Hero for sure a nitty losing image and down 800. Pretty card dead again (like most of july) and lost most hands I was involved in. Mostly because of raising big trying to isolate limpers or because of a lot of straddled pots and always going multiway and whiffing on bad boards. Stack 900

Villain 1 is an extremely loose recreational almost calling any 2 always wanting to see a flop. Stack around 400

Villain 2 is also pretty loose but not even close to V1. Has also a hard time folding pre. The guy that thinks he knows a lot about poker and likes to talk about e.g. blockers or ranges on the table but has no clue in reality.
Stack around 2k

5 handed because 4 people are away from the table.

V1 limps, hero raises 25 otb with A2, sb (nitty old man so nitty that it is like he is not even there), V2 calls in the bb, V1 calls

Flop (80) JJT
check check, hero bets 25, only V2 calls

Turn (130) JJT9
check check

River (130) JJT93
V2 leads 55, hero?

fold pre, check the flop, fold the river.

If you are going to barrel with air, I'd size up to half pot. You aren't going to fold a T for that price.

River, is player dependent. You said he was loose pre. Does he have a fold button post, that you think you want to push him off a T? I am assuming you aren't putting him on any straights or boats given this being a thread?

I don't get why people always refer to small bets as "weak". e.g., "you got yourself into this situation because your flop bet was weak". Are you betting bigger with strong hands and smaller with weak hands?

I didn't say weak, nor did I imply it. Merely if my goal is to barrel with Ace high, the point of it is to get the middle or worse of V's range to fold here. We have no draws other than a backdoor straight with a 4 liner.

I don't have an issue with taking a shot, but I don't think a 25% shot folds out even some of the underpairs V might call one time. If his goal was to fire flop and check turn, I am pretty ready to fold here on the river unless I think I can bluff this guy. Too many players are just stations that might put you on the flush, but then just "got to see it" with their straight or trips, or even top pair *vomits*

I personally am ready to fire 3 bullets, or check flop depending on the read, but as H played it, river seems like a fold, with a blind read when it comes to post flop.

Usually I wouldnt open A2o but 5 handed vs V2s range I thought it cant be that bad. I guess I tried to force things and a little bit tilt was involved. I would also write fold pre if I saw this thread. And afterwards it seems stupid that I was even in this spot.

No but bigger as a bluff and bigger for value. I get what you mean but the bet felt weak in that moment like a T or 9 or maybe an underpair that didnt know what to do. And when playing live most players tend to bet bigger with strong hands and smaller with weaker hands.

I didnt want to triple barrel. I thought stabbing once wins the pot often. Yes he has a fold button. AP I thought I could credibly rep bd diamonds

On JJT stabbing once is probably the nut low number of times to stab. It's a board that many hands will graze but few will hit hard enough to want to play for stacks.

Zero barrels is fine. You missed and it hit your opponents' ranges fairly well.

Two barrels is a somewhat reasonable plan depending on turn card. Loose players will take a card off with lots of gutshots, even as crappy as 87, or something like A9s with a BDFD.

Three barrels might be as bad as one depending on the runout. If they call flop and turn here, they probably like their hand enough to call a river. Since you're representing a jack or overpair (i.e. two pair) after your turn bet, they seem to be willing to play against that range. Even so, occasionally it may work.

But one barrel -- the best that can be said is, it folds out low pocket pairs, very low connectors, and random big-little hands like K3s. But with two loose opponents, it's almost guaranteed one will like this flop enough to see a turn. Cbet then give up is just burning money.

Ya wasnt sure if I can bet otf but thought 1/3 is fine trying to push their equity out. V2 could even have 62o. Before he called my lp raise of 30 after 2 limpers with T2s in the sb.
Plan wasnt to stab once and give. I mean it depends a lot on how the board develops. I thought about bd diamonds I could try to rep and would also check back turn.

Otr we raised to 190. Now I think its too small but thought if I make it too big it looks bluffy.

Thoughts on the raise and the sizing?

I think we gotta give up on this board with 3 other players in the pot. In a 4-way pot on this board it’s just too likely that someone has something.

3 ways or heads up I’d be more open to thinking about continuing.

this. A2o is not an open OTB when folded to, let alone over a limper.

you aren't folding any pairs on the flop, nor many ace highs even, betting the flop is real bad especially if we're only doing it once. Villain can easily have trips, boat, straight, etc. Raising river represents next to nothing, maybe a backdoored flush a tiny percent of the time, or quads.

I think it's really bad and you just decided you were winning this pot, instead of thinking about ranges

it was 3way. Hero, v1 and v2

I agree with everything

I'll bet in tough games everyone loves sitting two seats to your left. If you're confident there's a hand with an ace that you should fold on the button with no limpers, it sounds like you're stealing basically never and just raising a range that you might raise from other positions. Great! In a tough game everyone should love a button that won't play the button.

Not that it matters much because we should all be looking for better games anyway in live small-stakes, but in other contexts this would be a substantial leak instead of a trivial one.

