I will not be posting results to these 2 hands, just wanted some thoughts on whether I am playing scenarios like these too quick and not playing enough "poker" and thinking enough.
I am a pretty recreational player but feel that can be a downside, since I feel I often take the easy way out on hands to avoid "thinking" in later streets especially in situations where it SEEMS pretty trivial and when not playing deep.

These are both 1/3 hands

Hand 1
Hero $400ish, Villain $400ish.
Villain (MP)- raises to $15
Hero (LP)- calls $15 with 7, 9

Flop- 8, 10, j
Villain- bets $25
Hero- reraises to $90
Villain- reraises to $290
Hero- goes all in
Villain- Calls

My thoughts on this hand-
1. First thought and most likely a big leak? I have a straight, not deep enough to fold. Hero has straight and even if Villain has flush "Oh well, on to the next hand"
2. I think about it slightly more, Villain can very well have possible over pair with the diamond, Bway draw with diamond, sets, top 2, etc. All hands I am currently ahead of.
3. I feel after his raise to $290, it becomes a fold or shove situation. If I am ahead of his range, this would never be a fold.


Hand 2
Hero $300, Villain $1000
Several limps
Villain (MP)- calls $3
More limps
Hero (BB)- calls $3 with 10, 7

Flop- 10, 8, 7 Rainbow
Hero- leads $20
Villain- reraises to $40
*All other players ended up folding btw
Hero- reraises to $110
Villain- shoves
Hero- calls

Thoughts on this hand
1. Honestly not much thought, I have top and bottom. Not much history with villain, but I would say he is on the tighter side. I call off knowing I can very well run into a set, 2pair (most likely 8,7). I do not put him on a combo draw with a pair and I feel he is not the type to raise with that. In hindsight I wasn't beating much.

2. If I smooth call the extra $20, and say 6,8,J comes out, I have to slow down. If blank comes out, I am looking to build pot.


Question is how do you approach these hands and what are your thoughts on my thought process.

Thanks in advance.

I don't love either of these spots. Don't love calling a raise with 97s and then don't love getting it in with bottom straight on a monotone board. You may be ahead, but you have the bad end of the straight and V could have a flush. You're ahead of a set, but bet, raise, re raise -- V is showing some speed. You're up against a big hand. Fold preflop. OTF, fold to the re raise.
Second hand: free flop from the big blind. I don't mind checking here for information. This is a good spot to check raise. But leading is nice too. You lead, get raised, you re raise and V shoves. You have to fold. You're beat. V has at least top two, maybe a set or flopped straight. Getting all your chips in the middle with top and bottom pair in an unraised pot will usually lead to a rebuy.

Hand 1: This is fine imo. Players tend to way overplay monotone boards because they are scared of the 4 flush hitting and also play the bare NFD super aggro because the board is scary to their opponent and they figure it can't be that bad.

Hand 2: I don't mind the 3 bet because I think there is still value to be had. The minish flop raises tend to be a strong top pair hand a lot of the time. Once he 4 bet ships though, you can't really beat anything, especially if you don't expect this guy to gamble it up with combo draws. You just gotta let it go at this point. Imo, you are facing a set at the minimum.

Hard to say without reads on the two villains. Against unknowns, both of these are folds in my book.

Hand 1: is the average 1/3 villain ever playing two pair this way? Once he's raised to $290, I honestly doubt it. This is a scary board, a lot of 1/3 opponents will start calling with sets here. I think his range is weighted towards small flushes, with a few nfds and a few sets thrown in there. Problem is, that means when you're behind, you're drawing dead, and when he's behind, he's drawing very live. The times when you're ahead won't pay for the times when you're behind. (That changes as we acquire better reads on opponents.)

Hand 2: I like the bet/3-bet line. But what hand range do you give a tight villain who 4-bets here? maybe 87 (but 108 is equally likely). Maybe an overpair like AA/KK that he weirdly slowplayed preflop and now is overvaluing. I've seen bad/tight players make that mistake. You should see some physical tells if his hand is weighted in that direction, though. Honestly, I think he has J9 or a set almost every time here. Feels awful to fold for $190 more when you've already invested $110, but you aren't getting the correct odds to draw and the chances that you're ahead are vanishingly slim.

Hand 1: You flopped a straight, which is always a good hand. It isn't as good as it looks though because the board is so ugly. On a board this dangerous anything willing to play with you probably has good odds to beat you. The only hands your happy to get it all in with on the flop are sets, any diamond has reasonable odds and if they have a draw to a higher straight might be better then 50/50 to win. Even against something as weak as Th9d your only 53% to win and something like AdQc is better then 50/50 against you.

