in loose passive games.)

I like all of this, and at the end the bet is obvious, but then you stop your analysis, yet say calling a raise would be obvious as well, which I don't agree with. If you are check-raised, don't you need to seriously reevaluate the other player's range? What hands do you think he could have then?

CR,
Well, while I agree with you that a River Sexy will often be the nuts, this is limit after all and at 14:1 the default play would be to call. Villain dependent of course.
RF

Here is a reasonable way to test this out for yourself:

Pick hand ranges that you believe are "typical" for a loose passive 4/8 game and give hero QTo. Let's just fix it at 5 opponents.

Now pick a dozen "typical" flops where hero flops a pair and determine hero's equity each time. (Maybe fix a T on the flop and deal out two random cards to determine the other two cards.) If you believe hero can play neutral EV postflop (that is, he's on par with his opponents with postflop play, which also ignores the positional advantage), then equity above 16.7% is money in hero's pocket.

The pot's too big. You need a super-strong read in limit hold'em to unload a strong two pair (other than perhaps when there is 4 to a straight or flush out there) getting a billion to one on the river closing the action.

In this case, it would mean "I've played with this guy for 4 years and not once has he ever raised a river that didn't improve his hand" or something. We don't have that here.

Flop raise is probably wrong, turn raise is obvious and river bet is thin but standard given the speech, villain should have mostly kq, aq, sets of you believe his speech

Also I think folding qto preflop is probably better than limp-along