So yea there's really not much of a decision here.

Check.


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I grunched up to this point.

I think you need to range him a bit wider than this. I'd give him some J8 too (at least J8s) as well as some of the pair + SD hands and some top pair hands. QJ, JJ, JT, AQ, KQ and J9 all make sense with a raise here.

If V only makes this play with two pair +, we're way ahead. Against a range of TT, 99, KJ, J8s, QT, Q9s and T9s we have 58% equity. I don't think he's folding any of this to a range. That's a pretty conservative range in that I didn't give him any pairs with a Jack or AQ/KQ. If my math is right, once we match his $60 there's $150 in the pot and $370 behind. In position I'd likely flat, but not going to do that out of position. I'm either making $160 now and shoving all turns, or just shoving now.

I kind of like shoving now. I don't expect him to raise/fold flop very often, and would expect to be called by the straights, sets, top two, maybe other two pair hands, QJ, some of this other J+pair hands and maybe he finds a hero call with top pair.

This makes me more likely to want to raise flop, as IMO this gives him more pairs w/ a J.

Maybe so. At the time, I was thinking let him think hes ahead and let him hang himself.

Its posts like this that make me just marvel at how poker seems to just work itself out.

First, 225 is not a "ton of big blinds". While the vast majority of 1/2 players are terrible at "deep" poker (and many have little experience with it), 225bb isn't very deep, when in most places you can buy in for 150bb. IME, few players adjust their play (correctly or otherwise) to "deep" poker at 1/2.

Second, Sabr makes sure we all know that he's, "a high stakes player here", as if that has anything to do with whether correct high stakes play is also correct LLSNL play. Having never played above 5/5NL, how the hell would I know?! But my sense is that playing a pot for 225bb at 1/2NL is most likely nothing like playing a pot for 225bb at 5/TNL or T/20NL. That's, of course, not to say that a high stakes player couldn't provide good advice for playing LLSNL, but let's look at the advice for its merits, not because what works at 5/TNL is universal.

Third, so let's take the advice...

You're kidding me, right?

No one really ever bluffs these types of flops multi-way? Uh-huh...

pssst... its not multi-way.

It doesn't look that pretty? Are you kidding? It's f'ng gorgeous!

Let's give V [KJs, KJo, J8s, J8o, TT]. All possible flopped straights and just the 2nd Set combos.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
Board: Qh Td 9s
Dead:

equity win tie pots won pots tied
Hand 0: 40.226% 39.39% 00.83% 40951 864.00 { QQ }
Hand 1: 59.774% 58.94% 00.83% 61271 864.00 { TT, KJs, J8s, KJo, J8o }
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

Hero has 40% equity against probably the worst reasonable villain range possible. If we were to stack off here against that range, it would be a small mistake at best

Pot is $30 and Hero bets $20 with $415 behind. V covers, and raises to $60. New pot is $110 and its $40 to call. But, let's suppose that V shoved instead of raising to $60. Pot would be ($30+20+435) = $485 and it would be $415. Hero's calling equity required would be 46%.

Get that?

If V shoved the flop, we'd have only a 6% mistake in calling, if we give villain the worst reasonable range. Getting your $$$ in as a 6% mistake, I'll take that every single day.

Because we can give V even just a few more combos we beat, and we can discount a few combos from his flopped straight range and Hero's equity gets even better.

And this doesn't even account for V just spazzing out from the adrenaline of winning a big pot the previous hand.

IMO, its a YUUUUUGE leak at LLSNL not trying to make V play for stacks as soon as possible when you flop top set. On a tsunami of a flop like QT9, no villain is going to fold 1P+SD or 2p or 2ndSet-. Make him pay to see the turn. And if its possible that V will "sense weakness" and try to "use pure aggression" to push you off your hand, then make a smallish raise that looks weak and hope he repops you.

You seem to misunderstand flop texture.

On a flop like Q65r, if you had a V who was being over aggressive, sure, let him have some rope to hang himself.

On a super wet/connected flop like QT9r, we don't need to play passively to get V to stack off with a weaker hand. He'll have 2p or 1p+SD or even two overcards here and he's almost never going to be good enough to fold to a raise. Make him pay up. The only question really is sizing.

So that villain is playing ego driven aggresion is an important detail. He is probably much wider than "average" here. Definitely inclined to let him continue to hang himself. Probably no cards that can come to get me to fold this hand.

In position that's what I would do. Much harder OOP, since you risk him checking back turn especially since there are a lot of scare cards for his two pair hands. If turn goes check/check it becomes very difficult to get stacks in on the river.

I will admit though it's very, very rare for me to call a flop bet OOP in a head's up pot then lead turn unless I bink or turn a lot more equity, neither of which is really applicable here.

^^^^^^
Yeah the logic of flatting flop / leading turn would require some serious splainin' to me.


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Honestly, this post is ban-worthy.

I understand your point completely and I don't disagree with it. I dont mean that I dont understand flop texture. I understand it. I mean that, youre right and the texture shouldve made me lean more towards a flop reraise.

Checking here makes me want to puke. I'm going to LMFAO if V ends up with 87 here and wins.