Raising villain's flop bet is fine. When villain comes over the top this really needs more information about villain and his range. Against tighter ones I could fold this, figuring I'm either a small favorite or drawing dead but against laggy/bluffy ones I might feel committed, though I'm never happy about it on this board.

Hand 2: Unless he does it a lot, when an opponent minraises with lots of possible action behind him you need to slow down. This is a nasty situation with no information on villain's minimum raising range, but more often then not it is a big hand and you don't beat much of that range.

The thing I notice about both of these hands is that in both you don't have a huge hand. Both boards are pretty dangerous and your hand falls at the bottom end of the value range and yet you push both hands hard. In both hands it would be better to slow down and just call the flop raise and play cautiously after that. Keep villain's weak hands in play, be able to get away cheap if the draws come in or villain continues to press hard. Sometimes pick off a river bluff.

You overplayed both hands.

They are both hands that cannot stand action on those boards and could be drawing dead (or pretty close to dead).

Call both hands and bet only if they show weakness.

My question to you is if you like how hero played this straight, then what range do you expect villian to have when putting in a 3b of over 50% effective starting stacks. Ranging other than bare Ad draws, sets and low flushes/Qx9x

I just scanned the hand histories real quick, but yeah you overplayed both hands terribly.

Never shoving or calling shoves in either spot, you beat very few hands and have little equity when behind.

Hand 1 is a great board because of the straight flush potential and lots of villans will get it in easier with draws more than other boards

That's one way to look at it I suppose. Another way to look at it is that we are essentially in a coin flip (slight favorite) vs 9dXx and QdXx type hands.

It'd be really nice to have some reads in Hand 1. Even something as simple as how often Villain raises preflop would be good. If we have no real sense of Villain's pf range nor his cbetting/barreling tendencies, fold pre ainec. If his pf range is something like 88+/AJ+, we should be happily getting stacks in here as played. Most 1/3 players are never folding Ad here, nor any overpair with a diamond.

Hand 2 is overplayed not so much because of our relative hand strength to the board, but because it's a many-way limped pot. Anyone who's getting stacks in here has us crushed, unless they're a complete spewtard. (Thought #1 after the posted hand is spot on.) If this were a raised heads-up pot, it's a much different story.

I think most V's will get it in w combo draw or overpair w Ad/Kd, so I'm okay w hand 1. Probably expecting to lose 1/3 times.

Hand 2, we have top and bottom pair in multiway, limped pot so not looking to get stacks in without a reason to think V is a total horror show.

A lot of great feedback.

Now looking back on these hands and reading through the comments, I think I might still play hand 1 in similar fashion, but probably take a little more time to see if I can pick up some tells. I think in-game, this would've been hard for me to lay down.

As for hand 2, I would've probably still raised, but would fold after Villian comes back over the top.

IMO, overplayed. You can argue these are read-dependent spots, but in my room both of those 3! or all ins mean nuts. Rooms definitely have different vibes. Local players learn to play based on the other players around them. In my local room "you should never call all in on a draw". And "an overpair is just 1 pair". That's not to say you cant get 3 streets of value and set-mine or draw with pot odds properly. But I am playing both of those hands more slowly and possibly folding both as ****ty as it is.

H1:

Personally, I would just fold preflop. I know it's only for a small portion of our stack, and I know we'll have position postflop, but unless we're thinking of doing something other than make-a-hand poker, then a fold is probably best in a pot that's going to likely end up HU. If we're thinking of doing something other than make-a-hand poker, a call is probably defensible.

I think I'm ok with postflop, although it really is opponent dependent. Some players with AA plus draw (for example) just call the raise, while others are a little bit more ok with immediately playing for big stacks. He could also have JJ/TT and other strong hands/draws, so with the SPR being ~13 and with us having a fairly strong hand HU, I think I'm ok stacking off here.


H2:

Hand two is a completely different story. The SPR is a decent amount bigger (looks to be about 20), but we're in an eleventeen way pot where anyone could have flopped anything. We absolutely cannot stack off in this spot with such a weak hand having only put in 1% of our stack postflop. Unlike the first hand, there aren't nearly as many hands that he can be happy stacking off with that we beat (really, are there any?), plus he raised with eleventeen others still possibly to react. This is a simple fold to the raise, imo.

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