Hey people,

Longtime lurker, first time poster. I've been playing live poker for almost 3 years now, have gone through spurts of playing and studying seriously, and just recently started putting a lot of time in again.

I've read that posting hands here can really help my game, so here is my first post, hopefully I can learn something!

I'm fairly certain I made some mistakes throughout this hand, hopefully some responses can give me further clarification.

Hero: Late 20s, white male. My table image should be mostly ABC at this point in the night. Have been playing about 4 hours with villain, no previous history.

Villain: Middle aged asian male. I view him as somewhat LAG, certainly not a maniac, but is willing to take pokes and put pressure on when shown weakness. Definitely one of the better players at my table.

Blinds $2/$3
Hero has ~$270, Villain covers
Folds to Hero who limps in MP with 66
Villain raises to $12 on button
Folds to Hero who calls

Flop ($24) : 6910

Hero checks, Villain bets $20, Hero raises to $50, Villain calls

Turn ($124) : Q

Hero bets $70, Villain shoves all in, Hero ???


I have a lot of thoughts about the hand that I didn't include in the summary, would prefer to hear what other people think first.

If there are decent players behind you, then don't open limp in MP as they will view this as weak, and look to isolate you. If you start limp calling with this and speculative hands against good players you'll be check folding a lot and be bleeding money. Unless of course you like making it harder to win the money's playing 1/2?????? (Too many fish to play pots with better players).......With weak passives I don't mind the open limp here.

Flop, I like a lead here as a check raise looks much stronger on a semi dry flop. It will give V a chance to raise if he thinks your donking much weaker.

As played, raise more; $65-$70

River I think I find a fold here. We check raised flop and lead turn and he still jams? Looks like QQ or a slow played set over set. Giving him that range based on you saying he is not a maniac, and pretty decent. He should realize you're not folding with the line you've taken.

Given that V is on the button he could possibly have flopped a straight or have J8 in his hand, but i'm not folding a set here because i'm a donk. Too easy that he can have AT or J9. If he has the goods then i personally pay him off.


T9 QT Q9 T9 etc are all in his range. As are hands like Q8 which flopped a double gutter.

His bet on the flop is a standard C-bet and with stack sizes on the turn after your raise i can see him just jamming any 2 pair hands as well as hands better than yours.

If we put him on purely a hand that beats us then it's an easy fold but if we include just a few combos of Q9-Q8 etc then it becomes a lot closer.

Well I took op's description of V to factor in being very aware of our line and his perceived range of us which is weighted towards hands that yes you included jn V's range but I think competent V's will assign US that range more as we l/c pre and he is still jamming. OP said he is not a maniac, and I don't thinks good lag is going to jam on us I this spot when we really have no FE. Perhaps my range for V is a bit too tight, and we started <100 bigs so I could GII here but not feel as confident as other random similar spots against worse Villians. Just bink river I guess.

I was because you described a river jam. There is no river...

Lol whoops. Turn is what I meant obv.

If Villain's range is all straights (and there's lots of combos of straights): 78, J8, KJ, all sets 99/TT/QQ and top two pair QT you have a very +EV call.

So I think it's pretty hard to fold here.

$85 on flop, call turn

Crying call. This feels a lot like JK, but there's enough Q10/Q9/109 in his range to make this a must-call.

Yeah... with his image, I think I go more like 4-5x his flop bet, $80-100 for sure. The board is sorta connected so I want more money into the pot on the flop - that way when the Q comes on the turn you didn't let him hit a stupid draw for free.

And then on the turn...

*looks down, sees set of 6s, pushes chips into the middle and pulls hat down over face*

I think he has 910, Q10, Q9 like a billion times out of a billion and 1 here. If you make it $80-100 on the flop you can rule out JK and then just worry about another set (whatever ship ittttt) or if he has 78? That sucks too, but I am never folding my 6s on that flop being scared of a set or 78, so why am I folding to the Q on the turn?

He is a LAG raising on the button, his range is huge, you beat like 70% of what he has here

Need to know his late position opening range to help you any.

In a vacuum, if he is only raising straights (good possibility). We are making small mistake by calling.

If 10% of his range is 2 pair, or pair plus draw hand (QJ). Then we are plus +EV with call.

Preflop, I'd raise if I was first in. I hate open-limping unless there is an absolute maniac that I'm planning on 3-betting. I don't like being OOP without initiative. Oversimplifying but if you're betting/raising, you have two ways to win (best hand or get folds), if you're calling you only have one way to win (with the best hand).

AP, flop check-raise is fine since a 4th straight card can come and kill your action. Maybe a little bigger like $60 but whatever. With 100 BB and a set, we should be looking to build the pot and stack off most of the time. On the turn, your sizing is good. Call the raise. If he has a straight, you have outs. If he has a higher set, oh well, good game. You beat AA, KK, 2 pair hands (T9, QT).

Completely agree with this and it is one of the things I was thinking about after my session today. Previously, my game was to raise in spots like these, but I got some advice that limping small pocket pairs can be profitable because you get to see the flop for really cheap a lot of time. I thought this sounded good, but I realized I'm giving so much information about my hand away to good players behind me.

