There are three hands from tonights session that I think I definitely could have played better. One in particular I think I missed a lot of value. I'm going to post them all in separate threads so nothing gets lost. All 3 involve the same 2 villains. I'd like your opinion.

Main participants:

Hero: Mid 20's white guy, seems pretty TAG, maybe even nitty tonight as I don't think I've seen so many Q5 or J5's in one session in my life. Have taken down a few pots, but nothing significant. Probably have a winning image and seem like someone who knows the game.

V1: Mid 30's white guy. Sort of drunk, but not crazy. Seems to understand the game, bet sizing, odds, etc. Doesn't limp often, but likes to throw out small bets preflop ($8-$10). Seems to be able to play post-flop, but we haven't been playing too long. He certainly understands position. He just changed seats from 4 to 3.

V2: New to the table, though I've played with him once before. Confident, but I'm not sure if he really gets the game. Limps a lot, and makes a lot of $10 bets preflop, with a lot of $10 bets on the flop and turn as well (I didn't notice this during our first hand, as he hadn't been there for an entire orbit yet. He's in hands from all over, so not a big positional player. I have seen him fold to a re-raise after one of his continuation bets.

Table opened up about an hour ago, and V1 has been there the entire time. V2 came later. Not a lot of action during the first hour or so of playing, a lot of limping. $1-$3 NLHE.

Hand 1:

MP random calls the blind.
V1 ($280): Raises to $8 in cut-off.
V2 ($300): Calls on the button.
Hero ($320): Raises to isolate to $25 from small blind with AJ

MP rando folds.
V1 folds.
V2 thinks for a minute, calls.

Flop ($69): 8 J 9

Hero: C-bets $35.
V2: Thinks, calls.

Turn ($140): 4

Hero: Asks how much V2 has (he was covering his chips and I couldn't see them), see's that we're about even (I wasn't trying to level, I honestly just wanted to see what he had because there were like 3 other people at the table who min-bought for around $100, couldn't remember if he had at this point). I lead out for $80.

V2: Insta-shoves for the rest of his stack.

Hero: ???

I don't have a lot of history with this guy, so I don't really know what to expect. I put him on K9s+, and pocket 2's-10's. Any two broadways maybe (10-Js, QJs). But after three smooth calls, then a shove on the turn has me a little confused.

Thoughts?

call, he's super wide, we are getting around 2:1 and have more than enough equity Vs the top of his range.

PF I would make it a bit more, around 30-35 and bigger OTF aswell.

^ Really? Dude goes to the felt wide, huh? Super sick read, dude.

OTTH:

You're pot committed at this point. You need to think about whether leading the flop and leading the turn is the best line. Think about what hands you're repping with that line, and how this villain might play against that perceived range.

What did you expect villain to do after you led the turn?

What range were you repping when you bet the flop?

I mentioned this in your other thread but you have big bet sizing leaks. Why are you betting so small on the flop? Stop betting half pot. Also raise bigger pre if you are going to 3!

And finally, if you don't know how to react to a bet when you get raised, it's better to check.

Maybe "super wide" isn't the exact description of his range, but he's not exactly polarized. Given the circumstances (stack sizes, equity, pot odds, villain).... Easy call AP...

I take it you don't take into account the rake when sizing your bets? The size of the pot is actually $64 before the rake. Where I play, the pot woulda' been $57 after the rake. So, his $35 bet was ~61.5% of the pot. Still not enough?

I could understand not taking the rake into account, since a good % of your Vs don't.

I'm basing it off the "Flop ($69)." Even if it is $57, I'm still betting $40-45.

This is a great terrible flop for our hand. It's a very wet board, V can easily have a big hand, but H has top pair and NFD.

First, $25 pre flop 'to ISO' from the SB is a terrible idea. Action was raised to $8 and button called. $25 is way too small to take this down with no flop, and AJs is a mediocre hand to play OOP. In this case, you got lucky and hit the flop pretty hard but of your options preflop, raising to $25 is among the worst choice.
Folding would be fine. Just calling would be fine. Raising more would be fine. But $25 just bloats the pot and you'll be OOP the entire hand.

Also, jettison the idea that you can ISO a player effectively when you're OOP. Raising to ISO players, in general, doesn't work nearly as much as fancy players think it does. But, more important, being that you'll be OOP, you're going to have trouble.

OTF: you hit the flop hard but it's a very dangerous flop. Bet bigger. I'd bet at least $50, and possibly $60 here. With TPTK and NFD, I'd be willing to GII on this flop, so I'd size bigger.

