$2/5. Not a great game. On the RTM.

V is a MAWG playing a lot of hands, opening most for $15. Likes to bet at boards with any piece. Weird sizing. Likes to make his overpairs look like weak c bets and stabs on turn.

Hero has a TAG losing image. Made some bad c bets for 2/3PSB that I had to showdown.
HH1
$600 Effective. 8 handed

Tightish old guy lumps EP, Hero opens AQ UTG to $25, 2 semi-loose old guys call, EP limper calls.

($96) flop:KQ7

Utg checks, hero? Plan?

HH2 6 handed $600eff.

Hero raises QQ UTG, V calls, loose old guy calls, BB calls.

*plan was to l/rr V with all my big hands but I was distracted here and instinctively open raised.

($75) flop:K94

Hero checks?, V bets $50, loose old guy calls, folds back to hero who?

Hand 1: little confused on position but, 2nd pair, top kicker, no draw: bet/fold $60. Give them a chance to fold. You have some equity,meant take any heat.
Hand 2: fold. You checked, there's a bet and a call. One of them has a king and in could get expensive to get to showdown. You'd need a Q or heart to improve OTT, and w heart, then you're still drawing and only to second nut flush. Just fold.

Hand 1 bet flop and often bet a blank turn as there are so many draws, probably depends on timing tells of their flop call.

Hand 2: $50 into $75 is a big bet in a live game to rec players (dont often see it with a draw or second pair) and he gets a call to so I think I just fold as one of them most likely have a king. You have Qh which blocks combo draws such as QhTh and QhJh which could be making such bets so I think its just a fold.

Hand 1:
I bet flop like 45 here. Calling ranges pre are not likely to have a lot of Kx here (and if they do have a lot of Kx, then they have waaayyy more worse hands that they're not folding here). Fold if raised. What you do on the turn really depends on how many/which players call. If only utg calls, then I almost always bet turn, if others call it's a tougher spot. If you bet flop, you should lean towards betting turn, since that's where you're really pushing equity against draws and punishing villains for loose flop calls.

Check flop/bet turn on bricks is also a good line to take, but I think it's less +ev than betting flop and turn.

Hand 2:
I think we're going to get a very accurate idea of V's hand strength on the turn, which inclines me to call, but I think with a bet and a call it's just too likely that one of the villains has a K at this point, and the hands that both villains can have, have decent equity against us. I think the best play is fold.

This. in hand 1, given our image, I think we'll get flats from worse Qs often and even TT/JJ hands occasionally OTF. If called, barrel turns that are not spades or broadways that don't improve our hand.

Hand 1:

Standard vbet. Make it anywhere from $35-50 and play poker on the turn depending on who calls and what card comes. I will mostly make two vbets hoping to charge the max for villains to see all 5 cards on this board.

Given our position sucks balls and we're so massively multi-way, I don't think it's such a bad idea to check the flop and, assuming it checks through, go bombs away on any turn and vbet most rivers on most actions. In fact, this is what I would do if I had a decent spade in my hand.

Hand 2:

I like your check to steal relative position on the unpredictable guy. I call now, though it's admittedly not the best spot in the world. Our position is total trash, so the fact that we're chockful of redraws is a bit meh, but hey, we're likely ahead now and I expect everyone to play the turn super face-up now that it's 3-way and the pot is massive.

The turn depends on villain (not quite enough notes to know), but this pot's getting big fast and I don't give a whole lot of unknown players credit for running multi-street bluffs, especially 3-way. We'll maybe run into some spots where it makes sense to turn our hand into a bluff, but given how passive everyone is going to play a heart turn with any hand that isn't a flush, the opportunities won't be super obvious.

Cliffs: I like your check, and I don't think a fold is terrible here, though I still think it's +EV to call.

Maybe we can turn our hand into a bluff now and r/f smallish (maybe put $100 on top) and shove any turn that improves our equity against 44. We're very unlikely to make it to the turn against anything better than single pair (the loose old guy is pretty capped at AK, and mostly has KJ-, and the aggro-ish person is never going to flat a small raise giving the loose guy incredible pot odds to continue with draws).

Legitimately very interesting spot. Thanks for posting.

... I've thought about Hand 2, and maybe if V betting (which we expected) and the loose old guy calling (which isn't much of a surprise) puts us in a bad spot, then maybe we're just better off leading out and playing the hand std.

h1: check flop

h2:really depends on old guy, and how both V's will play later streets. folding is probably standard, but calling is okay if certain conditions are met

Against semi aware opponents does it matter that we would never bet only $35-$45 w. AK or KQ? My range for maybe only betting 1/2PSB here would be AsKs, or a set. If a TAG bet $35 on this board I would view it as a sizing tell and raise w. a lot of hands.
Am I projecting/MUBSY for worrying about this?

V is likely betting his entire range again OTT. His sizing will not necessarily tell us anything. If it goes HU to the river I think he may be capable of firing a third barrel.

