2/5 NLHE 9 handed.

Table - Wild. People showing down everything from 73o to KK. Straddle and double straddle on to 20$ almost every hand. Buckle up.

V - One of the more yo-yo players in the room at 1/3, haven't played much 2/5 with him. He's a very sticky player with middling hands. Tries to trap with premiums and bluffs a lot with air. He'll call IP with a lot of weak disguised hands like 75s or 34s even when he doesn't have the IO. I've seen him bluff before but I don't really know his bluffing frequency. At this game he has bluffed a couple of times and showed it. Once multiway in a suicide spot on a paired board where he could have easily been snapped since people are calling wide too. Covers. BTN.

H - Has the nittiest image at the table. Sat down with 1000$ and has just bled down. Only been at the table 2.5 hours. Card dead for 3 orbits. Then opened TT OTB for 5x over double straddle, got 5 callers to a K-Q-X and folded to a donk for full pot. Just hasn't had any way to play a hand - can't connect with the board when I get dealt a playable hand and can't hardly get a playable hand in the first place. Not tilted though. Just bleh watching people shovel 1-2k back and forth with 97o while I'm folding folding folding. 500$ HJ.

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UTG straddles to 10, folds to H who makes it 30 with A T, V calls BTN, UTG calls (LP losing player). 3-ways 2nd to act.

Flop 90 (470 back) - A K 7

UTG checks, Hero checks, V bets 35, UTG folds, Hero calls.

Turn 160 (435 back) - Q

Hero checks, V bets 120, Hero tank calls

River 400 (315 back) - 8

Hero checks, V shoves, Hero?

Advice on how to play these kinds of games postflop would be helpful too. There were a few hands where I had something like TT on K-Q-3r and check folded. Do I just narrow my continuing range to premiums and hope to double up? I feel like I'm just burning money 3-betting pre and whiffing. One hand a guy cold called my 3-bet from the SB, I had AKo, he had J2o, flop 8-6-2 I check fold, he goes to showdown with another player and runout is 8-6-2-J-2 and he boats up.

Sounds like you're tilted from being card dead and missing out on the action

Vs this player type when you tank call turn you invite the river shove at a high frequency. If he's bluffing a lot and the table is splashy and you have a nitty image I think it's a call down in theory

But I play a lower variance (and likely lower EV) style. I'm folding turn, waiting for a more favorable spot vs this player. I do a lot of x/f OOP and I do x/f in your TT hand

Wow. First, I think you 100% must bet the flop, and if you're not going to bet it, then check/raise his pathetic little bet.

As played, I probably sigh-call this player, especially considering how I got here.

You should bet this flop, checking just opens you to bluffs or being bet for value by worse hands.
It is a common pattern of bad players that once they start bluffing they will just double down on the bluffs, not give up. That is what villain looks like here and against that sort you need to decide on the flop what you are doing. If you are calling down you need to stick with it even as villain bets more. The way these bad bluffers make money is that people think they are bluffing and call flop/turn and then fold when villain makes a really big river bet. You can always change course if the situation changes, another club here forces you to fold.
When your playing aggressive your variance will be higher. There are days when you will 3 bet AK, whiff and just have to fold over and over. This sort of spazzy aggro game is like that. With the multiple straddles and aggro play your not going to get many cheap flops. Instead you just have to ride out the variance.

Turn we picked up a gutshot so call makes sense. River the problem is , if we are calling this hand, what worse hand did we get here with and fold?
Maybe we are at the bottom of our range now and have to give up? Or do we have JJ or TT with a club so we fold those and call this? What are his bluffs here?qcjx?

Difficult one

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Yeah so if you play qq JJ TT all with a club like this, as well as ajs ATs then on the end you can call with qq AJ at 9 combos and toss the other 6 combos. He bet a bit less than pot on the end so that's ok


Results?

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Supposed to wait at least 24 hours before giving results to give others an option to comment.

bigger pf, 3x on $10 isnt going to cut at it this table. probably make it like $50-60.

as played i c/f turn, flop standard. sometimes you get bluffed, w/e theres nothing in the pot.

you BEGGED him to shove river by tank calling turn, we got what we wanted ; why the delay in calling?

My main recommendation is that if you call and lose, stand up ... take at least a 20m break before playing the next hand.


As to the hand, everything is w/e ... if everything was going well otherwise I'd probably fold turn but I've been in this spot missing constantly where you could be up 1k or more and now you have top pair and a gutter so how can you fold.


I'm never betting flop and while V has a lot of trash that wants to bluff when checked to he also has all the trash suited hands which you are basically drawing dead against.


Obv. would much rather call QQ than AT on river, as I think V could go for value with even 8c7x on the river. The tank probably gets more bluffs, but also make sure you tank with the nuts that get here.

Yeah basically agree with this. Feel AT is just about a call but close

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Can you elaborate bill on how to calculate the combos I should be calling with based on the bet sizing?

My understanding is:

MDF = 1- bet/bet+pot = 1-(315/(315+400)) = 56%

So a little over half the hands I get here with have to call. On a A-K-7-Q-8

I think I have [AKo/s, AQo/s, KQo/s, AA, KK, QQ, JcJx, TcTx, 9c9x, 77, AJo/s, ATo/s]

So thats [9+9+9+3+3+3+3+3+3+3+12+12] = 72 combos I can arrive with. So I have to call with the top 40 (56%) which is basically all the sets and 2-pair.

