Low stress ? 1/2

New young guy in MP(190) bet 10$ pre, SB(150) call, I(300) call with KJ in BB. Flop QT9. MP 20$ bet, SB call, I raise to 65$. All in, long tank-fold, I call. KJ>TT in the end.

I'm just wondering if there is any merit at all to flatting flop and GII on turn. I feel good about my line considering the wet flop but just wondering. Or am I just being results oriented thinking that a flat might have gotten the SB to come along later with something like a heart draw or QJ or w/e?

Flatting flop is bad, not necessarily because we should be scared of getting outdrawn but because there are a ton of possible turn cards that could scare our opponent and make it harder to get value. K,J, 8 make a 4-straight, any heart could make a flush, q/t/9 could scare or counterfeit top pair/2 pair. That's half the deck.

You played it well.

Flatting to allow SB to continue with a heart draw allows the SB to make money though, since he will be getting nearly direct odds to draw at a flush by calling the flop bet. A flop like QT9 two tone has so many scare/action killing cards that getting as much money into the pot as possible is the optimal play before players get scared and/or see their hand strength go up in smoke. Nice hand, wp.

Turn was indeed a K. Cool, just putting a check on my greedy afterthought.

You can also considering leading out on the flop. Just as there are tons of scare/action killer turn/river cards, this board can be an action killer. Given that MP is young, he may well have a wide preflop range, many hands of which won't be Cbetting this flop. This argument also goes for recs/OMC type players, who have stronger preflop ranges but may be scared to bet this board even with top/overpair type hands (but they will gladly call).

I generally prefer this lead out play when you're going to have 2+ people other than you that will be frequently be checking to the preflop raiser, who you can get value from on the flop (For example, add a player that limped in UTG to this hand to make it 4 ways). This is the type of board/situation where you can't depend on someone to bet it for you.

Multi-way I'd lead pot. Nobody expects the nuts to bet the flop and that flop hits so many ranges that you may get multiple stacks in the middle.

Now that I think about it, SB was the Button actually. I actually forgot that I checkraised, but yeah I was first and the SB was button. MP was new in the 45 min to table sense, but his range was fairly tight. 88+,High Broadways I had seen. He was aggressive with his betting (and so was button), so I expected a bet here. But I see what you're saying, I would definitely lead in a lot of spots. Interesting to think that he would raised me, and button might have called and got stuck in the middle of a reraise.

In that spot I'm almost never leading then.

Half the table probably thinks it is nuts to not bet the flop with the nuts with a possible flush draw out there.

I've done well at inducing too much action from certain players on a blank turn because they think I can't possibly have checked a strong hand and risked giving a free card to a draw.

Preflop is meh, imo. We're only going 3ways, we'll be OOP, and we'll have a dominated hand. The good news is that we're putting in a fairly small portion of our stack (especially since we're getting a discount in the BB), but I'd have to know that one or both of these opponents are really really bad in order to see a flop here.

I'd actually donk this flop. It's super wet and should smash a raisers range. As played, definitely getting it all in ASAP as half the deck is a scare card that could shut down action.

GcluelessNLnoobG

I do remember considering the preflop marginal. Would be very cautious if not for that flop.

Hey guys, been lurking mostly, just created an account a couple months ago. Couple things just want to bounce off you guys:

Been playing online for a while, just stepped into a live room the other day first time.

1/2NL
Table has about 6 OMCs, so a lot of limping around.
Hero - 30s white male, tight image

Hand 1:
Hero($90) Button
V1($60) BB - OMC about 65yo bets when he has it, calls when he has draw. (saw him call down J9 with 1 spade on flop and he didn't pair any cards).
V2($150) UTG+2 - Loose-Passive 40ish white male.
Hero dealt 23
V2 limps, Hero limps, V1 limps.

Flop ($7):
2 3 3
Checks around to me, and I bet $10.
I realized right after I put the chips over the line, that was a HUGE mistake, too big. No one was going to stick around after I did that, and they didn't. Checking was probably the play here, right? Letting them try to catch a piece?


Hand 2:
Hero ($95) UTG+2
V1 ($275) UTG - LAG 30s black female (saw her raise 104 to $10 preflop before)
V2 ($80) UTG+1 - LAG 20s white male, very spewy.

Hero dealt AA
V1 bets $10, V2 calls, Hero raises to $40, folds back to V1, V1 fold, V2 fold. Hero picks up pot. I figured it was pretty standard to raise here, but just checking on the sizing of the raise. Any thoughts?


Again, I am just trying to get more involved and posting to learn from my mistakes.
Thanks guys!