At least throw out a little bet to see if you can trigger his aggression.

Otherwise, you've potentially given him two cards for $40.

If I found myself in this spot I'd bet $100 and hate myself for ****ing up the flop so badly.

Im pretty sure its clear around here I play by reads and feel more than math, so bear with my lack of math here.

IMO, if hes the aggro type who will raise the flop with 87, hes gonna pound the turn no matter what it is. Personally if I was villain and I raised the flop just like this with 87, but I would check behind on the turn if I missed and take the free card....but Ive seen enough HHs here to know that most players that raise flop with 87 are not checking behind. However, I probably wouldnt raise flop with 87 because I would hate a J turn. I would call the $20 and see what happens on the turn.

So if he has 87, Im getting stacked when he hits a 6 on the turn and hes getting stacked when he misses (if I just call his flop raise) because if he makes a large turn bet I should be shoving and he cant fold. That puts me in a great spot because hes mostly going to miss.

If he has 87 and the turn is a J...who knows whats going to happen. He might be afraid to bet...or he might bet anyway and I might fold. He might bet any hand if a J hits the turn and I might fold so I dont know what to say about that.

Honestly I never even considered 87 in his range so that whole point is moot as far I'm concerned. I just haven't run into any 1/2 players good or tricky enough to make that play.

Hi Lapidator.

You seem like a nice guy in person, but I noticed that you seem to have an incessant need to challenge nearly every post I make and call my advice bad.

I don't take any offense to it, but I find it amusing that you always lol at my advice, when perhaps it would be more productive for your own game to try and figure out why I think the way I do instead of dismissing my advice for playing in tougher games.

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I don't think he has many 87 in his range, but there's at least a 5-15% spazz factor to be included -- and 87 can be included in the spazz hands.

Look, I get the whole, "Ima feel player yo." Ask around and you'll see I'm a calling station and I usually justify it by saying, "I had a read".

But just because you're a feel player, it does not preclude you from also approaching the game from the math side and understanding the truths involved therein.

E.g. any talk about folding in this hand is just nonsense. He would have to literally show you KJ for you to even consider folding. (And even if he showed you KJ OTT, it might be close enough that calling is still correct depending on how much he bets and what the math says! LOL!!!)

Honestly, Sabr, most of the advice you post in LLSNL is bad, In My Opinion (IMO). Don't take it personally. FWIW, I think you are trolling some of the time, and other times you just don't play 1/2NL anymore and don't remember what its like. I've never played above 5/5, so maybe I'm just a pup nipping at your heels and don't know any better. Again, perhaps you shouldn't take it personally.

I'm not here to play sycophant to the "good" players egos. I play for recreation only, so my next meal or new tires for my A6 is most certainly not going to depend on whether or not I play well. I try to play well for the sake of playing well alone. (I also like to occasionally play crazy to burn off stress and have a good time scaring the squares. YMMV.)

Defend your strat against my post, if you please. Show me where we shouldn't be completely happy to GII in this spot for 225bb. You said, "its not pretty". Prove it.

Turn ($150) QT96. Hero checks and villain bets $80. As hero is thinking, villain says "FOLD!". I look at him and then he says "You know what? Its rainbow. I have a lock on the hand. Do what you want"

We have somewhere near the same amount of chips so its $80 to me with about $300 behind.

I literally said I don't take any offense to your criticisms! And I certainly don't need anyone's validations, I was simply making an observation that you seem to mock my advice a lot. And that is your choice, I already said it doesn't bother me.

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I would count 87 as spaz here. I normally love raising with an OESD on a rainbow board, especially with a BDFD. However, this is a terrible board to raise with 87 since half of the outs put a bigger four card to a straight out there, he could be drawing dead anyway and there are a lot of hands that call his raise. I've made this mistake before in V's spot, just missing the fact that 4 of my straight outs complete a bigger straight, and it's an expensive error...

150+80 = 230. Hero's equity required to call is 25.8%. If he shows you KJ, and you know he will 100% fold OTR to any bet if the board pairs, then lol... What should you do?

He just looked down and saw a hand he liked and called. 87s is in his range.

Street by street grunch:

Pre: Seems fine.

Flop: Bigger for fat value. If we get raised, we can reeval, but we just aren't getting raised that often, and we are getting calling by a massive range of terrible hands that think they are doing well, but mostly are drawing to 8 outs or less. And some of them (all the pair+straight draw hands) are doing much worse than they think because they are going to put in lots of money when they trip up and are drawing dead.
Those RIO yo.

Post Raise: We are obviously never folding on the flop. Given our small sizing, I think that he raises all sets, all straights, and might even raise a few 2p combos. At work so I can't check how many 2p combos he needs to be raising for it to be +EV to 3bet, but I suspect it's close. I'd probably just flat.

Turn: I think based on V description he's going to bet the turn here about 105% of the time, so check and let him do his thing.

Post Bet: I'm serious, ask him to see one of his cards.

If 87s is in his range, then we screwed up the flop big time imo.

Pf range sure but raising 89 vs a UTG openers cbet on this board is mostly just his spazz.


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I am sticking with my plan and calling.