Maybe over limping can be ok in some situations, but from now on I'll definitely be opening a lot of my pocket pairs for the reasons you guys listed.

I definitely agree with this now looking back. Raising to $80-$100 rather than $50 prices out draws and sets up an easy shove for me on most (all?) turns. Do you think the Q is one of them?

Either way, only raising to $50 allows him to correctly call with so many hands and keeps his range fairly wide.

I'd say this is close to the range I was putting him on at the time, but I still wasn't sure on the math and if it was correct to call. I might throw a couple other two pair combos, such as 9T and Q9 in there as well.

I ended up calling and Villain showed J8, I didn't bink river.

Curious though, let's say I played this exact same hand my next session, but this time I'm raising to $12 preflop and Villain is calling. Is the hand playing out any differently or is this just a cooler? I'd see myself betting near pot sized on flop and turn before getting raised. I would probably have to shove on turn if raised in this spot against described villain?

I'm cool with the open limp. I'm just hoping this encourages a very multiway limped pot where we can setmine.

Calling the preflop raise isn't automatic. We're going to be HU OOP, which is not a good combination for setmining. Plus we're up against a laggy guy, whose opening range is wide, thus it's not as if he's always going to have AA here and stack off (i.e. he's going to whiff the flop lots and we'll only win one cbet off him when we hit, which won't make up for the times we'll have to fold to his cbet when we whiff). The only good thing is that we're putting in a small percentage of our stack (< 5%) which gives us good implied odds in a $$$-sense. But that might not be enough to make calling preflop profitable. In the end, he's described as one of the better players at the table, which means we need to fold in this case, imo.

The board isn't that drawy so I guess I don't hate the smallish raise and trying to get stacks in over 3 streets. If the boards was drawyier I'd probably raise more and try to get stacks in over 2 streets. It's also possible I might just donk/donk/donk each street (hoping Villain to play back at me). In the end, it's simply going to be difficult getting a good player to stack off here with a worse hand no matter which route we take.

As played on the turn, we just have to get it in. We flopped a set in a lowish SPR pot and turn isn't horrendous looking; it's still possible he has two pair, TPTK, or picked up a draw and is pushing that.

GcluelessNLnoobG

Really have to be careful with this idea of "never limping" as it really is table dependent. A lot of these tables are very loose, which means a preflop raise has very low FE and all you do is go 5 way to a bloated flop OOP, which ain't great with almost any hand. And a lot of these tables are quite passive, which means you can get into a pot for cheap with a good speculative hand (like small pairs) and then make your money postflop if you hit. The more you play, the more you'll figure out how your table plays and whether open limping might be a play you should consider.

Also, if there are "good players" behind you, then seat change.

GcluelessNLnoobG

Thanks for the replies gobbledygeek!

Your "1000 hours at 1/3 NL from a clueless noob" thread is one I've studied and learned a lot from, and probably also had some influence on me wanting to limp small pocket pairs more often.

I guess the decision on whether to limp or raise with a small pocket pair depends on a lot of other factors than just our position and the action in front of us.

I also know that you are a big advocate of playing against worse players as much as possible and avoiding players who we recognize as good players. (obviously I agree with this) However, would you agree that if I'm limping it takes a large amount of hands out of my range immediately and good players will recognize that and take advantage of it?

Basically I'm never open limping from MP with strong hands (TT - AA, AK, AQ) so villain can immediately remove those hands from my range and play accordingly. I feel like this can make me so much more exploitable and make make it worth the raise. I also recognize that this can put you in a ****ty spot if called out of position and heads up, because it will be difficult to win the pot versus an aggressive player without a very good board for us.

I also think raising is much more viable if I'm at a table that I'm very unlikely to get re-raised, which is almost every table I'm playing at.

^^^^

Well, some will say that in order to disguise the strength of your hand you should raise a wider range. But, as I say, raising 66 only to see a 5way flop (whether you get reraised or not) is just a waste of time. If you're in LP with 0/1 limpers, sure, raise away; but in MP at a loose table, it's not great.

If you're worried about disguising your hand, another option to consider at a more difficult, deeper, and aggro table, and especially at tables where you will have difficulty setting up an SPR where you are comfortable stacking off to postflop, is to not raise at all (including your monsters).

But in the end it all comes down to stack sizes, position, difficultness of opponents, looseness/tightness of table, etc.

GcluelessNLnoobG

After thinking about it more, I think the limp/call pre is ok. It might not be optimal, but it certainly isn't terrible or a huge mistake/leak.

My biggest mistake in this hand was raising so small on the flop. Raising to 80 or 85 prices out draws and sets me up for a shove on the turn, which I think I should be doing on almost all turn cards after making the pot that big.

Thanks for the replies guys, and if anyone else has anything important to add that hasn't been said I'd love to hear it.

Sounds like you are getting the idea. Basically I just really didn't like your bet sizing, however it does look weak and it could of allowed villan to be extra aggressive. I also don't recommend folding ever especially after looking so weak.