Fold the 32 of clubs (or raise it pre if you have a lot of fold equity, not likely at 1/2). It's not a suited connector, it's effectively a suited 2 gapper as it can only flop the open ender one way and can only make 2 unique straights. Bet 5$ on the flop, it will allow your opponents to peel with nonsense, as it's only one chip.

The AA hand : No matter how much you reraise, with your stack size, you're going to be committed postflop, so your plan should be to maximize value by keeping one or both opponents in preflop. I make it $25. That way, at least one, likely both opponents will feel committed to seeing the flop.

^^^^

H1:

Preflop is a little tricky. I typically raise any hand I'm going to play against 0/1 limpers (to try to steal the pot preflop or with a flop cbet), but being so short that might not be the best play (although I still think I'd lean to that here).

Flop is a bet, imo. In order to get stacks in (which is what we want), we just have to bet. BB is a calling station that doesn't need much to call, and he's probably never folding an overpair / draw and perhaps even just two high cards. I even like the slight overbet (which we can get away with on the flop) in order to more quickly grow the pot.

H2:

Typically a 3x + calls ain't a bad default for a 3bet. But here I think it might be too much. I would probably either (a) raise to $25-$30 (which will setup a PSB shove on the flop) or even (b) just flat and enable villains to spew postflop (where we will be totally committed with a small SPR anyways). The only drawback to plan (b) is it's possible a flat here might allow the whole table to see a flop (depends how tight table is) which probably ain't great.

GcluelessNLnoobG

Awesome, thanks for the quick replies guys!

I actually only bought in for $100, probably just being the first time live was why. I was playing pretty tight and the table was respecting my raises to take down a few blinds. Hovering around $90 or so. Played for 2 hours because of time constraint. The only hand I showed down before these hands was an AK and chopped with another guy with AK. Looking to go back tomorrow and probably buying in at the max $300.

Definitely will post more hands going forward. I really enjoyed live play for sure.

I wanted to ask this in here because I did not want to clog the forum with a new thread. I am learning a ton of concepts and getting better at the game but I was wondering if there is any particular thread dedicated to SPR?

pretty sure I'm gunna be playing 5/10 for the first time soon... I don't post on here really anymore, but I'll post some fun hands from my first 5/10 sesh when I sack up and finally play it

Gogogo!!! Get there son.

1/2. Hero looks down at AK in SB. Loose passive not so great player types UTG,UTG+1. UTG raises 13$, UTG+1 confidently 3 bets him to 32$. Folds to me. I fold. Flop came k73 or something. QQ's and JJ's check it down.

Unsure of my thinking, but is this an ok fold? I'm not comfortable playing from SB, and with the action (which was still open to UTG/BB after me) I didn't see a plan if I missed, could have been reraised.

Totally standard, two loose/passives are not raising and three betting AQ-. Just so happened you ran into the absolute bottom of their ranges. The problem is, are you 4-betting for value versus their range? Are you flatting OOP in a bloated pot with the chance of the UTG jamming? Easy fold.

Against these villains this is a pretty easy fold.
You aren't getting any value when you hit when you are ahead (as in this case, you *might* get one bet), and you sometimes getting stacked on the occaiosnal bad run out. (K high flop vs KK or AA, A high flop AA).

And of course there is the 65% of the time that you flat out miss. And they likely have blockers to all your straight outs.

And it really sucks when we 4bet or flat and UTG 4bet jams here and we give up our equity and our money.

1/2 table,action just starting to pick up in last 30mins or so

V1 sat down with 100 2 hands ago raised 20 QQ in straddled pot, one caller and hero Reraised with JJ. QQ held up.

V2 is typical loose passive. Not a ton of reads but he doesn't seem super tight or loose either.

V1 220
V2 125
Hero covers

V1 15 utg
Folds to v2 who makes it 45 on the button.

Hero looks down at red QQ in bb and makes it 120.

Standard? Thoughts appreciated

Excellent fold. How are you going to make a profit on this hand? You will either check/fold when you miss, win small pots against QQ/JJ when you hit, and lose big ones against AA/KK when you hit. Doesn't sound like a long-term profit will be very easy.

I'm assuming this has been discussed before so thought this would be a good thread to post my question.

Does anyone wait a few orbits to try and generate information on opponents or just jump right in? I don't mean premium hands but more like opening 89s or 3-betting with a moderately wide range.

Why are we 4-betting? We only get called by better given the stack sizes. What kind of range do we put V2 on? He's loose/passive yet 3-betting. I would give him a range of QQ+ and AK. Can't call for set mining purposes either because we're so shallow. Gross that we have to fold but IMO this is the right play.