100-300 1/3

HERO/HJ(300) young white, new to game image should be neutral

V/BTN(covers) loose aggro indian guy, same guy who 3b light in the other thread, for those of you who do not know, he 3b btn small with 7c6c and bet flop, checked turn and bombed river on AJ6cc Xo Xc, this hand takes place before I 4b him.


1 limp
HERO 15 w/33
btn calls
limper calls

FLOP(45) A58r

limper checks
HERO 20
BTN calls
limper fold

HU
TURN(85) Kh

c/c

HU
RIVER(85) 2

c/c

bluff raising pre standard here?

thoughts on betting the turn or river?

nh; wp

I usually go at least half pot with my c-bets, even if they are bluffs, just because some players actually notice, but if you're in a game where an ace would bet 20 OTF, because it's more than the 15 PF, it's fine.

Once a V calls an ace-high dry flop, I need a read that they are scared money before I'll try another barrel.

^^ this

I've always been a semi fan of the old b/b/B line on an Axx flop when aggressor. I wouldn't bet the river without betting turn though. The thought process doesn't extend far enough with most players to realize that we might be pot controlling w Ax ott, so in general they just call down w any pair unless they're complete nits once we've checked a street.

As for preflop, meh in the HJ. I would prefer to have a couple orbits of history here, if the limper and blinds are tight I'd make this raise all day, but I'd also probably be making it w 97o. 44-22 I've been limping and playing fof more often lately, seems like it has mostly served to decrease variance. So if I wanted my image to be a little more spewy, I'd probably bump it and look for a chance to put in some bets and then show a 3, if I'm already looking agro I probably just limp and then only go crazy when we smash.

With this V OTB, I would overlimp 33 so that if he raises we can set mine if the limper calls. But if we raise and get 3bet, now we hate life even though we know he can 3bet light. We'd have to fold or 4bet and both those options aren't fun.

OTF, cbet $25. It just looks better than $20, which can look like a shot in the dark to some players.

Overall I don't think there's a need to play 33 this way, not that there's anything necessarily wrong with it. I would rather take this line with a SC because it has more playability post flop.

Pre-I limp, I like limping most pairs up to 99s

Flop- I think 20 is fine if he's going to be fit or fold but 20 looks weak ,

Turn-If he doesn't need to have an Ace to call here I like a large bet on turn something like 70 to get him off of weaker Ax and fold out all other pairs.

New at table against a bunch of unknowns, I would rather limp and set mine. You have no idea yet how well your raise will work or what sort of sizing is good or how to respond post flop yet. In the right situation a bluff raise or a bet to setup a bluff on the flop can be good, but you have no idea yet.

On the flop, $20 isn't enough. It looks way too much like you don't have the ace and are trying to make a cheap probe bet to see if anybody else does either. If you want to c-bet this go $30. When your preflop raise gets two callers and the ace hits on the flop, I would give up more often then c-bet anyways.

Once you check turn don't think about trying to bluff river without a specific read on villain. It won't work often enough against an unknown. A second barrel bluff on the turn is highly debatable in this situation. Once again, against the right opponent it can be good and against others terrible and you have no idea which your facing yet. For the most part though, if I was betting this flop I would plan to bet this turn also. You are going to have to bet twice to get a lot of middle pairs and such to fold and if your lucky a weak AX might give up to a second bet.

I think QuadJ says alot of good things here.


No fan of this preflopraise to 15 in this spot with baby pocket pairs, unless we are on the CO/button so we are almost sure to get position in the hand. Even with position, 33 flops so incredibly bad that i like a limp much better. If youre dealing with sticky callhappy villains you are setting yourself up for alot of postflop trouble with this hand: just because if you dont flop a set you simply dont like any flops and need a 2 outer to make your hand any better.


Like this is a good example of unneccesary postflop situation, your putting in 15$ pre and fire 20$ on the flop and get called. Now your pretty much left with only one option to win the pot and that is to fire a second barrell of like 40-50$ on the turn. So you have dusted off like 35$ in this pot so far, and maybe even alot more if youre going to fire the turn also, when you just could have limped pre for 3 bucks preflop.

Meh. I'm definitely in to overlimping small PPs to set mine, but I want more than one limper to me to do so from the HJ. I'll overlimp just one limper in earlier position since I hope to really get a chain of calls going, plus I'm playing for set-value only from EP-MP.

In late position, I like a raise, as the limper will often be the only caller and will play fit or fold OTF. Since hitting flops is hard, this is very profitable, as long as we don't burn too much money once they call the flop (you know, unless we hit our two outer later...)

Basically, we're not trying to steal the limp and blinds; we're trying to steal the call.

Against alot of fit or fold villains i would also take the raise pre line and C bet flop in position: but this surely isnt a tight fit or fold villain, this is a loose-aggressive indian guy who i believe can be very sticky postflop and dont give up on pots that easily if he catches a piece.

prefer overlimping
cbet is marginal, but fine. probably go 25-30 though
i'd shut down on the turn

Sure, but he'll only catch a piece about 1/3 of the time (maybe as much as 40% if we include flopping a draw). That means that we'll make money on the play ~2/3 of the time, which is plenty to pay for the cost of our c-bet and leaves all the money we make when he hits a piece and we also flop a set as pure profit.

