Thoughts on my play on all streets appreciated.

ES- $735 LAG covers

I know this guy well. He's decent at playing a LAG style, because he picks his spots well & recognizes weak betting patterns & will attack them relentlessly. He is also good at putting players on a range.

OTTH

A tight player limps in, UTG +3 after 2 folds & it's folded to LAG OTB who makes it $20. There is no rake if there is no flop, so he will do this just for the $12 with decent hands OTB.

I have KQ in the SB & elect to flat, rather than give him any kind of indication of what I have. Plus, I'm OOP & hate that & SCs play well with others.

It's HU to the flop

$43 [raked] K75

I check & V c-bets $35 & I call. He probably puts me on 88-TT that doesn't believe he has a K for 1 bet, I have a king myself, or I have a flush draw.

Turn: [$113] K75J

Not a great card for me, but it should be a fairly poor card for the LAG to barrel with air. Since it's not the greatest card for V to fire with air, I decide to bet when the scare card comes.

So, I bet $25. With this being a small bet in comparison to the pot size, I am hoping he will refuse to believe me & raise with as little as a lone

He raises $100 on top. There's now $263 in the pot, giving me ~3.5:1 on my my money.

I decide that my under-bet ott induced his raise & call.

River: [$363] K75J2

Nothing has changed. I have $555 left. Do you c/c, c/f, b/c, or b/f?

3bet pre is surely better.

As played turn seems pretty awful but obviously check now

Treating this like a suited connector is unwise I think. You'd much prefer a lower SPR so you can play this hand for value as a 1-pair holding (which is your most likely holding post-flop...by alot). Mandatory 3-bet preflop.

As played, your SPR was really high....
you were out of position so you couldn't control the pot size....
The pot size got bloated and now you're stuck with a decent one-pair hand and no idea what to do.

In other words, everything you think you wanted to happen, happened. And we're not happy about it. So I don't think we had a great plan for the hand from the get go here.

As played, check/fold. If you didn't shove over on the turn, then you probably don't have much. You can't rep anything strong by leading, and he isn't going to call with worse. If he's as good at reading hands as you say he is, he should bluff-raise you with a non-negligible frequency.

3 bet pf vs lag button raise 100% here.

Turn is terrible, just check.

As played river is check and call a reasonable bet. Fold pot size or overbet.

Nice post ZuneIt
I don’t have much of a clue what to do on the river AP but think I tend toward a c/c.
Your play up until river seems ok to me. The small turn lead is nicely amusing and I think it is possible you have induced some kind of spew raise.

You play KQs primarily for it's top pair second kicker potential. Yes, technically it's suited and connected, but a "suited connector" (typically T9s and down) is something you play for multi-way big hand potential, whereas KQ is more of a made hand which you can take to showdown unimproved in certain cases.

With that in mind you can 3! this pre against a LAGs button opening range. If you do flat, you're absolutely golden on this flop and you have to choose whether to seize the initiative or continue letting the LAG hang himself. Since you chose the later, donk leading on the turn makes zero sense especially with that small a sizing. Since you chose to play passive on the flop, c/c turn and c/c river would have to be the optimum line, imo. Certainly folding to the raise on the turn as there's no value hands you beat. As played since we arrived at the river where nothing changed, I suppose you can c/c.

Mainly 3b or fold your SB, except PP and some Axss if there is at least one caller, and you’ll do a lot better

I like the pre flop call, I’m generally in favour of not bloating the pot OOP, but I admit this might be a bit of a leak in my game, it is a tricky one.

I quite like the small donk lead on turn as it looks like a blocker bet with weaker than our actual holding or with a lone heart. I think it is quite likely to induce a spew raise from something like a lone heart from the Villain.

C/c at the river is looking increasingly fantastic for us.

3 bet seems really spewwy. We crush his range so let’s see a flop and if we hit we get one-two streets of value. Don’t think we have to make more complicated than it is

KQ is a flat or 4bet OOP

“We crush his range”

“3 bet seems really spewy”

Does not compute

Flatting from the SB in a lot of scenarios is one of the worst plays you can make in poker, wrt positional play

3 bet is spewy, but we should 4 bet. I see makes sense.

3 bet is bad bc our hand plays bad vs his 3 bet call range

4 bet is good (not that we can) bc we have blockers and our AI Ev is okay given a tighter call range and a wide open

This is a pretty standard principle in HU poker, I think it applies

I think you may have become confused at some point along the way in your studies.

