Live 1-3 NLHE / 9 Handed

Game has been pretty mild, not really a lot of big pots. Hero has been playing for an hour, as usual on the nitty side. Villain has just sat down with 400 and this hand comes up in his 3rd hand. Hero sits with just under 400, so villain covers slightly.

Hero is 1 seat left of Villain, in the BB

-UTG Folds
-UTG +1 Folds
MP 1-2 limp
HiJack Limps
Button Limps
SB Completes
BB checks with 66

Pot is $18

FLOP:
699

Villain checks
BB leads for 15
Both MP's and HiJack Fold
Button calls $15
Villain calls $15

Pot is $63

TURN:
K

Villain bets $15
Hero raises to $35
Button calls $35
Villain calls $20

Pot is $118

RIVER:
2

Villain checks
Hero bets $100
Button very reluctantly folds after tanking
Villain jams
Hero CALLS

Villain takes it down with K9

My pre-flop check was bad, sizing on the turn was intended to bloat the pot for a strong value on the river.

NOTE: This is one of my first postings, if I have left info out please let me know and I will note it.

Next time, don't include results as it could skew responses.

The preflop check out-of-the-blinds is perfectly reasonable and standard, imo. No need to build a bloated pot OOP in what will likely be a multiway pot where we're going to hate the majority of flops.

I probably woulda led for $20 (a very slight overbet of the pot) because I really want to get on our way to building a pot as quickly as possible so that I can perhaps play for stacks by the river, although nothing terrible about $15. Let's just hope someone has a 9, OESD, non-believer or gets out-of-line.

Our turn raise has to be for much much more. Our goal is to play for $400 stacks by the river. The fact is that that most opponents are probably going to fold most weak hands to a big raise here, so we just have to hope he has 9x (where he is most likely never folding) or is perhaps really terrible and wants to see the river with Kx / OESD. I woulda raised to $110 or so. This will create a ~$280 HU pot with about ~$275 left, setting us up for a reasonable PSB shove on the river.

As played, when two opponents call the turn raise on this fairly drawless board, I'm fairly convinced one of them (if not both) have a 9x. No one is ever folding a 9x. So I shove the river (in spite of it being a fairly large overbet). As played, super easy stack off here to the raise.

One way to look at this hand is this: this is a fairly coolerish spot, and in this case we happen to be on the bad side of things (noting that with bottom fullhouse we're going to be on the good side of things vs 9x non-fullhouses a lot more of the time). When we were on the bad side of things, we lost the maximum (which is fine). However, if we were on the good side of the things, we weren't going to win the maximum (thanks to poor bet sizing), and that's not fine.

GcluelessNLnoobG

Preflop is fine. With 66 out of the BB you want to get in cheap and flop a 6. On flop, $15 is fine, you can't let that many villains stick around but you don't want to chase off all pairs and weak 9X yet.

Turn raise is not enough. Board is bone dry but you have a villain donking into you and button behind, you don't want to give somebody with a ragged 9X implied or direct odds to hang around. It also clarifies your position a lot more. I would go $60 after villain bets into me. In any case, once button and villain call your raise you need to get worried. Unless villain is terrible, a weak 9X can get away from it on turn with that much action.

On river, fold to the check/raise. After hero bets and gets called, the check/raise here is always a boat and hero doesn't beat much.

Hero didn't get called by Button on river, so at this point it is HU with SB. Can't this be a 9x enough of the time? Admittedly if Button called the big river bet and then SB still check/raised, then perhaps we do have to consider folding.

Your fail is posting results, otherwise we'll played... Wtf is this

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your biggest fail is you didn't raise enough on the turn.

I agree my raise sizing on the turn was awful. I strongly felt in the moment it was 9x (maybe 9-10 or 8-9 due to the limping) and I had intentions of making a bluffish looking river bet that 9x would have to interpret as polarized on the weak side....

I really appreciate the thoughtful replies!

Pretty hard to have a specific read if Villain's played 3 hands, but anyways with the odds you're getting on the river (~$610:$240) you need to be good ~28% of the time to break even.

So assuming Villain is not crazy, you pretty much just need to decide whether he could play A9 this way. If it's possible, you should call because there are 8 combos of A9 and only 7 likely boats or so.

In general I think someone who would consider a c/r ai with A9 on the river would have also played the turn more aggressively, so it seems sort of close. But you can't really fold without a specific read imo.

I miss read that. After the button tank folds the situation is messy. Pot odds means that folding would be very hard at that point but I might do it if I read SB as only shoving a boat. I'm probably not making that specific of a read against a mostly unknown villain.

Like everything else in LLSNL, decisions have to be villain-dependent. I know of some players who are spewy enough to think A9/Q9/J9 is the nuts here and will hope that hero's line could represent T9/89, etc. That isn't good poker, but it happens.

If my math is correct, we had $250 behind after we led out for $100 OTR, so we are calling a $250 raise to try and win a $568 pot. With a little more than 2/1 on our money, we need to be winning a little less than 1/3 of the time. So it really comes down to whether villain a) is capable of falling in love with A9/Q9/J9 in this kind of spot, or b) has been playing hyper-aggressive and thinks he can push us off our hand (considering that our own range can include 9x hands) when he held the OESD and missed (and I'm not saying this is necessarily a good play, the river cannot be that scary to most 9x/9x+ hands, so this doesn't make much sense, but occasionally a LAG will do this because they think we'll start to think they wouldn't do this without a disguised big hand, esp if they think we're the type that is easily pushed around; granted I don't see these types at 1/2 live games as often as I do on the internet).

Without any reads/info I probably like a fold when I'm getting 2/1 here, since the CRAI usually signals a great deal of confidence at 1/2 live. But again, there are some villains I may have to look up.

FWIW, I think if we hadda sized our bets properly then we wouldn't have an option to fold the river because we'd be the ones doing the shoving (i.e. it's possible my mindset is getting the chips in and I'm not reacting properly to the river action given the way we've played the hand so far).

Played poorly, but even if you played it optimally he isn't going anywhere with k 9 and you would have lost anyway. He only loses to A 9, 69, or 66 ............

So MEH

I'd have played the hand much stronger early, but the end result is the same, you ran into a cooler. There is no way he is folding with that hand. Low stakes players do not fold trips with K/A kickers.

agree on this point... not sure what the min raise is really about, except to tip off the other players that either you are pretty bad at the sizing, or that you have a super strong hand while giving them (better) odds to draw out (like any 9x hand).

By the river, you probably have to heavily weight both villains as having 9x, as unusual as that may be (if it is unusual to begin with...I suppose it is rare).

so, given the texture of the board, youre going to hate something like 9 out of the remaining 45 cards still in play where as you're only really have 1 card remaining that will improve your hand where the villains have 9x. that being the case 20% of the time youre going to hate the river, assuming you were still ahead.

the hand is a cooler... besides the questionable turn raise sizing, the rest of the hand looks standard.

Obviously the turn sizing is really key here -- long term you'll be losing money if you don't fix this leak.

With stacks around 100bb and a flopped boat, you have to be okay with getting your stack in all day. With deeper stacks in a limped pot, we might start to talk about slowplaying when the only other hands willing to play for stacks are bigger boats.

Without seeing the villain's hand, I'd say your turn raise should be larger (to set up a bigger river value bet). If you can see villain's hand, then fold.