Throw in some bluffraises with air from a loose-aggressive indian guy alongside some big double barrells that dont get through when OP dont manage to put on the brakes into the mix here Garick, and i am sure this becomes very close.


I would just choose hands with alot more flopability and postflop equity than baby pocket pairs to put in my aggro isoraise range against this kind of villain.

Fair enough. I've taken double-barrels pretty much out of my playbook on A-high dry flops these days, at least below 2/5.

Exactly. That is something golden i remember from the many good posts of DGIHarris, like they will roll their eyes with A-rag here, talk to themself inside trying to make the fold,ask stupid questions like "do you have it?", and then eventually just mash the call button because they just have to see that they are beat.

Alot of players (mostly fish and rec players) just seems to be more emotionally attached to top pair hands when its the A in play than any other card, for whatever reason.

I wrote a response thinking this was 2/5 at first so I thought the sizing were bad... but at 1/3 nh, overlimp is fine too. 30 is a bit better on the flop imo. I think the extra 10 makes it a lot more likely they fold non ax. FE of going 15-20 is gon a be hugely different than 15-30. If you 30 the flop then you don't have to wonder if you should double.

Cbetting is incredibly bad on this flop because it's 3 way and it's ace high. It's okay to give up on boards with a two outs hand

Pre can be limped usually but iso is okay

What kind of board would you prefer to cb 3way?

You should be giving up small pocket pairs most of the time. It's okay since you are raising them in the first place for board coverage so you can't be exploited on low boards by people who put you on "big cards".

Board-wise, you can cbet HU in position on some paired boards like 227r 1) for protection, and 2) the fact that it's less likely for the other person to have a continuing hand on this board. Similarly, a board with 245r where you are drawing to more than 2 outs may be okay too.

Otherwise, you have SO many other better hands to bet on a board like a85r - eg. You have a huge amount of Ax.

Another thing is that the board is 3 way, and you really shouldn't be cbetting light in multiway pots.

A good way to figure out what boards are good for you to cbet is to get the full version of flopzilla (it's only $35) and study how often opponents range hit various flop textures, plus what cards are good/bad for you/them on the turn & river.

I think that was true 5 years ago. Today, people "know" about cbets and will float all kinds of hands waiting for you to do what hero does here: check it down. If you are going to raise with 33 pf and cbet on a A high flop, you need to be prepared to fire two bullets. If you're going to play 33 the way hero does, you're better off overlimping.

At 2/5+, I agree with you. At 1/3, at least in my market, not so much. They'll call with weakish made hands, hoping for cheap showdowns, but not air.

Of course, we don't beat weakish made hands either in this case, and a second barrel might get a fold out of them. I just think weak aces are a much bigger part of most loose 1/3 players' limp/call range.

I certainly agree that alot of passive limp happy villains limpcallingrange at 1/3 consist of weak aces. So if i got this right: your plan for this hand or similar hands is to try and barrell villain off his weak top pair that you know probably is a significant part of his range?

Do you think it's a good idea to try to make villains fold top pair when you have two outs?

That's fundamentally a very flawed way to play.

No. If they call the flop, I'm giving up. I thought I made that obvious above. Trying to get 1/2 or 1/3 Vs to fold any pair of aces is not a recipe for success. Taking them to value town when I actually have a good ace+ the plan. If I don't, one and done.

In my last post I referenced the argument "but a second barrel folds out their PPs" and said "I agree, but that's way less of their range than Ax." What I didn't say (because I'd already said it ITT) is "and they're never folding that."

Again, no. I agree that that's a recipe for disaster (aka fundamentally very flawed). If I c-bet a dry A-high flop with less than AT, I'm doing so to rep the ace/fold out their 6-out pair draws and some PPs (percentage varies by V type).

We're obviously in a horrible seat, so I hope we have the seat change button.

I'm sounding like a broken record, but with this guy on the Button we are setting ourselves up for some very difficult postflop situations by raising preflop here. If everyone behind us was tight ABC, whatever, ok. But that isn't the case, and yet we're not adjusting our strategy accordingly. I overlimp so that I can call a raise.

Are we surprised with our postflop result? OOP in a bloated pot to a difficult player on a board where our hands sucks ass. This spot was going to happen 90% of the time. If we have a total handle on this spot, then fine. If not, why did we put ourselves in this spot?

Anyways, I'm cool with taking a shot at it. Our hand might be best and we're simply protecting it. It might get better hands to fold. I like the small bet sizing to keep this as cheap as possible.

I probably also give up and just hope it checks down, although honestly if that happens we never win, but it's probably better than facing a bet (where we're probably not winning that often to make a call either). We got a little lucky that this guy just passively checked down behind us (which it sounds like he ain't gonna do a lot).

GcluelessNLnoobG