OTT: meaningless card, changed nothing. V called a raise preflop, then called a 3! He also called a flop bet. He has a hand. I don't know if I check for pot control or bet here. If I bet, then I'm prepared to GII if he raises. OTT, I'd be asking myself: do I want to see a cheap river? Then check and call a reasonable bet. Am I willing to ship it? Then bet.
But, before just blindly betting, ask self, am I ready to put all my chips in the pot? Bc I think bet/fold on this turn is a pretty terrible option. Me, I don't know if I bet or check here. Would depend a lot of my feel for the moment. Maybe check, planning to call a reasonable bet. But, keep in mind I would have bet a lot bigger on the flop, which might make this decision easier.

QT and T7 have you beat. If those hands are in Vs range, then so is J9, J8, 98s. V could be aggressive with JT, T9, T8. V could also have a set, though many players would raise a set on the flop. It's possible V has QQ+ and played it funny.

As played, if I have the math right: pot is about $480 and you have to call $180, so you're getting about 2.5 to 1. The price ain't great. If V could be pushing a hand like JT (top pair and OESD), then against his range, it's a call.

That H could be ahead of a lot of hands that can ship the turn combined with having the NFD to fall back on makes this a call, but it's thin, and I don't think that this hand was played very well on any street.

Really? 'Splain it to me; what makes folding fine? Depending who you ask, AJ suited is roughly the 12th best holding, out of 169 (I think). You're folding this to a standard positional raise because why?

It seems like V2 thinks he's better than he really is and could be making a move here. We have about 25% equity so we're not quite getting the right price, but still I think it's a call. Had we checked, which is a viable option here, and he still shoved it's too pricy and sadly a fold. But his shove over your raise doesn't make a ton of sense. 88/99/2 pairs are probably raising otf (especially over your weak ass bet). So is JJ, though it's blocked. Perhaps asking him how much he had left before you bet triggered some sort of bravado reflex where he's thinking "Wondering how much I have? Well here you go bitch."

If he turned a set of fours I think he'd check raise. And who knows, he could just have a pair+FD or pair+SD or naked draw and think you're full of it since the 4 changes nothing. Or he's spewy in this spot like his limps preflop are.

However, you avoid tough spots like this by, if you choose to raise in the first place, making it 35-40 preflop. If you don't do that then bet 50-55 otf. If you do both (use correct bet sizing pre and otf), SPRs would be smaller on the turn and the decision is much easier.

I would have flatted pre and c/r this flop.

You don't want to bloat pots OOP w AJ. Not to mention you are likely folding out dominated aces.

AP bet more OTF.

AP, I'm still happy b/c'ing turn with TPTK + NFD.

Thanks for the replies.

In hindsight, I agree that both the prefop and river bet shoud have been bigger, but at the time the table was sort of nitty, a lot of callers and small raises. The $25, I thinik, was the biggest preflop move in the game. It worked out this time, but I can see now how that easily could have went wrong if MP or VI called, then the pot is just bloated, not isolated, and me holding AsJs.

I'm still getting comfortable with my bet sizes, so I guess I'm a little confused on why there are so many suggestions for a bigger bet on the flop? By doing 1/2 pot, aren't I still giving him enough equity to call with a worse hand? Granted, I don't think I'd be able to get get him to fold a better hand with that bet. Is this why?

I also agrree that the turn bet should have been bigger, as it would have given me better value to call a shove and make the decision easier.

I'll post the results below, but I'd really like to know the rationale behind the bigger bet on the flop.

Results:

Before you bet, there was $65 in the pot and $275 in the effective stack. So that's $330 total he might possibly win and you're only charging him $35. He's gonna call with his entire range, an easy decision, and then he has another easy decision on the turn because the pot is still relatively small (SPR).

You're not threatening his stack, you're not making the hand hard to play, and you're not gaining any information about his overall intent. You're inviting him to float, essentially. I disagree with your critics, because I don't think that's a bad thing. I agree it's a bit small, but I wouldn't call it a clear error.

I tend to do the same thing because I want action with my monsters, but the correct line is to apply a reasonable amount of pressure and make him work for it.

Wow you got lucky there. I don't think he played it well, as that's quite a wet flop and he should be raising his strong made hand for protection/to balance when he's raising with draws.

The reason for a bigger bet on the flop is that it offers worse pot odds to flush/straight draws. The smaller the bet we make on the flop, the more correct/profitable it is for them to call and chase their draw. Of course, sometimes they have the implied odds that justify a call despite the direct odds not being correct, we exploit them here by correctly detecting and folding to their made flushes.

