There are two hands I would like opinions on. These types of situations come up quite a bit at 1/2 where a lot of players play short stacked.
hand 1, 1/2nl
hero ($280) I hadn't gotten many good hands. raised once with pocket 99 and took down the blinds. Raised another with pocket 88 and got limped reraised and folded. Not making much noise.
villain ($90)I had been playing with her for about one hour and hadn't seen her raise one pot. she was doing a lot of limping. She did call my raise when I raised with 88 but also folded to the reraise. I would classify her as playing on scared money. Didn't want to put serious money into the pot without a very good hand.
folds to me in mp. hero raises to $12 with qq. villain in mp 1 quickly raises to $40 leaving her $50 behind. folds back around to me.
Based on my read I put her range at jj 10% of the time, kk or aa 50% of the time, and ak the other 40%.
My question for this hand is do you feel my range is accurate given the limited read on her?
If my range is close to accurate is it correct to fold everytime in this spot?
hand 2
hero ($250)- later on in my session I'd been loosening up a little bit. Showed down one bluff that got called by second pair. picking up a lot of pots with c bets. Table was tight, I was probably the leader in vpip.
villain ($90)-Played about an hour with him. He was limping in a lot, called one of my raises and folded to my cbet. tight, scared money.
two limpers to me on button, I raise to $15 with pocket jj. utg calls. villain gets chips ready to call then goes back to his stack and min raises to $30.
I put villains range on qq 40%, ak 30%, and aa or kk 30%.
Am I giving villain to much credit with this range?
Is it worth it to flat call, or is it move in or fold?
Hand 1 I think villain has a lot of Jj, TT in there as well as QQ+ and some AK. I hate folding QQ like ever pre.....but u are also a 50% fav or so even against the wider range (TT+, AK+). Hand 2 I think this is like KK or AA always. A min 3bet especially from a fairly passive player is almost always KK or AA
Even though this is dodging the question, have you considered changing tables when playing with a bunch of nits? These are not profitable tables period.
Hand 1: There's a decent chance Villain has just been card dead for an hour, looked down at TT, and thought "zomg high pair, get chips in!" I don't think I can bring myself to fold QQ here after only ~30 hands with her. Even if she has the range you assigned, you're still ~40%.
Hand 2: Villain overlimped and then minraised OOP. I find it hard to believe that's never him spazzing with a hand weaker than yours (though obv he often has a premium and no clue how to play it). Folding seems really, really weak.
In general I'd have a really hard time folding QQ (and sometimes JJ) pf to players who are 40-50 bb deep, unless they've demonstrated beyond any doubt that they only do these things with AA/KK. You're just behind sooooo few combos, and these randoms are definitely capable of spazzing occasionally.
Most short stacks are just casual players. The problem with assigning a range for these players are that they have no idea what a good hand is. Any pair. AK Any ace. Who knows. In the first hand, I have no doubt she has a good hand but you have qq. Never folding.
Overall, I think you are overthinking this. A typical 1/2 game is like grade school. Don't overthink it.
Hand 1 is a fold imo. I disagree with your range. I don't think scared money does this with JJ; certainly not TY-. I think her range is QQ+/AK.
Hand 2 is more difficult. I doubt he's hollywooding with his call/change mind to min raise. If the tell is genuine, it just screams AK or 99-JJ, and he doesn't know what to do with them. Likely not QQ+. I'm okay with shoving or just calling to hit a set or overpair. Folding on flops with a king or ace on them; getting it in sometimes when the flop has a queen.