Yeah I know this seems backwards but I think KQs is an exception

I'm going to 3bet KQs and a good portion of KQo, this becomes especially important if we are OOP. If we face a 4bet, it is a very easy and clear fold. If we face a flat call. We can see the flop and evaluate whether we are a check fold or go for some value. KQ performs well as blockers to some of the strongest hands in holdem and in the case of AA, we have a much clearer fold to 4bet spot than the likes of AK and AQ.

Flatting here and playing OOP will lose a lot of money in the long run in my opinion.

AP, check calling, but probably not doing it beyond turn. Turn is one of the worst cards for our hand, not beating KJ anymore, and KT is rare, we shouldn't be leading this turn.

Had we 3bet, flop becomes a much clearer cbet, turn and river x/call.

3b for sure. Moreso cause no rake potential

Not 3betting pre with no flop no drop is a crime, make it $90

Leading turn is also horrendous

AP, call reasonable sizing.

Pre - Range vs. range, this is a 3b, especially from the blinds. $85-90.

Turn - obvious discussion point. You got what you wanted, so what is his range here? Should you 3b vs. that range? I'd C/C.

Preflop : Given you say it's no flop no drop, I think our play is to 3bet to $75-85. Since we're OOP and he's going to call us with a decent frequency, I think our hand will perform well against his raise/call range. It's perfectly fine to be conservative out of the SB too, but this is probably someone we need to establish an aggressive 3bet game against so he doesn't take too many iso-raise spots.

Flop is well played. Turn is sort of awkward but seems OK, I think you should probably just check/call instead.

We should definitely check the river though. Betting out lets his spaz bluffs off the hook, and we aren't going to do well against the made hands V raises the turn for value with. Check & decide, based both on his sizing, and what you think your range looks like to him. Also, consider the hands you get to the river with after all this action. KQ is probably not particularly high up the list.

I think it is fine to mix in some flats with 3! pre. Sometimes versus LAGs, we make more money by letting them barrel post than buy showing our strength early.

I agree with others that turn is bad. I think a c/c line all three streets is optimal here.

So nobody likes the idea of flatting pre.

What if these 3 situations exist, with/without the 4th:

* LAG is known to play a 35% range in this situation [EP limping]

* Will fire a 2nd barrel when he believes there is a decent chance of getting you to fold, even when he misses. If he senses that your weak otr & there was no decent draw [that missed] that his 3rd barrel could taken as a bluff after missing the draw, will put you to the test.

* Is capable of identifying when his V has a good holding.

* Your KQ is offsuit

^

@ samo, I was thinking that going after money we can win post when V bluff-bets is considerably more than the $30 we win if he folds pre to our !3.

Say I !3 to $80. I don't see him calling with a much wider range than:
AXs [maybe], any 2 suited broadway cards, he may call with any pocket pair, or he might tighten that up to 88+. I think here, since he's not hitting the flop & winning big, he's not calling with small PPs. I think he'll throw away his low 1gap SCs & maybe play 65s+, but that's debatable. And finally AJo+

So, when he flats my !3 & we remove QQ+AK, he's left with a 13% range vs. the 33% he had when he raised. That's with him calling 22+ & 65s+

Because he will call with pretty much any suited ace, he is going to be ahead a good percentage of the time going to the flop. I've got me with 39.8% hot/cold equity going to the flop, 43.4% to the turn & 46.4% to the river.

So, I was thinking there's a lot of value in allowing him to c-bet & fire a 2nd barrel the high % of the time that he does.

Yup, I follow.

My thinking is while flatting leaves a larger number of his weaker hands in, it also leaves most, if not all AX hands in which still dominate. By keeping our PF range wide (flatting) we set up a C/C line on later streets, on which we will have difficulty narrowing his range significantly, playing somewhat uninformed. As you know, playing oop is hateful.

On the other hand, if he calls a 3-b we can take down many flops like T64r/J55 unimproved. In addition to our actual equity, we have fold equity. So, we have the chance to gain value by narrowing our range with the 3b vs. trying to passively extract with a wider range.

Glad to see you gave 2/5 a shot Zune.

Really dislike every street however.

Definitely 3! pre. As played x/r flop. As played x/eval turn.