Is this the right thinking? Is there a way to expedite this thinking at the table?

To add on: my thinking in the moment was "I have a lot of 2-pair and sets here that can be trapping, he bet flop 3-ways on a monotone it wasn't HU" so this led me to feel it's closer to a fold OTR.

I'm not check/calling flop with AA/KK/77/AQc and probably not AK/KQc/QQc either.
Maybe have a few combos. of flopped flushes, esp. if we think V will bet too much.

99c/88c are both borderline on flop.

Yes this is right what you're saying banana. Then for borderline hands around the cut off point you can consider if you block or unblock bluffs and value hands. Like holding a club is good. Although you'd rather it's not Qc as that's a great bluff card you want him to have. And you can consider whether he's bluffing too much and thus call with a few more or less hands than the gto number.

If you keep your range in mind all thru the hand starting pre flop it's easier than trying to think back on the river but yeah you have to roughly add up the combos. Same thing on the turn you will be folding some hands you called on the flop with. So your range keeps condensing as you go

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Yeah, on these monotone flops, when you’re the PFR, you’ve gotta be betting (small) with your continuing range. Check-calling accomplishes nothing—you’re just forced into a guessing game against a guy who’s probably better at it than you. Your hand just isn’t nearly strong enough to trap, yet that’s exactly how you’re playing it.

AS PLAYED: idk, fold 90% of the time? You’ll almost never get to the River with a worse hand then the one you have now.

So let me ask this.. is A T closer to a call than AThh? and what about A J? I was trying to think of this afterwards. I think I'm happier calling with one club in my hand right? Because I block a lot of nut club combos? (all else being equal obv. AhQc is not equal as its 2pair).

<---call-- AhJc > AhTc >> AhTh --->fold

Results:

Yes those two are more calls than your hand. And the blocker can matter now then the hand strength eg if he isn't betting with AT then AJ and A9 are the same and the club matters more. I'm not sure about holding Qc though as that's the obvious bluff blocking the nuts so I don't know if you want to have that card. Someone would have to check the solver!

As illiterat said I don't think I'd have the same range as you here. I'd have marginally called with your hand I think but easy to say typing on a phone. I think these spots are difficult as you just feel you have no clue on a huge pot and you only beat a bluff. So I think the only way to make these marginal decision are to check your own range and assess blockers so you can't get exploited

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I like the flop check. And I like the turn check. Turn is close, but I wouldn't blame you for going with a check/call to re-evaluate what happens on the river.

I would ignore replies where they say that you have to call river shove on a blank if you call this turn.

Unfortunately, I saw the results, but I still think you took a very reasonable postflop line across flop/turn. Even the river play where you ended up making a big fold was pretty defensible.

I disagree. Main Villain is described as a player who cold calls preflop with a lot of suited garbage in silly spots. UTG straddle is also a loose passive. That means UTG could have a lot of suited hands too.

Checking TP no redraw on flop 3-ways versus two opponents here when both Villains are much more likely than Hero to flop flushes is at least in reasonable territory. Cbetting small is fine too, but I like the check equally.

I’m having trouble finding a fold here tbh - it’s a 2/5/10 game now and hero has only 50BBs.

If you’re tilted and running like **** def pick up and take a few days off. If shoveling 50BBs in here is causing too much concern I think moving down to 1/3 might be best strat/optimal for your peace of mind/BR etc

You definitley have “worse” hands here by the turn JJ/TT with and without a club I’d say still call flop bet. And you should have QJs - with 50 BBs you should have some Axs and Kxs as well.

Checking flop is fine imo but as far as your overall range in this spot I’d imagine a solver has a good ammount of checks but maybe still substantial ammount of 1/3rd pot bets when it does bet with some reasonable frequency (>20% possibly) I think the T kicker might be the worst part here tho as it blocks a lot of weaker combos villain could have had.

That said if villain tends towards agro dick swing poker that stabs at any and all perception of weakness, I don’t think calling down with AT here is bad in this situation by any means.

But having 50BBs and folding top pair here even on that monotone flop feels like it could be worse given the villain description.

If V was another player with a more passive post flop play style the above considerations of folding could enter the chat bout that ain’t the case so i thinking white knuckling the yoyo express to Missouri saying “well I guess it’s time to go home” or something similar does have positive EV effects on outcomes ��

Advice on how to play these kinds of games postflop would be helpful too. There were a few hands where I had something like TT on K-Q-3r and check folded. Do I just narrow my continuing range to premiums and hope to double up? I feel like I'm just burning money 3-betting pre and whiffing. One hand a guy cold called my 3-bet from the SB, I had AKo, he had J2o, flop 8-6-2 I check fold, he goes to showdown with another player and runout is 8-6-2-J-2 and he boats up.



as to this part of ????

don't stop 3-betting
yes its a rollor-coaster ride

depending on bet size and read on V, I might peel one off on the AK hand with 8-6-2 board.
but again this adds to the rollor coaster ride ; you just need to become comfortable while on the ride !

don't get sucked in to playing junk like they are, this is the biggest hurdle

sneek a few limps in , when in late position that you might normally fold but don't go as far as J2 off

it's not how many hands you win that counts.