Reads: He seems like a newbie type player who doesn't seem to understand some poker concepts. He's about 50, asian, and is fairly loose pre flop. He has bluffed, and he once c-bet AK after he missed heads up, then check/called turn and river to fairly large bets. The board was Q8683 and his AK was good. He has a c-bet frequency of near 100%. Has made some bad call downs (except for his AK).

Folds to villain in the CO who limps. I complete my SB with Q10, BB checks.

Flop comes Q76. I lead for $6, BB makes it $20. Villain and I flat. Pot is $66 and $80 effective against BB and $125 against Villain.

Turn is the J. Checks to villain who bets $40. I shove.

Good line?

Fold to the flop raise

I figure I could flat the BB without committing, to see what he does on the turn. In other words, I'm not quite shallow enough where if I flat his $20 I'm pot committed.

Then, on the turn, my whole plan changed. BB is no longer the threat, the button is.

Pre flop it folds to co...but on the flop utg raises your bet....(if utg has no cards it has to be a bluff )

No stacks mentions...but pots are effective..diffrent sizes...does that mean someone all in..or is that effective stacks..the more I read this hand the more confused i get..

Assuming UTG limped pre flop..then raises on this board ...without a read on utg its and easy fold....if you were deepish with villain...it might be a raise preflop to isolate and build a pot against the loose player...

Sorry, there was no UTG player.

3 players involved: SB (me), BB, and button. It was a limped pot and on the turn, there was $66 in the pot. BB had $80 left, I had $125 left, and button covered us.

You just described V as basically a bad player, but now, this player is leading the turn. Are you good here? Maybe. If you aren't though, you are about to get crushed, because a player like this isn't good enough to fold any 2 pair.

If you are going to stay in, just call. Personally, I'd fold to the 20 on the flop. When bad players start putting in 1/3rd of their stack, it usually means they have something good.

Better to put the starting Stacks at the start of the hand, easier, and I think you confused the BB with UTG, on the stacks, because you said BB folds, and UTG raised.

In any case, you've got top pair, you lead out and got raised to $20, and V just flats.
Then a pretty blank turn card, J, doesn't complete any straights or flush, and V leads for 40. So your read is that V is a pretty wet fish, personally I would never shove here, and don't see how it can be the right move. I guess you really wanted to isolate the fish, but I don't like it in this spot, are you putting UTG mostly on the flush or straight draw?

What range do you put V on here? You putting him on some strong J? Why not just call him down?

I range him at something like QJ, Q10, Q9, Q8, turned two pair with the Jack (less likely than the Q-X hands), flush draws, straight draws, and a small chance of a flopped two pair. I'm in decent shape against this range, maybe even a favorite.

fold pre. fold flop. spew.

you're folding pre with a decently big 1 gap suited connector in the small blind with no raise pre????

I will do an in depth mathematical analysis later. First I'll make some assumptions I think are reasonable, then I'll range them, then I'll find the EV.

Still a fold when OOP to the raise and no redraw

No, this is not really a good line.

Your play is exploitable on a number of different levels.
1. You get too attached to your top pair hands, even the crappy ones. Top pair is an OK hand, it's not a "good" hand.
2. (related) You play poor starting hands out of position unskillfully. Someone said "fold pre." I don't know that I would go that far; but clearly, if you're going to play marginal hands OOP, you gotta learn when to skeedaddle.
3. (related) you're a calling station.

I know this seems frustrating. You're probably thinking, "you don't know the half of it." And right now you probably seem a little overwhelmed by all the stuff you have to know to be a good poker player. So let me make a simple conceptual suggestion.

Right now, you're probably thinking that, in order to win at poker, you gotta win a lot of pots. That is not correct.

You job is to win large pots, and lose small pots.

Makes things a lot simpler. Among other things, if you're winning large pots, you don't have to win so many to make a profit. You can -- and should! -- pick your battles.

You could have lost this pot after investing merely $7. It would have been easy as pie to say, shoot all I have is this TPBK hand and that bozo in the BB probably just hooked up his 67o and so I'm outa here. Next thing you know, you will be using your hand-reading and bet-sizing skills to beat the daylights out of that fishy villain. When the time is right. And not one minute before.

Easy game. Just don't forget to lose those little pots.

You'd be better off raising this pre than completing it.