With the limper it's much more interesting preflop. I still think iso is fine because they're extremely wide, one can infer they play not-great postflop, and they're going to miss 2/3 of the flops anyway. You should probably raise like 40 or 50% here if the blinds will let you get away with it.

It's your button! Cards don't matter -- actually they matter a little bit, but not much against this player type.

Yeah, I also agree with most here. Pre is a fold. Flop is a check. And River is a fold. Most of your flushes bet turn so the Ad blocker isnt that relavant especially considering villain isnt even repping Ad. Seems like one of those plays you run when you've been card dead for a while lol. I also feel its one of those where villains value range on river might be too sticky. Since at worst they have like QT so they may talk themselves into a call with T and straight blockers.

With respect to the preflop talk. Everyone knows that limpers do not fold too often and limped pots often go multiway. A2o plays horribly postflop esp. multiway so it's not the best hand to have, particularly on 200bb. Raising 98o is honestly more +EV imo and I still wouldnt advise it.

Totally agree. Most charts have any ace as a standard open when folded to on the button. You're welcome to disagree with the charts, or argue that OP should deviate from the charts for other reasons, but when you confidently say "A2o is not an open OTB" it doesn't sound like you are even aware that it's pretty standard.

I would fold river, think the rest of the hand is ok.

Pre- or post-? They fold all the time postflop, because the crap they're playing often misses the flop or fails to improve on later streets.

It really doesn't on the button against wide ranges. We're not at a monstrous postflop skill disadvantage. If kicker domination seems like a risk after the flop, we can adjust our plan accordingly. When ranges are this wide, ace hands aren't that big a proportion of our opponent's range.

Agreed. It would be best to raise enough to isolate, not invite the blinds in. It's probably better to fold this than limp it, although it's close if we can play aggressively postflop.

Deep stacks favor skill and position. We probably have both here.

I'm not being glib to say cards hardly matter. They matter a little because we occasionally take this hand to showdown with some checking rounds along the way. (Sometimes we win with ace-high against a passive busted draw.) Most of the time, if we get it HU against this limper, we're not going to showdown. What matters is not getting our frequencies so out of whack that even bad players figure out what we're doing.

It's probably not, but if your frequencies are good here (over 40%) the marginal hand selections don't much matter. You're not adding 72o or T3o to your range, so I don't much care whether it's A2o or 98o or J4s.

I meant preflop.

I don't think widening your range because you have a postflop skill advantage is all that valuable without understanding where that advantage comes. The problem with A2o (esp. deep) is you do not get in as many situations postflop where you can use your postflop advantage. Lots of board turn out like this one in which your showdown equity is much greater than your equity/nut potential thus barreling does not make as much sense unless you have specific exploits you are targeting.

I agree that kicker domination isn't as big a factor as in 3b pots for example, but that does not really matter. A2o isn't a hand that is likely to drive 3 streets of value. In a normal cash game, A2o is not an open on the btn whereas 98o is. Being 200bb deep and likely to go postflop, 98o would be preferred even more.

How profitable do you think the raise is here? +1bb, +0.1bb? I often think people over-exaggerate their ability to return a profit in these scenarios.

This is true. It's not as good in that way as K2s or JTo or 64s. This is somewhat compensated by the tiny bit of showdown and top-pair equity, which is easiest to realize against a presumed passive opponent. (If the limper is weirdly LAGgy then it gets tougher.)

But we should be playing all of those for a raise in this situation, especially if we can get it HU. I just made up the 40% number, but A2o is near the cusp of a 40% range. Something in that range has got to be the marginal hand

If you're folding both A2o and 98o and playing 35% instead of 40% here, it might not even be a leak. If you're playing a 20% range and folding hands like A7, QT, and J8s in this spot, you're paying a huge opportunity cost.


Yes. I was referring to specific fit-or-foldishness that I identify in my $1-3 population, and that Ed Miller refers to in the Las Vegas $2-5 population. I infer this is characteristic of many $2-5 games, especially with only one loose limper before the button.

If we can barrel "too frequently" and they don't adjust, then we should absolutely make that exploitative adjustment. The only concern is that doing it every time is too obvious and trains our opponents to play better.

You say you have a nitty, and losing, image this session.

That is not a good combo for you to start bluffing with at low limits (or maybe any limit)...I've found that bluffs are much more likely to fail when I'm stuck. Same with other players. Not sure if they're giving off tells, just making picking poor bluffing choices, or the other players smell blood.

A2o doesn’t make it into a gto opening range, and that’s ignoring the limper which should tighten us up. I give up on this flop, rarely getting by both and being forced to barrel with very little equity to win is not my idea of a good time

Wtf people saying A2o isn’t an open on the button?!? Even over 1 limper, this is still an open

Rest of the hand is kind of whatever. JJT does hit your range but there are 4 people in the hand and you have a crap image. The cbet is ok, checking is ok because of previously stated. Not really looking to do much OTR because of image

Seems dubious but I'll take your word for it. Regardless, this seems to be a forum about beating live small-stakes games. GTO's useful as a baseline to identify our opponents' deviations so we can exploit them relentlessly. That's about it.