Worse jacks might also continue when they put you on overcards or a flush draw. In fact, a sticky opponent might even continue with middle pair if putting you on that same range. Besides charging draws, bigger bets get more value from worse hands that simply don't fold. People are quite stationy in these low limits. They might not be calling just to keep you honest/float, but because they genuinely believe their TP bad kicker is good. If you're a limit player you're more used to being sationy because the odds you're being offered are more often correct. In NL though, we can take the stations to value town by betting bigger.

I definitely got lucky with the board pairing. He played it so passively, I had a tough time pinning what he had down.

Thanks for the info on bet sizes. Maybe I'm so used to seeing such terribly small sized bets and extreme overbets that I'm falling into that trap too. It seems like most bets in the games I'm at are 1/2 or lower or 2x or higher.

Hero had sick equity and it's hard to get away if villain shoves the flop; just cards vs. cards. This is like Vanessa Selbst's AJ vs. Dan Shak's T9; if villain raises the flop, where is hero going?

You're right, folding would be very weak. The only reason folding might be ok is bc our position is so bad, and while AJs has a lot of value, esp in late position, it's not always going to play well post flop OOP.
A late position player raises, button calls. Our AJ can easily be up against hands like AQ, KQ, TT, QQ. We're in good shape but if we flop an A or a J, it's not a lock, and we may have trouble getting value. Also, if we flop a draw, we will have trouble controlling the price and then getting paid when we hit.

I'm not MUBSY, but AJ is often a dominated hand against a raise and being out of position compounds the problem. In a full ring game, depending on who opens, I fold AJo to a raise (depending on opponents, I sometimes 3 bet, sometimes flat, too, but my default is to not play AJ against a raise). I probably should fold AJo in early position, but I tend to mix up limping with it and raising with it. AJs is definitely a stronger hand, so in position, I'd be very likely to call a small open with it. My issue here is our position.

In an actual game, I'd snap call w this hand from the BB after someone makes it $8 preflop, but, given position, folding would be a relatively small mistake. I think raising to $25 is a relatively big mistake.

I know you're not advocating raising to $25. But, my issues with three betting here: 1) if we get raised, we have to fold. AJs is not strong enough to take more heat. 2) if we get called, we're OOP, and are probably going to have to hit the flop hard to take it down. 3) we create such a big SPR that options get limited. 4) with a hand that has potential to make the nut flush, we don't mind a wider field of opponents to pay us off when we hit. We'd either like to be heads up bc of our high card value or multiway with the NFD. I think this hand plays worst against 2-3 people. It plays very well HU and very well against more opponents. I'm not saying it's not a profitable hand against 2-3 opponents, just that think it's more profitable against either more or fewer.

I don't have the necessary data about defending the BB against a raise with AJs to support whether calling or folding is better, but, I'd guess that most players average a small loss with this hand when calling a raise from the BB, just bc position is so important. Three betting this hand with proper sizing probably shows a small profit.

I fall back on Harrington's advice, p. 166 of HoCG: pairs, aces, two high cards, and suited connectors. Whenever it'll be easy to see the IO or RIO on the flop.

I generally restrict the aces to suited aces and the broadway to suited broadway. And of course it's villain dependent.

H1:

I might just prefer to see a flop here since we are OOP and will most likely end up 4way with a nice multiway hand, plus a hand where we could be dominating other Ax hands and don't necessarily want to blow them out of the pot preflop. If we are going to attempt to go after the dead money, I would raise a *lot* more (say like $35) and thus be a lot more happy stacking off postflop with TP.

Kinda weird spot on the flop since we have a couple of conflicting properties, in that with TPTK and the nut draw we don't necessarily have to look to build a big pot and play for stacks until we want to, but at the same time thanks to preflop we've created a small SPR of 4 (where stacks are now in play). I'd probably just PSB/PSB for stacks at this point.

To me, it's as if you haven't thought thru the ramifications of this SPR. Your bet on the turn will create a pot of $300 and we'll only have $160 left for the river. You need to be aware that any betting on this flop creates commitment (which we should probably be fine with, although honestly not 100% stoked about on this board if we don't hit our draw, but it's unavoidable due to our preflop raise).

GcluelessNLnoobG

I think villain played his hand perfectly. GII OTF you are never ahead and always flipping vs ranges and he has position. He saw a safe turn where he can shove and GII good vs a wider range. If villain shoved flop he's actually behind isn't he? I think so. He can safely fold on a spade and lots of turn cards that destroy his hand.

I call pre because we are oop, and have a hand that plays well multiway. We flopped like top 3% of flops and we are still having questions on how to play it. A 3bet with a hand as strong as AJss isn't great because we are often dominated vs continuing ranges instead of dominating ourselves.

AP we price ourselves in with b/f turn line. But if villains are aggressive I could even c/r this flop happily to GII. Betting bigger OTF is good too, lots of worse hands/draws can call.