Long time lurker but decided to put a couple hands up that I want input on. Here is the first one…

I am in the CO with $251. SB has $500, BB has $350 and UTG has $350. UTG limps and it is folded to me. I look down at TT and raise to $20. SB and BB both call and UTG folds.

Never played with SB but he is aggressive in the first hour of play. I know that means nothing with sample size. BB will chase and plays a wide range passively.

Flop is 743r. Checks to me and I bet $45. SB folds and BB calls.

Here are my thoughts…BB could easily have a few 7s in his range. A7, 78, 76, 75 and maybe even 79, 7T. He would also play 55, 66, 88 and 99 this way. Bottom of his range would probably be 34 but I don’t see him paying 74 or 73 for a raise. He might even call with JJ but 3-bets QQ+.

Turn is a 3 and it is checked to me.

At this point I have $186 back and think I should value bet but my stack size is awkward with $155 in the pot.

Thoughts on action and bet size?

If you're going to play with 50bb then your primary strat should be to get your stack in against weaker or equal ranges while leveraging dead money as an overlay.

I'd make preflop a little bigger, like $26.

On the turn bet for value. Minimum of $90 and up to as much as you think villain will call with intention of getting it in if possible.

Top-up before hand

So with a limp ahead of you, you should be raising more than 4x, I would go $30 pre.

OTF pot is 65. Bet 55, not 45. Now you have pot of 175 and stack of 176. Hey look at that, easy turn shove.

When you are a short stack, you can't dick around. Your objective needs to be isolating dead money and getting stacks in when ahead.

Preflop, you should raise $25 - $40 with the intention of getting stacks in post flop on all favorable boards by turn and or "repping" a strong hand

As played, pot the flop. Since you raised preflop you must have "AK" and most villains love nothing more than putting the preflop raiser on AK and then calling down with ANY PAIR.

So in this case, 100% pot the flop with the intent of shoving all-in 100% of all turns.

Again, when you are short stack, you can't dick around here. Its not like villain is going to put you on AK and then fold turn when you shove. Once V's at this level have a read, they are like pitbulls and never let go of it no matter what you do.

So this is the world's easiest shove on turn with your eff stack size. betting $90 is a mistake. Don't dick around when short stacked, you need to be aggressive and this goes DOUBLY so when you have an equity advantage like you do here and villains are likely to put you on an inferior hand (like AK) that you crush right now.

So get it in 100% here on turn AINEC (and its not even close)

Man I always thought that meant "And I never even care"

Mind blown.

Thanks for the advice and responses.

I agree I needed to top off before the hand. I like the advice of making it a little bigger PF as well. Next time if I am in a similar spot I will make it $30.

With my stack size relative to the pot I shoved the turn. I know that is an overbet but I figured it was good to protect my hand. He called and tabled A3.

I can't beat myself up for that bad turn card since I didn't raise more PF and on flop to get him out.

Yeah, as DGI says above... you're going to get looked up by 7x here pretty frequently by these fishy types as they put you on exactly AK (and, conversely, avoid shoving AK unimproved versus these guys).

If villain is on a draw, then the turn is your last chance to extract value. Keep that in mind.

Oh, he's probably calling bigger bets, too. ;-)

Re-think why you're betting... it's not to get him to fold.

Hope I don't come across as a condescending prick which is hard to do because I am a condescending prick...

but the above thought process is how rec-fish think.

A rec-fish always thinks in terms of winning and losing a hand and will think thoughts like, "Well if I bet more I would have got him out..."

no. that is the wrong thought process.

Winning thinking players think in terms of extracting value, specifically extracting max value.

The take away here is that he CALLED you on the flop with bottom pair!!!! Had the turn paired the 4 or been a brick he "probably" would have called your turn shove because he put you on AK.

The reason I advocate shoving turn isn't because I want to get lessor hands out, but because the pot is such and our equity is such that we are right to shove and our shove can still get lessor hands to call. The other reason we shove in similar spots is that we may get our villains to forfeit their equity and surrender even in cases where they would be correct in calling us.

Anyways, the point of this post is to try to get you to think about these spots in a different way, and that is in terms of equity.

One of the winning principles in poker is that when we have majority equity we want to get as much money in the pot as possible.

You had this villain CRUSHED on this flop, in order for him to be correct in calling a flop bet he needs to be getting roughly 3:1 on his money. When you bet $45 on flop he got roughly 2:1 on his money so he made a mistake!!!

Just so happen that he just got lucky, but had he missed turn odds are probably 50% that he would have called your turn shove. In fact, there are a ton of turn cards that could encourage him to call your turn shove, a 2 or a 5 or a club for backdoor draws and then we would have gotten all our money in vs this villain while we had majority equity and that is what winning poker is all about...

So try to think of these spots and this game in terms of equity, fold equity, and extracting value and not so much in terms of winning and losing and "getting him out"...

GL

P.S. Do you have pokerstove??? its a free program. Its a must have program for all thinking players...

http://poker-stove.soft32.com/

FYP

Thank you for the responses. The exact reason I am posting is to change my thought processes as you pointed out dgi. Would have quoted that part but since i am a newbie i will have to learn that trick.

I have pokerstove and have used it. Thanks for the recommendation though.

I am trying to focus on changing thought process. When to value bet, why, when to control pot size, etc. I really want to walk away from the table with the confidence I played correctly (optimally) for the given situations and thoroughly understand why I made the best decision.

Thanks again for the great response and explanation.

So, yeah, cardsngolfn... really fundamental concept here that you'll need to make a central premise to your game.

1: betting with the goal of getting other players to fold is a bluff.
2: betting with the goal of getting other players to call is a value-bet.

You're not bluffing with an overpair here.

Try to eliminate the fear from your game... don't be afraid of villains calling with worse hands. Having those guys call with worse hands is EXACTLY what you should want. It's the primary way that winning players make profit.

They will suck out sometimes, that's the game. You're not going to win every pot, but you will have an overlay and come out with a profit in the long run.

Eliminating fear by changing my thought process is my goal. I am always ok with losing the pot if I feel I made the best decision with the info given in that situation. My goal is to post a couple hands from each session I play until I get that thought process corrected.