Hand 1 I'm OK w a flop chk/c probably lead non spade turns. I think we pick up lots of bets from spade and Broadway draws there. Bet fine as well. It's a 2 street hand though unimproved, I like flop and turn or turn and river for the 2 streets. 50-60 is fine.

Hand 2 I just c/f after the bet/call in front of us probably unless vils have pretty low showdown %. 2 sets got there +all the kings, we're oop and block a heart draw. I'd be more inclined to float non heart Qs

You absolutely should not bet this board $35-45 against good aggressive players. Playing OOP with them having no less than 3 betting/raising opportunities left in the hand is a nightmare when you play your hand face-up against those sorts of players.

But the description of players were: "Tightish old guy ... 2 semi-loose old guys call ... " When the only play an opponent has in their playbook to adjust to us declaring we have a weak hand is to call moar, then we WANT to give them the impression that we have a weak hand.

id probably just fold then. the old guy would have to have a lot of non Kx here for it to be appealing to just close our eyes and call down (part of what i was insinuating about wanting to know how both V's play later streets is that on the turn we get to see what the old guy does after V bets, so if we think the old guy calls flop wide but continues ott with just Kx or something, then it becomes a lot easier to call flop with the plan of calling V down after the old guy folds, which happens the large majority of the time in this hypothetical).

also keep in mind that you have a hand that is very unlikely to improve while even your opponents "bluffs," like 4x, 9x, hearts all are like 5+ outs to improve, and there are 2 streets of betting left.

Im sort of confused with hand 1 everyone says its a 2 street hand like a bet, bet, x ,but why? i would take a check, bet or a bet, check line depends on opp. tendencies
I don't like value owning myself if someone has a Kx which they are pot controlling or calling OTF you can't really bet/fold the flop or turn because i don't think any of these opp. have weak tp's or tp's in their raising range... often enuf

Also what do we do if we get bet into on rivers make a tough call or fold in a marginal spot?

Unless our hand improves or V's line is very FOS, we just fold. Thin river value from 2/5 Vs is very rare, and river bluffs are unusual from described player types.

As for why most of us are advocating getting our two streets on flop and turn, it's because a lot more hands will call flop bets hoping to improve OTR that would never call river bets unimproved, especially draws which the board in hand one offers aplenty.

In HH1, don't know that I would be eager to open-raise AQo from EP at a table I wasn't comfortable betting it OTF so...Against villains who aren't straightforward enough to fall for a b/f line, I'd think about checking to see what everybody does first (including villain, speaking of limp/rr) but then, that wouldn't be a great table to open-raise AQo from EP.

HH2: I'd be comfortable with a c/c if you feel your are ahead of villains' ranges. Look for the BDFD to continue OTT, call if they give you odds, come over the top if they don't, although I might fold if LOG calls a stiff turn bet.

http://forumserver.twoplustwo.com/17...olding-949685/


The first might work, going bet-check is pretty awful, that line works ip but doesn't work worth a darn oop, you're giving up too much information. What can I say, it's hard to play oop.

In this situation we "can" get called by worse if he has draws mainly but im asking about we can be value owning ourselves a lot vs. a kx hand but it is it still profitable because we get so many more worse hands to call??

B/f works against reliable folks who fold their trash, call with draws and raise with TP+. Once they start getting tricky, smooth calling the nuts, raising draws, it doesn't work any more. Point is OP made that assessment before he decided to open AQ from EP. At a tough table that would make him pay for the privilege he might have folded pre.

It's more about reads than cards, although cards do matter. Always helps to have equity if you're oop or at least a hand that has potential to grow in strength over time. World of difference between AK and AQ in this respect. As this hh shows.

I'm not saying you're wrong. There's a lot to be said for checking otf from EP. Just saying a b/f line is great work if you can find it.

If you're not value owning yourself a decent percentage of the time you value bet, then you're not value betting enough. Especially against players who are incapable of turning hands into bluff raises.

Similarly (though not relevant to this discussion), if you're not losing well more than half the time you call a bet on the river to close the action, then you're not calling rivers thin enough.

The objective isn't to ensure that we never lose; it's to maximize on our opportunities.

i would be extremely careful in applying this maxim on the flop and turn

Agreed. FWIW, I typed and deleted two or three phrases before finally settling on the comfortably vague "decent percentage."

Thats a leak of mine missing value bets im too afraid of value owning myself tbh usually i go 2 streets i tend to check back a lot for no reason... but when i do check back i usually have a strongish check-call range so...
Also it's easy to adjust if i become too value heavy by value betting a lot... (im paranoid)

Flop is easy check in hand 1...

check hand 1, be happy if a brick non spade turns then bet for value. consider c/c one street depending on action but don't get wed

c/f hand 2

2/5 is so face-up. don't force it. don't tilt assume that your premium starters should be paid against their **** K2o. they will check through worse so let that happen otherwise fold and find the next $$ spot they overvalue.

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