I went back to my regular 1/3 venue last night, am posting two hands of note for criticism.

Hand 1: I am in MP with a stack of $280 and get dealt KJ. There is one limper from UTG+1 and I raise to $12. Only the CO ($700, reasonably good player who tries to outplay/over-think) calls and there is $31 in the pot.
The flop is 7 5 2r. I bet $18 and CO calls ($67 in the pot).
The turn is a J still no flush draws. I check, CO bets $35, I call ($137 in pot).
The river is a 9. I bet $60, CO raises to $160, I call ($452 in pot after rake).
Villain shows AK I win with a pair of jacks.

Hand 2: I am in MP with a stack of about $500 and have not played a hand in ~ 1 hour being card dead. I get dealt AK of clubs. I raise to $13 and get five callers. There is $79 in the pot.
The flop is Q 9 2 with two spades. It's checked to the button who bets $10 into $79. I call and so do three other callers. There's $129 in the pot.
The turn is a 10 and it's checked to the button who bets $15. All four other players who remain in the hand call. There's $204 in the pot.
The river is a 5, and no draws are completed. Button bets $65 into $204 and everyone folds, button takes the pot and shows Q9 offsuit.

I believe I played Hand 1 well but should probably not have gone that far in the second hand with just overcards. Also even an all-in bluff shove on the river was unlikely to fold out the button.


I did quite well for the evening, making a net profit of $487. It would have been even more had I not been sucked out after hitting the nut flush on the flop with A-10s when a drunk mermaid with JJ got her entire stack in with an overpair and then went runner runner four-of-a-kind. Oh well....

yeah you played these poorly. For starters I wouldnt really include KJo in my MP raising range, you just get flatted by too many KQ's and AJ's and so forth, and are guaranteed to probably be playing this hand out of position. It's just too hard to get value out of any pairs you make with the likely range of people left to act. So lets just pretend you raised it in the CO or something to target the previous limper, that would be fine. Anyway some guy you label as competent flats your raise. For starters, he's not competent, he just flatted a MP raise with AKo. He's a fish. What has he ever done to earn this title of "competent"?

Regardless you hit a dry flop and take a stab at it, perfectly fine. He calls, doh. (this further illustrates how much of a fish he is. He's not calling because he has some sort of read on you, he's just being stubborn because "ak never hits!" and refuses to let it go yet). Anyway you hit a jack, which is certainly good at this point. I would just continue betting trying to get value out of weaker pairs and suspect draws. I'd bet half pot to keep those hands in. You check, which is weird but ok, maybe you expect him to take a stab by showing weakness. A little fancy but I'll allow it.

He does take a stab, GREAT! You call, but then you lead the river? Whats that all about? Like seriously whats the thought process here? I want to hear it before I elaborate any more on the hand. Maybe even explain your reasoning on the turn in case I have it wrong.

As far as hand 2 goes, yes button is being a tool betting 1/8 pot. You cant really rep much here but calling down telegraphs your hand even worse than bluffing in my opinion. Nobody is really ever bluffing with a bet of this size, typically they are just trying to see where they are at. If he has pocket 5's he gets off cheap if anyone calls and might even scoop the pot now without an overcard peeling. With such ridiculous betsizing I just go ahead and try to take it back, just check raise into oblivion, make it $60. Kinda size it like what your cbet would have been. If that fails then we are completely done with the hand. But tying to call with 4 people left on the hopes you hit a 6 outer is kinda bad.

Honestly, folding to the flop bet wouldnt even be terrible. It's annoying and looks ridiculous but you're out of position and it's just going nowhere.

Both hands are fine. You should never fold hand 2 until the river for the price you are getting. $10 on flop and $15 on turn? LOL.

Hand 1 comes down to a soul read and the fact that villain's line makes no sense unless he has exactly 68 or maybe 97.

Don't post results in OP

Hand 2 is fine. You could probably raise a little more preflop - try out $17-20.

Hand 1 is upside down and I'm curious about why you played it the way you did.

Hand 2 is fine.

Hand1 is ok up until the river. I don't understand the river bet at all, especially against a tricky over thinker as described.

I'd recommend trying to limit one HH per thread. Also don't post results as they will influence responses.

H1

I'd probably fold preflop. MP is just a little too early to be playing weak KJo, imo, especially if there are players behind us who are capable of playing non ABC postflop (i.e. the CO). Your table plays a lot differently than mine if a weak $12 raise from MP after one limper somehow creates a HU pot; we got it HU (good) but we also got it HU OOP to a creative player (bad).

I'd typically cbet the flop, and I'd also bet fairly small (maybe even smaller).

I'd also check/call the turn against a creative player and simply start turning my hand into a bluff catcher.

On the river, I'd typically continue with turning my hand into a bluff catcher, and simply check/call. Bluff raising isn't done very often at these levels on the river, which is why I (a) wouldn't have bet attempting to induce one and (b) woulda folded the river to the raise.


H2:

Ah, now your table is playing a little more like mine! At loose tables, I would probably raise to 10% of stacks if I think I could get away with that, or perhaps even limp to reraise (especially if stacks are deeper and table is loose and aggro). Not in love with our result at all (and yet that would be totally expected at my loose table for a rather lol $13 open).

I would probably just check/fold the flop. I'm not sure what we're attempting to draw to and we could be easily reverse dominated (or drawing dead), so the great price is misleading.

On the turn, if we're closing the action (or close to closing the action), then calling for the 3 outer (our 1 out is tainted due to someone being on a flush draw with this much action) is probably ok as we're already getting very close to the odds we need.

River is obvious.

GcluelessNLnoobG

H1: Decent, but on the river I'd check/call his bet. He put you in a horrible situation by reraising the river with just TP...

H2: check/fold OTF... what would you do if you hit an ace or a king on the turn or on the river?

Hand 2 is fine. Hand 1 I actually think V played it way better than you did.... your river lead and the subsequent call are both extremely strange. He has all the sets and lots of two pairs in his range and your range is completely capped at one pair unless you held exactly 99. His raise was great and your call (absent some physical tell you neglected to provide) was awful.

no, no, no, no NO !

Nah, they both played it like pure nonsense. Hero played it using typical "fancy play" fish logic because he knew he was good, so he just randomly clicked buttons to get action. Villain played it equally random only because he desperately wanted to win the hand and just lit money on fire trying to do so.