Hand 1

Vilain here looks like the typical MAWG recreational player. He has been seeing a few flops and has raised in a couple of instances in late position. I dont have too much info as we have only played around 1h so far.

Rec $15 CO. H SB $50($600eff) QJ. Rec calls.

Flop ($103) 866. checks through.
(Not the greatest flop, I could cbet but I expect to have very little fold equity vs his range on this flop and dont feel great about double or tripple barreling paired boards).

Turn ($103)5 H $70, rec $140, H call. weird line by villain, I guess he could have 88 but unlikely, I think he almost always has 99,TT, JJ here who checked back flop and now try to protect their equity, and vs this range we are getting a good price with FD + over

River ($383). Q. H checks. Thoughts on donk betting?


Hand 2

Villain in this hand likes to open alot of hands preflop. I ve seen him put pressure on players when checked too, but also value bet very thin on the river sometimes. He has a somewhat decent understanding of the game but does overplay hands sometimes. SB VPIPS around 50% of hands but isnt important to the hand.

Tag/Lag $15 MP, SB call, Hero QJ $65 BB. Only tag calls ($600 eff).

Flop ($145) TJ8. H check call $75.
I could bet here to get value from AQ, T9, AT, KT, KQ KQs, but I decided to mix it up and check/call the flop. I was expecting him to bet a high % of the time if I checked to him.

Turn ($295). 3. H check call $150.

River ($595) 3. Hero check, Villain bets AI $275.

Thoughts on all streets?

These were two hands where I 3bet QJss OOP vs two different villain types. What do you think of the hand selection for 3beting in this spot, how would you construct your range in these two different spots. Keep in mind that in hand 1 I dont really like flatting a 5x from CO OOP with a hand like QJss.

I don't like 3betting from OOP with this hand -- I'm not big on it at all unless I have someone constantly bombing my SB/BB.

Hand 1: After checking flop, I check/call turn. Got a little equity. I guess calling the raise is OK, but I'm not thrilled with it. I check/evaluate river because I just don't know what this guy has and most rec players won't bluff river here w/ worse than QJ. I might call if it's small enough. I hate having to bet/fold here for how much it would cost, and I don't think he's folding better.

Hand 2: Bet the flop -- I might even check/raise vs this player. As played, I can't fold the river.

OK so I just saw your other post re. squeezing QJo. I think QJs is a much better hand and, against the right opponents opening from late position I'm happy flatting OOP with it, particularly 200bb deep.

You cause yourself problems by 3betting a big suited connector hand like QJs when you don't know what villain's 3bet flatting range is. You potentially isolate yourself against hands that dominate you so you can't rely on pair value postflop. But you cold just be facing TT- and only have to fear sets when you pair the board - you just don't know so you're going to have to make some postflop mistakes.

If you just flat the $15 you face a $30 flop pot and have $585 behind, nearly an SPR of 20 to 1. That should give you plenty of options to play draws aggressively and/or deviously even OOP. Furthermore you have enough space to work out if your 1-pair hands are good or not.

When you 3bet you face a $100+ flop pot with $550 and SPR of 5 to 1. Now you can't gauge your 1pair hands' relative strength and you have less fold equity, lower implied odds and can't draw cheaply becuase the pot is so big.

Something else I've been thinking about recently is cognitive dissonance and fold equity. I'm thinking now that once players call a 3bet, even with a wide range, they are less likely to give up postflop than in a 2 bet pot. This is a bit contrary to my previous assumption that players are mostly more fit/fold in 3bet pots. I think that a lot of players actually force themselves to continue more in 3bet pots because of sunk costs and a need to resolve the dissonance caused by being a "good player" who just called a 3bet with a bad hand. They (and I'm guilty of this too) tell themselves that if they are a good player they must try their best to win the 3bet pot and thereby justify the dodgy call preflop and prevent it becoming a bad mark against their record of poker greatness.

Long story short, I'm less convinced of the postflop fold equity present in 3bet pots than I used to be so I maybe 3bet a little less for that reason unless I know a particular V is hilariously foldy in 3bet pots. I don't routinely 3bet light thinking I can easily steal postflop when they call. I need preflop fold equity to carry almost the entire weight of making the bluff 3bet profitable.


On the specifics of the hands as played from flop:

Hand 1: X/F flop, X/C turn and X/decide river.

Hand 2: X/C all the way vs bluffy villain, keep his range as wide as possible and give him every impression you're only one more bet away from folding.

H1:

I think I'd lean towards just calling preflop. If he's been opening a lot of hands in LP and cbetting, I'm not just calling to hit my hand; I might consider floating the flop OOP and then firing a river bluff if he checks behind on the turn. Just not a fan of bloating the pot here OOP, especially as Villain might get sticky preflop being in position.

As played, I would cbet smallish on this flop with hopes of folding out Ax/Kx/etc. hands that are better than ours but have whiffed.

On the turn I guess we have to call thanks to getting over 4:1, but man it is kinda a sucky situation given that it's possible all our flush outs ain't clean (and we could possibly even be drawing dead).

Would a river donk be a blocking bet attempting to set our own price? I guess that might work since on a paired board it's unlikely anything other than a fullhouse will raise in a big pot.

Overall, I'm just not in love with the fact that here we are on the river playing a hugenormous pot OOP with an extremely weak hand.

GcluelessNLnoobG

H2:

If I'm looking to get fancy, I'd again just flat preflop here. We'll get a good idea of where the SB is at after the Villain's flop cbet and can make floating decisions UI then, all the while keeping the pot smaller OOP against what looks like perhaps a decent player.

If he's going to bet a high percentage of the time when checked to, I"m pretty cool with check/calling the flop.

Turn/River are obviously tough calls OOP to this Villain, who can put us in very tough spots, but we kinda knew that was going to happen from the get go.

I'm also not in love with just flatting preflop in both cases. Honestly, we probably could just nit fold both times (OOP against difficult players, mediocre speculative hand which may or may not be ahead) and it wouldn't be too bad. But I'm really not in love with building huge pots OOP with tricky hands to difficult players. So if we're not folding, I would take the lesser of two evils and just flat and go from there.

GbutI'mextremelynitty/passivelikethatG

+1 to all of this, and interesting thoughts on how people seem to be much more likely to go to the wall in 3bet pots than 2bet pots (and I've definitely seen instances of this)

GcluelessNLnoobG