Hi guys I recently played an interesting hand at a 2/5 NL table and would like some feedback on the way I approached the hand.

Villain just sat down so I have know info on him other than he bought in short stack for 60BB.

Starting stack sizes:

Hero: $500
Villain: $300

Hero opens UTG with KQo to $40. Villain in MP and the rest of the players fold.

The flop comes: J T 4 rainbow. $87 in pot

Hero bets $40. Villain calls.

The turn brings a blank 3. $167 in pot

If I check, villain can bet an amount that prices me out of my draw and therefore forces me to fold since my implied odds are very slim given the effective stacks. I could make a blocker bet for both value and to price me in to draw since most villains will only raise the turn with 2 pair or better.

Thanks for the feedback guys!

Why are we opening to so much UTG? Probably betting $50 on flop. If you think villain will react to your bet predictably and give you cheap rivers with 1 pair, go for it and bet ~$50 on turn.

I really hate preflop though. Look at how hamstrung you are now on the turn since you've inflated the pot doubly so than if you made it a standard $20 preflop. Suddenly you have to do weird stuff to make your draw marginally profitable. Hate it.

KQo UTG for a raise

You got it made pardner. Playing drawing hands heads-up is never profitable. You are right now in a tight spot, so to speak ......

You never get the right price to draw no matter how you slice it unless the other dude has half brain. No decent player will let you price yourself in for a draw. The blocking bets are so obvious that makes you play with your hand open. Actually most situations on the flop and turn become obvious that's why blocking bets are for birds.

With a stack of $500 if the table is so loose that you have to open to $40 then you probably should not play KQo in EP. Your risking too much of your stack OOP. Once you get called by the unknown short stack, just check and give up to a bet. Villain's stack is too short to make chasing worthwhile and you probably can't get him off a made hand. If you know villain is loose preflop and fit/fold post then the flop c-bet is OK, but even then you should give up on turn. Villain has 1/3 of their stack in and shouldn't be folding. On this sort of flop heads up against a short stack you should mostly be hoping villain is passive enough to let you chase for free.

Put him all-in. Once we get to the turn, and Vill has $220 left and pot is $160, maybe it's spew, but I'm going to make him play for the rest of it. Assuming your overcards are worth about half an out each, you're looking at an 11 outer here. You aren't in terrible shape when called, and I expect a shove to get a fold over half the time here.

What's up with the preflop sizing? KQo is probably a breakeven EP hand at best, assuming a full table.

Smaller pre, larger otf, jam now

Even if villain is new to table you should know some characteristics which could be helpful in guesstimating how he is likely to play.

Preflop size smaller (the raise is borderline regardless depending on dynamics...the sizing is terribad), flop size larger. Now vs unknown shipping is probably optimal. Checking wouldn't be horrible though, and allowing a villain to price you out of a draw is OK. There is nothing wrong with check/folding when a player prices you out. Fact is though, often times villains check back or size their bets such that you won't be priced out.

I highly doubt you can get value on the turn with worse (say Q9, 89) calling with a reasonably small bet and more importantly if you check the river a good portion of the time they may just bluff shove with a short stack and you will be in no man's land.

Shove (high variance) because villians at LLSNL rarely fold a pair and the turn is not scary enough for him to fold a J or T and he puts you on AK duh. It might even be slightly -ev.

Check/Fold (low variance) and you can't obviously win every pot just coz you have a draw and you have outs. Check / call less than half pot bets.

Yessssssssss!

I like this guy. Play poker, brotherman! "I want to take my rightful share of life by force." -- Tayeb Salih

Hero has something like 30% hand equity (that's a big draw against this kind of fish), getting almost 2:1 on the shove, how often does villain have to fold, like 5-10% for this to be profitable?

short stack::big draw::deer in headlights
BAM!
Dinner

Raise to something like $20 and play the hand against the whole table???

Questionable EP raise, don't like the sizing given stack sizes for sure, probably about $25 would be best, unless $25 raises are getting multi-way action, in which case it may be best to just fold pre.

As a general rule at LLSNL, without history against the V, if we c-bet we should be c-betting more than our PFR size. This is because too many Vs tend to think 'It's only another $40', and also often leads to our c-bets being called absurdly wide (V peeling with 22 would not surprise me here). This is even more true when we've missed on a non-A/K-hi board, since they love to put us on AK.

As played, I'm betting about 60 on the flop. That sets up a PSB shove of $200 for all turns, which is just at a strong psychological threshold which massively increases our fold-equity.

As played, shove turn, and kick yourself for the flop c-bet sizing when he snaps you off with 33.

Lol, I've never seen a good player open for $40 with 2/5 blinds. It definitely doesn't makes sense with a hand like KQ given villains' calling ranges for $40 will destroy KQ. I've raised to $20 from UTG more times than I can count and it's quite rare for a lot of villains to call, but even if they do that is not the end of the world. The smaller the preflop betting, the easier it is to maneuver and play poker post flop.

No need for bashing here sir! The table is loose so a $20 pre-flop is essentially a $5 call. The card room that I play in is full of fish and plenty of action seekers so standard threshold is $40 and you still get 2-3 callers at times!

After playing this hand I might consider tightening my EP opening range even more to only include KQs. A raise to $25 invites the entire table to play so it is def an awkward spot bloating the pot with an off suit broadway hand which can be easily dominated by Villain's calling range.