Based on the read he does seem like he kind of doesn't know what he is doing and could easily have a hand like Q8o or Q2s or something like that. He did raise before the flop earlier with AKo so I would assume that he would be open raising AQ, KQ, and QJ pre from late position. It really does seem like BB has some kind of draw after he checks the turn. Although it's painful I probably just fold. You probably get shown KQ or QJ quite often there.

The big problem in this hand is you at in a 3 way pot and you have basically turned TPGK into a bluff. You are rarely folding out better and when you are called u are crushed. Doesn't make much sense. Also agree with the below.

Quote:
You could have lost this pot after investing merely $7. It would have been easy as pie to say, shoot all I have is this TPBK hand and that bozo in the BB probably just hooked up his 67o and so I'm outa here. Next thing you know, you will be using your hand-reading and bet-sizing skills to beat the daylights out of that fishy villain. When the time is right. And not one minute before.

I'd need more of a read to believe you're in a good spot to go broke with any top pair in a limped pot. But I would fold the flop since BB raised (we assume he's decent?) and your villain called.

Preflop is fine.

No idea why anyone would debate the preflop play, this is a trivial completion.

I don't really see how your read gives you reason to play this so strongly. Absent any relevant read, you can safely assume your hand is rarely good on the flop. Plus, it's even more difficult to be good on the river, and you're facing bad reverse implied odds. Therefore, fold the flop. As played, the turn is much closer to a fold than a push.

That might be true (I personally disagree but it's close) but either are much better than folding. You might need a SB nittery intervention; I thought I hated playing OOP more than anyone else on this forum, but I've clearly met my match here.

I agree with the consensus that postflop is a mess: fold flop, fold turn

Grunch:

I don't like your line at all, soup to nuts.

IMO, raise or fold pre. I raise to $16-20.

IMO, if you're going to limp and see a flop, then b/f the flop for $20-25 (which is huge compared to the pot, I know, and I don't care). If anyone wants to continue on from there, then I shut down and see the river as cheap as possible.

IMO, fold to the flop raise.

IMO, jamming the turn as played is spew.

Why are either of these options better than calling?

Huh?

Good discussion so far. A little more on my reads:

BB is a player I've taken off of two pots recently (one was a bluff). The button seems like a bad hand reader. He is also very aggro, although he's shown he can fold. He raises pre flop to $5-$7 about 30% of the time. He has shown 2-X (where the X was not another deuce) after raising to $6 UTG. I know the X wasn't a deuce because he folded to a flop shove on a 10 6 2 rainbow flop, showing the 2.

i don't mind you completing with QT on the SB. Raising is good here (but problematic as well, you're OOP with a hand that can be dominated...a drawing hand in reality) also but completing isn't so bad as long as you're ready to fold this hand on the flop and after if you encounter pressure/resistance.

Since you're OOP, I'd fold to the flop re-raise and wait for a better spot to stack villain...and you know they'll offer it up if you're patient for the right spot.

The limp is fine, why would we want to swell a pot OOP with a decent suited one gap. The idea is to make a big hand not go broke with a weak top pair.

Time for a mathematical analysis. First let's create some assumptions:

1. BB's range is far more likely to be draws, weaker queens, or bluffs than 2-pair+. With less than a PSB left and a safe turn, he'd likely shove with 2 pair+. We'll say his range is 15% 2-pair+, 85% draws or weaker queens. Furthermore, let's assume he folds the draws/queens to a turn check/raise and never folds 2-pair +.

2. Button has 65% semi bluffs with a draw/weaker queen, 35% stronger queens and flopped two pair/sets. He'll call with combo draws, two-pair+, and folds naked draws and weaker queens. Let's also split that 65% into 20% weaker queens, 20% naked draws, 25% combo draws.

Next we'll list the possible outcomes w/ their probabilities.

1. BB calls and button calls. Probability is .15*.6 = 9%

2. BB calls and button folds. Probability is .15*.4 = 6%

3. BB folds and button calls. Probability is .85*.6 = 51%

4. BB folds and button folds. Probability is .85*.4 = 34%

Notice it adds up to exactly 100%, so we have literally every possible thing that could happen taken into account.

Next ranges...but PHEW I'm mentally exhausted. I'll continue this later. In the meantime, feel free to comment on my assumptions above. Note also that at this point in time I have no idea whether the math will say a shove is profitable or not given those assumptions.